"Gee, thanks," she drawled. "Worried it will ruin your reputation?"
His teeth glinted in a brief smile. "No. Kissing you will do wonders for my reputation."
She refused to be charmed. "Thank you. I think."
And then he spoiled it by adding, "Besides, now every guy in the place knows you're off-limits."
Tess set down her drink and glared at him. "Is that why you did it? Because you thought you were making a point?"
"I did make a point. It's not safe for a woman looking the way you do to walk into a cop bar and imagine the only thing she's going to leave with is information. But that's not why I kissed you."
"Oh, yeah?" she asked, very nastily because her body was still humming and her feelings were all mixed up. "So, why?"
"I must have wanted to." His eyes were dark and direct. "I think I've wanted to kiss you ever since I met you."
Her heart thumped in excitement. She straightened defensively on her bar stool. "And being a police officer, you figure you can take what you want, no questions asked?"
He frowned. "No. Don't theorize ahead of your facts, Tess."
The fact was, she didn't trust cops.
The fact was, she was attracted to this one.
And she didn't like that one bit.
She raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me you're an honest cop?"
"I'm not telling you anything," Jarek said evenly.
No, he wasn't. The only thing he had admitted to was wanting to kiss her.
She nodded toward a booth by the door, where his former partner had joined a table of other off-duty detectives. "They seem to think you walk on water."
He shrugged. "I did my job."
"More than that, I heard. Ice Man? Cool under pressure. You took a gun away from some psycho commuter on the train—"
He looked uncomfortable. "That was years ago. When I was a patrolman. Detectives don't get written up for stuff like that."
"But didn't you face more dangerous situations as a detective?"
He regarded her silently for a moment. "You're the oldest in your family?"
She was confused. He confused her. She wasn't used to men remembering what she said. "Yes. How did you—"
"As the oldest, there are things that are expected of you, right?"
Tess squirmed on her wooden perch. She didn't like thinking about her adolescence, the years she struggled to keep Mark fed and out of trouble, the mornings she woke for school already dog-tired and sick-to-her-stomach worried and overwhelmed. She certainly never talked about them. "What's your point?"
"My point is, you don't make a big deal out of meeting your responsibilities. You just do your job." He met her gaze directly. "Same thing if you're a detective. I did my job."
Tess fought the seductive tug of understanding. He was a cop, she reminded herself. They had nothing in common. "Very macho," she said dryly.
His mouth curved. "Damn straight."
She caught herself smiling back and thought, Uh-oh. She didn't need these little sparks of connection. She couldn't afford this tingle of attraction. She didn't like the way Jarek kept turning this interview around. She was the reporter, wasn't she? Dispassionate. Objective. In control of the conversation and herself.
Sure she was.
"What made you decide you didn't want to be a detective anymore?" she asked.
"Circumstances."
"Would your decision have anything to do with your wife's death a year ago?"
He set down his beer. "Who told you that?"
She'd caught him off balance, Tess thought, cheered.
Good. It made up, a little, for his uncomfortable perception, his unexpected understanding, his devastating kiss.
I think I've wanted to kiss you ever since I met you.
She pushed the thought away. "Nowicki," she said.
"Nowicki has a big mouth. And you should check your facts."
"She didn't die?"
"She wasn't my wife. Linda and I divorced eight years ago."
Well. Tess wasn't sure if she was relieved the new police chief wasn't still grieving or disappointed that she had lost her story hook. "So, your loss wasn't a factor in accepting the job in Eden?"
Jarek stopped looking impassive and started to look annoyed. Score one for the Girl Reporter.
"Why don't you just write that I liked the idea of making afresh start?"
"I understand that part," Tess said. "What I don't get is why you'd choose some little resort town on the edge of nowhere."
"The Wisconsin border."
"Same thing."
His guarded smile reappeared. "Not a fan of small town living, are you?"
"It's all right. If you don't mind wearing the same label you got stuck with in the second grade for the rest of your life."
