Protector’s Temptation

by Marilyn Pappano

  She’d been the uncomplaining, I’ll-take-care-of-myself type from the beginning.

  Had she thought she could take care of the Brat Pack?

  Assuming everything she’d told him about their harassment was true, she should have known the best way to deal with them: get herself wired. A case like that always came down to he said-she said, unless she was smart enough to get them on tape. Mas was definitely smart…though she hadn’t come to him for help.

  That still bothered him.

  She had hot dogs sizzling in a skillet, buns toasting in another and was chopping onions and pickles to go with the sauerkraut heating on the back burner. Back in Dallas, he’d turned her on to coleslaw on her dogs, and she’d done the same for him with kraut and pickles.

  Once everything was cooking or chopped, she stretched—nothing big or overdone, just hands curled into fists near her neck, elbows raised, back arched, all her muscles tightened, then relaxed. It was a purely utilitarian move that left him purely appreciative.

  It was a sad thing when watching a woman stretch could make at least one part of his anatomy want to do the same.

  “How’s your arm?” she asked when she straightened. “Is it hurting?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t like whining, but it had been less than twenty-four hours, and he was damned tired of it all. Of having to either hurt badly or take medication that made him sleepy and/or loopy, of not even being able to open the bottle or get the drink of water that allowed him to take the damn medication.

  “It probably wouldn’t hurt if you took a couple more pills after lunch.”

  He winced at her use of the word hurt, and she rephrased. “It probably wouldn’t matter if you took a couple more.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  She fixed two glasses of iced tea, then dished up the hot dogs, automatically cutting his into manageable pieces. The first bite made his stomach flip-flop, the second settled it a bit and by the third he was already feeling better. He’d polished off the first and was starting the second when his mouth opened and, completely on its own, a question came out. “Why criminal defense?”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. Hell, they’d had the discussion so many times he knew how it would go. He asked; she answered; he didn’t get it. But maybe this time would be different. Maybe, knowing what he knew now, this time he would be willing to understand it.

  Mas was quiet for a long time, her gaze fixed on the countertop between them. Finally she sighed, her shoulders shaking with the force of the exhalation. “I didn’t have many problems when I started with the DPD. Oh, there was always the occasional officer who still believed women should be answering phones and making coffee, the one who didn’t trust women to back him up, the one who especially didn’t trust a Latina woman. For the most part, though, I was treated like anyone else.”

  AJ had never had a problem with female cops, but he’d worked with people who did. Even now, there were more than a few on the Copper Lake PD and the city council who’d disagreed with his decision to promote Kiki Isaacs to detective, not because they doubted her ability but because of her gender. They were the same ones who’d voiced disapproval over Ty Gadney’s promotion because of his race. Some prejudices were hard to defeat.

  “On the street, it was a different story. There were plenty of victims who didn’t want to talk to the woman. They wanted a real cop. You know, a policeman. There were suspects whose macho pride couldn’t take being handcuffed and hauled off by a girl. Those people didn’t bother me, though. Given enough time, women would win over the victims, and I could always kick the macho perp’s ass.”

  She said it matter-of-factly, and he knew it was true. Even with the bastard twice her size who had blackened her eye, she’d still looked better than him when it was over.

  “What did bother me were the little things. The patrol officer who used a pretext stop to meet a pretty girl or to harass someone who’d pissed off a buddy. The ones who got bored, so they picked some poor sucker to give a hard time. The ones who looked the other way when they stopped a DUI who happened to be a friend or relative or, worse, someone politically connected. The ones who got to a domestic dispute and took the husband or boyfriend aside to tell him that, yeah, she deserved a good smack, just do it someplace where it wasn’t so obvious next time. The ones who were tired or frustrated or burned out or just didn’t give a damn, who blew off the victims.”

  AJ wished for those extra pain pills now, to make him so goofy he didn’t have to admit that her complaints were valid. He’d never done any of the things she mentioned—except for a pretext stop to meet a gorgeous blonde, way back in his first year on the department. But he’d known plenty of cops guilty of the others. Sometimes their action, or inaction, turned out to be harmless. Sometimes it hadn’t. But it had always been wrong.

  “Call me naïve,” Mas went on, “but I believe cops should be held to a higher standard. They shouldn’t get away with speeding or driving drunk or incompetence, just because they’re on the job. They shouldn’t pocket a little money during a drug bust or demand personal favors from informants or violate a suspect’s civil rights during an interrogation. They shouldn’t get away with perverting and breaking the law because they wear a badge.”

  “I agree,” he said quietly. “A lot of cops take advantage of their authority. Some use it for their own gain, and a few flat-out abuse it. But you have to admit, overall, most cops are good, law-abiding officers.”

  She nodded, her black hair reflecting the lights overhead. “Mostly. But not when they ignore the activities of the ones who aren’t. You know there were whispers about Myers, Kinney and Taylor, rumors about how they did their jobs, how they got their confessions. I heard them before I even got transferred into homicide. But everyone ignored them—you ignored them—because they were your buddies and they were getting results.”

