“It was nothing I care to issue a complaint about,” he said. He lifted his wad of shirt from the cut on his arm, and it welled with blood. He quickly covered the wound with the soapy washcloth, applying pressure.
“Issue a complaint?” Lucy stared at him. “I asked you what happened. I didn’t ask you if you wanted to file a complaint.”
“I’m not trying to start another fight here,” Blue said, glancing up at her. His eyes were startlingly blue. “It’s just…you’ve been careful about remaining in your role as a police officer at other times, I figured what happened to me this afternoon was something you wouldn’t want to know.”
Lucy was shocked. “Is that all I am to you, a police officer?”
“I thought that was your choice,” Blue said, rinsing the washcloth in the basin, then using it to reapply pressure to his slashed arm. “I thought you were the one who set those limits.”
“I can’t be your lover,” Lucy told him. “That’s my limit. But I thought at least I was your friend.”
He looked up at her again, his eyes sweeping down the length of her body and back up before settling on her face. “My friends don’t look that good in their jeans.”
“I suppose you don’t have a single friend who’s a woman.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do now,” she said grimly. She crouched next to him, not certain of the best way to put the ice pack on his leg. The bruise looked incredibly painful. It was turning all sorts of shades of purple, with a long, darker welt in the center, as if…“My God, were you hit with a pipe?”
He briefly met her eyes again. “Yeah. I think that’s what it was.” He took a bottle of antiseptic spray from the first-aid kit and sprayed it on his arm. It had to sting, but he didn’t even blink.
“God, Blue, if they’d hit you with this much force on your head…” Lucy sat back on her heels, feeling sick to her stomach. He could have been killed.
“They didn’t,” he said. “I was careful not to let them do that.”
“Please tell me what happened.” Slowly, carefully, trying to be gentle, Lucy lowered the ice pack onto Blue’s leg. He didn’t wince; he merely clenched his teeth a little tighter at the contact.
“I stayed behind at the cemetery,” Blue said, using a roll of gauze to wrap up his arm.
“Do you want me to do that?” Lucy asked, interrupting him.
He sent her a tight smile. “No,” he said. “Thanks. It’s tricky doing it with only one hand, and that’s keeping my focus off my leg.”
“It must really hurt.”
“Like a bitch,” he agreed.
“It could be broken,” Lucy said, worried.
“It’s not,” Blue said. “I’ve felt broken before and it’s not.”
He was sitting in the middle of her kitchen, wearing only a pair of white briefs, Lucy realized suddenly. Even battered and bruised, he was drop-dead gorgeous. Every inch of him was trim and fit and muscular and tanned a delicious golden brown.
“I hung back to visit my mother’s grave,” he was saying, continuing his story.
Lucy forced herself to pay attention to his words, not his body.
“I thought everyone had gone home from Gerry’s burial, but apparently I was wrong. I was walking back to your truck, and I was jumped.”
He’d rinsed the washcloth clean and was now using it to wipe rather ineffectively at the cut on his cheek. Lucy pulled another chair over and took the cloth from his hand, leaning across him to wash the cut for him. She had to use her left hand to push his hair back from his face. It felt thick and soft underneath her fingers. She tried not to think about it, tried not to think about his mouth, only inches away from hers.
“Did you see who it was who jumped you?” she asked evenly.
“My old friend Leroy Hurley was there,” Blue said. “And Jedd Southeby. He was the owner of the pipe, I believe. I’m not sure who else was at the party. There were an awful lot of ‘em.”
Lucy pulled back slightly so she could look into his eyes. “How many?”
“I don’t know.”
She searched his eyes. Did he really not know, or was he keeping the truth from her? “Make a guess.”
“More than fifteen, fewer than twenty.”
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “That many?”
“Most of ’em weren’t a real threat,” Blue said. “When it was clear that I wasn’t going to curl up into a little ball and die, most of ’em ran away.”
Lucy’s gaze dropped to the bandage on his arm. “Who exactly was the owner of the knife?” she asked.
“We weren’t introduced,” Blue said, “but he’ll be the gentleman checking in to the county hospital with a broken hand.”
Lucy laughed. She had to laugh, or she would start to cry. Still, her eyes welled with tears.
“Hey,” Blue said softly. He gently touched the side of her face with the tips of his fingers. “I’m okay, Yankee. It’s the other fifteen guys who don’t look so good right now.”
“More than fifteen guys attack you, and they’re the ones who don’t look so good?” Lucy laughed again, and this time the tears escaped, flowing down her cheeks. “What if one of them had had a gun?”
“Someone probably would’ve been shot,” Blue said, gently running his fingers back through her hair. “But there wasn’t a gun. No one was badly hurt.”
Lucy almost couldn’t help herself. She almost put her arms around Blue’s neck and held him close.
He could see it in her eyes, she knew, because his own eyes grew hotter, more liquid. Other than that, he didn’t move a muscle.
Lucy made herself back away, wiping her face free of tears with her hands.
“I have to go down to the station,” she said, taking a tissue from a box on the kitchen counter and blowing her nose, trying desperately to break the highly charged mood that lingered in the room. She emptied the basin of water and rinsed out the washcloth. “I read the autopsy report and found something odd. Gerry had almost no alcohol in his bloodstream when he died.”
