Did he think she was making a run for it? She supposed it wasn’t such a bad idea, but she had visions of him coming after her, popping up in the most inappropriate places.
She fell back to her initial excuse. “To the coffee machine. I wasn’t aware that I had to run that by you first.”
“You don’t.” Leaning forward, he took his wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. Laredo removed a couple of bills and held them out to her. “And I wouldn’t mind a cup myself.”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed. Now he thought she was his gofer? “Then, unless you have some magical ability to make containers of coffee appear when you snap your fingers, I suggest you get up and get your coffee yourself.”
“No problem. Lead the way,” Laredo said, rising. “It’ll be on me.”
Now that was a very tempting picture. After a moment, she relinquished the thought.
Taylor walked out into the hall and led the way to the vending machine.
By the end of the day, it felt as if they were all but hermetically joined at the hip. Except for an occasional break, when he paused to talk to one of the detectives—did everyone know this man but her?—Laredo remained at Aaron’s desk, playing solitaire and occasionally sitting up straighter and hitting a couple of keys or more on the keyboard, pulling up things she couldn’t see. He would make notes then and look more serious.
But he volunteered nothing and she’d be damned if she was going to come across like some needy person and ask him what he was doing. After all, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have anything to do on her own.
But, when six o’clock rolled around and almost everyone from the day shift had left, Taylor decided it was time to stop playing this useless charade.
Taking her purse out of the double bottom drawer, she placed it dramatically on top of her desk and rose from her chair. “It looks like your friend isn’t going to get back to you today.”
Laredo raised his eyes from the screen. The next moment, they had locked with hers. “Today is not over yet.”
Did he have to give her an argument about everything? “Maybe not, but my shift is and I’m going home.” She looked at him pointedly. He made no move to get up. The man’s middle name most definitely had to be Difficult, not Chester. “Look, I can’t just leave you here,” she told him flatly. “No matter what you think of yourself, you are a civilian and you can’t be here without someone on the force babysitting you.”
Laredo inclined his head, as if that was logical. And then he suggested, “Then stay.”
The hell she would. She was drained and needed a break. All the details she’d been reviewing had begun to run together. She needed some time to let things gel.
“I stopped babysitting when I was a teenager,” she informed him.
His smile moved along his lips slowly, unfurling a hint of an inch at a time. And peeling something apart inside of her as she watched.
Most of all, Taylor thought, she needed a break from him.
“You must have been something else back then,” he speculated.
She could all but see him envisioning her and nearly told him to stop it. But she had no doubt that Laredo would give her some innocent response and she’d look like an idiot.
Sparing herself the grief, Taylor said, “I was a lot more patient back then. Now let’s go. If you have your heart set on it, you can continue playing this game tomorrow—” she tapped the screen “—but for tonight, you—”
That was when his cell phone rang and she was forced to let the end of her statement go unsaid. A part of her suspected he’d managed to get his phone to ring on cue, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off him for the last five minutes.
Another reason to get rid of him, she thought. Because the more she watched him, the more he affected her on a deep level. She was more comfortable on her own.
The look on Laredo’s face as he talked to the person on the other end of the line told her it was the call he’d been waiting for.
“Great,” Laredo enthused. “I knew you’d come through, Levi. E-mail all that to me. Right, I’ll tell Chet you said hi. Come over sometime,” he invited. “He’s itching to talk about the ‘good old days,’ now that they’re in the past,” Laredo added with a short laugh. “I owe you one. Okay, two,” he amended. And with that, Laredo ended the call, closing the phone and putting it back into his pocket.
It hadn’t been easy, holding on to her questions. Now that he’d hung up, Taylor pounced. “Levi?”
Laredo appeared preoccupied as he nodded in her direction. “Someone my grandfather used to work with,” he told her as he typed something on the keyboard.
When he said nothing further, she prompted, “You told him to send it to you. That means you have to go home to your computer—”
That was when he actually looked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
She knew damn well so-called guest accounts could be forwarded to other computers and resented his implying that she was a computer virgin. “‘Hoping’ is more like it,” she countered.
One glance at the computer in front of Laredo showed her a screen filled with data. For now, she forgot how annoying she found him and started reading. The amount of background facts was overwhelming.
“Where did he get all this stuff?” she asked, stunned as the wealth of information continued to materialize. It looked as if their homeless man had been thoroughly researched from the moment of his birth to a single mom in Kansas City until he’d drawn his last breath sometime last night—if the coroner’s estimation was accurate about the latter.
“If he told you, Levi’d have to kill you,” Laredo deadpanned, then felt compelled to add with admiration, “The man’s good.”
“The man’s incredible,” she breathed, leaning in closer as she read. Without realizing it, she placed her hand on Laredo’s shoulder.
“A lot of that going around,” she heard him say in a voice that didn’t match the one he’d just been using. And then it hit her like a lightning bolt: she was practically bending over him, her hair sweeping along his shoulder. Touching his face.
