by Laura Drewry
“But…” Her frown remained, but the clouds had begun to clear from her eyes, which was a good thing. Or at least he hoped it was a good thing. For all he knew, the second her mind cleared, she might very well punch him in the face.
“If we were really together,” he said, “we wouldn’t be wasting time down here after a kiss like that; we’d be heading straight up to your bedroom.”
“Oh my God.” Ellie fell back against the wall, her hands over her face, and groaned. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what else to do. He was standing over there in the shadows and…and you were right there….”
“Don’t.” He put his hands over hers and tugged them down slowly. “Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“Ha!” With a snort, chuckle, and choke combined, she dropped her chin to her chest, her face flushing deep pink. “No, it wasn’t bad, it was…”
“It was what?” He didn’t even try to stop smiling when she finally managed to look up at him and growled.
“You jerk. I could stand here channeling Louis C.K. all night and you wouldn’t crack a smile, but this…you think this is funny?” Her blush deepened, but at least she was smiling, too. “Seriously, Ponch, a little heads-up would’ve been nice.”
“Hey, you were the one who kissed me, remember? I was just improvising.”
Her pretty little mouth opened twice, producing little more than a sputter before she finally shook her head.
“I need to get out of these shoes and into a good stiff drink.”
While she stumbled her barefooted way through the dark into the kitchen, Brett pulled out his phone and called Hudak to let her know what was going on. There was a bit of movement over in Dickie’s yard, though it was too dark to see who it was and Brett didn’t want to risk tipping Kurt off by opening the blinds wider to get a better view.
“Here.” Keeping away from the window, Ellie offered him a glass of what smelled like Scotch.
“Thanks, but if I’m going to be driving—”
“Oh, come on, Ponch, give me a little credit, will you?” She blinked up at him with a bright, mocking smile. “If we really were seeing each other and we really had gone straight upstairs like you want him to think, believe you me, we wouldn’t be coming back down anytime soon.”
His mouth opened, but what came out was more of a grunting choke than anything even slightly resembling an actual word. Grabbing the glass, he threw it back in one shot while Ellie stood there smiling at him.
“Loosely translated, I’m guessing that means you’ll have another?”
“Yuh,” he finally croaked. “Make it a double.”
Chapter 9
“You’ve got to know the rules before you can break ’em. Otherwise, it’s no fun.”
—Detective James “Sonny” Crockett, Miami Vice
The smell of coffee pulled Ellie out of bed. Who…? Oh, right. Brett had spent the night.
Brett Hale, a cop, had spent the night with her. She’d never thought that in a hundred million years that sentence would ever run through her mind.
Last night after he’d choked back his second shot, they’d made their way into the kitchen, being sure they stayed away from the windows, and spent an awkward amount of time sitting on the floor against the cupboards, listening to her stomach growl.
She wouldn’t open the fridge because that would give off light, and they wanted Kurt to think they were upstairs having wild monkey sex. Instead, she rummaged around in the cupboard until she found what would have to suffice for dinner: crackers and tuna.
They ate it sitting cross-legged on the floor in the upstairs hallway while they played a couple of rounds of Scrabble under the 25-watt night-light she always kept plugged in near the top of the stairs. By the time she’d beaten him for the second time, they’d put a pretty good dent in the Scotch and while neither of them were drunk, Brett was in no condition to drive, either, so she’d set him up in the spare room and kissed him good night. On the cheek.
Lord have mercy, she wouldn’t have been able to deal with another kiss like that first one. That was…Ellie blew out a long breath…oy…and then he’d stood there smiling at her like…like that. Her frazzled brain still hadn’t recovered. Neither had her ovaries.
What the hell? Between the kiss and that smile of his, he was making it really hard for her to remember that he was a cop. Not only was he a cop, but he was only doing his job, and that kiss was part of it.
Damn.
Any other morning she would have headed straight downstairs for coffee before doing anything else, but she couldn’t do that today. It was stupid, she knew, but ever since the night the cops had shown up with their warrant, catching her unawares and disheveled in her pajamas, she’d sworn she would never allow herself to appear so vulnerable and exposed again. Clothes and makeup had become her armor and she never let anyone see her otherwise.
In her pajamas and glasses, she was still that naïve woman whose life had spun out of control so fast, but when she was dressed, with her makeup on and her contacts in, she was stronger, smarter, and in complete control.
And this morning, she was going to need all the help she could get to hide how twitchy she felt with him there. Especially after she caught sight of him in her kitchen.
With his crumpled golf shirt untucked and socks dangling out of the back pocket of his jeans, all she could think was that life was brutally unfair. She could spend hours up in that bathroom employing every Revlon product she had at her disposal and she’d still never look as good as he did straight out of bed.
“Morning.”
“Hey.” It wasn’t a full-on smile, but it was enough to make her wish she hadn’t all but dared him yesterday to show it off more. And it was more than enough to leave her poor libido even more dazed and confused than it felt after the incident out in the driveway last night.
That’s what she was choosing to call it now—the incident. Made it easier to dismiss.
