Bear Claw Lawman

by Jessica Andersen

  “Come on.” Nick held out a hand. “Let’s get you back to the P.D.” If they weren’t getting anywhere, he wanted her safely behind reinforced concrete and a full shift of cops.

  She hesitated, but then let him help her up off the floor. She tugged her hand away almost immediately, though, and didn’t look at him as she headed for the door.

  Which was just as well, he told himself. Given that he was suddenly having a hard time remembering to keep his damn distance, he should count himself lucky that she wasn’t having any such trouble.

  A phone rang, interrupting the moment, which was probably also a good thing.

  Maya pulled her cell from her pocket, and answered, “Maya here.” Her brows furrowed slightly. “Hold on.” Lowering the phone, she said, “I’m going to need a few minutes.”

  He nodded. “We’ll wait in the hallway.”

  “No, go on down to the car.” She tossed him the keys. “I’ll be right with you.”

  He hesitated, but there was no real reason for him to hover. “Okay,” he said after a brief pause. “We’ll see you down there.”

  He and Jenn headed out into the hallway and down the stairs, and as she determinedly ignored him and the air went tense and tight between them, he realized too late that Maya had been a necessary buffer. Now, with the two of them alone, he was sorely tempted to crowd close enough that their arms bumped, close enough that he could feel her soft warmth and know that she was truly okay.

  Except he’d given up the right to touch her the day he’d moved out of her apartment with what he now

  admitted—inwardly, at least—had been a really lame explanation, and a crummy way to treat someone he had cared about far more than he’d wanted to admit. So he kept his distance instead.

  Down on the street level, he took a quick scan of their surroundings and a look under the SUV, then waved Jenn toward the car. “It’s clear. Come on.”

  But then, just as she stepped out into the road and headed for the passenger side, an engine revved and a small, dark hatchback flew around the corner and accelerated further, aiming straight for her.

  “Jenn!” Nick launched himself into the street, going for her, for the car, for whatever he could reach in time. But even as he bolted for his protectee—for Jenn, damn it—he knew the terrible truth.

  In keeping his distance for his own protection, he was too far away for hers. And now he was going to be too late.

  Chapter Five

  Jenn started to flatten herself against the SUV, but when the small car corrected to follow the move, shock rattled through her. The driver was coming straight for her!

  “Jump!” Nick shouted, sounding far away. “Get on the roof!”

  Adrenaline spurted as she grabbed the roof rack and made an awkward lunge for the top of Maya’s SUV.

  It was a long way up, taller than she could manage with a flat-footed leap, which left her scrambling, trying to haul herself up as the car hit the back corner of the SUV. Metal screeched and tore as the smaller car kept going, plowing along the side of Maya’s car, straight for Jenn.

  “I’ve got you!” Strong hands grabbed her wrists and pulled.

  Jenn’s eyes snapped up to meet Nick’s as he dragged her up to the top of the SUV, his eyes hard and wild. He pulled her all the way up, bracketed her with his arms and held her as the screeching, scraping continued and the vehicle rocked and shuddered beneath them.

  Then the little car tore away and accelerated down the street, its engine howling and metal scraping on metal where its bumper was bent and dangling.

  The hatchback screeched around the next corner and disappeared, leaving a loud silence that hammered in Jenn’s head and rasped in her lungs as panic caught up with her. Oh, no, she thought. That didn’t just happen. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, nonono…

  All that made it out of her, though, was a low moan.

  “Come on.” Nick dragged her off the other side, down to the curb, and pulled her into a stumbling run. “We need to get you inside. Now!”

  Suddenly the building seemed very tall and menacing, the crossroads at either corner a source of fear. Jenn’s heart pounded sickly in her chest. Someone had tried to run her down! What if there was a shooter out there, a bomber, another car?

  Even though her logical self knew the Investor wouldn’t have bothered having her run down if he’d had a sniper in place, she didn’t breathe again until they were inside the apartment building, with her in a corner near the stairs, Nick’s body between her and the door as he yanked out his phone and called it in.

  She hadn’t screamed, she realized with that odd sort of clarity that comes after a near-disaster. She hadn’t had time to scream or even really be afraid—it was over that fast. Now, though, she was very aware of the sharp skitter of panic in her veins and the warm solidity of Nick’s body between her and danger.

  “Black Honda hatchback, Colorado plates.” He rattled off the information and a brief description of the driver, neither of which she had gotten. Then he ended the transmission and shoved the phone back in his pocket. But where she might’ve thought he would head for the door, maybe even take off after the guy, he turned back to her, eyes dark and almost wild. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m…” She nearly took a step back away from him, not sure how to interpret the sudden intensity in his face, the sudden sense that he was utterly present, entirely focused on her. “Jenn!” he snapped, gripping her arms with granite gentleness. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak over the race of blood through her veins, the thunder of her pulse. Part of her wanted to know what his angle was, what he was trying to get her to think or feel. But another part said, This isn’t a role. This is him. His expression was raw, his eyes those of the man she’d thought she knew. One who was worried about her, who cared for her.

  He gripped her arms. “Are you sure? Answer me, damn it.”

