Sleepwalker (19 page)

That reminder made Mick newly conscious of the soggy state of parts of her flannel pants.

“Carbon monoxide,” she warned, although she was already succumbing to temptation and unbuttoning her coat.

“It’s vented to the outside. We should be fine.”

Mick took her Glock out of her pocket and placed it on the floor beside the sleeping bag where, she calculated, she could easily reach it once she was inside the bag—just in case. Then, with a quick look at her companion to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, she pulled the pictures of the Lightfoot crime scene out of her pants pocket and shoved the folded papers into an inside pocket of the coat, where she judged they had the greatest chance of staying hidden and safe. They were the evidence of murder Nate and the homicide division needed, and they were destined to be turned over to her department the first chance she got. Shrugging out of the coat, she was instantly colder than she could ever remember being in her life as what felt like a blast of arctic air swept over her bare arms and neck and penetrated the thin tank that was all she was wearing underneath. Goose bumps raced over her skin like falling dominoes.

“Brrr,” she said and rubbed her arms briskly with her hands even as she kicked off her boots. Shivering, teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, she then yanked off her socks, which were damp, and pants, which were more than damp, in record time, to the accompaniment of metallic clanks, the snapping of sticks and the
pfft
-
pfft
-
pfft
of several
attempts to light a disposable cigarette lighter. She knew precisely what those last sounds were and what kind of lighter it was, because as she snatched off her cap and dropped it on the pile with the rest of her clothes, a tiny flame burst into life in the corner, drawing her gaze. It limned his broad shoulders and averted profile in orange as he bent to touch the lighter to a pile of sticks inside a rectangular opening in the small, cast-iron-looking box that was the stove.

“Toss ’em,” he said with a glance over his shoulder as the sticks caught. Ordinarily Mick would have insisted on hanging up her own wet clothes, but standing there in her tank top and red bikini underpants, she was just too cold. Besides, dark as it was inside the shelter, she nevertheless got the feeling that he was getting an eyeful. Rule of thumb for making such judgments was if she could see him, he could see her. Not the details, maybe, but the broad strokes. Like her long, bare legs. And the fact that she was down to her panties and tank.

“Here.” Bundling her clothes together and tossing them toward him as instructed, she turned her back. By the time he caught the bundle she had already darted to the sleeping bag’s opening, dropped to her knees and started wriggling inside. The bag was thick and well made, but unfortunately the soft, fleecy inner lining was as cold as the air surrounding them.

“Oh my God, it’s freezing!” she exclaimed as she burrowed for the center, then curled into a ball in an effort to scare up some body heat. She still found herself shaking, like she was having a seizure. “Shut the gun slot, would you?”

“Just so you know, I really appreciate you getting in first and warming that thing up for me.” There was humor in his voice as, her clothes in hand, he stood for a moment surveying her, or, rather, the lump in the belly of the python she probably resembled.

Mick was too cold to reply to that bit of teasing with anything but a gritted “
Hurry
”
accompanied by a deliberate chattering of teeth, followed by a reminder gasp of, “Gun slot.”

“I’ll shut the gun slot in a minute. I still need the light.”

“Quick is good.”

The sleeping bag itself was comfortable, the mat beneath firm but not hard. In the corner, open slits in the face of the small stove glowed red in what looked like a toothy grin from hell, providing a minuscule amount of light while tantalizing her with the promise of heat, which so far was not forthcoming. Outside, sleet and snow continued to pelt the structure with a sound like rain hitting a tin roof. Inside, the so-far-worthless tiny little bit of fire popped and spat and emitted the faintest of charcoal-y smells. The air was frigid. Every bit of her, from her curled toes to her clenched fists to her frostbitten nose, which just poked over the edge of the sleeping bag because she had to breathe, felt chilled to the bone. With the sleeping bag pulled up practically to her eyeballs and her arms wrapped around her knees, Mick watched, impatient and shivering, as he opened the folding chair and hung her clothes on it. Then she watched with a little more interest as he stripped off himself.

