by Julie Miller
“Rosie...honey...” His fingers dipped beneath the elastic of her panties. Yes. She wanted his touch there, too. She was forgetting the past. She was unafraid of the future. There was only Max and this moment and feeling safe and desired.
But when she curled her leg around Max’s knee, instinctively opening herself to the need arcing between them, he pulled his lips away with a noisy moan. Her mouth chased after his to reclaim the connection, but his hands were on her shoulders now, pulling her arms from around his neck. Her toes touched the cold tile floor again, jarring her back to common sense. Suddenly, the water that had soaked through her clothes seemed just as cold. She rested her hands at his shoulders a moment to steady herself but curled her body away from his. One moment she was alive and on fire, the next, she was shivering and confused.
Rosemary grasped the back of the chair to keep herself standing as Max determinedly backed away. “That’s not why I’m here. I’ve got a mission. I made a promise.” His chest expanded with a deep, ragged breath. “Ah, hell. Quit looking at me like you either want to shoot me or eat me up. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
Max’s rejection instantly sent her back to the times in her relationship with Richard when he’d rebuffed her advances. “I wasn’t very good, was I? I’m sor—”
“Do not let that man come between us.” Max swiped his hand over his mouth and jaw and spun away. Just as quickly he faced her again and grabbed her wrist. “You call me whatever crass SOB you want to.” He pulled her hand to the front of his jeans and cupped it over the unmistakable warm bulge behind his zipper. “This is what you do to me. I don’t know why you and me fit together this good. If I could take you to bed right now and finish this, I would.” He released her and backed away, raising his hands in apology. “But that’s not what I’m here for. Neither one of us needs that kind of complication in our lives. I have to keep the mission in mind. I’m a cop. I have to think like a cop, not a...”
“Not a what?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
But he didn’t fill in the blank. “It’s not your job to deal with me. I’m damaged goods, Rosie. You can do better than me.”
“Now who’s apologizing?”
With a shrug of his massive shoulders, he scooped up the noisemaker and message that had sent her into shock and slipped them into plastic bags. “I’m going back outside to give everything a once-over—make sure our friend hasn’t come back. I need to call this in to my team, too. My description of the perp is pretty vague, but it’s a place to start. I’ll have a black-and-white swing through the neighborhood, just in case he’s hiding out somewhere.” He headed to the back door. “I’ll be right downstairs. Just a scream away.”
Rosemary shook off her stupor and ran after him, grabbing his arm. “You’re leaving me?”
He looked down over the jut of his shoulder at her, his growly voice calming. “I don’t want to push my luck by overstaying my welcome.”
Right. He was being all noble, doing this for her, respecting the boundaries she’d forgotten herself. She released her desperate grasp and stepped away, rubbing her hands up and down her chilled arms. “You better go call your team. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re gettin’ pale again. I’ll stay if you want me to.”
Rosemary shook her head. “No. You have a job to do. I’ll be fine. You’re here for me to draw out Richard’s killer, not to babysit me.”
“You know that’s not the only reason I’m here.”
“For my dad? You said you owed something to a man like him.”
Max exhaled a grumbling sigh. “I doubt your dad would make me ten kinds of crazy the way you do. Would you really be okay with me here in the house? Because, frankly, running up and down those basement stairs and breaking through all your locked doors makes me feel like I’m miles away. What if that guy wasn’t content to stay outside your window? If he’d gotten inside the house I’d have had to shoot my way in to get to you.”
She was so confused—coming to terms with the idea that she could have feelings and desire for a man again, wanting to solve Richard’s murder as quickly as possible, evaluating the false boundaries of her reclusive life that had at least given her the illusion of being safe—what was she supposed to choose? “I don’t think gunfire in the house would be safe for Duchess and Trixie.”
“Or for you. Would you feel safer if I stayed tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do. Everything else aside, would you feel safer?” He tapped his cheek to ask her to look him in the eye and answer. “Up here, honey.”
She did look up into those expectant blue eyes. Yes. In every way that mattered, she felt safe with Max. Rosemary nodded.
“Say it, Rosie. Don’t make me think I’m bullying you into this.”
“I’m not inviting you into my bed. But you are awfully warm, and I can’t seem to shake this chill and...” She hugged her arms around her waist but bravely held his gaze. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. Would you stay with me?”
The taut line of his mouth relaxed. “I like a clear set of rules, too. So no hanky-panky, but you wouldn’t be adverse to a little cuddling? You know, so I can keep an eye on you and you could borrow some body heat?”
“That would be enough for you?”
He brushed a copper tendril off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “That would be perfect.”
Rosemary smiled. “Then I can live with those rules, too.”
“You know the drill.” He opened the door. The wind had shifted, blowing rain beneath the patio roof and through the screen, getting their damp clothes wet again. “Lock up. Keep the dogs with you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Max hurried over to the apartment entrance to make his phone calls and she locked the door behind him. Plucking the wet cotton knit away from the goose bumps on her skin, Rosemary whistled for the dogs. “Come on, girls.”
