The Officer's Girl (2 page)

The radio crackled from the dashboard as if it were trying to remind him of jobs still unfinished.

With a shrug, he turned off Highway A1A toward the ocean. At the base of the towering condos, stately queen palms and manicured walkways separated row upon row of empty parking spaces. Like the little bungalow out front, the high-rise was buttoned up tight, as secure as it could be. Brett still hoped no one had left anything they
really
needed inside the half-million-dollar apartments. The building would be one of the first to face Hurricane Arlene’s wrath. In a direct hit, she’d chew it up quicker than he could eat a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then, she would spit out the bones, leaving only a skeleton in her wake.

Brett shook his head and popped his seatbelt. There was nothing like impending disaster to make a man think too much.

The instant the driver’s side door sprang open, the cruiser filled with a roar of surf that seemed far too loud beneath an increasingly clouded sky. Sand crunched under his shoes as he stepped onto brick pavers and took a deep breath. The air felt heavy and hot. A storm was coming all right, and she was going to be a beaut.

He tried not to stare as the first spatters of rain sizzled into steam when they hit hot asphalt. Rain squalls, or
feeder bands, served as warm-up acts for the main event. They would intensify as the hurricane approached. While he was pretty certain Cocoa Beach was battened down, rising winds could turn every loose trash can lid into a spinning saw blade. He needed to make sure that didn’t happen.

A freshening breeze pelted his arms and face with sand and drew his attention to the ocean and an approaching squall line. If the first of them was coming ashore, Hurricane Arlene had not made the projected turn. Instead, she had picked up her pace. He would have to do the same.

Brett felt his tires grab as he roared out of the Palm Royale parking lot onto the empty highway. In the next instant, he slammed on the brakes, anti-lock technology bringing the heavy sedan to a rocking, ticking stop. He stared through his windshield in disbelief. In the short time he’d been at the condos, a mountain of flattened cardboard boxes had somehow formed along the roadside. Brett’s mouth opened and closed in mute protest.

The mountain was not supposed to be there. It hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. And as sure as a rising tide, it wouldn’t be there when he left.

S
TEPHANIE’S HEART
leaped when the doorbell chimed. She practically bolted to answer it, until the hurried slap of her sandals against the tile floor sent little echoes bouncing off the walls. Deliberately, she slowed. Pausing for a quick look in the foyer’s recently hung mirror, she exchanged her relieved grin for a slightly exasperated expression. She wasn’t the one who was five hours late, and she intended to demand a free installation. She wouldn’t get it if she went all gushy over the repairman’s arrival.

With her features properly schooled, she pulled the door wide, chiding, “It’s about time.”

The folly of opening a west-facing door into Florida’s late afternoon sun hit her square in her unprepared eyes. Feeling as if a dozen flashbulbs had exploded inches from her face, she raised one hand as a shield. No good. A man’s tall outline was all she could see against the background of black speckles and white, popping balloons. She quickly averted her eyes, finding relief in the soothing brown shades of variegated pebbles in the Chattahoochee deck. She stared at a pair of shiny, black shoes.

Workmen wore boots, not shoes. Especially not shoes that looked as if they’d been treated to a military spit-shine.

Her eyes headed upward, this time taking in the impossibly long, knife-edge crease of navy uniform slacks. Her vision stuttered at a tightly cinched waist where the hoped-for tool belt looked more like a holstered gun. The large hand resting there sent her pulse racing. Hadn’t both hands been at the man’s sides when she opened the door? She sped over a broad chest and even broader shoulders to a face overshadowed by the dark brim of a hat and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Her heart thudded an extra beat.

“Cocoa Beach Police, ma’am. Are you having trouble?”

The deep, rapid-fire rumble yanked her gaze back into the blinding sun so fast the dreaded “ma’am” almost failed to register.

She squinted, trying to see his face but all she got for her trouble was another blast of light.

