Not what Lucas expected her to say, but it was better than what he’d feared she would throw at him…feelings and stuff. Detective Dane MacLain, Harper’s brother, had been instrumental in bringing down the Whitman Enterprises extortion ring. If things were different, Dane would be here, picking Harper up…but they weren’t.
“Duly noted.”
“I’m not a cop,” she said, “but it doesn’t take a genius to know Joe’s life won’t be worth a damn when—” She hesitated. “When people discover he’s a snitch. Dane hates Joe, but—” She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t go there. When she opened them again, there was less defiance and more pleading, as if Lucas could fix this. He couldn’t. If Lucas had his way, Folsom would rot in jail and the department would find another way to acquire the names of those who colluded with Whitman Enterprises. “Dane should know what’s going on,” she said. “It’s not right to keep him in the dark. He should have a say in what happens today.”
Correct on all counts, but it didn’t matter a damn or change that it was the lieutenant’s call. The integrity of the case had to be protected, or none of their efforts over the last year would be admissible in court. Dane couldn’t be anywhere near this meeting. And anyway, Internal Affairs would keep Folsom safe until he could be handed off to the feds. He’d already be in witness protection but for the little detail of his withholding testimony. The little shit. With no confession and list to corroborate it, he’d be just another dirty cop…so no federal protection. Today’s meeting would change all that. If—and that was a huge if—Folsom wasn’t lying, which was a distinct possibility. Hell, in Folsom’s dire straits, Lucas would lie up a storm if it meant seeing Harper one more time.
“Fuck.” Forced to chew on that unwelcome epiphany, Lucas started the car, pulled away from the curb, and drove.
“Excuse me? I express a reasoned argument why we should include my brother in this meeting, and you respond with fuck?” Harper grimaced, avoiding his gaze.
“What do you want me to say? You know the answer to that as well as I do,” he said.
When they’d begun dating, Harper and he had always been on the same page. They’d practically finished each other’s sentences and had, more than once, been called out on that when they’d gone drinking with friends. It was their thing. Now, it was as if they barely spoke the same language.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Are you okay?” He was worried about her. A lot.
Her disdain was thick, even though her tone was a mere whisper. “No, Lucas. I’m not okay.”
He shifted gears and took the turn tightly. “I know. I mean, that’s not what I meant to say. I know you’re not okay.”
“Then why did you ask?”
Lucas shut up. She had him all tied up in knots. Harper made him crazy when she acted like this. He wanted to help, but he never seemed to get things right with her. Not since he’d followed her to Manchester and taken this new job. Since she’d made it clear he wasn’t welcome in her life. Since he wasn’t sure if winning her back was the right thing to do when she so clearly wanted things from life that he couldn’t give her. The whole dynamic between them—him wanting her more than breath, and knowing…knowing she felt the same. Yet she confused the hell out of him.
“I won’t let Folsom hurt you,” he said. That had to give her some level of comfort.
Harper arched a brow, unimpressed. “My hero.”
Her attitude stumped him until he put it into context. Harper’s grandfather, father, and brother were cops. She knew how this would shake out. She’d arrive in the interrogation room. Folsom would be leg shackled, wrists cuffed to the table, and Lucas would be in the room. Folsom would have to be Houdini to get at her. Harper knew this. Yet her fear was real and well-founded. There were dirty cops at the precinct and her agreeing to this meeting would put her in their crosshairs. It wasn’t Folsom she was afraid of.
Which brought up the question… “Why is Folsom demanding to speak with you before he gives up the list of names?” Grapevine gossip said Folsom wanted to chat with her brother, but Dane said no, that he’d kill Folsom if he ever saw him again. Lucas didn’t blame him.
“What do you mean? Lieutenant Zimmerman says he wants to give up the list.”
He detected defensiveness in her tone, and in the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “But why you?”
“Ask Joe.”
