“She went rogue and thought she could take on the fiend on her own,” Chantel said drily, laying her head back against the pillow as it grew heavier.
“Max knew, though,” Meri said, and the look she gave her husband cut through to Chantel’s heart again. As it had the day they’d been in that same hospital, with Meri in the bed, after they’d found her stumbling half-dead outside the home where her ex-husband had beaten her. “He called Chantel, who called Wayne, and the three of them didn’t give up until they found me.”
Glancing at Colin, Chantel looked for any sign that he was proud of her, that he cared at all.
He was studying Max. And Wayne.
“Is Maria with the kids?” Chantel asked, referring to Wayne’s wife. It had to be close to midnight.
“Yes, and we aren’t going to stay long,” Max said with a glance over his shoulder, and then a raised eyebrow to Chantel.
“Not now that we know you aren’t here alone,” Meri added and with a grin turned to include Colin. “I understand now why you were asking me all those questions when you were over for dinner...”
Questions about being two people at once. About keeping her distance. Keeping her life straight.
“Chantel and my brother are seeing each other,” Julie said, her chin in the air. But she wasn’t looking at Chantel’s guests. She was looking straight at Colin.
He excused himself and left the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY
COLIN WAS ON the golf course Sunday morning when Julie texted him to let him know that she was headed to the hospital to get Chantel and take her home.
He thanked her for letting him know. Because he always liked to know where she was. And then concentrated on his shot. Focused. Kept his eye on the ball. Swung.
And took a penalty for hitting it in the water.
* * *
JULIE CHATTERED ALL the way home from the hospital. She explained that Colin wanted to be there to pick up Chantel, too, but that he’d had a business meeting he couldn’t avoid.
He was playing golf. He’d already told Chantel about the game he’d scheduled with a business owner he was courting for the firm.
Even if things had been good between them, she wouldn’t have expected him to cancel. She was perfectly fine. She shouldn’t even have stayed at the hospital overnight except that she’d been too tired to argue about it.
Asking Julie to drop her at the Landau so that she could collect her things, and her car—the department was arranging for the rental car to be picked up there—she thanked her for the ride and agreed to meet her for lunch the next day.
She teared up when Julie gave her an unexpected hug when she went to open her car door and get out.
This whole bump-on-the-head thing was really messing with her.
* * *
COLIN HAD NO intention of seeing Chantel Harris again. She’d done her job. He was grateful. Would have his assistant send her some candy or something along with a thank-you card and a check to cover the time she’d spent undercover without pay.
Wayne had filled him in on a few more of the details of the job after Colin had left her hospital room the night before to give them all privacy.
She’d had a job to do and she’d done it. Just as he would have done.
David Smyth Jr. was already in jail, having had his hand wound tended to in the emergency room the night before. Word was he was going to be staying there. Colin couldn’t ask for anything more.
And in the years to come, when he thought of Chantel, it would be with supreme gratitude for what she’d done for them.
Yes. He had it all neatly tied up and was ready to pack it all away to sit in the back of his memory bank, gathering dust.
The only reason he’d asked Julie for more detail about Chantel’s friend’s death, on the way home the night before, was because they’d all been talking about it in the hospital room. Max had been married to the woman who’d died.
He couldn’t imagine being him.
But as he put his clubs in his trunk and looked out to the ocean, deciding a Sunday afternoon sailing his yacht was just what he needed, he was suddenly struck with a vision on the incoming tide. Chantel at fourteen, fighting off a lecherous man she’d trusted.
She’d learned young how to take care of herself.
As had he.
And that there was no one else going to do it for her. That those she should be able to trust most weren’t trustworthy.
As had he.
She was a rock.
Until she was in his arms. Then she’d been a grown-up version of that fourteen-year-old girl. Just before her stepfather had walked into her room and closed the door.
He had no proof of that. Just as he’d had no proof that he couldn’t completely trust her all these weeks.
But he’d been right then.
And knew he was right now.
Just as he knew that he could never, ever be like her friend Max. He couldn’t sit at home, knowing she was out there...in danger...and do nothing.
He just wasn’t that man.
* * *
THE CAPTAIN HAD told Chantel to take as many days off as she wanted. By Sunday afternoon, she was ready to come back, and she called to tell him so.
He said she needed at a least week. She’d had no vacation since she’d been there and had been working two jobs for almost a month. Plus, she’d taken a fairly substantial bump to the head.
She said she’d be in as scheduled the next day.
He compromised with Wednesday.
Pissed, but knowing she was only going to hurt her cause if she argued, she hung up. Then she changed into black leggings and a short-sleeved Lycra shirt and went to the complex gym to work out.
A girl could only eat so much chocolate ice cream.