“Police?” Blinking, she shook her head. “I didn’t call the police.” Through watery eyes she saw his outline relax a bit, though the man standing on her front porch remained all shadows and glint.

“Sorry, ma’am. When you said ‘about time,’ I thought you might have car problems or something. Everything is under control, then? You’re on your way?”

Stephanie forced her lips into a determined smile and stuffed a growing irritation firmly behind it. Everything was all right, though it wouldn’t be if he “ma’am’d” her one more time.

“Yes, Officer, uh—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lincoln, ma’am. Officer Lincoln.”

Three ma’ams in a row—it was enough to make any self-respecting twenty-six-year-old cry. She was twenty-six and self-respecting, but she wasn’t going to cry, even if the eerie quiet of her new neighborhood had shredded her last nerve and left her as jumpy as two double lattes. Instead, she blinked rapidly to clear the pesky, sun-induced tears and, pulling herself erect, squared her shoulders.

“Pleased to meet you, Officer Lincoln. I’m Stephanie, Stephanie Bryant.” She tossed enough ice into her tone so Officer Lincoln would understand they were done with the “ma’am” business. When he tipped his hat, she knew she’d made her point. She spilled a little warmth back into her voice.

“I’m not sure why you’d suspect car trouble, but yes, everything is fine. It will be even finer when the installation guys show up. That’s who I was waiting for. I don’t suppose you have any pull with the telephone company, do you?”

“No, ma—uh. No, Miss Bryant. But they won’t be here today.”

That was close, but she’d give him one more chance. Muscular police officers who smelled like piney woods deserved that, even when they seemed determined to argue. Holding her smile firmly in place, she explained, “I know
it’s almost five, but they promised. I’m sure they’ve just been delayed.”

“Delayed till next week, maybe.”

Officer Lincoln reached for his sunglasses. When his posture shifted just enough so the blinding sun disappeared behind his back, Stephanie wondered if the move was a deliberate attempt to make her heart stop. Peering up at a profile so chiseled it might have been carved by Michelangelo, she was pretty sure her breathing had. The man had an almost perfectly proportioned face with a straight nose and barely rounded chin that jutted forward exactly the right amount. Above a strong jawline with the late afternoon stubble of someone who shaved twice a day, tanned skin hugged impressive cheekbones. She followed them to his hairline. Despite its close cropping, the thick, dark hair wanted to curl where the heat and humidity dampened it. She felt an answering, unexpected warmth stir in her chest as, beneath wide slashes of black eyebrows, a pair of black-blue eyes studied her intently.

“Miss Bryant, why are you here?” he asked. “Haven’t you been listening to the weather reports?”

Abruptly, the urge to trail her fingers along his cheek’s sandpaper stubble disappeared. Stephanie remembered to breathe. She also remembered to cross her arms and take a step back while pondering the seriously flawed nature of the male species. This one might look like a Greek god, but he wasn’t listening to her any better than Adonis had listened to Aphrodite. She tried again.

“I just moved in, Officer. I don’t have television or cable service because I’m waiting for the installers to show up. And they’re late.”

“I understand that. But they won’t be here.
You
shouldn’t be here.”

Officer Lincoln glanced over his shoulder at the street. “Are those your packing boxes at the curb?”

“Why? Are you on box patrol?”

She had meant the question as a joke, but Officer Lincoln continued to stare down from his impressive height without even the trace of a smile.

“They can’t stay there. You’ll have to move them inside.”

Stephanie ground her teeth. She had tried to be polite. She had tried to be understanding. She had even tried humor, and look where that had gotten her. It was time to put her foot down.

“Officer Lincoln, I read the brochures. Tomorrow is recycling day. I don’t understand the problem.”

The man drew a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and took his time polishing the lenses of spotless sunglasses.

“Emergency Management has issued an evacuation order for all the barrier islands,” he said. His voice dropped impossibly lower. “That includes Cocoa Beach. You need to get out of here. In fact, you have less than two hours to cross the causeway before it closes, so I’d suggest you get moving.”

