by Laura Drewry
“Well, that’s just common sense,” he said, his voice thick. “Safety first and all that.”
Ellie smiled back at him, but it took her a couple of seconds to blink her mind clear again.
“ ‘Too safe,’ ” she said, “is when you hover, you’re always right there staring over her shoulder, never letting her do anything without fretting like an old mother hen. It’s like you’re trying to micromanage her life.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” His smile wasn’t very big, but his eyes sparkled clear. “It’s a wonder she stayed with me as long as she did.”
“I don’t know, Ponch—you’re not so bad.” Closing the lid on the last few pieces in the box, Ellie scooped it up with the empty plates and carried everything over to the counter. “Besides, if Spicy Thai Girl hadn’t kicked your ass to the curb, who would’ve stepped up to be my super-awesome fake boyfriend?”
“I thought we decided Dickie was the man for you.” He rolled his eyes slightly, then lifted both their drinks off the table. “Come on.”
He led her out to the living room, where he turned on Netflix and searched out…
“Snap, Poncherello—no way, really?” Before he could even finish typing the title The Killing, she’d flopped down on the end of the couch and tucked her legs up beside her.
“Which episode?”
“If you haven’t seen it, then start at the beginning. I’m more than happy to watch it all over again.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“All of it? So you know how it ends? Did that Kyle kid do it? Or was it that creepy photographer guy? What about Holder and Caroline? I bet he’s a good dad, isn’t he? I just don’t see him and Caroline together long-term, though; she doesn’t get him like Linden does.”
Brett hadn’t said a word the whole time, just stood there bumping the remote against his thigh.
“D’you want to watch or d’you want me to tell you?”
“Tell me,” she begged, then shook her head. “No, don’t. I want to watch. Second-to-last episode, please.”
With a slow shake of his head, he hit Play, then flopped down on the couch beside her, hands folded over his stomach, bare feet crossed on the coffee table.
“I should probably warn you,” he said, settling back against the cushion. “If my super-awesome fake girlfriend’s going to sit here drooling over some skinny-ass addict who can’t get his shit together, I’m not going to be happy about that.”
“Shush, it’s starting.”
“Yes, dear.”
Ellie didn’t get off that couch until the very end. Brett refilled her drink, brought the pizza box out to the living room, then made her a big bowl of popcorn, but the only movement she made was between episodes, when she called her mom, who repeatedly told her she was fine and that Ellie should just enjoy herself.
“Oh, Holder,” Ellie croaked, swiping her hand under her eyes as the final credits rolled. “Don’t you just love him?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, holding out the last napkin for her to use. “Love him.”
“Seriously.” With her muscles creaking from sitting so long, Ellie unfolded herself from the couch, laced her fingers, and stretched as high as she could before reaching down and grabbing her toes. “I wouldn’t sit still for that long for just anyone, you know.”
“I’m sure he appreciates it.” At his end of the couch, with his legs straight out and his arm thrown over the back of the cushion, his eyes softened and his mouth slowly curled up into a small grin. “Want another beer?”
“What time is…Eleven? Oh, wow, no, I should get going.”
“You sure? We could binge Sons of Anarchy next.”
“Tempting,” she said. “But my mother has apparently discovered online dating, so I need to get home and make sure she hasn’t given out my address to every ax murderer she’s hooked up with tonight.”
“Good idea. Ax murderers are a dime a dozen these days; make her wait for someone with a bit more imagination.”
“Exactly.” She followed him to the kitchen and set the three remaining beers in his fridge. “See, aside from the whole pizza debacle, we’re like one brain. Crazy, right?”
“Yeah. Crazy.” He leaned back against the sink, his hands wrapped around the edge of the counter. “Guess you need a ride home, huh?”
“Well, yeah,” she sighed dramatically. “It’s the whole ‘no license’ thing again, and apparently my new boyfriend is a real stickler for things like that.”