* * *
THE BOAT DIDN’T make it out of the harbor. Or even away from the dock. Colin boarded her. Did the pre-sail checks. He looked at the back deck and was reminded of Chantel Johnson standing there.
Remembered how much she’d meant to him.
And sat down. Feeling the boat bob on the water.
He’d fallen in love with a fantasy.
Johnson wasn’t going to be easy to forget.
* * *
TWO HOURS WAS about all she could do with only a treadmill and free weights to work with. With a soaked towel around her neck, Chantel headed back to her apartment in the cool afternoon sunshine.
Normally, on duty or not, she’d have noticed the man standing on the sidewalk outside her front door before she was almost upon him.
But nothing about her felt normal.
She only noticed him when she was about six yards away. In light gray chino pants and a short-sleeved light-colored shirt, he stood on cracked pavement and watched her approach.
She wanted to turn around and go the other way. And couldn’t slow her feet down.
Heart beating, she watched him right back. When she drew close enough, she looked him in the eye. “You want to come in?” she said.
Her place was an embarrassment compared to what he was used to. But it was neat. Clean. And she could afford the rent.
“Yes.”
He didn’t ask how she was. Didn’t comment on her sweaty state.
He looked over her body in the revealing workout clothes. And her heart skipped a beat.
* * *
IF SHE’D MEANT to drive him crazy with desire for a woman who didn’t exist, by excusing herself to the shower the second they got inside the door of her tiny apartment, she’d succeeded.
Colin sat on her brown tweed sofa, acknowledging to himself that he liked the way things were arranged on the entertainment center across from him.
“I just had to stop by.” He wa
s ready the second she came out of the bedroom, which was only feet away from where he was sitting. “To make certain that you were okay, and to thank you again...”
She’d left the bedroom door open when she’d gone in to shower. He was fairly certain some of the heat he was feeling was the steam.
A fresh soapy scent came with her into the room.
“You smell like Johnson.” He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. But he was still a bit off his game.
“She smelled like me.”
In sweats and a T-shirt, with her hair in a ponytail and no makeup, she curled up on the opposite end of the sofa, tucking bare feet in between the cushions.
It touched him...the way she tucked those toes.
He’d kissed those toes.
“I’d offer you a glass of wine, or a beer, but I don’t have any.”
“You got Scotch?” She’d said in New York she drank Scotch. Had that been Chantel Harris? Or make-believe?
“Yeah, but I save it for...well, anyway, I don’t drink on Sunday afternoons.”
“Are you being deliberately difficult?”
She didn’t even blink. “I don’t think so.”
“I fell in love with a fantasy.” There. It was done. He could move on now.
“Yeah.” Johnson would have said, “Yes,” with those same lips.
His penis was growing, just like it had the first second he’d laid eyes on Johnson.
“So what was real?”
She shook her head, the swinging ponytail distracting him. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“We spent four weeks together. Was anything you told me during that time real?”
Frowning, she picked at her fingernail. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was trying to get it to come off. “I only lied to you when I absolutely had to, Colin.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I guess because you haven’t asked it in a way that tells me what you want to know.”
“Did you feel...anything...between us?”
“Beyond great sex, you mean? That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? You want to know if, when I slept with you, I prostituted myself for the job?” Her tone was unfamiliar. Harsh.
The fourteen-year-old girl after her stepfather had entered her room.
“No. I was there. You weren’t faking.” And maybe that was why he was with her now. He sure as hell couldn’t figure out another reason. “I want to know if, when you said you’d like to be exclusive with me, you were saying it because of the job or because of me.”
“Both.”
He wasn’t sure what to do with that answer. Or even why he’d felt compelled to ask the question.
He remembered that first night they’d made love, before it had gone that far. They’d been sitting on the couch, and she’d started to cry...
“Those tears, they couldn’t have belonged to Johnson,” he said aloud.
Chantel stared at him hard. “What are you doing, Colin? Why are you here? What do you want from me?” Rapid-fire questions issued as a challenge.
“I can’t just walk away.”
“I’m not rich. I hate makeup. I live in a one-bedroom apartment and work for a living.”
“I like your apartment.” It reminded him of her hotel room. Which was a ludicrous thought, until he realized that what he looked for in that room was anything that spoke of her, and what had stood out to him was her neatness.
The apartment wasn’t much larger than her hotel room had been and was just as neat.
“It feels good, sitting here,” he said when she remained silent. She wasn’t kicking him out.
Johnson would have been too polite to do so. But Harris? He had a feeling she’d have him out on his ear in seconds if that was what she wanted.
“Julie’s not going to let you go,” he warned her. “You have a friend for life there.”
“So does she.” Chantel didn’t miss a beat. “I already told her so.”
He was in way over his head.
“If I asked you out again, would you go?”
“I work second shift a lot.”
