Irresistible Force (18 page)

James crouched down next to the baby girl, who immediately began to cry. “Mariah? It’s okay, Mariah.” He touched her carefully, aware that she might have injuries he might not be able to see. “I’m James. People are coming to take you to your mommy.”

Light leaped up over them, capturing them in the glare. He turned to find a group of uniformed officers and two EMTs with gear making their way down the incline toward them.

*   *   *

“You really are a hero.”

James gave Shay a doubtful glance as he pulled into traffic that was being diverted away from the accident site. She’d waited very patiently while he’d talked to Raleigh authorities and then changed out of his rain-soaked clothing for the sweatshirt he now wore.

“I mean it. You found a baby in the dark, all by yourself.” She was staring at him with eyes wide with admiration. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

“Give Bogart a bit of credit.”

“Of course.” Shay reached up and scratched Bogart between his damp ears. “You two are just like Batman and Robin.”

“Maybe Cisco and Pancho.” James tried to be offhand about what had just occurred, but he was high on their victory, too.

They would never know exactly how Mariah had been squirted out of her car seat on impact, soared through an opening in the mangled wreckage, and landed in a soft pile of wet leaves twenty feet from the vehicle. All, apparently, without serious injury. He was just happy that chance had been on her side.

“It’s why we do the job. Understand now?”

She nodded. “I wish I did something that made a difference like that.”

For the first time since they’d met, Shay was looking at him with the soft eyes of a woman fascinated by the man in front of her.

He recognized that look. She was responding to the successful good-news part of his job. Outsiders never wanted to see the failures, the mistakes, the wrong turns, the grind, the loneliness, the boring shit-filled hours of dealing with the sick, sad, desperate and/or depraved members of the human race that were most often the reason law enforcement was required. But everyone loved a hero.

The hero-worship thing bothered him. No one could live up to it on a daily basis.

After a quick glance in the rearview mirror, he pulled over on the shoulder and brought the cruiser to a stop.

“Something wrong?”

“Maybe.” He wiped a hand across his face, clearing it of the trickle of rainwater that had run down from his still-damp hair. He needed to get this right.

“A few days ago, you were completely sure you didn’t like me at all. Remember? I’m the guy who burst in on you at gunpoint, called you a liar and a thief. I’m the guy who took your dog away from you. You need to remember that part about me, too.”

He saw her straighten up in her seat. “What are you saying? You don’t want me to like you?”

“We both have baggage, that’s all. My failings run more along the lines of shooting my mouth off before I think. Especially with pretty women. That’s who I am sometimes, too, the awkward dumb guy.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “You don’t need to worry about your failings. I’m sure women hang all over your gorgeous self all the time.”

He angled his body toward her and laid his right arm along the back of her seat, letting his fingers rest lightly on her shoulder. “Gorgeous is not a character trait.”

She met his grin with a snarky look. “Pity. It’s your best quality.”

He brushed the back of his fingers ever so gently along her jawline. “All storm and thunder. That’s more like my Shay.”

Grinning, he turned back to the wheel and sped off.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Yeah, it’s a dump.”

James offered her a teasing smile as he surveyed the sparsely furnished yet immaculately neat living area of Shay’s small apartment. She had been making excuses for her place since he pulled up. None of them held up under his scrutiny. In fact, he thought it looked like a minimalist’s dream.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Shay looked around, trying to see her home through a stranger’s eyes. It gave precious little away, not that anyone came by to see it. Eric had not liked her cramped cell, as he called her one-bedroom apartment. They went to hotels or, occasionally, his place.

She dropped her belongings on the small round pedestal table in the dining area off a tiny kitchen and turned to James.

He toed off his shoes, not wanting to track water in, and then removed his gun to set it out of reach on a nearby shelf. She’d invited him in but he wasn’t sure what that involved. She still had time to change her mind before he lost his completely. He unhooked Bogart’s leash and turned toward her.

