Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021

by Anna J. Stewart

  “Thanks.” He carried two fabric totes, one in each hand. “Can I put these over there?”

  “Yeah, sure. On the counter’s fine.” She twisted her hands together. She’d thought maybe her attraction to him last night had been the result of the tequila, yet here she was, stone-cold sober, and admiring every single fit inch of him. Dark slacks and T-shirt again, and the blazer he wore today looked slightly more worn than last night’s attire. She couldn’t help wondering how he looked out of those clothes. “Did you get everything on the list?”

  “Enough to make my credit card whine,” he confirmed. “I’ll unload and you store.”

  “Yeah, sure. That works.” She hurried forward. “I kind of took advantage. There were some things I needed to restock, so—”

  “I figured. Let me guess? My penance for last night?”

  “Maybe a little.” She couldn’t stop her lips twitching. “You are familiar with the concept of penance, then?”

  “With twelve years of Catholic school, I ought to be.”

  “Catholic school?” She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. “Did you go to Sacred Heart?”

  “Saint Ignatius,” he corrected. “All-boys. My sister went to SH, though. You?”

  “Saint Mary’s. Me, my sisters and my cousins. There were a lot of Coltons on the roster for a while.” She was babbling. And talking about silly, meaningless stuff. She hadn’t been nervous around a man since...who was she kidding? Men didn’t make her nervous.

  But she’d never met Cruz Medina before.

  She stashed the gallon of olive oil in the cabinet near the sink, dumped all the produce into the basin where she’d wash it later for storage. The eggs, butter and various proteins she’d had him grab went into the fridge.

  “So I’ve been thinking about my job,” Cruz said.

  “As a cop?”

  “No. My job at the restaurant.” He looked at her as if he was surprised she didn’t understand.

  “Right. That job.” She considered pouring herself a glass of wine, then realized what trouble that might get her into. “I’ve already taken care of it. You want a beer?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks. You have?” Surprise filled his eyes. Along with something else she couldn’t quite define. He accepted the imported beer with ease, knocked off the cap.

  “Yeah, well, it isn’t like we’ve got a lot of openings at True right now. I have low turnover. People like working for me.” She meant for it to sound like a warning of sorts. For him to remember that his investigation would affect more than his case; it would affect her business and her employees. “The only job we have right now is for a sous-chef.”

  “That sounds...complicated. I was thinking more of bartending.”

  “Like I said, we’re pretty full with employees and we don’t need another bartender.” She didn’t really need another sous-chef, but it was the one position Richard had recommended adding another of. “How are you with a knife?” She grabbed a bottle of water for herself, then led him into the loosely serviceable living room. “Ignore the paint swatches on the wall. My mom and aunt were testing colors.”

  “I like the blue,” he said, gesturing to the dark peacock-inspired color. “Cozy.”

  “I will definitely consider telling them I like it, then.”

  Cruz smiled and settled into the corner of her sofa. “Before we talk more about the job, I wanted to say, and I should have said before, how sorry I am about your father and uncle.”

  She ducked her head, longing for the day when the mention of her father wouldn’t feel like a gut punch. “Thank you. It’s been...” she shrugged “...difficult. I’m sure you know. You deal with cases like this enough, I suppose.”

  “I deal with a lot of death,” he said. “But I don’t think anything can ever prepare you for losing someone, or in your case, two someones the way you did. Do you know who’s running the case?”

  “Ah, yeah.” She rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “A Detective Joe Parker. He seems very competent.”

  “He is. He’s good people. He’ll take care of them.”

  “I suppose family members are always the first suspects in a case like this.” It was impossible to keep the disgust out of her voice. She’d witnessed firsthand how the accusation against her cousin Heath, president of Colton Connections, had been handled, the effect it had on him.

  “I did a little investigating of my own,” Cruz said. “Just asked around a bit to get a feel for the case and how the investigation’s going. They’ve cleared the entire family as suspects.”

  “I’d say that’s a relief, but it’s not.” Tatum faced him, stretching out her arm along the back of the sofa. “They still aren’t anywhere close to finding out who did kill them. Or why. They never hurt anyone. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It rarely does,” Cruz told her. “Even when we find a motive or explanation, it still won’t make sense. I’m sorry you’re all going through this.”

  “Not sorry enough to stop you from investigating my restaurant.”

  “No.” He didn’t seem ashamed by it, or even contrite. “I won’t apologize for doing my job.”

  It was admirable, she supposed, despite his determination putting her smack-dab in the middle of one of his cases. “I won’t apologize for doing mine, either. Which brings us back to you being a sous-chef.”

  “Yeah, about that. I really think—”

  “It’s a done deal.” Tatum had been waiting for the right moment to reveal her morning and early-afternoon activities. “I called my manager a while ago and told him I’d hired you. I said you came highly recommended by a fellow chef friend in New York. While you’ll be a sous in title, you’ll do various jobs...prep chef, line chef. We’ll get your résumé together, get you acclimated as to how a restaurant kitchen works. How are you in the kitchen, by the way?”

