by Jenna Ryan
“Probably a good thing,” she murmured.
Jacob’s eyes fixed on hers. “Good things have the potential to turn bad, Romana. His lips twisted slightly. “Voice of experience.”
She tipped her head to regard him. Surely one kiss couldn’t hurt. She was no longer married-thank God and Grandma Grey-and dress rehearsals, even when run by political figures, seldom came off on schedule.
As was her habit, Romana deferred to her feelings, or in Jacob’s case, her hunger. Maybe it hadn’t been appropriate at the time, but she couldn’t deny that she’d fantasized about the gorgeous, dark-haired cop who’d made detective even before she’d entered the Academy. She’d glimpsed him from time to time at the station, had actually worked with him once on a murder investigation. But she’d been young back then, painfully inexperienced and probably fortunate that her male partner had watched over her like a scowling papa bear.
Romana eased forward, smiling as his eyes heated up. Danger spiked through anticipation. Her skin was already hot, and he’d barely touched her yet.
She rolled her hips, just a bit. “Are you going to let me seduce you, Detective?”
His eyes strayed to her mouth. “Thinking about it.”
Large flakes of snow drifted from a starless sky. The traffic noise became a distant buzz in her ears. As she raised her head, he ran his thumb and fingers upward along the curve of her throat until they formed a V beneath her chin.
Excitement glimmered. The desire she felt for Jacob had been in hibernation for a long time, and it wasn’t taking much to wake it up. This probably wasn’t a good idea, or a smart one. But it was just forbidden enough to be irresistible.
A blanket of snow covered the ground. The city glowed silver and gold. The night air had a bite, but it was nothing compared to the jolt that ricocheted through Romana’s system when Jacob took that last step and lowered his mouth to hers.
Her head spun in delicious circles. He tasted like sex and cool water, a tantalizing contrast. His tongue made a thorough exploration of her mouth, and she felt a sigh rise up in her throat.
Now this, she thought hazily, this was a kiss. A wicked, soul-stirring, heart-hammering kiss. And it was exactly what she’d wanted, what she’d needed from him tonight.
But even off balance, there were limits. Giving his lower lip a nip, she pulled away. It was either that or move the whole thing into his SUV.
“Guess I still have a few lingering fantasies.” She disentangled her hair from his hand. “You’re a great kisser, Detective Knight-for a man who prefers his own company.”
He ran a thumb over her jaw. “Are you trying to get a rise out of me, Romana?”
She shimmied her hips against his. “I don’t need to try. I already have.” She gave him another quick nip.
His eyes tempted her to do it all again-until she spied the gleam deep inside them.
She took a wise step back. “I need air, Jacob. You’re making me dizzy.”
“Sounds promising.”
In spite of herself, Romana couldn’t resist hooking two fingers in the top of his waistband. Smart was one thing, but there was no need to end the moment in a blind rush.
“You’re such a conundrum,” she murmured as he ran his hands up and down her arms. “I have a feeling I’m going to…” The thought died when she spotted the object several feet in front of her. Rectangular shape, bloodred color and all too familiar to her these days. “Oh, damn,” she breathed.
“What?” Jacob swung his head, followed her gaze to the windshield of his SUV.
“That’s one of Critch’s envelopes.” She made a quick sweep of the lot. “And I swear it wasn’t here a moment ago.”
Jacob yanked it free and handed it to her even as he stuffed his gun into the top of his jeans. His eyes never stopped moving.
Romana regarded the flap, visualized briefly, then opened it. Her hands wanted to tremble, but she sucked it up and steadied her nerves. This was a scare tactic, an effective one, but she’d be damned if she’d play Critch’s game, no matter how rattled she felt.
Still scanning, Jacob drew her into the shelter of his large vehicle. He gave her a few seconds to read the message before he murmured, “Out loud, Romana.”
She frowned at the poorly printed words. “‘If you’re keeping score,’” she read, “‘this is your second threat.’” She turned the paper over, searched for more. “What threat?”
