MAD DOG AND ANNIE

by Virginia Kantra

  "I…" The boy took a cautious step forward. "I guess. Yes, sir."

  Maddox felt something loosen in his chest. "Okay. Tell you what we're going to do. I'm going to put this new hose on here, see, and then you can screw the clamp in place. Got that?"

  The boy squeezed in beside him, his small hands eager and unskilled. Maddox was grateful for the task that needed his hands, the boy who needed his help. Because the cop in him, the part that sought answers and solutions, wanted to storm the kitchen for a quick-and-dirty interview. He wanted to back Annie against the sink, into a corner, and interrogate her.

  Why did you marry him?

  Why did you stay?

  What made you leave?

  And the rest of him, remembering Rob smiling on the sunlit golf course, didn't give a damn about answers. The rest of him just wanted to find the son of a bitch and tear him in two.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Ann frowned at the lump of meat defrosting on her kitchen counter. Half a pound of ground beef was dinner for her and Mitchell, but it wouldn't make a decent sandwich for mountain-sized Maddox. There was no way it could feed all three of them.

  Well, she would deal with it. She was learning to deal with a lot of things: arrest, probation, separation, single parenthood… Dinner was nothing. She reached for a can of tomatoes and grabbed an onion from under the sink.

  And the way that her heart fluttered and her palms got sweaty every time Maddox Palmer gave her one of those intense, hooded looks of his, well, that had to be nothing, too. Twelve years ago, he'd been out of her league. Now he was out of her orbit.

  She chopped the onion into small, neat pieces. She was no good with men, anyway. She was terrible at sex. Nothing in her experience was worth risking her peace of mind and her son with some big, bad, violent cop who suspected her of framing her husband.

  She scraped meat and onions into a pan and adjusted the heat under them. So why was she making him dinner?

  Her cheeks flushed as she lifted the lid on a pot of boiling water. It was only payback, she told herself. She owed him for fixing her car. She couldn't afford to be in debt to Maddox any more than she could afford to be attracted to him.

  At seventeen she'd been young enough and dumb enough to be dazzled by Rob Cross, duped by his perfect clothes and his perfect car and his perfect teeth into believing she'd found something special. For ten years, she had accepted Rob's judgment that he was the best she could do, the most she deserved. Her marriage was the price she paid for Mitchell.

  She buttered sandwich rolls, sprinkling them with garlic powder and cheese before setting them under the broiler. Well, she wasn't that stupid anymore. She was learning to set her own terms. She wasn't offering any man her trust, her heart, or her loyalty again.

  All Maddox Palmer was getting from her was spaghetti. She went to the door to call him in to dinner and saw him head to head with her son under the hood of her car.

  Misgiving shook her. Mitchell looked so small, all angles and bones beside Maddox's powerful, adult body. And he was teetering against the grill, poised to splash a blue gallon jug of—something—over her engine.

  Maddox supported the wavering jug with one hand, her son with the other. "Right in there," he said, his voice calm, uninflected. "Easy, now. That's it. Good."

  Ann released her breath. Nothing was wrong. Everything was … well, really, it was just fine. Unexpectedly lighthearted, she called, "Supper's ready."

  They turned to her, two identical faces of masculine absorption.

  And then Mitchell's grin split his face. "Mom!" He bounded toward her, flushed with accomplishment. "We did it. We fixed your radiator."

  She beamed her approval. "That's wonderful. Thank you." Over his head, her gaze sought out Maddox. "Thank you both very much."

  He followed Mitchell slowly, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. He looked big and male and competent.

  "No problem," he said. He wasn't smiling.

  Her own smile faded. Obviously his offer to fix her car hadn't included baby-sitting her son. "Yes, it was. I should… You need to let me repay you for the hoses."

  He raised his eyebrows. "You're already making me dinner."

  "Just salad and spaghetti." Cafeteria food, Rob called it. "Pretty basic stuff."

  He gave her one of those dark, unreadable looks that made her stomach thump. "I have pretty basic appetites."

