She held her wrist up as high as it would go. She aimed for under Kane’s nose but could stretch only to his crotch. “Take these off, or I’ll call the real chief and burn your sorry no-good ass. When I’m done, you’ll be damn lucky just to pull meter-reading duty.”
“I’d like to see that,” Josh said.
“Wow.” Derek’s voice filled with something that sounded like admiration.
Kane looked bored by the entire scene. “Impressive language, Fern.”
A little profanity never scared her. The saltier, the better. Her career required her to travel with men and fit in. Men swore. She swore. No big deal.
“Wait until I get started. That little shower scene deserves a profane word or two. The damn handcuffs should be good for an all-out screaming fit.”
“Notice how they keep mentioning the shower but won’t give any details,” Josh said to Derek.
“Shut up!” Annie and Kane answered at the same time.
Kane stared at her with those penetrating eyes. “No wonder you ended up in the water. You’re lucky they didn’t gag you first.”
Derek threw his hands up. “I’m lost again. Who’s they?”
“Yeah, let’s get back to the drowning.” Josh reached into his pocket and took out a small flip pad. “That’s the subject on the table.”
Her frustration boiled over. “I didn’t drown, so you can stop talking about it.”
Josh puckered his lips together. “But you were in the water.”
“Yeah? So?”
Josh turned to Kane, all traces of amusement vanished. “We may have a problem.”
Muscles tensed across Kane’s shoulders, pulling his T-shirt even tighter over his chest. “Yours or mine?”
“Ours. Maybe hers. All I have is a report of a missing yacht, missing crew and missing owner. The boat was last seen near here.”
Her stomach flipped at the word yacht. The chances of that yacht being her yacht had to be slim.
“Which one?” Kane asked the question on her mind.
Josh rubbed his palm over his stubble. “You’re not going to like the answer. It’s the Samantha Ray.”
Yeah, not good. Annie did the calculation in her head. She goes overboard, then the yacht and people on board go missing. The chances of those events not being related were about zero. Maybe less.
Kane’s eyes grew even darker as he glared at her. “Anything you want to tell me?”
Only that she suddenly didn’t want to go anywhere since by Kane’s side seemed to be the safest place to be. Getting him to agree to let her stay moved up as the new number one strategy. She needed to regroup and think. Kane’s house would provide the perfect setting for that.
“Uh, yeah.”
“What?”
“My name is Annie.”
Chapter 5
Ten minutes later Annie, or the woman who claimed to be Annie, sat at his kitchen table wearing a pair of his sweats and one of his slim exercise T-shirts. On her, slim and form-fitting turned into baggy. The clingy material reached past her butt but did highlight her high, firm breasts.
Braless, shoeless and pissed as hell, she sat there with her elbows resting on the table while Derek sat on the tile floor at her feet. She muttered something about luck and a phrase or two, most of it profane, about fake police officers.
Kane assumed she meant him. “Are you done calling me an idiot?”
“Are you done being a damn idiot?”
“I dunno, Kane,” Josh said. “The answer to your question looks like no.”
Derek chuckled but didn’t add a comment.
Disgruntled and bitchy. Well, Kane thought, she should join the fucking club—yeah, he could swear, too.
The second she’d given Derek the okay to wrap her knee, Kane felt a rush of heat sweep through his body. Not in a good way. The uncomfortable twinge hit him out of nowhere. He pushed it to the back of his mind and focused in on figuring out why Annie had washed up on his beach. “How ’bout a last name?”
He’d need first and last to do a proper search for her in the police computer. Or, ask someone else to do it. Police property, even his own office, was off-limits to him thanks to the Internal Affairs investigation. His desk temporarily belonged to that IAD idiot William Dietz. Kane refused to put his officers in the position of sneaking him in the building.
Josh sprawled in the kitchen chair across from her. One arm hung over the back. With his other hand, he tapped a pen against his front teeth.
“Annie is fine.” She wrapped her fingers around a coffee cup, then turned her attention to Josh. “Can you stop that noise?”
Click, click. “It calms me.”
“Drives me nuts,” she said.
“You’re not alone,” Kane mumbled.
“It’s not any better down here,” Derek said.
Josh kept right on tapping. “Do you have something to hide, Annie?”
She looked down into her cup. “No.”
Kane tried. “Is your name really Annie?”
“Yes.”
Click, click. “You’re acting like a lady with a secret. If the name is real, something else is wrong.” Josh tapped a few more times.
“We all have secrets,” she said before gulping down her coffee.
“Most of us have secrets that don’t matter to anyone but the people involved. This is different. You say you have amnesia; then you remember your name. Annie, those aren’t the actions of an honest woman,” Josh said.
Kane had seen Josh’s act a thousand times over the years. No one would know from his loose tie, wild hair and lazy smile that his ability to track down and destroy a drug ring was legendary. That steely determination and forget-the-rules attitude put Josh at odds with his superiors at the Drug Enforcement Agency all the time.
The bureaucracy. Yeah, Kane didn’t miss that part of being with the DEA. Of course, if he’d known that the police job would come with an investigation into his personal life and monthly bills from lawyers, he might have sucked up the government bullshit and stayed where he was.
