by Regan Black
“You handled that like a couple of champs,” he said, striding into the office with a big grin on his face. “I’ve got the kitchen working up some dinner for you to take home, unless you’d like to stay a while and enjoy the band. Katie’s coming by in a bit.” He smiled at the mention of his wife. “It’s a good group tonight.”
“That’s really thoughtful.” Lissa gave Carson’s hand a squeeze. “Home is better for me tonight.”
“She is pretty worn out after her day at work.”
“That’s normal, right?” Grant looked to Carson, got the affirmative nod. “Okay. The beating you took combined with the emotional toll of your loss...” Grant’s face softened with sympathy as his voice trailed off. “Let’s just say I’ve been there. It takes time.”
Lissa’s lips quirked up on one side. “So I’ve been told.”
Carson enjoyed the way she kept her hand in his even though it wasn’t necessary. “I wanted to ask Werner about assigning her more protection.”
“No need,” Grant said, sitting down behind his desk. “I talked to him yesterday evening after the incident at the apartment. When I wasn’t satisfied with his answer, I put an alternative in place.”
Carson was grateful for Grant and his extensive contacts. “Were you going to mention this alternative to us?”
He grinned. “I just did. Sit back down for a minute.” He waved them into the chairs as he settled his stocky frame behind the desk again. “I made a few calls on your behalf,” he said to Lissa. “I’ve asked a friend to work out a protective detail for you. Someone will have eyes on your apartment at all times, and others will be around you, as well. You won’t see them, and they won’t get in the way of the PPD, but I hope you’ll feel better knowing they’re out there.”
“Thanks,” Carson said with feeling. Lissa echoed his gratitude. He could keep an eye on her personally, monitor her health recovery, but he didn’t have the skills of real cops or investigators that she needed.
“Who’s paying for all of this?” she asked.
Grant shooed away her concern with a flick of his fingers. “Don’t worry about it. You won’t get a bill, and you sure don’t owe me anything. I’ve been around the city long enough to earn a few favors. People from all over enjoy the Escape Club, both the entertainment and assistance facets of our establishment, and we’ve learned it all evens out.”
When the kitchen called to say the food order was ready, Grant walked them out. Back at the apartment, Carson handed her the new key while he gathered up the food and her extra purse. He could see the exhaustion rolling off her. It felt more like a mountain than two flights of stairs as they climbed up to her apartment, but the scents from the food spurred them both onward.
As they sat at her small table that visually separated her kitchen and sitting room, eating the classic spaghetti-and-meatball dinner, Carson felt increasingly out of his element despite the generally friendly conversation they were having. What was he playing at here?
She didn’t need his constant observation anymore, only an occasional reminder to rest to let her mind and body heal. He could do that by phone, now that she’d reclaimed hers. She was smart enough to stay inside behind the new locks and the security system. There was no need for him to be within arm’s reach every minute anymore. And with Grant’s private team watching out for her, he felt it was past time to offer to let her have her privacy back.
He told himself it was more than a tidy collection of excuses. He had valid reasons to step back from her. He preferred his space, too. A little distance would help him reclaim his perspective, and having some time apart would help him forget her soft skin and silky hair and the light citrus scent of her shower gel. Probably.
He couldn’t forget how they’d met. She was basically a patient, and if there was one cardinal rule in his profession, it was to not get involved with the patients. Even if he overlooked that rule, she had too much on her mind already without dealing with the attraction he was struggling to keep hidden.
He couldn’t claim to know her well, but he recognized she was a woman who needed a man who didn’t flake out and panic at the first sign of trouble. She needed someone dependable who could make a commitment and keep it. He hadn’t been that kind of man since Sarah died.
As they were cleaning up from dinner and storing the leftovers, he forced himself to say the necessary words. “I should probably get going. You’ll need—” Her stricken expression stopped him cold. “What?”
“Please stay.” She took a step toward him and caught herself, her hand gripping the edge of the countertop. “I—I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not alone,” he pointed out. “Grant’s team is outside.”
“It’s not the same. I—” She bit her lip, stopping whatever else she meant to say.
He tried again. “I know I forced myself in here, but if there’s another friend I can call for you, that might be better all around.”
“I want you.” Her deep brown eyes went wide with embarrassment, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean, um, I want you to stay. If you can. I’m sure it’s an imposition and inconvenience.” She closed her eyes, pink flooding her cheeks as she waved her hands in front of her face. “Good grief, shut me up.”
He caught her hands and held on. “I don’t want to go,” he said when she met his gaze. “I just thought I’d invaded your privacy enough for one day.”
“You haven’t. You’ve been the only constant, Carson.” She took a deep breath. “Please, if you can, stay one more night.”