“I gotta go,” he said, shoving his bare feet into his runners. “Coffee’s made and I had a look around outside—nothing seems out of place, so I don’t think Kurt came any closer.”
“Can I make you breakfast?” She pointed toward the fridge but waited until he moved out of the way before going any closer.
“No thanks, I gotta get home and clean up before class.”
“Did you at least have some coffee? No? Here, take one of these. Costco sells the best travel mugs ever. Double-double, right? Or was that just because the coffee was so bad? I’ve got honey if you want….”
She sounded like an idiot rambling on that fast, especially when he just stood there staring at her.
“You okay?”
“Course.”
As soon as the word left her lips, she stopped, set the milk down, and shook her head. She didn’t lie; that wasn’t who she was. And even though she was going to have to do a lot of lying in the next little while, she’d only do it when she absolutely had to, and now wasn’t one of those times. Sure, it was going to mean eating a little crow for breakfast, but that seemed to be on her menu a lot lately.
“No, actually, I’m a little…I don’t even know. This is just really weird. I mean, it’s you and you’re a cop, and you’re here, in my house, and then that incident out there last night…and then you slept over…and ohmygod, Regan’s gonna shit a brick when she finds out….”
She didn’t realize she’d been waving the open mug around until Brett tugged it from her hand, screwed the lid on, and tipped it over the sink to check for leaks.
“Look.” He turned halfway through the living room and pointed back at her with the mug. “From what I know about your history with cops, I can’t say as I blame you for not liking or trusting us much, and as much as I’d like to, unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. All I can do is my job and, hopefully, show you we’re not all like that. If Kurt’s stalking you—and he is, by the way—then it’s my job to keep you safe, and I’ll do whatever I can to
make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”
When he stopped talking, Ellie stopped everything: moving, breathing, thinking.
“Kurt’s a punk. His record doesn’t show any history of violence, and it may be he’s just trying to scare you into going back to him. I don’t know how he thinks that’s going to work, but I have to be honest with you. In cases like these, it’s almost impossible to predict what a person will do, especially if he’s this determined to get you back. Seeing us together might be enough to send him packing, or it might push him over the edge. We don’t know.”
Ellie folded her arms over her stomach. “So you think kissing you out there last night might have provoked him?”
“I don’t know, but that’s on me.” His jaw tightened before he looked back at her. When he did, he was in full-on cop mode, storm-gray eyes and all. “You should have never been put in a position where you thought that was your only means of escape. It won’t happen again.”
Ooooh, boy, he was serious.
“This isn’t the route we’d normally take, Ellie, and it may be that we’ll have to rethink it after a while, but right now we have two things working in our favor. The first is that anyone who knows you knows you’re painfully honest, so lying to him about being in a relationship was probably the smartest thing you could have done right then to throw him off. The second thing is that we both know there is no ‘us.’ ”
He didn’t even blink when he said it.
“What happened last night, that kiss, it was nothing more than a means to an end. Hopefully it made a point but…uh…yeah…if it pissed him off and he ramps things up, we’ll nail him.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I am. But to get to that point, we need to make this look legit, and one night’s not going to prove anything—no matter how real that kiss might’ve looked. You don’t want him thinking you’re just out having sex with some guy; you want him to think you’re in a solid relationship, so it’s not so much about the big shows of affection as it is about time together. Last night…well, yeah, there’s a couple reasons that shouldn’t happen again, mainly because it puts added stress on you, and that’s the last thing we want.”
Stress? That brief time out there in the driveway with him during the incident was the least stressed she’d been since…honestly, she couldn’t even remember when. This wasn’t about her stress level, though. It was about getting rid of Kurt once and for all, and she fully expected her stress level to rise a lot higher before it got back under control.
Brett was still talking, but it took a second for her to hear what he was saying.
“…we both know that next to Kurt, I’m probably the last guy you want to be spending time with. Sorry to say, I’m pretty much all you’ve got at this point, so we’re going to have to make do.”
Perching on the arm of the couch, Ellie sighed. “Look, Brett, I appreciate all this, really I do. But even if this is part of your job, it’s not fair—or right—to ask you to do it. Not for me. And I’m not trying to sound like a martyr here, because we both know that I’ve been a complete cow to you since the day we first met, so you can’t— What? What’s that look for?”
“Nothing.” But his brow stayed furrowed deep, like he was trying to process something. “It’s just…I think that’s the first time you’ve ever done that.”
“Done what?”
“Called me by name.”
“No, it’s n—” Oh, crap. Maybe it was. “You see? You’re crazy to do this for me.”
“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But, again, it’s my job, and I’m all you’ve got, so let’s not make it worse by overthinking it.”
Overthinking it? Ha! She’d flown past simple overthinking about four hours ago, while she’d lain in bed staring up at the ceiling.
“Everything’ll go along like it usually does,” he said. “You have your life, your store, whatever, and I’ve got my stuff; we can’t change all that or it’ll be too obvious. The only difference is that we’ll be pretending to be…together. It won’t be easy, I get that, so if there’s any part of this you’re not okay with, tell me now and let’s figure it out.”
