by Jill Shalvis
Kel pulled out his phone.
This got him a reaction. She whipped around, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the cops.”
The look on her face defied description. Incredulous disbelief and maybe instant wariness. “No, you’re not.”
Okay, definite wariness. Cops made her nervous. Interesting. “You have a problem with the police, Ivy?”
She tossed up her hands. “Why are you even here? Go away.”
He wasn’t going to do that, for a bunch of reasons, the least being that she could be in danger. “Do you have something to hide?”
Ignoring him and his question, she pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a text. Then she went about turning on the lights. When a text came in, she read it, sighed, and slipped the phone away.
“Who was that?”
She looked at him as if surprised he was still there. “My employee, Jenny. She closed up tonight like always, and said everything was fine when she left, no problems.” She began methodically taking everything out of her fridge and freezer. When he tried to help, she “accidentally” elbowed him in the gut.
“Oops, sorry,” she said, sounding anything but. “Stand back. Better yet, get out.”
“Not going to happen.”
Turning to him, she went hands on hips and blew a strand of hair from her face. “Why not?” she asked in exasperation.
“Because someone violated your personal space.” He softened his voice. “And you seem shaken by that, as anyone would be. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“Okay,” he said, calling her bluff.
She stared at him and then rolled her eyes. “I can’t, okay?”
“Why not?”
“It’s too late.”
“A friend won’t care,” he said. “Neither will a boyfriend.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but she was both the most infuriating and yet fascinating woman he’d ever met.
Her gaze shuddered and again she turned away. “Even if I called the police, they can’t do much. It was just some light vandalism, and missing cash is impossible to trace.”
He knew this to be true, frustrating as it was. “If you’re not going to call anyone, I’m staying.”
“Fine.” She gathered up her red waves of hair and tamed it into submission with a hairband she’d had around her wrist. Then she slapped a pair of latex gloves against his chest and donned her own pair. “You can make yourself useful.”
He called a 24–7 locksmith, who showed up and replaced the lock, while Kel and Ivy dumped what had to be hundreds of dollars of food since they couldn’t be sure it was still safe to serve.
Kel paid the locksmith, and in doing so pissed off Ivy. He hadn’t meant to step on her pride, but he had the feeling she was already stretched thin, and the late-night cost of having the guy come out hadn’t been cheap.
“I’m going to pay you back,” Ivy said stiffly.
He hated that she was acting like an injured animal with her back up to the wall, so he did his best to give her lots of space. Not easy in the close quarters, but he deferred to her for what she wanted done and then quietly followed her example without pushing.
And he wanted to push. He wanted to know why she felt so . . . alone. Why she didn’t trust anyone. But she wasn’t exactly an open book, so he worked alongside of her, meticulously scrubbing everything down.
“People rave about your food,” he said.
She looked up, and he could tell the statement gave her pleasure, but she kept her cool. “Everyone loves a good taco.”
“Do you do it all yourself?”
“I’ve got part-time help. Jenny’s a grad student and helps serve the dinner crowd. But I do all the food stuff.”
“You’re a good cook.” He cocked his head. “Or is the right word chef?”
She grimaced. “Chef seems a bit fancy for what I do.”
“I’ve gone to upscale restaurants that don’t come even close to what you manage to create inside this truck.”
She bit her lower lip as if to hold back her smile, but those blue eyes lit. Nice to see the spark back. He hated what the break-in had done to them, leaving them hollow and haunted. “How did you learn to cook?” he asked.
“My earliest memories are of rifling through what was available to eat and making it seem better than it was,” she said, and shrugged. Her head was down now, she was concentrating on scrubbing her counter as if its life depended on it. “I was four maybe?” She shrugged again. “Turns out, I like to eat.”
His chest had gone tight, and he had questions, so many questions, but he worked at keeping his mouth shut because he wanted her to keep talking.
“As I got older,” she said, “I realized I was good at it.”
“Where did you grow up?” he asked, having detected a very slight, maybe Southern, accent in certain words.
“We moved around a lot, mostly the South though. My first jobs were cooking in bars. Eventually I worked my way up to restaurants, honing the skills. But once a city rat, always a city rat. Staying in one place made me itchy and anxious. I liked being on the move, never settling down.”
“You could work at any five-star restaurant in the city,” Kel said.
She shook her head. “I’m not that good.”
“Yes, you are.”
Their gazes met and held. He’d have sworn the air shimmered and heated, but that was most likely either exhaustion or wishful thinking.
She looked away first. “I’ve always liked being able to move around when I want to. Running a food truck’s the natural progression for me.” She smiled. “Old habits die hard and all that.”
She’d carefully left off any mention of family, and while he wanted to know so much more, he didn’t want to spook her either. “You’ve got a brother. Older? Younger?”
“Brandon’s two years older.” She was turned away from him now, still scrubbing. “He was fond of eating too, so he was happy that one of us was willing to cook.” She paused a moment. “He was the dessert king though. We had quite the sweet tooth, and that was his job. Getting the sweets.”
