Playing with Fire (5 page)

Noelle looked at Delphine and shook
her head. “He was okay. But I’m not interested. And really, I think
he’s more about the chase than anything.”

Delphine shrugged, grabbed the window
cleaner, and opened the curtains. “Girl, when someone is that damn
cute you let yourself get caught. Even if he’s gonna let you go in
the morning, you enjoy the night.”

Noelle stripped the sheets off the bed
and laughed. “Maybe I’m gonna have to keep an eye on you after
all!”

Trent stared at the license number
he’d written in his notepad. It was becoming almost an obsession to
stare at it, by this point he knew it by heart - Y67
BZ8.

He drummed his pen against the paper
and swore. Unable to stop himself any longer, he typed the
identification into the computer and waited as it was run through
the system. It finally came back as being registered to a rental
company in Batesville, Arkansas.

Trent leaned back in his
chair and rested his hands across his chest.
Well
, he thought,
explains the cute accent
.

His desk phone rang and he picked it
up. “La Jolla Police Department, this is Officer
Torres.”

“
Hola, mi
niño. Como estas?”

Trent smiled. He was
thirty-two years old but his grandma, his abuelita, still called
him her niño –
little
one
. “I’m good abuelita. How are
you?”

“Estoy bien. When are you coming over?
It’s been weeks, niño. I need to see you. No queros tu
abuelita?”

He laughed. “Of course I still love
you. I’ve been busy with work and Damien and Avery got married last
weekend. I promise I’ll come see you Saturday.”

His grandmother scoffed on the other
end. “No, no. I could be muerto by then.”

Trent tried not to laugh. “Abuelita,
you have been saying that for years, yet you aren’t dead. And
knowing you, I’m pretty sure you will still be alive
Saturday.”

“Lo sé.”

“I know you know. What are you up to?
You never call me at work unless you’re up to
something.”

He could almost see the innocent face
she was giving on the other end. “Mijo, why do I have to be up to
something. Te quero.”

“I love you too, Abuelita. I’ll see
you in a few days. Behave yourself.”

She laughed and Trent smiled brighter.
He loved making her laugh. “Siempre, mijo.”

Always, my ass,
he thought. Trent hung up and rolled his
eyes.

His grandmother had been one of his
primary caregivers growing up. Sure his mother was around, but
she’d worked all the time to support the extended family so he and
his sister, Marisol, had stayed with his grandmother, and his
aunts, and his uncles. He loved his extremely large family, but
more and more he felt like the odd man out. They all had families
of their own now and he had … himself.

Fitzer slapped him on the back and
Trent was knocked off his train of thought.

“What’s up?”

Todd nodded toward the screen. “What
are you working on?”

Trent closed the program and turned
off the monitor. “Nothing, was just looking up
something.”

Trent really didn’t like Todd, but
he’d drawn the shortest stick on who got the newest recruit from
the police academy. He hated rookies. They were black-and-white
thinkers, but everything wasn’t always that way.

Trent also disliked Fitzer because he
was so Type A it was sickening. He’d never seen a man be so
methodical on how he did everything – he ate everything on his
plate clockwise, his desk had nothing on it, and he was more
metrosexual than him – and that was saying something considering
the amount of money Trent spent on hair care products
alone.

“So are you ready to head out or are
you going to sit at the desk all day?”

He really did have to fight the urge
to call Todd ‘Kindergarten Cop’. The kid couldn’t be more than
twenty, so not only was he a rookie, he was practically a
baby.

Trent stood up and grabbed his hat.
“Yeah, we can go. I want to stop back by Seaside Escape just to
check in with that lady from the other night.”

“Oh really?” The smirk that Todd gave
him made it really hard not to reach out and deck him.

Trent walked out the side door and
headed for their patrol car. “Yeah, really. I consider it to be
gentlemanly to make sure she’s ok. I imagine it must have been
scary to wake up in a strange place with some drunk screaming at
her.”

Todd shrugged and got in on the
passenger side. “With as many calls as we’ve been on in the last
few months, I don’t ever remember going back to check up on any of
them.”

Trent put the
key
in the ignition and
barely waited for Todd to buckle up before he pulled out of the
police lot. He wasn’t going to justify his actions.

The five-minute ride was silent except
for the dispatches over the radio. Trent turned onto Ivanhoe Avenue
and then into the motel parking lot. He was surprised to see the
U-Haul wasn’t there. He wondered if maybe she decided this wasn’t
the place for her. After telling Fitzer to stay put, he headed for
the front office.

The chime over the door barely sounded
before the bleach-blonde behind the counter was grinning at him. “I
thought I’d see you back here. What took you so long?”

Trent shook his head. “You know me so
well Delphine.”

She smiled and nodded. “A pretty girl
with no ring on her finger seems like she’s right up your
alley.”

Trent pursed his lips together.
Delphine would know his M.O.; he’d been renting rooms at her place
since he was old enough to do so. It was always a late check-in and
never more than one night. Hell, there had been times he’d stayed
only an hour.

“I’m not even trying to get into her
pants like that, Del. I think it’s about time I turn over a new
leaf.”

She scoffed at him. “Yeah, right. If
it has two legs, boobs, and nods ‘yes’ you don’t even think
twice.”

Trent arched a brow and glared at her.
“Geez, Delphine. Do you have to make it sound so terrible? There’s
nothing wrong with a single man enjoying the company of a single
woman.”

She nodded sarcastically. “Sure,
Trent. Whatever you say. If that’s the case, then what are you
doing here?”