“You got it,” he promised before he could give a more sensible response.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He thought he could lose himself in her gorgeous eyes as the desire to kiss her surged through his bloodstream again. He fought for control, giving himself a fast, mean lecture on professionalism. His body didn’t give a damn. She might have remembered she was single, but that didn’t give him the right to take advantage of her while she coped with overwhelming grief and loss.
“You should get some rest,” he said, still holding her hands. “Work was harder than you anticipated, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Gnats have infinitely more focus than I did today.” Her thumbs stroked absently over the backs of his hands. “Could we watch a movie?”
The small, innocent touches set his skin on fire. “You really should just rest.” And he should let go. In a minute.
“Rest is hard when it doesn’t involve anything fun.”
He slowly tugged his hands free. “Go on,” he suggested. He needed her to move before he did something stupid and kissed her until neither of them could remember their own names.
“Not even a movie?”
“Not after the day you’ve had.”
“All right.” She turned on her heel, aiming for the bedroom, but she paused at the door. “What if—”
His brain filled in the rest of that sentence with invitations and images that left him so hard and aching he didn’t hear her. “Pardon?” he asked, breaking free of the sensual haze to find her waiting for an answer.
A little frown creased her brow. “I asked if we could just sit and talk, with the lights turned low.”
Her loneliness was obvious, and he understood all too well what it felt like to lose a best friend. He couldn’t deny her request. “Sure, we can do that.”
Her smile flashed, and it seemed as if a weight had fallen off her shoulders. “Give me just a second.”
She disappeared into the bedroom, and he finished the dishes and dimmed the lights. He should probably have taken out the trash for her but decided it could wait until morning. Protective detail or not, he didn’t see the sense in running that errand in the dark. He was sure Noelle’s killer wanted Lissa silenced, and Carson didn’t pose much of a barrier. No matt
er how he felt toward Lissa, it came down to ability. Experience had taught him he didn’t have the intimidation factor or instincts to drive off a killer.
He turned at the sound of Lissa’s bedroom door opening, and his lust returned with an uncomfortable vengeance. She’d pulled on gray leggings that clung to every curve and a pale blue shirt that left her deep brown eyes sparkling. She’d removed her makeup, donned fuzzy socks and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail that spilled over one shoulder.
She crossed the room and sank into one end of the love seat, her feet tucked underneath her. He settled on the opposite end, propping one ankle on the other knee, and waited, regretting his agreement. How was he supposed to chat with her when every cell in his body wanted her?
To his immense relief, she started the conversation. “At one point today,” she said, “I followed my scattered thoughts to Noelle’s obituary.”
“That couldn’t have been easy.” He tried to shrink deeper into his side.
She shifted, putting her back to the armrest so she could face him. The movement brought her foot across his thigh. “It wasn’t,” she replied, apparently oblivious to the war waging inside him. Her shy smile appeared. “But since I remembered my banking log-in, I made a donation to the charity fund her parents set up in her memory.” She told him about Noelle’s ultimate nursing goal, and he found himself taken right back to how the department had done something similar for Sarah on behalf of first responders.
“It sounds like you had an amazing friend.”
“She really was.” Lissa took a profound interest in the seam near the knee of her leggings. “I think I have a bigger memory gap than I thought. My boss told me that I misremembered last Friday.”
“How so?”
She refused to meet his gaze. “We have a staff lunch every Friday, and I got this past Friday mixed-up with the one before it.”
“Even people with no memory issues or trauma troubles do that all the time.”
She glanced at him from under her lashes but didn’t hold his gaze. “You’re right. It just makes me wonder.” She inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly, pulling her knees to her chest. “What if I remember something wrong and Detective Werner hauls in the wrong person?”
“That’s what evidence and lawyers are for,” Carson assured her.
“Do you think evidence and lawyers will be enough if the man who bumped into me today is involved?”
“What exactly are you asking?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed at her forehead again. “Did you lose your memory after the ambulance was attacked?”
“No.” If only he had, the tragedy might have been easier to cope with. “It’s still way too clear for me most of the time.” On a whisper, he admitted the ugly truth, “I’m jealous of your amnesia.”
“I bet you are.” She rested her head against the back of the love seat and went quiet. “What if I’m not remembering because I don’t want to?”
“I don’t think brains are generally that cooperative.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He couldn’t look at her, not when his failures were rolling like a bad movie trailer through his head again. “Part of me hopes you never remember, or that if you do remember, it won’t be the details of your beating or the actual murder.”
When her hand landed on his shoulder, he shrugged, but she didn’t take the hint. “Have you ever read the police reports from the night Sarah died?” she asked.
“No.” He shot her a look. “Don’t tell me you have.”
“Not to pry. I looked because of the detective’s implication that Noelle knew the men who attacked us. Don’t you wonder about the connection between those marked bullets used against Sarah, Noelle and us?”
“Might be a useless lead,” he said, desperate to get off this topic. “Could be a rival using the marked bullets to throw off the police.”
