by Julie Miller
He continued to stroke her temple, soothing her as tenderly as he knew how, until her face relaxed and her eyes drifted shut. Without releasing her hand, he pulled up a nearby stool and sat, keeping watch over her.
Several minutes later, on her next bit of energy, her eyes popped open. Josh was right there.
“Are you really a cop?”
He smiled at the childlike tone of her question. “Really, really. You can’t tell anyone that, though.”
“That nurse seems to know.”
“That’s Jules. She used to be my next-door neighbor growing up. Now she’s married to my brother Mac.”
“Mac?” Rachel was too observant not to remember names. “The same Mac I met?”
Josh grinned. “The forensic specialist who came to your condo last night is my big brother. I helped him and Jules out once, before they were married. He needed a little off-the-record police support on a case. I figured he could be equally discreet about helping you. And there’s not a smarter man on the planet when it comes to piecing together clues. I am a little biased, of course.”
“Of course.” She fell silent again, breathing deeply in and out as if she was gathering her strength. She didn’t look at him when she spoke again. “Are there any other secrets you want to tell me?”
How about I love you? How about I can’t see the rest of my life going by without you?
“No. I think I already spilled all the basic information.”
When she did make eye contact again, her expression seemed to hold nothing more than curiosity. “Is your job dangerous? I mean, I know police work is inherently dangerous, but, your assignment on campus—does that put you at greater risk?”
He massaged his thumb along the curve of her palm. “I can take care of myself. And I have friends watching my back.”
She wrapped her fingers around his thumb, stopping the caress. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The woman wasn’t easily fooled. “Yeah. Working undercover can be particularly risky. The cops don’t all know you’re a good guy, and the bad guys…well, once they find out you’re a good guy, they—”
She held him tighter. “You mean if. You said ‘once they find out,’ you meant if they do, right?”
Maybe Rachel did have some feelings for him. Or maybe her questions about his safety stemmed from her compassionate nature. Either way, he wanted to ease her concern.
He smoothed her hair along her temple. “Right, Doc. I meant if.”
“Would they kill you?”
“I think these people would.”
“Then, don’t let them find out.”
He laughed at her commonsense solution. “It’s not on my to-do list.”
She still hadn’t smiled yet. Hopefully, it was just fatigue that left her in such an introspective mood.
“Are you really twenty-eight?”
So she wanted to explore every tangent of the deception he’d been forced to play on her.
“Yeah. But my baby face lets me pass for someone younger.”
“You’re still nine years younger than I am.”
“I’m an adult, Rachel.” Hadn’t his badge and ID proved what his actions alone apparently couldn’t?
“It sounds funny when you say my name. You usually call me Doc.”
“I didn’t think we should be on a first-name basis in public. And honey seemed out of the question. I guess the nickname kind of stuck.”
She yawned and closed her eyes. Josh assumed she was drifting off to sleep.
When would he learn never to assume anything with this woman? “Is it easy for you to lie, Josh? I had a husband once who was good at telling lies.”
“Being good at it and liking it aren’t the same thing.” He stroked her hair one more time, wishing she could open her eyes—and put aside her stubborn sense of right and wrong—and see him for the man he was. The man he wanted to be for her. “I wish I could have told you the truth in the beginning.”
“Me, too.”
She pulled her hand from his and tucked it beneath her pillow. Beyond his reach.
He didn’t want to read any underlying meaning in the weary gesture.
“KNOCK YOURSELF OUT.”
Bad double entendre, thought Josh. The brassy-haired waitress with the unnaturally large boobs pressed herself close as she set the beer in front of him on the high-topped table.
Josh pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket, winked and told her to keep the change.
He now had a friend for life. Or, at least, a friend for the night, if he was interested.
He wasn’t.
He watched her slow sashay back to the bar, ostensibly accepting her unspoken invitation to watch her butt. He kept himself from laughing out loud by trying to decide exactly how much peroxide and hair spray it took to achieve that particular hairstyle. As soon as her attention was diverted to the next customer, Josh looked away and blew out a breath so heavy it buzzed his lips.
The girl might not be half bad if she left her hair its natural color and dressed in clothes that actually fit her. Of course, then she might look all of eighteen. About three years too young to be legally serving the drinks at the Thunderbird.
The irony was rich. Rachel thought he was too young for her, and yet he felt like a dinosaur among this mostly college-aged crowd.
The dancing customers filled the center floor like a tightly packed box of puppets. They moved through the blaring hip-hop number as if they were doing an aerobic workout. How could a man take a woman in his arms with that many people thrashing around on all sides?
He spotted Ethan Cross, one of his undercover backup detectives, dancing on the floor. His long hair flew around his shoulders with every twist and jump, making him seem like the perfect partner for the skinny brunette he was dancing with.
A.J. was at the bar, making time in his hushed Latino way with a redheaded bartender.
Why couldn’t he be home with Rachel and her naturally dark, lustrous hair and beautiful breasts and perceptively knowing eyes? He’d left her sleeping in her condo, with his brother Mac and sister-in-law Jules to keep her company. Why couldn’t he be watching over Rachel’s unborn baby instead of watching the young twenty-somethings on the dance floor who were looking for fun or action or maybe a little bit of meth?
