Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (7 page)

“Dunno yet. Working on it.”

Greer nodded. “We’re all going to work on it.”

“No, don’t.” Sighing, he propped himself against the edge of his desk and rubbed his hands over his face. “C’mon, you know how many people I’ve had threaten me over the years? How many murderers I’ve put away that vow to take their revenge? This is probably nothing. I mean, who goes shopping for a hired killer among burnt out drug addicts?”

“He’s got a point,” Vaughn said.

“See? You guys have enough on your plates—Vaughn with his new case, and you two, keeping us flush with clients so we can pay our bills. And, Reece, don’t you have another home security gig coming up? You don’t have to drop everything. I’ll handle this.”

Greer punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “That’s not how this family works, Cam, and you sure as hell know it. Someone fucks with one of us, they fuck with us all. Understood?”

Although Cam had been out of the military for nearly ten years, he still felt an urge to salute whenever Greer used his Army Ranger tone like that.

Instead, he punched Greer’s shoulder back just as hard. “10-4, big bro. But at least give me time to verify the threat is valid, okay?”

His brothers looked at each other.

“And if it is real, you can throw me in a safe house somewhere.” Not that he’d actually go, but if the little white lie got his brothers off the subject, he was a-okay with it. “Then you can drop everything and call in the freakin’ National Guard to find the guy if you want.”

The tension in the room broke with Greer’s abrupt bark of laugher. “The National Guard couldn’t find their asses with a GPS and an arrow pointing the way. You call in the Rangers if you want someone found.”

“Excuse me?” Vaughn said, eyes narrowing. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You meant the SEALs, right?”

“Nah. You call the SEALs when you want someone killed. You call the Rangers when you want them found.”

Vaughn clicked his tongue against his teeth. “We’re gonna have to agree to disagree there, bro.”

“What’s there to disagree about?” Reece asked. He’d gone the intelligence route rather than into the Rangers like Greer, but he was no less loyal to Mother Army for it. “It’s a straight-up fact.”

“Oh, so it’s two against one now? That’s how it’s gonna be?” Squaring off against the two of them, Vaughn crooked a finger. “Bring it, Army brats.”

Cam slipped past them and made it to the parking lot before he let his grin loose. Need to escape an uncomfortable conversation with Greer and Reece? Bring up the National Guard and wait. The age-old branch rivalry would do the rest, especially when Vaughn was around to egg it on.

Cam opened the door of his 4Runner, heard something crash in the office, and laughed. Yup. Worked like a charm every time.

Chapter Eight

“Yo, Wilde!”

Eva’s stomach hit the floor at Detective Miguel de la Rosa’s shout from across the office. Oh, Christ, no. Please don’t let it be Cam. It couldn’t be him. He wasn’t a morning person and had no reason to be at the police station this early. Maybe it was one of his brothers. Yes, that was possible. Reece and Greer both came by fairly regularly.

At the moment, she’d take any of the Wilde brothers but Cam. He’d called her several times in the four days since returning from Key West, and she’d agonized over her phone each time his name showed on the caller ID. She wanted to pick up and play it cool like their one night stand never happened, but whenever she worked up the nerve to answer, she’d remember his lips, hard on hers, kissing her senseless. His hands, pinning hers to the mattress. His voice, demanding that she say his name as she climaxed hard enough to see stars.

Dammit. His voice.

That
was
his voice answering Miguel with a, “Hey, long time.”

She heard a clap of palms and looked up from her computer screen in time to see her old partner and her new partner pull each other in for one of those manly, backslapping hugs.

“You tired of playing Dick Tracey yet?” Miguel asked. “Ready to come back and do some real police work?”

“Nah, man. I kinda like the P.I. lifestyle. The work’s mostly interesting. Plus, no mandatory overtime or holiday hours.”

“Aw, fuck me,” Miguel said.

“You’re not really my type.”

Yeah, because
she
was his type. Eva wanted to melt from embarrassment and sank down in her chair. She sensed his gaze traveling over her head.

“Eva still here?”

“She was… Oh. Huh,” Miguel said. “I don’t see her anymore. Probably went home. We worked the night shift.”

Yes, she’d gone home. No Eva here. Now if only Cam would turn around and leave because she really couldn’t face him. Not at work in front of everyone. Her reputation would never recover—and goddamn him, he
knew
that. He knew how hard she worked to be seen as another one of the guys.

How dare he put her in this position?

He wouldn’t have had to if you answered his calls
, a small voice of reason reminded her.

