Then he lifted his head and, with a clear threat in his eyes, said, “Be careful, Penny.”
Or what? “It’s getting late.”
“I’m going now.” He straightened and stepped back. “Will I see you again?”
“Of course. The ad campaign—”
“I couldn’t care less about the ad campaign. I care about you.”
She had no intelligible response to that.
“Do you believe me?”
Slowly, she nodded. He cared, but how did he care? In an obsessive way?
“Good. Then we don’t have a problem.”
Not yet...
* * *
After Jax left, Penny breathed deep in the silence of her apartment. Going into the kitchen, she was about to get a glass of milk when her doorbell rang. She went back to the entryway and saw Kadin through her peephole. She opened the door.
“That went well.” He stepped inside.
“He knows.”
As he turned to face her in her living room, He wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat, but subtle bulges under his shirt told her he wore his guns.
“The search warrant went through,” he said. “A team is headed to his cabin right now.”
Walking toward him, she stopped and tipped her head back a little to look up at him. “Great.”
“You want to go get a drink?” he asked.
Taken aback, she studied him to determine why he’d asked. Did he want to spend some casual time with her or did he need an escape? Sara’s murder investigation must take its toll on him.
“Is that how you handle stress?” The teasing question came unbidden, attraction making her do what she did normally with men.
“Never. I just know I won’t get to sleep anytime soon tonight. And you don’t seem like you will, either.” He hitched his head in the direction of the street outside the apartment building. “I saw a nice-looking pub down the street from here. Why not get away for a bit?”
So, even with his rocky past, he didn’t turn to booze. He just wanted a change of atmosphere, to be surrounded by the sound of happy people and the smell of good food.
“I’d love that.”
They walked out the door and then made their way outside, Penny ever aware of the man at her side. She couldn’t recall if she’d ever felt such strong but intangible vibrations about a man before. In the elevator, seeing him look at her in her peripheral vision. Walking along the sidewalk, sneaking peaks at his long stride and proud carriage. Nothing could take this man down.
At the small, upscale pub, he opened the door for her.
He sat beside her at the bar and ordered a beer. She ordered a martini. Dirty.
He eyed her as though that kind of drink said something about her. “Most women like fruitier drinks.”
“Too sweet.”
“You like things spicy?” he asked, his steely gaze going down the front of her shirt.
Did he think she was spicy? “Yes.”
His eyes met hers for an inscrutable assessment. “It suits you.”
“How so?”
“You’re successful. Single. Always on the go.” And beautiful. The last he said with his eyes, a brief exposure of interest before he locked it down.
“How do you know I’m always on the go?” She sat back with her drink, unwinding and beginning to enjoy herself.
“Your apartment doesn’t look like it’s used a lot.”
He’d noticed that? “I keep it clean.” She sipped slowly.
“You’re there a lot?”
“Well, no.” She worked long hours sometimes. “I get bored by myself.”
“Do you have lots of friends?”
Was that another thing he’d noticed about her or had he read something in his background check? She set down her drink. “Best friend from high school, except she still lives in Michigan. Coworkers. College friends. My neighbors are all nice. Except the crotchety old widow at the end of the hall. She likes to be left alone. I bring her things from the bakery down the street. I think I’m the only one she likes in the building.”
He grinned, leaning back against his chair as she had, relaxing. “Are you from Michigan?”
She nodded, unable to keep from appreciating the broad slope of his chest and shoulders. “I grew up on a farm near Cheboygan. My mother moved to town when I went to college.”
“You two are close?”
He already knew about her family, and his question was more of a coax to tell him more. Except she had to think about that one. “Yes, well, we used to be. She never married and I don’t have any sisters or brothers. Just two divorced aunts. Our holidays are cozy.”
She laughed because every time she thought of holidays with the Darden crew, there were always jokes and some kind of twist on tradition.
“No men, huh?”
“No.” She didn’t think that had been intentional. It had just happened that way. The single Darden women...
“Kind of explains why you’re so independent,” Kadin said.
Because she grew up without a father figure? Penny didn’t see how that related.
“What made your holidays cozy?” he asked in her silence.
She fell easily back into fond memory. “My mother hangs jasmine instead of mistletoe. She thinks it attracts love and money. I sometimes tease her because jasmine oil is supposedly an aphrodisiac. For someone as disenchanted with men as my mother, it’s an odd choice.” There were some things about her childhood that hadn’t been lonely. Her mother did have color. “She’s über-political, too. We had a whole set of president ornaments, except the ones she didn’t like. Pig roast instead of turkey for Thanksgiving, complete with a big, fat apple in its mouth. Once we all flew to the Caribbean and had Christmas in July that year.”
“Your dad leaving must have hurt her quite a bit.”
