by Ashley Ladd
Dwight stroked his tri-colored goatee, puckering his lips, stretching them, and puckering them again. “I’m still quite a stud, aren’t I?”
Dwight slid a sly glance at an attractive older blonde in the stands. He winked at Cole and thrust the shirts into his arms. “See that little filly over yonder? She’s been giving me the eye ever since I rode in. I think I’ll just mosey on over and give her one of my business cards and offer her a ten-percent discount on my special services. Be a good son and pass out the shirts to your team for your pa, would ya?”
“Sure, Pops,” Cole said, resigned. His mind whirled. The Toilet King planned to take over the metropolitan area. He’d never hear the end of it at the precinct. His life would be a living hell. He shuffled over to his team, dreading passing out their new team shirts. He could just hear the jokes.
Brad met him halfway and snatched the shirts. “Get a move on, buddy boy. We’ll be done with the game before we get our shirts.”
That was the idea. Cole smiled tightly. “Have a ball.”
He sought out Haley, needing her comfort. Looping an arm around her waist, he buried his face in her fragrant hair. “Let’s run far, far away from here.” Like Tahiti or the South Pole where no one had ever heard of the Toilet King.
She twisted around in his loose embrace and put her arms around him, leaning her cheek against his. “I think your father’s sweet.”
“Sweet?” Cole lifted his head and stared at his father who was flirting with the blonde. Sweet like a skunk. “That man is dangerous.”
“He’s cute.” She teased Cole’s lips with feathery-light kisses. “Like his son.” She traced his jaw with her fingertip. “I wonder how you’d look with a goatee. I wonder if it’d be piebald, too.”
“That’s something you’ll never find out, babe.” Cole scowled, glancing at their teammates to see if they were watching. As tempting as her kisses were, this was not the place.
Brad snickered, and then pointed at the field. “If you don’t mind.”
Cole flipped him off. “Mind your own business.”
His chin still itched at the horrid thought Haley had planted in his mind. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Only artists and old codgers wore goatees.
She pulled a frown, and then murmured against his mouth. “I bet it would tickle…”
“Nymph,” he accused, sucking her lower lip into his mouth. “Don’t even go there. We’ll be here for hours.”
“Excruciating hours,” she agreed, gazing deeply into his eyes. Hers sparkled so incredibly blue in the bright southern sun that he almost drowned in their brilliance.
“No fraternization during the tournament!” Brad waved them over to the dugout. He tossed a shirt in Haley’s face, so that she had to raise protective hands to fend it off. “You, put on your shirt. Chop-chop.”
Then he pointed to Cole. “Yo, Toilet Prince. Warm up the pitcher. Blondie’s warmed up enough.”
Cole snarled at his ex-best friend. Through gritted teeth, he hissed, “Don’t call me that.” Under his breath, he grumbled, “Can’t they come up with anything new?”
Haley stuck her tongue out at Brad. “Yes, Pharaoh.” She winked at Cole and sashayed away, swinging the shirt jauntily.
A motorcycle putted up to Field Five’s fence, capturing Cole’s attention. His heart jolted and he was afraid to look up lest he see his mystery woman beckoning him. What would Haley think?
The engine idled and he forced himself to look up. Sure enough, a woman with long brown hair straddled the bike. Mesmerized, he stared, forgetting that a softball hurtled at him. It hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him backward and knocking the wind out of him. Stars swam before his eyes and his head thumped. He groaned as he struggled to sit up. “This can’t be happening.”
“Cole!” Haley rushed to him and knelt by his side. Her fingers shuffled through his hair, massaging his scalp, checking for bumps. “What happened? Can you talk?”
He rubbed the back of his neck as he stretched to his full height. “I, uh…” He almost choked on his words when the mystery woman sauntered toward them.
“You okay?” The brunette’s gaze raked over him with curiosity but no other emotion, then clashed with Haley’s. Although the woman’s hair resembled the female crusader’s locks, her face looked different. Yet it still looked familiar.
