by Lori Wilde
We?
Marlie studied him a long, empty second as she tried to process why Joel would be willing to get involved in her problems. She didn’t trust guys who were too helpful.
Kemp eyed her tousled hair and bare feet and the fact she was wearing a man’s shirt. He snapped a quick look at Joel. Marlie could see him jumping to the wrong conclusions about their relationship. She didn’t know if it was worth the trouble to set him straight or not. He probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“So tell me exactly what happened.”
Trying her best to remain unemotional, Marlie detailed her run-in with the UPS-man-turned-deranged-psycho-killer.
“Let’s go see this alleged crime scene.” Kemp nodded tersely, his boots crunching across the broken glass as he headed for the back door.
Marlie looked from her bare feet to the door, but before she could say a word, Joel’s arms were at her waist. He picked her up off the floor as easily as if she weighed thirty pounds instead of a hundred and thirty.
“Hey,” Marlie said breathlessly. “What’s this all about?”
“Put your arms around my neck so I don’t drop you.” He toted her over the threshold and out onto the back porch before pulling the door closed behind them.
“There’s no need.” She resisted, amplifying their closeness by keeping her arms folded over her chest. “You can put me down now; we’re clear of the glass.”
“Nope.” His chest rose in a slow, I’m-being-patient-with-you breath.
She controlled herself with effort and spoke in a terse, coiled voice. “I don’t like the way you take control without asking my permission.”
“Tough. It’s winter, you’re shoeless, and you’ve had an unpleasant shock.”
“Who died and made you God,” she grumbled.
“If you don’t like it, break into someone else’s house next time. Now, put your arms around me.”
Reluctantly, she slid her arms around his neck. His shoulder muscles corded at her touch. Her body flushed with heat against his reaction.
“I want to be clear about this,” she whispered.
“About what?”
“About . . . about . . .” She snorted indelicately, trying to find the words to express what she was feeling, but Kemp interrupted before she could even decide what she meant to say.
“This the fence you climbed over?”
The cop stopped beside the six-foot privacy fence separating her property from Joel’s. He eyed the boards as if they were suspects in a lineup.
“Yes.”
“You’re claiming you scaled this fence barefooted while there was a semiautomatic-wielding assassin chasing after you?” Kemp frowned.
What was this guy’s problem? Just because she was against overfishing the sea and his father was a shrimper didn’t give him the right to act like she was guilty of something, especially when she was the victim here.
“I had socks on,” she said, knowing full well she sounded defensive.
“He just let you get away? Some hit man.”
“I told you he was injured.” Marlie felt like a lapdog addressing Kemp from the circle of Joel’s arms. She was at a distinct disadvantage. She wriggled, wanting down.
“You said that he was hit by a ricochet bouncing off your bowling ball.”
“That’s correct.”
Kemp stroked his chin. He had that something’s-not-adding-up look in his eyes.
Marlie squirmed harder against Joel and accidentally poked him with an elbow, but instead of putting her down he just tightened his grip. Her irritation sat big inside her, a disgruntled elephant. She didn’t like being manhandled, even though in a bizarre way it felt very pleasant.
Kemp made a noise of disbelief, shook his head, then opened Joel’s gate and led them around to Marlie’s side of the fence. The closer they got to her back door, the faster her heart pumped.
“What if the killer is still in there?” she murmured.
“Stay back until I clear the house,” Kemp instructed.
Joel surprised her by stopping and waiting at the corner of the house beside the peach tree—which still wore a swatch of Marlie’s white T-shirt. It fluttered in the breeze like a truce flag. Kemp drew his duty weapon, cautiously twisted the doorknob, and then disappeared inside.
Two minutes later, he was back, holstering his gun. “The place is clear.”
“Put me down,” Marlie said to Joel through clenched teeth as soon as they were inside her house.
Slowly, he let her slide to the floor. Her bottom skimmed lightly over his hard masculine thigh. The glide down his leg seemed infinite, an endless slip out of time and space. She ignored the resulting tingle and resolutely turned her back on Joel to find Officer Kemp studying her intently.
