by LENA DIAZ,
He shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t apologize, Donna. You’ve been the one good thing in my life since coming here. But it was a mistake coming here to begin with. My mistake. I was in a tough spot with...my career in Knoxville. And I took the easy way out, or thought I did, when the chief approached me about working for him. I should have known it was too good to be true.”
She frowned. “A tough spot? The chief? Are you saying that he recruited you? I don’t understand. Your file says you came here for a change in pace, to get away from the city grind. There wasn’t any mention of the chief asking you to come here.”
“My file.” He laughed, sounding bitter again. “I wonder what else Thornton invented to cover for me.”
“Blake, you’re not making sense. What are you talking about? Were you in trouble? Why would he have to cover for you?”
He squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain and scrubbed his hands over the stubble on his jaw. “I’m drunk. Not making sense. Forget what I said.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Look, I appreciate you checking on me, making sure I was okay—assuming that’s why you’re here. But I’m a big boy. And it’s time I started taking care of myself.”
She stood in confusion, his little speech sparking all kinds of questions as he circled around the front of her car and headed toward his truck. All this time, she’d never once questioned his decision to leave his position on a large team in Knoxville to come here, probably because of her own bias in thinking that Destiny was the better choice. But to someone like Blake, who definitely didn’t seem to care for small-town life, could the move have been considered a step down?
The pay had to be less, no question. But she’d figured the benefits of a smaller, more intimate team would have made up for it. To someone like her, it would. But now that she looked at it with fresh eyes, it really didn’t make sense. Not for a guy who made no secret of his preference for cities over small towns. Then why had he come here? And what role had the chief played in his decision? More important, where would he go from here?
It wasn’t until he wobbled and missed a step, nearly falling on top of the car next to his truck, that it dawned on her that she needed to intervene. She hurried after him, reaching his side just as he fit his key into the lock. Or tried to. He missed and scraped about six inches off the paint. She grimaced in sympathy. But before he could try again and do more damage, she swiped his keys.
“Hey, give those back.” He grabbed for them, but she whirled around and ran for her car.
In spite of his wobbly gait, he caught her in three strides. He grabbed her with one arm around her waist and whirled her around to face him. Good grief, he was strong. She pushed her hands against his chest but couldn’t budge his viselike grip.
“Let me go.”
“After you give me my keys.” He held out his free hand, palm up.
She should have been angry. But she was still feeling guilty and confused over everything he’d said. And there was the distraction of how darn good his hard body felt against hers, and how wonderfully masculine he smelled. Even the whiskey on his breath didn’t deter her ridiculous, unwanted response to being this close to him. Instead of pushing him away, she wanted to slide her hands up his chest and lock them behind his neck. Which was why she had to make him let her go. Now. Before she made a fool of herself.
She pinched his arm. Hard.
He snatched his arm back and rubbed where her nails had formed indentations on his skin. “What’d you do that for?”
“You’re drunk.”
“No kidding.”
A drop of rain landed on her head. Then another. “Look, I just want to talk some sense into you. I came here to ask you to come back. You’re a good cop, a solid detective. You—”
“Was,” he interrupted. “I was a good cop. Past tense. Dillon fired me. Remember?” He squinted at her through the smattering of raindrops that were starting to fall faster.
“Maybe we can fix that. Dillon has scheduled another training exercise at nine tomorrow morning. If you show up in your gear, like you’re ready to try again, you can talk to him, apologize—”
“Apologize? You’re kidding, right? He said I was toxic. You think an apology is going to change his opinion?”
“I think it would be a great start.”
He shook his head. “There’s no point in talking to Dillon. His mind is made up.”
“So, that’s it?” she said. “You’re just going to quit?”
“I...was...fired.” He enunciated each word slowly and concisely, as if she were hard of hearing. “I don’t have a choice. My career in Destiny is over. Finished. There’s nothing I can do.” He held his hand out again. “We’re about to get soaked. Give me my keys, and I’m out of your life forever.”
His words took the breath right out of her. Did he really not care about her at all? What was she to him? Not even a friend whom he would miss? More angry than concerned about his welfare at this point, she whirled around and dashed toward her car.
This time, the element of surprise was on her side. Or maybe the rain slowed him down. She’d just gotten her driver’s door closed and locked when he reached her. His shoes slid across the gravel as he tried to stop. But he ended up slamming against her door and grabbing her side mirror to keep from falling on his face.
He swore and straightened. Then he yanked her door handle a few times before leaning down to glare at her through the window. The clouds chose that moment to open up. Rain pelted down on him in sheets, drenching him in seconds. He hunched his shoulders against the onslaught, his dark eyes promising retribution through the glass.
“I need my keys,” he yelled to be heard over the thunder and rain. He rapped his knuckles on the window. “Keys.”
“You’re drunk,” she yelled back. “You have no business driving. Walk home.” She dropped his keys onto the seat beside her and started the engine.
He slammed his hand against the roof of her car, making her jump. “My house is over twenty miles away.”
“I can give you a ride home. But your truck stays here.”
