The gym parking lot was packed with cars. He drove around back and parked. Tonight was a big turnout. Good. The kids would benefit and he’d blow off steam. Anything to get Jess out of his head for a few hours was helpful, even if it was only temporary.
Chapter Nineteen
When she heard his truck rumble away, Jess wandered into the living room and sat on the couch. Spike jumped up beside her and curled into the indentation he’d left in the once perfect couch. She didn’t have the heart to kick him off.
“You are a bad dog,” she said affectionately. After clicking on the TV, she quickly passed over a couple of reality shows and settled for a rerun of The Princess Bride. “You’re gonna love this movie, Spike.”
Westley had just left Buttercup behind on the farm to seek his fortune when a shadow passed outside the front living room window. Startled, Jess jumped off the couch and ran for her pistol.
She flicked off the lights, then moved slowly to the front door. A minute later, the soft sound of footsteps and a floorboard creak could be heard outside. She waited until they passed, then slowly opened the door, her gun raised, and stepped onto the porch and into the lamplight.
“Stop where you are!” Perfect. She sounded intimidating. The glowing figure of a naked man stopped at the end of the porch and turned. “Calvin?”
“Hey, Jess.”
She lowered her weapon. “What are you doing here? I thought Wheeler ran you off?”
Calvin walked back, his winky swaying. Jess was 90 percent certain she heard appreciative female sighs when he stepped into the porch light, his blinding beauty almost too much to handle without high-powered sunglasses. Glancing out, she saw only darkness from that direction.
“He did. I’m back.”
So much for Westley and Buttercup. “You can’t stay here. Sam likes peace and quiet. You wandering around naked is disrupting the neighborhood.” She raised her voice. “I’m pretty sure there are some women who should be home tucking their children into bed.”
Low giggles followed the footsteps heading off.
“I can’t go. You need protection and my brother is counting on me.” Calvin shrugged. “Besides, I have nowhere to go. My horoscope says that it’s not a good time for me to travel. The stars are not aligned correctly.”
There was something sweetly innocent about Calvin that she hadn’t noticed earlier. Probably because his, um, body was so distracting. Still, she already had an overly alpha bodyguard in Wheeler. She didn’t need another.
“Alvin can take you in. He’s your brother.”
The long blond hair danced around his defined shoulders as he shook his perfectly formed head. “He’s dating someone at work. She sleeps over a lot.”
This was news. “Who?” She failed to keep the excitement out of her voice. “Lynn from accounting? Harriet from housekeeping?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t seen her. He’s keeping her under wraps.”
Alvin was swimming in the company pool? What kind of PI was she? She hadn’t noticed anything going on.
Had Calvin not been loitering in the buff on the porch and causing a traffic back-up on the street, she would have run inside for a three-way Skype with Taryn and Summer.
She jerked him inside.
Spike sniffed him indecently as dogs like to do. Calvin gently pushed him back and scratched under his chin.
“Nice dog.”
“Thanks.” She had to do something. Calvin had to go. “Excuse me for a second.” She grabbed her cell off the end table, slipped upstairs, and dialed.
“What?”
“Alvin, your brother is here.” Why make small talk when he was the reason she had Naked Ken downstairs? “You have to take him. Sam doesn’t want him around and the neighborhood women are in a lather.”
“I can’t watch you. He’s free.”
Irritation prickled her nerve endings. “I. Do. Not. Need. A Babysitter.” There was no being clearer than that. “I’m going to find him some clothes and drive him over.”
“You can’t.” A voice on a PA broadcasted a call for a doctor. “He can’t be seen in public. He could be arrested.”
“Of course he’ll be arrested,” she snapped. “He’s naked.” Jess wasn’t up on the Ann Arbor codes for such things, but was pretty sure public decency was enforced every day other than the University of Michigan Naked Mile annual run through campus.
Alvin sighed. “He’s wanted in seven countries for protesting everything from saving the dung beetle to stopping the English sheep toss. He’s the Naked Protester. Look him up.”
Good grief. As if she hadn’t seen enough of Calvin already.
“Have I expressed my extreme dislike for you lately?” she asked, having lost this one.
“At least once a week.”
He hung up and she was stuck. Yes, she could run Calvin off at the business end of her gun, but he wasn’t a bad guy. The issue was how to spin his presence to Sam to get him to agree to another house guest.
He was going to bust a gasket.
* * *
“No.
“Please.”
“Is ‘oh, hell, no’ any clearer?” Sam said as he tried to ignore Calvin sitting on a towel on his couch. Spike had his head in the man’s lap. They were watching something called The Princess Bride. “He is not staying here.”
Sam had left her alone for a few hours and naked guy was back in his house. He’d hate to find out what would happen if he was gone for a whole day. She’d probably keep the theme going and turn his house into a shelter for homeless strippers.
Jess took his hand and dragged him into the kitchen. After planting a beer bribe in his hand and ignoring the frown that creased a line between his brows, she faced him.
“I know this is not what either of us wants, but I hope that, as a friend, you’ll be willing to compromise. Calvin needs direction and Alvin swears he isn’t dangerous.”