“Done.” Derek got to his feet, then slid into the chair next to Annie. “Feel better?”
“Fine. Thanks.” She flashed the younger man a sweet smile.
Kane tried to ignore the byplay. “Why are you in Kauai?”
“Sightseeing. Kauai is as beautiful as everyone says.”
“Sightseeing underwater, were you?”
She shoved the mug aside. “Look, I know what’s happening here.”
Kane glanced around the kitchen. “We’re sitting.”
“The interrogation.”
“I thought you didn’t believe I was a police officer.”
“Chief or not, you plan to blame the missing yacht on me. You’re fishing, trying to gather information and then pin this whole thing on me.”
Kane had to admit that she wasn’t exactly wrong. He’d found her naked and soaking wet. She’d lied to him. She wouldn’t tell him anything. A yacht just happened to go missing right about the time she’d floated onto the beach. A guy didn’t need years of training at the Police Academy to know something strange was happening.
“I want a lawyer.” She delivered her ultimatum, then clamped her mouth shut.
Kane felt a nerve in his cheek twitch. “What?”
“Oh, boy,” Derek said as he moved his chair a few inches away from Annie.
“Have you ever noticed how the guilty ones always ask for an attorney just when the questions get interesting?” Josh stopped tapping and started scribbling in his notebook. “Happens every damn time.”
“What are you writing?” she demanded to know.
This woman could make even the sanest man lose his mind. Between the hot looks, pouty mouth and sharp tongue, Kane couldn’t decide whether to admire her or strangle her. In the last few minutes, the strangling idea had edged ahead.
Somehow, he kept his hands at his sides. “Annie, let’s be adult about this?”
She shook her head.
Kane took a deep breath and fought for patience. “You’re not under arrest.”
She shrugged.
“This is a bit juvenile, don’t you think?” Kane asked, hoping to tweak her ego and get her talking.
She stuck out her tongue.
So much for tweaking “Another fine comeback by Ms. Annie No Last Name.”
She did it again.
“Does this mean you’re done talking?”
She tried to take a sip of coffee but stopped when she figured out the cup was empty. Kind of ruined the effect of ignoring him.
Josh leaned forward in his seat. “I say we skip the chitchat and arrest her.”
Her eyes bugged a bit, but her mouth stayed closed.
Kane thought the idea had some merit. “Tempting, but probably wouldn’t be fair to the other inmates to stick them with her.”
That one earned him a glower. Her green eyes flashed with fire. He doubted the red specks on her cheeks meant she was warm. Ticked off was more like it.
Since she’d opened her eyes in his shower, she hadn’t closed her mouth. Kane figured it must be killing her to keep quiet now.
“Okay, new strategy.” Kane stood up and dumped their empty mugs in the sink. “Derek, you’re going to do some shopping.”
“And miss this? Screw that.”
“She needs clothes.”
Derek’s jaw dropped. “Damn, Kane, you can’t mean—”
“Watch your language. Just because Annie swears doesn’t mean you should.” Kane noticed how her hands balled into fists at that comment.
Kane glanced at the phone. He could continue to play this game, or he could call his officers and let them figure out what was going on. With six days left until he found out whether or not charges would be filed against him relating to the officer-involved shooting, he needed something to fill the hours. Annie qualified as being far more interesting than his planned house-rewiring project. Probably more dangerous, too.
“Come on, Kane. Why me?” Derek’s voice stayed just this side of a whine.
“This will teach you not to cut classes,” Josh said.
Kane grabbed the pen and Josh’s notepad and dropped them in front of Annie. “Make a list of what you need. Personal stuff, clothes, whatever.”
She frowned up at him.
“You can make the list or I can guess your size.” He looked her over, pretending she could be anything other than a small. “Do you need an extra large or something bigger?”
She snatched up the pen and scribbled hard enough to carve lines into his wooden table. Two words. Not a clothing size on there anywhere, but a comment that was more of a temptation than she knew.
Josh read upside down. “I see the ‘you’ but can’t see the first…Oh, now I get it.”
“Fuck you,” she said before she closed her mouth again.
“Nice language,” Josh said with mock shock.
“That was your last chance.” Kane reached over her shoulder and picked up the pad. He listed a few items, then handed the paper to Derek.
Annie jumped up and tried to peek over at what he’d written. Kane just raised his arm higher to block her view.
Derek scanned the list. His head shot up. “Panties?”
“What?” Annie squealed.
“Now you’re talking? Interesting.” If Kane had known a comment or two on her underwear would get her talking, he would have shouted “panties” long before now.
“I am not having a kid buy my underwear.”
“Hey, I’m twenty-one,” Derek said, obviously insulted.
“And I’m twenty-nine. You’re still not buying my underwear.” She tried to grab the list back, but Derek slid his chair farther out of her range. The squeak against the tile echoed in the room.
Giving her a gentle shove, Kane pushed her back into her chair. “Would you prefer to go without?”
“I am right now,” she shot back.
The reminder telegraphed a wake-up call straight to Kane’s lower body. He had been trying to block out the memory of her body. The feel of her slim waist and soft skin. Talking about her panties or lack of them, sure as hell wasn’t helping.
