In Hot Pursuit

by Joanne Rock

  Amanda frowned. “You seem far too calm. Maybe you’re in shock.”

  “Maybe.” Or maybe she just couldn’t take her eyes off Josh in his ashen clothes. Even the diamond stud in his ear was dulled from the coat of soot he still wore.

  Oh God, she was totally falling for a cranky cop who wanted no part of her public world.

  Amanda’s gaze narrowed. “You’re wild for Duke’s partner, aren’t you.”

  “He’s completely yummy.”

  Amanda smothered a snort. “Are we talking about Joshua Winger? The guy that looks more criminal than cop?”

  Lexi squinted her eyes, trying to see Josh objectively. “The guy with shoulders so damn straight God must have laid down a level to mold him? The guy with a tush any red-blooded woman would give her right eye to squeeze?”

  Amanda tilted her head to the side, still staring at Josh.

  Lexi knew the exact moment her friend understood what she was saying. A naughty little grin spread across the Revlon girl’s features.

  “Okay, quit ogling, girlfriend. You see my point.”

  “He is kind of cute.”

  “No. Muffin is ‘cute.’ That man is devastatingly sexy.” Lexi watched as Duke paced and Josh talked on his cell phone. Harry the terrier fit right in on the guy’s side of the room, standing at attention between the men.

  “You met him because Duke asked him to check on you yesterday and he’s already got his hand up your skirt?” Amanda snapped her fingers for Snowball, providing permission for the little shih tzu to jump on her lap.

  “No. I met him because I handcuffed him at the Shelter the Homeless event.” Come to think of it, she wouldn’t mind having a pair of handcuffs at her disposal right now.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I most certainly did.”

  Amanda bit her lip. “He was probably trying not to stand out in the crowd, Lexi. He went there to work.”

  “How does a man like that blend in, may I ask you? I noticed him from at least fifty yards away in a room packed with nearly five hundred people.”

  Amanda might have answered, but they noticed Duke charging over toward their corner of the loft. They sipped their wine and pretended they hadn’t just been whispering about the guys.

  Duke strode in between the sofas. “Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but we need to follow up on this fire and a couple of other things.” His gaze turned to Amanda. “I’ll meet you back at my place tonight?”

  Amanda practically purred. “Rooftop rendezvous at midnight. Don’t be late.”

  Their shared liplock wasn’t any hotter than the kisses Lexi had been sharing with Josh all weekend. But damn it, Amanda and Duke had forever to kiss like that.

  Once Josh had caught his bad guys, Lexi wouldn’t even see him.

  She glanced toward him, only to find those gray eyes studying her, assessing her. A wave of heat jumped across the room as their gazes connected. Joined.

  He was the first to speak. “I need that red swatch Harry found. The lab is going to run some tests on it.”

  So maybe she was the only one feeling heat waves. Damn the man.

  She dug in her purse and came up with the still-damp cashmere. “I remember who used this. It was from a Valentino collection last year.”

  Josh frowned. “Valentino who? Does this guy have any reason to want to scare you?”

  “He’s a designer, Columbo,” Duke intervened as he stepped away from Amanda. “He must have made the threads Harry found.”

  Amanda snapped her fingers. “I remember that collection. I bet we could contact their showroom to at least find out a few of the customers who would have bought any of the red cashmere.”

  “I’ll call right now.” Lexi reached for her purse and the electronic organizer it contained.

  Josh grabbed her wrist before she could get there. “Not this time, Lex. You’re too damn involved in this already. I don’t want you getting yourself in any deeper.”

  “But I’ve got the number right here.”

  “Give it to me and I’ll call.” His brows practically glued themselves together, he was frowning so hard.

  “Fine.” She pressed some numbers into her address book program and wrote the information down on a sticky note. Now Mr. Undercover wouldn’t even let her help figure out who torched her apartment.

  She slapped the paper into his hand with a bit too much force.

  Josh squeezed her hand into his. “You okay, Lexi?”

