She’d risked her job for his life, and it had saved him. And now her life might be in danger.
Still, the fact that she’d managed to get there in time was almost uncanny. If someone had fallen into the water, and another person had immediately called 911...
How long would a drunk person have struggled before going under? And how many minutes could he have gone without oxygen?
Even then, the response was too fast.
“Do you think it’s weird that you were able to get there and save him?”
“What do you mean?”
Judah stopped. What did he mean? He saw what she did, that something nagged about this case.
“You don’t think someone called it in before they’d done it, do you? Maybe just to make sure it looked like an accident?”
Piper frowned. “I don’t know. It would explain the fact that he was still alive when I found him.”
Judah shut the case file, pushed it toward the other one that had caught Piper’s attention, and shook his head. “I don’t know... Let’s call it a yes for being odd, too.”
They kept flipping through. By the time they were done, around four thirty, Piper had found one more that looked suspicious, a rescue of someone who had fallen while hiking and ended up on a narrow ledge. The level of danger and the circumstances felt similar to what had happened the night before. Because of Piper’s climbing skills she could rescue the hiker, who hadn’t been able to offer a satisfactory answer of how he had fallen. He’d been disoriented, with a concussion, and no foul play had been suspected.
Alone, not too suspicious.
But put together with the other cases that had drawn Piper’s attention, and with their newfound curiosity about whether or not someone was after Piper? It was worth looking into.
“Nice job,” Judah said. They examined the few remaining files and nothing stood out. They stacked the cases back. That gave him three from this past year to work with, three reasons someone might be after Piper. The more he thought about his theory of why someone might be after her, the more it made sense. But why would someone want to kill multiple people in the town? And in similar ways? A serial killer wouldn’t generally focus his attention on anyone but his intended victims. At least, Judah didn’t think so. This felt more to him like...well, almost like a hit man, but this was Raven Pass. Was he taking his suspicions too far? He didn’t know anymore. He shook his head and went on. “So...next thing I was thinking...”
“Was it that you wanted to take me to dinner and feed me because I’ve been locked up all day helping you?”
It hadn’t been, but her teasing voice, her sparkling eyes caused Judah to almost forget all the reasons that letting himself fall for her would be a terrible idea.
“That’s an even better plan.” He found himself grinning. When was the last time he’d smiled like that?
“Perfect.” She stood up. “I want a steak. Ready?”
He wasn’t sure he was, or really could ever be. To take out someone like Piper? Spend time with her outside of the police department and not act on any of the attraction he had to her? Yeah, it sounded like a losing proposition from the get-go.
But time with her was like time outside, refreshing. Unexpected.
Impossible to say no to.
“Steak. I’m ready. Let’s go.”
SIX
High Tide Steak House was situated near where Fourteen-Mile River emptied into Cook Inlet. It was a restaurant as full of contradictions as Alaska itself, where you could easily find someone in a little black dress on a date, or someone in Carhartt coveralls wanting a good meal after a hard day’s work. Looking around, Piper would qualify herself and Judah as somewhere between the two extremes. Not overly dressed up, but not too casual, either. They fit in fine.
Her heart was pounding a little harder than usual in her chest. Had she really asked Judah out? Sure, it was half a joke, and they had been working together all day. This should feel no different than eating pizza together at lunch, right?
It did, though, and she would be fooling herself to try to pretend otherwise.
“I haven’t eaten here in forever,” she said aloud, suddenly finding herself grasping for some kind of small talk.
“It’s good. Great steaks.” Another smile from Judah. For a man who seemed to walk around town in a perpetually serious mood, he’d smiled a lot today. Piper didn’t remember him being so serious when they’d first met. Actually, he’d been a whole lot less quiet. Less tense.
Piper was suddenly at a loss for words.
The server came, led them to a table by the window. The view was gorgeous but she found herself hesitating when the waitress asked if it was okay. She glanced at Judah.
He nodded. “This is good, thanks.”
Piper hadn’t been sure. Nothing had happened since she was shot at in front of the police station. But someone had tried to kill her. Twice. A fact that couldn’t be avoided no matter how much she might prefer to avoid it.
Still, Judah hadn’t been worried about their seat next to the window exposing her to danger, so it would be fine.
Right?
She pulled her chair out, sat down and did her best to ignore the window. Judah sat down also and cleared his throat, then started to talk.
“Listen, Piper.”
His voice was low. She could listen to it all day. Piper blinked. Somehow, in the last half hour, the stress of the day had started to overwhelm her. She was tired, and her exhaustion was manifesting itself in a general lack of defenses and no guard up to protect her from her still-present attraction to Judah. He might not have wanted to pursue a relationship when they’d first met a year ago, but Piper had. Truth be told, she’d probably still be interested if he asked.
Wouldn’t she?
