by Sara Orwig
His gaze raked down the length of it, his eyes accustomed enough to the darkness to make out her long, pale legs. As if she realized he was looking at her, she pulled the shirt collar high beneath her chin. “I couldn’t find my robe today.”
“I'm not complaining,” he answered with amusement.
“I know you're not, but I didn’t want you to think that— Never mind. Here are the sheets and a pillow,” she said briskly. “Do you want me to sit up for a spell so you can sleep?”
“No thanks,” he answered, his voice husky. He jammed his hands into his pockets and fought the urge to cross the room to her. “I won’t invade your privacy, but if you'll leave your door and the door to the girls' room slightly ajar, I can hear sounds better. And I'm going to have to switch off the window units. They would muffle the sound of an army coming in through a window.”
“Sure. I'm going to bed now,” she said quietly, and turned away. He watched her long legs as she left the room, fantasizing about having them wrapped around him.
“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, wondering why he was so attracted to Rebecca Bolen. There wasn’t any logical reason. Not one. He’d had a good time with her tonight, he respected what she had done with her business, and she was obviously a good mother. But the sparks between them had been there that first moment he stood in the hot sun in her driveway and introduced himself.
Jake switched off the window unit. With a noisy rattle, the motor died, and he shook his head. It was going to be a hot night.
* * *
Hours later, feeling hot and rumpled, Rebecca glanced at the clock on the small bedside table and saw that it was a quarter to four in the morning. She’d been unable to sleep since she shut off the light. She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair and across her damp nape. The house was warm, and she wanted a drink of water. If she moved through the house, would he think it was a prowler?
For another ten minutes she flounced and turned in bed, finally getting up. She pulled the cutoffs beneath the chambray shirt and stepped into the hall. She glanced toward the darkened living room. A tiny night-light burned in the bathroom, shedding a faint glow in the hallway.
“Jake,” she whispered. “Jake?”
“I'm here,” he said from the kitchen, and she jumped, whirling around. He stood in the kitchen doorway, his hand upraised against the jamb, his silhouette dark against a moonlit window behind him.
“I can’t sleep. I just didn’t want to startle you or have you think someone had gotten into the house. I just want a cold drink.”
“Come on. We can sit and talk a minute.”
When she entered the kitchen, he hit the light switch as she crossed the room to get glasses. “Want tea, or a cola?” she asked.
“You don’t have tonic water, do you?”
Shaking her head, she turned to look at him. Now, in the light, she saw that he was bare-chested, and she was unable to keep from looking at him. He was sculpted with muscle and deeply tanned. Low on his left side, a jagged white scar cut across his ribs, and another was high on his right shoulder. Faded jeans hung low on his narrow hips. Her mouth went dry. His flat stomach was a washboard of muscle.
Realizing she was staring at him, she looked up to find his gaze drifting slowly over her. Her legs tingled, her body burned, in the wake of his perusal. His hazel eyes met hers, and she felt as if she couldn’t take another breath.
“No tonic water,” she said unsteadily, turning blindly to the counter, too aware of him and of herself. She knocked over an empty glass and caught it up instantly.
“I'll take a cola,” he said, crossing the room to take the glass from her hand. As soon as the drinks were poured, Jake jerked his head toward the living room. “Let’s sit in there. It’s dark and I can watch the yard.”
She felt skimpily dressed in the long chambray shirt and cutoffs. She didn’t hear him behind her, but as she settled in a corner of the sofa in the darkened living room, Jake crossed the room to sit in a chair and stretch out his long legs. He looked long, lean and powerful, overwhelming in the tiny space.
If she was reacting this strongly to nothing more than seeing him bare-chested—what would the next week be like, when they would be together constantly?
And she knew she should get up and go right back to bed. Better to flounce in the heat then to flirt with temptation, yet she couldn’t get up and go.
