She frowned and scanned the shelves. “He’s probably just used to hunting, but there’s no way an animal that size is finding enough prey to keep him healthy.” She plucked a bag off the shelf and scanned the ingredients.
“Maybe he’s more of a raw-meat dog,” he suggested, leaning over her shoulder and wrinkling his nose. “That smells like rotting pig’s feet.”
“It does not.” Elbowing him lightly in the ribs, she sniffed at the bag. “Oh. Yeah, it kind of does.” She placed it back and sniffed at another brand. “Yuck.”
“Tell you what,” he said, tugging at her hand and leading her toward the back of the store. “I’ll grab a few cheap steaks and you can try it tonight.”
He spent an inordinate amount of time selecting the meat, finally adding three steaks and a pound of raw hamburger to his basket. Once they reached the till, she pulled her wallet from her purse to cover the dog meat.
“Put that away,” he stated, putting his large form between her and the cashier. “This is my annual contribution to animal welfare in the greater Coachella Valley.”
*
Max glared at the bowl as Charlotte opened her small cooler and pulled out a steak. “You aren’t seriously doing this, are you? That stupid mutt’ll be eating better than you.”
“You’re just mad I didn’t bring one for you,” Charlotte retorted. “The poor thing is probably starving out here.”
Rising to his feet, he rolled his eyes. “If this dog is as big as you say, something’s keeping him here. Maybe he’s picking off the coyotes.”
“I got a collar around him last time, so I’m hoping to leash him and bring him in next time I get close enough.” She shone her flashlight toward the ridge before she headed back to the truck. “We should probably hit the north quadrant now. Becky mentioned the campground was packed by seven.”
He followed her through the park, flashing his brights at her periodically to signal he was veering off the road to check the various gravel paths that wound into the desert. As they approached the campground, they were met by a large group of people waving frantically.
She pulled up to the group, rolling down her window. “Everything okay over here?”
One man stepped up to the truck, pointing toward the moonlit plateau. “The guys over there found two bodies near the dam trails,” he said breathlessly. “My wife and son just took off toward the visitor center to find help.”
Chapter Eight
Alex turned the music down and paced the bar with his phone tight to his ear, oblivious to the ire of his customers. “Yeah, I get it’s your job, but get someone to cover for you tonight. You sound exhausted.”
He could hear Charlotte moving around her apartment as she sighed. “It’s fine,” she answered, her voice tired. “I’ve showered, eaten, and downed a pot of coffee. One more night won’t kill me.”
“Yeah, right,” he muttered. “Will you at least stay tight to Max? You shouldn’t be working alone until whoever killed those people is caught.”
“Max is guiding the investigators through the trails. I’ll be fine. I have a gun and the CB with me in the truck at all times.”
He stormed behind the bar, cranking the music back up to appease his snarky clientele. “Will you at least promise not to leave your truck?” he asked, almost yelling to be heard over the din of the room. “No dog-feeding, no animal rescue?”
“Sure,” she replied distractedly, her voice muffled. “Look, I better run. But I’ll text you when I’m off.”
He leaned against the counter and dropped his head. “Please do,” he muttered. “It’s not easy to find a dinner date on short notice.”
Her laugh rang through the phone before it went dead. He ran his hand through his hair, grabbed a pen and paper, and hit the floor.
*
Charlotte turned on her high beams as she flipped around at the north entrance and made her way back down the deserted road. The campgrounds had emptied out quickly after the bodies were discovered, the tourists in no rush to be the next victim.
Max had radioed updates in intermittently throughout the early evening. Both men had been found a good trek off the beaten path, their bodies hidden among the rocks and out of view from the walkways and roads. Homicide believed one body was fresh, dumped within the past forty-eight hours. The other was weeks old and, according to Max, in bad shape. The park had been crawling with police all day, keeping her and Max on shift well into the early afternoon, giving them a few hours of rest before their scheduled shifts.
She turned off the pavement onto a gravel road that looped for several miles. A flash of movement ahead of her headlight beams caught her eye and she hit the brakes, her hand hovering over her gun. The movement drew nearer until it stood directly in the light.
“Damn dog,” she exclaimed in relief, putting her hands on her pounding heart. She unrolled her window and reached out. “Come here!”
The dog stalked toward her, his ears and nose twitching. When he reached her hand, he ducked his enormous head and nuzzled it briefly before he continued on.
“Where’re you going, boy?” she asked, leaning out her window as the beast gracefully leapt into the back of her truck. The entire vehicle rocked back under his weight while the dog circled around and sat, his ears alert.
Stretching across the cab, she reached over and opened the small back window, wiggling her fingers toward her new travel companion. “I don’t think you’re going to like this,” she warned as the dog ducked down and gave her hand a lick. “It’s going to be bumpy ride back there.”
She rolled up her window and eased onto the gas, adjusting her rearview mirror. “You going to keep me safe? Or is it the other way around?” she asked, rounding a narrow bend slowly and chuckling when the regal-looking dog flashed its paws out to balance himself. He gave a low snort. “We’ve got a stab-happy psycho on the loose,” she continued, her shoulders relaxing slightly with the animal’s presence. “If you see him, you bark. Got it?”
