by Mallory Kane
She adjusted the water pressure to a steady stream that would do for rinsing hair, then opened up one of the vinyl chairs stacked against the deck railing, eyeing it carefully, looking for bugs or spiders.
As she was hosing off the chair, Cody stepped out onto the deck, a towel around his neck and his hair smoothed back, though still coated in shampoo.
“The chair’s wet,” he grumbled.
Dana shrugged. “There were bugs on it. Do you want your hair rinsed or not?”
“This is my only clean pair of jeans.”
Laughter bubbled up in Dana’s chest, making her feel bold and a little reckless. “So take them off,” she said gaily.
Cody glared at her, but she spotted a glimmer in his eyes. “It would serve you right if I did.”
She cocked her head and grinned. “Your choice, sir. I’m just the shampoo girl.”
A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth and Dana’s heart flipped. He was so handsome when he smiled. He had the face of an angel when he smiled, he looked like the devil himself when he grinned, and his face turned fierce and demonic when he was angry.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Just get it over with and try not to soak me, please.”
“Can you lean your head back?”
“Yes, I can lean my head back.” He gazed up at her, amusement intensifying the blue of his gaze.
“Damn it, Cody,” she muttered as she ran her fingers through his sudsy hair, tracing the shape of his head with her hands. “It’s going to take forever to rinse all this out. Did you use half a bottle of shampoo?”
“Why, was that too much?”
She sniffed in disgust. He was serious. “Men!” she exclaimed. “You have no clue. How do men ever get along without a woman? You always did use too much shampoo. I was forever buying more.”
“Yeah,” he responded. “More of that rosy stuff you washed your hair in. You never bought enough of mine. Do you know how many times I had to arrest someone with my hair smelling like roses?”
Dana chuckled at the vision his words evoked. “It served you right. It’s wasteful to use this much shampoo. Look at your hair, it’s going to take a half hour to get it all rinsed out. Turn your head.”
He didn’t move.
“Cody, turn your head.”
She leaned over to run water on the other side of his head, and suddenly realized her breasts were pressed against his cheek, and his breath warmed her skin through her T-shirt. She shivered, while her insides tightened and her breasts ached. A fierce longing swept through her, speeding up her heart.
He took a long breath. “Mmm, you smell like roses all over,” he whispered against the skin of her breast. “I’d forgotten you smell like roses everywhere.”
His mouth brushed her cloth-covered nipple and she gasped. She jerked back, and when she did, the stream of water caught Cody square in his face.
“Hey!” he shouted, coming up out of the chair in one swift fluid motion.
Dana jumped backward. “What?” She recoiled, her knees like jelly from reaction.
“What do you mean, what? You sprayed water in my face, that’s what.” He grinned devilishly and started advancing on her.
She held the water hose in front of her like a weapon. “Cody,” she warned. “Sit down. You still have shampoo in your hair.” She inched backward, brandishing the hose. “I’m warning you, Cody. One more step and I’ll—”
She never got to finish her threat, because he lunged at her, grabbing the hose. She hung on as long as she could, which was about one half of a second. Then he wrested the hose from her hands and she had no choice but to run to the other side of the deck.
Her heart hammered frantically, in excitement and anticipation. “Cody…!”
He grinned and pointed the hose so a stream of water splashed just in front of her feet.
“Cody, you’ll hurt your arm.” Despite the prospect of being soaked, Dana was surprised to find she was thoroughly enjoying herself. It was incredible how all her careful planning, her structured, ordered life, could fall completely and delightfully apart when her ex-husband acted like an adolescent. She bit her lip, forcing herself to look stern. She held up one hand. “Don’t you dare get me wet, Cody. I’ll—”
“What?” he asked innocently, his voice at odds with his devilish grin. He kept coming toward her. “You’ll what? Sue me? Serve me with a summons? Tell me, counselor. What will you do?” He took another step forward and pointed the hose so the water splashed on her bare toes.
