by Leslie Kelly
Daniel didn’t try arguing with her reasoning, knowing he’d just give the maternal woman more excuses to try her hand at matchmaking. “Forget I said anything.”
“Why don’t you ask her brother about her, if you’re really interested?”
“Her brother?”
“Sure. Aren’t you working with Mick on your new house?”
Mick. Of course. Another Winchester. He had been working with Mick’s real estate company on finding a small house to buy in Derryville. His first real house—not rented, not a big city dive with screaming neighbors upstairs and a drug dealer around the corner. Just a nice house he could make into a home. Hell, maybe he’d even learn how to fix leaky faucets and put up wallpaper and homey crap like that.
He’d had his eye on a little rancher west of town and was going to see it again with Mick tomorrow. Sounded like the perfect time to ask the man about his sister. Because if anyone else could see beyond the woman’s “sweet” reputation, it would certainly be her own brother. At least, he supposed that was the way it worked. Having been raised an only child, by workaholic parents who seldom seemed to notice his existence, he wasn’t exactly sure how the sibling thing went.
That was something else he suspected about Sophie. For some reason, he got the feeling she was a loner. Like him. No, she hadn’t grown up a big city latchkey kid. She was surrounded by people who liked and cared about her. But there was an aloof quality, maybe even just the way she always seemed to be playing a role, rather than being herself, that told him she kept people at a distance. She practically ordered no one to get close.
Daniel never had been very good at following orders. That was one of the reasons he’d left the force in Detroit—because all too often his superiors issued orders that covered their asses and got in the way of investigating crimes.
Bidding Carol good-night, he locked up his office. He spoke to the night dispatcher and greeted Skip and Chuck, the two officers who worked the night shift. Both were young and eager kids. They wouldn’t last a week in the city. For here, though, they were fine. Respectful, efficient. They knew the folks in Derryville and were hard-working and dedicated.
The biggest problem was they were cousins. They looked and sounded so much alike, he sometimes had a hard time telling them apart. Like those Baldwin brothers, the actors.
“Night,” Daniel said as he headed toward the door. “Stay alert for any criminal types. You never know when someone might decide to take Ed hostage at the diner and order him to make a steak that doesn’t taste like boiled shoe leather.”
His officers nodded, their eyes sparkling with eagerness.
Daniel sighed. “I was kidding, guys.”
“Oh,” Chuck said. “Good one, Chief.” Then he frowned, visibly disappointed that he was not likely to face a hostage standoff tonight, after all.
“Yeah,” Skip echoed, sounding equally disappointed. “Good one, Chief.”
Shaking his head, Daniel headed home. He didn’t even bother to take his squad car, which was parked out back. His temporary apartment was right above the travel agency, less than a block away. As he walked there he was greeted by at least a dozen residents. He didn’t think he’d known the names of three of his neighbors in Detroit.
Maybe someday he’d get used to it and not wonder why people in small-town America were so darned friendly all the time. It didn’t feel quite as unnatural as it had the first few weeks in town, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be completely comfortable with everybody knowing his business. Particularly not business like what he wore under his jeans or how often he changed the sheets on his bed: boxer briefs, and every weekend. Sophie’s revelation the night before had stunned him into taking another long look at the town he now called home.
He still liked it. But he thought he’d like it better from a slight distance. Hopefully, the apartment wouldn’t be home for much longer and he’d get some privacy in the new house on the outskirts of town.
Inside, he stripped off his uniform, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then grabbed himself a beer out of the fridge. He’d just had time to twist off the top and bring it to his lips when his phone rang. “Fletcher.”
“Chief, we got trouble.”
Trouble? In Derryville? “What is it, Skip?”
“This is Chuck.”
Like he was supposed to be able to tell the difference? “Sorry. What’s going on?”
“You better get down here. I think someone in town is about to get murdered.”