Why the hell did he have to be here?
“Tanner. I wasn’t sure if you’d show or not.”
That was why.
“David.”
The drug lord wannabe still wore the same ivory turtleneck and baggy jeans he’d had on earlier. But tonight he’d accessorized with a tall, auburn-haired coed on his arm. He had the whole big-badass, man-on-campus routine down cold. The kid’s supreme arrogance in acting like the world owed him something curdled in Josh’s stomach.
And this kid—this mobster in a schoolboy’s body—had had the temerity to threaten Rachel?
Josh carefully schooled the resentment from his expression and stood. He slowly stretched himself up to his full height, propping his hands on his hips to emphasize the bulk of his upper body. The kid supposedly wanted to hire him for his intimidation factor. Why not make the most of it?
“Your proposition sounded interesting.”
David pulled out a twenty and handed it to his girlfriend. “Go buy yourself a drink, babe. I need to talk business for a few minutes.”
When they were alone, David sat and gestured Josh to the seat across from him. “So you can set me up?” Josh asked. He didn’t want this meeting to last any longer than necessary.
“You’re in too good shape to be a user, Tanner, so I’m guessing you resold yesterday’s purchase and made a profit. I can tell you and I are both shrewd businessmen.” The charm of David’s winning smile was lost on Josh. “I can make you rich.”
“I’m listening.”
David pulled a thick stack of twenties from his pocket and laid it on the tabletop. A visual aid for this recruitment speech. Josh had seen bigger flash wads of money before. But for
someone as young as David, the six hundred or so dollars he set on the table was a fortune.
“As you can see, I’m a man of some means. I’m good to the people who work for me as long as they’re loyal to me. That’s where you come in.”
“To ensure employee loyalty?”
“I won’t pretend I like you, Tanner. But you’re one hell of a fighter. I’ve seen you charm the ladies in class, too. I have a feeling you’re able to get your point across one way or the other.” He slid the stack of twenties across the table in front of Josh. “I’m looking for someone to run interference for me. A man who can keep track of my…”
What, dope dealers? Drug peddlers? Kid killers?
“…my employees.”
“Where do you get your runners—the students who actually distribute the product to the buyers?” Josh leaned back on his stool, a signal to A.J. and Ethan that the meeting was going well and they could keep their distance. “Aren’t the cops suspicious that there are suddenly a dozen newly wealthy dudes running around campus?”
“That’s the beauty of the plan. We—I mean, I—recruit runners for research projects.”
The small slip of a pronoun had filled in a key question for Josh. David was just a lieutenant—a student leader of the worst sort. There was someone else in charge who outranked him in the meth distribution ring. If Josh joined the team, he’d have a better chance of uncovering the leader’s identity.
But David wasn’t done bragging about the genius of his system. “Students get paid a small stipend for participating in everything from personality surveys to sperm donations. I just sweeten the paycheck for them a little bit when they make deliveries for me.”
Was that how Kevin Washburn had gotten hooked on meth? Was he a recruit who had sampled one of the deliveries and then become a customer?
Josh had heard enough. He took the twenties and stuffed them into his pocket. “I’ll take the job on a trial basis. If the money’s good, I’m in.”
“You’re either in or you’re not.”
David’s unforgiving look resembled the face he’d worn when he was swinging a tire iron. Josh’s hands balled into fists beneath the table. But this was all about taking out the scum that supplied victims like Billy Matthews and Kevin Washburn with their drugs, not about the personal satisfaction of pounding David Brown’s arrogant face into dust.
So he went against his instincts and lowered his gaze in unspoken submission to his new employer. “Then, I guess I’m in.”
“Good.” David waved to his girlfriend at the bar and invited her over, a clear signal that the business meeting had ended. “Your first task is to do me a personal favor. Prove your loyalty, so to speak.”
“What’s the favor?”
“Get me back into Rachel Livesay’s class.”
JOSH STOOD IN THE DOORWAY to Rachel’s bedroom, watching her sleep.
Mac and Jules had stayed with her until after midnight when he’d returned to the condo. Physically, Rachel was fine, according to Jules. “But I think she had the scare of a lifetime, Josh. Give her some time and space to figure out where her head’s at.”
Time and space.
They’d had so little time together. And yet he knew he could spend an eternity with this woman. What he didn’t know was if there was time enough in the world for him to earn her trust.
I had a husband once who was good at telling lies.
Josh had lied about his last name, his age and his occupation. Simon Livesay’s infidelities had rendered any lie an unforgivable sin in Rachel’s black and white view of the rules of life. She’d never let herself care for a man she didn’t trust.
Space.
If he got too close to her, her career would be in jeopardy. Unless, of course, she decided to reveal that the student who’d been seen all around town with her—including at her condo—was actually a cop.
In which case he couldn’t stay close enough. He didn’t think David Brown and his boss would make any distinction between an undercover cop and the woman who kept his secret.
