“Yeah, she’s been on TV and everything,” someone from the crowd behind them yelled, and a chorus of voices rang out in agreement.
The chief faced the horde of people. “Everyone not here for official police business, please leave.”
“Come on, Chief Cooper. You, of all people, shouldn’t blame us for being a little starstruck,” a man wearing a wifebeater and a tool belt wrapped around his thick waist said. “According to Avis over at the hospital, she walked in on you about to dance for the lady here, buck naked.”
“Now that’s a sight I’d like to see.” The woman in the floral dress winked.
“Everybody. Out. Now.” Dylan Cooper’s words erupted from his in mouth in a menacing growl that promptly dispersed the impromptu gathering.
“So how did you get him to dance naked?” Marjorie lifted a brow. “Threaten to beat him up, too?”
Lola closed her eyes briefly, sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. This was just great, she thought. Not only was she wasting hours of driving time, she was being made out to be the town bruiser here. “I haven’t threatened or assaulted anyone. All I did was drive my car too fast,” she said, weary of issuing the same denial.
The dispatcher shifted her gaze to her boss. “So did you really dance—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He cut her off before she could finish the question. “Now, Ms. Gray has to make a phone call, and I have to make a few calls myself to try and make some headway into getting to the bottom of what happened to Wilson.”
“Oh, your uncle’s secretary has called a few times. He phoned himself the last time. Apparently, you’ve missed a meeting at city hall,” Marjorie said. “I tried telling him you were busy with a case, but you know Roy.”
Unfortunately, he did. “I’ll take care of it.” Dylan added it to the list of calls he needed to make, including one to the hospital. He wanted to know the moment Wilson was done with their tests.
Lola followed him to a desk on the other side of the room. “Make whatever calls you need,” he said, then inclined his head toward an alcove. “Vending machines are over there. Bathroom is around the corner.”
After pulling her phone and its charger from her bag, she dropped the heavy tote on the desk and collapsed into the office chair. She spied a side entrance to the building, and her impulsive side reared its head. “You seem pretty sure I won’t make a run for it,” she said.
The corner of his mouth, which Lola now knew firsthand tasted even better than it looked, quirked upward. “Just confident I’ll catch you before you’re halfway to that door.” He snorted. “Then I’d have to lock you up in that pink palace Marjorie’s fixing up special.”
He glanced pointedly at the jail cell and then at her. “Your call?”
“I’ll stick with the desk.”
“Good choice.” He looked at her bag. “I’m going to have to get those scissors so I can send them to the lab in Columbus.”
“It’s my blood. How long will it take to prove it?” Lola gnawed at her lip.
“I’ll send them out today and should have a report sometime next week.”
“But I can’t hang around here that long.”
“If I can uncover the truth quickly and your story holds up, you shouldn’t have to. Regardless, I have to go by the book. I’ll give this back to you in a few minutes.” He picked up her bag from the desk. “Geez, what’s in here?”
“Everything,” Lola said.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a pink body bag,” he muttered as he walked over to a desk a few feet away from where she was seated.
Lola plugged the charger into the wall socket near the desk and stared at the green light on the charging phone. The police chief seemed sincere, and he could certainly kiss.
She glanced at the jail cell, where the dispatcher was busy replacing an old lampshade with a new pink one. Lola exhaled. As much as she dreaded reaching out to her family after the stunt they’d pulled, she was dangerously close to doing a stint in the pokey.
Lola swiped the phone’s screen with her finger. She needed legal advice from her brother-in-law. Hopefully, her sister, who Lola was still annoyed with for treating her like the world’s biggest screwup, would be busy behind her desk at Espresso’s flagship Sanctuary Spa.
“Lola? Is everything okay?” Ethan asked without preamble.
“Is that my sister?”
Lola heard Tia’s question, and her stomach dropped. “Ethan, please don’t tell her it’s—”
Too late.
After some muffled voices and a fumbling noise, her sister was on the line.
“What’s wrong now, Lola?” Tia’s question was more of a statement, as if the fact there was trouble was a foregone conclusion.
She was right, Lola thought grudgingly. Still, her sister’s assumption was akin to Tia bouncing on her last nerve as if it was a backyard trampoline.
“Does there have to be something wrong for someone to have a conversation with their brother-in-law?” Lola asked.
Her big sister had a chill vibe and regularly exhorted the virtues of yoga and her special brew of calming tea—except when it came to Lola.
“In your case, yes,” Tia said, emphatically. “And I’ll bet the only reason you’re calling Ethan is because he’s a lawyer.” She expelled a drawn-out sigh. “So what kind of chaos have you caused this time?”
Lola opened her mouth to once again dispute the accusation, but decided to save her breath. No one believed her these days, anyway.
Dylan Cooper believed you.
Lola’s gaze automatically sought the police chief at his desk, talking on the phone. Goose bumps erupted on her bare arms at the memory of the scant moments she’d spent in his embrace. Too bad he wasn’t a stripper. As good as he looked in that uniform, she wouldn’t mind seeing him out of it. Not at all.