THE VERY LAST PERSON Sophie expected to see when she answered a knock on her door Friday evening was Chief Fletcher. She shouldn’t have been surprised—after all, the man had inhabited her brain for the past two days. She’d been unable to think of much else…not her new book, not Pastor Bob’s sermon, not Miss Hester’s penny-pinching. Nothing but Daniel Fletcher with his long, lean body and bone-melting laugh.
Last night, after getting home from the gym, she hadn’t even been able to rid her mind of him long enough to get any writing done. And when she’d finally given up and gone to bed, her night had been filled with the most erotic dreams imaginable, starring Daniel Fletcher.
Which made her that much more shocked to see him at her door just after she’d gotten comfortable for the night. She’d changed into a pair of faded jeans, torn at the knee, and a sweater. With her face scrubbed clean and her hair in a ponytail, she knew she didn’t resemble the pinch-faced church secretary. Not that she’d much resembled her at the gym, either. Since she’d been about to make herself some dinner, she’d even answered the knock while holding a big soup ladle.
“Chief?” she said, then cleared her throat because her voice sounded so weak. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“May I come in? I need to speak to you, Miss Winchester.”
This wasn’t a random knock to ask for money for the benevolent brothers of the force, or a meet-the-chief home visit. Could he be here to follow up on the unasked, unanswered questions from the gym? That set her heart into overtime.
Of course, there were other possibilities. If she were a suspicious-minded person—and she was—she’d be concocting a dangerous plot right about now. Maybe he was a psycho killer posing as a cop. Maybe he’d left a string of dead bodies, rather than just broken hearts, when he’d moved here from Detroit.
Cool it. Maybe she ought to stop the mental grasping and see what the man wanted.
“Sure,” she said, knowing she was being as stupid as any woman in one of her novels. The ones who opened the door to the sexy stranger, then disappeared off the face of the Earth. Well, disappeared for a while at least. R. F. Colt’s audience expected blood and body parts, so no one disappeared forever.
“Thanks,” he said, stepping inside the foyer. He filled it, his broad shoulders and tall form seeming to take up all the space in her quaint house. “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”
“How did you find out where I live?”
He smiled. “This is Derryville.”
“Enough said.” Heck, in this town, he wouldn’t have even had to know her last name to get her address. She was the only Sophie around now that old lady Semple had retired to Florida.
She led him into her living room. “So is this an official visit?” Part of her hoped he’d say no, that he had simply tracked her down because he was overwhelmed by her beauty and feminine charm. A bigger part of her already knew better.
“Yes. I don’t want to alarm you, but a situation has come up tonight and I’m afraid it might involve you.”
Sophie raised an inquisitive brow. “I’m intrigued.” By a lot more than any risky situation. She was intrigued by the man, darn it all. She had no business being attracted to anyone here in Derryville, but there was no help for it. She’d been hooked on this guy since before she’d ever seen his face. And now that she’d been with him, spoken to him, been held in his strong arms—seen the way he looked while sweaty and almost naked—she knew she was in way over her head. Drowning. And the sexy
cop was the only one she wanted to save her.
He hadn’t continued, merely watched her watch him. She wondered if her face was so easy to read, because she noticed the pulse in his temple pick up its pace. His face flushed slightly and he parted his lips to draw in a deep breath.
She nearly had to grab the back of a chair for support, imagining sharing that breath with him. Falling into his arms, as she had yesterday morning, and giving in to her impulse to taste his sensuous mouth again, let their tongues meet and tangle. She wanted to wrap herself around him and remember what it was like to be a woman.
He was just as aware. Just as in tune with the strange currents in the air. The pulse of something deep and instinctual pounded between them; she could almost taste it. She saw in his eyes that he felt it, too.
“You’re getting wet.”
Oh, God, yes, she probably was. Every one of her senses was at full alert, though how he could have known that she had no idea. She couldn’t believe he’d said such a thing, even though it was entirely true. The man had more confidence than anyone she’d ever known. “How…what…”
“The ladle.” His voice was as throaty and thick as hers.
