by Wendy Haley
“I just got myself suspended.”
“Let me guess,” Brett said. “Rae Boudreau.”
“In spades.”
Brett Wilson shook his head. “That woman is poison. You get between her and what she wants, she’ll ruin your life.”
With a wordless growl, Gabriel turned and strode away. The other man called something after him, but he was in too much of a hurry to listen.
Damn, he’d been stupid. To Rae, feelings were just another token in the game. Something to be used. Something to be spent to gain advantage. And she’d done it twice. How did that saying go? “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Never again,” he said.
This time, two people were playing. And he intended to win.
Chapter 13
Rae worked at her computer while Tom the Dog chewed an old tennis shoe nearby.
“I’m going to have to train you to serve subpoenas,” she said. “Make you earn your keep.”
The puppy looked up at her. His long pink tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, and his pale eyes danced with happiness.
“Gawd,” she muttered. “I have to work my fanny off to make a living, and all he’s got to do is look cute, and I’m willing—no, eager—to feed him and house him and pet his head. Oh, brother.”
She stiffened suddenly as someone tried the door. Ordinarily, she didn’t lock herself in. But after receiving that bribe, she wasn’t inclined to leave her back unprotected. Taking her .380 out of her purse, she slid it into the back waistband of her jeans and walked noiselessly to the door.
“It’s me,” Gabriel said.
She unlocked the door and swung it open. He stood in the hallway, looking as lean and dangerous as a leopard. Her heart leapt, and for a moment she thought she might float away on a swift-running river of happiness.
Then she looked into his eyes. They were as flat and unemotional as glacial ice. It had happened again. The man who had made love to her with such tenderness and passion was gone, leaving only MacLaren the vice cop. Cold. Hard. Unreadable.
Last night, he had given her everything. Now, in the hot, hard light of day, he was going to take it all away again. She didn’t know why; she only knew that her joy shriveled like cotton candy in a hailstorm.
As always, she only knew one way to deal with things: straight on. “What is it?” she asked.
He walked past her into the office. Tongue lolling, Tom the Dog bounded to meet him. Gabriel bent and picked the puppy up, then turned to face Rae again. His hands were very gentle as he petted the dog, but his eyes were savage.
“I’ve been suspended.”
“What?”
“What part of ‘I’ve been suspended’ don’t you understand?”
“None of it,” she said. “Why would they suspend you?”
His brows contracted. “Let me explain it to you. This morning when I reported in, the acting captain demanded my gun and badge pending investigation.”
A great wave of relief washed through her. That was why he seemed so fierce this morning. Not her, not them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “But it has to be okay. You’re a good cop, and they know it. This has got to be some kind of misunderstanding—”
“Oh, they understand,” he said. “And so do L”
His voice held a note of icy disdain she’d never heard before, and her stomach clenched with sudden dread.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Rae. I’m tired of playing this game with you. Someone called in a complaint, saying that I was harassing you. Now I’m off the case. Very convenient, don’t you think?”
“You...” Rae took a deep breath as a stunning wave of pain stabbed through her. “You think I did it.”
“You’re a smart girl, honey-child. You always take the most direct route to get what you want, don’t you? As your ex-husband can testify.”
Rae’s breath went out all at once, and she felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. She didn’t want to believe this. She couldn’t believe it. “Wh-what did you say?”
“I know what you did to your ex-husband,” he said. “Did you think somebody wouldn’t tell me? Hey, from what I heard, he loved being a cop. Now he’s selling insurance somewhere.”
“And of course it was my fault,” she said.
He spun away from her and went to look out the window. His shoulders were stiff, the line of his back completely uncompromising. Not that Rae would have asked for it. Not now.
“You think that I made love to you as a ploy,” she said. “And once you were lulled, I called in and sabotaged you.”
“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t think that?” he asked.
Rae could deny the charge. He might even believe her. But would it matter, really? “No reason,” she said. “No reason at all.”
Her heart congealed into a tight knot. He hadn’t believed in her. He hadn’t even suspended judgment long enough to ask for her side of the story. No, he’d believed the worst, simply because another cop had told him, and cops always stuck together.
Well, she’d given Gabriel MacLaren more of herself than she’d ever thought she could, and he’d missed it. He’d made love to her, explored every inch of her body and captured her heart, and he had no idea who she was.
There was no point in loving a cop. Ever.
And MacLaren, blind, arrogant MacLaren, stood with Tom the Dog comfortably cradled in one big hand, and the puppy had fallen sound asleep. Rae’s treacherous heart went bouncing all over her chest. The man had such capacity for kindness, for gentleness. But no faith, at least in human beings. Somewhere in his tenure in vice, he’d lost the capacity to believe in people.
“Is that all you have to say?” he asked.
“Yes!” she cried.
Tom the Dog woke, blinking eyes so nearly the color of Gabriel’s that Rae’s heart lurched again. But she wasn’t about to give in to lurches of the heart—or anything else.