  Oh, my. He couldn't mean… She'd never been good at… Ann caught a glimmer in his eye and stopped herself.

  "I can cook," she said. "So I guess you'll like it."

  Maddox nodded acknowledgment. "Guess I'd better."

  It was not, to Ann's mind, a promising start to their meal. Dinner should have been a disaster. Maddox wasn't extroverted like Rob. He didn't try to be funny or charming. He didn't ask a lot of questions about who Ann had seen at the restaurant or what Mitchell had done at camp. But he ate the food she had cooked, and he listened. He didn't compete for the spotlight, or make it clear that how he spent his day was more important than how they spent theirs.

  Gradually, Ann felt the tight knot in her chest ease. And Mitchell, who clammed up around his father, actually volunteered some story about somebody at the day camp named Sam.

  "Is Sam your friend?" Ann asked, genuinely pleased he'd found something to like about the camp.

  Mitchell ducked his head. "No."

  She was confused. "But—"

  Mitchell squirmed in an agony of embarrassment. "She's a girl, Mom."

  Oh. Ann understood. Her nine-year-old couldn't be friends with a girl. It would make him a sissy, or worse.

  "Sounds like she can shoot hoops," Maddox said casually, wiping the last of the sauce from his plate with a crust.

  Mitchell looked up cautiously. "She stuffed Big Brian today when we played another camp."

  "Good for her," Maddox said.

  Mitchell relaxed. "We almost won."

  "And good for you."

  The boy turned red with pleasure.

  "Thank you," Ann said later to Maddox, as they cleared the table.

  He shrugged, making her conscious of his broad chest, his wide shoulders. Her acute awareness was embarrassing. She told herself it was because she wasn't used to having such a big man moving around her kitchen. "I didn't do anything," he said.

  "You listened. You're a good listener."

  "Goes with the job."

  She sucked in her breath, reminded of who he was and why he'd come to see her last night. She turned on the hot water. "I guess getting people to talk to you would make you a good cop."

  He leaned his hips against the counter by the sink, angling so he could watch her face. "Or a good date."

  "Really," she said dryly.

  "Oh, yeah. You wouldn't believe how many women want to talk about themselves."

  "And that's your big attraction?"

  He raised his shoulders again. He didn't have to explain his attractiveness to women, and they both knew it. "So, how about it? You want to talk to me, Annie?"

  Her heart beat faster. "About what?"

  "What's on your mind?"

  "You're answering a question with a question again," she said crossly.

  This time he didn't smile. He didn't move, either. He just stuck there at her elbow, big and silent and solid and somehow reassuring. No wonder Mitchell confided in him. She was tempted to confide in him herself.

  Stupid idea.

  She plunged her hands in the dishwater. "I don't want to talk about it."

  "About Rob? About the case?"

  "Both. Either. I'm trying to put all that behind us." Maddox crossed his arms over his chest. "Difficult to do when you're a witness for the prosecution."

  She closed her eyes briefly. "Yes."

  "You know, you can't be forced to testify against him. You're still married."

  "We're separated. And it's not that. He's Mitchell's father. I hate getting up in front of everybody and saying bad things
about him."

  "You don't have to," Maddox said in a flat, tight voice. "Confidential communications between spouses are exempt from—"

  She jerked her head. No. "I have the right to testify to what he did. I have the responsibility."

  "Why?" He hadn't raised his voice to her. Hadn't raised his hand. And yet his quiet, hard questions battered at her defenses. "Something else you 'owe,' Annie? You don't strike me as a vindictive woman."

  "No. Maybe." She clenched her hands under the surface of the soapy water. "I can't forgive him."

  The low voice was relentless. "You can't forgive Rob for what he did to Val?"

  "No," she whispered. "I can't forgive him for what I did to Val."

  "Stole from her."

  Shame washed over her. "Yes. I hated what I was becoming. I hated what Mitchell could become."

  "Which was…?"

  "Somebody who used other people. Somebody who could hit other people."

  The big, still body next to her grew, if possible, even more still. "Val?" he asked quietly.

