by Julie Miller
She bombarded him with questions before he could decide on his next plan of action. “Why did you make me afraid of you? Why did you kidnap me? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
That clever little minx. She’d cut herself loose from the duct tape he’d bound her wrists and ankles with last night. And while he couldn’t stop the grin of admiration from hooking the corner of his mouth, he wasn’t about to get her more involved with the mess that was his life right now than she already was. “It’s complicated.”
“Oh, I understand complicated. Why didn’t you tell me you were a cop?” She leaned with him to keep them face-to-face when he tucked his empty weapon into the back of his jeans. “I would have helped you. I wouldn’t have put up such a fuss. I thought you were a fugitive from the law—a drug dealer or a hit man. I was thinking of ways I could disable you long enough for me to get away. I almost sewed up a dirty wad of gauze in your wound to create a sepsis. If the pain and discomfort didn’t slow you down, the resulting blood infection would eventually kill you.”
She had plans to sabotage his injury? “Did you do that?”
“No. I took an oath to help people, not hurt them.” So she had the brains to think like a survivalist, but she lacked the killer instinct to ensure her freedom by whatever means were available to her. That still gave him a slight edge over her because she had a heart and a conscience that restricted her actions, while he was willing to do whatever was necessary to complete his mission. “You should have told me the truth instead of bullying me. I grew up with cops. I understand the dangers they face. My brother’s a cop. My sister Emilia is married to one.”
He’d snatch that magazine of bullets right now if he didn’t think the room would start spinning again at the sudden movement. Nash didn’t like feeling weak like this. He didn’t like having his secrets exposed. And as much as he appreciated her resourcefulness, he didn’t like that his hostage had turned the tables on him. He blinked her chocolate-brown eyes into clearer focus and let his gaze sweep down the clingy lines of her sweater and jeans. Nice. He’d been aware of those breasts and hips from the moment he’d pinned her body beneath his in the snow. But the rosy pink lips, adorned with nothing but accusation and shine, made him hungry for something more than food.
Priorities, Nash. He corrected the errant thought that warmed his blood. A man in survival mode didn’t have time for fantasies like wondering what a woman would taste like beneath his kiss. At least she hadn’t taken his gun or stolen another one from his go bag to aim at him. And he’d just have to take her word that she hadn’t booby-trapped his wound to hasten his death. “What are you, a pickpocket?”
“I’ve developed certain skills over the years,” she explained. “I’m the youngest of five children. I never could outmuscle AJ or outsmart Emilia and my sisters. So I developed a knack for being sneaky. I’d pocket a piece of a jigsaw puzzle or steal a couple of Mama’s cookies so I could make sure I had my share of whatever they were doing before they were done.”
Nash tapped his left front pocket, still trying to get his brain up to speed on the shifting situation. The cell phone was still there, nestled right next to the promised land. Could he have slept through her taking it off him? Had she already called 911 or turned him in to the brother or brother-in-law at KCPD she kept throwing at him? “How long have you been loose?”
“I waited a couple of hours until I was sure you were in a deep sleep. Then I crawled to the bathroom, got the scissors out of my sewing kit and cut myself free.” She lifted her hand to the tiny pink welts and bruising that dotted her cheek. “I didn’t realize how bad it would hurt to pull tape off my skin. The rest were easier.”
“I tried to tape it to your clothes, not your skin.” Feeling a pang of remorse for her getting hurt interfering with his annoyance, Nash instinctively reached out to touch his fingertips to the spot. A muscle quivered beneath the brush of his fingers, and her cool skin warmed. “I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t exactly cooperating when you were restraining me.”
“It’s my fault, Peewee. Don’t apologize or make excuses.” What was it about good people getting hurt when he was around? Snatching his hand away, Nash pushed to his feet. And wobbled. Teresa immediately stood up to help him. He savored a moment of her steadying strength tucked to his side, then took advantage of her switching the badge and bullets to one hand by grabbing the magazine from her loose grip.
“Hey!”
He stepped away and pulled the gun from his belt, reloading it. Reclaiming a little more advantage. “I need my bag.”
But turning around to survey the room forced him to grab the nearest bedpost as everything swayed.
“What am I going to do with you? Sometimes you really piss me off. Sometimes I feel sorry for you, and sometimes I even kind of like you. I don’t understand you.”
She’d get over it. “Where’s my bag?”
Despite a sotto voce curse, her hand was at his elbow again. “The dizziness is probably from blood loss and the fact that you haven’t eaten anything for at least fourteen hours. I heated up some soup. It’s my mama’s chicken soup recipe—the best thing you can put in your stomach when you’re not feeling a hundred percent.”
“You made soup?” Now the smell of herbs and garlic made sense. His mouth watered at the deliciously homey aroma drifting through the apartment. Embarrassed by the answering grumble in his stomach when he was trying to be the tough guy and throw a little intimidation around, he searched the room for a clock. “How long have I been out?”
“About twelve hours.” He pushed away her helping hand and staggered toward his bag near her dresser. “If you sit back down or come to the kitchen, I’ll fix you a bowl.”
“I need to get dressed.”