Blue frowned. “It must be a lab error,” he said. “Gerry was corked that night.”
“Was he?” Lucy asked, turning to face him. “Or was he only trying to make you think he was? Did you actually smell alcohol on his breath?”
Blue was silent, trying to remember. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted.
“I was thinking about that whole incident,” Lucy said, leaning back against the sink, “and it occurred to me—I’ve never asked what Gerry whispered to you before you left the country club. Do you remember?”
Blue nodded, the muscle working in his jaw. “He said, ‘I’m sorry, but you have to leave town.’ You know, I thought he was referring to Jenny Lee—that he didn’t want me around stirring up the past during his wedding. But now…”
“What if he knew something bad was going to happen?” Lucy asked. “What if he staged that whole drunk scene because it was the only way he could communicate with you?”
Blue stared down at the ice pack on his leg. “That was one hell of a way to communicate,” he said. “Why wouldn’t he just pull me aside and talk to me?”
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Lucy said, excitement tingeing her voice. “Maybe he knew he was in danger. Maybe he knew someone was going to kill him.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell me about it?” Blue asked, looking back up at her, his frustration vibrating in his own voice. “I could’ve helped him. I could’ve kept him safe.”
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But the first thing I’ve got to do is talk to some of the people who were at that party—people who interacted with Gerry. And I’ll have the lab double-check the results of the autopsy blood test. I want to find out for sure if Gerry was sober that night.”
She picked up her raincoat from where she’d thrown it over the back of a chair. “I’m going down to the station right now,” she said. “Will you be all right alone?”
He smiled. “I’ll be f
ine.”
Lucy started for the door, but then turned back. “My bathroom has a Jacuzzi in it,” she said. “Maybe it would help your leg to sit in it for a while.”
Blue shook his head. “That’s all right. I don’t want to invade your personal space—”
“Please,” she said. “Use it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Chapter Ten
Sheldon Bradley sat behind his big, oak desk and stared at Lucy. “That’s ridiculous,” the police chief said. “Whether or not Gerry McCoy was drunk at a party has nothing to do with the events that transpired nearly three hours later—events that led to his death.”
“I think it does,” she said, stubbornly holding her ground. “I intend to talk to the people who were there—people who spoke to Gerry before his outburst. R. W. Fisher had a long conversation with Gerry—”
“No,” Bradley said, rising to his feet. “Absolutely not. This has gone too far. I’m taking you off this case. In fact, I’m temporarily suspending you from the force.”
Shocked, Lucy stood up, too. “What?”
“I’ve had word of your inappropriate behavior concerning Blue McCoy,” the chief said. “Clearly, your judgment is skewed.”
He sat down again, opening a file—her personnel file, Lucy realized. “Sir, I have done nothing that could be considered inappropriate.”
Bradley looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “Do you deny then that the chief suspect in this case is sharing your house with you? And before you perjure yourself, darlin’, be warned that neighbors have seen McCoy come home with you at night and leave with you in the morning.”
“He needed a place to stay!”
“So naturally, you offer him your bed?”
“I did no such thing—”
“Officially, the charge would be sexual misconduct,” Bradley told her, “and the punishment would be dismissal, not mere suspension. But you’re young and you’re new, and I give everyone here one mistake. This one is certainly yours.”
“But, sir—”
“I suggest you keep your mouth closed, Ms. Tait,” Bradley said, “because I am going to say this only once, and this matter is not negotiable. I’m suspending you for at least one week, your return subject to my approval. You’ll turn in your badge and your sidearm.” He held up his hand. “However, I’ll record the suspension in your permanent file as an unpaid vacation. There’ll be no further questions asked, no more talk about this matter and no ugly blot on your record. Unless, of course, you raise a racket about it.”
Lucy shook her head. She felt numb. “But I did nothing wrong.”
“I’m not asking you for a signed confession,” he said. “Like I said, as of this moment, there will be no more questions asked—”
“Yet I’m suspended.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Because you think I had sex with Blue McCoy.”
Bradley winced at her lack of delicacy. “I don’t wish to discuss the details—”
“But I’m telling you that I didn’t.”
“Other individuals have expressed their concerns and suspicions, fearing that you have allowed yourself to…shall we say, fall under the suspect’s…influence.” Bradley closed her file. “I have no desire to attempt to judge exactly who is right or wrong in this matter—”
“But you are,” Lucy said. “By suspending me, you’re finding me guilty of something that I did not do.”
“Are you telling me that your opinions about this case are one hundred percent impartial?”
Lucy couldn’t answer that, and she knew her silence damned her.
Bradley leaned forward. “Do yourself a favor, Lucy,” he said. “Take a vacation. Leave town for a few days—at least until this mess is over.”
“I can’t do that,” Lucy said. She was so angry her voice shook.
“Don’t make this worse than it has to be,” Bradley said. “Don’t make me have to fire you.”
“If you’re charging me with sexual misconduct, I want to be officially charged.”
“If I charge you,” Bradley said tightly, “the penalty will not be suspension. As I said, you will be removed from the force.”