“You said this unknown assailant shot up your coffee table. That right?”
“Yes, that’s what happened.” Marlie hurried from her kitchen to the adjoining living area to show him the evidence and stopped dead in her tracks.
Her mouth dropped open. Unable to believe what she was seeing, she blinked and rubbed her eyes.
The coffee table was gone.
Cosmo Villereal loved his new job at the Office of Navy Intelligence.
He was working as part of a dedicated team that made a difference in his country’s national defense. What could be more fulfilling than that? Granted, the job was extremely challenging. The ONI held him to the highest of standards and he put in eighty-hour workweeks, but there was nowhere else he would rather be.
Not even back in Corpus with Marlie.
Since he’d been away from his old friend, Cosmo had come to realize Marlie had been right about their relationship. That while the mental connection they shared was intense, the physical spark just wasn’t there. For years he’d tried to take their friendship beyond the platonic, but Marlie had resisted.
Now, since Treeni Delaney had come strolling into his life, Cosmo understood why.
His feelings for Marlie were more brotherly than loverly. He just hated that they’d fought over his job and that he’d left town before they’d resolved things between them.
Treeni Delaney.
She was pure vixen, and you never knew what she would dare do next. She was nothing like sweet, predictable Marlie. Treeni was tall and lithe and muscular, and he certainly wouldn’t mind being trapped between those powerful thighs. Plus, she was a hellacious beauty with a face that could stop traffic and a body to match. Part Jordanian, part American, dual citizenship. And according to the office watercooler gossip, the best damn spy the U.S. Navy had in the Middle East.
The olive-green color of her eyes she’d inherited from her father, Chet Delaney, former director of the ONI. The slight exotic tilt of those sharp green eyes came strictly from her mother, Nyra, who claimed direct lineage to the Jordanian royal family. Treeni’s nose was regal, a perfect complement to those striking eyes. She had a wide teasing smile that she wielded like a weapon and silky smooth skin the color of toasted almonds. She had a bold, uninhibited voice that made everyone around her sit up and take notice. Her hair was chestnut brown and she wore it in a sleek, straight style. Her breasts weren’t too big nor were they too small; in fact, they were perfect.
Treeni was perfect. Not that he had a ghost of a chance with a woman like her.
Cosmo had heard the rumors. She was the talk of the ONI. He knew that in her line of work she had to be a master manipulator. She’d brought down some very powerful men using questionable techniques, but the bottom line was that she got the job done when few others could.
But rather than scare him off, her reputation fueled his desire, and now he arrived early to work every morning just so he could stand by his desk and watch her saunter in.
And here she came, strutting her stuff in boots and a chain-mail micro-mini. Fifteen minutes late as usual. But Treeni could get away with tardiness. It had as much to do with her crackerjack spying abilities as her stunning beauty or her father’s executive positi
on.
She had two cups of Starbucks coffee in her hands, and instead of walking on past as usual with a glib, teasing greeting, she sidled over to him, a thousand-kilowatt smile on her face.
Holy smokes.
Cosmo had fantasized about this moment a hundred times, but he’d never really believed it would ever come to pass. His heart somersaulted. No way was this really happening. He had to be dreaming. It was too surreal to think otherwise. The luscious Treeni Delaney, soon-to-be first daughter of the White House, bestowing her attention upon him.
Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, don’t wake up.
“’Mornin’, Cosmo.” She gave him a sultry wink.
She knows my name!
Treeni rested her shapely butt against his desk and leaned over. She extended one of the Starbucks cups toward him. A quick look down told him that she was wearing one of her infamous low-cut blouses and giving him an exceptional view of her cleavage.
On purpose.
He snapped his gaze back to her face and found her smirking smugly. “Like what you see?”
“I . . . uh . . .” Don’t stutter, you idiot.