“You might as well spill it, because Ethan will tell me everything.” Tia’s voice threw a bucket of ice water on the heated images Lola’s imagination had gotten carried away conjuring up.
“What about attorney-client privilege?” Lola countered.
Tia answered her with a harrumph. “I just put his phone on Speaker, so you can fill us both in on your latest calamity, and then we can figure out how to fix it for you.”
This was indeed a calamity, Lola thought. However, her sister sounded so smug. Tia’s tone, combined with the role she’d played in helping Cole railroad her in the Espresso boardroom, made her one of the last people Lola wanted to turn to for help. She’d fix her own mess.
“Never mind,” Lola said.
“You had to have called for a reason,” Tia pressed.
Lola made up a bogus explanation for the call and ended it as quickly as she could. Deep down, she knew her sister loved her, and her brother did, too. However, the one thing Lola didn’t have from them was the one thing she wanted more than anything: their respect.
She stared down at the phone in her hand. She’d fix this mess on her own.
She had to.
“Your phone calls go okay?”
Lola looked up to see the police chief placing her purse on the desk. “Yes and no,” she said.
The expression on his handsome face was a mixture of confusion and what appeared to be genuine concern.
“Let’s just say I was told what I needed to hear,” she elaborated.
He nodded. “I’m headed out to Old Mill Road. It’s getting late, and I want to take a look around before sunset,” he said. “If you need anything, just let Marjorie know.”
Lola stood abruptly as he turned to leave. “Wait!” She hefted her purse strap onto her shoulder. “You just can’t leave me here. I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re staying put. This is police business.”
“But you nee
d me to show you where it happened.”
He shook his head. “I don’t. The police cruiser is still at the scene,” he said. “Besides, this is an investigation and right now you’re the prime suspect.”
Lola rested a hand on his forearm. She was the one whose future was at stake, and she wasn’t putting her fate in someone else’s hands. “You said you believed me, and that being chief gave you some leeway.”
“True on both counts. Still, I’m not taking you with me to Old Mill Road.”
“Why?” She raised a brow. “Scared if we’re alone out there, I’ll beat you up, too?”
A frown tightened his mouth, but didn’t quite reach his hypnotic brown eyes. “Jokes like that are a bad idea for someone in your position.”
“Maybe.” Lola shrugged. “But since I seem to be stuck with the name, I might as well play the game.”
Chapter 8
“So what’s our plan for cracking the case, Chief?”
Dylan glanced at the woman in his pickup’s passenger seat as he pulled out of his parking space, headed in the direction of Old Mill Road.
“We are not cracking anything,” he reiterated. “And under no circumstances are you to interfere with this investigation.”
“Of course not,” she said.
“I’m serious, Ms. Gray. I only brought you along so your presence wouldn’t cause more of a ruckus in town.”
It wasn’t his only rationale. Back in Chicago, Dylan had seen enough suspects reach out to family or a friend to know when it hadn’t gone well. She’d shaken it off quickly, but not before the forlorn look on her face when she’d ended her phone call penetrated his thick skin.
His uncharacteristic reaction was all the more reason to get to the truth, and then he could either send her on her way or to the county jail.
“I don’t know about you, but it feels silly to continue using surnames after the way we were all over each other at the hospital earlier.”
Her statement threw him—right back to the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth, and the sultry scent of her coconut-laced perfume filling his nostrils. Dylan shook away the illicit images racing through his head before they could get a grip.
“It’s called keeping a professional distance.” He stared through the truck’s windshield as he drove slowly down Main Street, adhering to the twenty mile per hour speed limit. “Besides, I thought we’d agreed to forget it.”
“I tried, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Can you?”
Again, she’d tossed out something that knocked him off-kilter. Dylan found her stark honesty both bold and refreshing. It compelled him, despite his better judgment, to be just as honest.
“No, Lola. I can’t forget kissing you, either,” he said softly, enjoying the melodious feel of her first name rolling off his lips. He deepened his voice an octave, so his tone was firm. “However, it won’t keep me from doing my job.”
She shifted and then leaned back on the truck’s leather seat. Out the corner of his eye, he saw she’d laid her head on the headrest. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Don’t worry. I’m not angling to be the next Mrs. Cooper.”
Her laugh elicited a chuckle from him.
“Good to know. I didn’t make the last one very happy.”
She raised her head. He turned briefly and caught her surprised expression. “I find that hard to believe.”
“How come?” Dylan glanced at the time, illuminated on the dashboard. “We’ve known each other for what, an hour or two? For all you know, I could have been a horrible husband and made her life hell.”
His eyes returned to the road as he continued to navigate through town, but again he could feel hers on him. Her heated gaze skimmed his chest and the bare arms revealed by the short sleeves of his summer uniform.
“Perhaps,” Lola said. “But by the looks of you, I’m guessing she found some aspects of it deliriously satisfying.”
