In Hot Pursuit

by Joanne Rock

  Only then did Lexi notice the beads of sweat cooling on his temple. Good God, he’d walked right into a burning apartment for her animals. For her.

  “You think the note writer did this?” The notion shocked her. She’d dismissed the notes as a creepy way to scare her, but she’d never thought the writer would take action against her.

  “Probably. I think you’re posing a bigger threat than we realized with your articles. Either way, I want you out of here.”

  Lexi stared up at the burning twelfth floor. “I don’t think I’ll have a choice but to leave now.”

  She was pretty sure her voice didn’t quiver when she said it, but Josh must have known she was scared out of her mind anyway because he backed her into his chest, wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.

  Together, they watched the firefighters run into the building in full gear.

  Josh bent close enough to whisper in her ear. “Someone set the fire in your apartment, Lexi. It was the only one burning when I got up there.”

  If her blood hadn’t run cold enough to start with, it had just turned arctic.

  “You’re sure?” Who could hate her enough to do this? And how could her fashion commentary threaten someone enough to drive them to arson?

  “Positive. The fire department will have the blaze controlled pretty easily, but your apartment is going to be unlivable. Duke told me you have a key to get into Amanda’s loft?”

  She nodded, resigning herself to the plan but unable to get her feet in gear yet, her eyes lingering on the smoking building.

  “We really ought to go, Lexi, in case whoever set the fire is still hanging around.” Josh picked up her shopping bags and the birdcage as he glanced up and down the street.

  She moved to grab the lemonade pitcher that poor Bubblegum was using as a temporary fish tank when a woman standing behind her tugged on Lexi’s sleeve. “Excuse me, miss, but your dog seems determined to hang on to something.”

  Only then did Lexi take a good look at her babies. Muffin and Snowball basked in the glory of their last-minute escape, tails wagging in the contentment of the crowd’s attention.

  Harry, however, sat at attention. He looked up at Lexi, jaw clenched, a small chunk of something red clamped between his teeth.

  Lexi knelt to his level. “What is it, boy? Do you have something for Mommy?” Only when she stroked his head and gently pulled on the red object did Harry let it go.

  “What is it?” Josh leaned over her shoulder, squinting to see the small red swatch.

  “Fabric. Very wet, dog-drooled fabric.” Lexi turned the square-inch piece over in her hand. “Make that dog-drooled cashmere, which makes a big difference. This is definitely nothing that came from inside my apartment.”

  “I’ll take it to the lab to run some tests. Maybe Harry got in a fight with whoever set the fire.” Josh nudged her gently forward. “But right now we’d better get out of here.”

  Lexi half heard him and took a step forward, but last year’s fall collections kept playing over in her mind. Someone had used red cashmere like this, and the name of the designer teased the edges of her brain.

  “In just a minute,” she replied absently, mentally rewinding all the fall runway shows. If only she could remember who designed it, maybe she could find out who owned it.

  “Lexi, I mean it. We need to hit the road if we want to—”

  Lexi looked up as his words trailed off. She followed his gaze across the crowded street to the white sport utility vehicle with a “TV 11” logo in bright blue emblazoned on the side.

  “If we want to avoid the media?” she supplied, knowing exactly why Josh was in such a rush to get out of there.

  The look he sent her would have frozen a normal woman to the spot. “And if we want to keep you alive to write next week’s column.”

  Lexi shook her head, hoping a little levity would cover the hurt she felt inside at the thought that he would never want to be seen with her. “I wouldn’t dream of dying on you, Josh. Can you imagine the negative publicity?”

  “Actually, I can.”

  He whistled for the dogs and scooped up Bubblegum’s container, effectively leaving her with nothing to carry. He stomped down the street toward his car, which she could see parked half a block behind the fire trucks.

  “You can?”

  “The last person I was looking out for I ended up shooting, Lexi.”

  That stopped her in her shoes. “You’re kidding.”

  Josh seemed to be cursing himself under his breath as he set down Lexi’s things and fished for his keys in his pants pocket. “Extra, extra, you can read all about it if you want. It was in every paper in the city a few months ago.”