Stephanie bit her lip to keep from telling Officer Lincoln exactly where he was wrong. This morning the weatherman had said the storm would turn. She had it on good authority that hurricanes never came ashore in Cocoa Beach. Besides, even if Officer Lincoln was correct, the evacuation order was for the barrier islands, and she wasn’t on a—

Her heart thudded all the way to her feet as she remembered the maps the real estate agent had provided. Several long fingers of land hugged the Florida coast the way fringe dangled from her pink pashmina. Cocoa Beach sat on one of them.

“Barrier island?” she mouthed.

Images of hurricane-ravaged coastal towns flooded her thoughts. She reached for something to brace herself with, her hands finding and clutching the door frame. Officer Lincoln’s lips kept moving, but a sound of rushing water and roaring wind filled her head. She couldn’t hear a word he said.

“No,” she whispered. This couldn’t be happening.

B
RETT STARED
in disbelief as the compact powder keg in front of him started to smoke. Within seconds there would be an explosion that might take hours to clean up. He didn’t have hours. Hurricane Arlene would be on top of them by then. Her one-hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds could push seven-foot waves clear across Cocoa Beach, and he did not want to get caught in the storm surge.

As protests spiraled upward and a pair of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen widened impossibly, Brett rapidly reviewed his options. Given enough time, he could talk her down. He had the negotiating skills. Problem was, neither of them had the time.

An unexpected shake might jar her to her senses, but that was almost guaranteed to land him in the middle of litigation. Having seen lawyers in action, he’d rather face hurricanes.

That left option number three, another plan sure to land him in trouble. Was she worth it? One quick appraising glance—and more experience than he liked to admit—told Brett all he needed to know.

Hair did not bounce and shimmer the way her glossy, black curls did unless their owner spent considerable time and money in expensive beauty salons. If his last girlfriend was any indication, a complexion so flawless and
cheeks such a rosy pink required serious expenditures at the cosmetic counter. Brett took note of the woman’s narrow shoulders above lush round breasts. Her tiny waist flared into hips with barely enough meat on them for a man to grasp. He recognized the snug fit of layered Lands’ End T-shirts when he saw them, and those strategically frayed capris fit too well to be from Walmart. Expensive clothes to wear on moving day.

He continued his downward assessment, traveling a short distance of thigh to the place where muscular calves tapered into elegant ankles. The woman had good bone structure, he’d give her that, but he knew maintaining such a perfectly proportioned figure meant hours on treadmills and Nautilus machines. The baby-doll-pink toenails in their unscuffed sandals made him grimace.

No doubt about it, she was one of the “me, me” girls. The kind that got his back up, the kind he’d sworn off after his last long-term relationship had self-destructed.

Her lips moved rapidly in a heart-shaped face so perfect it kicked his temperature up a notch. The woman was physically attractive, no sense denying it. But could he ignore her looks long enough to reach a simple conclusion? He could, and he would. If his words were wasted on her, he’d save his breath.

Grasping Miss Stephanie Bryant by the shoulders, he tumbled her forward while slipping his free hand around to his back. In one fluid move, he loosed a pair of handcuffs from his belt and snapped silver around a slim, white wrist.

The petite figure before him immediately stilled and Brett looked down. He had sworn her eyes couldn’t get any wider. He was wrong about that.

A metallic snap and the pinch of cold steel around one wrist stopped Stephanie in midprotest. She flattened her lips in a thin line, every muscle in her body suddenly on alert. Despite the sharp tug she gave her hand, the policeman did not relax his viselike grip.

“H-hey!”

She stared at her hand in its uncomfortable new bracelet while she felt the blood drain from her face. After that, her mind drew a blank. Not that it mattered since her mouth had trouble forming the simplest words. Her eyes darted around, but all she could see was a uniform shirt—the solid expanse blocked her vision in every direction. She shook her head to clear it.

“Officer Lincoln, you’ve made your point.” Even rising corporate executives knew when they’d been bested. “I’ll leave.”