His profile was to her as he studied the grounds outside. He had pulled the drapes open and moonlight bathed the yard, spilling through the windows, and faintly illuminating the living room. The silvery light played over his strong shoulders, splashing across his long, jean-clad legs, which were propped on another chair.
His attention shifted to her. “Too scared to sleep?”
“No,” she answered. “I'm not frightened with you here and McCauley in the yard. Just restless,” she admitted, blushing because she knew exactly why she was restless.
Jake wondered if their kisses had caused her sleeplessness. Even if he’d had the chance to sleep, he knew, he wouldn’t have been able to. He had difficulty keeping his thoughts on Meskell. All he had to do was be in the same room with Rebecca and the blaze started. Under any other circumstances he would pursue that reaction, but now it worried him. At the same time he was trying to convince himself he didn’t want to feel any attraction to her, his gaze was drifting slowly over her long legs—until he realized what he was doing.
“If you're with us, Meskell could shoot you by mistake,” she said.
Jake shook his head. “If he does, it won’t be by mistake. If we're together, he'll go for me first.”
Startled, Rebecca stared at him. “Why?”
“If he takes me out, you'll be easier to get. If he uses the first shot on you, he knows I'll nail him.”
“That’s dreadful,” she said, aghast. Dismayed by what he said, she couldn’t understand how he could enjoy his work. “That makes this assignment doubly dangerous for you. Isn’t your supervisor aware of that?”
“Yes. He knows I'm willing to take chances to get Lenny. I don’t intend to let Meskell get me.”
“I'm glad I don’t date you,” she said, horrified by the risks Jake took, by his eagerness about going after an armed and dangerous man.
Jake Delancy’s white teeth flashed, and she realized what she had said about dating him. “I'm sorry!” she exclaimed, burning with embarrassment. “That remark wasn’t personal. I just wasn’t thinking! I'll never understand men like you who are willing to live dangerously all the time.” She looked away, knowing they should get away from such a personal topic.
“You married one,” Jake remarked dryly. “Were you unhappy with the marriage?”
“No,” she answered, feeling a stirring of anger. “You know I wasn’t unhappy, or I wouldn’t still be grieving after two years. I loved Dan terribly, but I hated his work, and it finally took him from me.”
Jake stood, becoming a dark silhouette against the dark windows. As he crossed the room to her, Rebecca’s pulse jumped and raced. He leaned down to catch her chin in his warm fingers. She couldn’t see him because his face was in shadow.
“You loved a man who liked an exciting job that involved taking risks,” he said quietly. “You're hurt because you lost him, but you're drawn to that kind of man, Rebecca. And you're willing to take some risks yourself. You were ready to defend yourself against Meskell that day in the courtroom.”
She jerked her chin from his hands and clamped her lips closed, her pulse drumming. “Get away from me, Detective Delancy, for your sake and mine. I can’t get involved in a light fling.”
When he didn’t answer, she looked around and saw him sit down on the chair again and prop his feet up. “I know you can’t. Honey, you have vine-covered cottage and white picket fence written all over you, and that’s even if you didn’t have the girls to think about. Let’s get on a safer topic.”
“Amen,” she exclaimed. Honey. He had meant it in the most casual way, yet it h
ad sounded special and brought a quick response from her heart.
“The girls get up early. I'll warn you now. Sissy doesn’t know to leave sleeping people alone, and there’s never been a man here before who wasn’t a relative. She misses her father terribly, so sometimes she’s very friendly with men.”
“After this is over, you ought to date, Rebecca. You can marry again, and then the girls would have a father.”
“Maybe someday,” she answered, thinking about the evening. “I enjoyed dancing tonight, but it’s difficult to imagine dating again.” She was curious about his life when he was away from work. “When do you catch up on your rest?”
“I'll take some time off after this case—a weekend—and do nothing but relax and sleep,” Jake answered perfunctorily, barely aware of what he said to her. He had called her honey, and he was appalled. She was business, and he’d damned well better start remembering it and stop making passes and addressing her with terms of endearment. He did not use the term loosely. As a matter of fact, he was trying to think of the last time he had called anyone honey, and he couldn’t.