The dog growled in response, his long fur blowing back as she picked up speed.
She nattered away to replace the silence of the cab, keeping one eye on the road and one on the dog.
“I can’t keep calling you ‘boy,’ can I?” she asked as she pulled back onto the pavement. “How about Rex?”
He snorted.
“Okay, then what do you think of Fido? Spot? Phil? Any of those make you happy?”
Each suggestion was met with obvious disdain.
She turned toward a quiet campground and stopped. “I just need to do a quick walk-around and we’ll head back to the station,” she said, slipping a new leash into her pocket and turning on her flashlight. “Coming, boy?”
The dog jumped down from the truck and began pacing the perimeter, his nose lifted into the air. When she began her walk toward the tents, he appeared at her side, the top of his head almost to her shoulder. She rested her hand on his back, running her fingers through the long fur and slipping them under the huge leather collar hanging loose along his throat, doing her best to clip the leash on without startling the beast.
When the clasp closed with a snick, she could almost swear the dog’s shoulders hunched.
“Nothing exciting,” she whispered, scanning the last of the tents with her light as the leash remained slack in her hand. “Let’s get back to the truck. You can ride up front.”
*
Alex laid his head on the armrest and closed his eyes.
Riding up front had been abandoned the moment he crawled into the passenger side and realized it was about half as big as he needed, so he was relegated to the back seat.
Charlotte’s fingers gently played with his ears, lulling him into a daze as he stared out the window and relished in the scent of her skin. Every so often, her hand would still until he nudged her, reminding her he was there.
It was a small reprieve from the humiliation of the leash and collar.
“Okay, boy, I’m going to need to head inside and sign out,�
� she said, unbuckling her seat belt. “You stay here and I’ll be right back.”
She unrolled the windows, slammed the door, and locked him in.
He sat up and scanned the area, the morning sun providing enough light for him to make out the small lizards scurrying across the sand. He strained his neck back in the cramped space and watched Charlotte through the window as she chatted with her coworker. Lifting his ears, he could make out most of the casual conversation. Updates about the road conditions. Annoyance with the litter outside the west campground. Gossip about Becky and one of the cops that had been on duty the day before.
No leads on the murders.
Charlotte walked out, her hat under her arm as she pulled the elastic from her ponytail. She opened the back door and stepped aside. “All right, boy. You’re coming home with me.”
He lowered himself out of the truck, his haunches aching from the tight fit. When she bent to scoop up the leash, he ducked out of her reach and took off into the desert.
He had a date in seven hours.
*
Charlotte swatted her fork at Alex’s, effectively ending his foraging of her precious lava cake. “We all have lines in the sand,” she warned, pulling the plate closer. “This is mine.”
He sat back in the booth and grinned, sliding his fork across the table in defeat. “All right, all right. I give.”
Eying him suspiciously, she lifted another bite to her lips. “How long have you bartended?”
She tried to focus on his answer and not fall into the distraction of his soothing baritone or the way his blue button-down shirt clung to his muscles and amplified the different colors of his eyes.
Heavens help her, she was failing miserably.
From the moment she opened her door to see him standing there, daffodils in hand and black jeans that rode sinfully low, her mind had gone on the defensive. He was pretty. Too pretty.
Harmless fling. Just a harmless, flirty fling.
The stress of the past forty-eight hours had dissipated as Alex kept her entertained with tales from the bartending front and gossip about the locals. He prodded her about her police training, musing aloud about the best gym in the region for her to show him her moves.
“That’s it,” he announced, flagging the server over. “You’re exhausted, and I’m taking you home before you’re facedown in that cake.”
She blinked, shaking her head. “No, no. Sorry. I’m good.”
He handed a stack of bills to the woman, ignoring her obvious flirting for the umpteenth time that evening. “I’ll give you three choices,” he said, counting them down on his fingers. “One, we go to my place and watch a movie. Two, we go to your place and watch a movie. Three, I take you home, I go home, and I call you tomorrow for a lunch date. Which’ll it be?”
She swallowed the last of the lava cake, thinking over her options and debating just how far she was willing to let this date go. She was exhausted. And her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
Sensing her hesitation, he leaned across the table. “When I say watch a movie, I mean we’re watching a movie.”
Hoping her relief wasn’t too evident on her face, she nodded. “How about my place? Max rigged my computer up to my TV so I can pretty much get anything on there.”
He stood up, holding his hand out for her. “You pick the genre, I pick the flick?”
*
Alex stretched his arms across the back of Charlotte’s sofa and looked around the apartment as she cranked up the air-conditioning. “There’s a lot more pink in here than I expected.”
“I like pink,” she huffed, firing the computer screen to life and handing him the controls. “Pick something from the thrillers or horrors.”
He arched his neck back to watch her walk toward her bedroom before he began flipping through his options. Finding an old favorite, he paused the movie titles and continued to peruse the decor as a wary gray cat stared at him from the kitchen table. “I don’t think Marbles likes me,” he called out, narrowing his eyes at the old cat.
