by Dana Marton
Bree watched Jamie as he worked without pause, his focus on the job. “This will make Katie happier than I can tell you.”
“It’s good to be moving a little after sitting in the car all night on patrol. I don’t have to be at the office until noon. I should be able to finish here.”
She was pretty sure between night patrol on the border and office duty he was supposed to squeeze some sleep in there somewhere. Yet she didn’t have it in her to send him away. Having the statues fixed would mean the world to Katie.
“I’m making breakfast,” she told him. “Why don’t you come inside in a little while and have something with us?”
He watched her for a second. “Will Katie be okay with that?”
She smiled. “She will when she sees this.”
And then she walked back toward the house, her heart a little lighter. She walked by Delancy’s cruiser and thanked the bleary-eyed officer for her help, then sent her home to rest.
“Are you sure?”
“Jamie will be here for a while.”
Delancy shot her a curious look.
“It’s not like that,” she said.
“Sure it isn’t. He’s obviously just a concerned bystander,” Delancy said with a suddenly saucy grin, then drove away with a wave.
Bree went inside and cooked breakfast: scrambled eggs with salsa mixed in, home-style bacon and skillet cakes. She put on some coffee, too. Lord knew she needed some, and she had a feeling Jamie probably did, too.
Katie came downstairs just as Jamie was entering the house.
“You’re Bree’s friend,” she said thoughtfully. “Your name is Jamie Cassidy.”
“Yes it is. Is it okay if I visit?”
“Jamie is fixing Mom’s statues,” Bree told her sister, and watched as Katie ran to the window, her eyes going wide. She clapped her hands at the sight that greeted her.
Bree could barely talk her into coming to the table to have some pancakes. “Come on now, or they’ll get cold and you don’t like that.”
That did the trick. Katie ran to the table and plopped onto her chair. “Unicorns sneeze Skittles,” she said, her gaze snapping back to the window every five seconds.
“Mom used to say,” Bree explained. Katie had loved unicorns for as long as she could remember. Because unicorns were different, but great. Just like Katie. Not worse than other people at all, just different and special. Her mother used to say that to her when she’d been younger and asked why some kids at school made fun of her.
There wasn’t much bullying. For one, Katie’s teachers simply didn’t stand for it. And also because they’d had a neighbor kid at the time who was in the same grade and always stood up for her. Bree had been too many years ahead of Katie to be of much help. They had never been in the same school building together.
“Skittles come from unicorns? That’s awesome.” Jamie was playing along.
“Only not these ones,” Katie explained with all seriousness. “Because they’re made of stone. And also because unicorns are imaginary. They sneeze Skittles in our imagination. Having imagination is a good thing. And Skittles are real.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Jamie countered, not a trace of his dark looks and surliness in evidence.
Katie nodded as she ate. During breakfast her gaze kept straying back outside, then returning to Jamie again. They stuck to small talk, mostly Katie asking questions. She was good with questions. She wanted to know everything.
She would have made a good detective. Maybe that was why she liked crime shows. She followed a different one every night, had a TV schedule she stuck to religiously. She could usually guess the killer halfway through the story.
“What kind of car do you have?” she drilled Jamie.
He told her. “It’s the blue one, out by the curb.” He nodded toward the window.
Katie looked, nodded, then turned back to him. “Where do you live?”
“Are you married?”
“Do you have kids?”
“Do you have a sister?”
The questions kept coming. She was impressed with the seven-brothers-and-a-sister thing.
Then it was time for Bree to take her to Sharon’s house, just a few blocks away.
Jamie was still working in her yard when she came home. He was pretty close to finishing. The improvement he’d made was amazing. With some minor cleanup on her part, the front yard would be back to normal in no time.
“I’m so grateful that you’re doing this,” she told him. “Katie is very impressed with you, by the way. She couldn’t stop talking about you to Sharon.”
He shot her a questioning look.
“Sharon is a friend from work. They hang out Saturday mornings together. We don’t have a big family. I want her to have friends.” Especially since she worked for the police. She wanted Katie to have a support system if anything happened to her.
He put the last chunk of concrete in place and smoothed down whatever white cement mixture he was using to glue the pieces together. The unicorn looked fully recovered. Even jaunty. Her mother would approve, she thought out of the blue, and the thought made her smile.
“Why don’t you come inside to clean up?” she offered.
He looked down on his clothes. “Okay. That might be good. Thanks. I’ll just go out back and clean off these tools with the garden hose first.”
She went with him, helped then they walked inside together. She led him to the sink in the laundry room and brought him a towel. “Anything interesting happen out on the border? I see nobody whacked you,” she teased. “Must have been a slow night.”
“It was pretty quiet,” he said as he cleaned himself up, taking the jab in stride. “Every night is not a full-blown monkey circus, thank God.”
She had stepped to the window when she’d shown him in, which she now regretted. The space was too small for the two of them and he blocked her way out as he peeled off his T-shirt, washed it under the water then hung it on a peg while he cleaned off his amazing upper body.
