by Audra North
He took in her open mouth and wide eyes, and before he could say anything else, she blurted out, “You’re the one!”
As soon as Ben had said, “Three years ago, I was shot…” her brain shut down her ears and a sort of low buzzing noise replaced all sound. She could see his mouth was still moving, but she didn’t hear anything more. She didn’t have to. She was hearing his words in her mind, the Ben of three years ago, as he’d shared a room with her for a handful of hours and—
“You’re the one!”
She nearly shouted it, and Ben paused mid-sentence and reached out to touch her face.
She flinched in surprise, and he immediately drew back. “You remember me? You really are the voice?”
The voice?
She looked at him questioningly, and he ran a hand through his hair. “The next day, I tried to find you, but you had already left the hospital. I called you the voice. Was it—it’s really you? You were the one in the room that night? We talked about—”
“About being alone and how much we both liked the ocean and who our role models were. And—”
“Yeah.” He was nodding. “I thought about you a lot.”
She shook her head. He had? She’d thought of him too. She hadn’t been able to remember the sound of his voice—not like he seemed to have remembered hers. Too much pain medication, she supposed. But she remembered everything else about their conversation and had carried his words with her around the world. Sometimes, when she was so alone that even the night sky was devoid of stars to keep her company, she thought back to that night, how he’d told her he was good at being alone. Whether the curtain between them had made her more bold than usual, or it really was only him who made her want to share things she never told another soul, they’d spent hours talking with no inhibitions between them, and she’d felt a connection she’d never been able to get back.
They’d both fallen asleep at some point that night, and when she’d woken up, he was gone, and the nurses had been surprisingly tight-lipped about it, telling her they couldn’t take a security risk by telling her.
She’d thought of him so many times in the past three years he had become almost like an invisible friend. And now he was real. Very, physically real…and a police officer whom she really liked, who had already been shot before, with whom she’d just had a one-night stand.
Like a sexy, impossible dream. Fuck.
“I remember,” she said slowly. “I remember you.”
Ben laughed, more like a loud shout, and pulled her toward him. “I can’t believe this. It’s too coincidental to be true, but it’s you. You have no idea how relieved I am to know I didn’t make you up. That I didn’t imagine how attracted I was to you, and how much I…”
He trailed off as she scrambled away, pushing herself out of bed and looking around wildly for her clothes. She located her panties and leggings, but had to fish around in the sheets for her socks.
He watched her, brow furrowed, as she dressed hastily.
“I take it this isn’t as exciting for you as it is for me,” he said with a wry smile.
It is exciting. Too exciting. You’re all wrong for me. Even though I don’t want you to be. You get shot at for a living, for chrissakes!
Nina shook her head and crossed her arms over her bare breasts. Her shirt and bra were in the other room. She wanted to flee, to run away from this guy whom she barely knew, but at the same time…she’d missed having him in her life.
No. No, that’s stupid. Your job doesn’t allow you to have relationships like these.
Especially not with a man whose job would put her through the same, constant pain her dad had inflicted.
She owed him some kind of explanation, though. She sighed. “No. It’s—I mean, yeah, it’s freaky and I wasn’t exactly prepared for this little revelation. But it doesn’t—it can’t change anything. This…” she wiggled her fingers toward the bed, “…was one night. You’re making it sound like the start of something serious.”
He rubbed his face with his hands and looked up at her. “I don’t exactly make a habit of one-night stands, Nina. In fact, you’re the only one.”
She took a step back. “I told myself you were too good to be true,” she whispered. God, no, that didn’t sound right. Even though it felt right.
But she couldn’t do anything about it. Once Dad got better, she was leaving. What if she agreed to keep seeing Ben and then he tried to make her stay when it was time for her to head out of Greenbriar again?
“You’re a police officer,” she told him, as though stating the obvious would make any kind of sense to him. “SWAT, no less.”
“That’s not the first time you’ve been less than pleased by my choice of profession. I got the feeling you didn’t really want to talk about it back at the bar, but it seems kind of hypocritical that you have a blanket dislike for anyone in the force when your dad was an MP.”
He wasn’t excited anymore. Instead, he was frowning, still sitting motionless on the bed and staring at her with a look of perplexed pity while she cowered like a scared rabbit.
Her heart leapt into her throat. How could this be happening? She’d been back in town for only a couple of weeks, long enough to find care for her dad, land a job, get a car…everything had happened so fast. The Army officer on the phone, telling her about her father’s accident and early retirement…the long flight home from South America, where she’d been…the shock of seeing her dad’s face completely blank when she arrived home…
How could she explain it to him? She wasn’t ready to talk about it.
She didn’t think she’d ever be ready.
This night hadn’t turned out how she’d thought it would. At least she’d made arrangements for a helper to stay with Dad tonight, since she had thought her first day at a new job would be long and draining, and it wasn’t as though Dad would miss her, anyway. He didn’t even know where he was, much less care about the whereabouts of his daughter.
But she forced herself to focus on Ben. He looked confused, angry and—she didn’t think she was imagining it—sad.
