by Jill Shalvis
Joe: Well yeah, but wait for me. I’m still working.
Dad: Buffy The Vampire Slayer doesn’t wait for nobody.
Joe: Say Buffy The Vampire Slayer one more time.
Dad: Buffy The Vampire Slayer one more time.
Joe gave up and slid his phone away. A gust of wind came along and knocked their platform into the side of the building.
Lucas closed his eyes and moaned like he was dying. Heights didn’t bother Joe any but they drove Superman insane. Joe had once seen him jump into a raging river to catch a bad guy without blinking an eye, so he was amused. The guy was so invincible it was fun to see any weakness from him.
“Hey, Lucas,” Reyes said, also amused. “Look.”
Lucas opened his eyes and Reyes jumped up and down a few times. The platform swayed.
And Lucas gripped the railing with white knuckles and swore the air blue.
“You kiss your mama with that mouth?” Max asked.
“Shut it,” Archer said.
And everyone shut it.
But Lucas remained green.
“Hey,” Max stage-whispered to Joe. “Heard you’re with the woodworker chick.”
Reyes snorted and when everyone looked at him he shrugged. “He said ‘woodworker.’”
Joe rolled his eyes. “How old are you, twelve?”
“What?” he asked innocently. “She works on wood. That’s all I meant. You’re the one who took it there, man. She working on your wood, Joe?”
“Reyes is about to go flying without a parachute,” Joe said to Archer. “You good with that?”
“Yes,” Archer said.
“Hey,” Reyes said but backed very carefully out of Joe’s reach, putting his hands up in surrender. “Just saying. You two are looking pretty cozy.”
“Your point?” Joe asked coolly.
Reyes laughed. “You should lock her down soon as possible, man. Any woman who can put up with your bad attitude is worth keeping. Plus, she’s smoking hot.”
“It’s supposed to be about more than just her body,” Max said. “Rory says it’s about personality.”
“True,” Reyes said. “They have like ten of those, so you can always just choose one.”
“Our perp’s entering the building so look alive,” Archer said. “If you boys are ready to shut the fuck up and work, that is.”
Five minutes later, their guy walked into his office talking on the phone, where he implicated himself all over the place. He never even gave the “window washers” a second look and they got the whole conversation recorded.
“That’s all we need,” Archer said. “We’ve got enough for the DA to take the case forward. You’re all off for the night.”
Joe knew he couldn’t go back to Kylie’s, not after pushing her away, so he instead he went and watched Buffy with his dad before checking out the last apprentice on their list. Phillip Wilde out of San Jose worked as a master carpenter, making furniture on the side. But as Joe suspected, it was yet another dead end. Phillip had quit a year ago and, according to a neighbor who came out in his bathrobe and was willing to chat, now lived in the Florida Keys, making beach chairs for tourists.
He waited until the next day after work to tell Kylie. He was standing outside Reclaimed Woods in the courtyard when she exited. She looked surprised to see him and regret slashed through him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Wanted to talk to you.”
“Thought that wasn’t our thing, talking.”
Yeah, he deserved that.
She sighed. “Never mind me. What’s wrong?”
That she could read him so easily was no longer a surprise. Although he had no idea how she could when no one else ever seemed able to, but he was getting tired of worrying about that. “The list of apprentices is a dead end,” he said. “We need to talk about a new angle.”
“But we still have one more to check on,” she said. “Phillip, out in San Jose.”
“I checked into it. Phillip moved to Florida last year.”
She crossed her arms. “So now you’ve cut me out of the investigation as neatly as you cut me out of your life? We had a deal, Joe.”
“I didn’t cut you out of anything. I was trying to save us some time.”
“Okay,” she said, smile gone and maybe steam coming out of her ears. “Well, let me save you some more of your precious time. I’m going in another direction on this investigation. You’re fired.”
He caught her before she could walk away. “Oh no,” he said. “It’s not going to be that easy. You’re stuck with me.”
“I gave you the mirror for Molly. We’re square.” Yanking free, she started walking across the courtyard, her eyes on her phone.
“Hell no we’re not square,” he said, following her. “We’re not done here until you’re safe.”
She snorted.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Instead of answering, she slid into a waiting Uber.
He barely got in with her before she could slam the door on his nose. Since she was doing the whole not speaking to him thing, and since he wasn’t interested in fighting with her with an audience, the ride was silent until they were dropped off in Soma.