Oh, wow. He was incredibly built. And scarred. She tried not to stare, but was pretty much failing miserably. Water droplets gathered on his dark eyelashes, making them look even darker.
When he was done, he shrugged into the wet T-shirt.
“I could toss that into the dryer for you,” she offered, finding her voice.
“In this heat, it’ll dry as soon as I go back outside. Actually, a little cold feels nice. I don’t mind. It’s been a hot morning.”
It was still pretty hot, as far as she was concerned.
He finger combed his wet hair back into place. “How is the counterfeit investigation going?”
“The CIA agent is doing his stuff. How about your op?” She was so proud of herself for still being able to think. She definitely deserved a pat on the back for that one.
“More dead ends than you can shake a stick at. I got a lead, kind of.” He shrugged, the movement of his muscles accentuated by the wet T-shirt. “It’s a long shot, but it’s better than nothing.”
Quit staring. Say something intelligent. Semi-intelligent. Okay, anything that doesn’t have to do with rippling muscles.
“Did I see your car up by the mission yesterday? I was up there at the tackle shop to pick out a pole for one of the officers who’s retiring. Mike. We’re doing a group gift. He likes fishing,” she added inanely.
He watched her for a moment as he hung up the towel to dry.
Oh, right. “You probably can’t say what you were doing up there.”
But he came to some sort of decision, and said, “I was running down a lead on a prison hit. Someone from the outside brought the hit order during a visit. I need to find out who. Father Gonzales was on the visitor log so I checked him out. Do you know him?”
The thought of Father Gonzales being involved in any kind of criminal activity made her laugh out loud and distracted her from his body, at last. Okay, partially distracted.
“He’s as antiviolence as they get. He wo
uld give his life for you, but participate in murder?” She shook her head. “No way. I’ve known him all my life. I’d stake my career on it that he didn’t have anything to do with an ordered hit.”
“Pretty much the impression I got.” He nodded, frowning. “Except, here’s the thing—there were only two visitors, the priest and the girlfriend. Every instinct I have says she’s clean, too. So where does that leave me?”
“The message could have been transmitted through a third party. It might have gone to another inmate first, then he passed it on to the actual hit man.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. I need to follow up on that today. Man, that’s gonna be a time killer. It’s a big prison with a ton of inmates.” He didn’t look happy. “We don’t have extra time on this.”
“What does your ordered hit have to do with the border?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
She stepped forward, her dander rising. “I thought we’ve been over that. Everything that happens in my county I worry about. Does this have to do with smuggling? I could help you with that. I have a pretty good grip on the usual suspects. I know the players. Look, I’ve been doing this for a long time before you got here.”
His gaze dipped to her lips, and she realized she might be standing too close, but she didn’t want to step back and have him interpret the move as her backing down.
“It’s smuggling related,” he said after a moment, with a good dose of reluctance.
Oh, she thought as she recalled his team’s purpose here. She narrowed her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with terrorists?”
And then he kissed her.
For a brief second, she wanted to shove him away and demand answers. And then suddenly she didn’t have it in her to pull away. A small part of her knew he was probably kissing her only to distract her, but most of her didn’t care.
It was sooo good. Oh, sweet heaven.
His lips were firm and warm on hers. She hadn’t been kissed in a long time, and it’d been even longer since she’d been kissed by a guy who could make her skin tingle just by being in the same room with her.
One second it was just kind of a brushing of lips, then his mouth slanted over hers and he went for it.
Sweet mackerels, as Eleanor would say.
The heat was crazy sizzling. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair started smoking.
Why now? Why him? He was anything but uncomplicated.
She wasn’t the instant-attraction type. She didn’t fall for every handsome face. She was friendly when it came to...friendship. But when things went past that... It took her forever to warm up to a guy that way.
All the instant heat now caught her by surprise.
He tasted her lips, slowly, carefully, doing a thorough job of it. By the time his tongue slipped in to dance with hers, her nipples were tingling. She was helpless to do anything but open up for him. He sank into her with a soft growl that was out-of-this-world sexy.
As he tasted her fully, all her blood gathered at the V of her thighs. And he hadn’t even put his hands on her yet. She was in so much trouble here.
Her head swam. Ridiculous. Deputy sheriffs didn’t swoon. It had to be against regulation. Maybe the eggs she’d made for breakfast were bad. She’d rather consider food poisoning than admit that Jamie Cassidy could undo her like this.
Desire washed over her, again and again, in ever-strengthening waves. He made her want things that...
Her brain stopped. Her body took over.
Wow, okay, she missed being with a man.
* * *
HE WAS SO turned on he couldn’t see straight. Lust took over his body. Testosterone flooded his brain. What few brain cells were still working were overtaken by confusion. And surprise that he could still respond to a woman like this.
He wasn’t sure if he felt hopeful or resentful about his body’s overwhelming response to her.
Plain and simple, she knocked him on his ass.
He wanted her now, here, hard and fast. He couldn’t see beyond that.
