Finding Justice

by Rachel Brimble

  “Wow.”

  She jumped and turned. “Ah, there you are.”

  He smiled. “There I am? I’ve been downstairs waiting for you. Your coffee is stone cold.”

  Jay moved forward, cupped his hands to her jaw and kissed her. When they parted, she softly eased his hands from her face and brushed past him. His jaw tightened. She couldn’t look at him. She walked to the bed and picked up her BlackBerry, lipstick and keys and tossed them in a black handbag. She hitched it onto her shoulder.

  “Right. Bennett first, then we can check in with Marian and George.”

  “Yes, sir.” He saluted and gestured toward the door.

  As she sashayed past him, Jay bit back a growl as his irritation wavered. Her perfect ass and her shapely legs were a bad man’s dream.

  He followed her out of the room and down the stairs.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled out of his driveway and he glanced at her as she stared out of the side window. She was still as stubborn as a mule when she didn’t want to do something, but he’d wager his cabin that whatever held her in Reading—and from him—had something to do with a loved one and zero to do with her work. Cat’s loyalty reigned supreme and her father’s passing would have kicked her obligation to her mother into overdrive.

  His gut told him this had something to do with Julia...or maybe Chris.

  The stream of cars in front of him slowed at a red light and he touched her leg. She whirled around, her eyes a storm of wariness and surprise. Their jade-green newness darkened to almost emerald and a flush of color stained her neck. Jay’s gut clenched with guilt. Why did he suddenly feel like a damn stalker?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry, I was thinking about Sarah.” She looked down at her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “I want to solve this case quickly. Her parents need to bury her and the man who did this, who’s calling me? I want to see him pay for what he’s done.”

  He tentatively covered her hands with one of his and squeezed, relieved when she didn’t pull away. “We’re on it, okay?”

  She looked at him. “If you mean that, can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Promise me you’ll drop the subject of me coming back to the Cove...permanently. It’s a pipedream and one I don’t want to contemplate because it’s never going to happen.”

  The traffic started to move and Jay pulled his hand from hers and onto the steering wheel. He eased the car forward. “I know you feel as though I’m putting pressure on you—”

  “I don’t feel it. You are.”

  He stared ahead, frustration edging in. “Fine, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but you sleeping in my arms last night felt so right. Cat, it felt amazing. I don’t want us to miss a second chance when the first went without us trying.” He drew in a breath through flared nostrils. “Doesn’t this feel right to you? Us, together again? I need you and Sarah needs you. I know you have a fabulous career and a family who are hugely proud of you, but the two friends who lived here, the ones you loved spending time with each summer, have properly messed up their lives. Unfortunately, we both need you to make it better again.”

  “No pressure, huh?”

  “You’ve got a good life in Reading, I get that. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He glanced at her and her eyes filled with tears. “God, Cat. Don’t cry. That’s the last thing I want. I’ll back off. You don’t want this.”

  Jay turned to the windshield. He didn’t want to make her cry. The sadness in her voice grated his heart but the need for her to come clean about what was going on at home was stronger. Guilt for demanding more from her than she was willing to give scorched and seared his conscience, making him want to obliterate whoever or whatever caused her so much pain. He willed her to crack—knowing she never would.

  Tension hummed around them. She was hiding something from him, something important. He frowned. How could anything be as bad as the things he told her about his life? She knew he’d taken drugs, humiliated Sarah at her workplace and let her down in the final moments of her life. What could be so bad Cat couldn’t share it with him?

  “We can get through whatever it is.”

  He hadn’t meant to say his thoughts out loud and from the corner of his eye, he saw her inch away from him as though he might grab her.

  “There is no ‘we.’ As soon as Sarah’s killer is found, I’m heading home on the next train out of here. Last night doesn’t change that. Today is a new day.”

  Goddamn it.

  There was a long moment of silence and then she huffed out a breath. “Clearly, having sex meant more to you than the great opportunity for a bit of release it meant for me.”

  He flinched. Ouch. It was a good effort, but the first swipe of her knife didn’t even break the skin. He turned and fixed her with his stare. She tilted her chin, but from the telltale shift of her neck, she clearly struggled to maintain eye contact.

  He smiled. “The red-hot moaning told me you were as hungry for me as I was for you. So you can cut the crap.” He turned back to the road.

  “That is a disgusting way to describe what happened between us.”

  He shrugged. “Sex is sex, right? Isn’t that what you’re trying to get me to believe?”

  Silence.

  “We’ve still got it, and I, for one, fully intend to embrace it.”

  “What do you mean ‘it’? We were together once. That hardly makes us past lovers. We might have had a tumble in the bedclothes last night, but we’re friends. Nothing more.”