  As he opened the door to his car, Lexi’s dogs couldn’t scramble into his back seat fast enough.

  Why hadn’t Amanda mentioned this event to her? Wouldn’t Duke have been upset if his partner had truly hurt somebody? Her mind refused to picture Josh shooting someone without damn good cause. “I was in Europe a lot this summer—why don’t you refresh me?”

  Josh loaded her pictures in the back seat of his unmarked cop car. “Hop in, I’ll tell you.”

  She stepped closer to the vee of the car’s open door, creating a semi-intimate setting despite the throng of people milling half a block away. “Tell me now or I’m going nowhere.”

  She should be scared, shouldn’t she? A dangerous-looking cop confesses to shooting someone in his custody.

  But she wasn’t. Lexi could see beyond the glower to the regret in Josh’s eyes.

  He half sighed, half growled out his frustration. “I had been sort of working with a city informant in a drug case, when the kid decided it wasn’t enough to turn evidence against the buddies who had wronged him—he wanted revenge, instead.”

  Her whole body tensed. “What happened?”

  “The kid showed up at the scene of a drug bust one night and went wild.” Josh clenched his jaw a few times in quick succession. “He hit and killed one of the traffickers before a cop noticed him and turned a gun to him. The kid shot the cop and I shot the kid. End of story.”

  “Not end of story.” No matter how much he might think otherwise, Josh needed to talk about this as much as she needed—wanted—to hear it. “How young a kid are we talking about?”

  “Sixteen.” Frustration laced the word. He tilted his head back to stare up at the sky for a moment. “Lex, I’m sorry I’m trying to hustle you out of here, but we really should go.”

  She smoothed her fingers along his shirtsleeve, keeping her touch featherlight. “Did he die?”

  He brushed some ash off his clothes. “The kid, yes. The cop, no. But the cop wouldn’t have gone down in the first place if I’d done a better job with the kid. I had been talking to him, you know? Trying to bring him around to life without crime. Piss-poor decision.”

  The narrow look he shot her declared the topic closed. He pulled Lexi around to the other side of the car and held the front door for her. “Now get in the car, we’re going.”

  “That’s why you don’t like the media?” Call her clueless, but Josh offered up so precious little about himself, she wanted to be sure she got it right.

  “I have no problem with the media,” he clarified, his tight smile looking close to a grimace. “But as an occasional undercover guy, I need to stay out of the papers for the next year or so until all that dies down. Then I can go back to hitting some heavy-duty undercover assignments.”

  She really wanted to know why he liked working undercover more than he liked her. Couldn’t he choose to work undercover with her and outside the damn covers at work?

  But she didn’t have a chance to ask another question, because he slammed her car door shut with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.

  Curse the man.

  He’d saved her dogs, her parakeet and even her pink fish, and in the course of an afternoon, Josh had made her realize their relationship was built on far more than sex.

  Too bad Josh d
idn’t seem to realize it.

  After hearing about Josh’s stint in the public eye, Lexi understood things weren’t as cut-and-dried with him as she’d first thought. He was a man with as much heart as muscle, judging by how torn up he’d been at the memory of a dead criminal. He was a complex man with intriguing layers.

  And for some reason, Lexi couldn’t help but envision how rewarding it would be to personally uncover every one of those delectable layers.

  JOSH PULLED UP to the famous Matthews design showroom in the Garment District a few minutes later. Amanda Matthews still kept a loft apartment above the showroom, a space Duke said she was slowly converting into her own design studio.

  As Josh scoped out the parking situation, he spotted a familiar red Harley-Davidson in front of the showroom’s display window. The time of reckoning drew near, now that Rawlins was back in town. Josh wondered if Duke would believe his relationship with Lexi was based on more than sex.

  It worked against Josh that he hadn’t had many relationships based on more than sex in the past decade. But that wasn’t because he hadn’t been open-minded. He just hadn’t found a woman who really held his attention long term.

