“I didn’t beat him up, but...”
Again, Dylan listened as Lola gave him a rundown of the incident. He didn’t blame her for shoving the rude passenger’s feet off the older man’s head. In her place, he might have done the same thing or worse. However, he wasn’t a woman or an elderly man, and because of his size, Dylan rarely had to repeat a request.
“Considering the situation, I admire you for stepping in and helping when no one else would. I also think you showed an incredible amount of restraint in dealing with that jerk,” Dylan said finally. Just as she’d stepped up and gotten Wilson to the hospital. “You deserved a round of applause.”
Lola giggled. “The passengers who weren’t busy taking photos and filming me with their cell phones did clap.”
They continued the ride in silence. Dylan lowered his speed when he spotted the police cruiser Wilson had been driving ahead.
Dylan felt a nudge at his biceps and glanced at the woman in the passenger’s seat.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around you not only believing me, but understanding how I got into the whole airline fiasco. You don’t even know me, but you took my word as fact,” she said. “Is it because of that kiss?”
Dylan parked his truck in front of the abandoned cruiser, and then shifted in his seat until he was facing her. He was a man of few words, who usually kept his thoughts to himself. However, for a second time, her openness prompted him to be just as uninhibited.
“Kissing you nearly made me lose control.” He resisted the urge to run the pad of his thumb across her full bottom lip. The lip he’d sucked into his mouth and nibbled at hours earlier. “However, it didn’t make me lose sight of our situation.”
Pinning her with his gaze, Dylan balled his hands to keep from touching her. “I believe you, Lola, because as a detective, I encountered some of the best damn liars in the world,” he said. “My gut tells me you’re not one of them, and so far, it’s never been wrong.”
She rested a soft hand over his fist. The innocuous contact sent the warmth of awareness coursing through him. She looked down at their hands, and then returned her gaze to his face. Her expression made it clear she’d felt something, too.
“I’ve traveled the world and encountered a lot of people, but right here, right now, I think you, Dylan Cooper, are one of the very sweetest.”
Clearing his throat, Dylan pulled his hand away and threw open the driver’s side door. He stepped out of the truck and took a gulp of fresh, early evening air, removing himself from the close quarters of the truck cab.
He barely knew the woman, and already she controlled his mind. Moreover, Dylan wanted her, badly.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “I’m going to take a look at the alleged crime scene.” He spoke gruffly, knowing if she weren’t a suspect, he’d attempt to do what she’d suggested he was capable of moments after they’d met—melt the panties right off her.
Chapter 9
A woman with one toe in a jail cell should have better sense than to lust after a man with the power to make her next fashion statement a neon-orange jumpsuit.
Lola’s eyes ignored the admonishment from her common sense and continued to ogle his firm backside as he bent over to inspect something on the ground. The fact that he wasn’t a stripper should have squashed the urge to want to smack it again.
It didn’t.
“Get ahold of yourself,” she whispered, finally peeling her eyeballs off his behind. Her current reputation should be enough to make her not even think about hitting anything or anybody. Not to mention the longer she was hung up in this town, on what really amounted to a huge misunderstanding, the further she was from sitting in the guest-host seat on America Live!
Lola experienced a twinge of panic at the thought of blowing one of the best opportunities to come her way since she became the face of Espresso at sixteen years old. The best way to get her anxiety in check was by taking action, she thought, and sitting in this truck becoming all hot and bothered over a small town cop wasn’t putting her any closer to her goal.
After jumping out of the vehicle, she walked over to Dylan. He was standing a few feet from the police cruiser Wilson had been driving before he passed out, taking photos of the road with his phone.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the truck?” He didn’t look up from his task.
“Seeing as though I’m the one with her future and possibly her freedom on the line, I need to do all I can to help.”
Dylan blew out a breath, and Lola steeled herself, expecting him to give her a hard time.
“Okay, but stand back and don’t touch anything.” He faced her, but his expression was once again an unreadable mask, and his voice held the same brusque edge it had when he’d left the truck. “You shouldn’t even be out here. The last thing I need is your compromising the scene.”
“I won’t,” Lola promised, as she wondered what had prompted the abrupt change in him. It was as if she’d imagined the easy camaraderie they’d shared moments earlier inside the truck.
She looked on as he resumed taking pictures of the road. “Why are you taking photos of the ground?”
“This is dried blood,” he replied. Then he pointed out two black, side-by-side streaks forming a U shape. “I believe this is the rubber from the heels of Wilson’s shoes as you dragged him around to the passenger seat of your car.”
Dylan paused and gave her a once-over. “How did you manage that, anyway? Wilson is on the lanky side, but you have a slight frame.”
“Pilates classes.” Lola patted the flat abs she achieved through six-days-a-week classes and replacing the majority of her meals with a vitamin-enhanced protein shake. “All power radiates from the core.”
Dylan nodded, apparently satisfied with her answer. He followed the blood-and-rubber-streaked trail to the graveled side of the road.
“That’s where he passed out.” Lola gestured to the patch of bloodstained ground and weeds.
Dylan took a few more pictures of the scene, including the police cruiser, with his phone. She looked on as he shut the driver’s side door of the cop car. “I think I’ve seen all there is to see out here.”