  AJ gestured impatiently with his left hand. “There are always rumors. You think there weren’t plenty about you and me? About why I took you on as partner? About what we did when we were off-duty?”

  She tilted her head to one side. “I managed to miss out on those. Probably because, if the Brat Pack taught me anything, it was not to hang out with the guys unless you were there, too.”

  He’d never noticed back then, but hindsight was clearer. There’d always been open invitations within the squad—drinks at a bar down the street after work, cookouts, parties, going to games together. Masiela had never accepted or refused until he did, and he’d never arrived anywhere to find her already there. She always came after him and left with or before him.

  Because she hadn’t felt safe with their fellow cops.

  She was smart—more than competent—she’d worn the same badge they did, carried the same gun, had the same authority. She’d busted her ass to be in better shape than any of them, and she’d never backed down from an enraged drunk, doper, drug dealer or murderer. He’d always known that if she had his back, he was good.

  But she hadn’t felt safe with the detectives they worked with.

  He hadn’t had her back, and he’d never had a damn clue. How stupid could he have been?

  “Everyone was big on results. The means justified the ends. Kinney, Myers and Taylor had a ninety-five-percent solve rate, so no one cared if they bent the rules now and then. If a suspect came out of interrogation with injuries he hadn’t had going in. If witness accounts changed from seeing ‘somebody’ to a picture-perfect description of their prime suspect, if evidence that might be exculpatory got lost before reaching the defense attorney, they were taking bad guys off the street, and that was all anyone cared about.”

  She picked up the last bite of her hot dog, stared at it, then tossed it down again. Pushing the plate out of the way, she rested her arms on the countertop and leaned toward him. “I worked with some good cops, Decker, but I also worked with some damn bad ones. I saw how easy it was to railroad someone, to plant or destroy evidence. I saw people go to prison for long sentences w
ho swore they were innocent, and I believed some of them, because I knew how people like Kinney manipulated the system. I knew he and his pals were more dangerous than most of the people they arrested.

  “That’s why I became a defense attorney.”

  In the silence that echoed, he admitted he’d been right: he got it this time. He was willing to get it. That didn’t say much for the detective—or the man—he’d been back then.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wish you’d had faith in me, Decker,” she murmured.

  AJ stared down at her. “I had faith in you, Mas. I trusted you with my life.”

  The smile that ghosted across her face was filled with regret and bitterness. “You trusted every officer on the Dallas Police Department with your life. But you didn’t trust me enough to even consider what I was trying to tell you about the Rodriguez case. Even now, you don’t trust me enough to look at the evidence I’ve gathered against your friends.”

  You made a rookie mistake, Decker, she’d said earlier. You didn’t look at the evidence. You didn’t care if it was all just a little too neat. He’d never given credence to her accusations before. The case had been put together by three experienced, highly regarded detectives; it had been bought off on by an experienced, highly regarded assistant DA, and the jury had needed only ninety minutes to find Israel Rodriguez guilty.

  So it had been neat. She’d worked enough homicide cases to know that some of them were. Sometimes the obvious answer was the right one. Sometimes you were lucky enough to get witnesses, fingerprints, DNA and enough trace evidence to qualify as overkill.

  Mas had been unable to accept that Teri’s case had been one of those lucky ones.

  And AJ had been unwilling to acknowledge that a career criminal like Israel Rodriguez didn’t commit easy-to-solve crimes.

  He ran his fingers across his hair, breathed heavily and opened his mouth to say, hell, he didn’t know what, but she was already turning away from him toward the sink, clearly not expecting any sort of real answer.

  She said they’d harassed her, but AJ had never noticed it.

  She’d been wary of them, and he’d never noticed that, either.

  Kinney had threatened her. Donovan had taken the threat seriously enough to move her out of state.

  Why would they threaten her if there wasn’t something to her evidence?

  Most cops are good, he’d told her, and she’d solemnly added, Not when they ignore the activities of the ones who aren’t.

  She was right, of course, and he was guilty—of ignoring the rumors about the Brat Pack, of brushing off her initial dislike of them, of not trusting her. God knew, she’d earned it.

  He was one of those bad cops who’d looked the other way.

  But not anymore.

  Wishing she could pull back the curtain over the kitchen sink and let a little light in, Masiela rinsed the lunch dishes, stacked them in the dishwasher, then took two tablets from the bottle of pain pills. When AJ came closer, she offered them.

  He looked as if he wanted to argue that it wasn’t time, that he was tough and strong and didn’t need them. She cut him off with a blunt observation. “You look like hell, and I feel like it. We’re tired. We need rest.”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Not now.” She never thought he would ever be willing to hear her out and certainly never dreamed she would put him off if he was. But he did look worn out. Pain etched his face, his skin had paled a few shades, and there was a fine tremor in his hand. And she did feel crappy. An adrenaline surge deserved a good rest afterward, and she hadn’t gotten it. Whatever she’d been running on for the past few hours was sapped. All she wanted was to curl up, close her eyes and go brain-dead for a while.