  The press of his fingers wasn’t painful so much as insistent, solid and very real. “I’m…I’m fine. He didn’t get me.”

  “Are you sure?” He shifted his grip, started patting her down. “Are you bleeding?”

  “I said I’m fine.” She caught his hands, held them hard when he would have pulled away. “Nick. I’m okay.” Then, as he stilled—as they both stilled—she became very aware that they were alone in the stairwell, standing pressed together with their fingers intertwined. “I’m okay,” she repeated, seeing it finally getting through. And, more, as it got through to her that he had saved her life once more. “I’m fine, thanks to you,” she said softly. “If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have made it onto the roof of that car. I would have…” She trailed off, not wanting to say it.

  He scowled, eyes darkening to storms. “Damn it, Jenn.”

  “What? It wasn’t my—”

  He moved in. And kissed her.

  * * *

  SOMEWHERE IN THE BACK OF Nick’s brain, he knew he was losing it, had already lost it. They were in the middle of a situation. But that was exactly why it had to happen now. Not later. Not when there might not have been a later.

  It made him crazy to think that if he’d been a split second later, if she hadn’t managed to jump rather than trying to escape on ground level, he wouldn’t be holding her warm, living, breathing body now. Best-case

  scenario, he’d be huddled over her in the street, praying for the ambulance to get there fast enough. Worst case…

  He tightened his grip on her and held on to a kiss that he didn’t have any real right to take, but couldn’t stop himself from needing like he needed his next damn breath.

  After a first startled noise, she held herself stiff and still against him, with her hands curled around his wrists, not pushing him away, but not pulling him close, either. Her lips were closed, her body an arc of silent protest, not saying stop it so much as what the heck?

  “I know,” he said against her lips. “This is nuts. You should push me away, call me a bastard, tell me I don’t get to dump
you but still want you this way.” She was going to have to be the one to bring them back to reality, because in that moment, with the threat of losing her too damn close to the surface, he couldn’t be rational anymore.

  Her hands went to his collar and dug in, holding him close for a second. Then she shoved him back—not far, but far enough so they were looking in each other’s eyes and breathing each other’s breaths. “You still want me.”

  It wasn’t a question, but he answered, anyway. “I don’t play games. Not like this.”

  He didn’t know why that put new shadows in her eyes, didn’t know why she drew away a little more. And—bastard that he was—he didn’t care. He closed on her, blood riding high from the taste of her on his lips and the feel of her hands on his collar, gripping as if she wanted to drag him closer but couldn’t let herself give in to the urge.

  She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her, not after what he’d done, the way he’d ended things between them. But what she didn’t get was that he’d been trying to do the right thing before. Now, though, he couldn’t find it inside himself to do the right thing anymore. He was stripped down, flayed bare by the sight of her trying to get out of the way of the oncoming car. Hell, by having spent the past two weeks knowing she was safe yet still wanting—needing—to see it for himself.

  He was about to drag her closer, about to show her the things he damn well couldn’t say aloud, when her eyes changed, going suddenly hot and hungry as she gave in to the race of adrenaline and the heat that was building between them.

  Her mouth shaped his name, and her fingers went from holding him away to finally pulling him close. Then she hesitated and, with their lips just a breath apart, she whispered against his skin, “You’d better not be playing with me this time, Lang. You do that, and you’ll regret it.”

  That probably should’ve sent him off rather than turning him on, probably should’ve had him backpedaling at warp speed.

  Instead, he closed the final distance between them and kissed her for real.

  Her lips were warm and soft beneath his, her fingers tight on his collar, pulling him close once more. He lingered there for a few thuds of his heartbeat, kissing only her lips, and then easing between them to take her tongue with his.

  She gasped, letting him in deeper, and shifted restlessly against him until their bodies aligned through their winter clothes, warm and yielding. Her hands went to his shoulders, his nape, and then she was wrapping her arms around him, leaning on him, murmuring against his mouth.

  Groaning, he touched her the way he’d wanted to for so long, burying one hand in her thick, silky hair while the other stroked along her spine, down to her curved buttocks and back up again. Heat surrounded him, suffused him, and he reveled in it as he kissed her again and again, wringing a sexy, throaty whimper from the back of her throat as he changed the angle, the depth, and locked his knees when his head went light.

  This. This was what he’d had, what he’d pushed away. What he’d tortured himself with wanting.

  She was sweet and vibrant in his arms, with a brilliant energy that poured into him, bringing a crazy mix of lust, joy and hope, all of which had been in damn short supply in his life lately. She was the opposite of the darkness he usually worked under, an antidote to the numb detachment that kept him sane and alive.

  She made him feel alive, though, and sane. Centered. Like he could do anything, be anything, even a normal guy having a normal fling.

  He broke the kiss, whispered her name and trailed his lips along her cheek and across her throat, where her pulse throbbed hard and fast. “You’re okay,” he said against her skin, finally beginning to believe it. “I got you. You’re okay.”

  Where before she would have said something about having herself and not needing him to take care of her, now she let her head fall back on a moan, giving him better access to her throat, the hollow between her collarbones, the soft skin of her earlobes. He caught one of her studded earrings in his mouth and suckled gently, wringing another moan. Her hands slipped to his shoulders, his chest, and she went pliant against him, lost, like him, in the moment and the heat.