“When did we become friends?” He popped the can open.
“When you took Spike and me into your beautiful home and promised to protect me from harm.” She smiled brightly. He took a long gulp, looked at her, and took another.
“You sure do know how to shovel the bullshit, tough girl.”
“It’s my job.” How did she always smell so good? He’d come home from his outing sweating like he’d run a marathon, exhausted to find an intruder in his house, and she still managed to hit all his senses in a positive way.
“Look, he promised to patrol the perimeter of the house only at night to keep the gawker count down, and he plans to pop up a tent in the backyard,” she said. “Except for meals and bathroom breaks, you won’t even know he’s here.”
He sent her “the look.” “You don’t really buy that?”
Reaching out, she took the can, took a big swallow, and handed it back. “You’ve said from the start that I need protection from the sniper. With Calvin keeping watch outside, you’ll be free to continue to go out at night patrolling the streets of Ann Arbor in your Batmobile, Batman, without worrying about me.”
When he made the motion of shoveling with his hands, she knew she had him. He could tell by her expressive eyes.
How and when had he drifted over the line from being a hard ass cop to letting one exasperating and pushy PI get away with everything short of murder?
“You owe me big time,” he said and waited for a smug smirk. Instead, she cast him a sidelong glance as she walked out of the kitchen to give Naked Guy the good news.
“I can’t wait,” she said softly and left him to contemplate the possibilities of those three words.
Chapter Twenty
“You have a bruise under your eye,” Jess said the next morning when he came downstairs for breakfast. This morning she’d rolled out of bed early for a trip to the grocery store with Spike.
“Yea.” He padded barefoot to the coffee machine and poured a cup of swill. He looked like hell, in a cute way.
&nb
sp; As promised, there was a one-person tent under a tree in the backyard and no sign of Calvin. The agreement had gone off to a good start. She’d placed a bag of vegan pastries outside of his tent as well as one large reusable water bottle and had returned to the house to see if Wheeler was in a better mood today.
She’d resigned herself that he couldn’t help the way he was. He liked to knuckle drag and boss her around. At the conclusion of the case, he’d be another woman’s problem.
That conclusion changed when he’d let Calvin stay. There were signs of cracks in his crusty exterior. Would she like a softer, gentler Detective Wheeler?
“Were you in a bar fight?” She stirred the almost done scrambled eggs and added a fistful of grated cheese. “When a beer mug flies toward your face, you’re supposed to duck.”
He sent her a sidelong glance. “Is that so?”
Her stomach flipped and her self-control took a beating. The man was too damn sexy.
“It is.” She dumped some sliced green onions and a few packaged bacon bits into the eggs for flavoring. She wasn’t the best cook out there, but she could handle the basics. “Would you like to share the story of the eye?”
“Nope.” He went to the small pantry closet and collected paper plates. Forks followed. He set the table and took a seat. “That smells good.”
What a frustrating man. Him and his secrets. Well, she had secrets of her own. Let him try and pry them out of her.
“We’re having fancy scrambled eggs. And if you make a comment about your arteries, I’ll hit you with my spatula.”
He grinned.
The bruise was round-ish and about the size of a quarter. It notched up his bad-boy cop image. She wanted to kiss him again, only this time, with more enthusiasm.
From the look of his mouth, she suspected he was very good at kissing. A guy like him would be. He’d have had lots of practice.
As much as she tried to reconcile this attraction to the fact that she hadn’t been kissed in months and he was convenient, she knew that was untrue. There was more to Sam than just a warm body with lips. He touched something inside her long gone dormant. She wanted him. Badly.
Dear God, why?
Jess turned off the burner and removed the pan from the stove. After shoveling most of the eggs onto his plate, she portioned hers out and sat across from him.
“Today, I’d like to check on Irving, then question local gun dealers for any sign of our sniper.” Jess tasted the eggs. Excellent. “It’s unlikely she’d purchase the gun locally, but ammo isn’t traceable unless she buys with a credit card.”
“Michigan is a concealed weapon state so she wouldn’t be the only woman seeking out weaponry.”
“True,” Jess said. “But there might be something memorable about her. The witnesses said she was pear shaped and had a pointed chin.”
“Her and every third woman in Michigan.”
The fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “I know it’s lame, but we have nothing else. Unless you heard something I didn’t?”
“Nope. We got nada.” Wheeler dove in for a big second bite. “A large hairy wart on a scarred cheek would be helpful.” He paused from chewing. “These are really good.”
“Thanks.” After they finished up, she put the pan and spatula in the dishwasher. “I’m going up to shower, then head out. What are your plans for the day?”
“Apparently I’m visiting gun dealers.”
The man was like gum on her boot. No amount of diligent scraping on the edge of a curb was getting it out of the tread.
Jess took his fork from his hand. “Just so we’re clear. Do you intend to follow me around all day, every day, until the sniper is caught?”
“That’s the plan.”
She did an eye roll and sighed. Yes, working together had been her idea. But she hadn’t meant 24-7 for days on end. And that was before he took up bodyguard duties, and she started living with him. Too much closeness was just, well, too much.