  “Peachy. Why don’t you go solve the world’s crimes while I wait here and file my nails?” He really didn’t get it, did he? Couldn’t he see she wanted to be with him, wanted to help him work on his case and be a part of things that were important to him?

  Then she chided herself. Of course he couldn’t. He didn’t want her to be a part of his world any more than he wanted to be a part of hers.

  He could only see Lexi the glamorous bad girl. He didn’t know anything about the rest of her.

  Josh sent her one of those glares that would have made a normal woman cry. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to be marginally scared, Lex. There’s such a thing as a healthy dose of fear.”

  Despite the hellish day she’d just had, Lexi was only scared of one thing right now. And that was not seeing Josh again once he walked out that door.

  He wouldn’t be back. Not since she’d turned him down along with his offer for a partial relationship. Their kiss on the stairs to the loft had been just a knee-jerk reaction to the fire, the adrenaline rush in the aftermath of fear.

  Stifling the impulse to pull him into her arms and not let go, she blew him a kiss and waggled her fingers in an exaggerated wave. “’Bye, tiger. Don’t worry about me. Harry seems to like his new protector role.”

  She pretty much expected him to slam the door on his way out.

  But she hadn’t been counting on the echoing emptiness he’d leave in his wake.

  SLAMMING THE DOOR didn’t come close to satisfying the anger churning through Josh as he stomped down the stairs of Amanda’s loft with Duke.

  “You hear that? She’ll let the damn dog protect her instead of me. How the hell do you like that for an endorsement?”

  Duke whistled low under his breath as they hit the street. Night had fallen, knocking down the temperature a few degrees. “She’s tougher than she looks, I’ll give you that. I remember Amanda telling me once that her money is always on Lexi in a fight.”

  “Does that mean she frequently rips out hearts for fun?” How could she just wave him away tonight, after the kind of day she’d had? After the weekend they’d had? Josh considered himself a stiff-upper-lip kind of guy, but he was a tied-in-knots damn wreck just knowing someone was out to hurt Lexi.

  “You’ve got it that bad, man?”

  “No.” Josh wanted that clarified right now. Lexi didn’t have any intention of having a relationship with him unless he yelled it from a damn mountaintop. And he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that right now. “Any man that wants Lexi has to take on a whole lifestyle—it’d be like running for mayor. You know I can’t afford to put myself out in the public eye like that. Not in this line of work.”

  Sliding into the car, Josh tossed the police light in the front window and turned it on.

  “So don’t go undercover anymore. You’ve been out there enough to know you can only do it so long. One of these days you’ll be fingered for a fake.”

  “Me? With this face? I blend in pretty well with the bad guys, remember?” Josh pulled into traffic and hit the gas, hard. He needed to get to the station and talk to about fifty different people to make sense of this case—starting with the fire department.

  “Undercover work has a shelf life, Josh. Don’t tell me you don’t know that as well as I do.” Duke held on to the dashboard as Josh careened around a corner.

  “That’s crap. You’re working this angle just because you’ve got some new morality since you met Amanda.” He forced himself to concentrate on the road and not Duke’s silver-tongu
ed maneuvering. “You said it yourself—you expect to hear cursed wedding bells. Well, it’s not going to happen.”

  “Scared shitless, aren’t you, Winger?” Duke flashed him his Hollywood grin as they reached the Tenth Precinct and parked the car out front.

  “She owns a poodle for chrissake. Why the hell would I be scared?”

  “Seems to me I’ve never seen you turn on the police light to get back to the station.”

  Josh told him exactly where he could stick his Oprah psychobabble as he slammed the car door.

  Lexi Mansfield might have drop-dead legs and a killer smile, but that didn’t scare Josh. Hell, no.

  Maybe it made him a little sexually frustrated when he couldn’t be with her every minute of the day. And a little freaked out that someone would try to hurt her.

  But that did not make him scared of falling for her smart mouth or her wicked ways in bed. And he would prove it just as soon as he sewed up this case, because he’d be walking away from Lexi for good.

  That’s the way she wanted it, damn it, and that’s the way it would be.