Haley’s eyes widened, the early afternoon sun reflecting in them. “I don’t know yet. What are you doing here?” she hissed, clearly unhappy the other woman had shown up.
Confusion flooded Cole. Did Haley know his mystery woman? Could she have been the one who fed the other one information about him? Puzzled, he couldn’t figure out how the pieces fit together. “Do you know each other?”
The brunette flashed a bright smile and stuck out her hand. “I’m Haley’s friend, Sher. Remember me from the other night?”
Which other night did she mean? “In the alley?”
Both women looked at him as if he were daft. Haley’s eyes were masked as if she were angry. Mirth danced in her friend’s eyes as her lips twisted.
“No, at Haley’s apartment. I think you came up to see her sketches.” Sher’s brows wiggled. “I was throwing popcorn at the TV. Remember me now?”
Enlightenment dawned over Cole. Now he knew her face! “You had red hair, and it was shorter.”
Haley gulped, her eyes even wider as she listened intently. Her blonde curls gleamed almost silver in the bright sunlight. She inched back, but remained silent.
Sher looked to Haley for guidance, fear shining in her eyes now, too.
He thought aloud, talking more to himself than to them. “How can your hair not only change color, but grow this long, this fast?” He ticked off the days since he’d been at Haley’s apartment on one hand. “Your hair grew awfully fast in two days’ time. Miraculous.”
He stared at the bike, recognizing it as the one Catwoman had ridden.
Haley petrified before him, barely breathing, giving him the opportunity to search her face. Her glasses made it hard to see her features clearly.
“Take off your glasses,” he demanded, the awful truth hitting him squarely in his heart. When she didn’t move a muscle or even twitch, he reiterated his order, his voice practically a growl. “Let me see your face.”
“Hey, Cole! I finally got the forensics report!” Eddie shouted. “You ain’t never gonna believe who your mystery lady is. It’s Hal—!”
“Haley,” Cole and Haley spoke in unison, one voice furious, one voice sad and trapped.
Painfully, as if in slow motion, she removed her large frames, revealing her exquisite face. But it wasn’t only her face. It was his mystery woman’s face, except for the blue eyes and blonde hair. A couple of puzzle pieces were still missing. “You don’t have an identical twin, do you? One with brown eyes and brown hair?”
Haley shook her head, her features suspiciously devoid of all expression. “No.” Her feet shifted back and forth.
His glance strayed to Sher’s hair, which he now noted, looked too perfect, too sleek to be natural. He’d never seen it under bright sunlight before and noticed how it did not have any highlights like natural hair should. He reached out and fingered it. “Is that a wig?”
Sher nodded and lifted her chin high. Her nostrils flared. Heat shot from her eyes. “I wear lots of wigs. So do other women. Is it a crime?”
“No, not a crime.” Cole had no trouble envisioning Haley in the wig. It was a match. He didn’t need a police artist to illustrate it for him to know without a doubt. “But a particular brunette wig could be evidence of impersonating a police man. Interference in official police business.”
He reached out to touch the hair, rubbing a strand between his fingers, making a textile match. “Was that an admission that this is the same wig worn by a particular lady motorcycle rider who interfered in police business and who seduced me at the police masquerade?”
Haley licked her lips with the tip of her tongue. “So which am I in troub
le for? Interfering in police business or seducing you?”
His gaze moved between Haley and Sher. “There’s only one thing I can’t figure out. How did you get brown eyes?”
“Did you ever hear the story of how David O. Selznick wanted Vivien Leigh to play the part of Scarlett O’Hara, but Vivien had blue eyes, not green? Scarlett had to have green eyes because that’s how Margaret Mitchell had written her. But Vivien Leigh was the best one for the part…” Haley rattled on, obviously agitated, not making any sense to him, flailing her hands with a very Italian flair.
Cole couldn’t follow her logic so he gazed at Sher for help, exasperation warring with fury. “Do you know what she’s babbling about?”
“She means that David made Vivien wear colored contact lenses to play the part of Scarlett. Colored contact lenses. Get it?”
