by Leigh Duncan
“Oh. That’s too bad.” She nibbled on a bacon-wrapped date and said nothing more until the pit lay on her plate and she had picked up a garlic roll. She began to shred it. “You ought to think about taking that back up,” she said.
Crumbs mounded onto her plate. Brett didn’t have any idea what she was talking about and let his expression say as much.
“Fly fishing. You should do more of it. Having an outside interest is one of the keys to overcoming job burnout. Another is spending time with people besides your coworkers. And physical activity—working out, running, playing basketball, joining a softball team—it all helps.”
It was a good thing he had stopped eating because his jaw dropped open. Misjudging this girl was turning into a bad habit.
“What?” he managed.
She continued turning the garlic roll into a million tiny pieces.
“You’re a cynic,” she said without glancing up from her plate. “You weren’t one when you joined the force. You became a cop because you wanted to help people. But you’re in a high-stress job. Your work puts you in constant contact with the worst elements of society. People Are Safe never makes the headlines, so you rarely see the rewards. The very nature of your work fosters an us-against-the-world attitude. Face it, Brett.”
She dropped what was left of the roll onto her plate and pinned him with a look that was pure challenge.
“You’re walking the job-burnout line. If you don’t make changes to correct it, you’ll end up just as jaded and disillusioned as the old-timers in your department. You know them, don’t you? Who taught you the ropes of police work?”
“Jake,” he said. “Jake is the best training officer I’ve ever known.”
“Let me guess. He comes down hard on the people he arrests. And he never cuts—what were your words? Joe Citizen? He never cuts JC any slack. He’s at least twenty pounds overweight. Divorced. Antisocial, except around other cops. He drinks too much.”
Brett blinked. Her description had nailed his old partner. “Where did you two meet?”
“We haven’t.” Stephanie shrugged. “What I described is classic job burnout. In HR, we see it every day. Engineers who build their lives around their work. Corporate executives who tire of the rat race. Most of what we know, and how to fix it, we learned from studying cops. Their burnout rate is one of the highest.”
She was wrong about him and Jake. They’d seen more than their share of hard cases, but burnout? The idea was laughable. He was still marshaling his thoughts, determined to show how wrong she was, when she abandoned the battlefield without giving him a chance to prove he had the superior argument.
“So, we were talking about travel. And you said it was all window dressing. What’d you mean by that?”
He weighed answers while he stirred his fork through the remains of pasta salad, searching for another of those tasty olives. So what if she had pegged him as a cynical cop? His opinion of sightseeing was sure to raise her hackles further than her eyebrows would stretch, but she deserved it after the way she’d slammed his job.
“Churches here don’t look anything like the mosques in Tehran,” he said, “but they’re all places of worship. The Grand Canyon was caused by a river and the Vredefort Dome is a meteor strike, but they’re both big holes in the ground. A hotel in Brussels offers the same lousy mattresses as one in Vegas.”
Sure enough, that brought her brows to full attention. He would have laughed at the surprised “oh” her mouth formed if it didn’t look so kissable.
“But travel is more than that, isn’t it? It’s the Alps and Angel Falls and an archipelago in the South Pacific.”
One mountain looked pretty much like any other in his book, but her voice was infectious. The endearing way her cheeks flushed when something excited her made him wonder if seeing the world through her eyes would make a difference.
He threw down a challenge. “If you like travel so much, why aren’t you out seeing the world?”
“I plan to.” She nodded. “I want to see it all.” She chose another garlic roll from the pile on the table. Using it as a pointer, she traced an invisible map through the air. “Everything from the Sistine Chapel and Buckingham Palace to the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids.” Her voice faltered. “I just, you know, can’t yet.”
The way the light in her eyes dimmed caught his immediate attention. “Yeah?” She lived in a house on the beach. She had no roots, no husband, no children to tie her down. She didn’t even own a cat, a decided plus in his book. “What’s stopping you?”