No. Fuck reason. Anger was so much easier than the other emotions his mere presence jumbled up inside her. One night did not give him the right to stop by
her
place of employment and chat with
her
co-workers. So what if they used to be his, too. They weren’t anymore, and he shouldn’t be here, period.

Full of righteous indignation, she shot to her feet, intending to give him a piece of her mind. But then he spotted her, his dimple flashed in a smile, and butterflies rattled around in her belly.

He wore a new black nylon jacket instead of the beat to shit Carhartt that he’d had since she met him. The open zipper revealed a gray button-down that he wore as easily as he did a T-shirt. His dark-wash jeans looked crisp and new, and he’d combed his hair back from his face.

Had he dressed up for her?

Weird.

Too weird.

As was the fact that she no longer wanted to punch him. Actually, she found herself staring at his mouth and the insanely sexy dimple indenting his left cheek.

The man was fucking gorgeous. Why had she never noticed before?

He said a quick goodbye to Miguel and was half way across the office before she realized he’d moved.

Oh, shit.

She dropped into her chair and started gathering witness reports, desperately needing something to do as he drew even with her desk. He said nothing for a long moment, and her hands started to tremble. She hated being so nervous around him, but what exactly was she supposed to say to him now?

Like so many times before when they worked together, he set a Kit Kat bar on the edge of her desk. “I tried calling. And texting. I, uh, actually stopped just short of stalking.”

She accepted the candy peace offering with a half-smile pulling uncomfortably at her cheeks, and her hand lingered on his. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to feel skin-to-skin contact with him again, which was so fucking wrong on so many different levels.

She jerked away and covered the gaffe by tucking the candy into the top drawer of her desk. “I know.”

“Yeah, figured as much.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket and gazed around at the overflowing desks jammed together in an office not quite big enough for all of them. Coffee scented the air, which hummed with constant activity from phones ringing and detectives talking. The place wasn’t nicknamed the Hive for nothing.

“Hasn’t changed much around here,” Cam said.

Bull. It changed irrevocably the day he quit to join his brothers in starting up Wilde Security, but she couldn’t tell him that now. There would be all kinds of sexual subtext in anything she said.

This sucked. Big time.

“Eva.” He squatted down beside her desk until they were eye level. “Can we go somewhere, grab a bite to eat for breakfast, and figure this out?”

Yes
, a part of her all but screamed with relief, but at the same time, another part recoiled at the idea of having such a heavy conversation with
Camden,
of all people. It just wasn’t right. Couldn’t they pretend nothing happened?

She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—but Miguel sauntered up and saved her from having to figure it out.

“Looks like we’re not going home yet,” he said. “Call just came in.”

Thank God. Murder, she could handle.

She stood so fast, Cam had to back up or risk getting hit in the face. “I have to go.”

Cam straightened and blew out a breath. “Sure, but we do have to talk.”

“Yeah, of course. We will.” She grabbed Miguel by the sleeve of his shirt and tugged him away from her desk. And away from Cam.

“Saved by the murder, huh?” Miguel said once they were out of earshot. He glanced over his shoulder, but she continued tugging him forward, bypassing the elevator for the stairs.

“Shut up.” She hit the push bar for the stairwell door and took the steps down in a jog.

He grinned and followed at an easier pace. “I’m detecting lots of interesting undercurrents between you two all of the sudden. Did you finally fuck?”

Eva whipped around. “What? No, of course not. He’s my best friend, nothing more.”

“Uh-huh.” Miguel appeared thoroughly unconvinced.

“Oh, God.” Defeat rolled through her and dragged her down to sit on one of the steps. “Does everyone know?”

“
Chica
,” he said in the same admonishing tone she’d heard him use with his teenage granddaughters and ruffled her hair as he passed. “You work with a bunch of detectives. We’ve always known it was never a question of
if
with you two, but
when
.” He stopped a few steps down and gazed back with a knowing expression. “So, was it Key West?”

She sighed. She didn’t have to answer. He already knew. The whole freaking department already knew.

“Hah!” He did a celebratory Ricky Ricardo dance move down the rest of the stairs. “I won the bet.”

Whoa. Bet? That got her moving again. She chased him out into the parking lot. “Hold up, de la Rosa. You
bet
on my sex life?”

“Call it living vicariously.”

“I’ll call it illegal gambling,” she told him and rounded the hood of her car.

“Aw,
chica
.” Opening the passenger side door, he pouted at her over the roof. “Can’t an old man have a little fun?”