  AJ’s expression was belligerent, but in the end, he washed down the pills with a gulp of tea, then rubbed his forehead. “Can you help me out of this shirt?”

  Can’t you just sleep in it? she wanted to ask. Helping him put it on had been intimate enough. Taking it off…

  After a gulp of her own tea, she tried to close off that line of thought and lighten the mood. “Can I burn it afterward?”

  “You can do whatever you want with it.”

  He was moving slowly as she followed him down the hall, up the stairs and into the bedroom. She straightened the covers, then positioned the pillows before moving back to his side of the bed.

  Her fingers felt as stiff as his must after so long without use. They fumbled with the top button on the gaudy shirt, took their sweet time with the second and made her swear silently at the third. It was because she was tired, she told herself. Because she hadn’t slept any better than he had last night. Because the incident of adolescent angst had, for a time, brought the fear back to heart-pumping life.

  But the truth didn’t want to be closed off. It was because she really wanted to touch him. To make this far more intimate than merely undressing him. To kiss that warm, bare skin. To rest her cheek against his shoulder and breathe in that old familiar scent. To remember when he’d touched her and held her and kissed her as if he just might die without her. To find out if he might touch her, hold her and kiss her like that again.

  He swayed unsteadily, and his forehead bumped against hers. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m starting to see double, and that makes me a little unsteady.”

  “I know.” Silently chastising herself, she made short work of the remaining buttons, removed the shirt, then efficiently, unemotionally, did the same with his shorts. Holding on to his good arm, she helped him into bed, fluffed the pillows beneath his cast and pulled the covers over him.

  She was about to straighten and leave the room when his fingers caught her shirt, then slid up into her hair, around to her neck and pulled her closer. She braced herself with one hand. The last thing she needed was to tumble onto his arm.

  Before she could ask what he was doing, his mouth touched hers, neither quick nor slow, hard nor soft, just a solid pressure, lips against lips, a platonic kiss. Then his tongue levered between her lips, dipping into her mouth, and her knees damn near gave way. There was no hurry, no desperation or need, just wanting. He wasn’t going to die without her, or starve, or burst into flames.

  No, the dying, starving, flame-bursting was all hers.

  When he released her, his eyes remained closed. “Damn,” was all he said, a hint of all his years in Texas creeping into the word, making it twice as long. Yeah, damn.

  “Get some sleep,” she whispered, in a voice too thick and heavy to be her own.

  She made it halfway down the stairs before stopping to sit, arms around her knees, on a bare-wood riser. Her lips still tingled. She was sure if she touched them, she would feel tiny little shocks in her fingertips.

  It was an amazing thing—a kiss that could leave a thirty-six-year-old woman, with her share of sexual experience, barely able to stand. She felt tingly all over and hot and tender and needy.

  Just the image she wanted of herself: needy for the man who’d come closest to breaking her heart. But she’d been needy before and would likely find herself back there again. She would survive.

  She always did.

  AJ slept pretty well, considering most of his nap had been occupied with erotic dreams. He never should have kissed Masiela just before falling asleep. Hell, he never should have kissed her at all. It had been a long time, and so much had changed between them. But not his wanting her, and apparently not her wanting him back.

  And kissing her was still pretty damn good. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  He managed to dress himself in running shorts and an old sleeveless T-shirt that was stretched out a size too big and so faded its color was indistinguishable. With proper shoes and socks, he’d be ready for a run, though just the thought of pounding the pavement made his wrist throb.

  He put on flip-flops, then went to use the bathroom. He needed a shave but wasn’t ready to put a left-handed razor to his throat. His hair was getting long, too, considering that for him
, half an inch was long. He could use a shower, but he hadn’t figured out yet how that was going to work, unless he dripped dry.

  Or threw himself on Masiela’s mercy. And he had a pretty good idea where that would lead—an option that was sounding better every hour.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped, just stood there listening, feeling, breathing. It was the same old house, but different. Something that smelled really good in the kitchen joined the usual scents of wood, dust and stripper. Instead of the silence he normally came home to, music played and a clear, slightly off-key alto sang along. There was another presence besides his own, one that felt…well, at home. That belonged.

  Detouring into the living room, he looked once more at the painted messages there. “Srcew you.” It brought a dry chuckle. Though Kinney, Myers and Taylor weren’t the type to leave graffiti, if they ever did, they would probably misspell it, too. He’d spent a lot of years teaching them that “myself and my partner” was not a proper subject for any sentence, especially in an official report.

  The kitchen and dining room were empty when he moved on, though he found the source of the good smells: a pot of chicken in golden broth bubbling on the stove.

  The music came from the library, so he went there. Stepping into the doorway, he was treated to the sight of Masiela facing one wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves. High on her head, her hair was pulled into a ponytail that made her look about eighteen. Stained denim shorts and a T-shirt didn’t add any years, and neither did the clunky sneakers that could be worn for anything but sneaking.

  His gaze slid over her, from silky black hair to dark eyes, from high cheekbones and perfect nose to full, lush mouth. Just that look and he wanted to kiss her again, wanted to know if she’d let him, wanted to do it right this time.