by D. D. Ayres
Eric swung around, his eyes widening. James let him look. “So … what? You’re the new boyfriend?”
Bogart stood up, his ears flicking forward in response to the man’s aggressive tone toward his handler.
Eric looked down and his expression changed. “So that’s where the dog came from.” He looked back at Shay. “You cheating slut.”
Bogart bared his teeth in answer.
Shay lifted her chin against the insult. “You should leave, Eric. Now.”
Eric’s gaze flicked between man and dog. “Okay. Right. I’m done.”
James didn’t plan to block Eric with his shoulder as he passed, but somehow the man was thrown off balance, stumbled into the sofa, and fell.
Unsmiling, James held out a helping hand. “Sorry about that.”
For a split second the heat of testosterone-fueled challenge shimmered between them. Then Eric’s gaze shifted to where James was holding the harness of an angry barking dog.
Ignoring James’s offer of a hand, he quickly righted himself, and lurched through the front door, slamming it behind him.
The second the door closed the remaining pair turned and spoke at the same time.
“Are you okay?”
“How did you know about last night?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Go ahead.”
Shay rubbed her palms up and down her denim-clad thighs. “No, you.”
James smiled, slipping out of police mode. “Ladies first.”
“Wait a sec.” Shay crossed over to lock her door.
As James pulled Bogart’s favorite ball from his pocket and tossed it as a reward for a good job, he noticed that she had three locks where most people could have been satisfied with one. The first was oxidized with age. The other two were shiny and new.
When she turned back to him, it seemed she had reconsidered her first question because she substituted another. “Why did you do that?”
“What?”
She folded her arms and stared.
Busted. “I saw what he was doing to you, Shay. You should have let me arrest him. Since you wouldn’t, I sent him that message in a way he’ll remember.”
Her chin shot up. He didn’t need words to translate that into I can take care of myself. Trouble was, it was obvious that she had been doing a lousy job. Not that that was his business, but—whoa. Wait. Not. His. Business. Even so …
“Want to tell me why you won’t press charges?”
She looked away. “I have my reasons.”
“Whatever they are, they aren’t going to keep him from putting his hands on you, again, like when I walked in.”
Shay reached down to Bogart, who had come up to her, and scratched him behind one ear. “News alert, Officer Cannon. I’m not your concern.”
“Come on, Shay.” He said her name softly, as if he had used it before, and it sounded wonderfully comfortable in his mouth.
Shay straightened up, feeling a little shaky from running on adrenaline. “Are you asking as a police officer or a friend?”
James felt himself shifting onto uncertain ground. “Whichever you need.”
Shay searched his face for a moment. What she needed was someone to believe her. But she couldn’t explain why without explaining the very things she wanted most to keep hidden. So even the compassion in his expression couldn’t help her.
Shay snatched her gaze away, searching for her security blanket of hostility. “Why did you come back, anyway? Looking for a little pat on the back to make you feel like a hero?”
Annoyance jerked at James’s patience. He’d swung by on a hunch. Yet after his graceless entry into her life, what had he expected, a parade?
“Fine. My bad. I thought maybe since we share a fondness for Bogart that we might become … friends.” James made a business of putting his pad away. “So, who is that asshole?”
Shay almost smiled at his description. “He’s my ex. Boyfriend.”
“Your decision?”
She nodded. “I broke it off a month ago, but he hasn’t taken the hint. I think now he will.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Shay pushed a hand up under her bangs, using her fingers as a comb. “Is that why you let Eric believe you had more than a professional interest in me?”
She caught that, did she?
“It’ll make him think twice before he tries to force his way in on you again. The least I could do.”
“Or you just pissed him off in a way that will make him an even bigger threat when you’re not around.”
Reminded of Eric’s violent actions, Shay moved her hand to the back of her head, probing the place where it had connected with the wall. “Ouch.”
James frowned. “Are you hurt? Here. Let me look at that.”
“No, it’s okay.”
But James didn’t pause. He spun her around lightly and then his fingers were in her hair, parting it carefully at the crown. He wanted to lecture her on the dangers of violent men but he sensed that right now the last thing she needed was to be pressured by a man. He felt her flinch as he revealed a red bruised area. “You’ve got a knot developing back here. You should be looked at.”
Shay slipped free of his touch and danced away from him, as if being close to him could breach her defenses. “No. I’m fine.”
“Are you nauseated?” He held up two fingers. “What do you see?”
“V for victory. Okay?”
“Has he gotten rough with you in the past?”
Shay stared at him, not knowing what to say. No one had ever taken an interest in her claims before. Then she realized that no one had ever seen Eric in action before.
She licked her suddenly too-dry lips before she found her voice. “Once.” She looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough. But you should think about pressing charges. It’s not too late. I can go after him. You call the sheriff while I track him down. I’ll bring him in and you have him arrested for assault. I’m your witness.”
“No.” She didn’t even give his suggestion a moment’s consideration. “Eric’s gone. That’s what I wanted.”