“I have your word on that?” he asked.

She had always known she was small, but her wrist looked positively fragile in his grip. For half a second, she wondered what it would be like to snuggle up to his chest and let the big man take care of her. The open jaws of the second cuff put a quick end to that fantasy and made her
decision to go along with his plan an easy one. Mustering her most sincere look, Stephanie tipped her head back to meet a pair of searching blue eyes.

“I promise,” she said. Officer Lincoln had to be mistaken about the storm, and tomorrow’s clear skies and tropical breezes would prove her right. Tomorrow, safely ensconced in her corner office she would pick up the phone, her
executive
phone, and have a chat with the police commissioner or the chief of police or whatever the person in charge called himself in small-town Florida. She might even file a complaint against the cop who’d refused to let her spend the night in her own home. But first, she had to get through today.

And today, getting arrested was not part of her game plan. Nor was getting fired because she had a police record. Both would seriously impact her goal of becoming Space Tech’s first female CEO. With her job and her latest promotion at risk, a much better alternative would be to climb into her rental car and spend the night at the closest hotel.

“Just let me grab my keys and an overnight bag.”

He held on to her hands. “I’ll escort you as far as the causeway,” he said.

Stephanie’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t believe me?” Honesty was the touchstone of every business deal. Too bad the broad-shouldered cop didn’t recognize the truth when he heard it.

“I am a law-abiding citizen,” she pointed out. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Law-abiding citizens lie,” Officer Lincoln argued. His looked pointedly at the handcuffs. “And you have been arrested.”

“Not officially,” she countered. She gave the cuffs the same kind of shake she would give a troublesome bracelet.
“You haven’t read me my rights. If you take this off, I’ll grab my things and we can get out of here.”

When his cool, appraising eyes did not flicker, she tried again. “Didn’t you say we had no time to waste?”

Throwing his words back in his face seemed to do the trick because his eyes definitely wavered.

“All right,” he nodded, “but you’ll need more than an overnight bag.” He unhooked a heavy key ring from his belt and freed her wrist. “Take enough clothes for at least three days. Pack everything you can’t afford to lose—insurance papers, heirlooms and jewelry, your grandmother’s photograph. You’ll need some proof of residency. You can’t get back into Cocoa Beach without it. And pack some food. You’ll want it.”

“Clothes. ID. Important papers. I got it,” she said. Pointedly, she rubbed her wrists. As for food, she hadn’t been to the grocery store, but she would manage. Dinner in an upscale restaurant would make a nice reward after a day that had so not gone according to plan.

Officer Lincoln stood on the porch until Stephanie opened the coat closet and retrieved her smallest suitcase. “Have it your way,” he said. Despite an acquiescent shrug, he lingered.

“Are you going to watch while I pack?” she asked. Her cheeks burned at the thought of the arrogant cop watching as she tossed thongs and skimpy bras into her bag.

Officer Lincoln retrieved his sunglasses from a shirt pocket and slipped them on.

“If you’ll open your garage door,
ma’am,
I’ll bring those boxes in while you get ready to leave. Make it quick. Ten minutes. Twenty, tops.”

Stephanie spun away without bothering to answer. He had ma’am’d her. Again. This time, deliberately. The idea that she could be attracted to someone so full of himself
was simply ludicrous, but there was the small matter of her hands to deal with. She wiggled her fingers. Though she tried telling herself the cuffs must have been too tight or Officer Lincoln had held her hands higher than she realized, her skin tingled everywhere he’d touched her.

B
RETT KEYED
the dashboard mike and spoke to Doris. “I’m at the old Henson place,” he said. In the manner of small towns, the house would remain the Henson place for the next ten years, no matter who held the deed.

He opened his mouth to let Dispatch know the new resident required an escort to the causeway just as Stephanie Bryant stepped through the front door. He watched as she lowered a plastic tub into the trunk of her car. When his eyes locked on a fine view of a denim-clad derriere, Brett’s mouth clamped shut.