“What do you do to relax? Play golf? Fish?”
Stretching out his arm to pick up his drink, he took another long gulp of cola and rubbed the can against his temple as he turned to look at her. “I own some land west of town. I stay out there some weekends. I have some cattle.”
“A ranch?”
“Of sorts.”
“You want to ranch and be a cop?”
“Maybe someday, when I have to retire, I'll switch from being a cop to becoming a rancher. I can’t do this forever. The department won’t let me.”
“But you'll do it until they retire you?”
“Yes, I will.”
“You don’t get bored or restless with ranching?”
“Nope. I like the change. And then I go back to the cop routine.”
“I didn’t know police work involved a routine.”
“Sure. There’s paperwork, monthly reports, ordinary desk work that has to be done. I hate that part of it.” He sipped the cola and was silent for a few minutes.
“What’s the worst part?”
“The desk duty, oil-field crime—that’s a filthy mess.”
“What’s the best?”
“Undercover work.”
“I should have guessed,” she remarked, and he glanced at her.
“How did you get into the glass business?” he asked her.
“I only attended college two years, but I majored in graphic art and went to work for an advertising agency. An etched-glass business became a client of mine and I did work for them. They liked my work and asked me about doing some designs. One thing led to another and I started working there on Saturdays.
“I had Tara the year after Dan and I married, but we had juggled schedules so he could stay with her part of the time, and the other part my mom kept her when she was alive. Dan carried insurance, and after his death I took some of the money to open my own shop. I prefer working with etched glass to graphic art, but if the shop doesn’t succeed, I'll go back to the other. I'm saving as much as I can for a college fund for the girls.” She slanted him a look. “Actually, I would have guessed that you already knew everything I just told you.”
“I knew some of it, but not how you got into the glass business.” He stood and moved toward the window again.
She felt a sudden chill as she watched him; he seemed to be studying something outside. “Do you see someone?”
“I don’t know. All the damned mesquite you have growing around this place makes it tricky to see what’s out there, yet it doesn’t hide your house from the road.”
“The oaks were here, but the others, the pines behind the house, were part of a tree farm at one time. We love walking through the woods.”
He sat down again. “A shadow moved, but it’s low to the ground. Maybe it’s a dog.” He glanced at her. “Where did you meet your husband?”
“We both went to high school in Austin. We grew up knowing each other. We married when I was eighteen, so I was nineteen when Tara was born. Dan loved being a fireman. He did carpentry work, too, to add to our income.” She looked down, tucking her legs beneath her and smoothing the shirt on her knees. “I miss him.”
“I'm sorry.” Jake shifted, propping his bare feet on another chair, his long legs stretched out. Now her eyes had adjusted and she could see him easily in the moonlit room.
“Have you ever been hurt because of your work?”
“I'm surprised you didn’t notice the scars when we were in the kitchen.”
“I did notice,” she said quietly, remembering exactly how he looked.
“I've been stabbed and slashed and shot. The gunshot took the longest to heal.”
“How’d you get shot?” She listened to the rumble of his deep voice as he briefly told her about the case from five years earlier, yet even the intimacy of the small, darkened room and the deep rumble of his voice couldn’t stop the chill that enveloped her as he talked about the danger he had been in.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have a wife,” she said solemnly. “But I’d think your brothers would worry.”
“They've grown up with a father who was a cop and then their oldest brother. They accept police work as part of life.”
She was quiet, thinking about his recklessness. “Didn’t you worry that something would happen to you and then they’d be alone?”
His muscled shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I was younger then and felt invincible.”
She drew a deep breath, knowing Dan had felt the same way. “And you don’t feel invincible now?”