  His confidence wavered closer to the edge of irritation. “Are you serious?” The word friends crashed into his heart, knocking the wind from his lungs. “Friends?”

  “Yes, friends.”

  Jay shook his head and curled his fingers tighter around the steering wheel. “We were never ‘just friends.’ I’ve got no intention of being ‘just friends’ now.”

  What the hell was going on in her mind? Her heart? He hadn’t for one moment considered she wouldn’t think of their lovemaking as anything less than the start of something great. As he did. His ego absorbed the blow of her rejection as he glanced at her perfect legs beneath the hem of her skirt. His gaze shot to her face. It looked set in stone. To hell with this.

  “I’m not letting you go a second time. No way, no how.”

  She met his eyes and her expression changed to shocked anger mixed with mute disbelief. He hadn’t seen either look on her face before and male pride surged through him, knowing he’d managed to shake her cool nonchalance. Her eyes blazed like emeralds under a scorching hot sun.

  He concentrated once more on the road and waited for the explosion.

  “Is that so? Well, I have news for you. I’m not anyone’s woman to boss around. If I say we’re just friends, we’re just friends.”

  He bit back the urge to smile, thinking it might get him a right hook in the face. “Fine. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “No, Jay. We won’t. I am sick to death of people drowning themselves in whatever substance they think suits the occasion and then wallowing in self-centered pity.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t need your crap, okay? Just let me do my job and then I can go home.”

  Substance? Self-centered pity? Nausea rose bitter in his throat. No one had spoken to him like that in three years. Not since his father grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled his
ass into rehab. She was ashamed of him. Ashamed of his past. All her words saying how proud she was of what he had done since had been bullshit.

  Anger and blistering shame ripped through his body and his knuckles ached from his unrelenting grip on the steering wheel. He’d never be free from what he’d done. Never. He was an idiot. An idiot who’d thought he could redeem himself after the hurt he’d caused by facing one person at a time. Cat hadn’t seen him then, he hadn’t hurt her while high, yet still the narcotics permeated his future and killed it dead with its poison.

  He looked at her. Shit. He’d brought tears to her eyes. Again.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CAT STARED OUT THE CAR window and swallowed the lump of fear and anger stuck in her throat like a limpet to a rock. She had hurt him, saying anything to throw him off the scent of how she really felt. He didn’t deserve it but she was running out of ways to stop her feelings from gathering momentum and making her believe her mum’s problem could be handled. That she could be happy again.

  She hadn’t come to the Cove for this—a relationship couldn’t be on her agenda when her mum needed her the way she did. She’d come for Sarah, and Jay needed to accept that and so did she. So, who was it running hand in hand up the stairs with him last night and leaping onto his bed, embracing the moment as if it was her last night on earth?

  The remainder of the ten-minute journey to the station passed in pregnant silence until Jay pulled the car into the parking lot and found an empty space. He cut the engine.

  “You’re right. We’re here for Sarah. Let’s focus on that for the time being.”

  Cat closed her heart as a heavy sense of loss weighed it down. “The time being is not enough.”

  “It is. For now.”

  She met his eyes. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “Because you’re not making any sense. Why is it so bad to enjoy our time together while you’re here?”

  “You want more than that.”

  “I love you.”

  Cat stared. Pain caught and pulled at her heart; the reciprocating words danced on her tongue. Pursing her lips together, she trapped them inside and unsnapped her seat belt. She dragged her gaze from his beseeching brown eyes and pulled her handbag into her lap as guilt lurched inside her.

  “I can’t do this, Jay. I’ll end up hurting you.”

  “I’ll take the risk.”

  She shook her head and blinked back tears. “You’re lonely.”

  “Aren’t you?” he asked softly.

  She was. So much. “That doesn’t make this right. My life’s in Reading, yours in the Cove. I can’t leave Reading and you can’t leave here.”

  “Who says? If coming to Reading is what it takes, I’ll come.”

  Panic ripped through her. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Say something. Do something. He has to stay away. For him, for me...for Mum. “Just because you can’t find a new woman in Templeton to seduce, it doesn’t mean you get to pursue the one you had seven years ago.”

  “You think that’s why I’m asking you to stay? Because I can’t be bothered to find anyone else? It’s you. It’s always been you.”

  She stared at him, her body leaning closer...

  Sitting bolt upright, Cat fumbled for the door handle. She couldn’t let this happen. She wanted him like she had before. Only this time, that want might turn to need.

  She yanked on the handle and leaped from the car. The cool air was welcome against the steaming heat of her face. She flinched when his door slammed shut. What was she thinking, sleeping with him last night? She hadn’t thought. Her body had screamed for him as though she was dying and he was her only hope of survival.

