by Pat Warren
Put that way, it sounded callous. “Not exactly. I…”
“No, don’t deny it. That’s exactly what you meant. You’re so used to men falling at your feet that you think every guy past puberty is dying to get you in the sack.” His temper rising, Nick tried to rein it in, without much luck.
He stopped the swing and faced her. “For every guy like Randy, there’s a woman who did the same thing to a man. Don’t think for a tiny minute that women have exclusive rights to being hurt. Let me tell you a little story.”
Nick saw he had her attention and went on, fueled by his anger. “My brother Sam’s a great guy who had an eye for beautiful women from an early age. He was twenty when he met this gorgeous blonde with huge blue eyes and a figure that would literally stop traffic. He was young and stupid, with hormones raging, and he admitted later that he’d have done anything to get her into bed. She toyed with him, used and abused his feelings for her own purposes. Thankfully he woke up in time and realized that she was nothing but a self-centered, shallow, narcissistic, cold and calculating little bitch who didn’t give a damn about his feelings. So you see, it works both ways.” Abruptly he stood. “I assure you I’m very much in control of my hormones and you’re in no danger that I’ll kidnap you and throw you between the sheets.”
“I didn’t mean to…I’m not…”
“Oh, sure you did. You meant to warn me, that I can stop being nice to your son because you aren’t going to hop into bed with me. Well, honey, where I come from, the very least a woman does is wait until a man gives her some sign that he wants her in his bed.” Turning, he walked toward the door. “Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.” Fuming, Nick just barely kept himself from slamming the screen door.
Taken aback, Tate sat there, staring at the door he’d just walked through. Well, he sure told you, lady, she thought.
Nick was finding it hard to concentrate. Shuffling papers on his desk two days after he’d stormed out on Tate, he found his mind wandering repeatedly, replaying their conversation. Earlier, the lieutenant had asked him if he had a problem when he hadn’t responded to a direct question during a meeting. And his partner was losing patience with him, Nick knew.
But damn, he couldn’t seem to drag his mind off Tate Monroe. What kind of hold did she have on him that he was even sloughing off at work? That had never happened to him before.
He felt an uncomfortable mixture of guilt and anger and annoyance. Guilty over the way he’d lost his temper and talked to her, considering the fact that he really didn’t know her well enough to launch a full attack. Angry because others who’d come before him had formed her opinion of men and ruined everything for him. And annoyance with himself that he’d lost control, something he rarely did.
“Jorge Espinoza’s out,” Lou said, sitting down at his desk across from Nick’s. Watching his partner who was intently clicking a ballpoint pen in and out and staring off into space, Lou wondered what on earth was bugging Nick. His behavior of late wasn’t like the man.
“Hey, Nick!” Lou waited until Nick finally looked over at him. “Did you hear me? Jorge Espinoza, your jumper, he’s out.”
Nick’s brow wrinkled as he tried to curl his brain around the here and now. “What do you mean, he’s out?”
Giving an exasperated sigh, Lou shook his head. “I mean, he’s out. He lawyered up and they sprung him. No priors, managed to ace the mental awareness test, convinced the judge he was just having a bad day.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Unfortunately not. Of course, he still has to appear to face charges, but they’ll probably let him off, first offense and all that.”
“And his wife? I suppose she’s withdrawn her complaint?”
“You’ve got it. Typical domestic violence tune played over and over. He hits her, or his kids, she complains, they lock him up and she refuses to press charges. I’m sick of it.”
Finally on the same page, Nick shook his head. “This isn’t good. You know, mad as that guy was at her, he’s liable to off her.”
“I know that and you know that. But does Rocio Espinoza believe that? Nah.” Lou leaned back in his chair and shifted his unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth.
“Damn, but I don’t understand these women.” Or any woman, for that matter. He had his mother on his back about Tate and Tate thinking all he wanted was a roll in the hay. “They might as well hang a sign around their necks saying, come get me.”