“If I’m found guilty,” Lucy said.
Bradley had had enough. “Fine,” he said. “I find you guilty. Hearing closed. You’re fired, darlin’.” He tossed her personnel file into the garbage can. “Leave your badge and your gun on my desk and get the hell out of my office.”
“If that’s your idea of a fair hearing, then I don’t want to work for you. You can’t fire me—I quit!”
She nearly threw her badge and her gun down onto Bradley’s desk.
“I’ll pass along your reports on the investigation to Travis Southeby,” the chief said.
Travis Southeby? “You’re letting Travis take over the investigation?” Lucy was aghast.
Travis Southeby, whose brother Jedd had been among the group of men who’d attacked Blue just this afternoon. Travis Southeby, who’d stood up in the Grill because he didn’t want to eat dinner in the same room as Gerry’s “killer.”
Travis Southeby? Impartial investigator?
Not even close.
Frustration and anger bubbled inside Lucy, and she left Chief Bradley’s office, slamming the door behind her.
Blue closed his eyes, leaning back in the tub and letting the water gently massage his aching leg.
When Lucy had first told him about the Jacuzzi in her tub, he’d imagined it was one of those little tiny ones. Instead, it was a great big hot tub with room enough to throw a party.
He tried to imagine Lucy serving champagne and wine as she and a bunch of her friends sat laughing and talking in this tub. But he couldn’t picture it. It seemed too out of character. He tried to imagine her sitting in this tub with the man in that photo on her dresser, having a very, very private party. That picture came far too easily, and he shook his head, trying to clear his mind of that image. He didn’t want to picture that.
He tried to imagine her, instead, coming back from the police station. He could picture her clearly, dressed in those sinfully snug-fitting blue jeans and those black cowboy boots, black tank top clinging to her curves, her shining hair loose around her shoulders. She’d lean in the doorway for a moment, watching him with the temperature in her dark-brown eyes soaring way past that of the hot tub. Then she’d straighten up and pull her shirt up and over her head and—
Blue opened his eyes at the sound of the kitchen door opening. Lucy was back. He heard her toss her keys down onto the kitchen table. The refrigerator door opened.
“Blue, you want a beer?” he heard her call out.
He didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah. Thanks.” Damn, he would have accepted an offer of hemlock if it meant she’d bring it up here to him.
He heard the thump of the refrigerator door as she closed it. A drawer opened in the kitchen and she fished around, looking for something. Then he heard the sound of bottle caps being removed, a thud as she put what had to be a bottle opener down on the table and two smaller thuds as she tossed the caps into the trash.
Then he heard her climbing up the stairs. Mercy, just the thought of Lucy walking in here had made him hard as rock. He forced himself to keep breathing, to relax. She was bringing him a beer. Nothing more. But maybe if he wasn’t shooting pheromones into the air, if he could look as if he didn’t want to gobble her up, maybe then she’d sit down and talk to him awhile.
That was really what he wanted. True, he’d give damn near anything to have sex with this woman, but he wouldn’t risk scaring her away. Because he needed her company tonight—her smile, the sound of her husky laughter, the warmth of her eyes and maybe most important her patient and unswerving belief in him. He needed all that more than he needed sexual relief.
And then she was standing in the doorway.
Blue could sense her tension. He picked up her undercurrent of anger and frustration before she even spoke.
“I hope American beer is oka
y,” she said, handing him the dark-brown bottle. She turned to pull the shade down on the window. “It was on sale and—”
“It’s fine,” he said. Her hands were shaking and her voice was unnaturally tight. But she was working so hard to hide it from him, he wasn’t sure if he should ask her what was wrong. “How’d it go in town?” he asked instead, keeping the question neutral, his voice light.
“Well, it went,” she said, taking a long pull of her beer. “It went straight to hell in a handbasket.” She turned and gazed directly into his eyes. “Mind if I climb in there with you?”
Blue’s heart stopped. And then it jump-started in double time. “No,” he somehow managed to say.
Lucy leaned against the sink to pull off her boots and socks. She tossed them into the bedroom, then unzipped her pants.
As Blue watched, she wriggled out of her blue jeans. Her legs were longer and even more shapely than he remembered. Her panties were bright white against her tanned skin. Mercy. He was going to die.
She didn’t look at him as she peeled her shirt up and over her head and threw it down on top of her jeans. Her bra was also white, and she unfastened the front clasp as if she casually stripped naked in front of a man every day of her life. Her breasts were beautiful, so full and firm, with dark-brown tips that tightened under his gaze. Her body was exactly as he’d imagined it. She was slender, yet she had some real muscle in her arms and legs and torso, giving her body shape and definition. Her stomach was flat, her hips curving softly out.
He was going to explode, Blue realized. Out of all the ways he’d imagined that this evening would end, he hadn’t considered the possibility that Lucy would throw all her cautions and reserves to the wind and make love to him. He’d fantasized about it, but he never believed it could possibly happen. Just last night she’d locked her door tightly against him. He knew she’d locked it—he’d tried the knob.
So what had happened between now and then? What had happened between now and just a few hours ago, when Lucy had maintained that they stay friends instead of lovers?
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