"Then why not get out?"
"Oh." Nobody asked her that. She'd given up even asking herself. Everyone knew, or thought they did, how things were with the DeLuccas. "Well, my father split on us. Maybe I didn't want to follow his example. Besides, my brother needed me."
"Both your parents are gone?"
"No. Well, my mother—" She stopped.
"Your mother?" Jarek prompted gently.
Her mother was a drunk.
"She needed me, too," Tess said. Sure, Isadora DeLucca was sober now. But what would she do if Tess left her?
Tess picked up her drink again. "Anyway, here I am, thirty years old and living two miles from home, defending truth, justice and the American way for twenty-two thousand a year." She laughed self-consciously. "Now you'll tell me I have a Super Girl complex and I'll have to slug you."
"No," he said quietly. "I'm not going to tell you that."
"Right. You'll just think it."
He gave her one of his straight, cool looks. "You have no idea what I think of you."
Her heart slammed into her ribs. She had a slow-motion moment when the smoky, raucous bar swirled and faded and refocused with Jarek as its center, his calm eyes and his firm mouth and his blunt-tipped hands turning the bottle.
She felt the heat crawl in her cheeks, and then a new voice rattled between them like ice cubes dropped into a glass.
"Are you going to introduce me to this seriously hot-looking babe, or do I need to find an excuse to drive to Mayberry?"
Tess blinked.
A man stood at Jarek's shoulder. She recognized one of the detectives from the booth by the door, the young one with the ruffled hair and creased jacket.
Jarek looked resigned. "Tess, this idiot with the suit and no manners is my brother Aleksy."
The Boy Scout. She recovered enough to offer her hand. "Tess DeLucca."
"Alex. It's a pleasure." His smile was wide, his handshake firm, and his eyes assessing.
She let him hold her hand two beats too long, aware of the look that passed between him and his brother.
"You don't mind if I join you?" he asked.
Jarek stood. "Actually, we were just leaving."
"There's gratitude," Aleksy complained. "You owe me."
Jarek tossed two quarters on the cloudy surface of the bar. "That's for the phone call. We'll settle the rest later."
"Wait a minute." Do not overreact, Tess told herself. "He called to tell you I was here?"
Jarek hesitated.
"Take the fifth, bro," Aleksy advised him.
Tess stiffened with sudden certainty. Of course he called. Her stomach sank. Cops stuck together. Why else would Jarek show up at two in the morning at a cop-and-groupie bar on Belmont? Because he'd been drawn by some magical, electrical connection between them? What a joke.
But not nearly as big a laugh as the fact that somewhere at the back of her pathetic, needy little mind, Tess had accepted that he must have done exactly that.
Because he drew her.
"What did he tell you?" she demanded.
"Aleksy mentioned there was a woman here asking questions," Jarek admitted quietly. "From the description, I thought it might be you.
"
"And you drove down here to shut me up."
"Actually, he drove down to shut Nowicki up," Aleksy said.
She waited for Jarek to deny it. He didn't.
She straightened her spine. "Excuse me. I'm going home."
"Let me take you," Jarek offered. "We can argue in the car."
She wouldn't go home with him if he were the sexiest man alive and she hadn't had sex in a billion years. Which was a good thing, because at least one of those was true.
"I have my own car," she said.
His gaze went to her drink. "Are you okay to drive?"
"It's soda water," she said through her teeth.
He nodded. "Fine. I'll follow you, then."
Aleksy raised an eyebrow. "You're not spending the night at Mom and Pop's?"
"Why?" Jarek asked.
"To see Allie."
"What's the point? She'll be busy getting ready for school in the morning. She won't have time for me."
"Who is Allie?" Tess wanted to know.
"His daughter," Aleksy said.
Tess sucked in a breath. "You have a daughter? Who lives with your parents?"
Jarek's eyes narrowed at her tone.
"Just since Linda died," Aleksy explained. "That's why he took the job in Pleasantville."
