Beauty and the Badge

by Julie Miller

  Calling to her like a beacon in the night, she turned toward the one lighted window on her street. Clasping her blouse and jacket together at her neck, she stepped knee-deep into the snow and cut straight across the yard to her neighbor’s house. She stumbled once. But the icy moisture that sank into her cleavage and dribbled down to the exposed skin at her waist cleared away the last of her dizziness, leaving fear and pulse-pumping adrenaline in its place.

  She wasn’t safe.

  She needed to be safe.

  Beth jogged the last few yards—climbed the front steps onto the noisy planks of the porch. “Hello?” She knocked on the storm door. “Hel—”

  She was answered by a loud woof. Then there was a thump, and a thunderous alarm like stampeding hooves charged the opposite side of the door.

  Beth clutched her fist over the frantic pounding of her heart. “Oh, my God.”

  The growling, ferocious bark of the dog inside the house jerked her back a step. When the inside door rattled, she imagined the beast flinging its full weight against it. Hugging her arms more tightly around herself, she retreated until her shoulders pressed against one of the porch’s wood pillars. A cloud of her own shaky breaths in the frozen air fogged her vision.

  What should she do? Where could she go?

  Glancing over to the gaping mouth of her open garage, Elisabeth quickly debated which danger she’d rather face. A man who’d violated her home and others who might be lying in wait to do her more harm? Or the vicious hound from hell, slavering and bellowing on the other side of that door? How had she missed seeing a dog—a guard dog…a mutant-size guard dog—moving in?

  Elisabeth turned to the street and hugged the post. She could wake up Hank. But he’d have his hearing aids out, so it would take him forever to hear the doorbell and answer—allowing plenty of time for the intruder to track her down and finish what he’d started if that was his aim.

  “Damn it, Beth, think,” she ordered herself, haphazardly buttoning her wet blouse with fingers that were growing colder and stiffer by the minute.

  A car door slammed, drawing her attention to the end of the street. Her heart raced with matching speed as an engine gunned. Clinging to the porch post, she squinted to see beyond the dim circles of illumination cast by the streetlights. The squeal of spinning tires, screaming to find traction on the icy pavement, pierced the thick, cold air. She could make out nothing more than the fact that it was a car, as black and blurry and impossible to identify as the man who’d attacked her. The vehicle spun around the corner onto the main road and disappeared from sight.

  Nothing suspicious about that. Much. Like she was going back into her own house by herself now.

  “What do you want?”

  Elisabeth whirled around at the bass-deep voice behind her.

  And screamed.

  BETH SLAPPED HER HAND over her mouth, embarrassed that she could be so easily spooked. Embarrassed that instead of coming up with a proper greeting, begging for help or uttering an apology for waking him in the middle of the night, her first reaction to the height and bulk of the man in the shadows was to scream.

  When had the door opened?

  Where were the rest of his clothes?

  And why the hell was he armed?

  Instead of improving on her ability to communicate, the next words out of Beth’s mouth were, “Don’t shoot me.”

  He muttered something distinctly inelegant that triggered a bone-rattling woof from the dog behind the glass storm door. Although the man lowered the black-barreled gun he held in his left hand, it did little to change her first impression that he was an ominous force to be reckoned with. Her new neighbor was eerily quiet, obviously irritated and quite possibly the biggest, broadest silhouette of a man she’d ever seen. Images of sci-fi monsters and Mack trucks leaped to mind.

  “Were you in an accident? I heard a car pealing away.”

  It was difficult to hear his exact words over the dog’s barking. But she felt the man speak. The deep timbre of his voice rumbled from his chest and skittered across her skin, raising goose bumps. Or maybe that was just the cold and wet finally soaking through all of her clothes.

  She tore her gaze from the naked chest above his unsnapped jeans and nodded at the tank-size bundle of barking muscle bouncing up and down on the other side of the storm door’s window. A big black nose, broad muzzle and sharp teeth were all she could make out. Elisabeth shrank back a step. “You’re not going to let the dog out, are you?”

