by Lisa Childs
She caught sight of the watch commander at the bar. “Excuse me,” she told the Gillespies. “All that singing worked up a thirst.”
“I don’t think that’s why you’re heading to the bar, dear,” Bernie said, wriggling her eyebrows up and down.
Tessa glanced to the bar again and noted the man sitting next to O’Donnell. Even though it was the first time she’d seen him out of uniform, she recognized the broad shoulders in the gray T-shirt. Faded jeans hugged his butt and long legs. Now she really needed a drink.
“Why don’t you ask him to dance again, and Jimmy and I will sing a romantic ballad for you,” Bernie suggested.
Tessa shook her head. “No, thanks. I have no intention of dancing with the lieutenant a second time.” She had no intention of riding with him, either.
Before she could get through the crowd to the bar, O’Donnell disappeared into the sea of shoulder-to-shoulder bodies. She probably should have tried to find him, but instead she continued forward—to Chad.
He turned to look at her, almost as if he’d sensed her approach. A policeman’s instincts or something more? No, she had already accepted that they could have nothing more.
“Was it your idea?” she asked.
“What? Your singing? No sane person would have wanted that to happen,” he quipped.
Unamused, she glared at him. “I’m not talking about my singing.”
She really wished no one would bring it up again, but she knew not to hold her breath. She had siblings, after all, who had made it their mission to never let her live down any humiliation.
“I wouldn’t talk about your singing, either,” Chad teased, his mouth lifting in a slight grin.
Tessa’s pulse quickened. Why did he have to be so damn handsome? She wouldn’t let his good looks distract her; she wouldn’t moon over him like Amy.
“I was talking about the ride-along,” she explained. “Was it your idea for me to ride with you?”
The smile slid from his face. “No. I told Paddy it’s a bad move, but I couldn’t change his mind.”
When thinking he had orchestrated the assignment, she’d been irritated. Knowing now that he was actually more opposed to it than she was actually hurt. She released a shaky sigh.
“Yeah, I’m frustrated, too,” he said. “There’s no talking to Paddy once he’s made up his mind.”
What about Chad? He’d obviously made up his mind about her. She doubted he’d change it. She turned to walk away, but a strong hand closed around her bare arm, holding her in place at his side.
Chad followed her gaze to his fingers against her bare skin. He shouldn’t have stopped her, but he hadn’t wanted her to leave. “I—I hear you’re still speeding.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Remember, you pulled me over last for going too slow.”
She had never shared with him what had sent her out that night, driving through the park.
“That wasn’t the last time you’ve been pulled over,” he said. “One of the rookies…”
“Oh, I should have known he’d tell you.”
“Because he thinks you’re my lady.”
She snorted. “We both know you don’t consider me a lady. You consider me a pain in the ass.”
“I don’t know what I consider you, Tessa Howard.” He just wished he didn’t consider her at all. “Too stubborn to learn from your mistakes, apparently.”
“I was not the one speeding,” she said.
His voice rough, he asked the question that had been driving him crazy since talking to the rookie. “Then who were you riding with?”
She arched a blond brow. “Jealous?”
He sucked in a breath. “So it was a man?”
“Not yet.” An odd mix of anger and affection brightened her blue eyes. “And he might not make it to manhood before I kill him.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“My younger brother.”
He swallowed his sigh of relief, not wanting to betray how jealous he had really been. Instead he focused on what she’d revealed. “You’re teaching him to drive?”
She nodded.
“That’s a mistake.”
She tilted up her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
He stated what should have been obvious to her. “Because you are not a responsible driver.”
“What I’m not,” she said, the anger in her voice now, “is her.”
“Who?”
“Luanne.”
“She was so bubbly and sweet,” he said as he remembered her effervescent personality, “but also a little too irresponsible.”
“I am not bubbly and sweet,” Tessa hotly denied. “And I am not irresponsible.”