No, maybe not. Not after the attacks yesterday. She’d known what the police faced. It wasn’t that she was somehow unaware of the dangers of that profession. But until she’d had her own life put in danger, not by the wilderness but by people who meant to harm her, she hadn’t considered the evil they were up against every day. Loving a cop would mean opening her heart to hurt. And it had had quite enough of that to last a lifetime.
“Piper?” Judah asked. Right. He’d been talking or had been about to say something and the sound of his voice had sent her off into her own world. Pathetic. Maybe adorable, if she wasn’t the one being ridiculous.
“I’m sorry, I missed that,” she said with a small laugh.
Great, she sounded nervous. Probably looked nervous, too, judging by the amount of tension she could feel in her body.
“I was just saying that we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so I’m glad you suggested dinner.”
She blinked, tried to analyze the entire situation. Judah’s shoulders were where they belonged and he was leaned slightly back, all of which gave the impression he was not about to jump out of his skin like she currently was.
He couldn’t be asking her out. They were already out. And it didn’t matter if it was a date or not.
“I wanted to make sure we went ahead and cleared the air between us. I know you sort of did last night, but I just wanted to make sure... No hard feelings?”
No...hard feelings?
The walls went back up, old hurts threatened and Piper swallowed hard against the familiar questions. Was something wrong with her? Was she doing something wrong? She was twenty-nine. Not old at all, but at an age where she’d always imagined herself in some kind of committed relationship on its way to marriage. Maybe already married, if she were honest.
“Oh, sure,” she heard herself say in a tone more casual than she felt. She smiled, knowing it might not have quite reached her eyes, but hoping it was convincing enough. It usually was. No one ever noticed when it covered up how she was really feeling.
He looked relieved.
“So...” She trailed off, struggling for conversational topics. This was painful. Awkwardness made her feel all cringey and all she wanted was to go home, snuggle with her cat, do some yoga and sleep for a long time. The last few days had been too much.
She’d made it through another time that was worse, though, so she could make it through this, too.
Piper took a deep breath and found a conversational topic. “Done any good climbing lately?”
It had been what they’d mostly had in common when they’d met. And it was something that most climbers she knew could talk about for hours with no interruption, unless that interruption was to load up in someone’s van and hit the crag right then.
Judah nodded. “Some. I don’t have a lot of climbing partners, so I’ve mostly been going alone.”
“Self-belaying?” she asked to confirm.
He laughed that time. “Yes. I don’t free solo. Won’t ever. It’s too dangerous.”
Piper agreed with him now. There was a time in her life when she’d dabbled in climbing without a rope, but that had been years ago. She recognized now that it had been done during a time in her life when she hadn’t had enough to live for. She hadn’t wanted to die, she knew. She just...hadn’t cared enough to care. It had been just after she’d broken up with Drew and she’d felt abandoned by everyone, maybe even by God. It wasn’t until later that she realized she’d been the one to walk away from those relationships and had started moving back toward them.
The amount of times God would forgive her and welcome her back never ceased to amaze her.
“Good,” she said in response to his answer, not wanting to dwell on that topic. “Any routes I might have overlooked that you want to tell me about?”
Judah started talking about some sport climbing he’d done up north of Anchorage, in the Hatcher Pass area, and Piper listened. As she did, her body started to relax and things felt more normal.
Maybe she could do this after all, keep her feelings under wraps.
Dinner was served and they ate. The food was delicious as always. They were debating dessert when something caught Piper’s attention. Movement out the window? Maybe. She looked through the glass but didn’t see anything obviously out of place.
A chill ran down Piper’s spine. She stared out at the view. The 1964 earthquake had sunk some of the land near here, and it had fallen below the water table. That had killed several trees, and some dead ones were still standing. A memorial of sorts to the devastation that had once overwhelmed this gorgeous place. The mountains in the distance were dark green shadows begging to be climbed, or at least it had always seemed that way to Piper.
This scenery had always comforted her. It had been the solace she’d needed after her last relationship had gone so, so wrong. And it had been a constant in the uncertainty of her childhood. Alaska was a part of her, and she loved it.
But right now, she did not feel peace. Instead she felt...
Almost watched? Like something was out there, somewhere she couldn’t see it. Unease crept from her spine to her shoulders.
“What is it?” Judah asked.
Piper shook her head, her eyes not moving from the window, the landscape. “I don’t know.” She rubbed her arms, shook her head and tore her gaze away to look at Judah. “I think I’m just nervous. Today was tough.”
She couldn’t tell if Judah was buying her explanation and Piper wasn’t convinced she was, either, but she’d had to try to talk herself out of panicking. It wouldn’t do her any good.
“Sure?”
She shrugged. “As I can be.”
“Let’s finish up and get you home.”
Piper nodded, disappointed in herself to have ruined what had been a surprisingly nice evening, with her paranoia. But someone was after her. No amount of nice conversations or delicious food could change that.
