by Danae Ayusso
Cat tenderly tilted Colt’s head to the side, exposing his cheek then carefully ran the blade along with the grain, making her first of three passes. “What specifically are you thinking about? The case?” she asked.
“Always the case,” he murmured, careful not to move.
“The one that eludes you,” she surmised.
“Pope eludes me. He’s always been there, just within reach even, but I could never see which direction to reach into the darkness in order to grasp him,” he admitted, and saying the words aloud—he had said them countless times in his head, but never out loud—caused them to echo in his heart, but it wasn’t accompanied with the usual guilt saying the words always caused.
One side of Cat’s mouth pulled up in a small, half-smile. “Poetic. Usually those we long to put away more than anything are the ones that we apparently can’t get our hands on.”
“And yet they’re always there to mock us,” he added.
“Yes, I suppose they are. In a theological sense, they are demons which haunt our waking moments, as well as our unconscious ones, however, no amount of praying will vanquish them. That’s where the law comes in, I suppose. Those that try to do the right thing and up hold the law would be considered the right hand of God, in a theological sense. Those that wish to bring about the end of days are the left hand. Your demon, the one that eludes and haunts you, is just a crazy sonuvabitch who needs a bullet in his head.”
There was something in her tone, something slightly dark and threatening, that made him take notice.
Colt’s hand snapped up and wrapped around her wrist, pulling the blade from his cheek. “You speak from experience,” he accused.
“We are all haunted by demons, Fury,” Cat said, pulling away from his grasp. “Some of us simply don’t have the option of exercising theirs. I envy you, Detective.”
“Why is that?” he scoffed.
“You have the opportunity to slay your demon,” she told him matter-of-factly.
Colt closed his eyes and shook his head in resignation. “Obviously, I can’t,” he whispered, and never had he felt or sounded more defeated than he did at that moment, admitting his greatest failure to a woman he just met, one who seemingly understood him and his guilt, dilemma and lost, more than anyone.
His eyes shot open when full, warm lips pressed against his forehead. The contact sent a screaming line of desire ripping through his body and straight to his groin. Both hands instantly went to cover his growing arousal, but Cat was apparently oblivious to it. And then, all too soon, she pulled away from him.
“You can and you will,” Cat assured him in a soft tone that was, not only, disarming and as unfamiliar to him as the fires which were seemingly coursing through his body from the point of contact straight to his burgeoning erection, but it caused his heart to race in his chest. It was something more than merely attraction or arousal, and it was something that he hadn’t felt in years: hope.
Cat braced herself against the chair with one hand so she was leaning over him, her face so close to his that her warm breath washed over his skin and coated his tongue with each breath she exhaled, and the scent rolling from her skin flooded his nostrils, seemingly wrapping around his mind, and her presence started chipping away at the ice his heart was incased in.
“If you’ll let me,” she whispered, her eyes moving over his many times, “I’ll help you. I ask for nothing in return, in fact, I don’t want anything at all, especially anything tying me to the case. My experience might be limited but a fresh set of eyes can mean the difference between five victims and six.”
That wasn’t what Colt was expecting her to say, and a part of him, the part throbbing under his hands and towel especially, was disappointed. But the rest of him was grateful for her offer.
“I don’t want you getting hurt,” he said before he could stop himself.
She softly snorted. “Hurt? You’re just scared you’ll get your ass handed to you like Probie did... merda,” she huffed and erected herself.
“What?” Colt asked, struggling to regain his composure.
Cat shook her head. “It’s nothing. I just promised that I’d buy Probie a beer since I broke his nose and knocked him out.”
Suddenly, a pang of jealousy stabbed at Colt, but he didn’t know where it was coming from. Never had he been jealous of anyone before, but to be jealous of a rookie that was simply going to have drinks with a woman he’d just met irritated him.
“Serves you right for breaking his nose and escaping,” Colt grumbled under his breath, getting a smack upside the head in return. “Ow,” he complained.
“Don’t mumble, it’s rude,” Cat scolded before smirking. “I have to admit,” she said, stroking her chin thoughtfully, “I do good work. Why don’t you put some clothes on and get your cock under control and you can escort me to the bar since I don’t know where it is and we can discuss the case more over a drink.”
Normally, Colt would have a short comeback and told her no real fast. But she was inviting him to go with her, to protect her in a sense—in his mind it translated to that—and join them for drinks, meaning that it wasn’t a date between her and Mickey.
“Give me twenty minutes to find something that might fit?” he offered.
Cat smiled, looking slightly mischievous and slightly relieved. “I’ll clean up,” she said and dismissively waved him away before she turned her attention to cleaning up after them.
“Thank you,” he said before he could stop himself then hurried from the room.
The bar was crowed, stunk like a urinal bathed in stale beer, was horribly loud, slightly seedy, and needed burned down, in Cat’s opinion, but she’d been to worse. The jukebox played every country song ever recorded, according to Cat, and the liquor selection was extremely limited. Mickey smiled she walked in, but it was replaced by confusion when Colt quickly followed and escorted her through the bar with his hand on the small of her back. She warned him under her breath that if he touched her Walther again, she’d use it on him. Of course he simply rolled his eyes and continued to rest his hand between the grip of the gun and the small of her back, his thumb absently rubbing her back in a soothing manner that actually kept her from pulling a weapon on him.