James waited a beat, weighing how hard to push her. He decided he needed to ease up before she shut him down completely. Maybe another approach would work. “Coates doesn’t seem the sort to take directions well. What would have happened if I hadn’t walked in?”
Shay jerked her gaze up to meet the full impact of his blue eyes. What she felt emanating from them was a genuine interest and something surprisingly like warmth. Then his question boomeranged back through her thoughts. What would I have done?
The sudden sick look in her expression twisted James’s gut. She was trying to tough it out but clearly she had known she was all but defenseless against that bastard.
He took a step toward her, keeping his voice soft. “A guy who likes to manhandle women is likely to circle back as soon as he thinks he safely can. That might be a day, or a week. You should at least get a restraining order against Coates so you will have serious backup if you need it.”
“Is that your professional or personal opinion? Because what I really didn’t need was for Eric to think I left him for a hunky new boyfriend.”
She turned, picked up the soggy packet of oysters she’d dropped on the table, and headed toward the kitchen.
James stared after her. Jeez! Where had he gone wrong? He’d meant to reassure her. Now she was pissed.
When she disappeared through the doorway, he glanced around to call Bogart to heel, but his partner was already at his side, staring up at him as if he were about to hatch.
Bogart looked back over his shoulder toward the kitchen and then again at James, his brows twitching up and down, signaling confusion.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I need to fix it.”
Reluctantly, he headed after her.
* * *
Shay didn’t release her breath until she was all the way into the kitchen. She’d been unforgivably rude to the man w
ho’d saved her and was now just trying to help. What was her problem?
Oh hell. She knew what was wrong.
Struggling to regain control over her stressed-out emotions, she emptied the container of iced oysters into the sink. She was so grateful that James had appeared when he did that she was tying knots inside herself just to keep from showing it.
Because her emotional reaction had ranged far beyond simple relief.
It had been nothing short of thrilling to see his tall silhouette filling her doorway. Even unshaven and still dressed in wrinkled camo, James had the look of capable protector written all over him. Her very own Avenger.
Get a grip, Shay.
She couldn’t afford to think that way, for even a second, about Officer Cannon. He wasn’t hers. Nor was Prince … Bogart. Just because they had unexpectedly appeared as the tag-team rescuers she had been praying for didn’t mean she should let her emotions run wild. In a few minutes, she’d be all alone again.
And James was right. Eric would show up again in her life, sooner or later.
Shay’s throat began to constrict with mounting anxiety.
“No! Not yet!” she whispered under her breath. There’d be plenty of time for an anxiety attack over her future once she was alone.
James found her standing before the sink. He paused in the doorway, propped a shoulder on the door frame and crossed his arms, trying his damnedest to look less like a cop and more like a regular guy.
While he decided what to say, he took in all the details of her he hadn’t had time to notice when he walked in.
He liked the way she looked in skinny jeans shoved into hand-tooled cowboy boots so scuffed and creased that they appeared to have been her favorite footwear for a long time. A teal-blue turtleneck sweater covered her from chin to the tops of her thighs. He knew from wrestling with her that it hid a body with plenty of feminine curves. Not that he should be thinking about her in that way. Yet nothing he’d done so far today fell into the should category.
Unable to think of anything intelligent to say, Shay tried to ignore the man standing in her doorway. It wasn’t easy. Her gaze kept straying halfway toward him before she could snatch it back. Each foray made her more fully aware of his presence. The easy grace of his long body draped in camo reminded her of the hard muscles beneath. Of the way he’d effortlessly lifted her off her feet this morning. She could still recall the hard band of his arm pressing under her breasts.
Oh crap. She needed to stop thinking altogether.
Desperate for distraction, she looked down at Bogart, who had come up to her with his tail wagging, certain that his presence was welcome.
She squatted down and hugged his neck. “My hero.” She didn’t dare glance at James for fear he would realize that she was referring to him. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.”
Finally, she peeked at James as she leaned her cheek against Bogart’s back, stroking him with long slow glides of her hand. “Thank you.”
James sucked in a long breath. Her stroking hand was damned distracting. He leaned away from the wall. “You’re welcome. Glad we could help out.” He glanced around, uncertain of what to do next. “So, I guess we should be going.”
He signaled to Bogart, who whined and lay down at Shay’s feet instead of obeying.
A chill shot through James. Bogart had never disobeyed him before. Just how badly was their bond ruptured by their weeks apart? Or was Bogart still feeling very protective of Shay? The color had come back into her face but her expression was as wary as ever. Maybe his dog understood her needs better than he did.
“Have you fed Prin—Bogart today?”
James shook his head. “He shared my package of peanut butter crackers at the station but…”
Shay stood up. Trying to ignore the fact that he was watching, she leaned up on tiptoe to take down a bag of food from an overhead shelf.
James was paying attention, not only to obvious things like how her sweater lifted to reveal her nicely rounded butt, but to how hard she was trying to push past the trauma of the last minutes by finding ordinary things to do. Her hands shook as she poured hard nugget chow into a bowl, but he hadn’t yet seen a single tear. Many victims dissolved into a puddle the instant they were safe. Shay’s reaction was to retreat into a porcupine ball of thorny hostility.
