“No,” Cruz said as he found a parking space. “It wasn’t.” She was supposed to be home, safe and sound. What had she been doing at the grocery store? He scanned the lot for the familiar face he’d called less than an hour ago, saw a pair of headlights turning in. He climbed out of the car, grabbed Tatum’s purse. “Let me get a handle on this before we call anyone else from the restaurant. You’re the only one I can count on right now, Ty. You up for it?”
“If it’ll help you find whoever hurt Tatum, you bet. The restaurant’s closed today. My daughter’s going to pick up the kids around ten. With Eddie in custody, I shouldn’t have them at night anymore. You tell me what you and Tatum need and I’ll be there.”
“We’ll make it work. I need to go. I’ll call when I know more.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Sean.” Cruz hung up and approached the couple heading toward the emergency room doors. They looked as shaken as he felt. “Cruz Medina.”
“Yeah, sure. Cruz.” Detective Sean Stafford slipped an arm around the woman at his side. She was shorter than Tatum, a bit curvier, and looked significantly younger than her age, but her eyes were all Colton. “This is January Colton.”
“Nice to meet you.” Cruz gave a short nod. He almost said he was glad to see she was all right, but that would only raise more questions than Tatum’s sister no doubt already had. “She’ll be glad to see you.”
“Thank you for calling.” January’s soft voice was controlled, but he could hear the worry nonetheless. He took the lead, holding open the door and then finding out what cubicle Tatum was in. When he drew back the curtain, the relief at seeing Tatum not only awake but very clearly irritated nearly drove him to his knees. It took him a moment to catch his breath and he stepped back as January raced around him to her sister’s side.
“Jany?” In that one word, in that one moment, Tatum broke down. “Oh, thank God you’re all right.” She wrapped her cord-encased arms around her sister and nearly dragged her down onto the bed with her. “I was so scared...”
“Shhhh. It’s okay, Tate. I’m here. I’m fine.” January glanced back at Sean, a confused furrow on her brow. “Everything’s fine now.”
Clearly, Cruz thought as Sean led him away, January hadn’t been told everything. “You didn’t tell her.”
“That someone told Tatum she’d been hurt? No. I wanted her to see Tatum was all right first.” Sean didn’t look one bit remorseful. “She’d only have worried and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. She’s where she needs to be. So.” He straightened, shifted from concerned boyfriend to detective in the blink of an eye. Only an inch separated them in height, but Stafford’s build dwarfed Cruz in a way. Sean’s reputation as a stand-up, no-nonsense cop preceded him, and bolstered Cruz’s opinion he’d made the right call. “Tell me what this is about.”
It didn’t take long to fill Sean in. The department gossip mill ran smoothly enough and fairly accurately that he could speak in common cop code. Hearing his girlfriend’s sister’s restaurant was under suspicion for drug trafficking didn’t, however, apparently sit well with his fellow detective.
“You should have come to me,” Sean said, an icy glint in his eyes that matched his tone. “I’d have told you you were off the mark on this one. No way is Tatum—”
“I know that,” Cruz cut him off, probably more sharply than he should have, but darn it, why did everyone assume he thought Tatum herself was involved? Anyone who met her would know she wasn’t capable of deception, let alone long-seated criminal activity. As it was, his cover at True wasn’t going to hold much longer now that Tatum, Ty and Sean Stafford knew what he was really doing there. “And for the record, she was supposed to go home tonight. And stay there. What kind of person goes to the grocery store at one in the morning?” He glanced at the clock above the nurses’ station. It was going on three, and Cruz was beginning to wonder if he’d ever calm down long enough to sleep again.
“A chef,” Sean said simply. “January says she cooks at all hours, whenever inspiration hits. Shopping, cooking, eating. It isn’t just what she does. It’s who she is.”