And, of course, there was always Daddy. If Josh stayed too far away, her stalker would find a way to terrorize her once more.
Torturing himself with what-ifs and want-tos wasn’t getting him any closer to making things right with Rachel. Josh stripped off the chambray shirt and T-shirt that reeked of the smoky smells of the Thunderbird Club and brushed his teeth. Yet he found himself right back at Rachel’s doorway when he should have headed straight for the couch.
She was the picture of wholesome beauty, her soft hair falling in a halo across her pillow, her long legs tangled in the covers, her lovely hands cradled in a protective shield around her belly. His body tightened in response to her beauty and vulnerability, but he didn’t go to her.
Rachel and her baby represented everything good he wanted to protect in the world.
But in his misguided attempt to help her, he’d only exposed her to more danger.
“Forgive me, Doc.”
He wasn’t sure he could forgive himself.
Chapter Eleven
“You want me to what?” Rachel demanded. Surely Josh had misspoken.
“I need you to drop the plagiarism charges against David Brown.”
The request didn’t sound any better the second time she heard it. She rose from the kitchen table and carried her empty cereal bowl to the sink. “I don’t want to see that creep again, ever. Now you want me to invite him back into my classroom three days a week?”
“KCPD needs your cooperation.”
She heard his chair scrape the floor behind her. When he joined her at the sink, she grabbed the dishcloth and moved away. She was still too unsure of Josh and what she expected of him to risk confusing her senses with the inevitable pull of his gentle strength.
“My cooperation, eh? Do I really have a choice?”
“You always have a choice, Doc.”
He wasn’t her student anymore. Josh Tanner—correction, Josh Taylor—wasn’t off-limits. He was no longer that forbidden fruit that rules and society said she couldn’t be involved with.
But instead of freeing up her guilt, Josh’s confession had mixed up a whole new set of troubles for her. Josh was kind, funny, caring, sexy, handsome, a dynamite kisser, a fearsome protector.
And almost a decade her junior.
Rachel wiped down the ceramic stovetop and put away the tub of butter sitting on top. He stood across the room from her now, leaning one of those trim, denim-clad hips against the sink. His eyes followed her with a deceptively lazy gaze while he sipped a mug of that instant coffee she craved as badly as she did the man himself. Well, almost.
Hadn’t she just exchanged the impropriety of turning to him again and again for safety and comfort and illicit desires, for a whole new problem?
He was too young for her!
She turned her attention to the shelves inside her refrigerator. She’d always been neat by nature, but in recent months she’d been cleaning like a fiend. She took the milk when Josh handed it to her, and put it away. But then she moved on to the outside of the fridge and began wiping that.
She couldn’t discount that he had truly been there for her throughout this whole ordeal with Daddy, but she did know a thing or two about young men. Attractive young men. Virile young men.
They liked women. They liked freedom. They liked exploring something—or someone—new and different whenever the mood hit them.
Simon had been in the mood for her for about a year and a half. Then he’d been in the mood for Denise. And Beverly. Edie. And so many other women that Rachel couldn’t remember their names.
She stacked the bowls and spoons inside the dishwasher, then rinsed out the dishrag and washed down the front of the dishwasher.
Josh needed her right now. To protect his cover for his case. And his mother’s good training had him dashing to her rescue again and again because that’s what a gentleman did for a lady. She even believed he was curious about her pregnancy and the baby.
He was a man with good intentions.
But love her? Commit to her?
He’d already proved he could lie. Couldn’t he cheat just as well?
“You should be arresting David Brown, not giving him a break.” She wiped the table next. “What kind of message does that send to all those other students out there who are debating whether or not they should cheat?”
“Not a good one, I know. But it will secure my cover with the meth ring. I’m sure David thinks that if I can handle you, I can handle anything.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” He wasn’t laughing. The strained pinch around his usually smiling mouth made her think he was as uncomfortable with this request as she was. Maybe he was as uncomfortable with this whole situation as she was. Maybe he was already tiring of her. She was being an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud about standing up for the university and her own expectations.
Rachel turned her attention to the countertops and started cleaning there. “You’re asking me to choose between a plagiarist and a drug dealer.”
When she reached for the toaster, Josh snagged her wrist and pried the dishcloth from her hand. “The rest of the world doesn’t always function with one right or wrong answer the way you do, Doc.”
“Then, how am I supposed to teach my daughter who the good guys and the bad guys are? How am I supposed to know which one you are?”
“Do you really doubt me?”
She twisted free of his grip and walked out of the kitchen. Josh was beside her in half the number of strides.
“You’re scared, Rachel.” He caught her by the elbow and spun her around, easily overpowering her. He pulled her belly flush up against his, wrapped his arms around her and absorbed the halfhearted pounding of her fists on his chest. “You’ve made yourself your own pretty little world. Just you and your baby. You’ve made the goals that suit your needs. You follow the rules that you think keep you safe.”
The warmth of Josh’s body sank in, surrounding her, calming her, seducing her. She spread her palms flat against his chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady beneath her hand. “That sounds smart, not scared.”