She changed into a fresh sleep shirt and gathered a sponge and some towels, and dropped to her hands and knees to mop up the mud and water in the foyer and hallway. By the time Max returned, she had a load of soiled towels going in the laundry, the dogs settled in with rawhide treats and her quilt pulled off her bed to wrap around her shoulders as a makeshift robe until her own clothes dried.
Max toweled himself off and changed into a dry T-shirt and jeans he’d brought with him before wandering into the library to find her sitting on the rug, going through another box of her parents’ things. He took a sip of the hot decaf coffee she’d fixed for him. “I’m willing to take the couch, but I’ve slept on enough hard bunks and sandy ground to want to avoid the floor if that’s okay.”
Rosemary grinned and pointed to the sofa where Trixie had climbed on top of the pillow and blanket she’d set out for Max. “Just push her off. She’s got plenty of rugs and pillows around the house to sleep on.”
While she finished sorting through an envelope of photographs from a family vacation, tossing the blurry pictures and duplicates in the trash, Max sat. Instead of jumping down, Trixie climbed into his lap and lifted her paws for a thorough tummy rub. When Duchess abandoned her treat and came over to share a little bit of the action, Max reached down to rub the German shepherd’s tummy, too.
But then he clapped his hands and shooed both dogs away to turn his full attention on Rosemary. “It’s late. We have meetings tomorrow, a couple of leads I’d like to pursue. And in case you thought it was up for debate, it’s not—you’re coming with me.”
When she reached for another envelope of photographs, Max cleared his throat. “Honey, you need some sleep. So do I. Either go to bed or come here.”
The teasing command overrode any shyness or second thoughts she was feeling. Clutching the quilt around her shoulders, Rosemary turned off the desk lamp. Max turned off the lamp beside the sofa and set his gun and b
adge on the table beside his coffee mug. Rosemary sat down beside him, watching the diminishing lightning flicker through the blinds in the front window.
A voice, equally dark as the room now, spoke beside her. “The rules I agreed to included some cuddling.” He draped his arm over the back of the couch behind her shoulders, reminding her of the body heat she craved. She curled her feet beneath the quilt beside her and leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. His arms folded around her and the quilt, tucking them both to his side. “That’s better.”
Without a visible clock to keep track of the time, she wasn’t sure how long it was before the warmth of the quilt and man holding her seeped deep into her bones and she was drifting off to sleep. “Max?”
“Hmm?”
“You called me honey tonight. More than once.”
“I guess it just slipped out. I wasn’t trying to overstep—”
“I like it. I like that you call me Rosie, too. Nobody else calls me Rosie. It makes me feel...normal.”
“Normal?”
“You know, not an unemployed millionaire murder suspect who talks to her dogs more than she does to people?” She rested her palm above the deep-pitched chuckle that vibrated his chest. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble. I’m glad you’re here. But if I wig out on you at some point during the night, just know it’s nothing personal.”
“Uh-uh.” Max slipped his fingers under her chin and tilted her face to his. “You don’t apologize for anything. Whatever you have to say to me, don’t be afraid to say it. I’m not Richard. What you see is what you get. You know what I’m thinking or feeling at almost any given moment. It isn’t always pretty, but there are no surprises.”
“I don’t like surprises, anyway.”
“You, lady, are the biggest surprise of all.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead before swinging his legs up onto the couch and stretching out beside her, pulling the quilt up over them both. “Now, go to sleep. That’s an order.”
Feeling toastier and more tired by the second, Rosie curled up against Max and drifted off to a deep, nightmare-free sleep.
* * *
MAX AWOKE TO sunlight streaming through the blinds, a dog licking his elbow and feeling incredibly hard.
He supposed a creamy thigh wedged between his legs did that to a man. And while there might have been a woman in his past he’d have undressed and gotten busy with to start the new day, this was Rosie March. And there were rules with Rosie. Keeping her safe, proving her innocence, earning her trust and fighting to make sure he was worthy of whatever affection she threw his way meant following those rules as surely as he’d follow an order from a superior officer. Still, while she snored softly on his chest, he raised his head and breathed in the sweet, clean scent of her copper-red hair that reminded him of coming home and leaving battlefields behind him. He wasn’t a saint, after all.
But a bigger pair of deep brown eyes were staring at him now. Between Duchess’s stoic plea and Trixie’s eager tongue rasping along his arm, Max got the message. He reached down to scratch around the poodle’s ears. “Need to go outside, girls?”
When Duchess jumped to her feet and the little dog started dancing around, Max tried to calm them. “Shh. Mama’s sleeping. I’m coming. Give me a sec.”
Sometime during the night, the quilt had ended up on the floor, and Trixie had claimed it for a bed, so there was nothing but the woman herself he needed to extricate himself from. Max palmed Rosie’s hip and gently lifted her so he could pull his legs from beneath hers. Then he turned onto his side to pull his shoulder from beneath her head. But his efforts to carefully free himself from the woman draped on top of him without waking or embarrassing her halted when the neckline of her T-shirt gaped open and he shamelessly took a peek at the plump, heavy breasts that had pillowed against his side and chest most of the night.