“Right.” He needed to accept that. She wasn’t a nine-to-five kind of woman. She didn’t fit into any stereotype, let alone any box he might tag her with. And he wouldn’t have her any other way. Not that he had her at all. But maybe... “Right. Okay, so.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Since January is just fine and there wasn’t any accident—”
“There’s no Officer Pearson in the department.”
Cruz stared at him.
“Not in patrol, not in any investigative unit. I figured you had enough on your mind,” Sean offered, an almost friendly smile breaking across his face. “I made some calls while January got dressed. And before you ask, I had them check citywide. Whoever called Tatum wasn’t a cop.”
Cruz swore. Someone had purposely lured her out of the store. Right into the path of that car. So much for them being in the clear. His suspicions were proving correct. But beyond the drugs, someone wanted Tatum out of the way and that someone knew her routine and her habits. Given work was her life, that person had to be connected to True.
“Sean? Cruz?” January poked her head out. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, which flashed dangerously at Sean, as if warning him there would be a long discussion later. “Tatum wants to talk to you.”
“Right. Good, thanks.” Cruz returned to the cubicle and this time he was the one standing at Tatum’s side. “You doing okay?”
“Mmm. Good now.” She smiled and her head lolled to the side. “Nurse gave me a shot.”
“Just to relax her,” January clarified. “They want her conscious for the tests, just not so tense.”
“Nice big shot.” She made an injection motion with her fingers before she tapped them against Cruz’s chest. “You’re pretty.”
Sean snorted. January smacked him. Cruz’s face went hot. Even as he took hold of her hand and kissed the back of her fingers. “I don’t suppose you saw the car that hit you?”
“Yep. Big. Big car. So big.” She started to hum. “Got a picture. After it hit me. I clicked it with my phone.” She seemed to focus for a moment, just long enough for the fear she must have been feeling at the time to flash in her eyes. In that instant, Cruz felt such overwhelming rage he had to take a deep breath as he held on to her. “Do you still have my phone?”
“I do. I need your face.”
Tatum laughed. “He needs my face,” she said to her sister, who was clinging to Sean and clearly torn between laughing and lecturing. “Here you go. Cheese!” She grinned and tried to keep her eyes open as Cruz held her phone up to unlock it. Once he did, he quickly disabled that feature so he could access her call log and photos. “Okay, yeah, got it here. It’s blurry.” He winced. “But I’ll get it to our techs. I can just make out a few of the...” He trailed off, the buzz of realization clouding his mind. Son of a—He recognized that car. It was the same SUV that had been parked outside the loading bay the night she’d been shoved in the freezer.
“They’ve got her scheduled for a CT scan,” January said. “But it’s going to be a while. If it comes back clear they’ll send her home.”
“No other injuries?” Cruz asked as Tatum continued to hum and wave her hand in the air as if she was conducting an orchestra. He pressed a hand against her shoulder, needing, wanting to feel the warmth of her body.
“She’s a bit battered and will be sore for a few days. She’ll need help at the restaurant.”
“Can’t keep her from going back, I suppose,” Sean said.
Both Cruz and January snorted, and in that moment, seemed to bond. “She’s got a bigwig food critic coming in on Friday night,” Cruz said. “We’ll be lucky if she isn’t at True twenty-four seven until then. That said, I’ve got help on standby. True will be fine if she needs a couple of days off. Since she’s going to be out—” h
e glanced down and saw Tatum playing Itsy Bitsy Spider with her fingers “—I’d like to run this car’s info down.”
“Why don’t you two go and do what you do? I’ll stay here,” January said. “I’m going to wait until morning to call Mom and Simone. Neither will be happy about me waiting, but the ER wouldn’t appreciate being taken over by Coltons. Go on.” She patted Sean’s shoulder. “We’ll talk later.”
“Okay.” Sean tipped up her face and kissed her. “I’ll be back soon and I’ll bring coffee.”
“And a bagel? I’d love a blueberry bagel.”
“You got it. Cruz?”
“No bagel needed,” Cruz joked as the two of them left. “But I’ll take an assist with the lab.”