  “Passable.” His grin was slow, almost flirtatious, as if he was conjuring images he shouldn’t be. Then he shook his head. “I don’t like to cook but I’ll do it. I used to help my mom when I was growing up. Doing all the chopping and stuff for her.”

  “Perfect.” Covering her surprise with a long drink of water, she continued. “Then you’re already on your way. Being a sous is mostly about prepping. For you, anyway. For others it’s a rung on the ladder to head chef. You’re backup to me, but you also move in and out of the kitchen doing whatever needs doing, especially when people take their breaks. I did think this through,” she said when he looked mildly impressed. “Being a sous gives you access to almost every area of the kitchen and also the restaurant at large. You want access, you’ll have it. You can get to know your fellow employees, wheedle out which one of them might be running drugs out of our freezer.”

  “You still don’t believe I’m right, do you?”

  “No.” Tatum didn’t leave any room for doubt. “I don’t. I can’t. These people are my family, Cruz. Believing you’re right, that one or more of them are working against me, committing crimes using my restaurant? I honestly don’t think my heart can take that right now.”

  “Fair enough.” He took a long pull of his beer. “So when do we start my sous lessons?”

  “You hungry?”

  “Always.”

  “Perfect. Then we’ll start now.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tatum said as Cruz effortlessly used the back of his chef’s knife to scrape chopped peppers into a waiting bowl. “But I assumed your definition of passable meant you knew which side of the knife was sharp. You’re actually pretty good at this.”

  “Not sure there’s any other way to take it.” His smile, even as he kept his eyes on his prep work, made her insides do that inconvenient albeit insistent dance. “When I was ten my mom and dad had a surprise pregnancy.”

  Tatum frowned, set her bowl of hand-crushed tomatoes aside.
What did that have to do with—

  “I like to say the surprise was that it was twins,” he continued. “But in truth, it was Surprise! You’re old enough to help more around the house! My parents gave me the choice between cleaning and cooking. As the vacuum cleaner and I had multiple disagreements over the years, I went with the kitchen.” He shrugged, as if that said it all. “They timed things perfectly with the advent of all those cooking shows, even though my mom loved watching old Julia Child reruns.”

  “I love Julia Child.” Tatum couldn’t help but be entranced. Not just by his voice and the obvious affection he had for his mother, but with the elegant way he moved around her kitchen, as if he’d been working in it all her life. How did a big-city detective fit so effortlessly into whatever setting he stepped into? “So you have twin siblings?”

  “Frankie, well, Francisco, and Inez. They’re nineteen. Just started college last fall. But when they were ten they got the same lecture I did, and both ended up in the kitchen. The Medina family will never starve, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, I have to say you’re easing my mind about how well you’ll fit in at True. You follow instructions well, at least for the prep work.”

  “Speaking of prep, you’re using me again, aren’t you? Getting your mise en place done for the week?”

  “Listen to you with the jargon. Yes, and no. Not for the whole week. Just the next few days.” She chuckled at his uh-huh. “One thing you’ll need to know how to do is pasta.”

  “I take it you mean I won’t just be opening a box.”

  “No.” She shook her head, retrieved the eggs she’d left out earlier. “All our pasta is made fresh. Not to order, but fresh every day. And we make a lot of it.” She pulled over the organic flour, salt and imported olive oil. “When you’re done with those.” Tatum gestured to the last of the vegetables she’d set out for him, then returned to her laptop to finish typing up a list of things he’d need to know coming in. “What first put True on your radar?”

  “GPS mapping.” he answered, unfazed, then took his knife and cutting board over to the sink. “In part. The cartel I’m investigating has a number of connections and dealers in and around this neighborhood. True is right in the middle of it all.”

  “You’re ready to blow up my entire life over the GPS readings of drug dealers?” How did the crazy continue to spiral into surreal?

  He dried his hands, leaned back against the sink and looked at her. “You’re acting as if this is somehow personal, and it isn’t, Tatum. It just is what it is. I go where the evidence—”

  “You said you didn’t have any evidence yet.”

  “I go where the trail leads me,” he finished as if she hadn’t interrupted. “None of this makes me happy, Tatum. I don’t want to tarnish your business or your reputation. But I’m not going to give up seeing something through because it inconveniences you.”

  Inconveniences her? “You really don’t get it, do you? All you see is your case. Black-and-white. Right or wrong.”

  “Actually, no, I don’t. I’m more than familiar with all the varieties of gray. But I have a job to do.”

  “Right. And your job is more important than my livelihood. Just because True pops up on your GPS analysis it doesn’t mean it’s involved!”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s not, either.” If he understood she was spoiling for a fight, he didn’t rise to the bait. If anything, her arguing with him seemed to steel his argument. “We can go around and around with this forever, Tatum. We aren’t going to change the other’s mind. The investigation is moving forward with or without your help. Isn’t it easier, wouldn’t it be better if we agreed to disagree while working toward a common goal?”

  “Forget police work. You should run for office.” She’d rarely heard such a rational, almost practiced argument that both irritated her and made complete sense.