“And he will, too.” Disgusted, Lou tossed his stubby cigar in the trash can. “Oh, well. Nothing we can do till we get the call to go scoop her off the floor or wherever he ices her.”
This news was doing nothing to lighten his mood, Nick realized as his phone rang. He picked it up, his voice none too pleasant. “Bennett.”
“Nick, is that you?” asked a hesitant female.
Nick sat up. “Maggie? Is something wrong?”
“I think so. The man who attacked me called and left a message on our answering machine. It’s…well, it’s fright ening. Tate didn’t want me to call you. She said you couldn’t do anything, but I thought you’d want to know.” Her voice wasn’t nearly as strong as the evening they’d been on her backyard glider. The evening he’d wrecked his chances with Tate.
“I do want to know. What did he say, Maggie?”
“He said that if we don’t stop cozying up to the police, we would be sorry, that he’d take Josh and we’d never see him again.”
Nick’s lips formed into a thin, angry line. The coward, threatening women and children. “You’re sure it’s the same voice?”
“Yes, positively.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“Wait, Nick! Tate doesn’t know I called. She might get upset.”
“She’ll get over it. I’m on my way.” He hung up, checking the duty board as he stood. “I’ve gotta go, Lou. Call me on my cell if something pops, okay?”
“You got it.” Lou watched his partner all but run down the hall and out of the building, wondering what on earth had launched Nick out of his self-imposed coma.
The moment he pulled his Taurus into Maggie’s driveway, Nick heard Ralph barking. As he stepped onto the porch, he saw the little dog on the couch back, barking through the window, his small body wiggling. He couldn’t help smiling as Maggie opened the door. “Well, someone’s glad to see me,” Nick commented as Ralph came scurrying over, jumping up, wanting attention.
“Oh, yes,” Maggie said, walking back to sit down, “he’s a great little watchdog. He nearly scared the daylights out of the newsboy yesterday, kept barking until the kid was halfway down the block.”
Nick bent down to pet the squirming little ball of fur. “That’s his job and he knows it.” Glancing around, he saw that Tate and Josh were nowhere to be seen even though it was past seven. Maybe she’d taken off when she heard he was coming over after the way he’d stormed out of there the other day. “No one else home?”
Maggie clicked off the television set with her remote as Ralph scooted up the stairs. “Josh is watching TV in his room. Tate’s around here somewhere. Tate!”
Nick thought she probably was avoiding him. “Do you mind if I play the phone message?” he asked Maggie.
“No, of course not. Tate, where are you?”
Carrying a load of clean folded laundry, Tate emerged from the utility room off the kitchen. “I’m right here. Hello, Nick.”
She was more subdued than usual, he thought, unwilling to meet his eyes. “I was just about to play the message. I guess you’ve heard it?”
“Yes.” She set the laundry down on a stair step going up.
Nick hit the Play button on the answering machine.
“I warned you once. This is my final warning. If you don’t quit cozying up to the cops, I’ll grab the kid and you’ll never see him again.”
The man sounded gruff, what some would call a whiskey voice. Nick’s jaw clenched at the sheer boldness of his threats. “Did you recognize him, Maggie?”<
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“Yes, that’s the man who was in here, the one who tried to get me to talk.” Her own voice sounded shaky with nerves.
Tate stood with her back to the fireplace, her arms crossed over her chest in an obviously defensive position. “I told Maggie there wasn’t much point in calling you since I don’t imagine just having his voice on a recording will help you get the man.”
So she hadn’t wanted him to come. “The recording itself won’t point a finger at anyone, but when we get a suspect, we can match his voice up to this and tie the two together. That’s a definite threat and a serious one.” He played it again, just to be certain he hadn’t missed anything, then reached in his pocket. “If it’s all right with you, Maggie, I’d like to take your tape and replace it with this new one.”
“Oh, sure.” Maggie looked from Nick to Tate and back. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. What had gone on between these two? she wondered as she saw Nick fiddling with the tapes and Tate standing silently, gazing out the front window, her expression tight.