  Overhead, a door suddenly slammed in the stairwell, followed seconds later by a clatter of footsteps punctuated by an agitated call. “Jenn! Where are you? What happened?”

  Maya!

  Nick froze as his adrenal gland dumped a fresh load of “what the hell are you doing?” into his system and his heart slammed into a new gear, one that had a deep disquiet warring with the part of himself that wanted to keep kissing her, wanted Maya to see them together.

  Jenn reacted a split second before he did, tearing her lips free and levering him away. “Oh, no!” Her face wasn’t pale anymore, but the quick flush of color didn’t do a thing to conceal the just-kissed look of her lips and the wide dreaminess of her eyes. Those eyes sharpened fast, though, going to near panic. “Don’t let her know!”

  Her knee-jerk instinct stung more than it should have. And even as he was dealing with that—and the part of him that wanted to tuck her right back into that corner, cover her with his body and lose himself in another kiss that claimed her, possessed her—he was going into damage control mode.

  It’d saved his life countless times undercover; it would buy them time now, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted it.

  She did, though, and he would give it to her. She deserved that and more from him.

  Grateful for the bulky winter jacket that covered his raging erection, he swung around to face the stairs, putting his back to Jenn, blocking her in safely. “She’s here,” he called as Maya pounded down to the nearest landing. “She’s okay.”

  She stumbled to a halt, wide-eyed and panting, with her phone clutched in her hand. “I heard from Dispatch. What in God’s name happened?”

  “The bastard was waiting for her,” he said flatly. “I checked the SUV for wires, but he went old-school. Assault with a deadly hatchback.”

  Maya’s eyes went beyond him. “You could’ve been killed!”

  “Nick got me out of harm’s way.” Jenn nudged him aside to go to her friend. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up, that’s all. Your SUV is going to need some work, though.”

  “Forget the car. You’re what’s important.” To Nick, Maya said fervently, “Thank you. If you hadn’t been there…”

  He nodded and said the right things, but as his system started to level off and his logical self came back to the fore, he was all too aware that they’d gotten damn lucky just now. He hadn’t been paying enough attention. He’d let himself get distracted, trying to talk himself out of exactly what he’d just done.

  Scowling, he cursed under his breath.

  Jenn turned back. “What’s wrong?”

  Everything. Nothing. Damn it. He didn’t know how to answer that, didn’t know how to deal with the hot possessiveness that was still pumping in his veins, making him want to drag her back into his arms and surround her, protect her.

  One of the reasons he was so good at his job was his ability to stay detached in even the worst situations. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the emotions—he did, and deeply—but always before he’d been able to distance himself enough to do his job.

  Granted, this wasn’t an undercover assignment and Jenn wasn’t a suspect he needed to question or an asset he needed to turn. But that only made it harder for him to turn away from where she and Maya were talking in low tones, with lots of reassuring touches and exclamations.

  Distance. He needed some damn distance.

  Sirens and tire chirps outside heralded the arrival of their reinforcements, which should’ve been a relief. Instead, Nick wanted to bare his teeth and bristle as Tucker came through the door. Which wasn’t rational, he knew. He wasn’t rational.

  Because of that, and because he knew he’d made a grave mistake just now in kissing Jenn, he turned away from her, jerking his head for Tucker to follow so they could debrief in relative private. He was aware of her eyes following him over to t
he other side of the stairwell, aware of her expression going from confusion to anger. And he told himself it was for the best. Better to have her mad at him than trying to be a hero.

  Angry was better than dead any day.

  * * *

  THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS were a blur, as Jenn found herself hustled back to the P.D. and down into the crime lab, which now had officers posted at the front and rear staircases. More, she found herself the target of half-hour check-ins by Tucker or one of the other detectives, whose “Hey, how’s it going down here? Need anything?” queries were code for Hey, we’re just making sure you’re still down here, and nobody’s gotten to you yet.

  And that was a hell of a thought.

  Where before the lab had been her safe haven, the place where she could hunker down away from the violence of the crime scenes and do the work she was truly good at, now she was trapped there. Worse, she was risking the sanctity of the lab by being there. If the Investor made it past the guards—a chilling thought but one she couldn’t banish from her racing brain—she wouldn’t be the only casualty.

  What if one of the others was down there with her, working on her own evidence, like Gigi was now? As much as Jenn wanted to stay safe herself, she didn’t want to do it at the expense of a coworker, a friend.

  More, even if there wasn’t any human collateral damage, the Investor had already shown that he knew enough to tamper with evidence. Who knew what he might do to the lab. More, just having him down there could taint the chain of custody…and she knew firsthand how much damage something like that could do, not just to the department, but to all the criminal cases whose evidence was housed in the basement lab. There had to be hundreds of them, thousands.

  All in jeopardy because of her.

  Thoughts whirling up to pressure-cooker steam, she shoved away from her desk and looked around, not

  really seeing the basement fortress, with its too-bright lights and determinedly cheerful posters. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Over my dead body,” Gigi said from her desk, without taking her eyes off her computer screen.