by Sara Orwig
“That’s right, it is,” she said firmly. She finished her toast and orange juice quickly and moved away from the table. He stood to get some coffee and carry his plate to the sink. Rebecca turned abruptly, and he went up on his toes, curving his body and pulling his dish close against his middle to avoid her smashing into him.
“I'm sorry. We can’t seem to keep from colliding!”
“I haven’t objected once,” he said with amusement.
“Are you really ready for that kind of collision in your life?” she asked, and then wanted to bite it back. His brows arched, and he leaned down. “Never mind,” she added quickly.
“I'm more ready than you could possibly want me to be,” he said.
She ran her hand across her brow. “I don’t know why I say things like that to you!”
“I do,” he answered solemnly. “Because beneath all that nonsense about disliking my profession, there’s a friendly, warm woman who enjoys flirting on occasion.” His voice became husky as he looked at her, and he wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms, but he knew he shouldn’t.
She tilted her head to study him. “Are all your jobs like this?”
He held up his hand. “I told you last night and I'll say it again, I swear to you, and may lightning strike if I'm not being truthful, never—not once—has a job been like this.”
He leaned slightly closer, and his voice dropped another notch as he answered her. Rebecca felt as if she were on fire, feeling pleasure shoot through her at his answer, yet knowing that she should not be pleased.
Flustered by his answer, feeling hot beneath his steady, smoldering gaze, she moved past him and sat down, staring blankly at her writing tablet. She listened as he moved around behind her.
“Want some coffee?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
He poured a cup and came to sit down, pulling a chair around beside her, and her attempts at calming down were for nothing. Her pulse jumped as he moved close.
She twisted around to study him. “Didn’t your supervisor give a thought to sending a single guy out here to stay with us?”
“Vance thinks I'm such a confirmed bachelor, he probably gave it little thought,” Jake answered dryly. “If he knew what’s going on out here, I’d be in deep trouble.”
“There’s nothing going on out here!” she snapped, wanting to get up and move across the table from him.
“Like hell there isn’t,” he said softly. He ran his finger along her cheek, and Rebecca’s pulse skittered. “And you're bringing it out in me.”
“Well, I'm not doing it deliberately!” she snapped, and the smoldering look in his hazel eyes deepened. He leaned closer to her, and Rebecca felt as if all the air were gone from the room. Her heart was pounding, and she wondered if he could hear it.
“You didn’t accidentally kiss me last night,” he said softly. “We're both responding in ways that neither one of us wants, but I'm not taking sole responsibility, lady.”
His words played over her quivering nerves, shaking her because she knew he was right. She had flirted with him, responded to him, returned his kisses. She twisted away, pushing back the chair and moving to the window to gaze outside.
Jake watched her, his gaze running down over her derriere and long legs, feeling his body respond to the sight of her while he silently swore at himself. He should be able to exercise more control over himself and keep his damned mouth shut.
“All right,” she exclaimed, her voice low and tense, as she turned around. Her eyes blazed with anger, and he wondered if it was all directed at him, or a little of it at herself. “I admit I kissed you, but I knew better and I didn’t want to on one level. I'm vulnerable—”
Jake stood up and crossed the room, stopping a few feet from her. “Don’t cry.”
“I am not about to cry! I’d like to pick up one of those chairs and slam it over your head!”
If it had been under other circumstances, Jake would have been amused, but he wasn’t, because he knew she was hurting and angry.
“Rebecca,” he said softly. “Truce. Let’s both resolve right now to try to avoid letting anything get out of hand between us. I'm not a marrying man. You don’t like cops. Those are big enough barriers, if we'll just remember them. Let’s get back to work and stick to business.”
Jake knew his words were as false as a six-dollar bill, but he was going to give it a try.
She tilted her head, pursed her rosy lips. “You are full of it, Detective Delancy. That is the most blatant bunch of...” Her voice trailed off, and he suspected she would not say aloud the words that were in her mind at the moment. “But I agree. We'll stick to business.”
He nodded and sat back in his chair, moving it around the table away from hers, deciding he could lean across the table and read her list upside down if he had to.
He kept his gaze riveted on the tablet, congratulating himself on gaining her cooperation, idly wondering how long it would be before his good intentions went out the window. Just think of marriage and responsibility and you'll cool down, he thought. Think about the expenses Bill accumulated during his last year in college.
“All right, here’s the list. I don’t know where some of the tools are—they'll be scattered all over the shop.”
“Do you know anyone in the business we could call and have them meet us there and describe or pick out the tools you want?”
She ran her hand through her hair, letting long golden locks tumble back across her cheek and shoulder, and he forgot the question, wanting to reach out and feel the same silky curls slide across his hand.
She bent over the tablet and wrote a number. “A friend of mine is in this business, and he would probably help your men.”
“Okay, let’s see the list. How big is this table you need?”
“It’s very big and heavy. About eight feet long and four or five feet wide, I’d guess. There are three tables in my shop. I can get along with just one.”