Any part? How about the whole damn thing—starting with how much she’d really like to kiss him again, just to see if that first time had been some kind of fluke? Or how about how just having him there in her kitchen in the morning warmed everything inside her? Oy.
“I’ll be fine,” she managed, rubbing her hands down the sides of her legs.
“You sure? It’s going to take consistent effort on both our parts to make this real—not just to him, but to everyone else, too.”
Arms wrapped around herself, Ellie chewed her lip, nodding at the floor.
“Ellie, look at me.”
It took her a second.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you need to be patient. It takes time to prove stalking.”
“Mm-hmm. I know—that’s not what worries me. It’s the lying. I don’t know if I can stand there and lie to my mom or Jayne and all of them.”
“If he’s trying to find out the truth about you, he’s going to look to them first, so if they believe it, he’s more likely to believe it, too. The fewer people who know the truth, the better at this point. Less chance of a mistake.”
Ellie expelled a long sigh before finally managing to force a resigned smile. “Well…my high school drama teacher once told me I didn’t have what it took to be an actress. I guess this is my chance to prove the bitch wrong.”
There, that took him out of cop mode for a second—long enough for some of the blue to show in his eyes again. “Good. One more thing, and you’re probably not going to like this any more than she does.”
Tensing, Ellie waited.
“Hudak’s taking lead on this.”
“Hudak?!” Ellie was off the couch, head shaking. “Tory Hudak? No. No way. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” It would have been slightly more believable if he hadn’t emphasized the word so much. “In her defense, though, you haven’t exactly given her much reason to like you.”
“I’m not denying that, so why would she want to do this? And how can she be objective if she’s already got it in for me?”
Brett’s chin dropped for a second; then he sighed. “It’s not something she wants to do, Ellie, but it’s her job to work the cases she gets assigned, and Sarge knows that Hudak and I work well together.”
Grinding her teeth, Ellie let her head fall back and fought the groan trying to escape. “Tory? Really?”
Karma was certainly getting her kicks in these days.
“She’s good,” he said. “You’ll see.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.” He started for the door again, walking backward. “Any questions?”
“No.” She sighed, rolled her eyes, and clicked her tongue. “Okay, yes. An awkward one.”
“Shoot.”
“If we’re supposed to be together, how much…togetherness…are we going to have to show?” She could feel her cheeks blazing, but his expression didn’t even flinch.
He dug into his pocket for his keys, then lifted his left brow ever so slightly. “Maybe a little hand holding once in a while, but despite what Carter and Regan seem to think, some couples like to keep that kind of stuff private. Why don’t we play it that way?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. Okay.” Her only chance of getting out of this without dying of embarrassment was to make light of it. And quick. “So no more jumping you in the driveway, then?”
His cheeks pinked a little, and his expression softened. “Yeah, that’s probably not going to be necessary.”
Ellie liked it when he looked at her like that, like she’d made him forget he was a cop for a few seconds.
“Okay,” she said slowly, hoping to prolong the moment just a little longer. “But I gotta tell you, Ponch, all things considered, last night wasn’t so bad. I mean, we both survived, there was minimal blood
loss, I kicked your ass at Scrabble….”
“It’s not an ass kicking when you cheat.”
“I didn’t cheat—you’re just mad because I used the Q on a triple word score.”
“ ‘Quo’ is not a word.”
“Status quo?” Lifting her hands, she gave him her best “Duh!” look, but he just shook his head.
“That’s a phrase, not a word, and ‘quo’ on its own doesn’t count unless you’re playing in Latin.”
“Which, technically, is part of the core English language, so it counts.”
Very slowly, he tipped his head toward the wall and pretended to bang it a couple of times. “Next time we play with a dictionary. Or better yet, I’ll bring over Risk.”
“Great—world domination’s right up my alley. Bring it on.”
A moment hung between them, a moment that pulled things together yet still separated the real from the imaginary.
“Okay, then. Lock the door behind me and I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“I can…” He was already gone, leaving her standing there in the middle of the living room, one second frowning at the closed door and the next smiling like a complete and utter idiot. “…walk.”
Oh boy. He wasn’t even down the block yet and she was overthinking everything again. She’d learned to deal with a certain type of cop. But this guy, hell, he was almost worse. He actually seemed to care about his cases, without being motivated by the prospect of moving up the ladder.
Not only that—he was also incredibly easy on the eyes and had managed to scramble all of her good sense with a single kiss.
Stop it! It wasn’t a kiss, it was an incident. A sham.
Ellie had met Sergeant Schilling a couple of times, and he hadn’t struck her as someone who’d be willing to go too far outside the rule book, no matter what the circumstances.
She needed to remember that this was all part of a job. Period. And her role was to somehow convince her best friends and her family that she was in it deep with Poncherello—the one person she’d spent the last four years avoiding. No problem, except for the fact that lies beget more lies, and it was already hard enough to separate what was real from what wasn’t.