by Jill Shalvis
In her truck, she drew in a deep breath and drove off. It was a Winters’s gift, the ability to shove the bad stuff down deep and keep moving. Teddy wasn’t even a five on the bad stuff meter, she told herself.
As always in Lucky Harbor, traffic was light. At night, strings of white lights would make the place look like something straight from a postcard, but now, in the early light, each storefront’s windows glinted in the bright sunlight.
Things stayed the same here, could be counted on here. She thought maybe it was that—the sense of stability, security, and safety—that drew her the most.
Her three S’s.
At least until last night…
She put in her shift at the flower shop, worrying about how light business was. She brought it up to Russell at lunch, gently, that she felt she really had something to offer here, the very least of which was a website. But Russell, equally as gently, rebuked her. Like his sister Mindy before him, he was a technophobe. Hell, even the books were still done by hand, despite their bookkeeper’s urging to update their system. Grace Scott, a local bookkeeper, had given up on changing Russell’s mind, but Ali was going to bash her head up against his stubbornness, convinced they would make a great partnership.
On her break she used her smartphone to fill out as many online applications for apartments as she could find. By six o’clock, she was back at the beach house, hoping not to run into Teddy. She didn’t, which was good for his life expectancy. Even better, the front door key still worked. Bonus. She had a roof over her head for at least one more night.
In the kitchen, she tossed her keys into the little bowl she’d set by the back door to collect Teddy’s pocket crap. Out of curiosity, she poked through the stuff there: a button, some change, and…two ticket stubs, dated a week ago for a show in Seattle.
A show she hadn’t gone to.
She stared at the stubs, then set them down and walked away. Something else niggled at her as she headed into her bedroom, but she couldn’t concentrate on that, because she was realizing that Teddy had been working 24/7 for weeks. And before that, he’d been sick and had slept in a spare bedroom. They hadn’t actually slept together in…she couldn’t even remember.
Which meant that Ali had been very late to her own break up.
At this, her heart squeezed a little bit. Not in regret. She tried really hard not to do regrets. It wasn’t mourning either, not for Teddy, not after hearing him cheat on her. It was the realization that she’d really loved the idea of what they’d had more than the actual reality of it.
Sad.
She stripped down to her panties and bra before it occurred to her what the niggling feeling from before was. Reversing her tracks, she ran barefoot back to the large living room.
The house had come fully furnished, but Ted had always made the place his own, thanks to the messy, disorganized way he had of leaving everything spread around. Running shoes hastily kicked off by the front door. Suit jacket slung over the back of the couch. Tie hanging askance from a lamp. His laptop, e-reader, tablet, smartphone, and other toys had always been plugged into electrical outlets, and when they weren’t, the cords hung lifeless, waiting to be needed.
Not now. Now it was all gone, even his fancy, highfalutin microbrews from the fridge. Everything was gone, including her iPod.
How she’d missed that this morning, she had no idea, but facts were facts—Teddy had moved out on her like a thief in the night.
Detective Lieutenant Luke Hanover had been away from the San Francisco Police Department for exactly one day of his three-week leave and already he’d lost his edge, walking into his grandma’s Lucky Harbor beach house to find a B&E perp standing in the kitchen.
She sure as hell was the prettiest petty thief he’d ever come across—at least from the back, since she was wearing nothing but a white lace bra and a tiny scrap of matching white lace panties.
“You have some nerve you…you rat fink bastard,” she said furiously into her cell phone, waving her free hand for emphasis, her long, wildly wavy brown hair flying around her head as she moved.
And that wasn’t all that moved. She was a bombshell, all of her sweet, womanly curves barely contained in her undies.
“I want you to know,” she went on, still not seeing Luke, “there’s no way in hell I’m accepting your breakup message. You hear me, Teddy? I’m not accepting it, because I’m breaking up with you. And while we’re at it, who even does that? Who breaks up with someone by text? I’ll tell you who, Teddy, a real jerk, that’s who— hello? Dammit!”
Pulling the phone from her ear, she stared at the screen and then hit a number before whipping it back up to her ear. “Your voice mail cut me off,” she snapped. “You having sex in your office while I was in the building? Totally cliché. But not telling me that you weren’t planning to re-sign the lease? That’s just rotten to the core, Teddy. And don’t bother calling me back on this. Oh, wait, that’s right, you don’t call—you text!” Hitting END, she tossed the phone to the counter. Hands on hips, steam coming out her ears, she stood there a moment. Then, with a sigh, she thunked her forehead against the refrigerator a few times before pressing it to the cool, steel door.
Had she knocked herself out?
“It’s just one bad day,” she whispered while standing in the perfect position for him to pat her down for weapons.
Not that she was carrying—well, except for that lethal bod.
“Just one really rotten, badass day,” she repeated softly, and Luke had to disagree.
“Not from where I’m standing,” he said.
Chapter 2
At the unexpected male voice, Ali’s heart leaped into her throat. She whirled and stared in shock at the guy standing in her kitchen. Reacting without thinking, she grabbed the key bowl off the counter and flung it at his head.