The fond memories shifted to darker ones. “She didn’t talk about it much. She just said she was glad he left if he didn’t love her. I never met my dad...he left before I was born. I never saw how it affected her, except for how picky she is about men.” She blew out a breath. “And she often told me she was happy alone. That she hadn’t yet met a man worthy of her trust.”
“But she wishes she could find someone special,” he murmured.
She found it peculiar that he’d picked that piece out of what she’d said. “Yes, but it isn’t that important to her. She has me. And she’s extremely stubborn. She’s not what you’d call a traditional woman.”
“How so?” he asked curiously.
“Well, not only is she distrustful, but she’s very set in her ways. Most men don’t like that. And, as I mentioned, she has definite political views. Loves history.” Her tone softened and she sighed. “She took me all over the world when I was growing up. Her social nature made it easy for us to mingle with locals. Everyone in Cheboygan knows her. She’s active in the community. A real prom queen in her sixties.”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of that.”
She frowned, not understanding what he meant. “That she’s a sixty-year-old prom queen?”
He chuckled. “No, that she isn’t lonely.”
Penny could only stare at him. She often did wonder if her mother was lonely.
“She sounds a lot like you.”
“Should I be offended?” Penny sipped her martini.
“I meant no offense. Your mother made her own choices. Just be glad you have her.”
“What about your family?” she asked, disliking the direction of this talk. “Where are you from?”
“Massachusetts. My parents and both sets of grandparents live there. I have a sister who’s married and has three kids.”
They all lived in Massachusetts? “How’d you end up in Rock Sp
rings?”
“You know, you can always go work somewhere else if your boss fires you,” he said.
Well, he had blatantly ignored her question. What about Rock Springs was such a touchy subject for him? His daughter had been taken in New York. A wild and remote place like Wyoming seemed like a haven to her.
Instead of asking him about that, however, she went with his new direction. “I love my job at Avenue One. I figure if anybody should go, it’s him. I’d like a chance to make that company thrive again.”
“You love having the fate of a company on your shoulders?” He drank from his bottle of beer.
“I would run it if the opportunity presented itself.” She preferred calling the shots, not answering to anyone but herself.
“Ambitious.”
Yes. She had always been that way. All the way through school, she’d been active in all kinds of activities. Never homecoming queen but she was class president once. Straight-A student. Surrounded by friends.
“You tutor for a girls’ club. You coach a girls’ soccer team. And you give occasional motivational seminars for teenagers. Where do you find the time when you’re not striving to take your boss’s job?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Boy, you don’t miss a thing, do you?” That had all come up in his very thorough background check.
“Not often.”
“Not very humble, either, are you?”
“Just honest.”
He was good at what he did. Is that what he meant? He must attract cases that way. Families who lost loved ones whose killer still walked free needed to know they had someone capable on their side.
“What else do you know about me?” she asked.
He didn’t respond right away and she wondered if he felt he had to choose his words carefully. Did he think she might accuse him of invading her privacy? Hadn’t he already?
“That’s pretty much it.”
Good. She didn’t feel like talking about her work anymore.
“Why did you leave your mother?” Kadin asked.
The question took her aback. Why did he ask? She didn’t feel like talking about that, either.
“I didn’t leave her. I got a job here.”
“Did you want to get away from your mother?”
She felt insulted. Even more, defensive. How dare he ask that? And then she realized she had wanted to get away from her hometown. Her mother. Not because she didn’t love her. She did. She just got tired of her preaching about how to pick the right men. Penny wanted to have fun right now. She didn’t want to be tied down with anyone. Maybe she’d never want that. Having grown up with a mother who had control of her own destiny, Penny was the same way.
“No,” she finally answered. “Not her. Maybe just the life there.”
“What about your dad? Do you want to find him?”
“Not really. He left.” She’d thought about it once in a while. Sometimes she got curious, where he lived, what he did for a profession...why he left—his version. She’d heard her mother’s over and over. The scorned woman version. She’d loved him, but he hadn’t loved her. Ya-de-ya-de-ya.
“Did you ever try to find him?”
She shook her head. “Why bother?” Her father hadn’t cared enough to stay, so why subject herself to that?
“Why didn’t she ever get remarried?” he asked.
Penny sipped more of her martini. “You know, this isn’t fair.” She set her glass down and pointed her finger at him with her free hand. “You know everything about me and I know next to nothing about you.”
“You know everything about me.”
Maybe to him she knew everything, everything that mattered. His daughter. His wife. Solving cold cases. One, two, three.
“I don’t mean to sound harsh, but that’s a pretty shallow life,” she remarked.
He sat back against the stool, taking no offense and charming her because of that. Confident men were especially attractive to her. That was what had initially drawn her to Jax.
“Why do you live in Rock Springs?” she asked.
“You’re going to make me talk about this, aren’t you.”
“It’s only fair.”
His grin turned wry. “I met Arielle there. Her father owns a ranch not far from the city. My daughter was born there.”
Good memories.