Jacket, hoodie, tee: he peeled them off in quick succession. Mick was distracted from her frozen state as she silently admired his broad shoulders and muscular torso. He wasn’t much more than a tall dark shape as he hung the items by various means that she couldn’t quite discern on the wall and elsewhere, but the shape itself was fine. When next he hopped from foot to foot, pulling off his boots, then shucked his pants with quick efficiency, she had a déjà vu moment: she’d seen this act before. And a very nice one it was, too.

Okay, the guy was a certified hunk. It made no difference to anything. He was still a thief, she was still going to place him under arrest first chance she got and they were still stuck in this deadly game of hide-and-seek together for now.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend
. The maxim popped into her head as she watched him rearrange his coat, the one that earlier he’d given her to wear, so that it would be exposed to more of the heat, if and when any emerged from the so far under-producing stove. What a strange, twisted world it had become when her uncle and his crew, most of whom she’d been friendly with for years, had become the enemy, while the thief who had robbed them was her one ally in what was turning into a fight to survive.

Unexpected and unbidden, an image of her apartment as she had last seen it two days ago sprang to her mind. She’d gone to Jenny’s for Christmas, so she hadn’t bothered to decorate, but still there had been holiday trappings: Christmas cards, a bag full of wrapping paper and ribbons that she’d last used on presents for her nieces, an annoying toy Santa, a gift from her younger niece, Kate, that yelled
Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!
every time anyone passed the living room mantel, where it held pride of place. One bedroom, one bath, kitchen, combination living and dining area—the apartment was small but, since she lived alone, plenty big enough. It didn’t have a lot of furniture because, really, what did she need? But it was neat and clean because that’s the way she liked it.
I want to go home,
Mick thought, then felt a tightness in her chest as she faced the fact that the prospects of her ever being able to go home again were iffy at best.

“All good?” he asked, turning to join her.

Mick thrust the blues away, reminding herself fiercely that they were useless.

“We n-need something t-to use for a p-pillow,” she told him, teeth chattering. This time he’d kept on his boxers, which she appreciated, both for the way he looked in them and for the fact that it meant she had been right: he wasn’t a creep. A creep would have taken them off under the pretext that they were wet.

“Anything else? Make it quick.” He pivoted, hesitated, then bent,
grabbed something, and was once again padding her way again fast with whatever it was in his hand. “Jesus, it feels like a refrigerator in here.”

“N-no, nothing. I d-don’t think the st-stove’s working.”

“Give it a minute. It’ll warm up.” His teeth were starting to chatter, too, she realized, and she would have smiled if she hadn’t been too busy shivering. A slight
thunk
and the fall of a denser degree of darkness accompanied his closing the one remaining open gun slot. Then he was opening the bag and thrusting his long legs down in beside her. Reluctantly uncurling from the ball she was locked in to give him sufficient space, she noticed he placed his gun on the floor on his side of the sleeping bag within his easy reach before scooting the rest of the way in.

Okay, so they were alike in some ways.

“Move over,” he said. The warm slide of his body alongside hers was so welcome that she arched her back, which was turned to him, against him like a cat. She was reminded again that for all his leanness he was a big guy, solid and muscular; stretched out, his body filled almost all the available space in the sleeping bag.

“N-no r-room.”

But even as she said it she made room, by turning toward him instinctively, like a flower turning toward the sun, and surging against him, snuggling up chest to chest, thigh to thigh. His arms came around her, gathering her close, his thigh resting partly atop hers, drawing her in, and before they were settled to their mutual satisfaction she was as close to him as peanut butter on (toasty) bread.

“We should have blocked the trapdoor.” Having just thought of that, Mick said it with a groan. They lay on their sides facing each other, with his head on the rolled-up remaining dry clothes he’d brought to use as a pillow and her head tucked beneath his chin and resting on one of his hard-muscled upper arms. Her cheek lay against his chest. His smell was heady and comforting, familiar already, she discovered, and she classified it simply as
man
. His skin was smooth, his chest wide and
firm with just enough silky hair to be interesting. His body heat was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt. It seemed to radiate through his skin, as if the man possessed his own internal furnace. Pressing close, still shivering although the tremors were easing some, she wasn’t about to peel herself away from it to wedge something atop the trapdoor, even if she knew it was a task that needed doing.