  She jerked back another step when the man pounded the doorframe with his fist.

  “Daisy. Room.”

  Daisy? Who named a monster Daisy? With an almost disappointed whimper, the dog turned and trotted away into the interior of the darkened house, its crooked, scraggly tail wagging behind her.

  Elisabeth’s pulse still thundered in her ears. “I’m sorry I…” screamed in your face “…woke you.” That would account for the bare feet and lack of a shirt.

  But not the gun.

  Big man. Big gun. Woman alone. Bad idea.

  She retreated farther, hoping her smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Or…D-Daisy. I saw your light on upstairs and thought you were still awake.”

  “Stop.”

  She thumbed over her shoulder. “No, really. I’ll go over to Hank’s across the street. He knows me—”

  He moved from the shadows. A viselike hand snaked around her wrist. “I said stop.”

  “You stop.” Instinctively, Beth fought against the unexpected touch. “Let go of me!”

  “You’re about to fall off the top step,” he groused, effortlessly tugging her off her feet and dragging her toward him.

  She stumbled into the middle of his chest, her palm bracing against a swell of hard muscle and crisp hair a split-second before her nose hit the fragrant spot. Singed by the damp heat that clung to his hair and skin, she snatched her fingers away. With the same grip on her wrist he quickly righted her and released her as soon as she regained her balance.

  “Why didn’t you just say so?” She felt a little foolish at her fight-or-flight response, and more than a little pissed that her crazy weird day had deteriorated down to a midnight wrestle she couldn’t hope to win with a man she didn’t even know. She was scared; she was tired. It was freaking cold. Her head throbbed, and, damn it, she just wanted to use his phone! “I’m sorry to welcome you to the neighborhood this way, but would it kill you to turn on a light or chain up your dog? Or announce it before you grab someone and scare the crap out of them? I just wanted to borrow your phone to call the police!”

  With another terse grumble that seemed to be directed more at himself than at her, he tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and reached inside the door to flip a switch. Beth squeezed her eyes shut as the light beside the door came on, and even its meager light blazed into her retinas. “Happy now?”

  In the few seconds it took to blink her eyes open and let them adjust to the light, her goliath of a neighbor flipped a leather wallet on a chain looped around his neck, drawing her attention to the flash of color there. The brass-and-blue enamel badge seemed out of place, hanging against the T of dark gold hair that sprinkled from pec to pec—save for the void of a puckered, circular scar near his left shoulder—and narrowed down to a thin line that disappeared behind the open snap of his jeans.

  “You…you’re the police?” she stuttered. Not another bad guy? Not the Terminator-next-door?

  “Detective Kevin Grove, KCPD.” He scanned her with a quick thoroughness from head to toe and back, hunching down to give her eyes another look. “You’re that woman from next door.”

  “I’m Beth…Elisabeth Rogers.”

  “We’ve got the amenities out of the way. Now what the hell is going on?”

  Her first, frightening impression of him in the shadows hadn’t been far off. The straight-on glimpse into his face gave her a chance to identify that the knot on the bridge of his crooked nose, which marked where
it had once been broken, was real. Just as real were the aggressively square jaw and sharp cheekbones that stretched taut beneath a scratchy stubble of sandy-colored beard. His hair was clipped short, and stood up in damp, dark gold spikes across the top of his head. If his eyes had been cold glass instead of a rich amber brown, she might have thought him some kind of futuristic cyborg, created to hunt and destroy—sculpted to be functional, not handsome.

  The instant she took in his intimidating features, he frowned, deepening the grooves beside his mouth. “Why do you need a cop?” He straightened to well over six feet, proving that standing a head taller barefoot than she did in a pair of boots hadn’t been a trick of her imagination, either.

  Embarrassed to be caught staring at his harsh features, yet equally fascinated by the rugged hills and hollows of his chest and arms, she could only point across the yard. “There was a man…”

  “In your house?” He crossed to the railing, his gaze tracking the direction of her finger. It was too overcast for the snow to reflect much light, but something seemed to have caught his eye.

  “Yes.”