It was well after eleven when they got to the bar. Emma demanded that they have dinner first. James called to make sure that Colt didn’t run back to his mountain hole. When Emma assured him that Colt was eating dinner with her and Cat, he said that he’d be working late at the office before he hung up the phone. Emma washed Colt’s clothes so he had something to wear since he ripped four different shirts that he pulled from storage, to Cat’s amusement.
“How old are you?” Cat asked over the music when the waitress arrived with their drinks.
Mickey blushed.
Cat glared at him and took the bottle of beer from him as he brought it to his lips, then handed it back to the waitress. “He’ll take a Coke,” she said.
Colt chuckled under his breath, shaking his head in amusement.
Mickey sulked down in his seat and pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. “First you break my nose and now you’re acting like my mother,” he grumbled.
Cat rolled her eyes. “You are an officer of the law,” she reminded him. “If you want others to uphold the law, you have to first uphold it yourself. The oath you took isn’t to be taken lightly,” she scolded. “And yes, I sound like your madre, but I shouldn’t have to.” She held her hand out. “Give me your wallet,” she said.
Mickey looked to Colt, but he simply shrugged with a smirk. Reluctant, he pulled his wallet out and handed it to her.
Cat quickly flipped through it then handed it back to him. “You’re barely twenty,” she mumbled. “Where is your badge, young man?”
“On my uniform?” he offered with a shrug.
“Only in Montana,” Cat mumbled under her breath. “Never leave home without your badge or sidearm. Ever,” she told him.
Mickey’s eyes widened and he quick
ly nodded.
“Good,” she said, seemingly content with his obedience, and picked up her drink and sniffed it before putting it back down without taking a drink. “Did they find anything at the scene?” she asked pointblank.
Mickey looked to Colt, of course, and to his surprise, Colt nodded for him to tell her. “Nothing, just like with the others,” he said, keeping his voice low so no one overheard. “There were a few, what Raven called, out of place stones. She’s following up on it in her typical tribal way.”
Cat looked to Colt, but he was staring off across the bar at nothing. One of his large hands was wrapped around his bottle of beer, and his index finger absently tapped against the neck, but he hadn’t taken a drink. She understood without him even having to say it aloud so she turned her attention back to Mickey. “Tell me about yourself, Probie,” she said, changing the conversation since Colt was closing up on her because of the other. “Why did you become a cop?”
Again, Mickey looked to Colt for direction, but he wouldn’t get it this time. “Well, honestly,” he said, his pale skin flushing with embarrassment, “I wanted to be like Detective Fury,” he admitted, and absently bounced his straw up and down in his glass of Coke.
“That’s sweet,” Cat said with a warm smile, which instantly made Mickey smile in return. “Do you enjoy it? Are you happy with your chosen career path?”
He shrugged and nodded at the same time. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m the youngest of five, all brothers, so I’m used to being the whipping post.”
She reassuringly patted his hand. “It’ll get better. When you’re a Rookie, you have to earn your balls, in a matter of speaking. Once you prove yourself, earn their respect, you’ll no longer be Probie or Rookie, you’ll be Officer Joyce.”
A smile filled his face. “You think so?”
“I know so,” she assured him.
Mickey rambled after that, telling them all about the scene and what they processed. Cat tried to pay attention, and she took more than one mental note, but her eyes kept flickering to Colt. It’d been a while since she’d shaved a man’s face—her padre taught her the unusual skill set, and Frankie took advantage of it whenever he had a hot date he wanted to impress—and never had it been such a sensual experience before. As she pulled the ivory handled straight razor across Colt’s hair roughened face, peeling away hairy layer by layer, it felt as if she was peeling away layers of guilt, stress, pain, the past, his demons, and loss. And once the last of the hair was scraped away, Cat knew she was in trouble.
Colt wasn’t an attractive man, by the standards she’d been surrounded by since she was a child, but he was the manliness looking specimen of masculinity she’d ever seen. His nose was rugged like an Americanized Englishman, jaw was wide with sharp lines and narrow chin that reminded her of the chiseled jaw set in determination of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s last masterpiece in the center of Grand Army Plaza. Colt’s light tanned skin was weathered from exposure in the tough climate on the mountain, but it felt like velvet under her lips, the soft dusting of freckles he had masking under each eye were endearing, she thought, making him appear slightly younger than thirty-three, and his deep brown eyes were more noticeable now that he had lost a few pounds worth of hair from his face.
Those that were in the bar instantly quieted when they walked in, then the whispering started. To Cat’s surprise, the entire town didn’t know about the body on Elkhart Drive, but when they saw that Colt had come down from his mountain home, they knew that Dei Sponsa must have been back.
“The FBI will come tomorrow,” Mickey said after he finished his third Coke. “Since the other agent retired they’re sending out someone named...” his words trailed off and he gnawed on his bottom lip while he tried to remember the name that was mentioned to the Sheriff, which Mickey just happened to have overhear. “Agent Marrows?” he said, scratching his head.