  His work had always been completely absorbing. Okay, and maybe a part of him didn’t want to commit the same failings as his parents. No kid of his would be shuffled into the middle of a fierce divorce just because he didn’t know his own mind.

  Josh had always told himself he wouldn’t bother initiating a long-term relationship unless he found someone who genuinely fascinated him. And frankly, Lexi did.

  “Looks like they beat us back,” Lexi noted, eyeing the motorcycle. “You think Duke is going to blow a gasket about us seeing each other? He does sort of think of me as the baby sister for some reason.”

  “Duke’s usually pretty reasonable.” He hoped. He slung his arm over the steering wheel to keep from touching Lexi. That long, wild hair of hers had a way of drawing his touch. “But I don’t think either of them is going to appreciate knowing about the one-night stand.”

  “Technically a two-night stand in our case.”

  “Right. I think they’d be fine if we were pursuing a serious relationship, but since you aren’t ready to—”

  “You mean since you aren’t ready to, Mr. Camera Shy.”

  “I vote we keep our mouths shut about the whole thing and fake like we met yesterday when Duke asked me to check up on you.”

  Lexi flashed him a thumbs-up sign far too quickly for his taste. Couldn’t she at least consider his suggested arrangement for seeing each other?

  But she was already climbing out of the car with her dogs in tow. They followed her up the street like ducks in a row, each knowing his or her place in the pecking order behind the fashion princess. God, she was a sight to see. While she wasn’t exactly beautiful in Hollywood terms, she was a woman you couldn’t ignore.

  Heads turned and gossip flowed wherever Lexi went.

  Damn, but she was so wrong for him. Why did he have to want her so much anyway?

  Josh sprinted to catch up to her. “Honey, you can’t just take off on me like that. You’re officially in danger now, so you can’t strut the streets of New York like you own them.”

  She dug in her purse for her keys, setting off for him a sexual stream of consciousness—purse, leopard-spotted purse, leopard panties, scintillating sex.

  This was going to be a long night.

  “Sorry.” She let them into the famous design showroom full of luxurious clothes, marble floors and faceless mannequins, then led them through the store to the stairs in the back. “I guess I’m going to have to think through my actions a little bit more. I’m not used to staying out of the spotlight,” she said as they climbed to the loft.

  The tiny quaver in her voice did him in. Pausing just outside the door, Josh turned her toward him, needing her to listen.

  “I’ll keep you safe.” His fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her arms, the delicate line of her shoulders. “I promise.”

  “I want to be safe from the rest of the world.” Her keys jingled, forgotten in her constantly moving hands. “Just not with you.”

  The rattling keys faded to the background for him, too, as her words sank into his brain and the implication sank into his libido. “You don’t want to feel safe with me?”

  The stairwell seemed to shrink in size, closing in around them to four private walls.

  “I want to be adventurous and not hide away from the world.”

  Ah. She was talking about something else entirely. She was talking about his refusal to enter the limelight with her.

  Too bad her proximity and that damn exotic scent of hers wouldn’t let him concentrate on an intelligent answer. “Adventure I can give you, Lexi.”

  Her pouty lips said his form of adventure wouldn’t be enough for her—a challenge his own mouth found too hard to resist.

  He tipped her head back, the need to taste her so fierce he couldn’t have walked away if he’d been in the path of an oncoming freight train. Just one taste…

  His lips met hers and promptly incinerated the “just one taste” theory. Her scent hit his senses and flowed through him like good wine. And she didn’t hold herself back from him, despite everything she’d spouted about them not having anything together now. No, Lexi plastered herself to him with as much enthusiasm as he pressed her into him.

  She was all smooth curves and legs. Her mini-dress gave him access to her thighs, and for one crazy moment, he palmed her thigh and squeezed.

  He wanted more than she should give him. Hell, he wanted everything she had.

  But the timing didn’t seem right when the door to Amanda’s loft flew open.

  Duke Rawlins stood there with his soon-to-be bride, Amanda. They held hands, and wore identical expressions of shock.

