Officer in Pursuit (3 page)

She smiled a little as she approached
him, her skirt swinging around her knees. Her dresses always seemed
a little longer than most. Maybe they fit her like that because she
was so petite, or maybe she just liked them that way. He wasn’t
sure. She always dressed modestly, but conservative clothing
couldn’t hide her amazing figure.

Her limbs were slim and tight with
lean muscle. She looked like she could star in one of those
exercise videos, the yoga kind where she’d have to wear stretchy
leggings and demonstrate a bunch of bendy poses. It was fun to
imagine.

“Hi Grey.” She slid into the booth,
across from him.

“Morning. I got you a coffee and a
cookie to start off with. Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure.” She looked down at the plate
beside her mug of steaming coffee. “I don’t usually eat stuff like
this… Are they good?”

“You’ve never had one? And you’ve
lived here for how many years?”

“Three. And no, I haven’t.”

“What I have to say won’t do it
justice. The shark has to speak for itself – go ahead, try
it.”

Her cookie shed a few crumbs as she
lifted it, looking at it like it was a real fish instead of a gift
from the bakery gods. “Okay.”

“Hold on.” He nearly reached out to
stop her as she lifted it to her perfect, pale pink lips. “It would
be wrong of me not to inform you that you have to dip it in your
coffee first. Just trust me.”

She did it, then bit off the end of
the shark’s nose.

“It’s pretty good,” she admitted a few
moments later. “Better than I thought it would be.”

“Just ‘pretty good’? Not the best damn
shark cookie you’ve ever had?”

Her lips quirked, hinting
at a smile. “It’s the
only
shark cookie I’ve ever had. So yeah, you could
say that. I was expecting it to be all dry and hard, like a
Christmas cookie a week after the holidays have passed.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” He picked up
his second cookie.

“So, are we expecting anyone else, or
is it just you and me?”

He dropped his cookie into his coffee
and barely managed to fish it out before it got hopelessly soggy.
“It’s just you and me. I thought you knew.”

Damn. He’d thought he’d finally
wrangled her into a date of sorts. He was an idiot.

“I thought it might be just the two of
us, but I wasn’t sure. I guess I was a little distracted when I
spoke to you last.”

“Right.” He searched her eyes for any
signs of why she’d sounded so weird on the phone the other day. Her
irises were almost as dark as her black coffee, incredibly hard to
read. With those eyes, she could’ve kept a thousand secrets from
him.

Sometimes, he got the sense that she
was.

A few borderline-endless seconds crept
by, and then a waitress descended on them with a note pad. “What
can I get for you two? Or do you need a few more minutes to make up
your minds?”

They ordered right away – scrambled
eggs and steak tips for Grey, and an omelet with tomatoes and
mushrooms, plus fresh fruit on the side, for Kerry.

“So you uh, like to eat healthy and
stuff?” It was a damned good thing she hadn’t expected this to be a
real date, because his powers of seduction were rusty. Of course,
they’d gotten that way over the summer – a summer he’d spent
lusting after her, waiting for a chance to make a move that didn’t
involve their mutual friends.

She nodded, took a long sip of
sugarless, cream-free coffee. Most other women Grey knew liked it
sweet.

“I can tell that you work out,” he
said. Actually, it was one of the first things he’d ever noticed
about her. Her figure was slight and spare, but she was toned …
everywhere. Everywhere that he could see, anyway. He had no doubt
that the rest of her looked great too.

“Thanks.” She didn’t seem offended by
his comment. Thank God. “I do yoga. And Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I lift
weights a little too, but I’m not a big fan of gyms. Mostly it’s
the yoga and jiu-jitsu classes that keep me in shape.”

“Jiu-jitsu – really?” He never
would’ve guessed. He knew vaguely that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu meant
fighting on the ground. It was hard to imagine Kerry rolling around
in combat with anyone.

“Yeah. I just started a year ago,
actually. It’s fun. They have an all-women class I go to on
Thursdays, and I try to attend at least one other day a week
too.”

“Huh.” Actually, he
could
imagine her
rolling around on mats with other women. He just wasn’t sure if
it’d be smart to let his mind wander in that direction.

“What about you – you obviously work
out too.”

He tried to look casual, like what
she’d just said hadn’t sent a little extra blood rushing below his
belt. He knew it was obvious that he lifted, but it was still the
first time she’d ever paid him a compliment.

“I have a home gym. A garage gym,
actually. I lift.” Six days a week – it was a habit he’d
established in his teens. A decade later, he’d gained some pretty
serious results.

“It must be nice to work out at home.
I have a yoga mat, of course … but I can’t do jiu-jitsu in my
living room. Even if I had the space, who would I roll
with?”

He bit his tongue in order to keep
from volunteering. “Yeah. It’s nice. If you ever want to use my
equipment, you’re welcome to it.”

She met his eyes and he could see a
glimmer there. A glimmer that made him rethink what he’d just
said.

“I mean…” Hell, he wanted her to use
his equipment, all right. He wasn’t about to take it back – he’d
just clarify a little, so he didn’t seem like a perv. “Feel free to
swing by sometime if you want to lift.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in
mind.”

There was a mildly awkward silence
that went uninterrupted. In a movie, a waitress would’ve swooped in
and saved the day by delivering their food. Instead, Grey ate the
rest of his cookie and thought way too long and hard about what to
say next.

It wasn’t something he usually did.
But he wanted to say the right things – wanted to make Kerry
comfortable. Happy. She’d caught his eye for obvious reasons the
day he’d first met her, but his attraction had deepened over the
past few months. Every minute he spent in her presence multiplied
his desire exponentially.

Kerry was smart, disciplined and liked
things he liked too, like fitness. She didn’t play games and didn’t
seem overly-concerned with what other people thought. She was just
herself, and she was easy to like.

