Good Cop, Bad Cop

by Lily Harlem

  “What? You’d let me jump off the boat?”

  “If that’s what you wanted, yes.” Bullshitter.

  “Oh my God.”

  She’d whispered that, clearly coming to the realization he wasn’t going to let her fuck him about.

  “But…” She glanced down at the cuffs. “Are you really the man after me?”

  He took in her expression and decided to give her some slack. “No—haven’t got a clue who you are or who’s after you—but I don’t want you here. I’m on vacation with my partner. Last thing I want is some weird-ass chick to deal with.”

  She brightened. “Your partner? Is she—”

  “He, and yes, he’s a cop too. And before you ask for proof, I’m telling you I’m not going to give it. You’re the one in the wrong here. Like I said before, you’re trespassing. I don’t have to tell you jack shit about myself, but you, however, have to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  The sound of footsteps told him Jose had finally arrived. What the fuck had he been doing all that time? The woman looked across and lifted her hands as if Jose might set her free.

  “I found someone,” Dillon said, stating the obvious for a reason—it was part of his and Jose’s working act.

  “So I see.” Jose appeared beside him.

  Dillon turned to look at him, lifting his eyebrows. “Reckons she’s running from someone.”

  “She probably is. Fans get a bit crazy.” Jose smiled at the woman and nodded, his features going soft and his eyes twinkling.

  “What? Fans?” Dillon frowned.

  Jose nodded again. “Yeah. You ought to put that gun away, man. We have India Moore sitting on our sofa.”

  Chapter Three

  Oh, thank heavens. One of them was sane. One of them recognized me.

  I glanced between the two dark-haired men. The slightly shorter guy was smiling at me and actually quite appealing as he pushed flopping black hair from his brow. But the other man was scowling and scary—he gnawed at the inside of his cheek and still held the gun, though the business end now pointed toward the floor instead of my chest.

  “Please,” I said, looking up at the smiling man. He was all ripped abs and broad, tanned chest with a small tattoo on his right pectoral. “Can I have these off?” I raised my hands and tugged at the metal encasing my wrists. “It really isn’t necessary to have me handcuffed.”

  “I say it is,” the man who’d clamped them on said in his sharp, snapping tone.

  “Give her a break, Dillon, she’s known for her singing not for beating up cops.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what she’s known for. She’s a stowaway, and that means she has to be kept bound and under our control. We can’t risk giving her free rein of the boat. You know the rules, Jose, whether our stowaway is India Moore or the God damn Dali Lama, the same conditions apply.” He tipped his head and studied me with eyes so narrow they were merely slits. “Really? India Moore?” The left side of his mouth curled in a sneer.

  “Yes, really.” Vanity made me want to smooth my hair and check for panda eyes. But of course I couldn’t. I was captive. “Please,” I said, a sudden grip of claustrophobia clenching my chest. The thought of being surrounded by the ocean with my hands bound—so I had no hope of swimming a stroke—was nightmare material. As was the gun that twitched in Dillon’s hand as he continued to glare at me, a mixture of disbelief and scorn on his face. “Please. Let me go, I-I need to pee.”

  “See, she needs to pee,” the one with the soft eyes said, his mouth flattening into a sympathetic line. “Give me the keys, I’ll undo her.” He held out his hand.

  “No, they’re my cuffs, I’ll take them off when I’m good and ready. Which will most likely be when I hand her over to port authorities. Right now her needing to pee is not my problem.” He leaned over, lifted the lid off a coolbox and plucked out a can of cola. “You deal with her, Jose, you were supposed to lock the fucking door when we went out to eat last night. I’m going up to check the navigation. See exactly how fucking far away from land we are so we can deposit our excess baggage.” He grunted. “Some fucking vacation this is going to be.”

  I clasped my hands beneath my chin. This was crazy. This wasn’t happening to me, it must be a dream. People were always thrilled to see me. Craved my attention and my time. But this cop, Dillon, he’d hated me on sight. I stifled a shudder as he gave me a withering look with eyes so blue they reminded me of packed ice. Then he turned and climbed up from the galley, his wide, sun-kissed shoulders almost touching the shiny wooden panels either side of the narrow opening.