  Josh tugged Lexi’s skirt into place. Not that she’d really been showing anything crucial, but he needed to extricate his hand from underneath her dress, at least.

  Not good.

  Lexi gave herself a little wriggle and seemed to put everything back into position. “Hi, guys. Welcome home.”

  Her dogs backed up her friendly sentiment from behind them on the stairwell.

  Duke didn’t sound quite as chipper, however, when he leaned forward to point a threatening finger in Josh’s face. “You’d better have earned your goddamn gynecology degree while I wasn’t looking, Columbo, or else I ought to be hearing wedding bells ringing any freaking minute.”

  12

  MEN.

  Having grown up without the benefit of a brother, and having proceeded through most of her life without any sort of significant other, Lexi had to admit it was sort of fun to have two impossibly sexy guys in each other’s faces because of her.

  Juvenile? Definitely. But she’d missed out on moments like this at an all-girls boarding school, so maybe she could be excused for the high school thrill she felt for a couple of seconds.

  Duke Rawlins looked like the Hollywood version of a New York City Police officer. He had a square jaw with a perfectly centered cleft in his chin and the same blue eyes that had made a whole generation of women weep over Frank Sinatra. Even Duke’s black motorcycle jacket couldn’t dim the effect of his spiky blond hair and baby blues.

  He was no Josh Winger, of course. But then, Lexi always did go for the rebels.

  As her grown-up instincts kicked in, she sidled in between the snarling big dogs.

  “Thank you, Duke, but I’d prefer you keep me and gynecology out of the same sentence in the future.” When Duke and Josh continued to lock narrowed eyes in some sort of testosterone-induced pissing match, she sent an SOS look to Amanda for reinforcement.

  The glare worked, startling Amanda out of her shocked silence.

  “And as for wedding bells, I think that’s a bit premature, given that Lexi and Josh have only just started seeing each other.” She looked to Lexi for confirmation of the fact.

  Lexi felt a big eye-roll coming on, but stifled t
he impulse. “I guess you could say that.” She leaned over to pick up Muffin, hoping her dog would at least prove an effective ally.

  Before she had the chance to find out, however, Josh took a step forward, still eyeing Duke. “Maybe you ought to worry less about Lexi’s personal life and more about who set her apartment on fire today.”

  The man had all the tact of a bulldog.

  “Nice going, Winger,” Lexi muttered, as Amanda paled five shades and Duke had to bolster her up. Lexi swatted Josh’s shoulder with Muffin’s paw for lack of better retaliation.

  “Are you okay?” Amanda asked, shaking off her burly protector to pull Lexi forward into the loft full of fabric bolts and towering piles of swatch books.

  “Who the hell did it?” Duke asked at the same time, his disgruntled big brother act forgotten in his haste to get information.

  “I don’t know, but we’re sure as hell not going to find out with you breathing down my neck like an overeager rookie.”

  They grumbled at each other even as Duke helped Josh bring in Lexi’s shopping bags and animals, leaving Lexi and Amanda to talk somewhat privately in the living room. Amanda poured water for all the dogs, poured wine for Lexi and tossed sunflower seeds in the parakeet’s cage, firing questions all the while.

  “Were you there when the fire started?” Amanda prodded, finally taking a seat on the arm of the sofa as the men debated where to hang the birdcage on the other side of the studio. “How much burned? Was Josh there with you?”

  “I wasn’t there.” Lexi sipped her wine and stole glances at Josh over in the corner talking to Duke. “I guess Josh had come over to check on me and found the place burning up. He got all the animals out. And some pictures.” Her eyes burned as she remembered seeing Josh balancing her fish and her bird.

  Amanda cleared away a pile of fabric swatches from the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table and settled herself on the sturdy chest. “Are you okay, Lex? You know you can stay here as long as you want. I practically live at Duke’s, anyway.”

  “I’m fine.” She’d be better if Josh was sitting next to her. “And thank you. I would appreciate using the loft for a few weeks. I know where you keep everything here.”