“What are we doing here?” he asked as she took off walking. “Kylie,” he said warningly when they ended up on a narrow backstreet that was really more of an alleyway.
“Shh.” She slipped into a gated yard and vanished.
Shit. He followed to find her climbing a rickety old fire escape. He had a few choices. He could argue with her. He could pull her off the fire escape. Or he could do the crazy thing and join her.
He joined her.
Since his climbing skills were far superior to hers, he caught up with her and helped her up onto the next level. The small apartment building was three floors. Looked like four units on each floor. Kylie stopped when they were closest to the third floor far right unit, which revealed a kitchen.
“My mom’s place,” she whispered and looked at her watch. “She’ll be home from work right about . . .”
A woman walked into the kitchen.
“Now,” Kylie whispered.
“Why didn’t you just wait for her out front?”
“Because the last few times she and I talked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’s keeping something from me. At first I thought she just needed more money, but now I’m not sure. I’m worried about her but I can’t just come right out and ask her anything. She’s cagey.”
“You give her money?”
“Shh.”
Fine. She didn’t want to talk about it. He got that. He concentrated on the scene at hand. The woman in the kitchen had Kylie’s long hair, but unlike Kylie, who mostly pulled hers up, her mom’s hair was styled to within an inch of its life. She wore artful makeup that Tina from the coffee shop would admire and that, combined with a very tight dress and knee-high boots, had Joe confused. She didn’t look old enough to be Kylie’s mom. But a more careful look told him the makeup and clothing had fooled him.
She tossed her purse onto the kitchen counter and whirled to face the younger man who’d come in behind her. Smiling, she hopped up on the kitchen table and beckoned the guy with a crook of her finger. Then she had the man standing between her legs and they were apparently trying to eat each other’s faces off.
Kylie grimaced. “That’s a new one.”
“What, her having a man in her kitchen?”
“No,” she said. “That’s common. But the actual man is new. He’s not her boyfriend. Which is clearly what she didn’t want me to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because she goes through men like other women go through shoes. And she knows it irritates me because she throws the good ones away.”
Kylie’s mom pulled back from the kiss and turned to the window.
Both Kylie and Joe shrank out of view as she opened the glass all the way, inadvertently helping Joe’s and Kylie’s cause, because now they
could hear the kitchen conversation.
“Whew,” Kylie’s mom said as she fanned her face. “That’s better. You’ve got me all hot and bothered.”
The guy looked smug. “Then why did you stop me?”
“I spoke to Kylie yesterday.”
Next to Joe, Kylie froze.
“And?” the guy asked. “Did you tell her your good news?”
“No. Not yet. She’s not ready to hear it yet. You have to work that girl into things slowly or she freaks out.”
Joe looked at Kylie, who still wasn’t moving.
“When she was little,” her mom said, “she’d lose it at the first sign of any drama or change. If I stopped dating someone. If I started dating someone. She’s a creature of habit and can’t handle any changes. It’s why her grandpa took her in.”
“Your dad?” the boyfriend asked. “The rich artist dude?”
Interesting way to phrase it, Joe thought. Interesting, and more than a little suspect.
“Yeah,” said Kylie’s mom distractedly. “He said he knew how to handle her, and he did. He was way better at it than me, too, and she was happy there. But he raised her to be like him—an old man. So if I had tried to tell her all in one call that I’d dumped Charlie and then started seeing you and now we want to elope, she’d have lost it.”
“You’re a grown woman, baby. And she’s your daughter.”
“Yeah, well, Kylie and my relationship is a bit . . . backward. She’s always thought of herself as the mom, and in truth, she’s often had to be.”
“You know what you need? A distraction,” he said huskily. “Let’s go to the bedroom, where I do my best work.”
Joe rolled his eyes at the line and when the two lovebirds had left the kitchen, he looked over at Kylie. He wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. He reached out to touch her, but she shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
No, she wasn’t, but she would be, he vowed. “How many boyfriends have there been?” he asked and knew by the look on her face that it’d been too many. “Did you get what you needed to hear?” he asked. “We done here?”
Looking a little lost, she nodded and started to climb down. Fast. “Kylie—”
Too late. She’d made it to the second-floor landing when her foot caught on a rung. Somehow that loosened the ladder, sending it cascading to the ground, Kylie in free fall along with it. The crash landing had him reliving the Molly nightmare all over again, helplessly watching her fall out of that tree. He rushed to climb down to the ledge and then dropped the rest of the way to the ground next to Kylie’s prone body. “Don’t move—”
“No, I’m okay,” she said, bouncing right up to quickly start walking back to the street.