“Yes, you are.” He sighed. “You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
“And you’re too stupid to see the truth. You want me to be like her, but I’m not.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe he did want her to be like Luanne so that he’d know not to fall for her. Because like Luanne, the risk of losing her would be too great.
She leaned closer to him, her blue eyes intent on his face, as her soft breath brushed his throat with her words. “Come home with me.”
Chapter Nine
Tessa held her breath, waiting for his response.
His eyes dilated until black eclipsed the green irises with those distracting glints of gold. A muscle twitched along his jaw. “This is how you prove to me that you’re not irresponsible?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “You invite me to go home with you?”
Tessa smiled. His reaction didn’t disappoint. She’d expected as much. “I’m not irresponsible. I’m going to take you home to prove it to you.”
“Inviting a strange man home with you is reckless, Tessa.”
“Absolutely.” She had been telling her mother that for years. “But you’re not a strange man. I know you. You don’t know me. You only think you do.”
He slid off the bar stool, his long, hard body brushing against her. “So you want me to really get to know you?”
Heat rushed to her face…and other parts of her body. “I’m not asking you back to my house for sex.”
At the same time, she couldn’t deny that she was tempted. In his uniform Lieutenant Michalski was handsome; out of it, in faded jeans and an old T-shirt, he was sexy as hell. Thank goodness Amy hadn’t joined the class at the Lighthouse tonight because she’d been pouting too much over getting assigned to a female officer for the ride-along, Chad would have had to fight the girl off.
But he wouldn’t have to fight off Tessa. She really didn’t want his body. For some reason she wanted his understanding, and maybe that was more dangerous than having sex with him.
His brow furrowed with confusion. “You just want to show me your house?”
“It’s more than just my house I want to show you,” she admitted.
“Why?” he asked. “Why do you want to show me anything?”
“Because you already have your mind made up about me.”
“And you care what I think about you,” he said.
She didn’t want to care, but she was afraid that she did. Too much.
“No,” she insisted to them both. “I just want to prove you wrong.”
HIS BLOOD PRESSURE rising, Chad followed the speeding SUV through the residential streets. If he’d had the patrol car, he would have pulled her over, but he had to wait until he stopped his truck in her driveway. Then he thrust open his door, jumped down and slammed the door shut again with enough force to rattle the metal frame of the pickup.
“Damn it, Tessa!” he shouted as he stalked over to where she’d hopped out of her SUV. “You were speeding the whole way from the Lighthouse.”
“I was not speeding,” she protested.
“You were going well over the limit. I know because I had to go over the limit,” he said through gritted teeth, “or I would have lost you.” And he very nearly had when a dog had darted out between parked cars. He’d managed not to hit the poor thing, b
ut the near miss had rattled them both. Or maybe he was only using Tessa’s speeding and the dog as an excuse for the nerves rushing through him because he was here—with her.
“Ohh, Lieutenant Chad Michalski speeding,” she teased, running her fingers up his chest.
His temperature rose as much from her touch as her mocking him. “That was stupid, Tessa!”
She sighed, pressing her hand against his chest, over his pounding heart. “Lighten up,” she advised him, pushing him back with her hand before dropping her arm to her side. “I only went a few miles over the limit. You’re overreacting.”
“It was more than a few miles over the limit, and you know it. You should also know that those limits are posted for a reason. That’s the safest speed at which the roads can be traveled.” Without resulting in an accident. What if the dog had darted in front of Tessa? Would she have lost control and struck one of those parked cars? That was what had ignited his temper—the possibility of her getting hurt. Or worse…
“That’s probably true, during the day, but it’s late,” she pointed out. “There’s no one else on the roads.”
“I’m on the roads.”
“No, now you’re in my driveway.”
Realizing that he was at her home, he turned toward the ranch house, and caught sight of a teenager running out of a side door.
“Get the hell away from my sister!” the blond-haired kid shouted as he brandished a baseball bat in Chad’s direction. “Get out of here before I hurt you!”