“I’ll be tied up for about an hour,” he said simply. Anything more and Doris would demand details. At the moment, there were some things he didn’t trust himself to report.

By the time he logged off, the fitful breeze had died and the shapely Ms. Bryant had retreated into her air-conditioned lair. Brett hoped she knew how to pack in a hurry. Once the winds picked up, driving across the causeway would be more dangerous than staying in Cocoa Beach. And that could be deadly.

He headed for the stack of flattened boxes at the curb. Even if the best happened and the storm slid up the coast without making landfall, floodwaters were inevitable. Wet cardboard was heavier than dirt and would sprout mold before the next tide receded. With the city practically shut down until the storm passed, it was his civic duty to haul the boxes into the garage. The town’s newest resident had nothing to do with it.

Brett swiped his damp forehead. Hurricane Arlene was drawing moisture and heat out of the ocean like a kid sucking on a Slurpee. Until the storm moved close enough to dump her contents on them, the temperature and humidity in Cocoa Beach remained near normal. So it wasn’t the weather that had him in a sweat. No, the delectable Stephanie Bryant had done that all by herself.

If attraction was all there was to it, he would simply ask her out. But something about the petite woman stirred his protective side. Maybe it was the sight of her small wrist in his handcuffs. Maybe it was the way her head brushed against his shoulder. Whatever. He was practical enough to look for a logical reason and quickly found one.

No matter what the crime, women always cried.

The first time one of his arrestees turned on the waterworks, he had still been a probationer and partnered with Jake. Brett would have caved under the pressure, but the older cop had seen it all and knowingly ignored the tears of a teenage shoplifter. When Jake proceeded with the girl’s arrest, her attitude had done a swift one-eighty and earned him a quick kick to the shins. Brett, a fast learner, had hardened himself against crying females after that incident.

But Stephanie Bryant hadn’t cried. He would have spotted so much as a single tear if it had welled in those big blue eyes. Her resolve made her seem all the more vulnerable. When he’d touched her shoulder, it had been all he could do not to draw her into his embrace and whisper reassurance in her ear. From the way she had leaned into him, he was fairly certain she wanted the same. Not that it mattered.

She was wrong for him. Not all wrong, maybe, but wrong enough.

Glossy dark curls and pert red lips might be all right for the next guy, but he had learned a hard lesson from his last relationship with a beautiful woman. The other cops, Jake in particular, had tried to warn him. He hadn’t listened, and they had been right about her. At first, Brett hadn’t understood why the guys called her a “me, me” girl. He was already in over his head by the time he realized she was all about “me.” Me, as in “Honey, don’t go fishing. Stay home with me.” And, “Sweetie, turn off the basketball game. Pay attention to me.”

Stephanie Bryant, with her designer clothes, was the second verse of the same old song. Her beauty came at a price he wasn’t willing to pay. No doubt about it.

Whether or not he completed the half-finished master’s thesis hidden in his desk drawer, he would remain a beat cop with a beat cop’s hours and a beat cop’s salary. A desk job was twenty years in his future. And that was okay with him. He liked his work. He spent his free time with other men who viewed the world from the right side of a badge.

So, maybe he hadn’t seen Tom, Mary and the girls as much as he should. Maybe he hadn’t been fishing in a while. Maybe he had played too much pool and thrown too many darts with the guys at Sticks N Tips. His time at the cop hangout would only last until he got his head on straight about women and relationships.

No, Stephanie Bryant wasn’t his type. But he could enjoy the scenery while he toted flattened boxes into her garage.

He slowed his steps for maximum viewing time. She had traded one expensive outfit for another, and though this one was as impractical as the one before it, Brett had to admit she had spent her money well. The plunging neckline of a silky pink camisole revealed enough cleavage to make his mouth water. The lacy hem ended at her waist, a
good three inches above the low-riding pants that now hugged her curves. Imagining his hand resting on her smooth skin, he forced his eyes downward before he embarrassed himself. But down was no good, either. Her pink toenails peeked from a pair of sandals that were all straps and impossibly high heels.

