by Lori Wilde
Ah, ah, she couldn’t hide it. He saw a pink tinge creeping over her cheeks. He knew it. She wasn’t as bold as she was pretending.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You can’t lie. Your rosy red cheeks give you away.”
“How did you hurt your knee?” she badgered, and he could tell she was determined not to let him get the best of her. He admired that. He made her nervous, but she wasn’t going to let him steamroll her.
“A few months ago someone was assaulting transvestites in south Houston.”
“Don’t tell me you were having kinky sexcapades with a transvestite?” she teased.
He lifted his eyebrows and cocked his most seductive grin her way. “Now, Rosy, that’s just wrong.”
She acted immune—setting down the unfinished bagel, folding her arms over her chest, assessing him mildly. But she didn’t fool him one bit. Nick saw the way her breath quickened, how the pulse at the hollow of her throat jumped.
“I’ve got it.” She snapped her fingers. “You were assigned to dress as a woman, weren’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“What else could make a tough guy like you blush?”
“I’m not blushing,” he denied.
“Yes, you are.”
“My face is turning red because whenever I think about what happened, I get pissed off all over again.”
“Have a temper, do you?”
He snorted. “My captain gave me the assignment as punishment for not following orders on another case. He hates it when I don’t follow orders and still end up making a good clean collar.”
“Oh, you’re one of those kinds of cops.” She picked up her coffee and peered at him over the rim of the cup.
“What kind of cop?”
“The maverick-loose-cannon-Mel-Gibson-Lethal-Weapon kind of cop.”
“More like Mel in Lethal Weapon 3 and 4. I’m not suicidal. I just don’t like following orders when they’re ill-conceived and could get me or my partner or an innocent bystander killed. And the dress the captain picked out for me to wear, good God, it looked like something from Boogie Nights. Cheap, polyester, and sequinned.”
“So what happened?” She leaned in, obviously intrigued. Nick had to admit her interest flattered his ego.
“It’s midnight. In a seedy part of Houston. Dive bars and strip joints and crack houses.” He stopped and looked at her. “You have no idea what that part of town looks like, do you?”
“No,” she confessed. “I’m from River Oaks.”
“Somehow I’d guessed. You’re one of those Cartwrights. Richer than God.”
“Yes,” Delaney admitted. “But let’s not get sidetracked by the fact that I’m an oil heiress. About your story. You’re in an unsavory section of the city late at night. Now what?” She took another sip of coffee.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
She held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Girl Scout?”
“No.”
“So your vow not to laugh has no oath to back it up.”
The corners of her lips twitched and her eyes twinkled. “Nope. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Okay, here goes. I’m wearing gold lamé spandex, four-inch stilettos, and panty hose. By the way, how in the hell do you women walk around in those damn things? Panty hose are the most god-awful torture device ever invented. The Geneva Convention should have weighed in on those puppies.”
“Next time try a bronzer on your legs instead.”
“Trust me, there ain’t gonna be a next time.”
She laughed.
“It wasn’t funny. And remember, you promised not to laugh.”
“Sorry.” She tried to school her features, but couldn’t completely dampen her smile. “But I would have given anything to see you in that outfit.”
“Trust me, it was ugly. My partner and I are strolling down the street looking like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis from Some Like It Hot and this guy jumps out of the alley, grabs my partner, puts a knife to his throat, and starts dragging him back down the alley.”
Delaney sucked in her breath, splayed hand across her heart, and looked sincerely concerned. “Oh, my goodness.”
“It was a little hairier than oh-my-goodness,” he said. “I went after the guy, but he threatened to stab my partner in the throat if I didn’t step off.”
“What did you do?”
“I threw my purse at the guy’s head. My partner took that opportunity to bite the guy’s wrist. The perp lost his grip on my partner, realized he was in trouble, dropped the knife, and took off down the alley. Stupid me, I just had to go after him. Word to the wise, don’t sprint down a dark alley, in a seedy part of town, wearing four-inch stilettos.”
Delaney hissed in her breath through clenched teeth. “Ouch. I can see where this is headed.”
“Believe me, ouch doesn’t begin to describe the words that came out of my mouth. The guy tried to scale a fence. I jumped to grab for him and came down hard on my right leg. My heel caught on some garbage and slipped out from under me. I had my hands locked around the perp’s ankle when my knee gave way. I heard this horrible crackling sound like an elephant stomping on a big bag of pork rinds. To make matters worse, I pulled the punk down on top of me. What damage the fall hadn’t done, the weight of a two-hundred-pound meth-head finished off. I tore all the ligaments and fractured my kneecap.”
Delaney’s face paled and she made a low noise of sympathy.
“So here I am in the emergency room, gold lamé skirt hiked up to my waist, panty hose twisted around my privates, howling like a werewolf at the moon.”
