If only she hadn’t been stewing over it ever since.
“It is tomorrow and that was up to you, not me.” He shifted the top box aside and hauled the second one over to the table. “Something you said during your little hypnotherapy session with Allie reminded me of something.”
“Reminded you of what?” She joined him, making fists to keep herself from digging through the box with him. “What’s that?” Eden stepped closer and brushed her fingers over his bare arm.
“Chloe.” He handed her the carefully wrapped frame from her basement. “I didn’t think you’d want to leave her behind.”
Tears prickled her eyes. Most times looking at her childhood friend reignited her anger. Tonight, Chloe’s face was a reminder of just how short life could be.
“Put the papers down, Cole.” She set the frame aside and put herself between him and the table.
“Eden, this is important.” He couldn’t have sounded more frustrated if he tried.
“This is important.” She reached up and grabbed hold of him, then pressed her mouth to his. Now she knew what startled tasted like. Intoxicating, arousing, with a hint of spice and more than a touch of heat. She rose up on her bare toes, stretching herself against him even as she felt that slight twitch in his lips, the same twitch Simone had teased her about earlier this evening. A surge of possessiveness made Eden’s head spin. The heat of his bare chest soaked through her thin tank and tightened her nipples. She wanted him, wanted his hands on her skin, wanted to feel his mouth everywhere his fingers touched. Eden stroked her tongue over his—long, deep strokes that he mimicked in return.
He reached around her, shoved the box aside and hauled her onto the table. He slipped between her legs. His searching, determined hands skimmed down her sides and inched up under her shirt to caress her bare skin. Firm fingers explored and trailed up her spine as she felt him fighting for control.
When he dragged his mouth from hers, she felt a burst of feminine pride at the dazed look in his beautiful forest green eyes. The almost feral glimmer intensified as she inched closer and felt him harden against her. “Clearly you’ve done some thinking,” he murmured as he drew his lips down the side of her throat.
“Ironic how I wasn’t the one who couldn’t leave the boxes alone.” She moaned as his teeth nipped at the pulse in her throat. Her entire body tingled, screaming out for his attention as she locked her legs around him. “Hearing you out here gave me the excuse I was looking for.”
“You needed an excuse?”
“I needed this. I needed to clear my head. To stop thinking— Cole?” She caught her breath as he pulled away, his entire body tensing...and not in that good way.
“Couldn’t stop thinking about me? Or about the case?”
“Oh, man, what does it matter? We need this. We both want this.” To prove her point, she nudged a hand under the waistband of his pants. Before she could make contact, he jumped away, the passion she’d seen in his eyes only moments before vanishing under accusation.
“I’m not some pressure valve you push for release, Eden.”
“That’s not what this is,” she argued.
“Isn’t it? You weren’t in your room trying to think about the case? Trying to clear your head for what really matters? Such as the Iceman?”
“What do you care why I’m doing this? I thought you wanted it, too,” she demanded before realizing her mistake. “Cole, wait! That isn’t what I—”
“That you have to ask that question proves how different we see things. I got you started, honey,” he said, grabbing the nearest box and slinging it to the side of the room. “Now you can enjoy the rest of your evening.”
He slammed the door so hard the brass lamp above the dining table swung back and forth.
Eden let out a breath, the heat of humiliation burning her cheeks. She pushed to her feet, her knees wobbling. “Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
And why did she feel as if she’d just lost something she never knew she wanted?
* * *
“Thanks, Mona.” Cole glanced over his shoulder as Eden emerged from her room, heavy eyed and somewhat pale. Something akin to satisfaction slithered through him. At least he hadn’t been the only one who’d had a rotten night. “Yeah, ten sounds good. We’ll see you then.”
“What was that about?” Eden asked.
“A hunch.” He brewed himself a second cup of coffee and tried to ignore the longing she’d ignited in him hours before. He’d always imagined she’d bring that meticulous attention to detail she possessed into the bedroom. She’d all but branded him with those kisses of hers. Sometimes being right just stank. “Coffee?”
“Thanks. What hunch?” Confusion fogged her eyes as he pulled his cup free, set a mug under the maker and added a new pod. The coffee machine hummed.
“You said something about blood when you were with Allie in the parking lot last night.”
“Out loud?” She frowned. “I remember seeing it. Or an image of it against that shiny white surface. I didn’t realize I’d said anything. Think it means something?”
“I think you’re right.” He reached across the counter and set her mug on the table. “The victims themselves aren’t the common denominator. It’s something they have.”
“If you’re thinking blood, news flash. Everyone has it.”
“Something in their blood.” Dealing with sarcasm after a sleepless night was justification for ending a friendship, right? “It’s what I’m hoping Mona will confirm, anyway.” It would be a big break in the case if he was correct. It would be something to go on, instead of cursing himself for not taking Eden up on her carnal offer.
“Okay. Great.” She cringed as she took a seat at the far end of the kitchen table. The opposite side from where they’d nearly feasted on each other. “Look, Cole,” she said with more trepidation than he’d ever heard before. “About last night—”
“Drop it, Eden.” The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it.