“I’m going to play this for my lieutenant and show him the threatening letter as well. Maybe he can spare a man to keep an eye on the house.” Although he doubted Harris would give the okay. “Meantime, Maggie, I think you and Josh ought to stay indoors with the doors locked while Tate’s at work. You have all my numbers. Call at the slightest suspicious sound. In the remote possibility I can’t be found, dial 911. I hate to ask that but…”
“No, it’s all right,” Maggie answered, getting to her feet. “We’ll do whatever it takes to help you get that man, Nick.” She smiled at Tate. “I think I’ll go to my room a while.” So that they can talk and hopefully clear the air.
Nick slipped the tape into his pocket and walked over to Tate. It had been three days since he’d seen her and he was certain she hadn’t had those shadows beneath her eyes indicating a loss of sleep that showed up so readily on fair-skinned people. He felt like a jerk for adding to her problems. “Tate, I…”
“No, let me.” She pulled in a breath, hoping to steady her nerves. “I owe you an apology. You were right and I was wrong. I’ve been so used to dealing with men who…men who are different than you. I’ve gotten so jaded, it seems, that I automatically assume all men are the same. And that’s unfair. You’re a good guy, Nick, and you’ve never done anything to warrant my suspicions. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for that, but I got a little carried away, too. And I must confess to a bit of hypocrisy in my little tirade.” He watched her abandon her defensive stance, drop her arms to her sides and raise a questioning brow at him. “Maybe the reason I was so angry is that you were right about one thing. I do want you in my bed. But if that ever happens, you’ll have to be the one to start the ball rolling.”
Tate felt as if a huge weight had just been lifted from her shoulders. She’d agonized over their harsh parting for days and nights, finally seeing that she’d not only misjudged Nick, but she’d hurt him with her unbending attitude. She wanted badly for their friendship, their relationship, to return to what it had been before that night. No, she wanted even more.
She took a small step closer to him, a giant step in trust. “I do find you attractive, as if you couldn’t tell, especially after that dance.”
“That dance.” Nick’s lips twitched. “It seems my mother’s getting calls from several of her friends who’d watched us dance. She wants to know what’s up with us.”
Before this, her first reaction would have been to deny there was an us. But if she were to be as honest as he was, then she had to admit there definitely was an us. “What is up with us, Nick?”
He took the final step between them, closing the gap, taking her hands in his. “My viewpoint? Well, on the one hand, we have here a beautiful woman who’s afraid to trust because of her rocky past. On the other hand, we have a man who’s been looking a long time, who never could settle for second best, who wants this woman but he’s willing to wait until everything’s right in her world.”
Her emotions flooded, Tate leaned into him and felt his arms go around her and tighten. How good it felt to let herself be held by strong arms, to absorb his strength, to feel safe. Her hands curled around his shoulders as he pressed her head close to his heart where she heard the steady beating. For long moments, they stood like that in a silent embrace, more comforting than sensual.
Finally Tate drew back and looked up into his silvery eyes. “I don’t think I’m very good for you, but I want you in my life.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about what’s good for me? And I am in your life. Get used to it.” Very tenderly, he kissed her forehead. “Good night, Tate.”
She watched him leave, still wondering if he was for real.
Chapter 6
Nick pushed the Stop button on the recorder and looked at the lieutenant to gauge his reaction.
Leaning back in his chair, Harris frowned. “It’s sure as hell a threat, but who is he?”
“No one seems to know.” Although Nick had a sneaky hunch that Tate recognized the voice the way she’d kept her eyes averted yesterday when they’d discussed the tape. “Obviously he’s the guy who wrote the letter.” Which was resting on Harris’s desk blotter. Nick had approached him with both, hoping the lieutenant would take this matter more seriously now that he had two separate threats.
“Do you have any leads on this guy?”