As if cued, a pair of projectiles whizzed past her ear. She heard two soft thwacks, then found herself on her knees in the snow. Jacob held her firmly in place while he combed the shadowy fir trees on the perimeter of the lot.
“Why did I ask?” She pushed at his hands. “I’m not going to jump up, Jacob. Do you see him?”
“No.”
Crawling forward, Romana stole a look around the bumper. “There aren’t any vehicles over here,” she said. Then she raised her sights, and her heart gave a single, hard beat. “Ah-well.”
“What?”
“I found our second threat.”
Still on her knees, she indicated Jacob’s windshield-and the pair of neat, round bullet holes Critch had fired through it.
Chapter Four
Jacob woke with a hiss and an image in his head that had him reaching for his gun before his eyes were fully open.
It was the same dream, always the same-his father shouting, his mother closing doors to keep the worst of it in.
Monsters under the bed had nothing on Jacob’s father in a rage. As a boy, he’d been willing to join the hidden demons so he wouldn’t have to hear what he knew would come next.
He remembered the way his heart had thudded. That helped block the sound. Beside him, Kermit sang in his silly frog voice. He thought it was good to be green. Jacob thought it was better to pretend.
The dream rolled forward. Morning came. Everything seemed fine, back to normal-except his mother wore a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt in mid-July, his father snarled into his coffee cup, and no one spoke, not even Jacob’s chatty Muppet frog.
Then the scene shifted. Cold crept in. Snow blanketed the ground. Jacob’s father dragged a Christmas tree inside through the garage. His mother watered it. She laughed because she had pine needles stuck in her hair when she emerged from under the low branches.
Jacob remembered her laugh most of all. It echoed in his head even as the atmosphere altered and his father entered the house.
He’d had a bad day, they saw it in his face. A police officer had died. The shooter had escaped. His father’s fists were clenched. So was his jaw.
Everything had turned red after that. Red smears on his mother’s face, long red streaks on his father’s hands, drops of red clinging to a Christmas candle beside the freshly watered tree.
It was the same red they’d found on Belinda’s body…
Swearing, Jacob fell back on the mattress and stared at the shadowy ceiling.
New shapes formed in the corners, indistinct people shuffling around in unknown places. Jacob felt his heart slamming, both then and now. Too late, he spied the silhouette behind him. He felt a slash of pain in his skull, remembered O’Keefe yelling, then-nothing.
Still staring upward, he worked the tense muscles in his jaw. He pictured Belinda Critch, a tall rangy blonde, not delicate in feature or demeanor, yet sensual in a way that drew men toward her and drove women away. No matter how he tried, though, Jacob couldn’t hold the shot. His mind kept changing it, refining the features, darkening the hair, softening the expression-and ultimately turning up the sex appeal by a good eighty-five percent.
Frustrated by his thoughts, he rolled from the bed. It was after 5:00 p.m., snowy, cold and, unfortunately, Sunday. He had no official work to do tonight, but he did have a file on his kitchen counter, copies of three recently delivered Christmas cards stuck to his fridge and a memory in his head from yesterday that had started with a kiss and ended with an aborted pageant rehearsal in the park.
The power had failed at the outdoor pond tha
t served as a rink, so Romana hadn’t been able to watch her niece skate, although how a child of seven could be expected to do anything on ice when she was dressed up like a pink-and-white spotted elephant was beyond Jacob. He’d barely been able to stand on skates and hold a hockey stick at that age.
They’d try again tomorrow night, the deputy mayor’s wife had promised a small crowd of onlookers.
While coffee brewed and the radiator made ominous clunking sounds, Jacob paged through Belinda’s file. But, like his mental picture of her, the reports blurred; names and faces ran together. Romana’s winter-lake eyes stared up at him. Her mouth tempted him to taste. The scent of her hair and skin shot straight to his groin.
Losing it, he reflected and seesawed his head to loosen the muscles in his neck.
Someone had murdered Belinda. Did he want to find out who’d done it, or slap the file closed, take O’Keefe’s advice and head out to the airport?