She hurried past him and planted herself between him and the go bag. “You’re running a low-grade fever. It may be your body’s reaction to the hypothermia and trauma you went through yesterday. But it could also mean there’s an infection setting in.”
“I thought you said you didn’t tamper with my wound.”
“I didn’t.” She tipped her face up to his, her eyes flashing with temper. “You’re managing that side effect all by yourself.”
“I’m not going to any hospital.” He watched her open those bow-shaped lips to argue. The desire to bend his head and silence that sassy mouth with his hit him like a punch to the gut. He must have a fever to forget for one moment the urgency of his mission. Instead of listening to his body, Nash snatched his badge from her hand and ignored both her arguments and that sirenlike pull she had on him. He tucked the wallet with his badge into the pocket beside his phone and reached down to pick up the bag.
But the moment he gritted his teeth and struggled to sling its heavy weight onto his shoulder, Teresa was there to help. She plucked the straps from his hand and carried it to the bed, where she set it on the rumpled blanket and unzipped it.
Nash had to slowly switch course to follow her. “Did you call anyone?”
She scooted away when he stepped up beside her to pull out a white T-shirt. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she was keeping her distance as he retrieved a snap-front Western shirt and gingerly started to dress in the clean clothes.
“You need a winter coat if you’re going out,” she groused, turning her head when he dropped his pants to pull on a fresh pair of briefs.
“I’m not staying here.”
Nash pulled out his socks and sat on the edge of the bed. “Did you call anyone?” he repeated. He needed to know exactly how much lead time, if any, he had before this place would be swarming with KCPD officers or something worse.
“You conveniently destroyed all my phones, remember?” Her gaze lifted from the cord sticking out of the pocket of the jeans he wore, where he’d stashed the burner phone. “And I didn’t want to get that close to you.”
<
br /> “You didn’t call 911 on me? Didn’t call big brother?” Bending over made him dizzy. Pulling his knee up to his chest to tug on one stupid sock nearly wore him out. Talk about being a sitting duck.
“No, Charlie. Charles? Agent Nash? What should I call you? Let me.” With a noisy sigh, she dropped to her knees in front of him to help him push up his pant legs and put on his socks.
Hell. In addition to escaping and cooking and going through his things, she’d washed and dried her long hair. The long ponytail that fell down the middle of her back was dark and shiny like a bay horse’s well-brushed coat. Double hell. He should be worried about the fact he hadn’t heard the water running in the next room or awakened when she’d pulled those jeans and that figure-hugging sweater from a drawer or closet in here—not wondering if her hair was as soft to the touch as her skin had been.
And he damn sure shouldn’t be wondering if she’d bumped those compact yet decadent curves against him when she’d been robbing him of his ammunition. Even though she’d drawn the line at rummaging through his pockets, she had to have practically lain on top of him to reach over him to get the gun his fingers had been touching all night. At least, he thought he’d kept his weapon beside him. But he was quickly learning there was little he could predict about this woman.
Again he wondered why he couldn’t have stuck himself with a meeker, more amenable captive to stitch him up and hide him for a few hours. Stupid luck. Nurse Teresa wasn’t like any woman he’d been involved with before. A man in his position should have minded his misfortune a little more than he did.
“Nash. Everybody calls me Nash.” He pointed to the end of the bed, reminding them both who had the upper hand—and the loaded gun—now. “Boots.”
“You’re in no shape to walk out of here. And you don’t have a car.” She picked up his Justin boots and helped him pull them onto his feet. But she stopped in the middle of tugging his jeans over the shaft of his left boot. “Unless you plan to steal mine?” She tilted her face to his, her cheeks flooding with heat. “You’re stealing my car?” Then she was standing up, backing away. “I am reporting you. I was dumb to think you needed a second chance. I unloaded the electronics from my armoire, so I can go anytime I want to. I think I can outrun you in the shape you’re in.”
“Wait.” She spun toward the door, but Nash grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. She landed on his lap.
“Let go of me.” He grunted when she put her hand against his bandaged thigh and tried to push away. “Sorry.”
But his pain didn’t stop her from scrambling to get away. She just changed tactics, swatting a fist at his good shoulder but avoiding doing the damage she should have by going after his injuries and freeing herself. Still, she was enough of a handful that Nash caught her flailing arms at her sides and pulled her against his chest. Anchoring her in place sapped his strength, but he refused to let her go. If she got away from him and made it to Mrs. Walker’s apartment or some other neighbor’s phone and brought the local cops down on him...
“Please, darlin’, I need you to stop.”
Please? Now who was lacking the killer instinct? Now her boots were aiming for his shins and the side of her hip kept brushing against his groin. You don’t have time for this. Tie her up again. Make her cooperate. You owe it to Tommy and Richter and Torres. “How much is your car worth?”
“What?” Curiosity made the twisting stop. She settled on top of his thighs and looked up at him as if this was some kind of embrace instead of a snare. “I don’t know. My brother’s the car nut. I bought it for a few thousand dollars when I graduated from nursing school and he put a new engine in it for me. I don’t know what he paid. It was a gift.”
Risking another bolt to the door, Nash released his grip on her waist to reach inside his bag and pull out his flash wad of rolled-up bills. Her eyes widened as he counted out ten hundreds and pushed the cash into her hand. “Is this enough to borrow it for twenty-four hours?”