His heart started to pound blood to his nether region in a rush. “When’s your next day off?” He ignored the at-work part. For now. He was just trying to understand something.
“I’m on mandatory leave until Wednesday.” The way she ran her tongue over her lips was not a mistake. It couldn’t be.
“You want to have dinner with me tonight?”
“I can’t do the whole Johnson dress-up thing.” Crossing her arms, she pushed her breasts upward between them. Consciously?
Through narrowed eyes he watched her, not sure what in the hell he was doing. Not sure what she was doing, either.
Those eyes...he’d watched them move behind closed lids as she’d slept. Had wondered what she was dreaming. Hoped that if it was good, it was about him.
Two nights ago that body had been in his bed. And while it had been fantastic, there’d been no fantasy there. It had been very real.
“Can I spend the night here tonight?” It was a bold move.
Harris seemed to need them. Or maybe it was just that he did.
“I haven’t changed my sheets in almost a month.”
He got her drift. She was the housekeeper here.
“You haven’t slept in them much, either.” She’d either been at the hotel or in his bed. He knew because he’d been with her.
“I’m not going to be a rich man’s plaything.”
“I don’t see myself ever being married to a cop. One more night. That’s all I’m asking. To say goodbye.”
“At least we understand each other.”
He nodded. So did she. And then she asked what he wanted on his pizza.
He didn’t dare tell her he had no idea.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HE WAS HER “MAX.” Chantel had known that weeks ago. He wasn’t going to stay with her. She knew that, too.
And understood.
Just like she couldn’t be Johnson for him.
But he was her happiness. And she was going to hope that they’d always at least be friends.
He stayed at her place Sunday night. In a mixture of Johnson’s clothes and her own—she left her hiking boots at home—with her hair down, the fake nails off, but a little bit of makeup on, Chantel spent Monday night with Julie and Colin.
Just one more night. To ease out of things and into friendship.
They talked about David Smyth Jr. and about Leslie’s shocking revelation, which had been kind of lost in all of the drama of Saturday night’s shooting and arrest.
“James told me something, today,” Colin said as the three of them sat over a game of cards that Chantel and Jill used to play with some of the other recruits.
He was looking at Chantel but not with a lover’s gaze. And she knew it was beginning—the real-life part. She drew. Played a couple of cards and had to discard without making much progress. “What’s that?”
“He checked with Paul Reynolds and found out that his sealed juvenile record had been accessed.”
Julie’s gaze darted between the two of them. It was her turn. She wasn’t taking it.
“We were investigating a potentially dangerous, high-risk situation, Colin. It was not only well within our rights, but if we hadn’t done so, if we’d blown off the reports that were coming in and something had happened to either Ryder or Leslie...” She was spitting her words out. She wished a little more of Johnson’s decorum had worn off on her.
“Hey.” He held up his free hand. “We are all extremely glad that you went to the lengths you did.”
“You have no idea,” Julie said. �
��I no longer have to live with the fact that the bastard got away with what he did to me. I’m going to be free to attend all of the social functions I’d love to go to. But you also just gave me back a huge sense of security I hadn’t even realized I’d lost. I feel like I can trust the police again. I know that I am protected...”
“Never doubt that we are extremely grateful to you. Or think that we aren’t aware of the sacrifices you made...”
She wished Julie would just take her turn and that Colin would, too. But since they didn’t, Harris just blurted right out, “It’s fine, you two, really. Now either let it go, or I’m out of here.” Were they being friendly because they thought they owed her?
She’d gather her things and leave. She wasn’t a charity case. She didn’t need handouts. Of money or friendship. Colin had already written her a check to cover the time she’d been undercover. She’d ripped it up and thrown it back at him.
He’d had a good dose of Harris then.
Julie’s horrified expression made Chantel ashamed of herself.
“I only brought it up because I wanted to tell you that he told me about what was in that report,” Colin said, switching her attention to him. “He said he’s actually relieved to have me know, to have someone know, after keeping his secret all these years.”
“What’s in the report?” Julie asked. And then said, “Oh, wait, you can’t tell me, right? Either one of you?” She looked at Chantel. “Because you’re a cop.” And then at Colin. “And James swore you to secrecy.” She took her turn.
Colin nodded. And said to Chantel, “He said that the pressure of the false allegations from Ryder’s school was really getting to him. Because what happened in the past...was a total accident. A couple of kids playing. He’s lived not only with the guilt of that his entire life, but with the knowledge that he could hurt someone. He’s always taken such extra care to be gentle with Ryder and Leslie, and yet it seemed to be blowing up in his face, anyway...”
He played every card in his hand, drew more then turned three in a row from his pile and finally discarded.
“Did he tell Leslie?” Chantel asked.
Love by Association Page 25