A knock on his door prevented an answer, but if he was honest, he’d admit that New Zealand paled next to the prospect of spending time with Romana Grey. So really, he should be thinking airline ticket all the way, and leave O’Keefe to do what he could surely do better than his former partner to keep Romana safe.
Another knock. “Jacob?” Denny Leech’s raspy voice reached him. “You up yet?”
Jacob let his head drop back. She’d have her granddaughter in tow, he just knew it.
“Yeah, I’m up.”
He used the peephole out of habit, glimpsed a pink ball cap and a movement beside it. This should be uncomfortable.
It was the prolonged squelch of rubber on tile that alerted him. It sounded wrong. The thud that followed it was even more out of place.
The skin on Jacob’s neck prickled. “Denny?”
When she didn’t respond, he reached for his gun in its holster by the jamb. Twisting the latch, he sidestepped. With the barrel pointed upward, he kicked the door open-and stumbled as he swung onto the threshold.
A door clanged shut below. Jacob looked down, cursed, jammed his gun into the back of his waistband.
The leg that blocked his path belonged to his neighbor. His neighbor who was lying face up in a seeping pool of blood.
NINETY MINUTES LATER, ROMANA rushed into the crowded emergency room. She spotted Jacob through a sea of bodies and made her way over.
“How’s Denny?” she asked. From his expression, she suspected not good.
He stared past her at the treatment room. “Possible skull fracture and a concussion.” His expression was calm, but that was practiced, like his tone when he added, “Critch clubbed her from behind with a broken brick.”
Romana’s stomach pitched. Apparently prison hadn’t mellowed the man one bit. “How old is she?”
“Almost eighty.”
“Does she have a strong constitution?”
“I’d say so.”
A man in a wrist cast jostled Romana’s arm. With a sideways glance, she drew Jacob toward the water fountain. She wanted to remind him that this wasn’t his fault, but any solace she offered would go unheard. He’d blame himself for what had happened because he hadn’t gotten to Critch first.
“I assume the brick Critch used has been found.”
“In the alley, next to my front bumper.”
“Fingerprints would be nice,” she mused. “Or a strand of hair. But if it’s like the cards he sent, there won’t be anything to connect him to the crime. I don’t suppose you saw him.”
“No, only Denny.”
Romana wanted to touch his cheek, but Jacob simply didn’t invite that kind of contact. She settled for brushing the hair from his forehead. “You know, my grandmother’s in her late seventies, and she handled a concussion last year as if it were a scraped knee. She was up and riding her horses within a week. Totally against her doctor’s orders, but she insisted she knew her body’s limits better than a man she sees only once a year. Where’s Denny now?”
“They’re taking her upstairs.” He slid his gaze from the treatment room to her face. “You weren’t supposed to come here, Romana. I called so you’d make sure your door was bolted and alarmed, not go flying out into the night and possibly into Critch’s waiting hands.”
Romana studied his face. The strain of the past few hours showed most clearly in his eyes, but there was subtle evidence of it around his mouth and in the side of his jaw, where she saw a muscle tick.
Because she needed what he appeared not to, Romana flattened her palms on his chest. “You’ve done all you can here. Someone can call you if there’s any change in Denny’s condition.” She curled her fingers around his T-shirt and pulled. “Right now, you need to come to the park with me.”
He gave a disbelieving laugh, scanned the bustling corridor. “Are you on some kind of street drug, Romana?”
“No, I’m on some kind of mission to locate and capture Critch before he hurts another innocent bystander. Or better still-” tightening her grip, she forced him to look back at her “-to locate and apprehend the person who murdered his wife.”
“And you think we’re going to do one or both of those things in a public park?”
“No idea, Knight.” She stepped closer, partly to distract him and partly because a woman in a wheelchair was rolling past. “What I do know is that Belinda Critch was-I’ll be polite and say acquainted-with one James Barret. And my well-informed cousin Fitz told me this afternoon that, since his godchildren are part of it, Mr. Barret will likely be attending tonight’s pageant rehearsal.”
“IF CRITCH’LL ATTACK AN OLD woman-an uninvolved old woman-he’ll attack anyone.” Jacob threaded his way through traffic on the busy streets of Mount Adams. “Anyone, Romana, any age.”