“This proves I was only trying to help him.” As she followed him back to his truck Lola looked pointedly at the trail the rubber from the young officer’s shoes had left on the road.
Dylan opened the passenger side door for her. “It only confirms you dragged Wilson to your car and got him to the hospital, which we already knew.” He rounded the truck and slid behind the wheel. “As far as his injury goes, it’s still his word against yours, and he has a witness on his side.”
They rode in silence. Lola stared out the window, watching the surrounding cornfields give way to the roads leading back to the small town. Deep down, she knew the truth would win out, and she’d be proved innocent. However, it appeared it was going to take more time, which she didn’t have to spare if she was going to get to New York City in time.
What in the hell was she going to do?
She hadn’t even noticed Dylan had pulled out his phone until she heard him talking to what she gleaned from his end of the conversation was the hospital.
“I know I called less than an hour ago, Avis, but just how long are these tests going to take?” His sigh indicated he hadn’t gotten the answer he’d wanted. “No. She hasn’t been arrested, but if you keep spreading that false rumor about me dancing naked you’ll be the one in a jail cell.”
Lola could hear the nurse’s laugh through the phone’s tiny speaker as Dylan ended the call. He touched the screen to make another one.
“I’m calling County Dispatch to send a sheriff’s office deputy to—”
“You’re arresting me and sending me to the county jail?” Lola sat bolt upright in the seat.
Dylan shook his head, and she slumped
in relief. “I’m having them drive the cruiser to the station. Wilson’s out of commission, and I can’t drive two vehicles,” he said. “The sheriff’s office backs me up when I need a hand.”
Minutes later, they were back at the police station. Lola chewed her bottom lip, trying to come up with her next move.
“I’ll finish talking to Wilson once the doctors release him,” Dylan said, shutting off the truck’s engine. “I’ll find out what really happened out there, and then hopefully, I can send you on your way.”
Lola rubbed a hand down her face. “But I know what happened,” she said. “This has just been so frustrating.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head back on the seat. “I can’t be stuck in Mayberry while my career goes down the tubes,” she muttered, more to herself more than anyone else.
She felt his large hand on her thigh. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Lola opened her eyes. She knew both his touch and words were meant to soothe her, and they did up to a point. However, no matter how drawn she felt to him, this man was essentially a stranger.
She stared absently at a campaign placard asking citizens to vote Roy Cooper for mayor, placed in one of the public safety building’s windows. Daylight was dwindling, along with the hours she had to make it to New York and the beauty appointments she needed to put her on her A game by Monday.
“For what it’s worth, I still believe your version of the incident,” Dylan said.
Lola wanted to trust him, but right now she was tired, frustrated and just plain fed up. They walked into the police side of the building, and she was relieved to see the crowd hadn’t returned. The place was blessedly empty except for Marjorie, who was humming and arranging a vase of pink day lilies in the jail cell that looked more and more as if Lola would indeed be utilizing it. There was also an elderly woman standing at Dylan’s desk with a picnic hamper in tow.
Lola thought of her earlier reference to the fictional small town of Mayberry from the classic television reruns her father had often watched when she was a kid. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and grunted as details of the sitcom came to mind. Right now, her life seemed to be unfolding as if she’d been dropped in the middle of an episode of the laid-back comedy.
Only it wasn’t so funny.
“Let’s see. First, I encounter the scrawny, bumbling deputy who l end up rushing to a hospital located in a quaint small town, only to meet the dreamboat sheriff, who makes any woman with a pulse wish for a bottomless box of condoms and a king-size bed to—” Lola began.
“Actually,” Marjorie, who had emerged from the pink jail cell, interrupted. “Wilson is indeed bumbling, but isn’t a deputy. He’s a police officer.” She adjusted her wireless telephone headset and jabbed a thumb in Dylan’s direction. “The dreamboat here is the police chief, not the sheriff. Oh, I’ve never seen a bottomless box of condoms. Can I find them at Warehouse Club?”
Lola adjusted her heavy pink bag on her shoulder. “Just roll with me, Marjorie.” She turned to the elderly woman stationed at Dylan’s desk, who was staring at her openmouthed. Lola zeroed in on the picnic hamper. “So you must be Aunt Bea.”
The gray-haired woman closed her mouth, and her eyes, which held an air of familiarity, narrowed. “Nope, but I’ve seen you on television,” she said. “You’re the lady from the commercials who’s fallen and can’t get up.”
Lola scowled at the reference as she tried to remember where she’d seen those big brown eyes.
A smirk spread over the woman’s crinkled face. “Or is it the commercial where you’re snuggled up with the old guy who can’t get it up?” She raised a gray eyebrow. “Well, not without a little chemical boost.”
“Goodness, Mom,” Dylan said.
Mom? Oh, crap, Lola thought. “She’s your mother?”
“The one and only,” he replied. “Lola Gray, meet Virginia Cooper.”
Lola gulped. From referring to his mother as Aunt Bea to leaving no doubt as to exactly what she wanted to do with her son, the past few minutes of dialogue came roaring back in her head. Geez, maybe everyone was right, Lola thought, and she really did need to get a handle on her impulsiveness and her mouth.