Her voice hadn’t changed, but there was something off about her body language. It was defensive, and didn’t match her casual voice, and he realized it was the same way she’d acted when Caleb had mentioned her brother that morning. Wishing he could see her face, he asked, “What about your parents?”
She shrugged. “My dad was never around, and my mom worked nights singing in bar lounges and sleeping during the day.”
“So you’re self-taught,” he said, and she laughed, although he wasn’t sure it was with true mirth.
“Most definitely self-taught. How about you?” she asked, turning the tables on him. “Do you cook?”
“If I have to,” he said, making her laugh again, which he enjoyed. “Not while I’m here though. I’m staying with Caleb. His fiancée, Sadie, has been cooking. My cousin’s spoiled rotten and doesn’t even know it.”
“Oh, he knows it. Sadie’s great.”
“You know her?”
She nodded. “I was invited to the pub tonight, but I had work to do. You’re here on vacation?” she asked, changing the subject from herself. “And to work with Caleb?”
Not vacation. More like a leave of absence while his superiors poured over his last case, the one case in all the years he’d served in law enforcement to go bad. They’d decide his fate, which, for the record, he hated. “I’ve got two weeks off and Caleb nagged me out here.” His good humor faded some as he thought of that, of how upon going back, his life could go one of two ways.
“To handle security on the new building,” she said. “Because Archer Hunt and his investigations and security company, who’d normally handle this, aren’t available. Something about a government contract and being stretched too thin.”
“You know a lot about Caleb.”
“Everyone in this building are friends and coworkers. And most of them gossip like middle schooler
s.” She shook her head. “There aren’t many secrets here.”
“I’m getting that,” Kel said. “I’m putting together security teams to manage and handle Caleb’s new buildings. That, and setting up the security systems, getting them in place to run smoothly for after I’m gone. Caleb put some temporary contract workers in place to cover everything, but he needs someone in charge.”
She met his gaze. “And you’re good at being in charge.”
A statement not a question, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment of any sort, so he did his best to look harmless and innocent.
With a snort, she went back to work.
Okay, so she wasn’t easily fooled. And she was most definitely not a slacker. It was two hours before she was satisfied they’d cleaned and properly sterilized everything. Then she took out a small menu chalkboard, wiped it clean, and wrote CLOSED for breakfast, but will open at 11 for lunch. She hung it on her closed serving window.
“I’ll need the morning to restock,” she explained as they exited the trailer into the chilly night.
“And maybe to sleep,” he said, noticing the time.
She shrugged, like sleep wasn’t as important as her job.
He could understand that. He’d made his job more important than his life for years.
San Francisco never closed its eyes. Even at three in the morning, the city was hopping. Traffic flowing. People moving on the streets. With what sounded like a bone-weary sigh, Ivy turned to the new lock on her truck. She struggled with it a moment, so he moved in close to help, once again making her jerk in surprise.
“Seriously,” she snapped. “Stop sneaking up on me.”
Her fingers were freezing. He pulled his gloves from his jacket pocket and handed them to her.
“I’m not taking your gloves,” she said, shoving her hands into her sweatshirt pocket.
“Not taking,” he said. “Borrowing.”
Her shoulders slowly lowered from where they’d been up at her ears. “Okay, thanks,” she said, almost begrudgingly, making him laugh.
“What?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
“You’re as prickly as a porcupine.”
She cocked her head. “Is that something you say on your ranch in Idaho?”
So she had been listening to his and Caleb’s and Jake’s breakfast conversation earlier. Interesting. In another woman, he might’ve taken that as a sign of interest. In this woman, he had no idea. “It’s something you say anywhere,” he said. “Especially when it’s true.”
“I’m not a big people person,” she admitted in a tone that said sorry-not-sorry. “People are often my biggest pet peeve.” She looked at him as if he might say something about that.
“Hey,” he said. “I get it.”
“What’s your biggest pet peeve?”
He thought about that. “I guess being lied to. Gets me every time.”
She didn’t say anything to this, and he eyed her taco truck. “And you’re sure you don’t want to call—”
“I’m sure.”
“A friend might be good about now,” he said. “I know Sadie, or any of the women in that very close-knit group, would want to be here for you.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine. Someone just needed cash and food, and got sloppy. It’s all cleaned up, no need to bother anyone about it.”
He disagreed, but he knew enough about her already to know that pushing her into doing something she didn’t want to do would only make her close off further. “Come on, you look done in. I’ll walk you to your car.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t have a car,” he said.
“I have a taco truck.”
He smiled. “For which I’m incredibly grateful, since your food’s amazing. How did you get here?”
“Lyft.” She pulled out her phone but he covered her hand with his. “I’ll drive you.”
She looked at him for a long beat, her hood up now, covering her gorgeous hair, her face not quite as pale, those eyes seeming to see right into him. Finally, she nodded, and he had no idea why he felt as if he’d just won the lottery.
Chapter 4
Rise up and take the challenge . . .