She reached out a hand and touched his arm. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Hey, don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.” He didn’t want to admit it, but he liked the way her hand felt against his skin. “Your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“Confession time. I tell you my most embarrassing moment, and you have to tell me yours.” He’d been blabbing away, trying to gain her confidence so she’d confide in him, but so far he hadn’t learned anything personal about her. If Operation: House Stage Ouster was going to work, he had to get her to talk about herself so he could figure out her Achilles’ heel.
“You were present for my most embarrassing moment.”
“Ah, yes, the tarp incident. That’s the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to you?”
“I don’t usually put myself in embarrassing situations.”
“Tell me, what inspired you to dress in a raincoat and bustier to bag your fiancé and drag him off for an afternoon of hot sex?”
“Truthfully, I didn’t really want to do it.”
“No? Then why did you?”
“It was my friends’ idea.”
“I’m going to need a little more to go on. Fair’s fair. I told you about the panty hose.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“More embarrassing than my story?”
“You’re going to make me go through with this, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. We can’t have the ledger go unbalanced.”
“Okay, here goes.” She inhaled. “I was telling my friends that my fiancé and I had entered a celibacy pack before our wedding. We haven’t had sex in six months and I was feeling—”
“Horny.”
She blushed. “Well, yes.”
“What kind of red-blooded American male agrees to a celibacy pact?” Nick raked his eyes over Delaney. “Especially with a woman like you?”
“It was my fiancé’s idea. Anyway, my friends came up with the scenario to kidnap him from his job for an afternoon of hot sex. To prove to myself I wasn’t a stick in the mud, I decided to go through with it.”
“Are you sure your fiancé isn’t gay?” Nick cocked an eyebrow.
“He’s not gay.”
“Asexual then?”
“Maybe,” she admitted. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Do you love the guy?” N
ick had to ask.
“I’ve known him since I was a child.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I love him,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid the love I feel for him is not the right kind of love. That’s what I was trying to find out with the whole raincoat and bustier thing.”
“If you don’t love him that way, then for God’s sake, do the poor schlub a favor and don’t marry him,” Nick said sharply.
“You don’t understand. It’s very complicated. My mother, she’s a stickler for all that social registry stuff. Wants to make sure I marry the right kind of man.”
“Meaning rich and well bred.”
“Yes.”
“What century are you living in?”
“You don’t know what it’s like. Coming from high society.”
“Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.”
She laughed. “It is.”
“So you thought you were bagging your boyfriend and instead you bagged me. You must have felt like you were angling for whitefish and came up with a carp instead.”
“I was so nervous about the whole thing that I threw the tarp over the first guy who came out the door. It never even entered my head that you weren’t Evan.”
He felt as if he’d been kicked squarely in the bread basket. His breath left his body in one long whoosh. “Evan? Your fiancé is Dr. Evan Van Zandt?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know?”
Nick groaned. Of all the freakin’ luck. His gut fisted and his pulse knocked for no good reason.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Trust me to get myself in this kind of situation,” he muttered under his breath.
“What are you talking about?”
He tapped his knee. “Evan? Your fiancé. He’s my doctor.”
Nick’s revelation rattled Delaney to her core. Evan was his surgeon?
“We better get to work,” she said, ignoring the feelings churning inside her. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She was still trying to deal with the implications of what he’d told her. Nick knew Evan. Evan had treated Nick. “Did you get to the plumbing repairs yet? Are we ready to move on to putting down the kitchen tile?”
“I finished the plumbing,” he said. “Just waiting for you to help me pull up the old linoleum; the new tile is stacked up on the porch, ready to go.”
Delaney worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Being so close to him was unsettling. “Maybe we could skip to the painting today instead. You can do one room, I can do another.”
“Wouldn’t it be more effective if we worked together?” he asked, sizing her up with one long, cool stare. “And I thought you wanted the kitchen finished first, since it requires the most work.”
She cleared her throat. “Um, I’m thinking it’s better if we’re not in the same room.”
“What’s the matter, Rosy? Scared you can’t keep your hands off me?” he taunted her. “Scared Evan will find out we were in a room alone together? Shh, I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she denied stridently.
“No?” He stepped closer, crowding her space, chasing all the air from her lungs.
“Absolutely not,” she bristled.
“You’re going to deny there’s chemistry going on here.” His gaze nailed her to the spot.
“I will not jeopardize my relationship with a man I’ve known for twenty-five years over a lusty affair.”
“Whoa.” He held up both palms. “You’re moving a little fast for me. Who said anything about an affair? What makes you think I’m the kind of guy who would have an affair with an engaged woman? I’m outraged.”
“You’re teasing me?” She eyed him.
“I’m testing you.”
She didn’t know what to make of that. “I don’t trust you.”
He shrugged. “So quit.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed. “You want me to quit, don’t you? That’s what this is all about. That’s why you’ve been coming on so strong.”
He didn’t say anything, his silence confirming her suspicions. He didn’t want Lucia to sell the house so he was coming on to her, hoping to make her leave.
“I’m not quitting.” She hardened her jaw.
“Fine by me.”