Dylan heard her voice as she continued to talk, but the rest of what she said faded into white noise. His mind dropped him into the middle of a fantasy of kissing her again, naked in the backyard pool he’d had installed last summer, but rarely found the time to use. He imagined those long limbs of hers wrapped around his waist. Or perhaps on his shoulders, while he showed her just how deliriously satisfied he could—
“Well?” His passenger’s question abruptly snatched him out of his fantasy and returned him to reality.
Dylan cleared his throat, hoping that would get his errant thoughts back on track. “Sorry, can you repeat the question?”
“I was asking how many hours a day you put in at the gym to maintain that body?”
“Enough to keep the Henderson brothers from kicking my behind.”
“Henderson brothers?” Lola asked.
“Never mind them,” Dylan said. “I have a question for you.”
“Ask away.”
“Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”
Her long sigh filled the truck’s interior. “Unfortunately, I do,” she said. “I try hard to curb it, but usually what comes up, comes out—as in right out of my mouth.”
“And you believe that’s a bad thing?” Dylan stole a peek at her, before returning his gaze to the rich green farmland on the edge of Cooper’s Place city limits. She’d been staring out the passenger’s-side window, so he didn’t see her face.
“Sure.” She shrugged. “So does everyone else in my life, it seems.”
“Actually, I find it refreshing.”
“Really?” She laughed. “Then you’re certainly in the minority.”
From the little he knew of her, one of the things Dylan couldn’t help liking about Lola Gray was her what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature. “I think you’re fine as is. You shouldn’t have to curb or change who you are for anyone,” he said.
Silence followed his statement. The stretch of quiet echoed inside the truck. Dylan wondered what was on her mind as he slowed the truck to a halt at a stop sign, and then made a left turn onto Old Mill Road.
“That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me in a long time, Dylan Cooper,” she said finally.
Something about her words tugged at his insides. With her looks, he assumed she was drowning in compliments. The woman was sexy, charming, easy to talk to, and in the short hours since he’d met her, Dylan found himself thinking of a better use for his king-size bed than falling asleep in it after a long day.
Get a grip, man!
Dylan gave himself a mental reprimand as he white-knuckled the steering wheel. He barely knew her, yet already he’d imagined making love to Lola Gray in his pool and in his bed.
For goodness sake, the woman was the prime suspect in the alleged assault on a police officer. Even though Dylan’s gut told him she didn’t do it.
Gut instinct had kept him alive back in Chicago. Now his gut was telling him to do his job, which regardless of how it turned out would get Lola out of Cooper’s Place and his head.
“I couldn’t help noticing everyone in town thinks they recognize you. So who are you, the creaky joint and denture adhesive lady, or the airplane version of Floyd Mayweather Jr.?” Dylan asked. He hoped segueing to a benign topic would keep inappropriate thoughts of the woman at bay, and the torture of seeing her incredible legs in shorts so miniscule they should be criminal.
Lola’s laugh filled his ears. Despite the trouble looming over her head and a job she needed to get to, her laugh came free and easy. The more he heard it, the more Dylan liked it.
“Are you asking out of curiosity or as the police chief?” she asked.
“A little of both.” He looked at her briefly and saw her eyes widen. “Why was my question so surprising?”
She squirmed in her seat, shifting her body toward him. “Ever
yone just assumes, they never ask me. And you’ve seen what happens when I try to explain.” She shrugged. “It seems folks are happier with rumors and gossip.”
“I’m not big on either. I’d rather hear it from your mouth,” Dylan said.
“Actually, I’m a model, and until I was fired this morning, I was the face of Espresso Cosmetics,” she said.
“The name sounds familiar. I think that’s my mother’s brand.” He had a vague recollection of being dragged to their counters as a kid during occasional trips to the mall.
“Then your mom must be at least sixty,” Lola said.
“Closer to eighty,” Dylan confided.
He heard Lola sigh.
“That’s one of our problems.”
Dylan listened as she told him about the company’s stigma as makeup for women of a certain age, and how, despite her being in her twenties, people associated her with it.
“I can’t help noticing you use the word our when you talk about Espresso Cosmetics, despite your being let go from your job with them. Is it out of habit?”
“No. They can’t get rid of me that easily.” She must have caught his confused expression, because she went on to explain. “Espresso was founded by my late mother, so I was actually fired from a company I partially own.”
“How’d that happen?”
“There was the incident on an airplane... Well, I’ve actually found myself in the midst of quite a few messes. They weren’t exactly my fault, but my brother, sister, their spouses and my father see it differently.”
“Would this be the same airline incident that has the practical-joke television show you mentioned earlier following you, and half the town believing you’re a woman who punches first and asks questions later?”
Lola nodded. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen the videos of me surrounded by airport security, or the passenger I supposedly beat so badly he needed a wheelchair. The darn things have been all over social media and television.”
“Like I said, I’m not much into rumors or gossip,” he said. “So I’ll just ask you straight out, did you?”
Heated Moments Page 8