  NEARLY A WEEK after the fire, Amanda stopped by the loft to bring Lexi more clothes and to torture her with questions about Josh.

  The week had crawled by without the sexy detective to liven things up. He’d politely called her three times, but each time he had limited conversation to the arson and smuggling investigations. He’d also dutifully stationed a plainclothes cop in a car on the street to keep a watch on her, but Josh had yet to make an appearance. He’d keep her safe, but he wouldn’t come near her.

  Not that she could blame him, after she’d given him his marching orders in no uncertain terms last weekend. But she didn’t want to trot out her heartache right now, not when she had a big charity event to get ready for tonight. Time to forget about Josh and get back to her real life.

  Lexi kept digging through the matching leather designer suitcases, ostensibly to check out the new offerings Amanda had brought, but really she just wanted to hide from conversation about the man who had turned her life upside down for one wild weekend and then all but disappeared from her life.

  “So he still hasn’t stopped by?” Amanda asked for what seemed like the tenth time as she rifled around the loft for hangers.

  “He’s called to check on me.” Lexi sidestepped the question to avoid seeming pathetic. “Wow, Amanda, you didn’t have to bring over stuff from your new fall collection.” She held up a pencil-thin mermaid gown with aqua-colored sequins curling up the front like undulating seaweed.

  Amanda’s cheeks went just a little pink. “Um, that’s sort of self-serving, actually, because I’m hoping you’ll opt to wear it for the Dance for Children.”

  “Of course I will wear it!” Lexi hopped off the couch to hug her best friend. “I would be honored to wear one of your designs. If anything, I try hard not to brag on you too much in my column.”

  “You are wonderfully diplomatic.” Amanda pulled a black scarf out of the suitcase and tied it around Lexi’s neck, falling into the dress-up games they’d been playing together ever since boarding school. “And I figured this way, you don’t even need to mention me in your column. Just the dress on your body will make the pages of six different publications and flood my phone with orders for a month.” She adjusted the knot in Lexi’s scarf and nodded her satisfaction.

  “You shrewd businessperson, you.” Lexi peered in a three-panel mirror Amanda kept stashed behind a sewing machine. Inspired by the fifties look of the scarf, she pulled a rubber band out of her purse and tied her hair in a ponytail.

  “Flattery will not make me forget what we were discussing, however.” Amanda started filling one of the loft’s umpteen rolling racks with a temporary wardrobe for Lexi. “Why hasn’t Josh been over here? After that kiss I saw him giving you last week, I assumed you two were pretty hot and heavy.”

  “I lured him home for a one-night stand that turned into a two-night stand, but we’re mature enough to know that’s where it ends.”

  “You brought him to your home?” Amanda gaped at her, a pink satin bustier dangling in midair from her fingers.

  Leave it to Amanda to cue in on that unusual fact.

  “His house was being painted.” Lexi continued to hand her clothes to try to nudge her off the subject.

  “You told me once that you would never bring any guy but the ‘right’ guy into your private sanctuary.”

  Had she said that? “I guess I underestimated the sexual appeal of men like Josh Winger.”

  “Uh-huh.” Amanda went back to work, hanging two Chanel suits. “And what makes you think you’re not meant to be together?”

  Knowing Amanda wouldn’t give up this line of questioning anytime soon, Lexi offered the abbreviated version. “Josh doesn’t want to be a part of my lifestyle. I’m too public for him because of his job or something.”

  “It’s as simple as that?”

  Lexi shrugged, toying with the tiny buttons on a green silk nightgown with the tags still attached. “He would hate my kind of publicity, anyway. You know I still get lots of jibes about my total lack of blue blood. He might resent being lumped with me as the mule in thoroughbred finery, you know? I don’t give a flying fig what people say about me, but I wouldn’t want anyone to slander Josh.”

  Amanda tossed a suitcase full of shoes on the floor and sat down on the sofa next to Lexi. “Do you love him?”

  “I only just met him.”

  “Question still stands.”