Glancing down, she noticed she had been getting wet. From dripping chicken broth. It had landed not only on her pants, but on the floor.
Soup. She was getting wet from soup. She closed her eyes, almost groaning, thankful she hadn’t admitted the truth of her very naughty thoughts. Lucky for her she hadn’t done what the normal woman in Derryville would have done had a man said what she had thought this one had been saying to her: slap his face.
Sophie’s first impulse had been to throw her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and prove him right.
“Let me get something to clean it up.” Hurrying to the kitchen, she dropped the ladle on the counter and grabbed a handful of paper towels, trying to grab some self-control along with them. Get a grip, woman.
She hadn’t realized he’d followed until she turned around to see him standing in the doorway. “Smells good. You can cook?”
“Not much beyond burnt toast,” she muttered before pushing past him to clean up the floor.
He leaned against the jamb, with one hand carelessly thrust into his pocket. He was dressed casually in tight, faded jeans and a Detroit Pistons sweatshirt. Better than the glistening, bulked-up, hot and luscious half-naked look he’d had going on the night before. But still not as good as the uniform. It was easier to remember how off-limits he was when he wore the standard khaki brown.
Looking again at the sweatshirt, she realized he’d taken off his leather jacket. “Sorry, I didn’t even offer to take your coat,” she said.
He pointed, and she glanced up, seeing his jacket hanging beside her parka. “I made myself at home. Hope that’s okay.”
This was a man who didn’t wait for invitations. Somehow, she liked that about him. In Derryville, most men followed proprieties, played by the old-fashioned, small-town rules. It sometimes made her want to scream, to shake them, tell them to wake up. Was she the only woman around who didn’t always want a man to do nothing more than kiss her cheek after a first date? The only woman who longed to meet a man who didn’t wait to be asked for permission to go further? Not that she’d met anyone who interested her enough to go further. But it would be darn nice to think she someday might.
People who only saw her as nice little Sophie would probably be shocked. Those who knew her as tough, bloody, hard-edged R. F. Colt, probably more so. But sometimes she fantasized about being swept away by a powerful man who didn’t ask because he wasn’t about to risk hearing no.
She sensed Daniel Fletcher might be such a man.
No. Don’t even go there. These were dangerous thoughts. Not that he, himself, seemed dangerous. Just determined. Strong-willed. Passionate.
Enough, Sophie, you hardly know the man.
“There’s more right here.” He pointed to the floor near his booted foot. His lips were curled slightly in a half smile, as if daring her to come close enough to wipe it up. The spot would put her almost face-to-face with one lean, masculine hip.
Sophie hadn’t been dared to do anything in a long, long time. She stood, stepped closer, not letting him see the way her hand was shaking, not to mention her legs. Meeting his steady stare, she pointed to the floor. “Right there?”
He nodded. Then, before she could crouch down to get the spot, he grabbed the wad of paper towels from her hand and bent down himself. Sophie nearly groaned, looking at the top of his dark head, inches from her thigh. When he’d finished wiping up the drops, he looked up and gave her a cocky smile, as if he knew—just knew—how he was affecting her.
“Thanks,” she managed to squeak out.
“Think nothing of it. I obviously interfered with your dinner plans.” He rose slowly, with deliberation and masculine grace. “So who made the soup? Smells too good to be from a can.”
Still staring at the fine way he filled out his jeans, she shook her head, trying to snap out of her daze. “My mother. She brings me food a lot. They’re on vacation right now, so my freezer’s completely full. I think she’s afraid I’ll starve to death on my own cooking.”
She was probably right. Even Sophie couldn’t stand her own poor attempts in the kitchen.
“Your whole family lives around here?”
She nodded, not particularly interested in talking about the Winchester clan. “I should throw those away,” she said, reaching for the wet paper towels. He let her have them, brushing his fingers against hers in a move too deliberately sensual to be an innocent, accidental touch.