  "Val," she admitted, beaten down by his persistent questioning. "And—and me."

  "Rob hit you," Maddox repeated without inflection.

  Hit her, punched her, kicked her… She cringed from the judgment that must hide beneath his flat, expressionless voice.

  She knew what he was thinking. What kind of woman put up with that abuse? What kind of mother let her child grow up at risk from her husband's temper, her husband's example?

  "Yes," she said.

  Maddox reached for her. She flinched as his hands closed on her shoulders, but his touch was light. His hands were warm. He turned her, so that her wet arms were between them, and studied her face in the light that fell from over the sink. His eyes were dark. His mouth was hard.

  He drew his blunt finger along the line of her nose, over the tiny bump. "This?"

  Her gaze fell to the center of his broad, solid chest. "He broke my nose. The day we left."

  "Son of a bitch," he swore.

  She was embarrassed. "He didn't usually touch my face," she felt compelled to add.

  "No," Maddox said with instant understanding. A cop's understanding. "They don't. They don't hit where it shows, unless they're really far gone." His voice roughened. He tilted her chin to the light. "The kid?"

  "Rob never hit Mitchell." She was sure of it. She would have left immediately if he had. "But…"

  "But?" He returned his hands to her shoulders to encourage and support her with his touch.

  "Children who live with violence are at greater risk of—"

  "Becoming violent themselves," he finished for her. "They teach us that in the academy."

  What they didn't teach, Maddox thought, was what made a fourteen-year-old boy from a supposedly stable home grab his daddy's hunting rifle and go gunning for his classmates. But that wasn't the issue here.

  The issue was Annie, with her tender mouth and her guarded eyes and her brave determination to do right by her son.

  She was either a very brave woman or a very good liar. And after his bright-lights-and-rubber-hoses interrogation, he was ninety-eight percent sure she wasn't lying. Not about Rob hitting her, at least. His hands tightened protectively on her shoulders.

  But the cynical cop part of his brain recognized that the abuse she'd endured that engaged his heart and sympathies gave her one hell of a motive. Better for her if Rob rotted in jail.

  Disgust with himself—with his doubts, with his methods—roiled his stomach. Rage—at Rob, at his father—pumped through his veins.

  "I didn't want Mitchell to think the way we lived was normal," she continued painfully. "I didn't want him growing up to think it was all right."

  "Not right," he agreed harshly. "Jeez, Annie…"

  She was straight and stiff and fragile in his arms. He slid his hands from her shoulders to her neck, feeling the tension in her, feeling her pulse careen in her throat. Excitement? Or fear? His breath came faster. He was some kind of creep if the thought of making her nervous turned him on.

  He pushed his fingers into her hair, holding her still for his inspection. Her hair was silky fine, soft and slippery. She smelled like baby shampoo. Desire welled dangerously, adding to the explosive mix inside him. Cradling her head, he searched her face for the girl he'd known, the girl who had looked at him with adoration.

  The green eyes meeting his were cool and blank. Her hands came up to curl around his wrists, to hold him away. Frustration shook him. He couldn't find her, couldn't get to her, couldn't protect her.

  "I think you should go now," she said.

  "Yeah," he said hoarsely. She was right. He ought to get out of here before he did something really dumb, something they would both regret.

  He didn't move. Neither did she. Only that heartbeat in her throat, quick as a bird's. Her lips were pale and dry. She licked the lower one, and lust clawed his gut.

  The need to touch her, to reach her, to make her respond, raked him. He kissed the bump on the bridge of her nose and felt her tremble. Hell, he was shaking, too. He kissed the corner of her wide, unsmiling mouth and felt the sharp intake of her breath.

  Holding her still, he turned his head, just a fraction, and laid his mouth on hers. His heart jackhammered in his chest. Her hands tightened on his wrists, but she didn't pull away. He kissed her lips, long and softly, insistently, and felt them warm and cling in reply. But she was still holding back, holding out on him.