There was nothing to do but accept that he’d be her ball and chain until the resolution of the case. Still, she had to try one last attempt to cut him loose. She needed a breather.
“We can cover a lot more ground if we occasionally investigate separately and share notes after.”
“We could do that. But our SUV’s guzzle gas. We’ll save a couple of penguins each if we ride share.”
Penguins? How could she win that argument? “Am I allowed in the bathroom alone?”
“As long as you don’t try to crawl out the window and escape.” He disposed of their plates as she dropped his fork into the dishwasher. “Look. I have no doubt of your abilities as a kick-ass PI in hand-to-hand combat. This is a whole other situation. This woman likes covert attacks. We’ll have better odds of catching her if we work together.”
The detective had a point. She hated when he was right.
He continued, “Besides, with my brains and your muscle, we make one hell of a crime fighting team.”
This brought a smile. Wheeler lacked nothing in the muscle department, all angles and planes in the right places. He could probably take down Alvin. “Don’t you mean my muscle and my brains? You’re just here to look pretty.”
Wheeler chuckled and rubbed his chin stubble. “I can live with that.” He stood. “I’ll meet you in the foyer in thirty.”
Jess watched him walk away, appreciating the view. He did fill out a pair of worn sweats nicely.
She cleaned up the remnants of breakfast and took Spike out for a mini-walk. Since Calvin was in the backyard, she pulled out a leaf-collecting bag, grabbed the small shovel Sam had found for her, and headed out. Step. Sniff. Step. Sniff. Spike did not miss anything sniffable. At that rate, they only got half a block down when they had to turn around.
“Can’t you walk faster?” She tugged his leash and had a feeling he was walking her. “I hear there’s a cute poodle at the end of the street who likes tough guys like you.”
Spike ignored her in favor of a patch of yews. He wasn’t plotting his next defiling but rather staring off, tense, with his nose in the air.
Something hit her in the back of the neck. “Ouch!” The sting brought her hand up to rub the spot.
Not again!
Expecting a wasp or bee, there was nothing. A second sting hit her neck again. “Damnit!” She spun around. The street was empty, with no signs of an insect attack.
A low doggy growl followed.
It was early enough that sunlight had not yet made an appearance between the houses, shadowing the tall rows of yews or other bushes along the fence lines, and the house on the right had a For Sale sign in the yard.
On high alert, Jess leaned to Spike. “What is it boy? A wasp? A rabid bat?” Or something bigger?
Before Jess formulated a plan to find out, the dog was off, nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process.
He bolted between the two houses behind them, dragging Jess. She flailed her free arm, trying to not pitch forward on her face. Trapped by her hand—she couldn’t get free of the leash—there was nothing she could do but try to remain upright or be dragged.
Why hadn’t she picked a smaller dog!
In the distance, she heard the sound of something big hitting the fence beside the For Sale house and a gate crashing open. “Go! Go,” she yelled, fully expecting to see a giant raccoon making an escape. Instead, the yard was empty.
This didn’t stop the dog who ran for the back fence, huffing the entire way. He danced back and forth, annoyed that he couldn’t get over.
Whatever it was, it had vanished. It was probably for the best. She didn’t want to tangle with anything sporting sharp teeth. “Sorry, boy.”
Spike wasn’t finished. He nosed the grass and came up with something in his mouth. It took her a second to see what it was before he gulped it down.
A half-chewed beef jerky.
Yuck. He’d probably get E. coli.
She turned to pull him back
in case more jerky was in the grass when she spotted a shirtless middle-aged man, with a furry Santa belly, standing in the yard behind them, holding a garden hose clutched in one hand and a cigar in the other. Worse, he wore only a pair of throwback 1970s too-short shorts and black socks with open-toed sandals.
“Um, hi,” she said, trying to control her dog.
“Hello.” He gnawed on the cigar. “You chasing that kid? Is that a police dog?”
Kid? “What kid?”
“The one that went over the fence just now.” He pointed to where Spike had returned to leaping at the fence behind her.
Jess went still. “Can you describe him?”
The guy turned off the nozzle and walked over. “Not tall. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.”
She had a bad feeling about this. “Could the kid have been female?”
He scratched his furry belly. “Maybe. I didn’t get a good look. He was moving fast.”
Shoot. If the kid was the sniper, then she knew where Jess lived. That meant she’d followed Jess to Sam’s house. That also meant that she’d probably been tracking Jess for who-knew-how-long. Maybe Irving, Summer, and Taryn, too.
And had set the fire at her apartment.
She had to get back to Sam. “Hey, thanks.”
Dragging Spike, she headed back to the street. The neighbor’s voice followed. “Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?”
Not a chance.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Guess what?” A breathless Jess followed Spike into the house, both of them panting and excited—her because she may have gotten a new clue, and Spike because he’d chewed on something gross. They both won in that walk. “You won’t believe what happened!”
He looked down at her free hand. There was no shopping bag entwined in her fingers. “You didn’t have to bag Spike’s business? That’d get me excited.”
She let the dog off the leash. “No, smartass.” She straightened and put her hands on her hips. “I think Spike almost nailed the sniper.”
The Sweetheart Kiss Page 11