She glanced at Dylan, who appeared more amused than annoyed, hoping he’d help her pull her foot out of her mouth.
“A bottomless box, huh?” A smile spread over those kissable lips.
His innuendo ignited tingles in her core, and Lola’s imagination supplied possibilities that made the delicious sensation spread like wildfire. Naughty possibilities she should not be entertaining in front of his mother.
Pulling herself together, Lola gave him the side-eye to let him know he wasn’t helping. “Look, Mrs. Cooper, I apologize about the Aunt Bea comment,” she said finally. “It’s been a long, frustrating day.”
“Then I guess I got off easy.” Virginia Cooper smiled sweetly, but Lola didn’t miss how those eyes sparkled with devilment. “You could have challenged me to go toe-to-toe, like you did with Wilson, who I have to admit to wanting to pop upside the head myself a time or two.”
“But I didn’t...” Lola started the familiar refrain of trying to defend herself, again.
“Lighten up, slugger.” The older woman laughed. “I’m only teasing you.”
Lola attempted a smile. In another time or place, she would have gotten a kick out of the older woman’s quick wit. However, she was presently preoccupied with finding a way to first get out of trouble, and then get back on the road.
Marjorie sniffed the air. Her gaze fixed on the picnic hamper on Dylan’s desk. “Mmm,” she moaned.
Lola stomach growled in agreement as the delectable smells coming from the wicker basket reached her nose, reminding her she hadn’t had anything since a hastily eaten egg-white-and-vegetable omelet that morning.
“I’d already started cooking when I got your text message saying you’d be tied up with work and couldn’t make it for dinner,” Virginia told her son. “So I thought I’d bring it.”
“That was real considerate of you,” Dylan said. The words were laced with suspicion.
“Well, I had to meet the talk of Cooper’s Place,” his mother admitted. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook, since you kicked half the town out of here earlier. The girls figured I could play the nepotism card to get the real scoop.”
Dylan frowned. “Hate to cut your covert mission short, but I’m still working the case,” he said. “Lola has an important job opportunity. If what she says is true, I don’t want her to miss out on it on account of being a Good Samaritan.”
Virginia Cooper’s eyes widened as she looked from Dylan to Lola, before once again training them on her son. “So it’s Lola, huh?” She fired off another question. “Since when are you so chummy with a suspect?”
“We are not chummy,” Dylan insisted.
“I may have been born at night, son. But it wasn’t last night,” Virginia said. “Besides, I heard about you stripping down to your birthday suit over at the hospital.”
Dylan frowned. “And you believed it?”
“Hey! I thought you said that was just a rumor,” Marjorie chimed in.
“A ridiculous rumor you’d think my own mother wouldn’t buy into.” Dylan turned to Virginia. “I thought we were better than idle gossip, Mom,” he chastised.
“And I thought I raised you better than to let your new friend here spank your fanny in public,” his mother countered. “I nearly fell off my chair when Rosemary Moody called to ask if I knew my son was playing kinky Fifty Shades of Grey games, in a hospital waiting room of all places.”
Lola felt her face flush at the memory, which the rumor mill had taken entirely out of context. “B-but it wasn’t what you think, Mrs. Cooper,” she stammered.
“I think the bottomless box of condoms you bragged about
tells me everything I need to know, miss.”
Dylan exhaled. “You’re enjoying stirring the pot, aren’t you?” he asked his mother.
Virginia let loose with the laugh she’d apparently been holding back. “Almost as much as I enjoy my social security check hitting the bank on the first of the month.”
“Speaking of pots...” Marjorie cleared her throat loudly. “Any other time I’d love to hear a blow-by-blow of how Ms. Gray and the chief get their freak on, but I’m starving and whatever is in that basket is calling my name.”
“We were not getting our freak on,” Dylan said.
Too bad, Lola thought, and then hurriedly glanced around to make sure the words hadn’t tumbled out of her mouth.
“Has the hospital called about Wilson yet?” Dylan asked Marjorie.
“I touched base with them fifteen minutes ago. They’re not done with him, and Avis says us calling over there every five minutes isn’t going to make them go any faster.”
“Then we might as well eat,” Virginia said.
Opening the large basket, Dylan’s mother pulled out a plastic cake carrier. She removed the domed lid, unveiling a white-frosted cake garnished with candied lemon slices.
“Oh, my God, lemonade layer cake.” Marjorie clasped her hands together in the prayer position. “I bid seventy-five bucks on one of these at the library fund-raiser and still didn’t win. No way I’m going to miss out on having at least two pieces, maybe three.”
“My mother, my cake,” Dylan argued.
Marjorie snorted. “Not anymore.”
Meanwhile, Lola’s stomach rumbled as Virginia continued to unload the basket, turning her son’s desk into a makeshift buffet table. Lola stared longingly at the fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and rolls glazed with what appeared to be both honey and butter. It all smelled heavenly, and Lola suspected she was drooling.
“I’ll get the paper plates and napkins,” Marjorie volunteered.
Heated Moments Page 9