She was definitely deflecting. And kept calling Folsom Joe. No one called Folsom Joe but Dane and Harper. He reminded himself she’d known Detective Joseph Folsom since she was ten. He’d been her brother’s best friend through college, the army, and then as partners on the force. Yet the moment she discovered what an evil fuck he was, Lucas thought it might have been a good time to start calling him something else. Something less intimate. Like…evil fuck would be appropriate. It didn’t seem healthy to continue calling him Joe. Lucas would bring that up later, when things were less tense between them, like maybe in a hundred years.
He shifted gears and found consolation in his engine’s purr, rumbling and vibrating. He gave her more gas and opened her up on the highway. She drove smoother at high speeds, something to do with gears that had to be fixed…but until then, he’d drive his Chevy fast.
“Folsom could have asked for partial immunity,” Lucas said, “maybe even put wit sec on the table, but all he wanted was a meet with you.” Harper MacLain. He glanced at her, hoping she’d reveal some hint and maybe, just maybe, it would be the key to making her agree to cancel this meeting. Folsom was self-centered, did nothing unless it served his purposes. Lucas feared how Harper meeting Folsom might serve the evil fuck, willingly or not. “He’s been in solitary confinement for a month, no contact with the outside world but guards and his court-appointed attorney, who, incidentally, said Folsom hasn’t communicated with anyone since his arrest. So what changed?” He shifted into a lower gear as traffic bunched ahead of him and taillights lit up. Traffic fairly crawled on I-93, and he was not in the mood for it. “Why give up the list now, and to you?”
Harper shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.” Her expression was clean as a slate, and he didn’t like it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on and he was in the dark.
When the traffic dissipated, he shifted gears and drove faster than he probably should have. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of MPD’s downtown precinct. Harper was out of the car, slamming the door, before he pulled the keys from the ignition. He didn’t try to stop her, because he knew she wouldn’t go far. Without his badge and escort, she’d have to wait in the secure lobby. It gave him breathing room…time to pull his shit together.
“She’s an ex. Just an ex. So suck it the fuck up, Sullivan.” He slammed his palms on the steering wheel, watching her walk away, and heard his father’s voice in his head, haunting him. In life, a career is the meal, love, the seasoning. His father’s legacy. The guy who’d married and divorced three times, because the love of his life was the job—being a cop. Lucas’s dad had lived for the chase and died on it, gut shot by a perp escaping a robbery. Lucas was fourteen. He’d loved his dad, still did, but part of him just couldn’t forgive him for dying.
Now Lucas was a cop. Born to be a cop like his father before him. And he knew from firsthand experience how cruel the job was to a cop’s family. Especially a kid…a son. He couldn’t do that to a kid. A wife.
None of that had changed because he met Harper. Yeah, a month before she left him, Lucas got an offer to transfer out of Boston PD to Manchester PD, a promotion to lead undercover investigator. He was interested, but hesitated. His hesitation should have told him he was in over his head with Harper. But life was good— Harper, his job, no strings. Why change anything? Then she left. The job offer was still there…he took it. Some part of him thinking, maybe…if Harper changed her mind…maybe following her to Manchester might give them another shot to make things the way they used to be. Then Detective
Joseph Folsom killed her brother’s wife and the Whitman Enterprises case happened.
Last year could have been about Lucas wooing Harper back, but instead was her living through hell and him investigating it. It gave him perspective. Harper was a happily-ever-after girl, and he was looking for happily-for-now. She deserved better. Hell, a year ago, those were the words she threw at him when she left.
So why did her new shampoo piss him off so much?
Chapter Two
Shoulders sagging, Harper allowed a shuddering sigh to escape as she put distance between her and Lucas…her kryptonite. His decision to become involved in this meeting was making her nerves worse, not better. She missed him. Didn’t want to, but she did, and these feelings made her second-guess her decision to break up with him. Which was stupid. It had been a hard decision, but for the best…for both of them. Yet when Lucas was near, her mind shut off and her heart took over. And a raw, long-neglected desire punished her. Nights were hell without him, and not one had passed this last year when she didn’t wake, wishing to be in his arms.