He eyed the washer hopefully. He could lift her on top of that, wrap her endless legs around his waist. His body hardened for her. “I want you,” he said in a rusty whisper as he pulled his head back a little.
“Yeah, I think I got that,” she responded in a weak tone.
Her beautiful eyes were hazy with passion, turning him on even more.
He swallowed a groan. “I don’t want to want you.” He didn’t want the complications that would come with it. He kissed her again, anyway.
It felt a lot like falling. He didn’t like falling. He’d spent months falling all over his face in physical therapy after he’d gotten his new legs. Thinking of that made him think of what would come next, in a normal encounter between a man and a woman who wanted each other.
Taking off their clothes somewhere upstairs.
She melted against him. Some feeling that was a lot softer and lighter than he was used to lately pulled him forward. He pulled back. She made him want things he didn’t want to need.
* * *
SHE WAS BREATHING hard and hoping he wouldn’t notice. He didn’t want to want her. Well, other than the part of him that obviously did. Was it pitiful that she desperately wanted him, aching with need between her legs?
She was so damn stupid. She’d tried this before. It never worked. And it was her fault. She would always put Katie first and whatever guy was in her life would want to come first. Completely reasonable.
The kiss had been great, but she couldn’t, shouldn’t, go too far down this road with Jamie. The longer she let this go on, the more hurt she’d be at the end. One guy she’d fancied herself in love with had asked her to put Katie into a home so he could move in and they would have some privacy.
That had caught her off guard, broke her heart, made her feel stupid that she’d thought he was different than the others. And here she was, thinking the same again, about Jamie.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” She shouldn’t have kissed him back. “This is not going to work between us. It’s not working for me.”
He stared at her. Shook his head. “I apologize if I read you wrong.”
He hadn’t. He’d read everything right, had done everything right. She’d wanted him, wanted him still, even right now, wanted nothing more than to go back into his arms and be kissed silly all over again.
She was tempted beyond words to throw all caution to the wind and just do that, let the chips fall where they may. Except she’d done that before, and the chips always fell on heartache. She was an intelligent woman. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake over and over again when it came to men.
He didn’t need to know that her knees were still weak from his kiss.
Quick. Say something unaffected and clever.
Not a damn thing came to mind.
Then she blurted, “Did you check both lists?”
He blinked, looking at her as if she was from another planet. “What both lists?”
“The prison keeps two separate visitors’ logs. One for general visitors, the other for the attorneys and whatever. That’s maintained separately. And they won’t show what attorney visited what prisoner.”
The heat in his eyes simmered down little by little. “That sounds stupid.”
“It’s to maintain attorney-client privilege,” she told him, proud of herself for sounding like a professional instead of a moonstruck teenager, even if on the inside she felt more like one than she cared to admit. “Could be Jimenez’s lawyer was the one who took him the hit order.”
Chapter Nine
On his way home, Jamie called into the office and asked Ryder to put in a request for the new set of visitors’ logs. There also had to be court records that would show who had defended Jimenez during his incarceration. They would have to jump through a couple of hoops and wait for warrants, but they could definitely get the information. Progress in the case.
Which was a
good thing, especially since his liaison with the deputy sheriff was getting worse and worse. He was definitely going in the wrong direction with Bree. She was completely right. He’d been way off base, way out of line.
He wasn’t looking for a relationship. There was absolutely no reason to stir things up with her. Good thing she had a sober head on her shoulders and saw their mistake for what it was.
He’d gotten carried away with her. It wouldn’t happen again.
The kiss... He drew in a slow breath then released it as he pulled into the parking spot in front of his apartment. It wasn’t going to happen again. Definitely.
Maybe she’d forget.
Maybe she barely noticed, he tried to tell himself as he drummed up the stairs. Then he swore at his own stupidity. While the kiss had been completely unprofessional, it was also utterly unforgettable.
He’d been a hairsbreadth from pushing further. Common sense, mission objective and regulation be damned, he’d wanted her, then and there, all the way. Which meant one thing: time to take a giant step back from Bree Tridle.
He showered using a plastic chair since he couldn’t stand under the water, drew the blinds, went to bed. He refused to think about her or how she’d felt in his arms, but then, of course, he dreamed about her. In his dream, their interlude didn’t stop with kissing. He woke a little while later in a haze of heat and lust, pulled the pillow over his face and forced himself back to sleep.
This time, his dreams turned darker. He was in the torture chamber in the hills of Afghanistan, in the cave that had been converted into a prison just for him. Outside the iron bars, enemy fighters held the family who had sheltered him after his chopper had gone down. He was the sole survivor of his team. With two broken legs.
The first week, they tortured him to gain intelligence. He resisted. The second week, they tortured the family: husband, wife and children. He almost talked then. The third week, when the family had been reduced to bloody corpses, his tormentors had turned their attention back to Jamie once again.
They moved from hooking him up to batteries to chopping off body parts. They’d leave his tongue for last, so he could tell them what they wanted to know, they’d said. Everything else was fair game. They’d started from the bottom up.