“Go figure.” He stared back at her for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “Okay, let’s go before the ax murderers start lining up at your door.”
They made it back to her place in about five minutes but spent a hell of a lot longer than that sitting in the driveway talking about anything that came to mind, from Brett’s training with the RCMP to how Regan had managed to strike her deal with Griffin Carr and how Ellie had gone from thinking her mom was crazy for marrying Buck in the first place to actually admiring her devotion to him.
It was everything and nothing all at the same time, but one thing was for certain: neither one of them was ready for the night to end.
“Okay,” Ellie said over a laugh. “What is this, like the fifth time I’ve said it? I’m really going in this time. Thanks for the ride.”
She meant to leave it there, only he got out of the truck, too, and followed her up to the door.
“Just making sure,” he said. “I’ll wait here till you check on your mom.”
Ellie unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and made room for him to follow her in until they both saw pajama-clad Gail walking out of the kitchen and heading for the stairs, a glass of water in one hand, her iPad in the other.
“Oh hi, sweetheart, how was your night?”
“Good. You okay?”
“Yes, just needed some water; it’s so hot upstairs.”
“It’s called a hot flash, Mom. You better get used to them.”
“Don’t be cheeky. Hello, Brett.”
“Mrs. Palmer.”
“Call me Gail,” she said, flapping her hand in a half-wave as she disappeared into her room.
“Uh, yeah, sure, okay.” He cleared his throat quietly, then made Ellie laugh when he mumbled, “Never gonna happen.”
“See,” Ellie said, holding her hands up. “Everyone’s safe and sound, so your duty here is done.”
He took a slow step back, then stopped.
“Thanks for coming over tonight, Ell. That was, uh—well, thanks.”
“Least I could do,” she said, trying to sound bright and ending up sounding chirpy instead. “Thanks for letting me get my Holder fix.”
He started to say something, then changed his mind and nodded instead. Such a guy.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Give your super-awesome fake girlfriend a hug. It’s the least you can do now that you’re making me marry Dickie.”
She was only half-teasing, holding her arms open like that, but all teasing stopped when he stepped up and gathered her against him. With her arms wrapped around his neck, and his arms tightening around her lower back, he lifted her so she was off the floor and he was the only thing she touched.
He didn’t swing her around; he didn’t even move. He simply stood there, holding her for a few short electricity-filled seconds, his fingers curling tight into the fabric of her sweater, his breath warm against her neck. Ellie clung to him, not because she was afraid of falling but because she was afraid she already had.
How could that be? A month ago, she couldn’t get far enough away from him, but tonight, she’d give almost anything to stay right where she was, with her fingers playing against the back of his neck, breathing in his easy clean scent, and being warmed by the heat of his skin through his shirt.
“Brett?” She’d barely whispered his name, but it pulled a long, low growl out of him. “Do you want to stay?”
As he lowered her to the floor, Ellie thought he was going to let her go, but he didn’t. Instead, he sli
d his hands up her spine until he had her head cradled in the warmth of his palms.
“Yeah.” He exhaled slowly, his voice strained and pinched. “I want to stay.”
Her eyes fluttered closed for a second and her breath hitched slightly. “But you’re not going to, are you?”
“No.”
God, when he looked at her like that, his eyes so clear, so blue, and that mouth…wow, that mouth…it was all she could do not to throw herself back into his arms and stay there.
“Right.” Her head was nodding, but it took her a hell of a long time to do anything other than look up at him, and the awkward laugh she finally managed to get out was nothing more than a harsh rasp. “Okay.”
He dragged his hands away, scrubbed them over the top of his head, then laced his fingers behind his neck, all the while stumbling back a couple of steps. “Jeezus.”
Oh sweet Lord, what had she done? He was there to do a job, to look after her, not to have her jump him every time they said good night. He’d told her right from the start that they should downplay the whole “togetherness” part of this charade, and he’d done that. She’d been the one to reach for his hand—he never reached for hers—and she’d been the one who kissed him; he didn’t kiss her. Well, okay, he did, but only because she basically forced him to.