“No. I don’t take the chances I used to. I'm doing my job and I'm careful. I have a bulletproof vest,” he added, and there was a note of amusement in the last statement.
She studied him, knowing that in so many ways he was like Dan. “You testified at the trial,” she said, wondering if he was bothered by her questions, feeling on occasion that she was pulling the answers from him.
“Yes, I did. I'm glad the jury came back with the guilty verdict so quickly. Meskell still has to stand trial for the other killing.”
“The policeman? Were you friends?”
“Yes,” Jake answered, and Rebecca could detect the anger in his voice.
“You said he was a co-worker.”
“He went to college when I did. He was four years younger than I was, but I talked Dusty into becoming a cop. And I was with him that night. We got a call about the convenience-store robbery. When I drove up, Dusty was in the car ahead of me. He stepped out of the car and then Meskell drove out from behind the building. Dusty pulled his gun and aimed at him. Meskell leaned out and shot him,” Jake said in a tight voice. “He went down, and another squad car came along to chase Meskell. I stayed with Dusty, and he died while I was with him.”
There was no mistaking the pain and anger in his voice, and Rebecca felt a strange mixture of sympathy and dislike. “I'm sorry, but it seems like that’s all the more reason to hate the kind of work you do.”
He shook his head. “When we finally caught Meskell and I arrested him, he fought me. But I got in one good punch—that was for Dusty.”
“You got in another good punch in the courtroom at his trial, thank heavens.”
“I enjoyed it, and I know Meskell hasn’t forgotten. We'll get him,” Jake said with a quiet determination that sent a shiver down her spine.
“You'll risk your life if you do. You're risking it to stay with me.”
“It’s my job. It doesn’t matter that you don’t like what I do. I'll be gone before long. Did you fight with your husband over his work?” The moment the question was out, Jake turned to her. “Forget that I asked you. That’s none of my damn business.”
“It’s all right. No, I didn’t. I always thought he’d come home to me. I just never believed he could get hurt. I guess he had me convinced of that because that’s the way he felt. I suppose you do, too.”
“I k
now I can get hurt. I've been hurt, and I'm thirty-four, old enough to lose any illusions.”
“Yet you like your job anyway.”
“Yes, I do. Someone has to do it, Rebecca,” he said, and his use of her name was like a feathery touch on raw nerves. “Be thankful I'm willing.”
“I suppose I am.”
Jake turned away, knowing she had been hurt badly, understanding her loss and her feelings, remembering how angry and hurt he had been when he lost his father. It had been a nightmarish time for the family.
Rebecca needed to come out of her shell, though, and go out again. There were plenty of men who had safe careers. He remembered her quick, intense response to his kisses and tried to think about something else as his body responded to the memories.
After a few moments of silence, she said, “You have a nice family.”
“Sally and Zach?”
He stood again, and this time moonlight slanted through the window, splashing across his bare chest and over his long legs. She drew her breath; Jake Delancy was too handsome and virile, and this house was too small.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Shadows keep moving. Nothing important, except I know Meskell could be around. I'll be back.” Picking up his pistol, Jake moved soundlessly out of the room.
She went to the window to look outside. Moonlight spilled across the yard. The low mesquite trees were dark shadows. Beyond them the highway was empty, and the trees on the opposite side were a mass of black shadow. Feeling the heat, she lifted her hair off her neck, brushing strands back from her face.
After a time, she realized Jake hadn’t returned and she frowned, glancing over her shoulder. The house was too small for him to take this long looking through it. Why was he in the kitchen so long?
Another chill ran across her nape. At night the situation seemed more threatening than it had during the sunny day. She went to the hall. “Jake?” she whispered, and listened to a silence broken only by the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Worried, Rebecca stepped into the girls' room to make sure they were safe. They slept peacefully, Sissy still curled into a ball with her thumb in her mouth. Tara had turned over on her stomach. Rebecca walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Her nerves felt on edge, and she wondered what had happened to Jake.