  “That was him driving off?” He circled around her to the edge of the porch and knelt down to inspect some dots of paint on the top step.

  “I’m not sure.” Elisabeth turned to see if she could spot what his night-vision eyes apparently had, feeling only marginally safer to know he had a badge to justify that gun, and that his size and strength and grouchy demeanor were used for the forces of good, not evil. “He had a stocking mask on over his face.”

  “Do you remember anything about his height? His build?”

  “It happened so fast. He shoved me down. I don’t know what I hit—maybe just the garage floor. I couldn’t find my cell phone and I was afraid to go inside—”

  “That was smart.” He seemed intent on whatever he was rubbing between his thumb and fingers, making the praise sound rote and insincere. “Tell me more.”

  Instead of replaying the attack in her head, her attention was drawn to the broad back that tapered down to a strip of black elastic and the gun peeking out above the waistband of his unbelted jeans. Had she gotten him out of bed and he’d pulled on his jeans over a pair of briefs? She was shivering beneath several layers of wool and cotton, but there was a sheen of dampness at the small of his back. He was barefoot, too. Just the jeans and briefs and gun despite the bitter chill. Had she pulled him from a late-night shower?

  At the first knock, the first bark, he must have shut off the water, grabbed his gun and badge and a pair of pants and come running. Imagining the whole bulk of him completely naked…. That was one hell of a lot of man. Right there. Within arm’s reach. If she could just…one touch…

  Her breath caught and her vision blurred as she curled her fingers into her palm and tucked them deep into the pockets of her coat. More weirdness. This was so not the time for any feminine curiosity to kick in. He was too big, too fierce-looking, to be attractive. And yet…With an embarrassingly breathless gasp, she forced herself to focus her thoughts and tear her gaze from that mesmerizing strip of black elastic. Man in her house, remember? Attacked? Concentrate.

  They’d been rough hands. Invasive hands that had opened her coat and touched her while she’d been out. Far more damaging than Detective Grove’s grip had been. “He wore a black wool pea coat. Leather gloves. And he…he…”

  “Ah, hell.” He was rising, turning. Advancing.

  Beth trembled inside her clothes and backed away as he reached for her again. She swatted his hand away. “What is it?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  He pointed to her face and she finally made sense of what had caught his eye. Ruby red drops on her coat sleeve. More, in the footprints she’d left on his front walk. Blood. Trailing a path across the snow to her garage door.

  Her blood.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Beth put her fingers to her left temple and felt the warm stickiness in her hair. Her knees turned to jelly. The white planks of the porch rushed up to meet her.

  But she never hit the painted wood. Steel bands caught her behind her shoulders and beneath her knees. Her cheek tumbled against a furnace of heat that was solid and deliciously fragrant—like spice and musk and man.

  Man?

  A ripple of panic tried to rouse her. He was holding her. They were moving. Beth flattened her palms against the wall of her neighbor’s chest and pushed. But she had no strength. “What are you doing? Put me down, you big brute.”

  “No passing out on my front porch, okay, lady?” His dark eyes locked onto hers. “Sorry I didn’t explain the rules before I grabbed you.”

  The mysterious detective with the gruff sarcasm and villainous looks locked her in his arms and carried her inside the house as Beth’s world faded to black.

  Chapter Two

  “Call in a uniform to secure the scene ASAP.” The blur of city lights raced past the windows of Detective Kevin Grove’s silver SUV. “Hold on.”

  A spray of chopped-up ice and slush coated his windshield as he swerved into the passing lane to avoid a slow-moving snowplow. With a curse, he paused the conversation to turn on his windshield wipers and flicked up his high-beams to see through the messy, nearly deserted streets. Once he’d swung onto the boulevard that would take him to the Truman Medical Center, he shifted his attention back to the phone clipped to his ear.

  His words were concise as he relayed his orders and his new home address to the KCPD dispatcher. “It’s the ranch-style house just to the north of my place. I’m en route to the hospital with the victim, but I’ll have my phone on if the officer on the scene has any questions. Tell whoever’s responding to get me a printout of any other burglaries or vandalism reports in the neighborhood for the past few months. As soon as I deliver Ms. Rogers, I’ll be back to go over the house myself. I want to assess the break-in more thoroughly.”