She tried to back up again, but the deck rail stopped her. “Cody!” she squealed, and made a desperate lunge for the hose.
He turned it full on her, and water gushed over her breasts and belly and down her legs. She held out her hands toward the spout, but that only spread the spray so that her face and hair got soaked, too. “Cody!” she squealed. “Stop it!”
Cody was laughing out loud, and despite herself, Dana was laughing too. Laughing and playing and feeling like a kid, like she had when they’d first gotten married and Cody had been able to turn anything into a delightful, sexy game.
He relaxed, and she saw her chance and took it. She grabbed the hose and managed to turn it back onto him for an instant before he overpowered her again. They struggled together with the water hose between them, both of them drenched and fast becoming weak with laughter.
Finally, with a grimace of pain, Cody let the hose drop to the deck floor. Dana was still pressed back against the rail and Cody leaned against it, too, and put his good arm around her, still laughing.
She wiped her face and pushed her wet hair back. The early morning air was cool and she shivered a little, then realized Cody was holding her close, and he had become quiet and still.
They were both dripping wet. Dana felt the odd sensation of Cody’s skin against hers—cool on the surface and warm underneath. It stirred memories.
Suddenly, everything stirred memories inside her, unwanted memories, happy, erotic memories of showering together, of making love in the cool waters of the lake with Cody holding her up until they both sank beneath the water as passion overwhelmed them.
He laid his chin briefly on top of her head, and she realized just how flimsy wet cotton could be. She was embarrassingly aware of her body, covered only by the soaked T-shirt and shorts. A quick glance told her that her breasts were clearly outlined by the wet cotton, her nipples puckered, more obviously erect through the wet white material than if she’d been naked.
She strained against Cody’s hold and looked up at him. His gaze traveled from her face down to her breasts, and through his wet jeans she felt the heat and hardness of him. He was becoming aroused. The awful thing was that her brain, in triggering those memories, had caused her own body to echo the reaction of his.
Through the endless sleepless nights since their divorce, she had yearned for the comfort of his long, warm body, and the closeness they’d once shared. She’d craved the feel of him filling her, coaxing her to ecstasy. There had been nights when she’d thought she would die from the loneliness. Moments when she would have borne anything, even the uncertainty of his job, if he would just hold her in the nighttime and make her laugh through the day.
For an instant she leaned into his embrace, unable to stop herself, like an alcoholic sneaking just one swallow of liquor, just one drink.
“Chère?” His voice was questioning as his hand ran up her back to her neck and he wrapped his fingers around her nape, his thumb tracing her jaw. She lifted her head, caught in a dream of her own making, believing that she could have just this one embrace, just one kiss, and then go back to her orderly life without a regret.
His mouth touched hers, the taste and the feel so familiar, so welcome, it made her want to cry.
“Cody, I don’t know if…” A sweet, intense ache started deep inside her as his mouth covered hers, cool yet warm, like his skin. He held her head immobile as his tongue scraped gently against her teeth. She yielded, and felt him harden against her.
He lifted his head slightly, his blue eyes intense and passionate. He touched her mouth with his thumb. “Ah, chère, you’re just as gorgeous as you ever were.”
“Oh, sure,” she murmured.
“You never have believed me, have you? Your mirror doesn’t tell you how green your eyes are?” He kissed her eyelids softly. “Admirers don’t praise the curve of your cheek?” His mouth trailed a line of fire down her cheekbone. “Perfect strangers don’t whistle as you walk down the street?” He nibbled on her earlobe, as his hand crept up under the wet material of her T-shirt to skim the underside of her breast.
“Cody,” she breathed raggedly, “what are you doing?”
“Trying to show you how gorgeous you are.” His thumb grazed the tip of her breast and liquid heat pooled in her lower abdomen.
She shivered. “I’m not sure we should do this.”
His mouth came back to hers and he kissed her again, stealing her breath, stealing her will.