“Thank you, I realize that.”And it brought a chill to her skin thinking about it. “Fortunately, my niece had to pull out of the pageant. She tripped over a toy truck and sprained her ankle.” Romana stared through the window at the decorated houses they passed. “The city looks so festive right now, doesn’t it? Pretty lights, Christmas music. I swear I can even smell chestnuts roasting in the park. And yet your neighbor’s in a hospital bed, I’m glad my niece hurt her ankle, and I’m trying to think up an excuse not to go anywhere near Fitz tonight.”
Jacob located a parking spot on the edge of the makeshift lot. Directly across from them, on the far side of the pond, a high school band played “Holly Jolly Christmas.” He watched them as he spoke. “I can talk to Barret on police time if it makes you more comfortable.”
“It doesn’t.” She pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, a striking contrast to her long red coat. “I’m not going to let Critch win, I just don’t want anyone I know to get hurt. Having said that, I still think our best plan to stop him is to figure out who murdered his wife.”
“While we do or don’t search for him?”
Resolved, she slid from her seat and slammed the door. “Eggs in more than one basket, Knight. We search for both of them.”
He set his arms on the hood. “I hate to remind you, Romana, but you’re not a cop these days. You shouldn’t be searching for anyone.”
“Critch shouldn’t be taking potshots at us. What’s your point, Detective?”
“You’d be better off in Boston with your parents.”
Ah, they were back to the safety issue. She tucked her hair behind her ears, tugged on a black hat. “Only in your eyes. In mine, I’d be exposing them to danger.”
“He wants me more than he wants you.”
“Again, your opinion. I figure if I so much as try to leave the city, he’ll turn on my brothers, or worse, their kids.”
“Romana…”
“Not running, Detective. Accept it.” Her lips curved. “On a more salient note, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re standing next to a cobalt-blue Porsche. That car is the same color as James Barret’s eyes, which is undoubtedly why he bought it.”
“And you know that because…”
Her smile deepened to a tease. “I guess that
means I either know him well enough to be aware of his vanity, or Fitz told me.”
At his vaguely suspicious look, she sighed out a laugh. “Fitz had a crush on him as a kid. Her father’s an upholsterer for Barret Brown Furniture. A younger James Barret used to give her candy, and bat his baby blues at her. If she says he and Belinda were involved, they probably were. One thing Fitz can do better than anyone I know is ferret out information that she feels is relevant to her life. Don’t say it.” She deflected the obvious question. “Fantasies are as relevant to a lot of people as reality is.” She should know, Romana reflected with a shiver. She was standing three feet from hers.
Beyond a faint twitch of his lips, Jacob didn’t react. He simply held out a hand for her to precede him.
She told herself to focus, not be sucked into an emotional whirlpool. It would be so easy to fall for Jacob Knight, to let herself want him in a way that, sadly, she’d never wanted her ex-husband. Big girl, big desires, she reflected with a twinge of regret. But Santa couldn’t make everyone’s Christmas wishes come true, and even if he could, Jacob was still a dark horse with the department and a largely unknown, albeit incredibly sexy, commodity to her.
“Ro!” Any hope she had of avoiding Fitz died as her cousin swooped in, out of breath and pink-cheeked. “You have to help me. James wants to talk. Don’t know why, but I can’t say no. The thing is, I managed to drag Patrick here tonight, and I don’t want him to disappear while I’m gone. So I need you to-oh.” The fingers she’d wrapped around Romana’s arm loosened, then did a speculative tap dance. “Hello, Detective Knight. I didn’t see you.” But now that she had, she took a long, assessing look. “Talk about coincidence. I ran into your old partner last night at Franconi’s. He was alone and lonely. We had beer and pasta together.”
“He’s missing his daughter.” Jacob surveyed the park scene. A crease formed between his eyes when his gaze reached the pond.
Romana followed his gaze. “What? Is it Critch?”
“No, it’s a guy from Vice dressed like a jack-in-the-box.”