Colt impassively listened, he wasn’t particularly interested in any of that, but the slight change in Cat at the mention of the Agent made him take note.
“You don’t say,” she said, her nostrils flaring.
Mickey shrugged, oblivious to the change in her demeanor.
“Hey, Probie, will you get me a coffee?” Cat asked.
“Of course!” he beamed. “Did you want anything, Detective?” he asked, turning to Colt.
Colt shook his head and dismissively waved him away.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to hit the head,” Cat said, and stood.
Before he could say anything, she was heading towards the back of the bar and ducked down the darkened hallway leading towards the bathrooms.
Colt looked between Mickey, who was leaning on the bar chatting it up with another minor that shouldn’t even be in there, and to where Cat disappeared. “Damn it,” he huffed and got to his feet then hurried across the bar and down the darkened hallway.
There’d be no way to hear if she was on a cell phone, not that he noticed if she had one or not, and she didn’t carry a purse. But something was very wrong. As soon as Mickey said Agent Marrows, Cat went from being relaxed and stealing glances at Colt to her back being ramrod straight, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring, sternomastoid bulging along the sides of her neck...it was an involuntary physical reaction, one that translated to rage.
Colt knew it himself all too well.
He knew it was wrong to invade Cat’s personal space, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong and that it was going to change things. Not that they weren’t already changing, especially in ways that he didn’t want them to change and never expected, but he found himself trying to be complacent.
And that was solely because of Cat Rogers.
Colt found himself hanging on every word that left her lips, and when she laughed, he wanted to laugh with her, and when she smiled, his heart tightened in his chest, and every time she reached out and patted Mickey’s hand, a pang of jealousy stabbed at him.
That wasn’t right, and it sure in the hell wasn’t Colt Fury.
Never had he been jealous of anyone before. In his old life, when they’d go out after work, and Vicks would join them at the bar, she’d dance with other men, but he wasn’t jealous in the least. Most of the time he didn’t even realize Vicks was dancing, and since he wasn’t a dancer, it was a reprieve for the most part, but even then, he was never jealous. He didn’t get irritated or jealous when Vicks hugged someone else, or when a couple of the rookies admitted they had crushes on her. Colt just chuckled about it and went back to his drink and the boys. He feels guilty about that now, but at the time it didn’t bother him.
So why was it different with Cat?
Even with the cigarette smoke rolling from the emergency door which was propped open, allowing smoke to snake in with the breeze, the stench of stale beer and cheap liquor mixing with the redolence from the restrooms which were in desperate need of cleaning, Colt could still smell Cat’s subtle smell; cotton, soft powder, deodorant, and the unmistakable smell of gun oil. For some reason, as backwards as it was, it made perfect sense for Cat.
Colt was leaning against the wall in the shadows when the bathroom door opened, and he wasn’t surprised in the least when the barrel of a Walther PP pressed against his side before Cat’s head popped out of the doorway.
“Are you spying?” she asked.
Colt looked down at her, the three inches of height difference between his six-three frame and her nearly six-foot seemed like so much more when you have a loaded gun pressed against your stomach. “No, Ma’am,” he assured her. “You appeared upset and Emma would whoop me if I didn’t do the gentlemanly thing and make sure that you were okay.”
The corners of her mouth pulled up on one side. “Has that line ever worked?”
“Obviously not since you still have a gun on me,” he retorted.
“Uh huh,” she said before chuckling, tucking the gun back behind her and pulled her sweater down over it. “Sorry about that. Gin goes right through me,” she said an
d motioned for him to lead the way.
Colt nodded his agreement even though she hadn’t touched her drink, and walked next to her, once again resting his hand on the small of her back as he escorted her to the table where Mickey sat with James.
“There you are, I was wondering if you up and ran off,” Mickey teased with a smile. “Did you want to dance?” he asked, offering Cat his hand.
An unfamiliar possessiveness flared in Colt and he fought the urge to pull Cat behind him and to protect her from the man who was trying to steal her attention. It wasn’t his place to do such, and he knew that, and the fact that he’d never felt that type of possessiveness before, even with his fiancée, flooded him with guilt.
James smiled at them. “Grandmother would be upset if she heard you went out and didn’t dance at least once,” he said. “Dance with Mickey, I think he has a bit of a crush on you.”
The possessiveness consumed the guilt and for a fraction of a second, Colt wished that he was armed.
Mickey’s eyes widened. “Jimmy?” he hissed. “Seriously?”
Cat chuckled and shook her head. “I don’t dance, sorry.”
Instantly Mickey’s face dropped.
“But,” she said with a smile, “I play video games. And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t those video games over there?” she asked, motioning with her chin to the far corner.
A smile consumed Mickey’s face and he nodded. Cat followed him, giving Colt a look which caused him to roll his eyes.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” James said.
Colt looked at him curiously, torn between following Cat and Mickey or sitting with James. From the table, he could clearly see the other two across the bar now that most of the patrons had left, so he took a seat and kicked his legs out in front of him. “Emma hinted that I looked like a dirty hippie and was going to ruin her reputation.”