Item by item, they went over the list. The last items were the video, tablet and coloring book for the girls. He glanced up at Rebecca.
“Add a few other things for the girls. It could get to be a long week.”
Rebecca nodded and stared out the front windows while she thought about it.
Jake looked at her profile, her slender throat. “Also, while you're at it, give me a grocery list.”
She groaned. “This is ridiculous.”
“You saw what happened to my apartment. And I can tell you again how I watched Meskell gun down my friend.”
She gave Jake a solemn look, nodded her head and wrote a list. As she did, Jake poured another cup of coffee and stood by the window to drink it.
“All right, here’s the list.”
She handed it to him and watched as he went to the telephone. As he talked, she moved around the kitchen, cleaning it and trying to ignore Jake, finally leaving the room to do some chores.
Within the hour, as she worked in the kitchen, he came into the room. “I want to look at the barn. Do all of you want to go with me or stay here?”
“I'll come along, and I know the girls would love it.”
At the back door minutes later, Jake studied the woods directly across from him while he checked with Terry Woodson on the radio to make certain the area was secure. The morning sun was high and the sky the deep blue of a cloudless summer day that promised to be hot.
He heard footsteps as Rebecca and the girls entered the room. “Tara, you and your mother hold Sissy’s hands. I'll stay beside you,” he said to Rebecca. “Let’s all go as fast as possible.”
They nodded, and Jake opened the door, giving one more look to the woods in back. He was depending on the department to give a warning if Meskell came into the vicinity, but he still hated crossing the wide-open expanse of ground.
They went as fast as Sissy’s short legs could go. Jake could have carried her and all of them gone faster, but he wanted his hand free if he needed to draw and fire. They rushed in
side the barn the moment he had the door open.
“Think this will be all right?” Jake asked.
She looked around the barn. There was a wide center aisle with double doors opening to the north and south. Overhead, lofts ran along either side. The stalls were empty, and the place smelled of dust and hay, but she thought the wide center passage would give her all the room she needed. The barn was cluttered with things stored and forgotten.
“I never come out here, and we keep all our junk here,” she said. “We'll have to clear this out to make room for my things.”
“We can start on it, or I can get the men to do it when they arrive.”
“I’d just as soon get started. It'll give me something to do to work off some energy.”
Jake turned to look at her and she knew how he had taken her remark. Giving him a steady look in return, determined to stick with her morning’s vow to keep things platonic, she tried to get her thoughts back to making the barn as bearable a workplace as possible.
“I’d like more light. Even with the doors open, I don’t have the lighting I need.”
“I'll rig something up,” he said, studying the high ceiling fitted with dim bulbs far above them.
She smiled at him. “Ninety percent of the time you seem so much the tough cop, and then sometimes you seem like a regular guy,” she said in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the girls.
He touched her collar lightly and then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If circumstances were different, it wouldn’t be just ten percent regular guy with you,” he drawled quietly, and Rebecca felt her pulse flutter.
Tension vibrated between them, that magic chemistry that neither of them seemed able to control. Their surroundings faded away. Dimly, she heard Tara and Sissy talking, but she was lost in Jake’s gaze, remembering standing in his arms last night. She drew a deep breath and saw his jaw clamp shut.
He turned abruptly, and she ran her hand across her brow, feeling as if she had just had a narrow escape, yet at the same time experiencing a pang of longing.
“Do you have an extension ladder?”
“No, I don’t.”
“We'll get one, and a couple of big electric fans,” Jake said, striding through the barn to the double doors at the opposite end and sliding them open.
The girls scampered over the barn, climbing to the loft, squealing with delight, and Rebecca knew they loved being out of the confines of the house. She and Jake worked together, clearing boxes, Dan’s old fishing tackle and golf clubs, things packed away and forgotten.
She watched as Jake hoisted a bag of fertilizer, his muscles bulging. He carried it to the back of the barn, dumped it and yanked his shirt off, wiping sweat from his forehead. Sunlight spilled through the open doors over his broad shoulders and muscled back. She inhaled, her resolutions forgotten as she stared at his shoulders and narrow waist, his jeans riding low across his narrow hips.
She turned around abruptly and picked up boxes to move, carrying them out of the way into an empty stall. Something rustled in the dark corner of the stall, and Rebecca froze.
She dropped the box and jumped out of the stall, whirling around and slamming into Jake, who caught her.
Chapter 8
“Hey!” Jake’s hands on her arms steadied her.
“There’s something in the stall,” she said. “It must be a mouse or rat or snake, but it just startled me.”
He pulled out his pistol and stepped past her, and she followed. A mouse scampered through the hay into a corner.
“I can shoot it, but it would frighten the girls.”
“It would horrify them. I'm sorry. My nerves must be on edge. Just let it go. Maybe I can get them a kitten, and that will take care of more than one problem.”
“Want me to get a kitten?”
She smiled at him. “You're like a genie.”
“Not exactly,” he drawled, and once more the tension between them sparked, and she realized they were still standing just inside the stall, close to each other in the dim light of the barn.