“You woke him up,” Gabriel complained.
“That’s okay. You woke me up, and that’s a good thing.”
Gabriel knew she was angry. No, not angry—furious. And she wanted to fight. Fine. He could use a good argument. Anger was good. Anger, he could deal with.
“Come on, Rae,” he growled. “Get it out.”
She wasn’t sure for a moment whether she wanted to scream or throw something. “You’re an arrogant ass, MacLaren,” she said. “You’re so damned sure you’re right that you don’t bother to took at what’s around you.”
“I know a bad deal when I see one,” he retorted.
“Maybe, but you wouldn’t know a good one if it bit you.”
Gabriel couldn’t believe her. She stood there in front of him bold as brass, acting as though her feelings had been hurt. This was incredible, absolutely incredible. Hell, he was the one who’d gotten conned all along the line. If anyone had the right to a little indignation, he was.
“Don’t come off all huffy and hurt,” he growled. “I’m the one who got suspended.”
She looked him up and down. “Let me ask you something, MacLaren. Did somebody actually say that I was the one who called in that complaint?”
“Who else had a motive to get rid of me?”
“Just about everyone who knows you, I’d say,” she snarled.
“Well, did you?”
“Wrong question,” she said. “And really, really wrong time.”
“Answer it anyway.”
Rae wasn’t going to give it to him. She wasn’t about to give him the tiniest little thing. “Uh-uh, Mr. Jump To Conclusions. I don’t give a rip what you think of me.”
“No?”
“No!”
They stood without speaking, just glaring at each other. Rae’s anger ebbed and died in the silence. She wanted to keep it, for it kept the heartache at bay. Now she only wanted to cry.
“This is going nowhere,” she said, her voice shaking just a
little. “You think what you think, and you know what you know. I see no point in continuing this conversation.”
“You listen to me, Rae Ann—”
“I’m through listening.” She stalked to the door and wrenched it open. “You can go straight to hell, and take your bloody conclusions with you.”
His mouth curled in that cold, cynical cop’s grin. She didn’t know why he couldn’t see her. Yes, she did. He was a cop. He’d seen the worst of humanity every day, year after year, and he no longer had faith in people. He couldn’t trust her. He probably never would. And without trust, there was no hope for them.
“It would be best for us both if you’d just go,” she said.
Gabriel nodded, acknowledging that point. To be honest, at least with himself, he had to admit that he wasn’t absolutely sure he could walk out that door knowing he’d never see her again.
Fortunately, there was another reason for him to stay. A reason that didn’t put his feelings on the line. Or his pride.
“Peter Smithfield walked away from protective custody early this morning,” he said.
Aha! Rae thought, instantly sifting the possibilities. And not liking any of them. “I expected he might do that.”
“And that’s why I had to be out of the way.”
Damn you. “So you figured I called in the complaint.”
“It adds up better than anything else,” he replied.
I love you. Probably always will, because I’m the biggest fool around. She studied him with narrowed eyes. “And?”
“I no longer have official sanction to investigate this case.”
“So take a vacation.”
He smiled again, a razor-swift flash of teeth that made her instantly suspicious. She had the sudden, skin-prickling feeling that this was going to cost her.
“This is my case, and I intend to work on it. They can take that suspension and put it where the sun don’t shine.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Right now, you’ve got much better resources than I do.”
She blinked in sheer astonishment. And then surprise turned to dismay, and she nearly bolted out of her chair. “No. Uh-uh. No way, not in a million years—”
“You stuck it to me, honey-child. And now you’re going to help me out of the mess you put me in.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Sure, you will,” he said with a smile she didn’t like at all. “Or else you’ll never get rid of me. I’ll be your constant companion morning, noon and night. Hey, I’ll even sleep in front of your door, like a loyal servant. You’ll have to step over me to get your newspaper in the morning.”
He meant it, she knew. He meant every word. She had to swallow against a sudden tightening of her throat. It could have been so very different...if he’d had any capacity for trust.
But he didn’t.
“You can follow me all you want,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you can stay with me all the time.”
“Sure, you can lose me,” he agreed. “But remember, I was able to find you again. And I always will.”
Rae didn’t want to be with him. She didn’t want to lay her heart out every minute of every day, and have him step on it because he simply didn’t notice such things.
“Maybe I should just shoot you,” she said.
“You wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to.”
“Now that, I believe.”
He smiled at her again. Rae crossed her arms over her chest and studied him from under her lashes. Her feelings had betrayed her too often. The time had come to stop listening to her heart and start listening to her head. And her head told her the best way to be rid of the heartbreak was to find Peter Smithfield.
With the case closed, Gabriel would vanish like smoke in a hurricane. Then she could get on with her life.
Without him.