  Flopping back against soft cushions, I shut my eyes. Suddenly I was utterly exhausted. Last night fear had wreaked havoc on my already tattered nerves. I’d felt so certain that I was going to die. I’d really believed every breath might be my last. Now I was both drained and numb and I didn’t have any of my people to help make it right. So much for finding a cop and everything would be sorted—he was almost as scary as my stalker.

  “Hey, hey, don’t look so worried.”

  With a resigned sigh I stared into the onyx-black gaze of the other police officer, the nice one.

  “I’m Jose Santiago,” he said, sitting on the sofa next to me. His bulk caused the base cushion to give and my body tipped toward his. “I’m a cop with the DEA, so is…” He rolled his eyes upward. “That crabby A-hole known as Dillon Farnham.”

  I swallowed and stared at my wrists. They were thin and pale against the severe metal rings encasing them. My veins were thready and watery blue, and already several semi-circular red lines had appeared from where I’d tugged against my restraint. “So you should know, being a cop,” I said, drawing in a quivery breath, “that I’ve done nothing wrong and there is no need to use these awful things.” I raised my hands and pleaded with my eyes. He definitely looked like a man who would bend to the will of an upset woman. Especially as I kind of got the impression he was a fan.

  Helplessness crossed his face, crinkling his brow and darting small crows’ feet from the corners of his eyes toward his temples. “I don’t have the key, Miss Moore. I’m sorry, but you heard Dillon. He put them on so he gets to take them off. Kind of an unspoken rule between us. He who cuffs, uncuffs.”

  “Seriously, that’s just dumb.” I frowned, new energy coming to me as I thought about the ridiculousness of the situation—India Moore, held like a common criminal on a yacht off the coast of Florida. It was absurd. “Where the hell can I go? We’re out at sea, and I’ll have you know I am not a particularly strong swimmer.” I might not be happy on board but I wasn’t foolish enough to hunt out a life raft and switch a forty-seven-foot yacht for a dingy.

  Jose shook his head. “My hands are as tied as yours, metaphorically speaking.” He swept his tongue over his bottom lip and scanned down my body. His heated gaze slipped over my cleavage, showcased by a red, silky neckline that had an integral bra, slid down my flat belly then onto my legs, only the outline visible because they were folded beneath me and covered in the shiny scarlet material of my dress.

  As he studied me, I studied him. He had incredibly long, dark eyelashes, so dense they created little shadows on his cheeks when his line of sight dipped. Now that he sat close I could feel his body heat radiating from his bare chest onto my left arm and the ball of my shoulder. He smelled of the sea and the sun, and a slightly woody scent, sandalwood perhaps. I wondered what the Japanese symbol on his chest meant.

  “You’re hurt,” he said softly. “There was blood on the deck.”

  A knife-sharp pain stabbed through the base of my foot. “Yes.” I winced, suddenly remembering. “Fuck.”

  He twitched his eyebrows.

  “What, you didn’t think country singers swore?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t think you did.”

  “Well, you thought wrong. Maybe I’m not as perfect and sweet as everyone thinks.” I was unable to hide my frustration and my voice was sharp as I poked my left foot from beneath my dress and le
t it stick over the side of the sofa.

  There was a smudge of blood on the top, near my toes. It was flakey and dark, but other than that my foot looked fine. No malformations, no protruding bones

  “Oh God, I can’t bring myself to inspect underneath,” I said, imagining a big, gaping slash, tendons and bone sticking out amidst debris from the revolting alley I’d dashed down barefoot.

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Jose wrapped his hands around my ankle and drew my foot upward. Unable to use my arms for support, I pitched backward and landed heavily on the sofa. My foot on his lap and my dress around my thighs.

  He glanced at my face, as if surprised by my tumble. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re lighter than I thought you would be.”

  “Humph.” I shoved the hem of my dress down below my knees. “Don’t touch it. It really hurts.”

  He tipped his head and his hair flopped forward, several tendrils brushing over his cheek. “It’s a long cut but I don’t think it’s too deep.”