“A couple of things.” She speared a bit of fresh mozzarella and tomato. Her laden fork traced circles over the plate. “Money, for one. Space Tech has a terrific corporate training program but they don’t pay much to start. Back in Ohio, I even lived with my parents.” She flashed a grin at his pained expression. “This assignment is my first big test. If I succeed, my next position will be bigger and more challenging. Since I only have a year to prove they made the right decision by giving me this shot, I owe them every minute of my time. For a year. At least.”
He heard the warning in her words while his eyes traveled the granite counters and tile floors. A year, and she’d be moving on to greener pastures leaving him to say he knew her when. Rather than dwelling on that disturbing thought, he studied the overhead fan where wide paddles turned lazily, powered by the ocean breeze. He gestured toward the open sliding glass door.
“This is a great place,” he said. “I was afraid the previous owners, the Hensons, might tear it down. I was glad when they decided to rebuild.”
She stopped nibbling on the tomato wedge and lowered her fork. “Why would they even consider it?”
Brett shrugged. He didn’t have anything more to tell her than what everyone else knew.
“Two years ago, Tropical Storm Wanda stalled right on top of us. She wasn’t as strong as a hurricane, but she did some serious damage. A tree, a palm if I remember right, smashed straight through this roof. By the time the Hensons returned from their son’s house up north, rain had drenched the walls and carpets. Mildew and mold ruined whatever the water didn’t. They gutted the house. Replaced everything from the roof to the floor tiles,” he explained.
When she didn’t respond, he studied the mix of shock and surprise that crept over her face. “You didn’t know any of this? It’s pretty much common knowledge around here.”
“My real estate agent never said a word,” Stephanie murmured. “In fact, she practically boasted that the geography of this area prevented hurricanes from coming ashore.”
“Real estate agent? Huh!” Experience with a particular blonde left him wary of the profession. “Meteorologists define landfall as the point where the center of the storm, the eye, comes ashore. But the storms extend out for hundreds of miles. So a miss, even a not-so-near miss, can do a lot of damage. Your agent didn’t exactly lie—we’ve never taken a direct hit, at least not from a full-fledged hurricane. But we have seen our share of wrecked homes and businesses. We had quite a bit of damage from Hurricane Arlene, too. “
“One in twenty businesses and homes,” she said.
He caught Stephanie staring at the ceiling as if she expected to see a tree trunk plunge through it.
“Relax,” he told her. “Your roof is solid.”
Intending to give the barest reassuring squeeze and be back on his side of the table before she knew he was coming, he placed his hand over her smaller one. But the instant they touched, his fingers slipped between hers and somehow tangled there. Heat flew up his arm as his thumb rubbed the length of her index finger. The warmth gathered until his chest filled with it, the overflow spilling into a wave that swept all the way down to his heels.
“Until we take a direct hit,” she said. Still staring at the ceiling, she ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip.
One push. One little push. That’s all it would take to scare her straight back to Ohio and out of his life. All he had to do was to agree with her.
“It will never happen,” he said firmly.
HE WAS HER OPPOSITE in every way that counted, a disillusioned cop who resented her advice and disagreed with her view of the world. He might look like a Greek god, but she didn’t need, or want, anyone rushing to her rescue, even if he was intelligent and honest. Still, she couldn’t deny how safe and protected he made her feel.
When Stephanie meant to pull her fingers from beneath Brett’s grip, the order fizzled somewhere between her brain and her arm. She licked her lips and reached for her water glass.
Her body might want him, but she was smarter than that. Brett Lincoln was too big a complication, too big a risk. His presence threatened years of hard work and sacrifice. She knew it, and she was in control.
He had to go. It really was that simple. She would rid her life of him and she would start right here, right now. As soon as she could force her reluctant body to follow her lead, she would do it.
She rose abruptly, the move catching her rebellious hand so unaware it slipped free. She shook her fingers, trying to ease the sensation of his touch. No luck. Her body buzzed so much it sent words leaping from her mouth in a staccato stream.