“No.”
They glared at each other through the window. Him probably hating her. Her hating herself for having wasted so much time on him, both personally and professionally. Maybe she should give up on men entirely. They weren’t worth the trouble.
She put her foot on the brake and shifted into drive.
His eyes narrowed. “Donna, don’t you dare—”
She slammed the accelerator and zoomed out of the parking lot.
Chapter Four
Where was Blake, and was he okay? Those two questions had been worrying Donna all evening, ever since she’d left him standing in the rain, yelling after her.
She sat in her recliner, her legs tucked underneath her, while she cradled a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. It wasn’t that the house was cold. Outside, it was only mildly chilly, and then only when the winds blew down from the nearby mountains. But she didn’t need cold weather as an excuse to have hot chocolate. It was her poison of choice when she needed soothing.
Tonight, she definitely needed soothing.
Across the room, the TV screen hung over the fireplace, dark and quiet. Typically, unless her mom or one of her mom’s well-meaning klatch of friends had set her up on yet another disastrous blind date, she would spend Saturday nights binge-watching recorded cop shows. The ones with the fake forensics and technology were the most entertaining. Where an investigator could search a single database and come up with a person’s entire life history in seconds—like what books that person had checked out of the library in kindergarten and never returned. Nothing could make her laugh harder than their implausible, ridiculous storylines. But tonight, instead, she stared at the set of keys on the coffee table. Blake’s keys.
And she wasn’t laughing.
Guilt was riding her hard. Not for taking his k
eys. She’d probably saved his life, or someone else’s, by not letting him drive. But she shouldn’t have left him in that parking lot with no way home. She should have argued with him until he agreed to get in her car. She could have taken him back later—once he was sober—to get his truck.
Where was he now? What was he doing? She had absolutely no clue. When she left him, she’d driven away for all of fifteen minutes before guilt had sent her back to that rancid-smelling bar. But even though his black pickup was still sitting in the gravel right where she’d left it, Blake wasn’t.
The bartender had only shrugged when she asked him where Blake had gone. She suspected he knew the answer. But he had no inclination to tell her. Four hours later, with the clock edging close to midnight, Blake still hadn’t responded to any of her calls or texts.
Not that she could blame him.
If he’d left her in that parking lot, she’d be furious. For days. Maybe longer. Mama always said her temper ran hotter than a busted radiator and cooled just as slowly.
She let out a heavy sigh and set her still-full cup on the side table. There was no use delaying the inevitable any longer. No amount of chocolate or silly cop shows were going to make her relax. And there was no point in trying to sleep. How could she even try to close her eyes when he could be lying hurt somewhere, maybe passed out in a ditch?
That lovely image had crossed her mind so many times that she’d called the emergency room in Maryville to see if he’d been brought in. The state police and the dispatch operators for both Blount and Sevier Counties had no reports on him either. She should have been relieved. Instead, she was more worried than ever. It was as if he’d vanished.
Okay—that was it. She absolutely couldn’t sit here any longer, waiting for a call that was never going to come. She would have to head back out and find him herself. Again. And this time, she wasn’t leaving until he was safe and sound at home.
After retrieving her holster and pistol from the floor beside her chair, she went into her bedroom to change out of her nightshirt. A few minutes later, dressed in jeans and a simple button-up blouse, she headed toward the front door.
A loud knock had her whipping out her pistol and flattening herself against the wall beside the door. Her pulse rushed in her ears. Who would be pounding on her door this late? Or even at all? Saying that she lived in the boonies was an understatement. Visitors willing to drive out this far from town, this far from anything, were extremely rare. Even her own family was loath to make the trip and bounce down the pothole-filled street in front of her house. Donna was the one who usually made the long trek to see them instead.
The knock sounded again. “Donna?” Blake’s deep voice bellowed. “I know you’re up. I saw you through the front window.”
Blake. He was okay. Thank God. Her shoulders dropped, the tension draining out of her as she holstered her gun and reached for the dead bolt. Then his words sank in. She hesitated, without opening the door. “Why were you peeping in my window?”
“I wasn’t peeping.”
She could practically hear him roll his eyes.
“Your lights are on, and the blinds are open,” he continued. “I could see you from halfway down that death trap out front that you call a road. The suspension on my truck is probably shot now. What’d you do? Tick the mayor off, and now he won’t send the city out to maintain your street?”
She flipped the dead bolt and pulled open the door. “Actually, it’s his wife. She sped through a school zone, so I radioed for a patrol unit and followed her to city hall. She didn’t appreciate me detaining her until the uniformed officer got there. And she especially didn’t like the two-hundred-fifty-dollar ticket.”
His brows rose as he stepped inside. “Did you know who she was when you saw her speeding?”
“Yep. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if she’d blown by me out on the highway. It’s not like we have enough traffic around here to worry about her causing an accident. But she could have run someone’s kid over. That’s an unforgivable sin in my book. So if the price of making her stop and think next time is a bumpy ride home every day, I’ll pay it.” She winced. “But I do need to get a four-wheel drive if this vendetta goes on much longer. My little SUV isn’t designed for that kind of punishment. It’s already starting to rattle, and it’s only a few years old.”