“Relax,” she said. “I don’t mind. Here, I brought you an espresso.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t drink espresso, it made him jittery, but Cosmo reached for the cup as if she were offering him the elixir to immortality.
Treeni scooted closer, one lean thigh edging up over the corner of his desk. “My father tells me you’ve got an IQ of one eighty.”
Cosmo pulled at his collar with an index finger. “Actually it’s one eighty-three.”
“My, my, my.” She walked two fingers up his tie.
Cosmo gulped and simply let her walk all over him.
“Aren’t you precise? I find brainy men a real turn-on. My father also tells me you’re very thorough. I hear that your first day on the job you found a computing error that was costing us thousands of dollars a year.”
“I try,” Cosmo said, doing his damnedest not to blush and give his feelings away.
She kept leaning in closer until her lips were just inches from his. He knew without looking around that every eye in the vicinity was on them. Every eye in the vicinity was always on Treeni.
“You know what?” she said in a voice as breathy and seductive as Marilyn Monroe’s.
“What?”
“I married the last man my father told me was very thorough.” Treeni gave a husky laugh that sounded the way date palm fruits would sound if they could laugh—dry and rich and exotic.
“You’re married?” Cosmo gulped. He was more disappointed than a kid who’d just learned Santa Claus didn’t exist.
“Not anymore.” Treeni’s green eyes twinkled and she slid to her feet.
His hopes rebounded.
They were standing toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose. She smelled intoxicatingly of lotus flower and tangerines. She was so close he could feel the heat radiating off her body in sensuous waves.
I’ve died, Cosmo thought. I’ve died and gone to heaven.
“Here’s the deal,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” He was scarcely breathing. Scarcely thinking. At least not with anything above the waist. It felt as if his heart had been shot from a cannon. If Mensa could see him now, they’d permanently revoke his membership card.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure, Ms. Delaney, whatever you need.”
“Call me Treeni.”
“Yes, Treeni.” He cleared his throat. God, she was going to flatten him like a pancake, but he didn’t care. He was that wowed by her. Better to take a chance and regret it than never to take a chance at all.
She fished in her cleavage for a business card and pressed it into his hand. “This is my address. Be there at eight o’clock tonight, bring your laptop, and don’t disappoint me.”
“So, Nancy Drew,” Officer Kemp taunted Marlie, “is it the case of the missing coffee table, or did you just make up the assassination attempt crap? Are you aware that it’s a crime to file a false police report?”
“Where did it go?” Unable to believe what her eyes were telling her, Marlie turned in circles in the middle of the living room.
“Tell the truth. Do you even own a coffee table?” Kemp challenged her.
She wasn’t paying him any attention. She was trying to figure out what had happened. “There’s got to be wood chips, bullet casings, something.”
Frantically, she dropped to her knees and began searching the carpet, even though she knew it was futile. From the uniform direction of the pile it was clear the floor had been vacuum-cleaned. Even the clump of dust bunnies underneath the couch had disappeared.
Say what you would about the assassin, he was very clean.
Marlie nibbled a thumbnail as anxiety pushed against her. She sat down hard on her bottom in the middle of the floor. Desperate for an ally, she looked up at Joel.
He stood silently in the corner, his eyes sharp and alert, arms crossed over his chest. She could see him assessing and analyzing her, but she could not tell what he was thinking.
Did he believe her? Or was he on the side of the skeptical lawman? Perhaps he merely felt that he’d gotten caught up in something that was none of his business, and he was trying to figure out a classy way to make an exit.
Briefly, he made eye contact with her but then glanced away as if he regretted even that small connection. The hard angles of his profile made him seem very out of place in her living room.
All rightee then.
His position was clear enough. Except for Angelina, she was on her own. No problem. She was used to it. Hell, she preferred it that way. She really did. She didn’t need anybody. Not even Cosmo. She had Angelina. That was enough.
But I’m just a cartoon character, Angelina pointed out.
Yeah? So? What was wrong with that? Lifting her chin, Marlie hardened her heart against the attraction. Never mind the quaking in her knees. She’d survived a lot worse than this. Mentally, she stuck her tongue out at her fear. Do your worst.