“Our feet are over it. And I’m a light sleeper. Nobody’s getting up here without me hearing them.”

“Anyway, they could just shoot through the floor.” That demoralizing thought had just occurred to Mick. The one good thing about it was that it meant that neither one of them had to disturb the slowly building cocoon of warmth enveloping them to block the trapdoor. Silver linings, as he’d said.

He laughed. “A regular little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? I bet all your friends tease you about being such a cockeyed optimist.”

“Optimists are the kind of people who open their doors to strange people who come knocking then are surprised to find out they’re serial killers.”

“That would never be you.”

“No.”

“See, that’s the thing about cops: they’re always expecting the worst out of people.”

“Speaking from personal experience, are you?”

“Some,” he admitted.

He shifted positions a little, and Mick became very aware of his thighs—hair-roughened and muscular—brushing hers, and the heaviness of his arm draped over her waist. His hand rested on her back: a big hand, broad-palmed, long-fingered. She could feel the heat of it through her tank. Her arm was around his waist, too, and her hand lay just above the waistband of his boxers. Beneath the warm sleekness of his skin, his muscles were rock-solid. Not a hint of softness anywhere.

“How long’s your rap sheet?” she asked, just to keep what he was firmly in mind even as her breasts nuzzled up against his chest and her silky panties made the too-close acquaintance of his sturdier boxers.
Way
too close—for a moment there they were practically crotch to crotch. His package was solidly there, not an erection or anything, but a definite presence. Even as she identified it, her nether region experienced one of those electric tingles that made her scaldingly aware that such a thing as sexual chemistry existed. Pure biology, of course: hunky half-naked male pressed close to noticing half-naked female equals tingle. Before things could get too cozy, though, she needed to take proactive steps. Which she did, by letting go of him and turning over. The action was made unexpectedly cumbersome by the close confines of the sleeping bag.

“Surprisingly short. How long have you been a cop?”

Not that turning over helped particularly. Her hands no longer touched him but were instead nestled between her breasts. His chest was no longer in her face, and her tingly area was out of harm’s way, but the trade-off was that her butt now curved against his crotch, while his arm still lay heavily across her waist. His hand now splayed over her abdomen, as un-ignorable as before. The problem was that whatever she did, there was no getting away from him: the sleeping bag was just too small. Even with her back turned he was big and warm and honed and right there, wrapped around her like a bun around a hot dog. Unmistakably male. Regrettably sexy. Impossible to escape. Even over the unrelenting sounds of the storm, she could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing.

“Four years,” she replied.

His hand left her stomach to smooth her hair. She presumed the strands were tickling his face.

“Traffic cop?”

“Investigator. Major Crimes.” She was proud of her promotion, but she managed to keep her voice matter-of-fact.

“Uh-oh. I’m screwed.”

He could joke, but she was serious. “Yeah. You majorly are.”

“Thanks for the warning, Officer.”

“You’re welcome.”

His hand returned to slide over her stomach before coming to rest just below her navel. It didn’t move, didn’t attempt to caress her in any way, and the thin layer of cotton knit that was her tank kept them from being skin to skin, but she was still acutely aware of it. Just as she was acutely aware of the long, powerful thighs resting against hers, the broad shoulders curved above her own, and the solidity of the wide male chest cradling her back.

“You aren’t married, by any chance, are you?” he asked after a moment in which neither of them moved. She could feel his breath stirring her hair.

“No.”

“I just thought that would explain the dateless New Year’s Eve. Married, husband had to work, you know the kind of thing: the honeymoon’s over, the thrill is gone.”

Christ, he even thought about marriage the same way she did. Probably his parents had split when he was young. Or maybe he’d been married, and divorced. Or maybe …