“Or it might be precisely the detail that ties it all together,” she said.
“Trust me, it’s better to leave this stuff to the cops.” He stood up, searching for breathing room, but it was impossible to find in her small apartment. “You’re not supposed to be thinking this hard.”
She stood up, her footsteps quiet with those fuzzy socks. “I’ll go to bed, but I think you have forgotten a few things.”
“Like what?” He’d sure as hell forgotten where he’d left his sanity and common sense. He turned his back on her, unable to meet her gaze for fear of the pity he’d see in her eyes. Hell, after the shooting yesterday, he’d lost himself in the terror of Sarah’s dying breaths and blood, rendering him useless to Lissa. Thank God Grant had called in a qualified team to protect her.
He gave a start when he felt her arms slide around him, her breasts a gentle, tantalizing pressure against his back. “You were a hero, Carson.”
A hero would’ve saved his partner, he thought bitterly. A hero would have pushed her out of the way and taken the bullet. He could have tackled the robbers or done just about anything that might lead to an arrest and real justice. But no. He hadn’t done any of those things.
Her arms tightened, then slid away. “I read the reports.” Her voice came from the shadows near her bedroom door. “Because of your actions, Sarah’s organs saved four different people. Because you, Carson, kept her body going long enough to reach the hospital, four families have more time to live and laugh and love.”
The bedroom door closed with a soft click, and he stumbled to the bathroom. He turned on the shower taps and stared at his reflection in the mirror while the water rattled through the pipes.
Was she right? No. He’d fallen for the ploy and they’d been ambushed. The department might not have written him up, but if he’d been smart, Sarah would still have been here. Still, Lissa’s words echoed in his head. Four lives saved.
Had he really done something right that night? It had to be some public relations crap generated by the PFD. He couldn’t remember anything but failing his best friend and partner as her life drained away, her blood going cold on his hands.
Chapter 7
Lissa rolled over in bed and checked the clock, relieved to see it was just past six. Finally she could get up and stop pretending to sleep. She cracked open the door to check on Carson, and her heart stuttered to see the empty room. Then she caught the sound of water in the kitchen sink.
Of course he hadn’t left, though he’d had every right to walk out and never look back after she’d prodded at his painful past last night. As if the funeral today wasn’t enough emotional upheaval to cope with, it would be worse after the restless night. She’d berated herself through the wee hours for forcing her agenda onto Carson and alienating her only ally. Just because she wanted to help him, to give back in some small way after all he’d done for her, it didn’t mean her approach was the help he needed.
She told herself to grow a spine, walk in there and apologize for being an insensitive jerk. If she was lucky, he’d forgive her and they would find a way around the inevitable awkwardness. At the last second, her courage faltered, and she slipped into the bathroom, cursing the squeaky hinge. Leaning her back against the closed door, she realized he’d just finished in here. The masculine scent of his shaving cream lingered in the air, and the small room was still warm and damp from the steam of his shower.
A knock sounded at the door, startling a little hiccup out of her.
“Lissa?”
His voice was right next to her ear, as if he was leaning on the other side of the door the way she leaned on this side. “Yes?”
“Can you hand me my clothes?”
“Your...oh.” They were on a hanger, on the hook mounted behind the door. She plucked the hanger off the hook and opened the door. Her intended apology evaporated as she gawked at him.
The view of his bare chest sent
her heart skipping. Seeing those defined muscles, the temptation to reach out and touch him, nearly obliterated all common sense. She thrust the hanger with his clothing at him and closed the door before lust got the better of her. Jumping him would only make things worse after last night.
When she’d wasted the maximum amount of time in the bathroom, she listened at the door, trying to figure out where Carson was in the apartment. It didn’t matter. The only place to avoid him was here in the bathroom or her bedroom, and the only way to get there was to open the door. Dressed in yoga pants and a camisole, her hair bundled into a clip, she opened the door and tried to find some degree of maturity in the awkward situation.
“I made breakfast,” he said quietly as soon as the traitorous door hinge squeaked.
“Thanks.” She didn’t have to turn around to know he was sitting at the table. “Give me fifteen minutes?”
“No problem.”
She took ten minutes to breathe and stretch, hoping to make up for the lack of sleep and bolster her nerve—assuming she had any nerve left. She wove her hair into a braid to keep it out of the way and flowed from one restorative pose to the next. Her breath steadied and her pulse calmed until she felt she might actually survive the challenges ahead.
Pulling a black shirt and her black wrap-around skirt from the closet, she dressed quickly, leaving hair, makeup, accessories and shoes for after breakfast. The only demand she would put on herself today, after she apologized to Carson, was to remember all of Noelle’s good qualities. She’d focus on all the happy moments and good times they’d shared. Her friend’s smile and laughter would be the wall she used to hold back the tide of sorrow and questions surrounding those final hours.