He ducked, and the bowl bounced off the wall behind him, shattering into a hundred pieces. As ceramic shards tinkled to the tile floor, he straightened, dominating the kitchen as he turned to her, eyes narrowed.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, heart thundering.
“Oh no, you first,” he said, arms crossed, looking impenetrable and imposing. “Why are you throwing shit at me?”
Wishing like hell that she had clothes on, she was surreptitiously reaching for the coffee mug on the counter—another of her creations—to pitch at his head when he lunged and wrenched the mug from her hand. “Stop with the target practice,” he said, oozing dangerous levels of testosterone.
He was tall—six feet, at least—and built like he was very familiar with a gym or physical labor. And while he stood there in the middle of the kitchen as if he owned the place, she took in other details. Sharp eyes. All the better to see you with, my dear, she thought half hysterically, feeling a little bit like Little Red Riding Hood must have when she’d been trapped by the big, bad wolf.
His hair was dark brown and tousled, as if he couldn’t be bothered with a comb. His T-shirt was stretched across broad shoulders, his jeans sitting low on lean hips. And his cross-trainers made no noise when he took a step toward her.
All the better to catch you with, my dear…
He didn’t look like the big, bad wolf, she told her panicky self. Nor did he look like an ax murderer who broke into homes and tortured women in their undies—not that she was sure what an ax murderer might look like. Snatching the dish towel off the counter, she attempted to cover herself since her Victoria’s Secrets weren’t hiding much of her secrets.
The maybe–ax murderer’s gaze wasn’t leering, though he was definitely taking in her body, and she forced herself not to squeak as he snatched her sweater off the back of a chair and held it out to her, mouth hard.
All the better to eat you with, my dear…
Heart in her throat, she didn’t reach for the sweater. She was afraid to. Instead, she eyed the block of knives two feet over on the counter, wondering if she could possibly get to them before…
He shoved them fart
her away.
Dammit. “You’re trespassing,” she said, proud of her steely voice.
“No, that would be you.”
Clutching the towel for all she was worth, she shook her head. “I live here.” Although technically, thanks to Teddy, that wasn’t quite true anymore. “And if you don’t go, I’m going to call the cops.”
He didn’t go.
Ali knew exactly one self-defense move, and she went for it, risking everything to step into him and jerk her knee up.
But he moved so fast she didn’t have to time to get him in the family jewels. She didn’t even have time to blink before she was helplessly pinned against the counter by a tough, sinewy body.
“Stop,” he said in her ear. Then, as if nothing had happened, he stepped back from her, once again offering her the sweater.
This time she took it, dropping the tiny, ineffective dish towel and diving gratefully into the long garment, wrapping it around herself so that she was covered from her chin to her thighs.
Better.
Or as better as she could be with the stranger watching her carefully. He stepped back a little farther still, giving her some badly needed space. His expression was carefully neutral, but his body language spoke of a deadly tension that she didn’t want to further provoke.
“So,” he said calmly, propping up the doorjamb with a broad shoulder. “You break in?”
Was he serious? He certainly looked serious. Not to mention stoic and controlled, which set her nerves crackling.
His eyes were blue. Ice blue. She only noticed because she was watching him closely for any sign of aggression. His face might have been classified as devastatingly handsome, but it could also have been carved in stone, his expression dialed to an intimidating pissed off.
But she was pissed off too. And more than a little bit scared. Sure, she’d grown up in a tough neighborhood, but this guy was light-years ahead of her in badass experience. He had attitude written all over him, and a day’s worth of stubble darkening his jaw. Though his hair was cut short, some of it managed to fall across his forehead, which didn’t soften his appearance. She doubted there was anything soft about this man. “I didn’t break in,” she said. “I live here.”
“That’s impossible.”
“How would you know?” she asked.
“Because I own the house.”
Still leaning against the doorway, Luke gave the woman standing in front of him a long look that usually had bad guys running like hell.
But she wasn’t running. Instead she met his gaze with wide, hazel eyes, making him wonder about the glimpse of fierceness he’d seen when she’d been leaving that phone message. He ached for peace and quiet, and she was clearly the opposite of peaceful and quiet—so he needed to show her the door.
“You own this place?” she asked. “You’re Luke Hanover?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t relax. “I’m going to need to see your ID.”
That was usually his line. And for a woman standing in little more than a lightweight peach sweater, she had balls. Except what she really had was an acre of creamy, smooth skin and that mind-warping sweet, curvy body. He pulled out his wallet and showed her his driver’s license. “Now you.”
She blinked once like an owl, her hazel eyes not nearly as hostile now as she shoved some of her wild hair from her face. “I’ll have to get it out of my truck,” she said. “I left my purse out there.”
The cop in him winced. But this was Lucky Harbor not San Francisco, and people felt safe here. And yet he knew better than anyone that shit happened everywhere. “I had this place rented out to a single male through a management service,” Luke told her. “No B and E experts or half-naked women were on the lease.” He’d really counted on finding the place empty and was prepared to facilitate that by whatever means necessary, because he needed that few weeks of peace and quiet in the worst possible way.