Jarek shoved his hands in his pockets. "Okay. I think we're done here."
"I guess we are," Tess said.
He had a daughter.
And he hadn't shared even that much of himself with her. Not over breakfast, when they'd talked about their families, not tonight when she had asked him directly about his reasons for moving to Eden.
Maybe he didn't think the daughter was important.
Maybe he didn't think the interview was important.
Maybe—and this was depressingly likely—Tess wasn't all that important, either.
She slid off her bar stool. Well, the hell with him. It wasn't like they had a personal relationship. She didn't even want a personal relationship. Not with any man. Certainly not with Officer Frosty here, with his hot kisses and his cool silence and his family secrets. Tess had more than enough family and plenty of secrets of her own.
She tugged her sweater down over her suddenly cold midriff. Jarek Denko was only another story. Twenty column inches and maybe a picture above the fold. And she wasn't about to let his tall, dark and silent routine stop her from doing the one thing she did well.
"Nice talking to you," Aleksy said cheerfully.
"I'll bet," said Tess.
She stalked out of the bar.
Chapter 3
He could have handled that better, Jarek acknowledged as he drove north.
He watched the baleful gleam of Tess's red taillights five car lengths ahead. She'd indulged in one short burst of speed and temper as they merged with a couple of trucks making an early morning run on Highway 12. But she settled down quickly enough. He had no trouble following her car. He wished he could follow her thought processes as easily.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. On the job, he was known for his ability to take all the facts of a case into account. But he'd sure miscalculated with Tess. He'd underestimated her determination to make him a news item. He'd misjudged the timing and the amount of the personal information he'd needed to give her to keep control of her story.
And he definitely hadn't reckoned on his own reaction to their kiss.
He practically broke a sweat just thinking about it About her. She was hot And unexpectedly sweet When he kissed her, his body went hard and his mind went blank. For a minute there, kissing her, he'd felt hot, too. Hotter and more dangerous than a stolen pistol, and about as likely to go off. Heady stuff for a disciplined cop and responsible family man.
He unrolled his window to let the cool, damp night stream in over his arm. Living like a monk for the past eight years had obviously made him susceptible to pushy reporters in black leather pants. And the potent contradiction posed by Tess's curl-up-and-die looks and little-girl-lost mouth would tempt a saint.
But his loss of control wasn't her fault. Her voice echoed accusingly in memory, her flip tone not quite hiding the insult to her feelings. Anyway, you kissed me.
She was right, Jarek acknowledged fairly. His frustrated body was his problem. Her hurt feelings were his responsibility.
And if Tess, in a typical female snit, decided to smear him in the paper and state him out for the local gossips to feed on, then the resulting loss of public goodwill would be his headache.
Jarek frowned as he watched Tess's tin can compact zip toward the off ramp. He signaled his intentions to the empty lane behind him and then followed her down the exit to Eden. He was determined to keep his private life private. His failed marriage and his unhappy daughter were off-limits as topics for the press. But ticking off the reporter assigned to introduce him to the town was bad public relations.
Maybe he should agree to that interview Tess wanted. He could steer the talk away from his hopes for his family and onto his plans for the town.
He would have to be nice to her, he decided. If he wanted her cooperation. It was practically his duty.
His mind drifted to all the ways he'd like to be nice to Teresa DeLucca. His body buzzed with anticipation.
He did his best to ignore it.
Tess's fingernails beat a nervous, angry tattoo against the steering wheel. Every time she looked up, she saw Denko's car in her rear view mirror, a dark blue, unmarked Crown Victoria. Nothing new, nothing flashy, nothing to signal whatever midlife crisis had triggered his move to Eden.
His driving was like the rest of him: patient, dogged, steady. She told herself these were not qualities that appealed to her. He probably made love the same way. She pulled a face at her windshield. Nothing kinky or exciting for Chief By-The-Book Denko.