He thought about coming up with a
bogus excuse, but he knew there was no point in bullshitting a
bullshitter. “I was just coming to make sure she was alright. But I
see she isn’t here.”

The door chimed again, and figuring it
was Fitzer, Trent turned around. “Go get the hell back in the
car.”

He stopped there because the person
crossing the threshold stole his breath in the light of day. The
other night he could tell she was attractive, but in the sunlight
her red hair reminded him of fire and large brown eyes of dark
chocolate stared back at him. They drew him in enough that he
barely bothered to check out the rest of her curves.

She arched her brow and put her hands
on her narrow hips. “Excuse me?”

Trent was glad for his tan skin, it
helped hide the embarrassment he could feel creep over his face. It
had been a long time since he’d felt so unsure in front of a woman.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were my partner.”

She laughed and hitched her thumb
toward the parking lot. “Kindergarten cop?”

Trent laughed. “Yeah. You remember.
And you’re Noelle. Or should I say ‘Just’ Noelle?”

The humor in her smile faded quickly.
“Noelle is fine.”

Trent watched suspiciously as she
walked past without another word and headed to the
office.

A moment later she reappeared and
bee-lined it for the door. She called out to Delphine over her
shoulder, “I’m done for the day. I’ll be back after dark. Have a
good day.”

Delphine nodded to her and Trent waved
goodbye, but she lifted her nose higher in the air and walked
out.

“What’s her deal?”

Delphine took a seat at the desk
behind the counter and propped her feet up before grabbing the
remote for the television in the corner of the room.

She shrugged. “No clue. Now if you’ll
excuse me, my soaps are on.”

Trent opened his mouth to ask another
question, but Delphine turned up the volume and gave him a look
that told him to get lost.

He turned and left the office,
wondering what Delphine wasn’t saying. Then again, Delphine was the
queen of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ when it came to who frequented her
place.

Once he was back outside, Trent
scanned the balcony to see if Noelle was going back to her room. He
spotted her walking down the sidewalk, heading west toward the
beach. At least that’s where he figured she was heading given the
big towel she had slung over her shoulder.

Todd rolled down the car window and
lowered his sunglasses. “Are you almost done here? There’s an
accident on Prospect and they need a few patrol cars to block
traffic.”

Trent rolled his eyes and nodded. Duty
called, but he wasn’t done with Noelle just yet. He motioned with
his hand at Todd, “Why don’t you drive?”

Fitzer got out of the car and turned
to see what Trent was looking at. “Does she have anything to do
with it?”

“Maybe.”

Fitzer shrugged and walked around to
open the driver’s door. “That’s fine, but it’s gonna cost
you.”

Trent got in the passenger side. “Geez
Fitzer, I just want you to pull over for a minute so I can talk to
her. Two minutes tops, I swear.”

“You buy lunch and I’ll do it. But you
better think of a better reason to tell the chief why we took so
long to get to the call. I’m pretty sure ‘picking up chicks’
doesn’t fly with him.”

Trent stared out the window and cursed
to himself. God, he really hated rookies.

Noelle put in her ear buds and turned
up the music as she walked toward the beach. She told herself the
pulsing inside her was from the beat of the song, but that was a
lie. Seeing that police officer was the reason.

She also told herself it was because
he was a cop and she had her hackles up at anyone in a uniform, but
that was a lie too. He was definitely good looking, more so than
she allowed herself to remember.

Midday traffic moved along, but she
got a strange tingle up her spine, as if she were being watched.
Immediately her heart was in her throat, but she tried to calm
herself, reminding herself there was no way for Lenny to find
her.

Noelle dared a quick glance over her
left shoulder at the traffic heading west. Just as she got to the
crosswalk, the patrol car turned in front of her and came to a
stop.

Silently, she counted to ten, trying
to slow her racing heart. Squaring her shoulders, she planted her
hands on her hips and stared at the officer.

Lord how she would love to wipe that
cheesy grin off his face. “Is there something I can help you
with?”

The smile widened. “Calm down, Noelle,
I was just checking to see if you had any more trouble with
Charlie.”

She tried not to notice the accent he
added when saying her name, but it was like a warm caress. She
blinked the thought away and asked with a clipped tone, “Couldn’t
you have called the office and asked Delphine that?”

He shrugged, “I have a more hands-on
approach.”

She steeled her mind against the image
of his hands on her, not because it was negative, but because she
found herself wanting to purr at the thought. Instead she cocked
her head and gave him her best ‘get over yourself’ look.

The grin only got wider. “I wanted to
see that you were okay.”

Noelle spread her arms out wide. “I’m
fine.”

He nodded and she felt almost like a
succulent feast about to be devoured. “I see that.”

There was a moment of silence as he
gave her another once over. She could tell he was a ladies’ man the
way he oozed charm, but she hated to admit that between the hint of
a Hispanic accent and the way his eyes nearly set her on fire, it
was easy to see how little he had to try to make a woman want to
swoon. It sent a tingle down her spine and set off butterflies in
her stomach.

She pulled the towel tighter around
her throat to cover the blush across her neck and chest. He was
smooth, she’d give him that, but that was all he was
getting.

She reinforced the proverbial wall
around her. “Are we done here? Or are you going to ogle some
more?”

His grin faded a little. The corner of
her mouth twitched, but she stopped the smirk before he could see
it. She’d hurt his ego, and something about bringing him down a peg
did her own ego good.

Officer Torres pursed his lips
together and nodded. He pulled a business card from his pocket and
handed it to her. “Here’s my number. If you need anything, don’t
hesitate to call.”