“Should Derek be listening to this conversation?” Josh covered Derek’s ears. “’Cause I can send him outside. Just don’t say anything while I’m gone.”
Derek and Josh traded shoves.
“You’re leaving, too.” Kane wanted them both out. Alone he might be able to get Annie to talk. “Your job is to go figure out what’s happening with the yacht. Is the DEA on this?”
“Not yet. There’s not much to know. Someone at the marina gave a call with some concerns about foul play. That’s it so far.”
“Any news and information you can find would help,” Kane said.
Josh gave him a quick nod.
“Why can’t you find out what’s happening, Mr. Police Chief?” she asked.
“The leave of absence thing,” Derek rushed to explain.
Kane knew Derek would defend him to the end, but he felt his temperature rise anyway. “I’m not on—”
She talked right over him. “Let’s talk about that topic for a second. Why aren’t you working? What’s with the leave of absence?”
“It’s a vacation.”
“It’s not a vacation if you’re forced,” Josh mumbled.
“Sounds to me as if Kane is the one with secrets.” She gave Josh a conspiratorial wink.
Enough of that, Kane thought. First Derek. Now Josh. Yeah, if she was going to flirt and smile, she needed to do it with him. Not that he was interested, because he wasn’t. He just didn’t need a turf war over Annie on top of everything else that was going on.
“You won’t find any stores open now,” Kane told Derek.
“We’ll give it a shot. If we don’t find anything, his stuff’s in my car so he can bunk at my condo tonight,” Josh offered.
Kane nodded in agreement. “Fine. Just bring the items back in the morning.”
“She’s staying?” The question came from Josh, but the confused look in Derek’s eyes asked the same thing.
“Of course.”
She stared up at him. “I am?”
“You have somewhere else to go?” Kane didn’t bother to hold his breath waiting for her answer because he knew she didn’t. If she did, she’d be there.
“Uh, no.”
“Then you’re stuck with me.” Because he sure as hell wasn’t letting her out of his sight. “Derek, go.”
Derek saluted, then ripped out the page with the list. “Yes, sir.”
One down, one to go. “Josh, do some digging. See what you can find out. My research resources are limited at the moment, so I’m depending on you.”
“Gotcha.” Josh stood up and tucked his notepad back in his jacket. “Children, no fighting while I’m gone.”
“You’re asking the impossible,” Kane said.
“True, but the fight wouldn’t be fair,” Josh said.
Kane snorted. “I won’t hurt her.”
“I was talking about her fighting skills, not yours. I’d put money on her to take you out,” Josh said in a dead-pan voice.
Annie did some snorting of her own. “Damn right.”
Before Annie and Josh could join forces. Kane escorted the men to the front door. When Josh threw Derek the keys to his precious vintage Mustang and told him he could drive this time, Kane knew he was in for a man-to-man chat.
“The kid’s worried about you. He thinks you’re turning into a freak out here by yourself. When he called me, I put him on one of the hourly flights in from Honolulu and ran him over here.”
“You should have told him I’m fine and to get back to studying,” Kane said.
“I’m not convinced you’re fine.” Josh tore a leaf off the tree next to the front porch and cr
umpled it in his fist. “What’s up with you and Red?”
Kane appreciated the concern, but his friend had it all wrong. “Nothing.”
“I’ve got eyes, warrior boy.”
Kane ignored the nickname. He’d heard it for all seven of the years he’d known Josh. And regretted providing the Hawaiian meaning for his name for every single one of those years. “She’s a guest. Nothing more.”
Josh frowned. “Tell me another one.”
“Found her on the beach. Was I supposed to leave her there?”
“You could have turned her over to your officers or taken her to the hospital. You kept her.”
Kane felt that familiar knot in his chest. “I’m still the police chief around here no matter what Derek or anyone else might think. I have responsibilities.”
“Do those responsibilities include showering with strange women and chaining them to the bed?”
“She’s hiding something. I want to know what.”
Josh rubbed his beard. “Look, you’ve had a hard run. You’re under a lot of pressure.”
“That’s nothing new.”
Kane thrived on pressure. He made a career out of chasing the drug trade. That type of work demanded long hours and a piece of his soul. Since he lost everything else, work became his focus. Work and Derek. With Derek grown and making his own way, work filled the void. The same work Internal Affairs threatened to take away.
“You deciding to add a woman to the mix is new. Ever since Leilani died—”
Kane refused to have this conversation. “This is different. She isn’t Leilani. She isn’t my wife. She’s a woman in trouble, and I’m trying to help. It’s my job.”
“This one’s dangerous.”
Kane thought so, too, but wanted to hear Josh’s theory. “How?”
“I don’t trust Red.”
“She’s under control. I can handle her.”
Josh nodded. “Right. None of my business. I get it. Just be careful.”
Kane watched his friend climb into the passenger side of the car and drive off. When he returned to the kitchen, Annie sat in the exact same position. She hadn’t moved an inch except to retrieve her mug and fill it again.
He sat down across from her. “Well, Annie, looks like it’s just you and me.”
Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy Page 4