Kel led Ivy to his truck, where he held open the door for her, waiting until she’d buckled up. When he walked around the front of the vehicle and slid behind the wheel a moment later, he felt the weight of her gaze. “Something on your mind?” he asked.
“Who taught you to be so polite?”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. His grandma would be laughing her ass off right now as well.
“Is something funny?” she asked a little stiffly. “And I take it back, by the way. You’re not so polite at all.”
“My grandparents practically had to beat manners into me,” he said. “They’d be very amused to hear you say you think I’m polite.”
“Your grandparents?” she asked. “Not your parents?”
“My dad died when I was twelve. My sister and I were sent to Idaho to be raised by our grandparents. They’re both gone now.”
Her smile faded. “I’m sorry. What about your mom?”
He concentrated on the road as he pulled into the street. “Where’s your place?”
“The Tenderloin,” she said, and gave him the address. “Are you not answering about your mom on purpose?”
“Yes.”
She smiled at that, and he relaxed. “I like it when you do that,” he said.
“What?”
“Smile.”
She rolled her eyes and looked out the window.
They didn’t speak again, just drove through the city lit within an inch of its life for the holidays with festive garlands and twinkling lights on every block.
Then the neighborhood changed. The decorations vanished, as did pride of ownership, each street more run down than the last.
Ivy had him stop at a very old, possibly falling off its axis Victorian that had seen better days—like five decades ago. It’d clearly been broken up into a few apartments, one per floor. He counted three floors, and what was possibly an attic. He didn’t like the street and layout, and he especially didn’t like the bushes and shrubbery that were overgrown and too close to the house. The ground floor was a security nightmare. Someone could climb into any window virtually undetected. The top floor was just as bad because there were gussets strengthening the angle of the structure that could easily be used to climb like a ladder up the corner of the place. “Tell me you don’t live on the first or the top floor.”
“I don’t live on the first level.”
He looked at her.
“But I do live on the top floor. It’s the attic.”
Shit.
Ivy unhooked her seatbelt. “Thanks for the help.” She turned to him and in the soft ambient light looked at him. Like really looked at him, as if maybe she was seeing him for the first time.
“How did you know anything was wrong?” he asked. “How did you know to show up at the truck?”
“Instinct,” she said. “Just a feeling, I guess.” She held his gaze. “And now the same question to you. How did you know anything was wrong?”
“I heard you cry out.”
She cocked her head, eyeing him like he was a puzzle and she was missing some pieces. “Most people would’ve run the other way, but you ran toward what could’ve been a dangerous situation.”
“I’m the law.”
Something flickered in her gaze at that. She didn’t like that he was a cop. “The law can be dirty,” she said.
As he well knew, but he wasn’t going there. Instead, he let a teasing smile come into his voice. “True. And I can be very dirty, but only when I’m off duty, and only if you ask real nice.”
She laughed out loud at that, the sound both soft and musical. “Okay, I’ll give this to you—you’re funny. And maybe also sexy as hell, but this isn’t happening, Cowboy.”
He’d take sexy as hell any day of the week. “We’re just talking.”
> “Uh-huh,” she said dryly. “But when men talk, they think they’re flirting, and to them flirting leads to everything else, which is always a disappointment. And if I wanted to be disappointed, I’d just go inside and stream The Bachelor.”
“How do you know I’d disappoint?”
“You’re a man, aren’t you?”
He slid her a look. “Coloring all of us with the same pen then?”
She shrugged and slipped out of his truck. He got out too, and there on the sidewalk, she put a hand to his chest. “You’re not coming up until I invite you.”
He liked the promise of “until,” but he left it alone for now. “I’m not coming in unless you invite me,” he clarified, extremely aware of the fact that even as they stood there, they were being watched by two homeless people sitting under a tree, a man smoking on the driveway next door, and two guys loitering at the corner. “But I am going to walk you to your door,” he said firmly.
He waited for her response, still keeping vigilant on their peripheral audience. Even twenty years ago when he’d last been familiar with the city, this neighborhood was known for bad news and he liked to be ready for the worst.
Ivy tilted her head as she studied him. “You’re different.”
“Now you’re getting it.” He took her hand. “Come on.”
They passed the tree, under which were two women, each huddled beneath a pile of dirty blankets.
“Hey, girl,” one of them said.
Ivy smiled. “Hey, Jasmine. Too cold to work?”
“My corner flooded, thanks to a broken hydrant.”
“Sucks,” Ivy said. “Hey, Martina. Bad week?”
Martina uncovered her head and nodded.
Ivy handed over something from inside her big purse. It was some food from her truck that hadn’t spoiled, but couldn’t be served because she didn’t know if it’d been handled.
“Thanks,” Martina said. “Can Marietta still hang with you tomorrow afternoon?”
“Of course,” Ivy said and led Kel up the steps to the building.
“Who’s Marietta?” he asked.
“Martina’s daughter. Martina’s bipolar and schizophrenic. She lives at home with her elderly mom and her fourteen-year-old daughter, but sometimes when she goes off the meds, she goes to the streets.”