“Not at my expense, okay?”

His brow furrowed. “Never. But I thought—” He looked back up at the stationhouse. “Shit, is there something wrong between you and Wilde?”

More than something. Everything. And she did not want to talk about it. She shook her head and slid in behind the wheel. “Where’s this murder?”

Chapter Nine

Karma was a complete bitch.

Eva pulled her Taurus into her driveway and killed the engine, then took a moment to lay her head against the seat and breathe out. The scent of death and garbage still clung to her clothes and hair, and exhaustion weighed down her limbs. She’d worked for twenty-two of the past twenty-four hours, was running on gallons of coffee and a twenty minute nap. She wanted a shower, a good meal, and her bed. But karma was a mean bitch and because she’d used the murder call to escape Cam, she now had to go to his house and talk to him about that very same murder.

Dammit.

The stop at her house hadn’t exactly been out of her way, nor had it been the most direct route to Cam’s, but after leaving the death scene, she hadn’t been able to work up enough courage to point her car in his direction.

Okay, so she was procrastinating, but she
did
have to check on her house’s wellbeing. She’d bought the three bedroom, two bathroom, semi-detached Colonial for a ridiculously cheap price after the previous owners fell victim to the recession. It had needed major work to make it livable, so what she’d saved in the initial purchase cost, she put toward renovations. Now it was exactly as she wanted it—the brick siding clean, no more ugly metal awnings over the windows, her little patch of fenced-in yard neatly landscaped with some hardy bushes. Not Home & Gardens worthy, but it was quaint and cozy—a perfect refuge from all the craziness she saw at work.

Except when her sister Shelby or her mother used it as a crash pad between boyfriends.

Shelby had a history of “inviting a few friends over” whenever Eva worked the night shift. But to Shelby, “a few” equaled anything from two to fifty people. For all she knew, her house had been the site of a rave last night. Wouldn’t have been the first time.

All appeared quiet from the front, and all of the windows on the closed-in porch were still intact. Promising sign. Maybe Shelby had turned over a new leaf like she claimed.

Okay, Eva really had to get out of the car now. If she stopped moving, she’d crash out for a solid eight hours and she still had to visit Cam.

God, she wished that could wait until morning. With her reserves tapped dry, she’d be more apt to open her mouth and say shit to him she shouldn’t. Like, “Hey, that night in Key West? A-ma-zing. What I can remember of it, at least. Wanna try again now that I’m sober?”

Not cool.

Why not?
A naughty little voice whispered through her thoughts. Her damn libido speaking up like the devil on her shoulder. Her angel was conspicuously missing from the other shoulder.

“Because I don’t do one night stands,” she told it and shoved open the car door. The cold blast of night air did little to perk her up. She climbed out of the vehicle, stretched, but still felt tight all over, her muscles protesting the movement. She needed a good gym session. Or a long night of sex.

It wouldn’t be a one night stand anymore if you did it again,
the libido devil pointed out.

“I don’t do flings, either. Besides, he’s my best friend. The alcohol gave me plausible deniability the first time, but if I jumped him again… It’s just too weird. Annnd so is arguing with the voice in my head. Oh, Christ, I’m tired. Or crazy. Probably both.” She gave herself a full body shake to wake up and hit the car’s lock button on the key fob as she trudged through the iron gate in the fence surrounding her yard, up the short walk, and the six concrete steps to her front door.

No music blasting from inside. Also a good sign.

Poe, Shelby’s African Grey Parrot, sat in the window and gave a squawk of greeting when she shuffled inside. Smiling, Eva paused to rub his head. She enjoyed Poe and often teased her sister that he was the best boyfriend Shelby’s ever had. Poe gently caught her finger in his beak and pulled himself onto her hand, then climbed her arm to her shoulder. She reached up and ruffled the grey feathers on his chest until he chortled and flapped his wings. The sound lifted her spirits, all of her fatigue and worries taking a backseat for the space of a bird’s call, and she laughed.

Maybe Poe was her best boyfriend, too.

She crossed the porch, stepped into the living room—and froze. Her sister sat on the couch next to a guy with short, sandy blond hair. A half-eaten box of pizza lay open on the coffee table and
Jeopardy
blared from the TV with the two of them trying to out-geek each other.

“Preston?” Shit. Why hadn’t she noticed his car?

He turned and grinned. “Hi. You’re home.”

“Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out. “This is
my
home, right?”

“Of course it is. I just stopped in to see how you’re doing.”