Tessa stepped between Chad and her brother. “Kevin—”
“Get in the house, Tess!” the teenager yelled, his voice cracking with fear and anger. “Call the police—”
“He is the police.” She grabbed the bat from her brother, nearly knocking the wood against Chad’s head as she yanked it away. He covered her hands with his and directed the weapon down.
“You didn’t get another ticket, did you?” Kevin asked with a groan as if he were the older, more responsible sibling. From the way he had rushed to his sister’s defense, Chad was willing to bet he was. The kid glanced toward Chad’s truck, then his clothes. “Oh, he’s undercover.”
“No, off duty,” Chad said, pulling the bat completely from Tessa’s grasp. “I’m Lieutenant—”
The teenager turned toward his sister. “Oh, this is the guy? This is your guy?”
Tessa tugged on the bat, trying to take it back—probably to use it on her brother. “This is Lieutenant Michalski. He’s not my guy.”
“Yeah, he’s the one,” Kevin argued. “That cop that pulled us over called you the lieutenant’s lady. He must have meant this lieutenant.”
“No, he didn’t,” Tessa insisted, pulling the bat free of Chad’s grasp and handing it to her brother with enough force that it slapped against his palms.
“If he’s not your guy, why’d you bring him home with you?” Kevin persisted.
“I brought him home to show him my family.”
With a flash of disappointment, Chad realized that had been her true intention, not sex, as she’d assured him back at the Lighthouse. To prove she was responsible?
Kevin snorted. “Until you guys started shouting in the driveway, everybody was sleeping, Tess. You know how the little kids can sleep through anything. Or most anything.”
A glance passed between brother and sister, suggesting to Chad that they shared an old, painful memory. Something his shouting at her in the driveway had recalled for them both?
“I said show,” Tessa repeated. “Not meet.”
Kevin’s young face twisted in a grimace of disbelief. “You don’t have to lie about your love life,” he assured his big sister. “I’m not a kid.”
“No, you’re not,” Chad agreed. “but she’s not lying. She really did bring me home to show me her family.” He understood that she hadn’t actually wanted him to meet any of them; she wasn’t bringing her guy home to Mom and Dad. She was proving a point, and Chad was curious what exactly that point was. He’d been entirely too curious about Tessa Howard lately, like wanting to know what her lips would feel like, how her mouth would taste…
Shaking off the memories of their kisses, he held out his hand to her teenage brother. “So you’re Kevin? You can call me Chad.”
The teenager fumbled with the bat before shaking his hand in a firm grip. “It’s cool meeting you, man.”
Since he’d stepped from the shadows of the house, the floodlight from the detached garage shone bright on the kid’s face. “You know, you look familiar to me.”
The teenager pulled back his hand. “I probably just look like Tess.”
Except for the blond hair, he didn’t really resemble his sister enough to look familiar to Chad. “I don’t think that’s it.”
Tessa stood silent finally, glancing from Chad to her brother, her blue eyes wide and watchful.
“Since everyone’s awake, you might as well bring him in,” Kevin said as he headed back inside the house.
“I might as well,” Tessa murmured as she caught the door and held it open for Chad.
He stepped inside a warm country kitchen, where an older version of Tessa sat at a long oak table with a little girl on one side of her lap and a little boy on the other. The kids blinked away traces of sleep and residual fear and stared up at him.
Another boy, this one about ten, with a mop of dishwater blond curls, turned away from the window. “Is he really a cop?” he asked, his eyes wide with awe.
“Yes, Christopher. He’s really a cop,” Tessa assured the young boy. “Mom, this is Chad Michalski. Chad, this is Sandy Howard.” She gestured toward the kids on her mom’s lap. “And Suzie and Joey.” Then she turned toward the boy at the window. “And Christopher. My sister Audrey must have already gone back to bed.”
Five siblings, Chad tallied in his head. She had five younger siblings. An only child himself, he was awed.