She didn’t have many filters. It was all there on her face. Desire, nervousness, indecision, and a flicker of hope that he would take the decision away from her.

He smiled a warm intimate male smile that made her flush. “I hope it’s okay to bring Bogart in.”

“Of course.” She bent down to pat her furry friend on the head. “I forgot to get back the pet deposit I had to put down when I adopted him.”

He watched her shoulders rise and fall on a deep breath. And then she was turning back to him. He saw a decision forming in her mind. Her eyes were shining beneath her glossy bangs, drawing in all the light in the room. Her mouth was soft. Yet her words, as always, were meant to deflect any vulnerability.

“We live in different places. So this.” She waved a hand around as if to include her apartment and Bogart. “This is just a hookup, like last time.”

James heard the question she wasn’t asking. It was in the way she’d dipped her chin, looking at him from beneath a thick fan of dark lashes. She wanted confirmation to keep her emotions locked up. He wished he could give it to her.

“Last time, maybe. But I came back.”

Her silences were as eloquent as her declarations.

“I don’t know what the hell this is. All right?” He brushed a hand over his short haircut, annoyed with himself. All he knew for certain was that he was taking a very big risk. And so was she.

Her smile appeared so slowly he had decided it wasn’t going to arrive before it did. Small victory.

He looked over the tiny counter into the kitchen where Bogart was investigating.

“Let me get Bogart some water.”

“There’s a dog dish under the sink. I couldn’t bear to part with it.”

James padded in sock feet into her kitchen space and found it. He had enjoyed her company tonight. But he was beginning to feel the effects from the overrun of adrenaline spurred by the night’s unexpected call to duty. Usually he and some friends would blow off steam in a bar after hours when the outcome of a situation had a good conclusion. Some men preferred to work off their highs in female company, lots of it. A few got into trouble with too much booze and testosterone-driven high jinks. He couldn’t say he wasn’t going to be trouble for Shay, but he hoped it was the kind she would welcome.

One thing came through loud and clear. She wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to play games or keep things light. He doubted she had ever had a casual relationship. It was all in or all out.

A song his grandmother liked to sing under her breath when she was being positive came to mind. “
Accentuate the Positive”
 … something, something …
about leaving alone Mr. In-Between.

James let out a chuckle that was strictly aimed at himself. Shay all in? What would that be like?

That thought sobered him as he ran water in the dog dish. Before they did or did not get into each other, they needed to finish the conversation begun at the restaurant.

When he had filled the bowl and set it on the floor, he looked out over the bar to ask her something. Cop instinct stopped him cold.

Shay was standing in the middle of her living room staring at the plank-and-brick bookshelf that held her small TV. Was it his gun that worried her?

“What’s wrong?”

She continued to stare, her voice gone flat. “Someone’s been here.”

He moved quickly over to her. “How do you know?”

She pointed. “I left those books lying flat. Now they’re upright on the shelf.”

“Okay.” He glanced around, noting a small hallway just past her kitchen area. Books out of place seemed like a small thing but he knew from countless patrols that small things often led to larger discoveries. “What’s back there?”

“Bathroom and bedroom.”

“You stay here. By the door. Don’t move.”

James raked his weapon from the shelf. He heard Shay draw in a breath of surprise. He held up a finger for quiet.

“Hund. Hier!”

The thirsty lapping stopped. Bogart hurried out of the kitchen. He paused a few feet from James and tilted his head in a questioning manner.

James pointed to the hallway.
“Geh rein!”

Bogart swung around and headed down the hallway. James followed.

Shay began counting slowly backward in her mind from three hundred to keep herself from jumping out of her skin. She’d felt something the moment she walked in her door. She’d wanted to ignore it. Be with James. But the books could not be ignored.

Two hundred and ninety-two. Two hundred and ninety-one.

Hypervigilance required a lot of coping techniques. Too bad her mind could multitask.

She remembered the books lying prone on the shelf. She was certain.

Almost one hundred percent certain.