“I didn’t realize our relationship had upgraded to the stop-by-for-the-hell-of-it level. Where’s Lark?”

“She had…things…” He waved a dismissive hand. “I was bored and in the neighborhood, so I picked up a pizza and came on by. Is that a crime now, Detective?” he asked with the down-home, Virginia boy smile that used to make her melt. And, okay, it still did a little. Which pissed her off.

Why couldn’t she just get over this guy already?

“No,” she admitted on an exhale. “But it’s getting late and I still have things to do, so you’ll have to excuse me for not being Miss Social Butterfly. Shel, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Sure,” Shelby said brightly, but didn’t move.

“In. The. Kitchen.”

“Oh. Okay.” She bounced up from the couch and followed.

As soon they set foot on the black and white tiles of the kitchen floor, Eva whirled on her sister. The fast movement scared Poe, who took flight and landed on top of Shelby’s pink-streaked blond ponytail. “Why the fuck did you let him in?”

Frowning, Shelby gathered the bird from her head and set him on his nearby perch. “Hey, he brought pizza and I was hungry. There’s no food in the house.”

“Oh, dammit, then go shopping! Or— No, that’s not even the issue right now.” She whirled away, paced a few steps out of utter frustration, then strode to the fridge and jerked it open. “Shelby, I swear, you don’t think.”

“What?” With her eyebrow ring, tattoos, wild dye-job, and the way she crossed her arms over her chest, she looked more like a rebellious teenager than Eva’s younger sister by only ten months. “I thought you were still friends with Preston.”

“In the way you and James are still friends.”

“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “Wait, which James?”

“Cosplay James.”

“Riiight.” She winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d put Preston in the friends-but-not-really category.”

“Just…” Finding nothing edible in the fridge, Eva shoved the door shut. “Make him go away. I gotta go back to work.”

“Again?”

“For another hour or two. I’ll grab some groceries on the way home.”

“Okay,” Shelby said, heavy on the doubt. “So I should plan to go out for breakfast again?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No, but it’s what you meant. ‘Another hour or two’ in Eva Speak means you’ll be sleeping at the office again. But,” she added before Eva could protest, “I’m okay with eating out. There’s this totally hot suit and tie guy that comes into the coffee shop every morning at eight-thirty on the dot. He’s been eying me like he wants to go all ice cream cone on me and lap me up. You know the look, right? The one that says,
yum
? Might be something there.”

Eva just barely managed to hold back her groan of frustration. “Don’t you think you should give dating a break after the last disaster?”

“Um, no.” Shelby’s face scrunched with genuine confusion. “Why?”

And that right there was the reason she’d never understand her sister.

“I have to go.” With a shake of her head, she decided to exit out the back because dealing with Preston and Cam again in the same night was not something she wanted to do. She made it around the house and was just opening the gate to the driveway when the front door opened and Preston jogged out to meet her.

“Eva, wait.”

She didn’t even pause as she unlocked her car. “I can’t. Work beckons.”

“Please. Just…” He vaulted over the gate and slid in between her and the car before she got the door open.

“What?” she snapped.

“I didn’t stop by on a whim,” he admitted.

No shit. “Then why?”

“I miss you.”

“What about Lark?”

“Things…haven’t been going well between us since we came home.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm.

“Don’t be like that. It’s not her fault. She’s a sweet girl, but she’s…not you.”

Her heart squeezed. “Preston, don’t. Let’s not go there.”

“I want a second chance.”

And he went there. She shoved him. “You
cheated
. You told me you didn’t want to get married then turned around and got engaged. How the hell am I ever supposed to trust you again?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not getting an argument from me about that.” The tightening around her heart started to hurt, and for a horrifying moment, she feared she’d start crying. She was too tired to deal with this emotional right hook—and she still had to face Cam tonight. “I have to go.”

Preston stepped aside and pulled open the car door for her. The perfect gentleman. “Will you think about it?”

No. Yes. God, she had no idea. “I will,” she half-lied. “But I can’t tonight.”

“Fair enough.” He waited until she slid in behind the wheel, his arm resting on the top of the door. “Can I call you?”

She shoved the key in the ignition. “I need to go now.”

“Right. Okay.” He started to lean down, but she saw the kiss coming and shifted the car into gear. He jerked backwards and she took his moment of distraction to grab the door and pull it closed. As she backed out, he stood in the middle of her driveway, his arms crossed over his chest and a frown pulling down the corners of his mouth.

She didn’t realize tears streamed down her face until she stopped at the first red light.