“What should we be doing, then?” he muttered, his breath warm on her lips. “Arguing about the best way to keep you alive?”
His words stripped away the haze of passion that fogged her brain. She remembered the danger that was a part of him, and fear streaked through her like lightning.
She pulled away.
“Chère?” Cody held on to her briefly, but she folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to him, hiding her face as well as her body from his gaze until she could get her ragged breathing under control.
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a long breath. “Well, now we’re both soaked.”
Behind her, he stiffened. “Yep. Soaked,” he said, his voice tinged with bitterness.
She went over and turned off the water, then gathered her courage and faced him. “I guess I’ll shower, now that I’m all wet, and then you can make that phone call. I really think it’s a mistake for us to be here together.”
“Sure. You shower. I’ll make the phone call.” He nodded, his face blank.
She knew she’d hurt him. It seemed as if that was what she was best at. “Cody, I’m…”
He nodded shortly. “I know. Go take your shower.”
CODY STARED OUT TOWARD the lake. There were still a few wisps of fog that hadn’t been burned off by the sun yet, and they made the scene look unreal, like a fantasy. But the situation he was in was real. Too real.
He’d thought he’d gotten over his ex-wife. He’d thought he was doing okay. After all, he had his job. And that was what really mattered. He was a cop. He couldn’t change that. It had cost him his marriage, cost him a chance at fatherhood, but he’d thought he’d come to terms with all that.
But convincing himself he was over Dana while he filled up his time with work, and remaining convinced when she was standing right in front of him, her body slick with water, her clothes clinging to all the wonderful, sexy parts of her, were two totally different things.
His heart ached at the echo of her infectious laugh, that laugh he’d been able to coax from her all too seldom in the last months of their marriage.
But she’d laughed this morning. She’d laughed and he’d felt his heart filling up with her again.
He loved the way she’d gotten caught up in their game. For a few moments, she’d let her guard down enough to let him in, to respond to him. He felt it in the way her lips parted, in the slow, reluctant relaxation of her body against him. He heard it in the tiny gasp she’d uttered as his mouth came down on hers.
Cody groaned as his body reacted to his thoughts. He shook his head angrily. He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the railing.
Not again! He couldn’t get hung up on Dana again. He’d been doing fine, as long as he hadn’t had to see her.
Why couldn’t he keep his hands off her? It shouldn’t be that hard. She’d certainly always managed easily enough. He envied the way she could turn on and off like the water spigot.
As soon as he’d stepped across her invisible line, she’d turned off. It was something she was very good at.
He’d always considered it a personal triumph when he could get past her point of no return, that point beyond which she could no longer resist him. It had delighted him each and every time he’d coaxed from her the uninhibited passion he knew was inside her.
For a while, after they were married, he’d almost managed to destroy it, that impenetrable armor she kept around her heart. But something happened, something that caused her to pull back just a little, and afterward, it had gotten harder and harder to coax her over it, to tempt her into letting down her guard completely.
It was as if she was protecting herself from him.
He ran his fingers through his wet hair. Thinking about the past was getting him nowhere. He needed to call the station, find out what was going on. Sitting here like a bump on a log while somebody else took care of his problem was not his style. He went inside and got his cell phone and dialed the precinct.
“Hey, Olsen. It’s Maxwell. Detective Gautier around?”
“Detective Maxwell. How’s your arm, sir?”
“Just fine.”
“Well, I just want you to know we’re doing all we can here.”
Cody cursed under his breath. “Meaning, you haven’t got a lead on Fontenot yet?”
“Uh, no sir. I should let you talk to Captain Hamilton.”
“Where’s Dev?”
“I’m not sure, sir. Let me put you through to the captain.”
Cody slapped his palm down on the table and dropped into a chair. Obviously, nobody had managed to track down the bastard. He had to get back there.