  “I told you I could get myself to the E.R.,” the drowsy female voice murmured from the passenger seat across from him. Yeah, like Sleeping Beauty over there had any business getting behind the wheel of a car tonight. “If you would have let me use your phone to call 9–1-1 like I’d asked, you could be sleeping right now. I’m not trying to be an imposition.”

  Beth Rogers’s apology was logical and kind, and Kevin warned every bone in his body to ignore the soft words.

  “Your skin was like ice and you were bleeding on my couch. I wasn’t going to wait.”

  Kevin had trained himself to turn a cold shoulder to damsels in distress. It was the curse of a bulldog-ugly face and a battered heart that had paid a dear price for confusing need with caring. Don’t get involved. Don’t give a damn. Don’t get hurt. He’d been burned once too often—by a mother who hadn’t wanted him, yet who’d paid dramatic surprise visits in and out of his life over the years, demanding his money, his connections or his big shoulder to cry on when the world hadn’t gone her way. And he’d been burned once too well—by a seductive witch who’d taken the best he had to give before walking away.

  He was smart to be cautious.

  But a dazed beauty leaving a trail of blood in the snow? Footprints, too big to be hers, across the patio behind her house? Jimmied hinges ripped from the wood on the French doors that showed where an intruder had forced his way inside her home?

  Those were details that the cop in him couldn’t ignore. Even his cursory investigation when he’d gone to retrieve her purse and ID had given him enough reason to suspect that the crime—whatever she had interrupted—was real enough. A knight in shining armor he refused to be. Ever again. But a cop?

  Until his dying breath.

  “Get a CSI team over there to see if they can find anything to ID the intruder. Grove out.” He tapped the phone and disconnected the call.

  Kevin spared a glance for the woman nodding off in the passenger seat across from him. Those gray-blue eyes were drifting shut again, brushing dark lashes over her pale, softly freckled cheeks.

  “C
ome on, lady. Wake up.” Ignoring his command, she snuggled deeper against the SUV’s gray upholstery. He cranked the heater up another notch, praying it was the late hour and not shock or something worse that was making her too fatigued to respond. “Hey!”

  She groaned in response—a soft, throaty sound that beat at his conscience and tried to wriggle beneath his resolve to feel nothing.

  The proverbial girl-next-door looked about sixteen curled up across the seat, with just the fringe of her mink-colored hair showing beneath the black knit watch cap he’d pulled onto her head. The cap was meant to hold a clean dish towel in place over the gash at her temple. But the dimensions of the cap, sized to fit his head, made her look fragile and small. Yet he knew from cradling her in his arms that she was no child. He knew from laying her on his couch to check for other injuries while the dizzy spell passed that she had fit, strong legs about a mile long, no-nonsense hands used to work—not to make a fashion statement—and healthy curves in all the right places. Her driver’s license said she was twelve years younger than his thirty-seven, but he’d discovered the tiniest of laugh lines beside her eyes and mouth. Despite the ethereal dusting of freckles and the elfin haircut, Beth Rogers was all grown woman. And her womanly scent, an enticing combination of sweetness and spice, was filling up the SUV’s interior and imprinting itself like a familiar memory into his brain.

  Those kinds of details he shouldn’t be noticing.

  Kevin pressed on the accelerator, cruising through an intersection as the light turned red. He had the siren going, his lights flashing and a gut-deep motivation to get his injured neighbor to the hospital—to personally make sure she was in safe hands so he wouldn’t suffer a guilty conscience for turning her back out of his life come morning.

  So much for solitude. He’d left his apartment in downtown K.C. to find a place with a yard for his rescue mutt, Daisy, to run in, and some peace and quiet for him to get away from this kind of crap. He hadn’t been in the place forty-eight hours, hadn’t even unpacked the boxes he’d hauled in, before his job—and a woman in need—had come pounding on his front door, demanding his attention.