“Thanks-for-coming-and-for-the-windows-and-for-everything-else-but-I-have-a-big-day-tomorrow-and-it’s-time-togo.”
Throwing a sidelong glance his way, she saw Brett sitting in shell-shocked silence. She could not fault his dazed look. She had just rung the bell on their budding relationship and she had not even cushioned the blow. She hated to be harsh, but it was too late to change her mind. Irritated, with herself as much as with the situation, she stalked across the kitchen to stuff an armload of paper plates and takeout containers beneath the trash can’s lid. She spun, intending to gather the rest of the debris…and collided with a muscular chest. She would have lost her balance for the second time that evening except for Brett’s hands. His steady grip found her waist, kept her upright and shot scorching flames through her midsection.
She tipped her head at his murmured apology, hesitating at the way candlelight reflected in his blue eyes. The sight reminded her of Icarus and the sun, and she recognized the danger in flying too close. She leaned back to catch her breath, but knew she was doomed the second his spicy, woodsy scent filled her. She flowed into his arms.
An indescribable thrill shot through her as he bent to press his full lips to her own. The feeling was so unexpectedly delicious she gasped, her lips barely parting. It was all the permission he needed to slip between them.
The move sent waves of shocked pleasure rolling to her center. She trembled beneath his touch as his fingers trailed along her waist. Her hands found his back where they clenched and kneaded. He drew her to him. At the first brush of her breasts against his chest he uttered a groan that she felt all the way down to her toes. His hands slipped around to her back, massaging the small sensitive hollows just below her waist, and he urged her even closer. She moaned softly as an exquisite pressure began to build beneath his caress. The air hummed with the intensity of their embrace.
But when things started to vibrate, Stephanie’s eyes flew open.
Trying to get her bearings under the glaringly bright lights of a fully electrified kitchen, she narrowed in on the refrigerator’s noisy buzz. From the living room, the television blared static. Below one kitchen window came a loud roar as the air conditioner shook itself into action.
Musty air poured out of the overhead vent and Stephanie went cold. What had she been doing with the man she had practically thrown out of her house? Was she insane? The same thoughts must have occurred to Brett because their hands dropped simultaneously. She felt mortification stain her cheeks and stepped back, reaching instinctively for the safety and solidity of the kitchen counter. Taking an unsteady breath, she looked for some way to put needed distance between them without swinging the pendulum all the way from firebrand to ice queen.
Her gesture swept the room. “Did we do that?” she asked.
Lame by any standards, the joke broke the tension. Brett smiled, his eyes crinkling.
“It was bound to happen,” he said. A pause, then, “I have to go.” He nodded toward her front door and, beyond it, the city. “With the power back on, there are bound to be problems. I’ll, uh, I’ll call you.”
“About that, um…” Her fingertips grazed his forearm and felt only skin. The fire had burned itself out. She took a deep breath and made the only sensible choice. “With the rest of the employees reporting to work tomorrow and getting settled in the new job and all, I’ll be insanely busy for the next few weeks, so, um—”
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you?” he finished for her.
“Yeah. Something like that.” She forced her eyes to meet his while, for once, her thoughts begged for an argument.
“Okay by me.” His walk to her front door defined nonchalance. “Thanks for dinner,” he called before disappearing into the night. Seconds later, she heard an engine rev and tires pull away from her curb.
It was the right thing to do, she told herself. No matter how much her body craved his touch, there was no room in her immediate future for a tall, broad-shouldered cop who rode to her rescue every time she had a hangnail. Especially if he didn’t care. Which he must not, considering how easily he’d walked away.
Once the door was locked behind him, the windows closed and the thermostat lowered to bone-chill, she headed for the shower. Their kiss might have meant nothing to Brett, but she still smoldered. Turning the tap on full force, she realized it would take hours for the hot water heater to recharge.
She would need every one of them.