Or maybe that was wrong. Her mind was making her squirrely just when she most wanted to be sane and in the moment.

James and Bogart were back in less than two minutes.

He wasn’t smiling. “I checked everywhere, the closet, under the bed, the shower. There’s no one here. And no windows have been jimmied. But I need you to look the apartment over to see if you can tell if anything else has been disturbed or taken.”

Shay shook her head. “I believe you.”

“Look anyway.”

She did. And when she came back into the living room she felt worse than before.

James read her expression. “Not a thing? Are you sure?”

“You don’t believe me?” He saw the stricken look wash over her face.

“It’s just a routine question, Shay. Only the books. Down. Up.” He emphasized his words with a hand motion. “It’s pretty slim evidence of a break-in.”

“Break-in?” She glanced at her door to see that all the locks were in place. Had they all been locked when she arrived? She couldn’t remember how many keys she’d used to get in. She’d been too busy absorbing the awareness of James at her back, of the desire to just turn around and move into his arms, to touch him, kiss …

She could see the question in his gaze.
Why would someone break in on you?

“It would take someone with real skill to get in here.” He pointed out the obvious. “You’ve got two dead bolts. Does Eric have keys?”

“No.” Her voice spiked with irritation. “Anyway, I changed the locks last month.”

Right. After the breakup.
James definitely needed to know the details that led up to that. In a minute.

“Look, you can never be too sure about these things, especially with an ex who has been stalking you. I should phone this in.”

“No, please don’t.”

“Why not, Shay?”

She didn’t have an easy answer. She heaved her shoulders in an exaggerated sigh. “I’m just jumpy. Sorry.”

She saw his expression alter, so subtly she doubted she would have noticed if she weren’t experiencing the same emotion. It was disappointment. She was wrecking their evening. This time he would walk away, and stay there.

“You want something to drink? I have diet—” She started for the kitchen but James stepped in front of her. His hands came up and landed on her shoulders, his touch warm and firm.

“Shay?” She glanced up at James and this time her expression caught him right between the eyes. “Tell me. What’s going on?”

“You.” The word sounded almost choked out of her.

Lust engulfed her light irises, her pupils almost fully blown out. The look said she wanted him to jump her. His own body’s reaction was no less subtle. It produced a hard-on for her that could drill a hole in a brick wall.

Still, he didn’t make a move because behind her full-on lustful glance was the familiar wariness. He could feel it in the tense tremors running through her shoulders where his hands lay and the way she had tucked her lips together. She seemed to be braced for what came next. And then he understood.

She wasn’t worried about his but her own control. That was a complicated response to the moment that they shared. Many things needed to be said, questions asked, and depending on the answers, decisions reached. This wasn’t the time, probably not the place, but— Fuck it.

His eagerness must have shown in his gaze because her eyes flared and she stepped up against him, slid her arms around his neck and pulled his head down until his lips met hers.

The power of his need blew away any possibility that he was going to back down now. He reached out to skim the back of his hands down her bare upper arms before cupping her shoulders and drawing her in hard against his chest.

She surged into him, pushing her hips against his groin, directing him backward toward the sofa. And then she was following him down, climbing into his lap before his butt hit the cushions. She pushed back his jacket and began tearing his shirt from his waistband. Her hands were everywhere, giving him no time to enjoy what she was offering. Her mouth engulfed his, wide open and too rough for genuine pleasure.

She made love like a teenage boy, zero to eighty with no shifting. It was as if she were trying to outrun something.

Isn’t this what happened last time?

Crap. His brain kicked in. He’d been a cop too long not to weigh the evidence presented to him.

This seduction felt like a distraction. At the moment, sex was a distraction for both of them. They needed to slow down, start over.

He reached up and took her face in his hands and, after a quick hard kiss, held her off. “Hold up, Shay.”

She jerked upright in his lap, staring at him with golden-brown eyes blinking in instant wariness. “What’s wrong?”