Up until the fire – the culmination of
a horror movie-style summer – he’d only spent time with her with
their friends around. That day, he’d driven her to her house, had
held her hand. When he’d left for his own home, his palms had been
stained black, had left ash smudges on the steering wheel that’d
lingered for days.

It’d been different, being with her
then – she hadn’t bothered to choose her words, her actions. She’d
seemed glad to have him there. Now…

She was the same Kerry he’d always
known, the woman he’d become familiar with while Liam, Henry,
Alicia and Sasha were around. It wasn’t like he wanted to see her
covered in ash, tear trails carving through the dark dust. But he
wondered what it would be like if she wasn’t so self-contained now.
If she was willing to let him into her world when it wasn’t in
shambles.

Before he could think of anything
brilliant to say, the waitress appeared.

The smell of food snapped him out of
his overworked thoughts. He wanted Kerry, more than he wanted
anything… But at the moment, he’d settle for breakfast.

Afterward, though, he was determined
to make this day one they’d remember – for once, not because
anything had fallen apart, or nearly been torn away from them. But
because things had changed, in a good way. Things might not be as
easy for him as they had been for Liam and Grey, but that was all
right. He didn’t expect winning over Kerry to be easy.

But he did expect it to be worth
it.

* * * * *

It was well past dawn, but Sunrise
Beach was beautiful anyway. The late morning was cloudless and
bright, full of sunlight that made the water gleam silver and the
sand shimmer. It was pushing 80 already and it felt like a summer
day in every sense except for that of the crowd – or lack
thereof.

The tourists that flooded Riley County
annually had left with the previous season, and the arrival of fall
had brought a marked decline in beachgoers. Lying stretched on a
large blanket, Kerry finally felt like she could
breathe.

It wasn’t that she disliked tourists,
or didn’t appreciate the fact that if it wasn’t for them, she
wouldn’t have a job. But crowds were a blessing and a curse at the
same time. On one hand, they offered something to blend into – a
risky sort of sanctuary – but on the other, they could harbor
anything. Anyone.

Out here on the modestly peopled
beach, she could keep an eye on everyone. Take note of any
newcomers. Relax a little, not having to worry that someone from
her past might step out of the crowd and bring her
carefully-constructed world crashing down around her.

“Hey Kerry.” Alicia stood, shaking her
dark hair out of her face and pushing a pair of large sunglasses up
onto the bridge of her nose. “I’m getting hot. Want to go for a
swim?”

“Sure.” Kerry’s dark blue tankini was
absorbing the sun’s heat, making her sweat. The water looked
inviting – perfect.

“What about you, Sasha?” Alicia turned
to their other friend, though the question was obviously more one
of courtesy than a serious invitation.

Predictably, Sasha shook her head. “I
might do some wading in a little bit, but you know I’m not much of
a swimmer.”

Sasha always seemed to prefer the sun
and the sand. Whenever anyone asked her why, she just said she
liked it hot and laughed. Looking glamourous in her high-waisted,
curve-showcasing red bikini, she reclined on a towel, not a single
drop of sweat visible on her face.

Henry seemed content to watch her show
off – he stayed by her side, said he might get in later. One of his
hands was closed around one of Sasha’s, and the diamond-studded
curve of her engagement ring glittered from between their entwined
fingers. Kerry’s gaze lingered on their hands, and she felt a pang
of something.

Several somethings, actually:
happiness for her friends and a stab of wistfulness for herself –
one that delved deep into memory, hitting her where it hurt, and
polluted her feelings with an old sense of bitterness, edged with
fear.

It shouldn’t hurt to see a diamond
shining on her best friend’s hand, but it did. Hurt because as
wonderful as it was, it was also a reminder of her own foolish
mistakes, of what she’d never have.

She didn’t want to think about those
things. She’d come to the North Carolina coast to get away from
them. And so she pushed those feelings away – hard – as she
strolled toward the water. When she walked into the waves, the cool
water rushed around her, and she pretended to let it wash her past
away.

The imaginary baptism made her feel
lighter – or maybe that was just the buoying effect of the
seawater. She went deeper, let her feet rise above the sandy
bottom. Floating, with saltwater weighing down her hair, she felt
oddly free.

“Watch out!” Alicia’s voice rose high
and sharp above the waves, but it was too late – a spray of
speeding water hit the side of Kerry’s face.

“Aghgh!” She choked on the water
that’d made it into her mouth, bobbed under briefly as she tried to
blink the salt out of her eyes. When she came up again, she was
staring straight at Grey.

He looked horrified, except for the
telltale twitch around one corner of his mouth. “Sorry! I was
trying to hit Liam!” He jabbed a finger in his friend’s direction.
“He ducked at the last second.”

Liam looked vaguely guilty for a
moment, then he raised a hand and hit the water, sending it arcing
toward Grey.

It was a devastatingly accurate
splash. It hit Grey in the face and soaked his short, dark hair,
making him stumble backward, swearing.

“Consider yourself avenged, Kerry,”
Liam said.

Alicia bobbed in the water beside him,
laughing.

“That’s it.” Grey scrubbed his eyes
with the back of his hand, blinking and trying to glare in Liam’s
direction. “You’re going down.” He turned to Kerry. “Kerry, come
here – I need your help.”

“What?” She was still blinking salt
water out of her eyes.

“C’mon, there’s only one way to settle
this: chicken.”

Visions of sitcom episodes where
characters played chicken in pools avalanched through Kerry’s mind
– those, and visions of Grey. His broad, muscled shoulders and what
it would be like to sit on them, with his head between her
thighs.

There was no way in hell. Just no
way.

But Liam was already crouching down
into the water so Alicia could climb onto his shoulders, and she
was laughing, like it was all some fun game.