She had to scoot past him to get through the doorway into the kitchen, but he made no move to get out of the way. There was enough room, their bodies didn’t touch, didn’t come closer than a few inches to one another. But Sophie felt as though they had. The electric awareness snapped between them as she moved past him to drop the towels into the trash can.
He seemed to notice, too. He continued to stare at her, a look of intensity pulling his brow down, as if he couldn’t figure out what was happening here any more than she could.
Chemical reaction. Instant attraction. Maybe even just static electricity on a cold winter night. Or it could be raw lust from a woman who hadn’t been touched intimately by a man since her last visit to the gynecologist.
She cleared her throat. “Um…you said something about a problem that might involve me?”
He nodded slowly, remaining silent.
“What is it?”
“Maybe we could talk over a cup of…coffee?”
She felt sure he hadn’t been about to say coffee. She had a feeling the hunky chief was angling for an invitation to share her soup. What the hell. “Have you eaten?”
He shook his head.
“Sit down,” she said, knowing she was crazy for inviting him to stay. Having him in her house for a moment longer than required was risky. At any time he might ask to use her bathroom, might walk down the hall and peer into the spare bedroom, which she used as her office. Might see the police procedurals, the collection of horror novels, the shelves loaded with R. F. Colt books. Might wonder why a church secretary had Gray’s Anatomy open on her desk, with red-inked notes in the margins, calculating blood loss or angle of entrance wounds.
Had she even shut the door?
Maybe. Maybe not. Somehow she couldn’t muster up the energy to care. Something was happening here, between her and Chief Daniel Fletcher. It had started when she’d practically fallen into his arms on the church sidewalk. It had grown stronger when they’d kissed at the gym. It had intensified even more when he’d shown up at her door. And brushing past him on her way into the kitchen had ratcheted the awareness level up ten times.
It was risky for him to stay. But God help her if he left.
5
DANIEL HADN’T BEEN hinting around for an invitation to dinner. Well, okay, maybe he had. The hot homemade chicken soup smelled pretty darn good to a bachelor who usua
lly ate out of a can or a microwave. But his real motivation in sharing Sophie Winchester’s meal was not driven by hunger. Instead, he just wanted to spend time with her, get to know her, before he dropped the bombshell about the real reason for his visit.
The thought of someone hurting her made his gut clench. No way. Nobody was going to do anything to hurt this woman as long as he lived and breathed.
“Is everything all right?” she asked. “You ready to talk about this big issue?”
He shook his head. “Let’s wait until after dinner, okay?”
As soon as he told her the truth, that someone had found a small notebook detailing what looked like a murder plot against her, Sophie would likely freeze up. He wanted to get to know her now, while she wasn’t on guard, afraid and worried. Maybe by becoming her friend, he’d be in a better position to protect her as this case went on.
He wasn’t being selfless. Something intense was happening between them, and he wasn’t ready for it to end. He wanted to be with her, to watch her continue to pretend she wasn’t staring at him, wasn’t as physically aware of him as he was of her.
And he was. Whew, big time. Holding her so briefly yesterday, when she’d been blanketed in her thick parka, hadn’t prepared him for the sight of sweet little Sophie in her wickedly curve-hugging workout outfit from last night. Nor for tonight’s jeans and loose sweater that skidded over the gentle curves of her body.
No makeup, hair in a ponytail, yet she didn’t look like the fresh-scrubbed, all American girl next door. This woman made the look somehow seductive. Sinful. Probably because of the way she used those big blue eyes of hers to study everything around her. When she looked at him, Daniel felt positively devoured. He only wondered what she could do with her hands and her mouth if she could make a man feel that way with just a stare.
“I picked up some fresh bread, too,” she said. “I’ll heat it up, then we can eat.” She put the loaf in the oven, then took some veggies from the fridge and began to prepare a salad.
“Let me do something to help.”