* * *
Judah drove Piper home, hoping the silence was the companionable kind and not the something-was-wrong kind. Levi would know. Judah had spent more time talking today than he had in probably weeks, and he just needed to get home and have some time alone.
Still, dinner with Piper had been...pleasant. Too pleasant, really. It reminded him of all he wanted and couldn’t have. If he had another job, if he were better at relationships, maybe. But he’d chosen his career and wasn’t changing it now, which meant the decision to avoid romance was already made. But more than anything, he didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Especially someone like Piper, who was sweet and beautiful and seemed to already bear invisible scars someone else had inflicted on her.
Judah still wanted to know more about her past. He really wanted to know more about her in general, but how was that fair? He couldn’t keep getting closer to her, acting like he wanted a relationship if he didn’t.
He didn’t want one, right?
When they pulled into the driveway and parked, Judah opened his car door and stepped out when Piper did. “I thought I’d check your house for you, if that’s okay.”
“Please.”
Her tone was more emphatic than he’d have expected. Truth be told, he wasn’t even sure he’d expected her to agree, much less with any kind of enthusiasm.
“So, Piper, what exactly did you think you saw outside the restaurant?” He hadn’t pushed her earlier, but she’d seemed distracted since then, her perfect eyebrows bunched in a slight frown.
“Nothing. I told you that.” She looked over at him, then back forward at the road.
“But...” Judah led.
She sighed. “But I felt like I was being watched. I don’t know. That’s not really something quantifiable, so I hate to say it’s true when I really don’t know. I just got the odd sensation that someone was observing me.”
She appeared to not want him to be concerned, but why? Did she really doubt her gut instincts or was it that she didn’t want him too concerned?
See, this was his problem. He overthought things too much, analyzed them down to the smallest detail.
“Come with me but stay behind me.” Judah told her. ’Cause he sure wasn’t leaving her in the car, either.
She did so without complaint and Judah checked the house. It was clear; no one was there but the two of them.
He found that Piper was just behind him.
Judah blinked, the proximity forcing him to admit just how strong his attraction to her was. He almost expected her to notice, too, to give some evidence that she felt it, whatever it was between them, though he didn’t know why. She didn’t even meet his gaze, just looked away from him and backed up.
“I’ll...” He cleared his throat, surprised at the way his heart was still pounding. “I’ll have someone sit in the driveway tonight to make sure nothing out of the ordinary happens.”
“Okay.” It felt like they were back to being professionals in similar industries who occasionally worked together. Not how it had felt like earlier, when they had been something more like partners.
“All right. So. Tomorrow we’ll touch base? I’d like to talk to you more about the cases you pointed out today and get a better idea for who was affected and see if any of them tie together somehow.”
She nodded. “We can do that. I’ll call when I wake up?”
Judah agreed. “Sounds good.”
She walked him to the door, smiled a sort of sad smile as he wondered what she had to be sad about.
As for him, he had plenty of reasons, he realized as he walked to the car. He’d mess up more than one time, he suspected, in this friendship. Maybe he’d messed up in the first place by backing off and keeping it as a friendship; he didn’t know anymore. Law enforcement wasn’t just the career he had chosen; it was who he was. He couldn’t give that up, but neither could he ask a woman to stand beside him through it. He couldn’t ask someone to sit by the front window, looking out, wondering if her husband’s cruiser would pull into t
he driveway or if he’d been killed while on duty. He couldn’t ask someone to possibly raise children alone.
But maybe even more heartbreaking, he couldn’t ask someone to risk their heart when he wasn’t sure he could be trusted with it. He would pick his job over love ever time. It had been true until now and he had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be in the future.
Judah pulled out his phone and dialed the Raven Pass Police Department. “Hey, this is Officer Judah Wicks. Do we have someone on patrol tonight who could keep an eye on Piper McAdams’s house?”
He heard the clicking of keys over the phone, and a rustle of papers as their admin checked. “Officer Holloway is free.”
She was a newer officer, but one Judah trusted. He’d rather stay himself, but...well, for one thing he’d gotten barely any sleep last night and he wasn’t foolish enough to think he could keep that up for long.
Also, something told him he needed to keep as much distance between Piper and himself as he could. He was going to be working with her closely on this case. But he didn’t need to spend every moment thinking about her, wondering how her night was going, was she safe, did she wish they’d given whatever was between them a chance...
He shoved her out of his mind again.
Tried, anyway.
Judah put the car in Drive and made his way down the quiet streets to his house. The early August night was finally starting to darken. It was always an adjustment to get used to the returning darkness after the month of June, when the sun shone all night long. Even in August it would never be completely dark, but comparatively, it felt like real nighttime.
Of course, that made him more apprehensive for Piper. Obviously, she was in danger at any time of the day as long as someone was after her. But darkness gave criminals better cover, and it gave them places to hide. He didn’t want anything to happen to her.
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