“Colored contact lenses? Of course!” Duh! Glaring, he smacked his forehead. He felt like ten different kinds of an idiot. Swearing under his breath, he turned back to Haley and kicked dust at the fence. As he stomped off, he muttered, “You made me out for a fool. How could you?”
“Cole. Let me explain…” Haley ran after him and put a restraining hand on his arm.
Laughing without humor at himself, furious with her, he wrenched away his arm. “Where’d you learn to ride a motorcycle like that? Or do karate? You must think I’m a real moron not recognizing you. You had your laugh. Find someone else to hoodwink.”
“Where you goin’, Fischer?” Brad yelled, chasing Cole as he marched off the field, his cleats tearing up clomps of dirt. “You can’t leave now. The game’s starting!”
Cole counted more than ten people on the team. They wouldn’t forfeit. Then he changed his mind and returned to the dugout, steaming. He could release his aggression better with a bat and a ball. Heaven help the other team. He had no mercy left.
Haley spoke in his ear, startling him. “Please let me explain.” She clung to the fence, standing on the spectator side of the field. What she was doing out there instead of in here with the team, he had no clue. But then he’d given up trying to figure her out. Some things, some women, weren’t meant to be understood, and she was one of them.
“You had plenty of chances to explain. When did you plan to tell me?” His heart aching as if it had been stabbed with a knife, he glared. “In front of news crews? On our fiftieth wedding anniversary?”
“I’ve never heard you sound so bitter,” she said sourly. “How do you think I felt?” She rattled the fence, her voice raising an octave, attracting the attention of their coworkers.
He swore under his breath and mouthed, “Not here.” He didn’t want everyone to know his private business. He had to work with these people.
Either she couldn’t read his lips or she didn’t care who heard her. “You can’t deny you cheated on me with her. That you drooled over her.”
What was the crazy woman talking about now? He frowned, utterly befuddled. Was she trying to drive him out of his mind? First with passion and now with this nonsense? He whipped off his cap, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and raked unsteady fingers through his short hair. “Drooled over who?”
“Her!” Haley shoved the fence with vengeance. “Ooh!” She paced back and forth, a feral gleam in her sky-blue eyes. “You know.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She stalked up to the fence, her cheeks flushed and feverish. She was starting to look like a boiled lobster as well. “You toyed with me, Mr. Playboy Policeman. You lusted after that other woman, the exciting, beautiful one, while you pretended that I was the only woman in the world for you. While you made love to me. Now tell me who’s a lying, cheating, son—!”
“Whoa! Timeout.” He was painfully aware of all his buddies and half the secretarial pool getting an earful. “Can we take this somewhere more private?”
“Why bother? You won’t listen.” Pivoting on her heel, she strutted off, head held high, her shiny curls bouncing provocatively.
Thoroughly annoyed and frustrated, he followed her, ignoring the snickers behind him. “Haley, wait!”
She increased her pace, her cleats doing serious damage to the grounds in her fury.
“Hiya, Haley!” Officer Edwin Rodriguez smiled and winked at the perky blonde. Rodriguez hailed from the Kendall Police Department in southwest Greater Miami.
Cole wondered how they knew each other. Maybe she’d been rescuing other officers besides him after all? Jealousy surged through him, making his blood boil.
“Hi, Eddie,” she practically growled, not stopping.
Her swaying hips enchanted him far too much for a woman he didn’t trust any longer.
“How goes it, Hale?” Gus Pickering from the Boca squad caught Haley around her waist and swung her around as easily as if she was a cat.
The blond-haired cop looked way too happy to see her and was being way too familiar with her for Cole’s liking. His fists clenched and unclenched. If the other officer didn’t put her down in two seconds, Cole was going to let him have it.
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances,” Haley said bitterly. “I’ll catch you later. I’m all tied up right now.”
“Sure, Hale. Call me and we’ll get together. It’s been way too long.” Gus ruffled her hair after he put her down.
“Soon.” Haley spied Cole following and lengthened her stride.