And the hits kept coming. The kidnapping, Alice’s murder, the year of her brother tracking down evidence, constantly risking his life, making her wonder if he’d survive his efforts. The pressure and stress on her family were herculean. But now Harper had a chance to lighten the load. If Joe really had a list of dirty cops, he needed to give it up. He owed her brother that, and after what he’d done to Harper… A wave of shame washed over her. He owed her, too.
Where was Lucas? Harper glanced back and saw him futzing in his car, on his phone, taking his time while she cooled her heels, moving aside as people entered and exited the precinct. By the time he sauntered to the building’s entrance, she was strung tightly and ready to snap. He opened the door for her, indicating she should enter first. His courtesy deserved a thank-you, but she was incapable of it, too aware his efforts had forced her to step closer to him than her nerves could handle. She did it, tight as a tick, and when her bare arm brushed his suit, she flinched, goose bumps breaking out all the way to her shoulder.
She remembered the first time that had happened to her, at a pub with friends, celebrating after midterms when she was going Boston College. Looking to let off some steam, she’d had a few drinks, gotten in some trouble, and just as she was about to call it a night, he’d caught her eye. Detective Lucas Sullivan. She hadn’t known he was a cop, but coming from a family of cops, she’d suspected. He had a familiar swagger. She liked him immediately.
He gave her tingles then and still did, dammit. Harper hurried to the security check-in line and did her best to project a calm she didn’t feel. Chuckles from uniformed officers milling by the desk caught her attention. Her and Lucas’s arrival had been noted, and more than a few of the officers were women. Admiration for Lucas’s six feet, one inches and 190 pounds of diligently accrued muscle was a given. These were women who appreciated strength, and a few took their time appreciating. Harper didn’t blame them, because Lucas wasn’t just strong, he was gorgeous. He’d won the gene-pool lottery and his thick, expertly clipped blond hair and stylish gray suit merely gilded the lily.
The queue moved slowly, and Lucas stood so near. His heat radiated against the full back side of her, shoulder to ass, making her wish he wasn’t so…him. That his blue eyes weren’t so mesmerizing, that he didn’t make her feel all wiggly inside. His amazing cologne—the one she’d picked out, and now…probably…some other woman got to nuzzle up to—triggered a powerful sense memory. Fancy restaurant, Lucas anxiously swallowing hard, lifting his champagne flute for a toast. The restaurant was posh, the setting cliché, a perfect tableau for a romantic proposal of marriage. And Harper had fallen for it, hard, imagining an engagement ring hidden in his pocket. Instead, Lucas had doubled down on their happily-ever-after-for-now arrangement. It had shocked her, forcing her to acknowledge she had no right to be shocked. Glaringly had no right. Amid the sparkle and romance, she was granted a glimpse of her future without Lucas. It was coming. And the longer it took to arrive, the more it would feel like a death.
They wanted different things. She wanted a man who wanted to commit to marriage and kids, and Lucas just wasn’t that man. It killed her that the sex had been amazing.
Lucas’s hand hung at his side, mere inches from hers. She curled her fingers into her palm to stop herself from touching it, because she’d made a tough decision last year, to be true to her heart and the dream of a happy marriage and lots of kids. Yet that same heart still wanted the impossible.
Harper’s reasoning mind had her back, though. It knew eating ice cream every night would make her pants too tight, that school over partying would give her a career, that family first kept her safe…her mind knew this, too, shall pass. At some point, the future caught up and decisions made today create tomorrow. Lucas had been clear from day one that he didn’t want the life she did, and though it took time for her to believe him, that night at the restaurant made her a believer. If she wanted her dreamed-of future, Lucas was a dead end.
“I called ahead from the car,” Lucas said. “They’re expecting us upstairs in interrogation room one.” He glanced at his watch and was tapping his foot with impatience, even though they were next.
Harper nodded, too tense to speak without necessity. This place was dredging up unwelcome memories. She hadn’t been back in Manchester a full month before the kidnappings, and then Alice was dead and Harper became Elizabeth’s surrogate mom. It hadn’t taken long for this precinct to turn against her family.