The second she became aware of how close she was to him, Taylor pulled her shoulders back and snapped into a rigid position—or at least that was the plan.
But for some reason, her body wasn’t getting the message and it definitely wasn’t cooperating. If anything, it rebelled against her.
As if paralyzed, she remained exactly where she was, her face inches from his. And now that she’d turned her head, she was even closer than a sigh.
Taylor felt his breath on her skin. Her stomach did a backward flip, then was all but lost in the ensuing tidal wave.
“Nice job,” she murmured and almost became undone by the smile that began in Laredo’s sky-blue eyes and then descended to his lips.
“On behalf of Levi, thank you,” he said. “And, in the words of the immortal Al Jolson, ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’”
The name meant nothing to her. She looked at him blankly. “Who?”
“You’re serious?” It was only half a question. Laredo shook his head, doing his best to suppress an amused grin. “Oh, Detective McIntyre, I fear that your education has been woefully inadequate.”
He had to be the one who was kidding. “Because I’ve never seen The Magnificent Seven and I don’t know who Allen Jolson is?”
“Al,” he corrected her. “His name was Al Jolson and he appeared in the first talking picture. His real first name was Asa—”
She held her hands up, as if to physically fend off the avalanche of words she felt sure was forthcoming. “How do you know all these things?”
His eyes crinkled. So did her stomach. Since when were they connected? “I read a lot.”
Obviously all the wrong things, she couldn’t help thinking. “And just how full of useless trivia is your head?” she asked.
Too late she realized that she had set herself up. Sure enough, Laredo was quick to seize the opportunity. “Why don’t we go someplace for a lat
e dinner and you can find out?”
That was the last thing she wanted. Because he was growing on her. Because she didn’t have the strength to hold him at bay indefinitely. Because she knew she didn’t have the strength to hold herself in check.
“Tempting as that is,” she told him glibly, “I’m just too exhausted.” She pointed to the screen. “Print that up for me and we’ll call it a night.”
His hands moved. Laredo began the printing process without bothering to look at the keyboard, all his attention focused on her.
“You’ve got to eat,” he pointed out. “Keep your strength up.”
Taylor shrugged carelessly. “I’ll pick something up on the way home.”
His next words stopped her cold. “Sounds good. You talked me into it.”
About to go to the printer that serviced her side of the room, Taylor turned around to glare at him. “I wasn’t trying to talk you into anything,” she protested.
But he winked at her, slicing through sheets of would-be resistance. “You’re more subtle than you give yourself credit for.”
Rising, Laredo crossed to the printer before she could. Something else that surprised her. She fisted her hand at her waist.
“How is it that you know where the printer’s located and you didn’t know where the coffee machine was?” she asked. The printer wasn’t out in plain sight but housed in a cubicle against the far wall. The coffee machine, on the other hand, was out in plain sight on the way to the elevators.
“Priorities?” he suggested innocently.
Taylor sighed and shook her head. Though she hated to admit it, she just wasn’t up to arguing with this man. Not when she knew that she’d wind up losing. It occurred to her that, like it or not, she had finally met her match.
J. C. Laredo had the ability to effectively wear away his opponent. If she hadn’t been on the receiving end of that talent, she might have even admired it. But she was on the receiving end and that meant only one thing. She was going to have to stay on her guard.
Constantly.
So what was she doing, letting him tag along as she went home? Somewhere along the line from the precinct to her apartment door, she’d lost her focus. And quite possibly, her mind. Otherwise, she would have sent Laredo packing long before she pulled up into her apartment complex, his vintage vehicle behind her.
Not for a minute was she buying his excuse—that he wanted to read through Levi’s pages after she was finished with her initial perusal. If that was the case, they could have printed up two sets. But, if it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have had this information. At least, she wouldn’t have been able to get her hands on it this quickly.
Besides, she silently argued, pulling into her parking space, she wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted. And as long as they just talked about the case, what could happen?
That she’d wanted to take the night off mentally was not forgotten. The best laid plans of mice and men and homicide detectives…
The tempting aroma of still-hot Chinese food all but surrounded her as she unlocked the door to her apartment. Laredo came in right behind her. He carried an open rectangular box filled to the brim with four different cartons of Chinese food, as well as the obligatory egg rolls, egg drop soup and half a dozen fortune cookies. The last items were thanks to the cashier. The young woman had rained the individually wrapped cookies into the box after the unusually generous tip that Laredo slipped into her hand registered.
He set down the box in the center of the kitchen table.
“Damn that was hard,” he said more to himself than to her.
She looked at him over her shoulder. “The box was heavy?” she asked, confused. His comment made no sense to her. While not muscle-bound, she’d noted more than once that the man had one hell of a physique.
“No, but the food was tempting as hell,” he told her. He emptied the box, placing the contents around the perimeter of the table. “Took everything I had not to start sampling it in the car.”