  Not a single second of common sense had filtered through her brain before or during—but after? After, everything came crashing in. He was a suspect. Worse, she loved him, and feelings that strong were hard to fight. When he had walked into the guest bedroom with a smile wider than the Sahara on his face this morning, her bad decision slammed into her stomach like a boxer’s punch.

  “Go back to the cabin, Jay. I don’t want you here.”

  “Cat, wait.”

  She glared. “You’re a suspect. Don’t you get that? Go home.”

  She marched away from the car and stormed toward the station, leaving him to do whatever the hell he liked. The last thing she’d come to the Cove for was more emotional stress. She had it in sackfuls at home already. She swiped at the tears that dared to fall. Damn him for making her think of the life she might have lived if her dad hadn’t died and her mum hadn’t chosen to slowly kill herself with the same thing that killed her husband.

  “Cat—” Jay’s hand gripped her elbow like a vise, strong, insistent and entirely capable.

  She closed her eyes as the fear she didn’t have the inner strength to fight him settled over her shoulders. “Jay, don’t. It’s not fair.”

  “Will you just look at me?” His tone was soft yet urgent. “The last thing I want to do is upset you. All I want is for some good times to come out of your being here.”

  She turned around. “So do I, but this doesn’t feel like a good time.”

  “If Sarah hadn’t been killed, if I hadn’t been deemed a suspect, maybe I would never have called you. But I needed your help. So did she. Our friend is dead. Trying to lay her to rest is the hardest, cruelest thing I hope either of us ever experiences, but it’s united us in a way nothing else could. Why can’t you see that?”

  Cat opened her mouth to protest but he pressed his hand to his chest, imploring her.

  “If you don’t want me, I’ll back off. But just promise me you’re turning away because you want to and not because of something else.”

  His pain and sincerity came off in waves. Another piece of Cat’s heart splintered for Sarah, the girl who’d made her laugh until she thought her stomach would split wide open. “I miss her so much.”

  His gaze ran over her face, lingered at her lips. She hadn’t answered his question. She knew it and so did he. After a moment, he took her hand and pulled her into his arms. “Me, too. I know she’s watching our every move, willing us on, not just in the investigation but in us, too.”

  Cat closed her eyes and slumped against him. “Then why won’t you just enjoy the time we have instead of pushing me for more?”

  He eased her back. “Because I want more and so do you. I see it in your eyes and I felt it in every part of you last night. Whatever problems you’re dealing with at home, I can help. I won’t turn away.”

  She stared. He was still a suspect; did he not see that? Did he not understand what they had done? What she had done? Cat’s heart picked up speed. If Bennett or Harris were to find out...

  He smiled and brushed the hair from her eyes. “Good, no answer. That means there’s hope you understand I’m talking sense. When you left that last summer seven years ago, I didn’t think I’d never have another lasting relationship or not think of you when I kissed another woman, but that’s exactly what happened. So if you can’t give me more, I’ll learn to live with it, but while you’re here, we’re going to make some memories. Good ones.”

  She shook her head even though her heart longed for his. “It’s a bad idea.”

  “Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it then.” He took her hand, raised it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

  The silence pressed down on her chest as their eyes locked and his hungry, sexy gaze bore
into hers, trapping her like prey. The scent of his aftershave and that tanginess that was strictly Jay whispered between them. His lips brushed hers and Cat leaned into him wanting more, her eyes closed...

  “No.” She snapped her eyes open and pushed her hand against his chest. “Go home. We’re not doing this here. I’ll come back to the cabin after I’ve spoken to Bennett.”

  He raised his hands. “Fine. Fine. You deal with Bennett. Show him the letter. Do what you have to for Sarah. After that we’ll go and see Marian and George. I’ll be here in an hour to pick you up.”

  “No. If Bennett sees you here—”

  “I’ll park along the road and you come find me. Then, when we’ve done everything we can for Sarah today, you and I are going to talk about us.”

  Frustration burned and yearning for his kiss grew. “Fine.”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “See you soon.”

  Cat stared after him as Jay headed back to his car and slid into the seat. The engine roared to life and he left the parking lot, leaving her feeling more alone than she’d felt since she arrived in Templeton. Drawing in a breath, she turned and headed toward the open double doors of the station. She needed to focus. She pulled the copy of Sarah’s letter from her bag and tilted her chin. Police work. That she could control. That she knew how to handle.

  “Well, good morning, Sergeant.”

  Cat halted at the sound of Inspector Bennett’s voice a few feet away. She plastered on a smile. Crap. Had he seen Jay? “Good morning, sir.”

  “I assume you’re here to see me?”

  She straightened her spine and dismissed the lingering tension left by her argument with Jay. “Yes, sir. I’ve brought something to show you. Something I hope will further the investigation.” She held up the letter. “This came to my home address in Reading.”