Those other times she’d kissed him had been for a purpose in this whole crazy plan, but tonight…tonight she wanted to kiss him simply because she wanted to feel his lips on hers, to taste his warmth and lose herself in him, knowing that this one was for them, not anyone else.
She thought he wanted that, too, but judging by the way he was backing up, she was obviously wrong. And now what? It couldn’t get much more awkward than it already was, so gathering herself a little, she took a step back and forced a smile she didn’t feel and he clearly didn’t believe.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said brightly, blinking so many times that everything looked jerky, like one of those old movies. “We’ll, uh, be in touch, yeah?”
She reached for the door handle, but Brett’s fingers wrapped around her wrist and held her frozen in his gentle grip.
Oh no, she was not going to cry. She was a grown woman, for crap’s sake, not some overly dramatic teenager who’d just had her heart stomped on for the first time.
Suck it up, buttercup.
“Tory said they’d bring Kurt in for questioning as soon as they found him, so with any luck, we’ll all be free of this soon.”
The storm brewing in his eyes blustered deeper as he released her wrist and nodded.
“Lock it behind me.”
—
Brett made it about a block and a half away before he jerked the truck to a stop and threw it into park.
“Fuck!”
If he hadn’t let her go when he did, he’d be back there right now kissing her, pulling her soft curves up against him, breathing in her sweet scent, which made him so fuckin’ dizzy all the time. Her fingers would still be dancing across the back of his neck, her breath would still be tickling his ear, and her eyes would have that same dazed look they’d had the first time they kissed, only this time he would’ve made damn good and sure it took her a lot longer to recover.
It didn’t matter if he closed his eyes or kept them open—all he could see right then was the way the blush on her cheeks trailed down the side of her neck, the way her breasts rose and fell with each rapid breath, and the way her tongue slid across her bottom lip, slowly driving him around the freakin’ bend.
Gripping the steering wheel, he slammed his forehead down on his hands.
If he hadn’t let go of her when he did, he would have jeopardized the whole case against Kurt, and they were still struggling to put that together. They couldn’t afford to screw this up; they needed to get the job done, and then maybe they could…
They could what? He wasn’t going to be around much longer, so what the hell was he doing letting this thing—whatever the hell it was—between them develop into anything besides a working relationship? He shouldn’t have told her about Rosie, and he shouldn’t have let her tell him anything personal—nothing more than the facts of the case.
But damn if he didn’t like listening to her talk: the soft lilt of her voice, the way her lips moved, slowly, smiling so easily, and the way her brown eyes softened when she forgot he was a cop.
He liked the way she moved, the way she set her jaw when she knew her honesty was about to get her into trouble, and he really liked the way she looked—and not just when she was wearing her armor. That’s what he’d come to think of it as: armor. Everyone else wore sweats or something like that once in a while, but not Ellie. She was always done up to the nines, and it wasn’t until he’d spent the night at her place that he’d figured it out.
The coffee had just started to brew when he caught sight of her at the top of the stairs, scurrying from her bedroom to the bathroom, head down, glasses on, hair knotted on the top of her head.
Half an hour later, she came downstairs fully dressed, makeup applied perfectly, with her long, thick hair falling straight down her back. The hunched-over woman he’d watch scamper down the hall was not the same one who came down the stairs. She’d put on her armor, and aside from almost scalding him with coffee, she was ready to take on whatever needed to be dealt with.
The other night at Maya’s, though, she hadn’t been dressed, her hair was a mess, and she had her glasses on. Not counting that morning at her house, it was the first time he’d ever seen her in glasses, and…whew…he’d almost wished he’d let her go upstairs to get dressed. It didn’t seem possible that someone as beautiful as Ell could look even better in a pair of plain black horn-rimmed specs.