Teresa jumped to her feet, tossing the money back at him as if it burned her fingers. “Oh, my God. You’re a dirty cop? How much money do you have in there?”
The sanctimonious accusation stung more than it should have. He retrieved the scattered bills and set them in a neat pile on her bed. “You ought to know. My badge was in the same pocket.”
“I was looking for another phone. I didn’t even touch the other pistol or shotgun or boxes of ammunition in there. Once I found your badge and that little black book...”
His contact book?
Any truce between them had just ended. He dove back into the bag. It wasn’t there. “Teresa?”
She realized her mistake a moment too late and darted toward the bedroom door. Nash was on his feet in an instant, lurching forward as the room tilted. Damn it. She could outrun him.
But even in his condition, she couldn’t outmuscle him. He looped his arm around the waist, lifting her off the floor. Yet he was too off balance still to simply hold her against him, so he let his momentum back her into the wall and trapped her there with his body. She braced her hands against his chest, defiantly tipping her chin. “Stop grabbing me, you big bully.”
But the contact book was nonnegotiable. “Uh-uh, darlin’. You’re not going anywhere. Where is it?”
“Stop doing that.”
He felt her up, patted her down, checked every pocket until he found the book tucked in the rear of her jeans and he pulled it out. He waved the leather book in her face. “Who did you call?”
“No one. You trashed all my phones and the cords were in your pants.
He wasn’t buying it. If she’d looked through the pages of names and notes and numbers, then she already knew too much. Cartel names. Notes about his team’s murders. A list of potential suspects masquerading as coworkers. Any one of whom might want him dead. The idea that she might already know too much made him sick to his stomach. “Some of the people who want me dead are in here. Who did you call?”
The tone of his voice changed from a threat to a very real concern. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt, pleading with him, and the struggles stopped. He hoped. Something was stirring behind his zipper, and it wasn’t the instinct to defend himself. He still held her suspended above the floor, his hips wedged into the cradle of hers. As he regained control of his fears, he realized his fingers had tunneled into the velvety length of her ponytail. Yes, it was as soft and thick as he’d imagined, it smelled cleaner than any horse he knew, and he was a fool to let this crazy heat she ignited in him distract him for even one moment.
“Teresa.” He let her toes slide to the floor but didn’t release her. “Whose name did you pull out of this book?”
Her fingertips pulsed against his chest. Was she afraid of him? Perhaps soothing the wounded beast? Was this the nurse trying to take care of him again? Or was she as vividly aware of each ragged exhale pushing their bodies against each other as he was? Was she just as baffled by the electricity arcing between them?
“Technically, I didn’t call anyone.”
“But...?”
She tilted her dark eyes up to his. “My internet comes through the cable line. I sent an email to the name with the star at the front of your book. Jesse Puente. I searched for his name online and it said he worked at the DEA like you do. So I emailed him.”
Nash dropped his forehead to hers and swore a blue streak. Then he pulled away from the grasp of her hands, arming himself, getting ready to leave. She clung to the wall beside the bedroom door but watched his every move. “He said you were a good cop. I’m an idiot for trusting him, aren’t I? I wanted to justify you kidnapping me, so I believed him. I took him at his word because I needed to make sense of everything my gut is telling me about you.”
Nash fastened his belt and holstered his gun. “What nonsense is your gut telling you?”
“That you’re
not really a bad guy. Even if you’re a bad cop, there has to be a good reason why you’ve made whatever choices you’ve made and why you have all that cash.” She pushed away from the wall and blocked his path again. “If you were really a criminal without a conscience, you’d have shot at me instead of that tree behind your truck last night. You wouldn’t have cared if the duct tape pulled my skin or stuck to my clothes. I think there’s good in you. Or believe me, I’d have been long gone before you woke up this morning.”
Chapter Six
I think there’s good in you.
Well, if that didn’t sound a lot like the counselors at the Texas boys ranch where Nash had grown up. He’d been so angry after his parents’ murders, resentful that he’d been stuck in some remote patch of sandy grassland filled with hard work and horse manure. He’d started and finished his share of fights and wrestled with his own vengeful tendencies enough that it was easy to draw on the experience of his youth whenever he needed to assume a less-than-savory undercover identity. The men and women who worked the land, ran the school and counseled the troubled boys and teens there had worked a miracle on him, inspiring him to get his act together to get through school and become a cop.
But every now and then—when his closest friends were being murdered, when innocent lives were being destroyed and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it, when the woman he loved said she couldn’t handle his life and walked away—those masochistic demons would reappear.
He’d need some time to process Teresa’s opinion of him. Seeing him as anything positive, as someone she might trust, was just wishful thinking on her part. He was on a mission to find out the truth about the traitor who’d gotten his team killed—or he was going to die trying. It was whatever he needed, when he needed it. His life was all about survival and hard choices right now—not sexual attraction or guilty consciences or idealistic guts that had the wrong impression about him. Nash was afraid there’d be more casualties like Tommy Delvecchio before he got to the truth. But as long as he got the job done, he didn’t care.