He smiled. “I didn’t know you had a soft spot for kids. Why haven’t I heard this story before?”
She cocked her head. “Why haven’t you ever visited my house before? And why haven’t you invited me to yours? We’re partners. We should kick back together after work sometimes, or on weekends.”
His smile faded. “The answer to those questions are irrelevant, since I’m not a cop anymore.”
She shook her head. “Once a cop, always a cop. And as far as I’m concerned, this current situation with Dillon is temporary.”
“That’s actually why I’m here. Partly, anyway.” He waved toward the two leather couches and recliner a few feet away. “Mind if we talk for a few minutes? Or is the open door an unsubtle social signal that I should leave?”
She blinked, surprised to realize that she was still holding on to the doorknob. “Sorry. Go on, have a seat.” She shut the door behind him and followed him into the part of the house that functioned as a family room.
He perched on the edge of one of the two couches, resting his forearms on his thighs with his hands clasped together. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so unsure of himself. His confidence in everything that he did was one of the things that had always bugged Dillon, because he took it as arrogance. He expected the new guy to show more humility and work harder to fit in. Until Blake’s little speech in the parking lot earlier, she’d thought pretty much the same thing. Now she wasn’t sure what she thought.
“Nice place,” he said as she sat beside him on the couch. “It looks a lot bigger inside than it does from the outside.”
“It’s the vaulted ceiling and the open concept. My dad helped me with the remodel. Took a couple of years. That was a long time ago, though. It’s about ready for another update—new lights, new plumbing fixtures. The floors could use refinishing. But I don’t have the free time I used to, before I added part-time SWAT officer to my full-time detective duties.”
“You and your dad did all the work?”
“Most of it. We rooked my three sisters’ husbands into helping with the heavy lifting. But for the most part, it was me and Dad. With Mom supervising, of course. She’s a worse back seat renovator than any back seat driver.” She waved toward the kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the room by a butcher block island. “You want a beer or something?”
His brows arched again. “I think we both know I had more than my quota of alcohol earlier today. But thanks.”
“Right.” She rubbed her hands on her jeans, hating the awkwardness that had settled between them. “I see you have your—”
“I wanted to ask you—”
They both stopped and smiled.
He waved at her. “You first.”
She cleared her throat. “I was just going to ask how you got here. Since I, um, have your keys.”
“My neighbor. I called him and he was just a few miles away, running an errand. We both have spare sets of each other’s keys in case we lock ourselves out of our homes or cars. He and his son picked me up at the bar. His son drove my truck home while I slept off the liquor. In case you were wondering how I got my truck back.”
“I tried to call—”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the glass before turning it around. “I noticed.”
The home screen showed fifteen missed calls.
Her face flamed hot. “Are all of those from me?”
“Every one.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize I’d been that big a pest.”
“Yo
u texted even more than you called.” He smiled and put the phone away. “I came over here for a couple of reasons. The first was to apologize.”
She frowned. “What would you apologize for? I’m the one who left you stranded, in the rain, at a horrible, smelly bar. In my defense, I did eventually turn around and go back. But you were gone.”
“Yeah, this is the part where I have to admit that I hid in the men’s room when you came back into the bar looking for me. Not one of my prouder moments. But I was still angry and didn’t want to talk to you.”
“I knew that snake-tattooed bartender was lying. Well, at least you’re okay. And you didn’t end up with your truck in a ditch somewhere.”
His jaw tightened. “Believe it or not, I’m not the bad guy everyone seems to think I am. And unlike the mayor’s wife, I care about the other people out on the road. I would never drink and drive, in spite of how I acted earlier. The fact that you thought I would only contributed to my foul mood, so I didn’t bother to tell you that all I was going to do was lie down in my truck and sleep it off.”
“Blake, I didn’t mean that the way it—”
He held up his hand again. “Please, let me get all this out before you think I’m blaming you for my own actions. I’m not. I was a jerk to you today. You were worried about me.” He patted his pocket where he’d put his cell phone. “Obviously. And I didn’t have the decency to answer even one of your calls or texts to let you know that I was okay. I’m really sorry, Donna. And even though I’d argue it wasn’t necessary to take my keys, and it wasn’t fun being left standing in the rain, it was a wake-up call. The whole day was a wake-up call, in a lot of ways. I hope you can accept my deepest, heartfelt apology. Can you forgive me?”
He startled her by taking one of her hands between his, while he watched her and waited for her reply. She swallowed hard, trying to remember what he’d even said. It was hard to focus when his large, warm hands held hers and he was staring at her with such intensity.
The man had definitely missed his calling. Instead of law enforcement, he should have been a sexy leading man in Hollywood, making all the women swoon and throw themselves at his feet. All it would take was one look from those intense, dark blue eyes to make the rest of the world fade away. She didn’t think he’d ever looked at her this way before. It was doing funny things to her belly, and her pulse was racing so fast, it was a wonder he didn’t say something about it.