“Do you see her father?”
He shook his head, no longer smiling as darker thoughts apparently pervaded. “I haven’t been able to.”
Penny couldn’t say she’d do the same if she had gone through what he had. Was he hanging on to his wife and daughter? Who wouldn’t? And what was wrong with doing that? Then it dawned on her. Carrying the heartbreak everywhere with him for the rest of his life wasn’t healthy.
She’d never met a man like him before, one who was so far off-limits to her. And he was. His heart was so damaged she’d be a fool to invest too much of herself in him. Backing off from her interest in a man went against her nature, though. She loved men. She loved to flirt with them. There was no risk when it was all in fun. She’d always held the principle that when she fell in love, she’d know. She’d flirt as usual, and if it was meant to be, the flirtation would grow into more. Naturally.
Yet, with Kadin, even though she was powerfully attracted to him, she felt herself holding back. That was new to her. She never held back. She wasn’t afraid of love. She wasn’t afraid of relationships failing. Actually she didn’t view the endings as failures. They were simply not the epitome of love. How could she call that a mistake?
“Do you see your family often?” she asked, sliding another look at his light gray eyes and the hard angles of his stubble-shadowed face.
“Often enough.”
There it was again, that sign of a man who worked hard to bury tragedy. He wasn’t open to talking about it at all. He bottled it up.
“What about friends?”
“You met one of them at my office. Lott is my closest friend. He stops by to annoy me regularly. We’re supposed to go fishing this Friday.”
Curiosity nipped her good. She had to know more. “You like to fish?”
“Ever since I was a kid.”
And he still did, despite what he’d endured. He could still get away and relax catching a few fish. But fishing could be a solitary sport.
“Did you have a lot of friends in New York?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you keep in touch with them?”
He faced the bar, taking a drink of his beer. After he put the bottle down, he looked at her. “No. Lott is the only one, and that’s only because he comes to see me.”
That was so sad. He’d alienated himself from everyone he knew. They must all be constant reminders. Was he afraid they’d talk about his wife and daughter? Moving to Rock Springs probably gave him an out. He could push their deaths out of his mind and only let the happy memories in. And, she suspected, anyone who got in the way of that might risk being pushed out of his life.
“Good for him,” she finally said, and that was all she’d say. The extent of his grief infused her soul. Nothing anyone said or did would change what he’d lost. There was no recovering from it. It would always be there, a deep, painful, permanent scar.
“He’s a nosy jet-setter,” Kadin said. “His dad is an oil man. He’s the one who was checking out your butt when you came to my office.”
“He was checking me out. I wondered.”
“My advice to you? Stay away from him if it’s a meaningful relationship you’re ultimately after. He likes to mess around.”
“Thanks for the warning.” She nodded with a smile, hiding her disappointment. He seemed not to care if she was interested in his friend. She’d never had to discipline herself with men, but this one had an invisibl
e no trespassing sign posted over his heart. Instinct reminded her not to flirt, that he wouldn’t welcome any kind of female attention. But the independent spitfire in her rebelled. What would happen if she did come on to him?
“What about you?” she asked.
“Me?” He looked genuinely startled that she’d asked. He was that closed off to women. He behaved as though he were still married, making reference to his womanizing friend as though she’d been interested in him. It had obviously not crossed Kadin’s mind that she might be interested in him.
“Should I stay away from you, too?” It felt good to be her brazen self. She flashed a smile, watching him look at her big white teeth and then into her eyes. She felt a spark of arousal as he seemed to fall into the same kind of awareness.
“Yes,” he said at last.
Without saying so, he’d told her that he wasn’t in the market for a woman. His suffering had made him jaded. Damaged. Too bad. She’d like to spend some time with him, intimate time. But that would be kind of pointless, wouldn’t it?
“How old are you?” she asked, anyway.
“Thirty-seven.”
“I’m thirty-four.” Keeping her gaze locked with his, she sipped from her martini. This didn’t have to be anything serious. She’d been with men in a casual way before, knowing they wouldn’t last. Some men were nice and good-looking enough to give a try even though they weren’t the one.
As the moment stretched on, she enjoyed his involuntary, heating attraction. The man in him recognized the look of an interested female. She didn’t have to say anything to send out signals.
Satisfied that he hadn’t completely turned her away, she leaned toward him, really close to his mouth. “Don’t worry, Detective. You’re safe with me.” She watched him look from her mouth to her eyes and then added, “In case you didn’t put it together by now, I’m not the settling-down type.”
She stood, staying between the stools, seeing him look at her breasts. That was encouragement enough. Taking a chance, she put her hand on the side of his face as he tipped his head to gaze up at her. Then she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his, just a little, just enough to send desire curling to her toes. She loved how he responded, eyes startled but burning with desire. “I’m going home now.”
A Wanted Man (Cold Case Detectives Book 1) Page 5