“But how can we? Whatever’s going on between us—”
“I know you see me as one of the girls, but I’m not particularly interested in discussing my feelings.” He dumped a spoonful of sugar into his mug before he remembered he’d given it up six months ago. Gah. He nearly gagged when he sipped. He dumped it down the sink and started over.
“I’m well aware you’re not one of the girls.” She arched a brow and lifted her mug to her lips, but not before he caught the gleam in her eye. “I just want to know where we go from here. Clearly we’re physically compatible.”
“Clearly,” he muttered. Why did he feel as if they were suffering a terminal case of role reversal in this relationship? The heck with it. “Maybe I’m looking to be something more than a substitute for your nighttime fantasies.”
She slammed her mug down. “That’s not fair.”
“True. So we should set all this aside until after the Iceman is taken care of. Like I said, let’s forget what happened last night or what either of us might want.”
“What do you want?” Eden’s question caught him off guard, but it didn’t occur to him to lie.
“I want it all.”
“With me?” She seemed stunned. “You mean this isn’t about getting each other out of our systems so we can move on?”
Disappointment crashed through him as he grabbed his coffee. It had never occurred to him it would be a one-and-done thing. All these months, all this time he’d wondered what it would feel like to have her in his arms, to know what it was like to kiss her, to touch her, to make love to her. It had taken seconds for him to know he could very well never get his fill of her. Because...
He stared at her, cold realization washing over him like a tidal wave.
Heaven help him. He was in love with Eden St. Claire.
“This might come as a shock to
you,” Eden said when he couldn’t find the words to respond. “But I’m not a romantic like you, Cole. Sex is sex. It’s practical and sometimes it’s flat-out needed. There’s a reason I’ve never had a long-term relationship. I’m not good at it. Mainly because I honestly haven’t cared. I’m not a nice person, Cole. I’m selfish and I’m rude and I make things way too difficult on anyone who even thinks about caring about me.”
“Do you think that comes as a surprise to me?” Where was she going with this?
She lifted her face, and for the first time he saw genuine confusion shining in her eyes. “It scares me how well you understand me.” The small smile she gave him felt like a victory. “This...us? This would be different. This time...”
“This time, what?” He could very well need the jaws of life to pry the truth out of her.
“This time I have something to lose.”
“Eden—”
“You got to say what you wanted. Now it’s my turn. I meant what I said the other day. I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
“And what if we could have something even better?” So much for not talking about his feelings. Thankfully there wasn’t anyone other than Eden around to witness the beating his male ego was taking.
“You don’t know for sure that’s what would happen.”
“Think back a couple of hours, Eden.” Cole arched a brow at her and earned another smile. “Then try that again.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“No. At least not on purpose.” He did not need this distraction. Not when she was distracting enough. “Look, we’re both running on an abundance of adrenaline. That could be all this is.” And now he was lying to himself. Great start to the morning. “Let’s take this an hour at a time and see where things lead, okay?”
“Okay.” She shrugged as if they’d just agreed who was going to do the dishes. “If you think that’s best.”
“I think what’s best is if we’re honest with each other. So I’ll get this out now. Don’t use me because I’m convenient or because you’re afraid.”
“Got it.” She drank her coffee and her eyes cleared. “You’re not a tool, by the way. Good thing we don’t have any other plans for the day outside of stalking a serial killer and figuring out his motives. Speaking of which...” She shifted her gaze to the stack of boxes.
“We’re meeting Mona at the hospital at ten.”
The healthy pink glow in Eden’s cheeks faded. “The hospital?”
“Afraid so. She’s taking over the pathology class for one of the doctors.”
“Maybe you should have added some whiskey to my coffee.” She headed for the bathroom. “But at least I’ll have you by my side, right?”
“Always,” he said, then realized he was talking to a closed door.
Chapter 12
“Mom! Dad!” Fifteen-year-old Eden threw her hands out, reaching for her parents as the gurney she was on sped down the overlit hallway of the emergency room. The light hurt her eyes as the sobs piled up in her throat. Every breath ripped through her chest. The hissing and odd wheezing sound buzzing in her ears was making her dizzy. “Where are they taking them?” Eden tried to scream, tried to call, but she was whipped around a corner and slid into a curtainless room. Beeping monitors filled the air along with the putrid stench of blood and terror.
Someone poked at her, her arms, her ribs, her stomach, before she pried open her eyes and another light flooded them. Eden whimpered, kicking her legs. Tried to kick her legs. Her left one wouldn’t move. She grunted, thrashing her upper body to one side and then the other, needing to find her parents. “Mom!”
A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye as the people around her murmured. Eden blinked, tried not to think about the needles piercing her skin or the sound of fabric ripping as someone sliced her jeans off her body. “Mom. Mommy?”