No fancy clothes, no makeup, and no matching boots and bag—it was just Ellie, guard down, wrapped in that ugly old gray blanket and making him wish he were anything but a cop right then.
But he was. It didn’t matter what he felt for her or what she thought she felt for him. At the end of the day, the only thing that mattered was keeping her safe, and if he lost his badge because he couldn’t stay focused on the job, how the hell was he supposed to do that?
He couldn’t afford to fuck this up by doing something stupid like falling for her, and the best way to prevent that would be to stop looking at her the way he’d been doing, to stop getting personal, and to stop thinking about her every fuckin’ second of the day.
Chapter 13
“Now that’s how you supposed to drive! From now on, that’s how you drive!”
—Detective Mike Lowrey, Bad Boys
Kurt’s phone calls continued to come in daily, and Ellie continued to hang up on him daily. She didn’t shake quite as much as she had the first few times, but each one still seemed to add another layer of anxiety to the growing pile that she was having more and more trouble tamping down.
And it got worse when the emails started.
She’d thought the first message was from Maya, and it wasn’t until she’d opened the attached photo of herself at their ball game last week that she’d realized what was going on. Kurt hadn’t hacked Maya’s account; he’d simply set up a new one with an almost identical address and was using it to send his emails.
Every day there was a new one, each with another photo attached. There was one of her in her store, one of her riding her bike, another of her talking with Pastor Pete, and so on. Like the phone calls, Ellie logged every email, forwarded each one to Tory, and saved a copy in a separate folder in her mail system.
Tory had immediately put the IT guys on it, but no surprise that this wasn’t leading anywhere. They traced the first email to one of the public-use computers at the library, and none of them were too surprised when the surveillance footage showed nothing more than someone in a dark hoodie walking backward into the library and then hunching down over the keyboard, making sure he never faced the camera.
The next two had come from homes that had reported B&Es the nights the emails had been sent, and the cops were now do
ing their thing with fingerprints at both places. Ellie didn’t expect them to find anything.
She couldn’t have cared less where the emails came from; she just wished he’d show his stupid face so Tory could put an end to it and Ellie could get her old life back.
The thing was, though, she didn’t want her old life back. She wanted her new life back: the one where she got to see Brett on a regular basis, the one where, with a little work, she could get him to smile, and the one where just having him around made her world so much more beautiful.
Eight days: that’s how long it had been since Brett had all but bolted out of her house. Eight days: that’s how long it had been since they’d spent any time alone, and that’s how long it had been since she’d seen him smile.
Eight days. It was a freakin’ eternity.
When he picked her up for her lesson on Wednesday afternoon, she climbed behind the wheel and completely ignored his instruction to head out to the highway, choosing instead to drive down past the yacht club, where the road led to the gravel lot near the waterfront docks.
“What are you doing?” Brett asked. “The highway’s that way.”
Eyes forward, hands at ten and two, she maneuvered his truck around the potholes while still giving the cyclists a wide berth—much like Brett had been giving her this last week. He didn’t say another word the whole way, which was fine because it gave her more time to think about what she was going to say. Not enough time, as it turned out, but they couldn’t just sit there staring out at the water forever, and there was no way in hell he could be any more mortified than she was, so…
“I’m sorry. I guess I got caught up in the whole thing and forgot this is nothing but a show.”
He didn’t even look at her, just kept his gaze focused straight out the front window. “You don’t understand, Ellie. If I screw this up…”
There wasn’t even a hint of humor in the laugh she released.
“Oh, Poncherello, that’s where you’re wrong. I understand just fine.” She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin a little, and kicked herself mentally for not applying a second layer of lipstick before heading out of the house. “We both knew from the start that this was a job, that you were here to help keep me safe, and all we had to do was keep up the pretense until Kurt made a mistake. Well, he doesn’t seem to making any, and I’m sure you never thought this would go on as long as it has, so maybe it’s time to reassess things.”