Nick shook his head. “A few hunches, but no solid leads. I was hoping you could assign someone to keep an eye on the house. We have an older woman who’s been attacked and has trouble getting around, a young woman who works days and a seven-year-old boy who, for reasons I haven’t determined yet, someone wants to kidnap. They’re like sitting ducks in this old house.”
The lieutenant was wearing red suspenders today, but the bright color hadn’t improved his spirits. “I agree, but I simply don’t have the manpower, Nick. I can get the area patrol car to drive by now and then, but that’s it for now.” He narrowed his eyes, studying his detective, noting that his decision didn’t sit well with Nick.
Nick Bennett was one of Harris’s best cops. He’d been with the Tucson Police Department for ten years, working throughout the system, hopping from Juvi to Narcotics to Homicide, making detective three years ago. He had a good record, a clean one, with three bravery citations. If once in a while Nick didn’t follow procedure, he apparently led a charmed life because those incidents had all turned out well. So far.
Nick let out a frustrated breath. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Harris watched Nick pick up the letter and pocket the tape. “Are you personally involved with these people, Nick?”
Nick shrugged, keeping his expression bland. “I like them, if that can be labeled personal involvement. I think Maggie Davis is one gutsy little lady and I’d like to do something to take that worried look off her face, which has just healed from a brutal home invasion. The boy doesn’t like to attend day camp, sensing something’s wrong, though he doesn’t know what.”
“And the woman, Ms. Monroe? Isn’t it odd that she wouldn’t have an idea who might be after her son?”
“Yeah, it is. I think she knows something, but she’s afraid to speak up. The same guy who beat up the old lady knocked Tate around several years ago, on the record. And we never found him then, either.”
“And you can’t get her to open up to you? Nick Bennett, who could probably negotiate world peace if he put his mind to it?” The lieutenant’s tone was surprisingly light-hearted for a serious man.
“Not so far, but I’m working on it.” He nodded his thanks and started for the door.
“Nick,” Harris called, signaling him to turn around, “I hope you’re not thinking of doing something crazy here.”
Nick frowned. “Like what?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m following the rules, Lieutenant. But what I do on my own time is nobody’s business.” With that, he opened the door and left the office bef
ore Harris could come down on him.
Seated at his desk, Nick drummed his fingers on the scarred wood surface, his mind traveling in many directions. He was warmed by Tate’s apology and knew it was heartfelt. He’d managed to let her know he cared about her, not just her body, although that certainly was part of the attraction. He’d be a fool to protest otherwise. But he cared for the whole woman.
He’d told her the truth, that he’d waited a long time, dating any number of women through the years, yet always ending things before they became too serious. He knew exactly what he wanted—a union like his parents had. Though he got annoyed with them occasionally, he loved his folks.
Perhaps more importantly, he’d seen how, after forty years of being together, Anthony and Roseanne Bennett still loved each other deeply. They’d had their hard times, of course—two miscarriages that Nick knew of, a bout with breast cancer for his mother which, so far, hadn’t returned, and the failure of an early business for his father. But through it all, there was affection, devotion and deep commitment.
Exactly what he wanted for himself and the woman he would make his wife.
Nick wasn’t sure just how, but he’d always believed that when he met that special someone, he’d know. No bells going off or whistles blowing. Just a feeling inside that this was his soul mate, corny as that might sound to others.
And the day he’d met Tate Monroe, he knew he’d found her.
I want you in my life, she’d told him. In her life was where he planned to be and to stay. If he couldn’t get help from the department, he’d take the matter into his own hands and do what was best for Tate and Josh and Maggie.
But first, he had to pick up a surprise for Maggie. And then shop for something special for Tate. Josh had Ralph and now it was the ladies’ turn. Whistling, he left the bullpen.
Tate fidgeted in the passenger seat of Nick’s car as he drove toward the desert. She wasn’t at all certain she was up to the task ahead. “I’m not sure I can shoot a gun,” she confessed. “I’ve always criticized parents who kept guns in the house and then were shocked when their kids found them and got hurt.”