He’d said, back in the time at the hospital, that he was good at being alone. The idea of him by himself made her feel sad too.
She took a deep breath, trying to find the words to explain. “It’s not dislike. Not quite. It’s not—I really appreciate the police, actually. I respect them. Just not when they’re in my personal life. I mean, I don’t have a lot of police in my personal life, anyway. Just—”
She was rambling. She never rambled. She stopped herself, trying to regain a little equilibrium. “I’m sorry. It’s complicated. But it’s not dislike, and it’s not personal.”
He huffed out a laugh. “We just had sex, Nina. You swallowed my come and I had my mouth on you.” She flinched at the rough words that felt like a slap in the face, but she didn’t object. She deserved it.
“I’d say it’s pretty personal,” he finished, but the words lacked heat.
Rather, he looked so dejected she wanted to go to him and comfort him. To keep him safe and make him happy.
Of course. The memory returned. That was why she had felt the need to protect him, even when she’d seen him this morning. When they’d met in the hospital, she’d woken up in time to hear a woman dump him.
This bizarre connection she felt was probably only pity. Right?
It had to be.
Which was why she ignored the feeling her heart was breaking when she turned away and whispered, “I can’t,” and ran out of the room.
Chapter Eight
From where he still sat on the bed, Ben heard the front door shut softly.
Alone in his room, he swore, harsh and loud. That definitely hadn’t gone the way he’d intended. But then, he hadn’t really intended anything, since it had all happened so fast, but deep inside, he knew he’d been thinking about this moment f
or years.
He wanted this woman. Not because of some fantasy he’d dreamed about, but because the real Nina had lived up to the dream, and now he wanted the reality.
He wanted to go after her…but no. Not now. It would be too much, too soon. Instead, he’d made himself stay where he was, listened to her dress quickly, the ratcheting of the long zippers on her boots a few seconds before the front door snicked open, the soft thud of it settling back in the jamb as it closed behind her, and then…silence.
He swung his legs off the bed, marching into the bathroom to brush his teeth. There, he flipped on the bright overhead light and stared at the used condom in the trash can.
It had been beyond good. And yet, it wasn’t enough. He wanted her. She wanted him too. He knew it. But something had her running scared.
“I’m not giving up yet,” he muttered to himself.
He finished up in the bathroom, switched off the light and climbed back into bed, which smelled of sex and perfume and Nina herself.
But a long time passed before he found any comfort in sleep.
* * * * *
“So what went down with you and the hot journalist from last night?” Brewer shouted the question at Ben’s back.
“She did,” quipped Donahue, elbowing Brewer as the two laughed. Ben could see them in the mirror as he ran on the treadmill in the station’s downstairs gym.
Ben scowled and swiped at the sweat pouring off his brow. “Fuck you both,” he panted, flipping them the finger for good measure.
Donahue arched a brow at him. “Hey, Crewes, take it easy. I’m sorry. We didn’t realize this was serious.”
He shook his head. “It’s not. I mean, it is. But not yet. Shit.” He reached out and brought down the speed on the treadmill until it slowed to a stop, then he hopped off and grabbed a towel to mop his face. He’d worked harder than usual today, trying to work out what to do about Nina.
Brewer and Donahue only grunted in agreement.
“Where’d you meet her?” Donahue asked.
In a hospital room, he wanted to say, because that was how he felt—like he’d met her there and had known her for the past three years instead of less than forty-eight hours. But then he’d have to tell his friends how he had remembered her for all this time, had dreamt about her and always kept an ear cocked for her, and he was fairly certain he’d be opening himself up for mockery. Lots of it.
“I ran into her car on the 116 yesterday morning. Stop-and-go traffic, and I wasn’t paying attention.”
Brewer whistled. “I’m almost convinced I should side-swipe someone on my commute home, if it means getting a girl like her.”
Davis sauntered over and scowled. “I heard you talking about the Lang girl. Don’t mess with her, Crewes.”
Too late.
It was interesting Davis had called her “the Lang girl”, like he knew her too. But how? They’d been strangers yesterday, all of them. Of course, Davis had grown up here, whereas Ben had only moved here after he’d finished training and gotten a job in Greenbriar. Maybe Davis did know something.
Ben met Davis’s eyes. “You knew her already?”
Davis shrugged. “Nah. She’s too young to have been in school with me. But her dad’s a fucking legend. My dad used to talk about him a lot—he grew up with General Lang and they were friends throughout elementary and high school. Dad told me how the guy had come from a family of eight, lived in some one-room shack off of Childress Ave., and he was the only one who did anything with his life. My dad said he got the hell out of his shit-poor life and ran off to join the Army as soon as he turned eighteen. Pulled himself up rung by rung by being the hardest working, toughest son of a bitch you could imagine.”
Davis’s dad had been on the Greenbriar police force too. Davis had always wanted to be an Army MP, like Nina’s dad, but when his older sister had a baby at barely sixteen, Davis had put his dreams on hold in order to stay behind and help out his family financially.
At nearly thirty-two, Davis was simply too old now to do what he’d always wanted to do and too weighed down by family obligations to even consider doing anything else. And because of that, he was perpetually scowling.