She laughed shortly. “Your restraint is admirable,” Taylor quipped.
She didn’t expect to get trapped in his eyes when he raised them to hers and said, “You don’t know the half of it.”
She made a tactical error by looking into his eyes. She had to avoid that from now on if she wanted her knees to make it through this evening. Taking a breath to hopefully clear her head, she breezed past him to the kitchen cupboards. Another fortifying breath went in, then out and she began to take down two plates and the same number of forks, spoons, napkins and glasses.
Taylor set everything she’d brought back on the table beside the cluster of cartons and announced in a voice that was just this side of hollow, “Well, you can dig in now.”
“Can I, now?”
She forgot her promise to herself about not looking into his eyes.
The inside of her mouth turned to cotton but she refused to explore why. Like the man said, she needed to eat to keep her strength up. Right now, she felt as if she had the strength of a newborn kitten.
What was wrong with her?
Where were all these adolescent feelings and reactions coming from? She was closer to thirty than twenty, for heaven’s sake, and these feelings weren’t even worthy of a twenty-year-old. Not even a very young twenty-year-old.
“Yes, you can,” she said as if he hadn’t just begun to melt her inner core. “After all, you paid for it.” She was doing her best to focus on the food and not on the way her pulse beat erratically. “And besides, I can’t eat all this by myself.” As if to tempt him—or was that distract him—Taylor pushed one of the sealed containers toward his plate. “I think that’s sesame chicken.”
He smiled as he opened the container. “Sesame chicken it is.” He took a little onto his plate, mingling it with flavored rice. “You had a twenty-five percent chance of being right.”
“Better odds than I usually have,” Taylor couldn’t help commenting under her breath.
“Oh?” He reached for another container at the same time she did. He withdrew, indicating that she could go first. “Is that professionally or—?”
“That’s off-limits, Laredo,” she informed him, shoving the second container into his hand to underscore her point. “You’re here because somehow you managed to inject yourself into my investigation and I’m too polite to show you your walking papers. But if you think for one moment this gives you a free pass to do or ask anything you damn well feel like—and expect me to answer—you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Finished?” he asked mildly. She looked at him quizzically. “Are you finished?” he repeated, then rephrased his question. “Did you get that out of your system? Yelling at me, I mean.”
“For now. Although I reserve the right to do it again the next time you deserve it,” she informed him as she took a serving of chicken lo mein. There was no question about it, the man aroused her curiosity—among other things. “Why?”
He took the lid off the container of egg drop soup and passed it to her. “Because I have a question for you.”
She watched the overhead light dance along the top of the soup. The beams of light mingled with the steam. It was still too hot to eat. “Go ahead.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Okay, not what she expected to hear. It took all she had not to let her jaw drop. Finding her voice took another good half a minute. She did her best to sound blasé. “Why are you asking? You didn’t the other two times.”
“Because we’re on your home ground now. And because there are other factors that’ll come into play this time around,” he told her meaningfully. “Now, can I kiss you?” he repeated, his voice low, soft. Caressing her.
Creating incredible havoc throughout her soul.
“Go ahead,” she whispered, her breath catching in her throat even before he raised her to her feet and brought her close to him.
Chapter 12
T aylor realized she was a woman standing at the very edge of a narrow ledge. Moreover, she was
about to go plummeting without the benefit of even a rubber band to anchor her in place.
When Laredo’s lips touched hers, she instantly felt herself free-falling into the abyss, an almost giddy sensation filling every nook and tiny crevice within her. The emptiness Taylor carried within her instantly vanished.
The kiss between them blossomed, drawing in all her senses. She could taste him, feel him, breathe in the particular scent of him. She was vaguely aware of the shampoo he used for his hair, his aftershave and soap.
The subtle mix made her head spin—or was that the effect of the kiss that was ever deepening? Or was it because of the man who was holding her to him as if there were no barriers between them?
All she knew was that they were already mingling, already becoming one even though they hadn’t even gone beyond the kitchen, hadn’t gone beyond the press of lips to lips.
It felt as if they were already miles beyond that.
He was making love to her with his mouth.
Taylor’s pulse raced madly as she tightened her arms around his neck. She kissed Laredo back for all she was worth. There was no way she intended to be the passive one here, the only one who got her shoes knocked off. Although she secretly admitted that she didn’t possess nearly the kind of experience as that of the other women he must be used to, her instincts kicked in with full force.
Laredo had known that he’d wanted her even before he’d kissed Taylor in front of the restaurant. He’d known right from the first minute he’d come upon her talking to herself in Eileen’s apartment. Something about the sharp police detective with the smart mouth had pulled him in almost immediately. This was what real chemistry was all about.
He could fight it for just so long.
Out in public, he could hold that need, that desire that coursed through his veins whenever he was around Taylor, in check. Even when he was a teenager, he hadn’t believed in putting on a show for others to watch, which meant that he developed iron control and never allowed himself to get carried away.
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