  Lexi tried to consider the idea rationally. Was there a rational side of her left where Josh was concerned?

  “Maybe. Probably. But how do I know?” She stared down at the green nightgown and tried to picture Josh’s reaction to it. Very, very enticing. “We spent two amazing nights together. I’m probably just horribly naive to think I’m in love with him.”

  “You’ll know for sure when it happens.” Amanda looked out the windows of the loft, surely remembering another time, another declaration of love.

  Lexi envied her, envied that moment.

  “But in the meantime, it’s my duty as a friend to remind you that anyone and everyone in the public eye has had negative publicity. Maybe you receive more than your share, but that’s just because you are flamboyant.”

  “You still think that crocheted dress I wore to your store’s grand opening was over the top, don’t you.”

  Amanda couldn’t hide her grin. She opened a train case to reveal a pile of gloves, pins, hair accessories and little purses. “I wouldn’t have worn a miniature tablecloth in public, but that’s just me. Face it, Lex, you thrive on controversy in your public life. It gets you more ink and more attention for your causes.”

  “True. But Josh would have hated that.” Those strong, silent types didn’t understand the subtle rises and falls of media figures. Josh would think it was petty and superficial.

  Amanda dug a silk flower out of the train case and tucked the red bloom behind Lexi’s ear. “No, he would admire you for the way you manipulate money from deep pockets into charitable hands, the same way all your friends do. Regardless of where you came from or what you choose to wear to any grand opening, you’ll always have more class in your little finger than Simone Bertrand has in her whole lipo-sucked body.”

  The doorbell rang before Lexi had the chance to bawl her eyes out at Amanda’s generous words. She patted the red flower in her hair as she walked to the door.

  “I hope you’re right, Amanda, that my claim to class resides in my little finger and not this hair.” As she opened the front door, she tugged at the long mane she’d tied up in a ponytail.

  Amanda frowned as the team of stylists in white salon uniforms strode into the loft’s living area. “What do you mean? Or should I be afraid to ask?”

  “You know the old song about washing that man right out of your hair? I’m going to cut mine right out of my hair and donate the whole black mess to those places that make wigs for kids who’ve undergone chemo.” Lexi allowed t
he lead stylist, a hair-dresser named Bruno, to guide her into a chair near one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “That’s so sweet!” Amanda straightened a pair of metal-studded pumps beneath a rolling rack, then joined the styling team as they circled Lexi’s chair. She wheeled the three-panel mirror over so Lexi could keep tabs on the situation.

  “I’m going to give the hair to the people at Dance for Children tonight.” She hoped she liked shoulder-length hair. Her curls had hit her waist for as long as she could remember. “You think it’ll work to make me forget Josh?”

  Amanda walked around behind Lexi’s chair, clamped her hands on her friend’s shoulders and leaned forward until both their faces were visible in the mirror. “Not a chance.”

  No kidding. Lexi was probably just as apt to forget to breathe.

  13

  JOSH STRAIGHTENED HIS TIE in the alley behind Club Blue, New York’s hot spot of the month located in a long-neglected storefront in midtown. Limousines mobbed the street in front of the club, but a red carpet entrance wasn’t exactly Josh’s style. He flashed a badge at the security guy guarding the back door and quietly slipped inside Lexi’s gala Dance for Children event.

  He hadn’t meant to come here tonight. He could think of ten reasons he ought to stay away from Lexi. Hell, he’d been reciting those reasons all week in an effort not to darken her doorstep at the loft.

  But he couldn’t leave her security to the plainclothes guy who’d been assigned to watch her. Not in this crowd. Besides, having been hunted down by Lexi at a club like this the week before, Josh knew firsthand that the woman moved like quicksilver through a crowd. He was willing to bet she could elude a rookie without lifting a manicured nail to try.

  “Can I get you a drink, sir?” A waitress emerged from the black-tie crowd. Unlike the waitresses at last week’s club who had worn slinky togas, the wait resses at Club Blue wore elegant dresses the color of the sea. The impatient woman in front of him twitched from foot to foot in hers. “Well?”