She felt the loss in her heart, her flesh and in her soul. “Time heals all wounds,” or so the saying went. She hoped so. But she’d been given a glimpse of what might have been. For a brief, magical time, she’d experienced true love, romantic love, the sort that captures the spirit and makes the blood sing. She would always remember that, and wonder. If things had been different, if she’d met him under other circumstances, if, if, if...
Then she gave herself a mental shake. Ifs didn’t get people through life. Guts did. Guts and determination. She’d find Peter Smithfield. But this time, she’d do it on her terms.
“Okay,” she said. “But only under certain conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“First, you let me serve my summons before you make him disappear again.”
“Okay. Now—”
“Don’t start giving orders, MacLaren.” she snapped. “Or you can spend the next twenty years sitting in your car staring up at my windows.”
His brows soared. Rae didn’t give him a chance to start talking. If he started in with that bureaucratic baloney again, she might lose her temper and do something they’d both regret.
“I found Smithfield twice,” she continued. “But things are harder now. I’ve got to fight city hall, too. If I’m going to find him again, you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“I’d planned to,” he said amicably enough.
“Huh?”
“When they suspended me, they suspended my orders, too,” he explained.
Surprise held her speechless for a moment. His eyes had turned hard and grim, but the grimness was self-directed.
“I followed orders because I believed in the man who gave them,” he said. “But that man is in the hospital now, and his replacement doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground.”
Mutiny was the last thing she’d expected from him. “You’re quite the rugged individualist all of a sudden, aren’t you?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You had me pegged as some goose-stepping robot who didn’t have the brains to think for himself, eh?”
“‘Goose-stepping’ is a good word for it,” she agreed.
He studied her from beneath his brows. She had to admit he looked devastatingly dark, handsome and brooding, and that every cell in her body registered that fact.
“You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about men,” he said at last. “And especially about me.”
Rae put her hands up to ward that one away. “Uh-uh. I’ve learned all the lessons I can stand.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that sleeping together was a big mistake—”
“Tell me about it,” Gabriel said, scowling. Of course it had been a mistake. He knew that. He just didn’t know why it annoyed him so much that she thought so, too.
Rae couldn’t keep her temper from sparking again. Damn him, he didn’t have to agree! “So,” she said through gritted teeth, “I’ll help you. But this is a business arrangement, nothing more. You keep your distance, or the deal’s off. And afterward, we never have to set eyes on each other again.”
“That’s fine with me,” he growled.
“Good. Then we understand each other.”
“Right.”
She turned away. It irritated her that he’d agreed to her terms so readily. What do you expect, idiot? that sensible-Rae voice whispered in her head. Did you think he’d get down on one knee to beg for your love? Sheesh!
Heck, she ought to be relieved that he didn’t care. That way, she’d have less temptation.
Sure, right. Look at him, the feminine-Rae voice whispered. Look at the way the light sheens in his hair and the way all those gorgeous muscles ripple when he moves. She ought to have better control of herself. But even after his accusations, his lack of faith in her, she still loved him. It was a visceral, primitive thing, that love, and it wasn’t going to leave her alone.
Business, she reminded herself. Strictly business.
“Have a seat,” she said, sliding into the cha
ir in front of the computer. “Give me everything you know about Peter Smithfield no matter how inconsequential it might seem.”
Gabriel took one of the armchairs and set it down beside her chair. She swiveled to face him, and they were so close that their knees touched. His chest constricted, and it was all he could do not to reach for her. Only business, his—With a muttered expletive, he pushed his chair back a couple of inches.
“This case is political,” he said, after clearing his throat. “Real political. That’s why everyone is so edgy. One wrong move, and all of us will be out selling insurance.”
The last was an oblique reference to her ex-husband. Of course, she got it. For one startling moment, he thought he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. But it was gone so fast he thought he must have imagined it.
He ran his thumbnail along his jaw. “We’ve had illegal gambling houses cropping up like mushrooms in this city. We find one, we close it down, and another one pops up a week or two later. You were in one, remember?”
She nodded.
“You saw the setup. A nice house, expensive furnishings, good-quality dealers, high-rolling clientele. Exclusive. You’ve got to have an invitation to get in. Friends of friends only.”
“And Peter Smithfield has a lot of friends?”
“Yup. We busted him on some minor stuff, and found out he had a rap sheet from a few years ago—”
“And used it to coerce him to help you get into those exclusive clubs,” Rae said. “Cops!”
“Hey, those are the bad guys, Rae.”
“Sure, I believe you. And I also believe that your whole case hinges on some two-bit compulsive gambler just because he can get you invited to the best parties. Not good enough, MacLaren. Tell me something that makes sense.”
Gabriel inclined his head, silent compliment to her quick mind. “We think he either knows who’s behind the gambling, or knows someone who can lead us to him.”
“Did you give him money to gamble with?” she asked.
“That was the deal.”
She rolled her eyes. “He conned you. He took your money and had a good time gambling it away, knowing from the beginning that he wasn’t going to give that guy up.”
“That appears to be the case.”