“We should get back to work,” she said, stumbling away from him, hurrying to pick up another armload of boxes, as if to put some kind of physical barrier between them.
At midday, a flatbed truck arrived with three men, who piled out. Jake went forward to meet them, bringing them into the barn to introduce them to Rebecca and the girls.
“You'll need to direct us where you want things,” Jake said, “but first the guys want to unload the groceries.”
“Sure.”
“You get in the truck and ride up to the house. Would the girls like a little ride in the back of the truck?”
“I'll ask.”
In minutes both girls were settled in the back of the truck with boxes of supplies and sacks of groceries. After the ride ended, they went inside to help put away groceries. When they finished, Jake turned to Rebecca.
“The area around the house should be safe. McCauley’s relief, Terry Woodson, is in the woods behind the house right now. Woodson has made the rounds, the surveillance teams haven’t reported anything, and with the men here I think it'll be safe for the girls to play in the yard.”
Rebecca leaned around Jake. “Hear that?”
Both girls nodded with eager grins. “All right. You must stay near the house—between here and the barn.”
“If you want to ride back to the barn in the truck, you may,” Jake said, and received more enthusiastic agreements as Sissy jumped up and down.
They drove to the barn and Rebecca directed where she wanted all her things as the men unloaded the truck. Rebecca showed the men where to set the scarred wooden table.
While they continued unloading the truck, she unpacked boxes and set up her work area. She watched as the men carefully uncrated her etched glass.
When it was finally in place, Jake walked around, looking at framed etched glass depicting a vase of lilies. He moved to a colorful stained-glass design of a mountain and blue sky and touched the frame lightly, glancing back at her.
“You're good at this.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling pleased. “I'm doing that one, the mountain project, for a house,” she explained, aware of Jake’s solid bulk as he came to stand beside her.
“I'm doing a door and two windows for a house,” she said. Jake looked at large shapes of clear beveled glass, knives, strips of lead, and pliers. The large table would not have fit into her house without the furniture being removed.
“I can see why you have to work in the barn.”
“This is going to be fine for a workplace,” she replied.
By late afternoon, the two men had gone and an electrician was working in the barn to run wiring and put in extra lights.
While she fixed a tuna salad for dinner, Jake entered the kitchen. “When I called the electrician, I had him pick up some motion-detector lights to put up outside your house and barn while he’s here.”
“I didn’t know the police department did things like that,” she said, studying him and guessing what his answer would be as he gave her a level look.
“I did it because I wanted to. It'll make my job easier, and those lights aren’t expensive.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Forget it,” he said gruffly. “It’s done.”
“I’d like to pay you for the lights and wiring.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to do it.”
For a moment, Jake thought she would continue to argue, but then she smiled. “Thank you.”
“I'll go see how he’s coming and check on the girls,” he said, and left, letting the screen slap shut behind him.
Feeling another strange mixture of emotions, she followed him to the door, watching through the screen as his long-legged stride covered the ground swiftly. In seconds the girls had jumped up and were trailing right behind him.
The electrician stood on a ladder outside the barn, and Rebecca shook her head. Jake shouldn’t have bought the lights.
Was he also paying the electrician for the extra wiring and to work on Sunday? He was so damnably cavalier, giving orders without hesitation, taking charge, yet at the same time, he could be considerate, gentle, and far more understanding than she was comfortable with.
During dinner that night, over sliced juicy red tomatoes, tuna salad and golden corn, Sissy stared at Jake, and he suspected a question was forthcoming.
“Can we ever ride in a police car?” she asked.
“Yes, you can,” Jake said. “I promise that sometime I'll take you in one.”
Sissy brightened, and he glanced at Rebecca, who smiled at him. Each smile made him warm, and he wished he could make her smile more often. She was an independent woman, he reminded himself, completely self-sufficient, and he knew she couldn’t wait for him to get out of her life.
“Can you turn the siren on?”
“We can turn the siren on and the lights on if I'm out here where it won’t startle people. I can’t do it in town, because that means people have to get out of the way because I have an emergency.”
“Like a fire,” she said solemnly, and he remembered about their father.
“Do you ever go to fires?”
“Sissy, let Mr. Delancy eat his dinner,” Rebecca said quietly.
“It’s all right. Yes, sometimes policemen go to fires, as well as the fire department.”
Sissy nodded as if satisfied, while Tara studied him.
“You can get hurt at work just like our daddy did, can’t you?” Tara asked, and Jake felt a pang for her. He glanced at Rebecca and saw a stricken expression on her face, but only for a second, and then it was gone.
He realized how badly she must have hurt for the girls, besides what she had suffered herself.
“Yes, Tara,” he answered carefully. “I am in danger. Policemen and firemen take chances, but we're doing a job to help people. Someone has to take those risks.”
“Do you like being a policeman?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Have you ever been shot?” Sissy asked.
“Yes, I have,” he answered truthfully. “It wasn’t a terrible wound and I recovered from it and that’s all over now.”