The two men were standing around staring at her as if she’d lost her marbles, and then Marlie remembered the bowling ball. She scrambled to her feet.
“My bowling ball! Find my bowling ball. The UPS guy shot my bowling ball. That should prove I’m telling the truth.”
Kemp and Joel glanced around the room. No bowling ball.
“Maybe it’s in the kitchen,” Joel said. “I’ll go check.”
“I’ll search the bedroom,” Kemp volunteered and took off down the hall. Marlie didn’t like the idea of him rummaging around her bedroom, but what could she say? He was a cop.
Too bad Joel wasn’t the one searching her bedroom.
What? You want him to go through your underwear drawer and find out that you’re more of a Wal-Mart ten-pack-of-cotton-undies-for-five-dollars rather than a Victoria’s Secret fifteen-dollar-a-pair-handwash-in-Woolite-only kinda gal?
Excellent point. Okay, she officially didn’t want any men in her bedroom.
And that’s different from the usual state of affairs because . . . ? Angelina challenged.
Shut up.
Maybe she did need to make flesh-and-blood friends after all. Ones who would not deride her taste in underwear or her lack of a love life.
Joel returned from the kitchen shaking his head. “No bowling ball in there.” But he did give her a small smile that made her feel better.
“You must have the Bermuda Triangle of living rooms,” Kemp said sarcastically upon his return. “First a coffee table, now a bowling ball. Quick, call News 5.”
The guy was a bullying asshole. In high school he had probably been one of those swaggering jocks who terrorized the kids from the chess club. Marlie had been in the chess club.
“No, no,” she said, struggling to keep a lid on her hysteria. She had to make him believe her. “Don’t you see? The assassin took them away.”
“Yeah,” Kemp said. “That’s real likely.”
“He t
ook them,” she insisted. “The coffee table, the bowling ball. In his UPS truck. Then he must have vacuumed up the wood chips and picked up the bullet casings while I was next door at Joel’s. He’s trying to set me up, make me look like I’m crazy.”
“You are crazy. Whatcha been doin’? Smokin’ crack?” Kemp asked. “Or droppin’ acid?”
“Stuff it where the sun don’t shine, Porky.” Marlie’s lips said the words, but it was Angelina’s sassy voice doing the talking.
Joel’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead, and Marlie could have sworn he grinned. It was quick but unmistakable. Mortified, Marlie slapped a hand over her mouth.
Way to go, Angelina. Piss the cop off enough to toss you in the slammer.
I’m not going to let that meathead treat you so rudely. You might put up with that kind of crap, but I don’t. Angelina sniffed.
Kemp pulled handcuffs from his pocket. “That’s it; you’re going downtown.”
But Angelina wasn’t the only one jumping in to defend her. Joel stepped between Kemp and Marlie. He raised a palm at the patrolman’s chest.
They stared at each other like gunslingers squaring off on the dusty main street of a one-horse town. Marlie half expected to hear the theme from one of those spaghetti westerns her dad used to watch. Their posturing was fascinating, two alpha dogs warring over the same bone.
Why did she suddenly feel like a pork chop?
Joel’s energy permeated the room. Or maybe it was just Marlie’s skewed perception. She wasn’t the kind of woman who fell easily into lust, but there was something about her new neighbor that tripped her sexual trigger. Not that she was happy about it.
Or maybe it was just the combination of whiskey, adrenaline, and fear. She prayed that was the case. Those things wore off quickly. It took a lot longer to lose a bad case of infatuation.
“You instigated this, Kemp,” Joel said. “Just step off if you don’t want me to report you to the police commissioner, who just happens to be a very close friend of mine.”
Kemp eyed him speculatively. “You know Jonas Barnhill?”
“Hunt with him every deer season at Rocky Ridge Ranch. Jonas brings the Jim Beam; I bring the sirloins and the Sterno.”
Slam-dunk!