  Heat exploded in his brain. He deepened the kiss, diving past her soft lips and her smooth teeth, driving for the heat and the heart and the depths of her mouth. She tasted like the sweet tea she'd served with dinner, and her lips were warm, and her tongue was velvet. He was kissing her. Kissing Annie. It blew his mind. He didn't even register if she kissed him back, he was a teenager again, hot and hungry, pushing into her mouth, desperate to possess, to plunder.

  Her fingernails curled into his wrists. The tiny pain pricked through the overload of sensation, sliced through the haze in his head.

  She was not kissing him back. Damn.

  He dragged his mouth from hers. Her lips were red. Her face was pale. Her eyes were blank and wide.

  Shock, he figured. He'd badgered her into revealing the worst secrets of her marriage, and then jumped her. He'd shocked her, disgusted her. Hell, he disgusted himself.

  "Want to slap my face?"

  Her eyes flickered. "Would it make me feel better?"

  "I don't know," he said honestly. "It might make me feel better, though."

  She angled her chin. Even with his body rioting and his emotions out of control, he admired her attempt at composure.

  "I'm not particularly interested in making you feel better right now," she said.

  He released her. "Yeah, I can see that."

  Her hands twisted together at her waist. "What did you come for?" she whispered. "Answers?"

  Her quiet question pierced his chest. That's what he'd told himself. Gather the evidence, get the facts, see if he could shake her story. That's the way he operated. Well, he had her story now, and all the evidence pointed to him being a jerk.

  "That was part of it," he admitted.

  She nodded. "Well, then, you can leave now. You got what you wanted."

  Anger at her acceptance burned him. He would have preferred the slap.

  "Not even close," he said harshly. "But I will."

  He waited for that to register; watched her green eyes widen. And then he left.

  * * *

  The tables in the dining room needed fresh flowers. Ann collected a tray full of vases and eased through the swinging door to the kitchen, letting herself be distracted by the restaurant's pre-lunch buzz, the smells of baking bread and grilling vegetables.

  She was not going to think about Maddox Palmer anymore. Her heart gave this funny little bump, and she scowled. She was not going to waste another second reliving and reexamining his surprising, hot, sweet kiss.

  She entered the kitchen's wo
rk aisle in time to see Val MacNeill lay down her big chopping knife and put both hands on her back.

  Thoughts of Maddox fled. Ann set down her tray in concern. "Honey, are you all right?"

  Val turned her flushed face toward Ann and smiled. "Never better."

  "You're not still…" Ann paused delicately.

  "Throwing up?" Val asked cheerfully. She shook her head. "No, we're out of that stage. Now we're in the I - have - amazing - energy - and - a - fabulous - sex - drive - but - my - back - hurts stage."

  Ann blinked. "Well, that's—that's good."

  "Oh, yes. Con is much better at helping with the sex drive thing than with the nausea."

  Ann laughed and began unloading her tray.

  "What about you?" Val asked, reaching for her knife. "Any problems picking up Mitchell yesterday?"

  "It was fine. I was a few minutes late, that's all."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you, the time just—"

  Dear Val, always taking responsibility. But Ann was responsible for herself now, or trying to be. "It wasn't your fault. I had a problem with my car."

  Val pulled a sympathetic face. "Oh, too bad. Do you need time off to take care of it?"

  "No, I—" Ann emptied the blue glass bottles into the sink, feeling her face begin to heat. "Actually, Maddox Palmer stopped to give me a hand."

  "Mad Dog?" Val sounded more intrigued than appalled. "Well, well."

  "It was just the radiator hose," Ann muttered.

  "Do tell."

  "There isn't anything to tell. I got a leak in the hose, and he stopped and fixed it with duct tape."

  "That won't hold. You'll have to take the car to a garage."

  "Yes. Well, no." She fumbled, rinsing bottles. "He came by last night and replaced the hoses."

  Val stopped chopping peppers. She turned. "He did what?"

  Ann cleared her throat. "He was only doing me a favor."

  "Sweetie, you don't accept favors. Not from me, and certainly not from the chief of police's son."

  "I didn't. I mean, he fixed the car, but I made him dinner to pay him back."