“Heaven help me,” he mumbled. He rolled his eyes skyward where another line of low clouds gathered. Fifteen of the twenty allotted minutes had passed and the time for sightseeing was over. He needed to hustle Ms. Bryant on her way before the rain squall struck, but in the moment he’d looked away, the brunette had disappeared from sight. Deciding he’d wait a sec before giving her a shout, he posted himself at her car’s open trunk.

What people considered too important to lose said a lot about their character. Brett’s instincts, honed razor-sharp by four years on the force, told him Ms. Bryant had filled her trunk with mere trivia. Certain that a quick survey would prove him right, he put his assumptions to the test.

She hadn’t packed much in the way of clothes, he saw with some surprise. He had expected her to label her closet’s entire contents as critical, but a business suit and an overnight bag were all she had added to a trunk filled with boxes and plastic bins. The laptop she had snugged between the boxes and the tire well came as less of a surprise. Even he owned a laptop and he wasn’t a “me, me” anything.

Curiosity got the best of him when he saw a cardboard box labeled with the broad strokes of a Magic Marker. He lifted one corner of the lid. The box contained what it said it did and elicited an honest chuckle. Were s’mores something Stephanie Bryant could not afford to lose? Or did she consider sweets one of the four basic food groups? Either
way, the items she’d packed told him he might have misjudged the petite brunette.

The sound of soft footsteps behind him made him drop the lid faster than a hot shell casing. How the woman had snuck up on him he did not know. He hadn’t even heard her front door open. Irritation knifed through him at letting her catch him with his guard down and he plastered on a hasty smile to cover his guilty look. He spun toward her.

“Want some help?”

“Sure,” she answered. The look she tossed his way lit up her face. “If you could put these in the car for me, I’ll lock the door.”

Brett’s smile lost some of its underpinnings when he saw what she carried. In one hand, the soon-to-be-evacuee toted a perfectly acceptable black leather briefcase. From the buffed and groomed fingers of the other dangled a plastic contraption built like a multi-tiered wedding cake. An avocado-green wedding cake filled with a drugstore’s entire cosmetic aisle. On its bottom shelf, jars, tubes and cotton swabs crowded behind a guardrail. Brushes and nail files bristled from the top. In between, an army of polish bottles rallied for the call to paint the world baby-doll-pink.

“Huh,” Brett groused. So much for misjudging the girl. It was time for him to quit sending mixed signals and strike a professional pose.

He grabbed the briefcase and manicure stand and turned his back on her. The pebbles on the porch made a gritty sound as he pictured Ms. Bryant’s weight shifting from one slim ankle to another. She was probably trying to figure out what was going on. He couldn’t blame her. He sort of wondered the same thing until he remembered his whole reason for
being here. With a hurricane nearing the coast, the barometer was sinking like a lead weight at the end of a fishing line. The change had to be messing with both their heads.

Slipping the briefcase into an empty spot, he paused to consider his next move. The stand did not fit into the tiny space left in her trunk so he was forced to move things around a bit. A nudge to one of the plastic bins revealed a Space Tech logo plastered across its top. The sight sent Brett’s stomach into free fall. The remnants of his smile went with it. The files she deemed so important, the things she “couldn’t afford to lose,” were all work-related. As far as he was concerned, that did it.

Ms. Stephanie Bryant was exactly what he did not need—a self-centered career girl, a girl whose designer labels read Ms. Wrong.

“Ready?” he growled. He didn’t bother to turn and face her.

“All set.”

He waited until he heard keys jingle and the light tap of her heels. “Did you pack a cot or a sleeping bag? You’ll need one.”

Like the hurricane building off the coast, her answer drew all the moisture from the air. “I don’t know about the hotels you stay in,
Officer
Lincoln, but the Marriott provides linens.”