“I’ve got work to do.” Drawing herself up to her full height, she went over to the corner, picked up a putty knife, and started tackling the aged linoleum.
Nick came up behind her. “Why did you offer to wait to get paid until after the house sells? That doesn’t sound like good business to me.”
She didn’t answer him for the longest moment. She was trying to decide if he even deserved an answer. “Because I needed this job as much as your grandmother needed it done.”
“You?” He made a dismissive noise. “You’re an oil heiress. You’re engaged to a prominent doctor. You’re stunningly beautiful. Why would you need a job?”
“It’s complicated.” Her face was burning red again as she felt the telltale flush creep up her neck. No matter how hard she tried to suppress it, he seemed to have a magical ability to make her blush.
“I’ve got two good ears.”
She ignored him. She’d already talked too much, gave him too much ammunition to use against her. Darn her need to be liked. She wished she didn’t care what he thought about her, but she did. Disgruntled with herself, she grabbed a chunk of linoleum and yanked it up from the subflooring.
“You blush every time I give you a compliment. Why is that?” He came over to lean one shoulder against the wall in front of her.
“You’re in my way.”
“I know that.”
She raised her head and glared at him point-blank. “I realize you’re a cop and interrogating people just comes naturally to you, but I’d appreciate it if you dropped this whole line of questioning and helped me get this old flooring up.”
He grabbed a piece of linoleum from the opposite end of the kitchen and pulled up a long hunk of it. He opened the back door, chucked the brittle strip out onto the back lawn, and then started again. In half an hour, they met in the middle of the room, the floor sticky and raw from the glue of the old linoleum.
They looked at each other, but neither of them spoke. Two people standing in the middle of a vacant room, uncertain what to make of each other.
“I was unattractive as a child,” she said, not knowing why she was telling him this. “The proverbial ugly duckling.”
Nick tilted his head and studied her. “Well, I’d say you’ve blossomed into a hellaciously beautiful swan.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You want me to haul you over in front of a mirror and prove to you otherwise?”
“What you’re seeing isn’t real, Nick. It’s all packaging.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t you notice the heads swiveling and the tongues drooling when you walk down the street?”
“Nose job.” She touched her nose with her fingertips. “Until I was fourteen I resembled the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.”
“No way.”
She put a hand to her waist. “Or you could say I looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy’s blind date. And then there were the teeth.” She raised her upper lip, revealing her teeth that she knew were perfectly straight and dazzlingly white. Five grand worth of veneers could do that for you. “I could have given Bugs Bunny a run for his money, except I stuttered like Porky Pig. Oh”—she snapped her fingers—“I almost forgot the Coke-bottle glasses.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating. Women have a tendency to denigrate their looks.”
“It’s true. Just ask my mother. She’ll be the first to tell you I was a total train wreck.” Under her breath she mumbled, “Lord knows she’s told me often enough.”
“I think I get it,” he said.
“Get what?”
“Why you lowballed your bid on my grandmother’s house.”
“Really?”
�
�Lack of self-confidence,” he said.
“Partially,” Delaney conceded.
“And you lack self-confidence because your mother never believed in you until you had your nose done, lost weight, underwent LASIK surgery, got braces, and stopped stuttering.”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“Why else would you be so hard on yourself?” His voice was kind, his eyes kinder still. “Come on, Delaney, it’s way past time to stop beating yourself up for your sister’s death. You didn’t kill her. You weren’t responsible. Let go of the blame.”
Dammit, just when he was making it easy for her to resist him, he turned sweet. She couldn’t bear the understanding expression on his face. It was too much. She could handle feelings of lust for him. Lust was just lust, but this feeling—this was dangerous stuff.
“I’ve just remembered something,” she said, feeling bad about lying but knowing she had to get out of here before something really dangerous happened.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got an appointment to give a bid on a house in west Houston at ten. With the traffic, I’ll be lucky to make it. Sorry to bail on you like this, but we made a good start.”
“You’ve been here less than an hour,” he said.
“I know, I’m sorry.” The way he was looking at her was making things worse. “I gotta go.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Uh-huh.” She forced a smile, grabbed her purse, and ran from the house while she still had the strength of will to tear herself away.
Chapter 11
Okay, phase one of Operation: House Stage Ouster had been a rousing success. Nick had gotten Delaney to reveal her doubts and fears and insecurities. He knew where her vulnerabilities lay, knew just how to wound her. Problem was, he didn’t want to wound her. In fact, he felt an overwhelming urge to protect her. From her mother, from her fiancé, from the entire world.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Tender feelings were not part of the plan.
Last night, unable to sleep, he’d tiled the entire kitchen by himself in spite of the pain in his knee. This morning, he was tired and achy and ready to abandon his plans to chase her off. Face facts, he wanted her around. And that thought was scary as hell.
“Come on,” he muttered. “You can’t let your feelings for her derail your own needs. She’s marrying someone else. It’s not like you have a chance with her. Hell, you don’t want a chance with her. You’re through with all that romantic mumbo jumbo.”