  “Something tells me that’ll be what my sister does at some point. Look.” He tossed the towel down and walked over to her, the warmth of his closeness tempting her to lean closer, to lose herself in it. To surround herself with it. “I understand what’s at stake for you, Tatum. But I need to stop this group of traffickers before more innocent people get hurt or killed. If we’re lucky, by the time we’re on the other side of this, True will be free and clear and so will you and your employees. It’ll be a blip on your professional history that no one will even remember a few months from now.”

  “It’ll only be a blip if no one hears about it,” she tried again.

  “How about this.” He covered her hand with his, moved closer yet again and lowered his voice. “How about I promise to do my best to protect your business? Within the confines of my job, of course. I can’t promise anything beyond that.”

  She looked down to where he touched her, the feel, the heat of his touch racing up her arm and sliding through her entire body like she was sinking into a warm, sensuous bath. “I suppose it’s something.”

  Tatum could almost feel his smile even before she glanced up. That mouth of his, those lips that widened to expose a perfect, white-toothed smile that very nearly reached all the way to his somewhat jaded dark eyes. “How magnanimous of you.” He lifted his free hand, brushed a solitary finger down the side of her face.

  She shivered and resisted the urge to turn into his touch. “Just so you know.” She shifted, stood before him with a breath between them. “While I don’t forbid workplace involvement, I don’t encourage it, either.”

  “And just so you know.” He dipped his head, just a bit, enough she could feel his warm breath caress her skin. “It’s been my policy not to get involved with someone connected to an investigation. It’s frowned upon, in fact.”

  “Is it?” She arched a brow. “That sounds suspiciously like a challenge.” It took every bit of effort she possessed to hold his gaze, a gaze that made her feel as if the world around them had melted into oblivion. “I enjoy challenges. I find them exhilarating.” Her hand came up, fingers trailing up his bare arm until it brushed against the short sleeve of his dark shirt. “Do you like challenges, Detective Medina?”

  “Almost as much as I like complications.” His mouth brushed across hers, featherlight, as if testing the waters of a particularly tempestuous river.

  “I strike you as complicated?” She breathed out the question, surprised she could find the voice to speak. His beard scraped against the softness of her skin, making her shiver. The energy surging through her system, the absolute desire she felt at this moment, as if she would literally burst into flames if he didn’t shut up and kiss her, had her struggling against reason. This was a bad idea.

  A really bad, horrible, messy...

  “You strike me as a lot of things.” He pulled his hand free of hers, and for a moment she thought he was moving away. Instead, he took that last, final, cavern-sized step closer and took her face in his hands. “Something tells me this is going to open up a whole new area of complicated,” he murmured an inch from her mouth. “That okay with you?”

  “Uh-huh.” She wet her lips, the anticipation suffocating whatever rational thought she might still have. “It would just be a kiss,” she reasoned and saw the humor flash in his eyes. “It doesn’t have to change anything. Or mean anything. We’d still be partners.”

  “No,” he said with a sharpness in his eyes. “We aren’t partners. But on the other thing? Let’s test that theory.” But he didn’t kiss her. Not right away. For what felt like an eternity, he did nothing more than stand there, holding her face gently between his hands, his thumbs caressing her cheeks as if they were made of precious spun gold.

  Tatum was not a patient woman. Not when it came to what she wanted, and right now all she wanted was Cruz Medina’s mouth on hers. Hot. Hungry. Commanding. And when he made no move to give her what she wanted, she slid her hands around to his chest, fisted her fingers in his shirt and dragged him in.

 
It was as if his kiss ignited a lifelong dormant pilot light inside of her. Instant heat. Instant combustion. Instant desire. All three mingled into a dance that had her moaning against his mouth. He wasn’t coy about it. Didn’t take his time to investigate or coddle. He simply dived in and took, demanded, and pulled her solidly into arms that folded around her.

  She met him moment for moment, touch for touch. She’d kissed her fair share of men over her twenty-nine years. She liked men. She liked sex and had no trouble finding it when she needed or just wanted it. But this encounter, this experience, this man was different. Everything she thought of doing to him he was a step, a stroke, a thrust ahead of her as he kissed her deeply. Completely.

  When he lifted his mouth, she could see her own surprise, her own desire, reflected in his uncertain if not shocked gaze. “Well.” He stroked his thumb over her lips before he stepped back. “I guess that answers that question.”

  “And raises a few others,” she managed and held up a hand when he appeared to want to step forward again. “I think it would be safe to say we have a healthy attraction toward one another.”

  “I don’t think we can call any of what we just started safe.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I don’t think we could. Intense sexual attraction can’t override the need for rational behavior. As you said, getting involved would be ill-advised on your part.”

  “And on yours?”

  Oh, how she wanted to leap at him and kiss that cocky grin off his face. “On my part it would be self-destructive. For a number of reasons, but mainly because I know you don’t have my best professional interests at heart.” Hearing her own words echo in her ear doused the still raging flames of desire she felt for him. “Despite your promise, I have the feeling that given the choice, you’re going to do what you have to in order to solve your case. Even if it means hurting me.”