Lucas dodged that bullet. No one, least of all Harper, had thought Lucas was on Team MacLain last year. If they’d still been dating, he would have been smeared with the same bad rumors and harassment Dane suffered as he hunted Alice’s killer. Last year she’d witnessed Joe’s harassment simply because he was friends with Dane. This precinct had a lot to be held accountable for. And no, the irony was not lost of Harper—she’d felt sorry for Joe as he actively sought to destroy her family. It actually sent a sharp pain behind her eyes as she thought of the times she’d sympathized with Joe, worried about his career. His feelings. Ugh.
And then there was Joe’s most recent betrayal that had targeted Harper in particular. He’d used her sympathy for him to hurt Dane, worming confidences from her, unknowingly helping him stall Dane’s investigation, hide evidence, and in some instances steal it. Harper’s decision to trust Joe last year had put her family in even greater danger. She’d never be able to forgive herself. Joe had played her, and she feared this meeting was Joe hoping to do it again.
Because Harper hadn’t told a soul.
It was a secret she and Joe shared, and he could use it as leverage against her. To hurt Dane. Her brother would take the blame, see Joe’s manipulation of Harper as his fault, one more offense he’d brought on his family. She knew her brother. He was the closest thing she’d had to a father since she was ten. He’d blame himself because his best friend hurt his little sister.
So, Joe had to be placated, and hopefully whatever he wanted for his silence she could pay. And, not incidentally, hopefully the bastard had the list and wasn’t putting her life in danger for nothing.
It was their turn in line, so she and Lucas stepped up. The security guard who took their IDs was in his fifties, graying, and seemed intent on making her and Lucas’s passage quick. He knew who she was, who Lucas was, though Harper didn’t know him, his badge named him as Officer Taylor. Protocol required the metal detector wand, IDs checked, no matter who you were, so he motioned Harper to spread her arms as he used the wand.
She stood, in positon, and caught Lucas admiring her body. Harper closed her eyes and flushed, listening to the wand make familiar noises, as she imagined what Lucas was looking at now. Her breasts? Her legs? Was he remembering the last time he’d touched her? When the guard said, “Okay,” Harper opened her eyes and immediately regretted it, knowing she was probably wearing her memories on her sleeve.
She caught Lucas smiling, as if throwing
in her face his certainty that she still wanted him. It was true, and irritating as hell. “I know where to go and I don’t need you babysitting me.” Negotiating with Joe would be easier if she were alone. She knew Lucas. He wasn’t one who went with the flow. If he was in the room, he’d take control. It was who he was…not a bad thing, but not convenient when she was negotiating with a killer.
Lucas’s smile dropped, and a familiar frown took its place as the guard waved them through security. He motioned her off to the side, against the wall, out of the way of hall traffic and the queue. He put his hands on his hips, exposing his badge and gun, surprising her when he leaned close, pressing his lips to her ear. His touch shocked her and produced a jolt of desire. Harper froze, afraid he’d sense it.
“I’m not leaving your side,” he said. “And I’m not your flunky. This is my case, and right now, my top priority is getting you in and out and somehow being able to live with myself afterward.” His lips moved against her skin as he spoke in a low growl, his breath warming her neck. “So do what I say, nothing more, and maybe this building full of investigators won’t discover what we’re up to, because if they do, there’ll be a shit storm of repercussions not even the lieutenant could predict. Certainly not some recent college grad who, because she knows cops, believes she thinks like one. You should have listened to me. We shouldn’t be here.”
As he stepped from her side and his heat retreated, so did the fog in her brain. It was a familiar cycle; his touch bringing desire and hope, his absence clarity and disappointment. Lucas was a living, breathing Pandora’s box.
Fine. She’d manage, and when Lucas inevitably discovered what she was about—and he would, because it was what he did—she’d manage then, too, because she just couldn’t make herself confide in him. If she opened up to Lucas about what was really happening, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold anything back. She’d confess all—her part in last year’s tragedy, her wavering conviction that she’d done the right thing when she left him. Everything. And that was not happening. He’d find a way to take her choices away from her and force his judgment in place of hers…all in the name of keeping her safe.
Tempted by a Touch (Unlikely Hero) Page 2