Chapter Seven
Stephanie’s work phone rang twenty, sometimes thirty, times a day. Which made for a lot of sipped air and bruised feelings whenever the display showed a number other than Brett’s. Which it had done far longer than she’d thought he could possibly hold out. Never mind that she had told him not to call. She couldn’t take much more of his cold shoulder. She could handle broad shoulders, though. Especially Brett’s, which were broad enough and strong enough to—Her breath hitched when the phone rang, but she refused to look up from the report she was finalizing
When the phone buzzed again, she swallowed frustration at the unfamiliar number on her Caller ID and picked up.
“Hello. This is Stephanie Bryant.”
“Stephanie, it’s Mary Jenkins. You may not remember me, but…”
But she made a point of remembering names and faces. In the moment before she joined the conversation, she flipped through the pertinent facts. Mary was married to Tom. Tom’s best friend was on the CBPD.
“Of course I remember you, Mary. How are you? How are the girls? And Tom?” Maybe he could ask his friend to ask Brett to—Yeah, and, like, high school was soooo yesterday.
“Fine. We’re all fine. I hope it’s okay to call you at work.”
“Of course, it is,” she said warmly. “I saw Tom’s ad in the paper. I guess that means you weathered the storm all right?”
“Yes, thank goodness. Only a few loose boards at the marina, and that’s really why I called. I know it’s awfully late notice, but Tom has a night off tomorrow so we’ve decided to throw a post-hurricane cookout. We’d love it if you’d join us. Oops—hold on.”
While Mary said something about not playing with “that” and two little voices clamored for something Stephanie couldn’t quite decipher, something involving “Miss Steppy” and “posh,” she considered her plans. The excitement on tap for tomorrow was no different from any of the last twenty-one straight days—work until she couldn’t see straight, stop for takeout on the way home, and spend a nice, relaxing evening with her laptop and files. If she didn’t start following some of the advice she had given Brett, she would soon be walking her own job-burnout line.
“I’d love to,” she answered when she had Mary’s attention again. “Is there anything I can bring?”
“Not a thing except, mmm, maybe some nail polish?” Mary asked, sounding half-apologetic. “Th
e girls keep begging to have their nails done again. I did it once, but I’m just a mommy. I don’t have the right touch. Or maybe it’s the color.”
The story drew a laugh from both of them. She would love to paint the girls’ nails, she said. “I’ll be there at six.”
After they hung up, she buzzed her receptionist. “Ralinda, could you pull Paul Mason’s address for me? And clear my calendar tomorrow afternoon. I’m knocking off early and won’t be in till Monday.”
Seconds later, her willowy right-hand woman appeared in her doorway with the information. “You deserve a weekend off. You’ve worked, what? Sixteen days straight?”
Anything more might qualify her for martyrdom, so Stephanie kept mum on the real number. She turned instead to her computer where a stiletto-wielding brunette crept across the screen, smacked the corporate dragon on the nose and made off with all his gold. Stephanie smothered a smile and hit the Delete key. Space Tech frowned on personal computer use, but that hadn’t stopped the cartoon from flooding company e-mails or slowed the goodwill generated by her hurricane policy. She thought it might have even lessened the sting of the reorganization she’d implemented. As for the caricature’s source, John Sanders was the only local with the whole story and she refused to jeopardize the founder’s support by asking him about it.
OKAY, SO SHE MIGHT have gone a little overboard, Stephanie admitted with a glance at the hamper strapped into the passenger seat of her company car. But baby clothes, gift certificates and assorted goodies were the least she could buy for a man with a hole in the roof of his trailer and a brand-new baby at home. Especially since he had provided the impetus for her first major success at Space Tech.
Trouble was, she couldn’t find Paul Mason.
She slowed in front of a neat brick rambler at the address her GPS navigational system and the efficient Ralinda swore was correct. There was nary a trailer in sight. Nor a single damaged and blue-tarped roof. Intending to double-check the address, she edged her car to the curb just in time to realize she had been duped.