CHAPTER 12
“Cruz is going to kill you when he finds out you helped me escape.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got work to do.” January finished tucking Tatum into the corner of her sofa not at her condo, but at her ranch house in Livingston. “You know we should call Mom, right?”
“And tell her what exactly?” Tatum had been waiting for this ever since the ER doctor came in to tell her the CT scan was clear, but that she was to take it easy for the next twenty-four hours at least and not overdo it when she did go back to work. “It was an accident and I’m fine. Let her and Aunt Fallon keep decorating. I can’t deal with either of them hovering right now.”
“You’re mostly fine and it wasn’t an accident,” January retorted from the kitchen behind Tatum. “Stop pretending like it was.”
She wasn’t pretending exactly. She just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with the fact someone had tried to kill her. Tatum didn’t respond to January’s comment. Her sister was puttering in the kitchen. Her kitchen. She gnashed her teeth. She didn’t like anyone in her space.
Space was one thing in abundance in this place. As cozy and practical as the condo near True was, the ranch house was her refuge, where she went to rejuvenate and relax and tune the rest of the world out. Her family knew this, which was probably why when she’d been discharged from the hospital, January had driven her here.
She loved the open floor plan of the old house. She’d had it completely remodeled before she’d moved in, eliminating the walls between the living room, kitchen and dining area, and replacing walled-in windows with big plate glass ones. The front third of the house was now one big open space outlined with glass and overlooking the drought-resistant and low-maintenance landscaping. She didn’t get here as often as she liked, but when she did come out, she didn’t want to spend what time she had puttering in the yard.
Besides, other than herbs, she wasn’t the greatest gardener.
“Maybe we should compromise and call Simone,” January said right before a clatter of pots and pans had Tatum’s nerves fraying. “Oops. Sorry. I’ll just...” Crash. Bang. Cursing followed by a triumphant “aha!” had Tatum shaking her still sore head. Maybe she should have accepted that prescription for painkillers after all. “I got it.”
“Got what?”
“Never mind. You just stay there and relax.”
Having someone in her kitchen was not relaxing. In any way.
“Did you let Sean know where we’d be?”
“Considering I absconded with his car, I didn’t have a choice. Not that he deserves me telling him anything right now. Oh, good. You have milk. And bread! Score.”
“I haven’t been here in over a week, so if you’re looking for produce—”
“Being run down in a parking lot does not call for salad. And you changed the subject.”
“Yes, I did.” It was bad enough January had been brought into the situation; she didn’t want her sister or mother anywhere near what was happening with True. She’d tell them. Once she was on the other side of things. When January started humming, a signal to Tatum that she was done talking for the moment, Tatum snuggled down in the corner, tucked her feet in and gazed into the dormant fireplace.
Strange. An odd pang struck, and she realized, as his face flashed in her mind, that she missed Cruz. Seeing him in the parking lot had erased a lot of the rising fear, and when he’d finally arrived at the hospital, the anxiety and worry had faded, as well. She’d seen the concern in his beautiful eyes, felt the worry in him when she’d clung to him. There was a gentleness she didn’t particularly accept, and seeing it on full display had broken away whatever pockets of resistance still dwelled inside of her. In the space of a few days he’d managed to slip into her world, into her life, into her thoughts, and—she dared to think—into her heart.
She jerked herself awake, unaware she’d dozed off. The very idea she may very well be falling in love—with a cop, no less—might just keep her awake for months.
“Spooked?” January was standing over her, a steaming mug in one hand and a plate of bread in the other. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s that?” Tatum sat up and accepted the mug, sniffed at the contents. The familiar combination of chocolate, cinnamon and cardamom soothed her senses and her thoughts. “You remembered.”
“Your cure-all? Of course. Both Simone and I are experts at it now.” January sat on the other end of the sofa and set the plate down between them. “How many broken hearts, broken dates, failed exams and late-night gossip sessions have we had over your hot chocolate and Simone’s cinnamon toast?”