She bumped into another burly cop, this time Mike Matthias from the Margate PD. Mike gave her a big smooch on her lips, whooping for joy.
What in the hell was going on? How did Haley know all these cops from other precincts when she barely gave the time of day to the cops in their own precinct?
“How’s the eyes doing, sweetheart? I got the guy who did that to you. I know it doesn’t bring back your career, but for what it’s worth…” Mike stared down at her from his towering height.
The dude must be at least six-feet, six-inches tall, making Cole feel small in comparison.
“Thanks.” Haley sniffled, trying valiantly to dam the tears welling in her eyes, but a tear trickled down her cheek.
Cole couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to know what was going on. If he thought she’d been a mystery woman when she’d disguised herself in all black with a brunette wig and brown contact lenses, she was even more of an enigma now. Closing the gap, he interrupted, “How do you know all these cops?”
Mike didn’t smile at Cole, even though they were passing friends. Instead, he jerked a thumb at him and asked Haley, “Does he know?”
“Leave me alone, Fischer. Please.” Her voice quavered. She shook her head, looking away from Cole.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Cole roared. Something seemed seriously wrong. The tension in the air almost suffocated him.
Mike put a consoling arm around Haley’s shoulder and glared at Cole. “Can’t you see the lady doesn’t want you here?”
He had been wrong to walk away before without knowing the whole story. Besides, he had been guilty of wanting two different women, even if they were really one and the same. He shook himself. He was beginning to think as crazy as she’d sounded a few moments ago. He ignored the large man and grazed Haley’s soft cheek with his thumb, shuddering in response to her trembling. “Please talk to me, Haley. Explain to me.”
She looked around, wary. “Do you honestly want to know about me? The real me? Not the mysterious, exciting fantasy you’ve been lusting over? The make-believe heroine of your dreams?”
Shock coursed through him. “Stop it! You don’t think you’re exciting or beautiful?” He stepped between the other man and his woman, shutting out the other guy.
She bit her lower lip and looked down at her feet. “No. I’m plain and ordinary Haley.”
“Then why do you make my blood sizzle? You yourself, not you in disguise.” He glanced up at Mike and toward where the other men she’d chatted with had been standing. “How come so many cops are drooling over you?” He turned her own words again
st her, hoping to draw her out. Putting his forefinger under her chin, he lifted her face to his, forcing her to gaze into his eyes. How he loved her deep blue eyes, bluer than the ocean at the Ft. Lauderdale Beach.
“They’re not drooling over me,” she admitted in a low, sultry voice that stirred his blood. “They’re my pals from the Academy.”
“The Academy?” What Academy? He peered at her face, searching for clues to what she meant.
“The Police Academy,” Mike answered in Haley’s place. “She was a born cop. Until that bastard injured her eyes.”
Haley sighed deeply. “I sustained a head injury in the course of my training. Afterwards, I didn’t pass the physical requirements. So I took a job as an administrative assistant at police headquarters instead. At least I’m still close to the action.”
“Not close enough. Obviously you long to get some of the action.” She’d been magnificent riding that motorcycle, especially jumping over the police cars, although a firing squad couldn’t coerce him to admit that now.
That got a smile from her, albeit a small one. “I come from a long line of police officers. My dad’s the police captain in our hometown up in Ohio. My older sisters and brother are police officers, too. I’m the only one that didn’t make the grade.”
Her smile turned wistful. “I dreamed all my life of being a cop. I don’t fit in with my family anymore since I never will be one now. I’m the outsider.”
He thought about his own father and how he didn’t want to follow in his dad’s footsteps, just the opposite of her. Life was strange.
No wonder she rode like the wind! She’d been trained by the finest.
Jealousy strafed Cole. Haley was buddies with all these macho cops. Just buddies? He glared at the giant, wondering just how well they knew each other.
“I’ve been looking high and low for you, son.” Anger flaring in his gaze, Dwight bore down on Cole. “Tarnation! I spent a small fortune sponsoring this game, and you go play hooky. Git back there!”