“Kylie, stop. You’re not okay. You just blew out both knees on your jeans. Let me see your palms.”
“I’m fine,” she said, not stopping, not letting him touch her. Again she was on her phone, probably getting another Uber.
Her voice was shaking and her hands were too, but in some ways, her mom was right. Kylie needed to do things in her own way and in her own time, and Joe got that. He could give her the time she needed to get herself together. She had until they got back to her place, and then her time shutting him out was over. And yeah, he got the irony here. He’d shut her out first. But he was having a hell of a time keeping her shut out.
Chapter 27
#HastaLaVistaBaby
Kylie was still mad as she and Joe waited for an Uber. Mad at her mom, mad at her mom’s new boy toy, mad at the fire escape, and last but certainly not least, mad at Joe. To sum it up, she was mad at everyone and everything in her life.
Including herself.
Because dammit. Dammit, she could’ve really fallen for the smart, resourceful, resilient, stoically silent man behind her. But he’d cut off that possibility before he could feel the same. It infuriated her. No, wait, that wasn’t quite true.
It hurt her feelings.
But she wasn’t going to ask for more from him. She was going to move on. No more Gibs or Joes in her life.
Refusing to cry, which she had a tendency to do when she was really angry, she continued to ignore Joe as he insisted the Uber driver take them to his truck. Once there, he made a quick run up to his office for something—she didn’t care what—returning with a backpack slung over his shoulder, after which he drove her home. She unlocked her front door and limped into her apartment, throwing her things onto the couch before moving straight to the kitchen.
She still had ice cream in the freezer. She’d thought she’d needed Joe in her life. She’d thought she needed to talk to her mom. She’d thought she needed a lot of things, but it turned out that all she really needed in that moment was comfort food. Comfort food never failed her. Hauling out the ice cream, she slapped it into the microwave for fifteen seconds to soften it and then grabbed a spoon. Leaning against the counter, she dug in, eyes closed, concentrating only on the taste of the little chocolate chips melting on her tongue.
Thank God for chocolate.
Joe hadn’t followed her into the kitchen at first. Probably checking out the apartment, but she sensed when he showed up because her nipples got hard. Which was really annoying. She opened her eyes and yep, sure enough, he stood close, assessing her.
Normally when she was feeling way too many feelings, no one and nothing could get through to her. But the sight of him pulling Twinkies along with a first-aid kit from his backpack was enough for her to feel her eyes fill with tears. So that’s what he’d gone up to his office for. “I’m fine,” she said, sounding totally not fine, dammit.
He picked her up and set her on the kitchen counter and then handed her the Twinkies. “My emergency stash.”
“You keep Twinkies as an emergency stash?” she asked.
“Oh yeah. Don’t tell Archer.”
“Cute,” she said and felt a little chunk of her anger fall away. But only a little. “Thanks.”
He took a good look at her hands. Her right palm was scraped up pretty good. He cleaned it out and bandaged it. Then he pulled her knees apart and stepped between them. “Tilt your head back a little,” he instructed quietly, his hands resting on her thighs, warming her from the inside out.
She bared her neck, feeling a little bit like Little Red Riding Hood making herself available to the Big Bad Wolf. Joe pushed her hair away from her face and took her head in his big, warm hands, his gaze taking in the spot on her temple where she’d smacked it on her less than perfect fire escape landing. “Tender?” he asked, probing gently.
“No.” Not that she’d admit to anyway.
He brushed a small kiss to the spot, which she felt all the way through her body. Hold firm, she told herself. You’re hurt and angry with him, remember? Sexy times, no matter how good he made them, couldn’t take that hurt and anger away. Yes, she’d been mentally sidetracked by the sweet offering of the Twinkies but she was past that now.
He unzipped her sweatshirt and tugged it off, leaving her in just a thin camisole top, making her glad her nipples had gotten ahold of themselves and calmed down.
“How about here?” he asked, touching her shoulder where she’d also scraped herself and taken off a few layers of skin.
Since she couldn’t find her voice, she shrugged.
Ignoring her bad ‘tude, he kissed that spot too, his lips lingering a bit longer, and all bets were off as far as her happy