“Too many to count.” Tatum sipped, swallowed and sighed. The warmth slid down her throat and spread through her body. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well, after this your cupboards are bare.” January drank her own cocoa and took a piece of toast. She grinned and laughed. “I used way too much butter.” She licked her fingers.
“Nothing wrong with that.” The sound of crunching bread and the aroma of hot, spicy sugar had Tatum claiming her own piece. Definitely too much butter. And it was delicious.
“So.” January rested her arm along the back of the sofa. “You and Cruz. What’s going on there?”
“He’s working a case. He needed my help.”
“Uh-huh. Not what I meant. I mean you and Cruz. Am I right in thinking the Colton sisters might have a type?”
Tatum continued eating her toast, crust first, saving the buttery, sugary goodness for last. “I like him. A lot. I also like to think the attraction is mutual.”
January kicked her with her foot. “You don’t have to think. I saw it. He cares about you. I’m not sure he’s happy about it, but he cares.”
Tatum shrugged. “He’s got a lot riding on this case.” She had to remind herself of that. The case was important to him. His partner’s life—and impending death—was important to him. She could only hope he understood how important True was to her. She’d certainly told him enough times. “We’ll see what happens once it’s over.”
January frowned. “You mean you two haven’t—”
“No, we haven’t.” Now it was Tatum’s turn to kick, and when she did, she felt a twinge of pain in her leg and hip. “It’s complicated.”
“You do know complicated sex is the best kind of sex, right?”
“I’ve been hit by a car, Jany. I don’t need a sex talk from my baby sister.”
“Obviously you do. You want to know what I’ve learned being with Sean?”
“In the entire month you’ve been with him?” Tatum fluttered her lashes. “Oh, do tell.”
Her teasing didn’t elicit a smile, not much of one anyway.
“There’s no guarantee of tomorrow.” January’s eyes shifted and it seemed as if a curtain she’d been keeping in place dropped away. “Being a cop...it’s scary for the people who love them. The people they love. I never know if when my phone rings it’ll be his CO telling me he’s been hurt.” She swallowed hard. “Or worse. And I get that there are plenty of people in the world who feel that way about their loved ones, for various reasons. Nobody ever knows, but I don’t take one minute
I have with him for granted, Tate.” She held up her hand and with her thumb, spun the ring Tatum hadn’t noticed until now on her finger. “That’s why I’m going to marry him.”
“Seriously?” Thoughts of hot chocolate and toast abandoned, she grabbed her sister’s hand with both of hers to get a closer look. “Oh, January. It’s beautiful.” Tears misted her eyes as she looked at the delicate collection of smaller diamonds circling a solitare. Unpretentious, simple and perfectly suited.
“He found it in an estate sale. The woman who had it before was married to her first love for over sixty years.” January sighed. “Beneath that cop heart lies a romantic.” Tatum’s brow lifted and her sister laughed. “Maybe deep down. But my reasoning stands. I’m not going to waste one single second and I plan to take advantage of him being crazy about me every chance I can.”
“Translation, you jump him when he walks in the door.” Despite her sister’s obvious joy, there was still a trace of concern. It wouldn’t be evident to everyone, just to those who knew January Colton best. Wanting to ease her sister’s worry, she reached out her hand. “Sean’s a good guy, Jany.”
“He really is. And from what I can see, Cruz is, as well. You could have died, you know.”
Tatum drew in a deep breath. “Jany—”
“You’re sitting here worrying if his job might be too dangerous for you to deal with when he was the one who got the call last night you’d been hurt. None of us gets a pass on the future. We’ve learned that the hard way. If we can lose Dad in the blink of an eye, anything can happen. If you want to be with Cruz, if you want to take that chance, that swing at happiness, take it.”
“You think?”
“I really do.” January drank more cocoa. “You know what else I think? Pretty soon the Chicago PD is going to be overrun by Colton women.”
Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021 Page 17