But that little rush of lust quickly dissipated when he saw the puckery burn scars along her collarbone, marring Rosie’s beautiful skin. He tucked his finger beneath the stretchy cotton and pulled the material aside to get a better look.
“Son of a...” Five perfect white circles the size of a cigarette tip. That explained the high necklines. He dropped his knees to the floor and pulled his arm away as his temper brewed. He vowed then and there to give up the cigars completely—not even a stress-relieving chomp for old times’ sake. Nobody did that kind of damage to themselves. That was done to her. He’d have been tempted to pull the trigger on Richard Bratcher himself if he’d known that bastard had trapped her inside the house and tortured her like that.
Jimmy had been tortured. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Had Rosie endured the same?
Jimmy hadn’t survived the aftermath of all that had been done to him, all he’d seen. In the end, he’d died alone. If there’d been anything in Max’s power he could do to save his buddy, he would have.
Rosie was all alone in this house. But she wasn’t going to cope with Bratcher and his cruelty by herself anymore. For Rosie, for her father, for his own sanity and redemption, Max intended to capture a killer and put a stop to anyone or anything that tried to hurt this woman again.
Perhaps sensing his unblinking stare and darkening mood, Rosie stirred on the couch. She smiled before opening her eyes. “Good morning.”
Max didn’t trust himself to speak. He curled his fingers into a fist and pulled it away from her.
Rosie’s smile disappeared in an instant and she was wide-awake. When she saw the direction of his gaze, she sat up and scooted to the far end of the couch. “What are you doing?”
“Trying not to put a fist through your wall.”
“Ugly, aren’t they?” She pulled her oversize shirt back into its modest place and picked up the quilt, draping it over her shoulders and covering everything between her chin and her feet. “I suppose with nine million dollars, I could afford to get some plastic surgery and make them disappear. They’re there to remind me that I’ve never really been safe, I’ve never really been free since that man entered my life. I can never drop my guard or give my heart again. Not until the rumors are put to rest and that crazy stalker—”
When she pushed to her feet, Max was there to stop her from bolting from the room. He caught her face between his hands and dipped his head to kiss her. It was brief, it was passionate, it was full of the unspoken promise he’d made to her moments earlier.
When he released her, she wasn’t quite so set on running from him. “What was that for?”
“I saw the chance to do it, so I did.”
Shaking off his show of support, his vow to protect her, she headed for the hall anyway. “I don’t think I can do this, after all, Max. You need to go.”
“Did Bratcher put those marks on you?”
She stopped, pulling the quilt more fully around her. Her huddled silence was answer enough. Hell. No wonder she’d checked out last night when she saw that sick, doctored-up picture. That kind of graphic accuracy about her past abuse had no other function but to remind her of her worst fears. To make her feel as powerless and alone now as she had back then.
He wasn’t giving Rosie the chance to ever feel that way again. “Shower and get dressed and grab some breakfast—or whatever your morning routine is. You’re coming with me today.”
“But you have to work.” Her shoulders lifted with a heavy sigh and she turned, gesturing to the boxes and books all around them. “And I’m still going through Mom and Dad’s papers. You don’t think I’m safe here during the day? I’ll have Duchess and Trixie with me. Send one of your uniformed officers over to keep an eye on me.” She shrugged the quilt higher onto her shoulders and hugged it tight around her neck, hiding even more of herself from him—as if his body hadn’t already memorized the shape and weight of those generous hips and breasts. “Won’t I just be in the way?”
“You aren’t
a prisoner in this house anymore, Rosie. We talked about this last night. Staying here by yourself isn’t an option. I don’t want to wait until Trent or someone else from the team gets done with morning roll call to take over the watch here—and I won’t trust you with anyone else. We have secrets to uncover, a murder to solve.”
“And you think I can help?”
“This morning I have a meeting at Endicott Global. I’d like you to come along on the off chance we see your guy from the picture, or anyone else you might recognize there. In fact, I want you to keep your eyes open anyplace we go, in case he’s following you.” KCPD still hadn’t identified the young man yet. But Max had a feeling in his gut that the man was key to linking Bratcher’s murder to Leland Asher’s organization and a host of other crimes. “Before we do that, we’re going next door. Your neighbors are always peeking at you and seem to have an opinion on everything. Maybe they saw something last night.”
“Oh, joy.”
Good. Sarcasm beat that self-conscious guilt and avoiding him. “You’re the key to my investigation, Rosie. Maybe the key to my redemption over Jimmy’s death, too.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
He put up a hand to stop that argument. “You fight your demons your way, and I’ll deal with mine on my own terms. I want you in my sights 24/7 now. Okay? I promise to knock off at five when my shift is over, and I’ll bring you back to do your paperwork thing here.”
“You’re not really giving me a choice, are you?”
“If you don’t go, neither do I. And that means we’ll never find Bratcher’s killer.”
A beat of silence passed before she nodded and turned. “Put the dogs in the backyard on your way out. I’ll get ready.”
Chapter Nine