“Audrey never woke up,” Sandy said.
“I’m sorry about disrupting everyone’s sleep,” Chad said, guilt nagging at him. He had overreacted to Tessa’s speeding. And his overreaction had obviously disrupted more than this family’s sleep. His jaw clenched as he realized what kind of past experience his yelling had probably recalled—a violent one.
“It takes a marching band to get Audrey’s attention.” Tessa glanced around the kitchen. “And Kevin must have gone back to bed already.”
“He pretty much ran through here,” Sandy admitted. “But it was sweet of him to go out to defend your honor, don’t you think?”
Tessa nodded, but her teeth gnawed her bottom lip, signaling to Chad that she was worried about something. Her brother? No. Probably about Chad meeting her family, especially since he had already upset them, however inadvertently.
“Kevin has been on this whole man-of-the-house thing lately,” Sandy said, explaining why her son had been brandishing the bat.
So the teenage boy was the oldest male in the house. Tessa’s father didn’t live here anymore. At twenty-seven, why did she?
“Yeah, I’m sorry about waking up everyone, too,” Tessa said. “I’m surprised you’re home already, Mom.”
“I take Wednesdays off now, so you can go to your class,” Sandy reminded her daughter. Then she smiled at Chad. “I tend bar at a club downtown, so Tessa watches the kids most nights and usually gets them off to school in the morning—if I’m too tired after closing down the bar to get up with them.”
Obviously Tessa had taken on a lot of the responsibility for her siblings.
Tessa nodded. “I forgot you have Wednesdays off now.”
“Since you forgot, you didn’t bring the lieutenant home to meet your mother, then,” Sandy Howard teased, her blue eyes bright.
“Why’d you bring him home?” Christopher, clearly the most vocal of the younger kids, asked. They all turned toward their older sister for an answer.
Despite having a pretty good idea why she had, Chad turned toward her, too.
“I—I, uh,” Tessa stammered,
at an apparent loss to explain his visit.
“Why do you bring friends home?” their mother asked the younger kids.
The little girl whispered close to her mother’s ear, but the house was quiet enough that her words carried. “For sleepovers.”
“You all have to go back to sleep,” Tessa said as if she were the mother. “You have school tomorrow, and I don’t want any complaining when I drag your lazy butts out of bed.” Despite her gruff words, she tenderly kissed each child good-night, then pressed a kiss against her mother’s cheek, as well. “See you in the morning.”
“Are you spending the night?” Christopher asked Chad, undistracted by his sister’s ploy to get them back to bed.
Chad bit his lip to hold in a chuckle at the tide of red flooding Tessa’s cheeks. He just shook his head.
“Aren’t you going to show him your room?” the little girl asked, then shyly turned her face into her mother’s shoulder.
Tessa’s gaze focused on Chad, and she nodded. “Yes, I’m going to show him my room.”
Chad’s chest clenched as his heart shifted.
“Ooh, Tessa’s taking a boy to her room,” another female voice rang out from the hallway.
“Apparently Audrey isn’t sleeping,” she said with a groan. “But you can meet her another time.”
“Tessa’s taking a boy to her room…” Christopher joined in the chorus.
Tessa grasped Chad’s arm and pulled him from the kitchen, waving with her free hand at everyone as they left the house.
“So you’re not going to show me your room,” he surmised, ridiculously disappointed when he should have been relieved. He shouldn’t have followed Tessa Howard home. The last thing he wanted was to get to know her better.
BRINGING HIM HOME with her had been the right decision. Earlier Tessa had had doubts about the impulsive invitation she had extended. Maybe that was why she’d speeded—just a tad, on the way home. Okay, maybe more than a tad. She might have hoped to lose him.
Now Tessa held tight to his arm, unwilling to let him go. “My place is down here. Be careful on the stairs,” she said, tugging him toward the cement steps leading down to the walkout level of the ranch house.