  I groaned. “Have you got a first-aid kit or something? So I can bandage it.”

  Keeping a tight grip on my ankle, he looked up. “I’ll bandage it for you, but first it needs cleaning.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “No it won’t, goodness only knows what kind of crap you’ve got in it. In this heat it will fester and within twenty-four hours it will be infected.”

  I stared at his enormous hands, and his big, square-ended fingers. Where he was holding my ankle the blood had drained from my skin, leaving small white dents. “I can manage if you just get me some antiseptic or something, and you know, persuade Mr Charming out there to take these off.” I held up my cuffed wrists.

  “Nice try, but I already told you. Not going to happen.” His expression turned grim and he shook his head. “Besides, you can’t even see the base of your foot properly. I’ll have to do it, cuffs or no cuffs.”

  I tried to pull my ankle from his grip. Who did he think he was? Touching me like he owned me. “No. I said I can manage. I don’t need you.”

  He simply tightened his hold all the more. “Listen, lady, if we don’t sort this out properly it won’t be good at all.”

  “What, are you a doctor as well as a cop?”

  “No, but I’ve seen enough wounds to know when something needs a proper clean.”

  I glanced around and noticed a small green box with a white cross sitting on a shelf. “Just pass me that,” I said with a nod.

  He sighed, released my ankle and reached for the box. He didn’t pass it to me. Instead, he set it on the table in front of the sofa then filled up a white plastic bowl with water. He took a brown bottle from the box and tipped several glugs of fluorescent yellow liquid into the water. Instantly the sharpness of antiseptic burned my nostrils.

  “Thanks,” I said stiffly, going to reach for the bowl.

  “I’ll do it.” He blocked my arm with his leg and settled his gaze on me.

  “No, I—”

  “Stop pissing me around, because if this isn’t done properly you’ll be looking at septicemia, necrosis and possibly amputation.”

  I gasped. Amputation. Fuck!

  With a grim expression, he kneeled, flattened his palm on my shin to keep it pressed onto the sofa and dipped a wad of cotton wool into the water. “Now keep still while I get this gritty stuff out.”

  Oh, my God. Imagine my foot having to come off because of this awful situation I’d got myself into. It didn’t bear thinking about. Amputation?

  A sudden burning sensation seared right to the center of my foot. “Ow,” I squealed, trying to snap away.

  He held me tight. “Sorry,” he said, peering intently at the wound. “I’ve just got to give it a good soak.”

  “It stings.”

  “I know. Why is it in life everything that’s good for us hurts like hell?” He glanced up and his gaze captured mine. “Just keep still. I will be as quick and as gentle as I can.”

  I clenched my fists and bit on my bottom lip. Tried my best to not to wriggle and flinch as Jose wiped over what felt like a San-Andreas-fault-sized gash. Though his fingers were big he touched me with nimble movements and a sweet tenderness, over and over soaking the cut with wadding soaked in antiseptic. I could see the tiny black flecks of what must be bits of alley floor coming out.

  Trying to distract myself, I watched him caress the corner of his mouth with his tongue as he concentrated. I’d guess it was his first morning without a shave; his black stubble was short and just starting to shadow the curve of his chin.

  “Where are we heading?” I asked, when finally he stopped cleaning my wound and began to wrap a wide white bandage around my foot.

  He shrugged. “Dunno now. We were heading to the Bahamas. We were going to do some deep-sea fishing on the way. Then catch some rays in Nassau, eat, drink, see the sights, just enjoy not being cops for a while.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He applied a strip of tape to the end of the bandage to hold it in place. “Shit happens. Plans don’t always go to plan.”

  “Tell me about it.” I studied the bandage. “Thanks.”

  He stood. “It should be okay now. Keep it dry and we’ll check it again tomorrow. Luckily I think you’ve got away without stitches and you won’t have to worry about a scar, it being where it is.”

  I swung my foot down and placed it on the floor, then stood, scooping up the front of my dress to my knees and being careful to put my weight on my heel and not on the ball of my foot.