Dana heard Cody talking on the phone when she came out of the shower. She pulled on a pair of white jeans and a sleeveless top and ran a comb through her wet hair, all the time trying to hear what Cody was saying and piece together the whole conversation.
She heard the word Pensacola and her pulse began to pound. Was Angie okay? She walked into the living room just as he turned off the phone.
“Well?” she said, hands on hips, heart in her throat. “What was all that about Pensacola? Every one of you promised me my sister would be okay. She is, isn’t she?”
“She’s just fine.” Cody stood up. “That was Captain Hamilton. Dev checked out the agency where Fontenot rented the car. He paid cash, but you have to give them a certain amount of information or they won’t rent you a car. For insurance purposes.”
Dana sighed. “I know that. So what about the rental car?”
“Well, we knew he asked the attendant for a map of Pensacola. But nobody’s been able to spot the car.” Cody wiped his face and Dana noticed how pale he was.
“Cody? Are you sure about Angie?” She grabbed Cody’s arm. “Did he go to Pensacola or not? What about the kids?” Her sister had two children, a girl and a boy, whom she was rearing alone after her husband had been killed in an offshore drilling accident.
“I told you, they’re okay. The Pensacola police have been alerted.”
Dana’s heart pounded with fear. “Oh, that’s comforting. More police. Damn it, Cody. I don’t want my family involved in all this. Why haven’t they caught him? And what are they going to do about protecting Angie and Ben and Chrissy?” She paced back and forth across the little living room.
“Angie and the kids are already on their way to a safe house. Fontenot has one thing on his mind. Getting me. As soon as he realizes we’re not there, he’ll be back on our trail.” He stared at the phone as if it would give him some answers. “If he really went there at all,” he muttered.
Dana didn’t like the look of worry on his face. “What is it, Cody? Why are you so worried? If they’ve got the rental car license, why can’t they just arrest him?”
Cody looked up at her. “In the first place, like I told you, nobody’s seen the car. And in the second place, think about it. He hasn’t done anything.”
“Not done anything? He rigged a gun that almost killed you in your own apartment. He broke into my condo
and stole my earring. He tampered with my car.”
“I can’t prove that was Fontenot. The gun was untraceable. I’ve told you before, the man’s diabolical. That’s the problem. He’s too clever to think we’d go to your sister’s. And he’s too smart to let the police trace him through a rental car. I don’t like it. There’s something I’m missing.”
Dana shivered. “You’re scaring me. You act like this man is some kind of evil genius or something.”
Cody threw the phone onto the couch. “You just refuse to believe anything I say, don’t you? Don’t you remember what he did? Fontenot knew his wife had a heart condition. He knew she was terrified of snakes.” His laser-sharp gaze riveted her where she stood. “He hung a dead cat over her bed, while she was asleep, its blood dripping on the pillow right beside her head. She didn’t wake up until she felt the sticky wetness of the blood on the pillow.”
“Oh, Cody. Don’t.”
“He put snakes in her refrigerator. The woman was terrified of snakes. She opened the refrigerator and the sight of all those snakes tumbling out onto the floor gave her a heart attack. He murdered her just as surely as if he’d shot her. Look at this.” He held up his bandaged arm.
Dana glanced at him then turned her head.
He grabbed her arm and turned her back to face him. “Look at it. It’s a bullet wound. The man is playing with me. He swore when I testified against him that he’d get me.”
“I know it’s a bullet wound, thank you. That’s what I’ve been talking about. You think you’re invincible. You think you’re superman or something.” Dana looked at the bandage on Cody’s arm and remembered the first thing that had come into her head when she’d seen the booby trap.
Too slow.
“So if he’s playing with you, why’d he rig a gun to kill you?”
“It wasn’t supposed to kill me. It wasn’t even supposed to hit me. It was a message. He rigged it purposely so that I would feel the pull of the cord when I opened the door. I should have heard the hammer click.”
She nodded. “Too slow. So why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I what?”