“I don’t think Marbles likes me,” she replied, her bedroom door opening. “She’s an angry ol’ girl. Want a beer?”
“Water’s good,” he muttered, refusing to look away from the cat until she finally blinked slowly and turned her head away.
Charlotte handed him a glass, crossing in front of him to sit at the far end of the sofa.
Damn.
Date-Charlotte had been smoking hot in her knee-high boots and black baby doll dress.
Post-Date-Charlotte was smoking hot in a well-worn oversized academy shirt and basketball shorts.
Watch the movie, horndog.
Forcing his attention to the screen, he ignored the view to his right, the sight of her legs drawn up onto the couch, exposing most of her thighs.
“What is it with you guys?” she suddenly grumbled, her feet pushing against his knee. “Spreading across the whole sofa like you’re establishing dominance.”
Pushing back against her, he grinned. “That’s precisely what we’re doing. Making ourselves as big as possible so no one messes with us.” He glanced over at the cat, who looked away instantly. “It’s a territorial thing.”
“Like pissing on a tree,” she muttered, tossing her legs onto his and returning her attention to the movie.
Tired Charlotte was apparently cranky Charlotte.
Halfway through the film, he refilled their waters and returned to see her sitting up, smiling at the television.
“I figured out the ending,” she proclaimed. “It’s all in his head.”
“Does this mean you want me to turn it off?” He laughed, setting the cups down and flopping back in his seat.
“Of course not. Now I get to see that I’m right. And I like to be right.”
His intentions had been so good. Had he been hooked to a lie detector back at the restaurant, he would have passed with flying colors. But those intentions were disappearing rapidly as he watched her lips turn up in a satisfied smirk.
“Hey,” he said, shifting in place to face her. “What are the chances of you booting my ass out of here if I said I wanted to kiss you?”
Her eyes locked on the television, she licked her lips. “I dunno,” she muttered. “I really like seeing how right I am, so if you interrupt that, you better be very, very good at it.”
Definitely a risk worth taking.
He leaned across the sofa, his hand brushing her hair back. “How about a compromise?” he offered, bringing his lips to her neck. When she kept her attention on the screen but tilted her head to give him better access, he ran his tongue lightly across her skin to her earlobe.
She drew in a deep breath as he tangled his fingers into her hair and trailed kisses down her throat to her collarbone. His other hand inched onto her thigh, pulling her closer to him as he worked his lips to her jaw. “Can you still see?” he muttered into her neck, his senses going into overload from the intoxicating combination of the taste of her skin and the scent of her perfume.
“Uh-huh,” she replied, shifting slightly but refusing to look away from the screen.
He sat back and gripped her hips, pulling her slowly across the sofa and rolling his eyes when she lay back and pointed to the TV.
“The clues are so obvious once you know the outcome.”
He pushed her oversized shirt up to expose her stomach and ran his fingers over the smooth skin. “Want me to stop?” he asked as he bent down to run his tongue across the band of her shorts.
Her fingers ran through his hair. “No. You seem pretty content. Just stay above C-level.”
He looked up at her. “Sea level?”
“C-level,” she repeated. “The center line. Keep your paws off my drawers.”
“I…” He glanced down, lifting his hands off her hips and sliding them up her ribs, stretching her arms above her head. “Better?”
“Much.”
Recognizing that his powers of seduction were no match for Charlotte’s desire to s
ee her plot predictions proved correct, he straddled her, wedging his knee into the back of the couch and ignoring the discomfort the wooden frame provided as it dug into the bone. He grazed his hands along her stomach, her sides, and her arms, noting her responses and stashing them in his head for another time when he wasn’t competing against a well-spun story line.
“Knew it!” she called out, clapping her hands together once and gesturing to the screen. “Can I call a twist, or can I call a twist?”
He leaned over her, his hair falling forward to block her view of the television. “I’m impressed. Kiss me.”
Her scrutinizing dark eyes narrowed as she looked at him.
“Please?” he added, cocking a brow.
She lifted her head up, her soft lips brushing against his.
So. Fucking. Done.
Chapter Nine
“Get your lazy a—Whoa, boy.”
Max flung Charlotte’s apartment door open with a bang as he announced his presence, his jaw dropping open as he took in the sight of her bedhead and Alex still crashed out on the floor at her feet.
“Shush!” she hissed, easing her legs out from under Alex’s arm and tiptoeing past him. She grabbed Max’s shoulders and spun him around forcefully, walking him to her room.
“I spent yesterday evening overseeing an FBI rock climb and you got laid? How is that even fair?” he grumbled, sitting on the edge of her bed and glaring. “We’ve been called in early for a briefing before we head out for the night. So hurry the heck up.”
“I did not get laid.” She gasped, glancing behind her to ensure Alex hadn’t woken and followed them. “Just give me ten and I’ll be ready to go.”
She snatched clean work clothes from her drawers and rushed off to shower, her mind still foggy from the sudden waking. The water took forever to warm, leaving her slightly chilled by the time she dried, dressed, and began brushing her hair out to the sound of Max grilling a groggy Alex about the evening’s events.
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