  “You okay?” Jose asked, cupping my elbow in his palm.

  “I think so. It’s throbbing but I guess that will pass.”

  “Yeah, its only because I’ve been poking at it.”

  Standing next to him, I realized that although shorter than Dillon, Jose was still really damn tall. Easily over six foot, and wide with it. Suddenly I felt tiny next to him. Hell, I was tiny; maintaining size 2 was a lot of effort. Well, it had been until the notes had started. Lately I just couldn’t summon an appetite. My clothes were beginning to feel loose.

  “You go on deck while I make coffee?” Jose said.

  I hesitated. Dillon was on deck and I didn’t fancy any more of his withering glares or flesh-slicing remarks; I’d had enough wounds for one day.

  I glanced at the small galley window. Morning light shone through, enticing and beckoning, almost as tempting as the thought of coffee. Hot, strong black coffee.

  “Go on,” he said, gesturing to the short flight of steps to the deck. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  “But—”

  “Its okay. He won’t bite.” He tipped his head and grinned. “Well, not too hard anyway.”

  “I don’t fancy being bitten at all.” I placed my hands on the wooden paneling of the wall and allowed my dress to fall down over my feet, the floaty material soft and silky against my skin.

  “I’m teasing,” Jose said. “Just go up and sit down. But don’t go near the edge of the boat if you’re not a strong swimmer. Don’t want you falling in, do we.”

  I swallowed tightly. I was as good as a non-swimmer with these damn cuffs on.

  “One minute, that’s all it will take and then you get coffee. Everything will seem better then.” He made a flicking motion with his hand. “Go.”

  It seemed I had no choice. When had I last had no choice in something? I couldn’t remember. But I wasn’t going to argue with Jose, not when he’d been sweet, despite my surliness. And if he’d saved me from amputation then I had a lot to thank him for.

  I moved slowly up the steps. There were only six but it took quite a bit of maneuvering to reach the top. My dress was slippery and the hem gathered around my legs. My foot was painful, and I ended up toppling out onto the deck into the blinding light of day.

  Yelping, I lunged forward, my right foot completely wrapped in my floor-length gown, my toes tangled and twisted.

  “For crying out loud, what the fuck are you tr
ying to do? Kill yourself?”

  I felt Dillon’s solid arms wrap around my waist and he hoisted me into a standing position.

  I gasped and gripped his thick forearms as my back hit his sun-hot chest.

  “This is the most ridiculous outfit I’ve ever seen someone wear on a boat,” he said into my ear. He sounded exasperated, impatient and completely pissed off with me.

  Wriggling in his grip, I shoved at him. “Well, I didn’t exactly intend this little cruise to Nassau.”

  “Well I did, and I don’t want your company.”

  A sudden rush of anger welled within me. My vision blurred and my heart rate cranked into overdrive. How dare he? How dare he grab me, cuff me, threaten me? He was supposed to be a protector, a man of peace. Yet he was behaving like a thug. “Get off me,” I said, trying to jab him with my elbows. But it was no good. They guy’s torso was as hard as a block of concrete. “Haven’t you taken an oath or something to promise to protect the public?”

  “Ah, but I thought you were India Moore, the India Moore.” His breath was hot and heavy in my ear. “Doesn’t that raise you above Joe Public? Aren’t you special?”

  “I demand you release me this minute.”

  “What, the cuffs or my hold on you?”

  “Both.” I squirmed, fighting to get away from him.

  He grunted. “Okay, but not the cuffs, the cuffs stay.”

  He loosened his grip, though not entirely. Next thing I knew I was being lifted into the air.

  He stood me on a long bench by the doorway and I was forced to scrabble for his left shoulder to regain my balance. It was hot and hard, like gripping a sun-drenched paving slab. “Hey, what are you doing? I—”

  “I’m going to make sure you don’t drown yourself. I don’t want the responsibility.”

  He stared at me with those glacial blue eyes again. My foot hurt like hell, but for a moment the pain receded. He really did communicate with his eyes. I could see irritation, frustration and a steely determination setting in for whatever it was he was about to do.