“What’s that?”
Shay paused in pouring liquid from a jar she’d taken from the refrigerator. “Chicken soup left from last night.” She put the bowl in the microwave for several seconds then stuck a finger in to test the temperature. When she put the bowl on the floor, Bogart gave her hand a quick lick and then began wolfing it down.
James shook his head. “It’s embarrassing what that dog will do for food.”
Shay turned to James with a grin so wide he had to laugh.
When the laughter subsided they were left standing looking at one another. Shay’s eyes were wide, speculative, as if weighing every ounce of him for clues. To what?
On James’s side at least, there was an undercurrent of something coming to life, something remarkably like sexual attraction. It made no sense. But then nothing about the day had made sense. He’d just ended the worst relationship of his life. And Shay, from what he could gather, was still trying to end one. Neither of them needed another entanglement. He groped for a way to break the moment.
“You should have told Deputy Ward about last night’s visitor.”
She gave him a startled look. “How do you know about that?”
“I was in the woods, doing a stakeout, looking for Bogart. Saw someone watching your cabin. The way you went after him, I’m guessing you already knew it was Eric. Why didn’t you mention that to Deputy Ward?”
He saw her internal struggle reflected in her expression. Definitely hiding something. In the end she just said, “I was about to make dinner. I suppose there’s enough.”
James decided that might just be the most ungracious invitation he’d ever received. But he wasn’t offended. The excuse would give him time to learn a little more about her. “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing special. A little Hoppin’ John and fried oysters.”
James’s mouth watered in anticipation. “Sounds great.”
She looked him up and down again in a way that made him suddenly very aware of every slept-in wrinkle and blade of grass still clinging to his clothing, and the hard scratch of stubble on his face. “You really slept in the woods last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you probably want to clean up.”
“That would be great.”
James wasted no time in striding out to his truck and grabbing his gear stuffed into an old army-issue backpack. When he came back in, she was waiting for him in the living room. Her expression was once again guarded and her hands were sliding up and down her arms as if she were cold. He wondered if Eric had left marks on her there, a thought that made him wish he’d done more than shoulder-check him.
He noted wood stacked in the fireplace, ready to be lit. He wondered if she would think he was making himself too much at home if he offered to light it for her. Yeah. Better wait.
As soon as he moved away from the door, she hurried over to lock it.
Then she turned back to the room, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she walked past him. “The bathroom is back here.” He followed.
She came to a stop in a narrow hallway and pointed. “On your left. Through the bedroom. Towels are in the cabinet. The shower takes five minutes to deliver hot water. Dinner in twenty minutes.”
She tried to let him pass, backing herself up until she was flat against the wall.
James turned sideways, too, but it didn’t quite work. The backpack slung across his shoulders wouldn’t allow him to press against the opposite wall.
Things were fine until his chest grazed her right breast. He heard her softly drawn breath on contact and sucked in his stomach in response. That only inflated his chest another inch,
making more surface to brush against her. She began trying to slide past him, her gaze strictly on his chin. He was free to gaze down at her, to inhale the ginger scent rising from her hair. The mere brush of her against him, muffled by his clothing and hers, was enough to make him instantly hard as concrete.
He levered his body forward, jamming his butt against the wall in the hopes that his chest would be the only thing brushing her. If his johnson touched her she’d know he was ready for action.
“Sorry.” He murmured the word in a husky voice as he closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing.
Contact lasted only a few seconds but it seemed forever. Shay held her breath as she stared at the camo design of his jacket only a few inches in front of her nose. Her mind was fully on the rough drag of his jacket across every inch of her breasts. The contact was unexpectedly arousing as his buttons grazed first one and then the other of her nipples. To back him off a bit, she pressed a hand flat against his chest.
He felt rigid in places she didn’t expect, as if touching her were a test of his strength. And damn, every muscle in his body seemed to be trying to impress her with its definition. He was firm and contoured and—something moist and smooth and hard poked her!
Shay looked down. Bogart had stuck his wet nose into her open palm.
A second later, James was past her, moving into the bedroom with a swiftness she could only interpret as the desire to get away from her.
It struck her as she headed back to the kitchen that all she’d had to do was back up into the bedroom to let him by her.
Sure. Now her brain was working.
* * *
Shay rolled plump shiny silver oysters in cornmeal and spices before adding them to the skillet, glad she had decided to buy more than she thought she could eat in one sitting. Frying messed up the stove so she’d planned to cook enough to last for a couple of days. Now, of course, she had a man to feed. The thought made her smile. Immediately she banished the warm feeling.
She couldn’t afford to like James. He was an A-type take-charge personality. Just what she didn’t want or need after Eric. Not when the self-respect she’d worked so hard to build for herself the last few years had just come apart at the seams. Timing. Timing was everything. Hers had always been lousy.