“Teddy didn’t tell me until a few hours ago that he hadn’t re-signed the lease,” she said.
“Teddy,” he repeated. “The ‘rat fink bastard’ you were yelling at on the phone?”
She nibbled on her lower lip. “So you heard all that, huh?”
Yeah, he’d heard it and had suddenly appreciated his long dry spell in the women department. “Where’s Marshall now?”
“Moved out.” Turning from him, she climbed onto the barstool, and for one brief glorious second, the sweater raised, flashing him another quick peek-a-boo shot of those hot, little panties before she settled. She really did have a world-class ass. And a wedgie.
“He never mentioned he wasn’t re-signing the lease?” Luke asked.
“No. Hence the rat fink bastard part.”
That nearly got a genuine smile out of him. It would have been his first in weeks, but he bit it back. Because in truth, there was nothing funny about this. He’d come to Lucky Harbor to be alone.
He needed alone.
It’d been years since he had been here. After inheriting the house from his grandma, he’d kept it rented out. He’d done so purposely, even though he’d spent some of the best times of his life here while growing up. The cliffs and water had been a teenager’s haven and so had the pier and arcade. Back then, he hadn’t cared that the house was inconvenient to get to or isolated. He cared even less now. In fact, he liked both of those things.
The property included a rickety set of stairs down to the beach and its own small dock. The huge, old house was equally rickety. He hadn’t thought of selling it though, not once. He couldn’t, not without far more guilt than he was equipped to handle.
He was glad for that now, because he’d needed out of San Francisco after his life had detonated. On his last case, he’d been part of the unit that had been tasked with gathering evidence against Senator Robert Danielson, who was accused of murdering three young women over the course of a year.
From the beginning, the evidence had been shaky at best: a few emails, texts, and phone calls between the senator and the women. A handful of questionable expenses. But Danielson was respected, and, by all accounts, also a decent guy. During four months of investigation, not one person had said a negative thing about him other than the guy worked too hard. Eventually, due to lack of evidence, the case against him had been dropped.
Two days later, the senator’s pretty, young aide, Isabel Reyes, had floated in on the tide of the San Francisco Bay.
The senator had been found only an hour after, hanging from the rafters.
The press had gone ape-shit that no one had seen this coming, questioning the integrity of everyone involved with the case, including the judge, the DA, and the entire investigative team—which Luke had led.
He still felt sick about Isabel Reyes’s death. He couldn’t get past his gut feeling that he should have known. Disgusted with the job, the system, and most especially himself, he’d put in for all twenty-one days of the vacation he’d accumulated and left the city, hoping to find his sanity. He’d come here to Lucky Harbor, planning to sleep for at least a week and then maybe have some pizza and catch a few games, and then sleep for another two weeks. He’d wanted to do that free of other people, especially recently dumped-by-text renters.
“Okay,” he said, “so Marshall’s gone, and you’re…?” He paused for her answer, thinking that the only acceptable response would be “leaving now.”
“I have a place to move to,” Hazel Eyes said.
Thank God.
“Probably.” She paused. “Hopefully. Soon as I hear back from the applications I put in today, I’ll know more. Not that this is your problem, of course.” She hopped off the barstool, and Luke told himself that the reason his body tightened was relief that she was on the move. He wasn’t going to have to forcibly remove the sexy, crazy, naked lady from his house.
But instead of gathering her things and going, she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out some ingredients. “You like turkey?” she asked.
He blinked at the quick subject change. “Ye
ah.”
“Your stomach’s growling.” Quick as lightning, she put together a thick turkey sandwich with some fixings and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” he said in surprise.
“No problem.” Moving to the counter, she stared out the window.
The hem of her sweater covered her ass, even most of her thighs, hugging her curves for all it was worth. Her legs were long, toned. Bare. Working at not imagining running his hands up their entire length, he shoved in a big bite.
Still looking out the window, she set one foot on top of the other and cocked a hip, silent.
“I think there are boxes in the garage,” he said, trying to be helpful. Hell, he’d even carry her shit out for her, no problem.
More silence, which was normally his thing. He was good at it too. But when she finally spoke, the words stabbed him.
“Dumped and made homeless in the same day,” she said softly. “That’s got to be some kind of record for pathetic, right?”
Luke let out a breath, pushed the now-empty plate away, and tried to harden his already stone heart. That his ex-renter had screwed her over wasn’t his problem. He was temporarily off duty from solving other people’s problems. Sure, she’d had a tough break, but the cold, hard fact was that lots of good people got screwed over every day of the week. He couldn’t care right now. He hadn’t slept in days, and he was going to pass out on his feet if he didn’t get horizontal in the next five minutes. “Look, stay tonight. It’s not that big of a deal.”
She didn’t move from her perch. “Thank you, but no. I’ll be okay.”
Luke followed her gaze to the ancient Toyota truck parked at the curb. He’d been a detective long enough to know exactly what she was thinking—she was going to sleep in her truck. “Seriously. Stay one more night.”
She turned and looked at him then, eyes bright with pride. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.”