Interesting, though, that this “toughest son of a bitch” Lang had such a beautiful daughter.
“What about Nina’s mom?” Ben threw his towel in the dirties bin and tried not to look too desperate for information.
Davis rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t you have asked her all these questions?” But when Ben didn’t respond, he sighed. “The mom seemed nice enough. My mom didn’t interact with Nina’s mom much, since by the time Lang dropped her off in Greenbriar and went back to wherever he was stationed, I guess he’d earned enough to buy a place in Wallingford, which isn’t exactly in my family’s league. But I saw Mrs. Lang around a few times. Really pretty. I remember Mrs. Perkins—the nosy old lady whose husband used to own the hardware store—once told my mom Mrs. Lang was a South American heiress who was disowned when she married Lang. She died, though, you know.”
Ben frowned. “Of course I know. We did detail for her funeral together, remember?”
Davis shook his head. “Not Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Lang. She died over a decade ago. You hadn’t moved here yet.”
Nina’s mom was dead? That was surprising. The mere mention of Nina’s father seemed to upset her, and Ben had assumed General Lang had come back here to live with his wife. Why was Nina back here with him?
Wait a sec. “What do you mean, Lang dropped off his wife in Greenbriar?” In Wallingford, no less. The richest suburb around.
“Well, that’s exactly what I mean. Showed up during one of his leaves, bought a place, moved her in—she was pregnant, did I mention?—then left again. Came back maybe twice a year on leave, then was gone again. My dad used to meet General Lang for drinks when he was in town. The guy might have been a great MP, but he had to work hard at it. Didn’t give him much time for his family.”
While Davis’s father was the quintessential family man, which was probably why he’d never left Greenbriar. Generations of Davis men had been camping out in this city for hundreds of years, and family loyalty had kept the younger Davis tethered here.
Ben tried to imagine what kind of relationship Nina had with her father. Nothing he came up with was very positive. He frowned. She was a puzzle. All those psychology classes and negotiation trainings weren’t helping him when it came to her.
Davis racked weights on the bench-press bar and lay back, then motioned for Ben to come spot him. He lowered the bar to his chest, puffing out as he raised it again.
Ten reps in silence, except for the sound of Davis breathing. When he finished, he sat up and looked Ben in the eye. “I talked to my sister last night. She went to high school with Nina.” Davis shrugged. “At least until Nate was born.”
Nate was Davis’s nephew, the one who had been born right after Davis finished high school. Ben raised an eyebrow. “And?”
Davis shook his head. “Kelly got into a shouting match with Nina once because Nina was saying things about how policemen with wives and children were hypocrites, and Kelly took it really personally because of Dad. They were only in high school, though. Could have been nothing more than a teenage rant. But Kelly remembers it like it was yesterday.”
Ben nodded, not wanting to tell Davis how deep her “teenage rant” seemed to go, even if she had a damned good reason for saying that kind of stuff about cops. He didn’t want any of the guys turning against Nina.
So instead, he shrugged. “We’ll see. Not like it matters, anyway. Spot me this time, will ya?”
Davis looked at him kind of funny, but took the hint and dropped further talk of Nina. “Show me what you got.”
Chapter Nine
Nina tapped her pencil on her desk and tried to resist the urge to use the sharp point to gouge out her eyes. After a morning of making
phone calls to connections in Paris and New York, conducting two interviews and researching the past ten years of fashion, she was reading a celebrity news site to find out if any of the stars pictured were wearing bright colors.
She wanted to be done with this bullshit, already. But she was determined, not to merely take on this assignment, but to blow it out of the water.
If Jerry wants me to do a story on fashion, he’d damned well better be ready for an actual fashion exposé.
If only thoughts of last night with Ben didn’t keep intruding, she’d be much more focused. She’d fled his apartment almost blindly, jumping into her car as though he were chasing after her, and speeding home. When she’d arrived there, it had barely been eleven o’clock and Dad had been awake, sitting at the table next to the caretaker Nina had hired as they played a card game.
Well, the woman played the game, anyway, while Dad sort of stared off into space.
She had stayed up for another hour after the helper had left and talked to her father. The doctor said it might help, and she should touch him as often as possible—hold his hand, rub his shoulders. But it was hard to do. After a lifetime of hugging him only a few days every year, it felt so foreign to even think about him being in one place for longer than a week.
By the time Dad had started drowsing in his chair, and Nina roused him enough to get him upstairs and tuck him into bed, it was past midnight and she was exhausted.
It was as though the whole thing with Ben hadn’t happened.
Except for the wild dreams she’d had of him after she’d finally fallen into her own bed. In those dreams, he’d had her again, in every position, in every mood. Ben, his mouth on hers. Ben, telling her she wasn’t alone.
That one had been the best dream of all.
And when she’d awoken this morning, she was sore between her legs and all she could think of was how much she wanted to see him again.
She sighed and glanced at the clock on her computer. At least she could leave soon, go home to check on Dad and torture herself with thoughts of Ben in private.