From mere feet away, locked into her own gurney, Juliette St. Claire turned her head, glassy gray eyes focusing on Eden, a small, peaceful smile settling over her lips as she stretched out her hand to her daughter. “It’ll be okay,” Juliette whispered, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes. “You’ll be okay, baby. I love you.”
The horrific flatlining screeched in Eden’s ears as her mother’s hand fell limp.
“Mommy, no!” Eden strained to see more. She could barely keep her eyes open as she searched for her father’s familiar solid and comforting presence. “Daddy.” Her broken whisper ripped from her throat like a scream as the bloodstained sheet was pulled up over Christopher St. Claire’s gaunt face. “Don’t leave me! Logan?” Eden arched her back off the bed as she threw every bit of energy she had into her brother’s name.
“I’m here, Eden!”
And then he was. Tall, steady, reliable Logan, whose own grief spilled free as he stood at the foot of her gurney, hands reaching out to grab hold of her legs as she struggled beneath the combined weight of fear and shock.
Relief surged through her. Her brother hadn’t been in the car. He hadn’t been hit by that drunk driver. He’d driven separately. Had been right behind them... He’d seen... “I’m right here, Eden. I’m not going anywhere. We aren’t.”
“They’re dead.” She couldn’t breathe. Not out of grief. Because she couldn’t find any air. She could hear herself choking, feel herself slipping into the swirling gray as another figure moved into sight.
Cole. He’d been there. Even then.
“Do something!” Cole yelled at the doctors. “Don’t you dare let her die! Eden, you fight, you hear me! Don’t you dare give up on us. We need you...”
The past faded as she closed her eyes.
“Eden?” Cole’s voice again, deeper this time, less frantic. “Hey.” She felt his hand on her arm. The merest touch of his fingers brought her out of the nightmare of her past. The night her entire life had changed.
“Hmm?” Standing in front of the plate-glass window on the second floor of Mother of Mercy Hospital, she caught her faint reflection in the glass, felt the dampness on her face from the tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed. “Did you say something?”
“I only asked if you were okay.”
She shook her head, tried to dismiss his concern. She didn’t want to be needy, or to need him. And yet... “Fifteen years.” She rolled her eyes in an attempt to shove away the barrage of emotions that set upon her every time she entered a hospital. “How can it still hurt this much after all this time?”
It was a question she’d never asked anyone else. Why would she? No one had any answers for her. No one could ever explain to Eden—not fifteen-year-old Eden or almost-thirty-year-old Eden—how a man with four drunk-driving convictions had been behind the wheel of a car. A man who’d walked away without a scratch while Eden and her eighteen-year-old brother had been left to bury their parents.
“I think about them a lot.” Cole stroked a hand down her arm. She could feel the uncertainty coursing through him, the hesitation in his voice.
“They loved you.” Eden swiped her fingers under her eyes and forced out a laugh. “From the minute you got busted with Logan for smoking behind the gym in fourth grade.” She’d been, what? Almost eight then? She could still remember the smell of her father’s hobby shop—sawdust and hot metal—as she’d sat perched on a stool listening to him lecture Logan and Cole on the dangers of cigarettes. Her father had been a horrible woodworker and putterer, but he’d loved trying.
“It wasn’t as if my parents could be bothered.” Cole shrugged. “Where do you think we got the cigarettes from? My old man kept a huge stash of them in the basement.”
It had always amazed her how Cole held no animosity toward his mother and father, who, the second Cole turned eighteen, had sold the house he’d grown up in, packed up and moved to Florida, their parental obligation seemingly done. Then again, C
ole Delaney didn’t have a bitter bone in his body.
He did, however, have a very long memory. “Juliette and Christopher never let me down.” Cole moved closer as he gazed out the window at nothing more than air-conditioning units with silver coils that looked like they’d been discarded from NASA. “You know it was your father’s idea for me to join the police force. He told me he thought I had an aptitude for criminal justice.”
“He would have known.” Her father had been a criminal psychologist and one of Allie’s early inspirations. That her parents had welcomed their children’s friends into the house as if they were their own was a gift Eden would never be able to repay. Or thank them for.
“He thought I’d make a good cop,” Cole continued. “He and your mom were killed before I could tell him I’d decided to follow his advice.”
“Daddy knew a good bet when he saw one.” Because she needed to, because she wanted to, she moved in and wrapped her arms around Cole’s, settling her head against him. “I’m sure Mom had some choice words about his advice.”
“I recall her trying to change my mind. Something about me trying to get myself shot. So far I’ve proven her wrong.” He reached his hand over and stroked her cheek. “I know it’s hard for you, being here. If there was another way—”
“We all have to face our fears sometime.” Eden shivered despite the odd sensation of having a weight lifted off her chest. The stark terror she’d kept at bay for almost half her life hadn’t overtaken her, not with the same ferocity as it normally did. Maybe it had been her emergency room visit the other night, or the subsequent hours she’d spent being pricked and prodded for more blood. Or maybe...
Maybe it was knowing Cole was beside her.
More Than a Lawman Page 12