She passed the brightly lit Gas-N-Go and turned under an arch of trees onto a dark residential street. Of course, Denko would still get where he was going that way. She bet he made sure his partners did, too.
The barred moonlight ran over the hood of her car. She shivered a little, with temper and lust.
The Plaza parking lot was quiet, all the seniors' cars tucked in safely for the night. Tess found an empty space and cut her engine. In the silence, she heard the rumble of Jarek's engine as he pulled in behind her. His door slammed.
She took a deep breath and got out of her car. "You want my license and registration, Officer?"
"I'll pass, thanks." He strolled toward her. "I wouldn't say no to a cup of coffee, though."
The moon had ducked behind the trees. The glare from the building's security lights could hardly be called romantic. That was okay. She didn't want romance. Particularly not with a tight-lipped cop who came equipped with a school-age daughter.
"Oh, no," she said. "Offering you coffee is what got me into trouble in the first place."
His eyes narrowed "What kind of trouble are we talking about here?"
Tess cursed her big mouth. One of these days she was going to learn to think before she spoke. Yeah, and then she'd probably never talk at all.
"I just think we should keep things on a professional footing," she said weakly.
Denko nodded, his gaze still fixed on hers. "I wasn't suggesting anything else."
Disappointment and a lack of sleep made her incautious. "Sure you weren't I bet you invite yourself up to women's apartments at three in the morning all the time."
Maybe his lean cheeks reddened slightly. Under the sodium security lights, it was hard to tell.
"You wanted an opportunity to talk," he said.
"So I'll call the station and make an appointment."
"You might not catch me in. I'm in and out a lot."
She raised her eyebrows. "Fighting our big crime wave?"
The creases deepened around his mouth, but he didn't smile. "More learning my way around. Trying to get a feel for things. You could help."
His intensity pulled at her. He wasn't a big man—lean
and only average height—but she still felt threatened.
She shook her head. "Not in my job description, Chief."
"Then…as a friend?"
"I'm not feeling very friendly at the moment."
He took a step closer, close enough that she could smell the wickedness that clung to his hair and clothes, the tang of beer and cigarettes from the bar, the scent of his skin. "Maybe we should work on that," he murmured.
Possibility quivered through her. Don't be dumb, DeLucca. You don't want this. You can't want this.
"Sorry," she said. "It wouldn't work. You held out on me."
He watched her closely. "Would it help if I apologized?"
"I don't think so. You're not exactly my type."
"Want to tell me why?"
"Well…" She could think of a million reasons. Couldn't she? She moistened her lips. "For one thing, you're a cop."
"I won't apologize for that." He sounded more amused than upset.
She stiffened with annoyance. "And you have a kid. I don't do men with kids."
"Why not?"
Because she needed to keep him at a distance, she told him the truth. Part of it, anyway. "I raised one family already. I'm not interested in taking on another."
He stepped back. "Got it. We'll keep it professional, then."
Obviously he wasn't crushed by her rejection. Tess tasted flat disappointment. "I think we'd better."
But she didn't object when he walked with her across the parking lot to the Plaza's cheerless entrance. At three in the morning, she wasn't up to arguing either about her building's negligent security or Jarek Denko's outdated notions of male courtesy. The anticipation she'd felt earlier that evening driving down to Chicago in pursuit of a story had evaporated. She fumbled for her keys, feeling flat and tired.
She was completely taken aback when Jarek stooped and brushed her cheek with his lips. Pleasure fizzed along her veins.
"Professional courtesy," he explained blandly. "Sleep well."
Oh, right. Tess staggered up the four flights to her empty apartment, her hormones churning and her brain in turmoil. She'd be lucky if she closed her eyes at all tonight.
She prowled into the kitchen, fueling her nervous energy with some stale chips from the bottom of the bag. She ate standing at the counter, listening to the hum of her refrigerator and the persistent gurgle of her leaky toilet. She licked her finger and pressed it to the seam to catch the last salty potato crumbs.
All a Man Can Do Page 3
