by Joan Hohl
“Dare I ask how?”
“No.” Tina shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. It’s over. Done. And I’m no longer a naive young fool.”
“No, you aren’t,” Eric murmured, slowing lowering his head. “You are a beautiful, exciting temptress.”
She started to laugh at his description of her, but her laughter got lost inside his mouth.
It wasn’t far from the kiss to the floor.
Holding her as if she were made of the most delicate china, Eric gently drew her down with him to the carpet; it made a viable subsitute bed.
Following the lead of an emotional need he had never before experienced, Eric did not so much make love to Tina as give physical expression to how much he cherished her.
Nevertheless, the results were the same.
Murmuring to her, caressing her, stroking her silky skin with feather-light brushes of his hands and lips and tongue, he kindled a spark that quickly burst into flames that swiftly went racing out of control.
“Eric.”
His name on her lips, softly pleading, enticing, set Eric’s pulses beating against his eardrums. The glide of her fingertips down the length of his spine drew a shuddering breath from his constricted chest.
Eric fought against the tide of desire threatening to overtake them both. It was a losing battle.
Passion escalated. Hands skimmed. Mouths fused. Tongues dueled. Bodies joined.
Hold on. Hold on.
Eric repeated the words to him himself in a desperate bid to draw every drop of sweetness from the moment. Loving Tina, giving of himself, as he had never loved or given to any other woman, he expanded the moment to the outer limits of endurance.
Then the moment exploded.
Eric felt shattered. Undone. Wonderful.
The descent from the heights was slow. When his breathing leveled and his heart felt as if it would stay inside his chest, instead of hammering its way out, Eric stretched out on the floor beside Tina, drew her close to his quivering body and was asleep within seconds.
The chill in the air woke Eric. He felt stiff, and cramped, but most of all he felt cold. The room was dark except for the pale glow from the picture window. Beyond the pane, he could see large, lacy snowflakes swirling in the wind.
Shivering, Eric swept his hand along the carpet until he found his shirt. Sitting up, he spread the shirt over Tina. Then, groaning silently at the stiffness of his muscles, he rolled away from her and stumbled to his feet.
Standing stark naked in the middle of the room, stretching and flexing to work the kinks from his body, Eric stared through the window at the snow. He was about to turn away, intending to scoop up Tina and carry her into the shower, when the flare of headlights, reflecting brightly off the snow, snagged his attention and kept him still. Behind the snow-sparkled pool of light crept a full-size, closed van.
Suddenly alert and taut with expectancy, Eric watched the van come to a halt, then slowly turn into the driveway of the house down the street.
“Damned fool.”
Cursing himself aloud for surrendering to his clamoring senses on this night of all nights, Eric turned this way, then that way, searching the darkened floor for his pants, unaware that he was firing off a string of colorful curses of self-condemnation.
“Eric, what’s wrong?” Tina’s voice was blurry with sleep and confusion.
“I’ve got to hurry,” he muttered, zipping his pants as he shoved a bare foot into a shoe.
“But...why?”
“Because I want to get closer to watch,” he answered distractedly, searching out his other shoe.
“Closer?” Hugging the shirt to her, Tina scrambled up off the floor. “Watch for what?”
“The delivery of drugs,” Eric said without thinking. “In that house of your ex’s friends, across the street.”
“Drug delivery?” Tina cried. “You can’t be serious!”
“I’m dead serious.” Eric was nearly growling now, furious at himself and the elusive shoe. And he didn’t think to guard his tongue. “I witnessed a delivery there last week.”
“I can’t believe it.” Tina shivered, and pulled the shirt tightly, protectively around her shaking body.
“Ah...” Eric purred, spying the shoe. He pushed his foot into it, then headed for the dining room and the small closet where Tina had hung his coat earlier.
“Where are you going?”
Eric wasn’t startled by her sudden appearance; quiet as she had been, he’d heard every move she made. He shrugged into his jacket as he turned to her.
“I told you. I want a closer look.” Stepping around her, he started for the kitchen, which was dimly lit by the night-light on the stove. “I’ll go out the back.”
“Eric!” Tina called, running after him and clutching at his arm. “If there is some sort of drug dealing going on over there, you could be in terrible danger.”
“I must go, Tina,” he said impatiently, pulling his arm back to loosen her grasp; she hung on tight.
“Why?” she shouted, giving a yank on his arm hard enough to turn him halfway around. “Why you?”
“Who, then?” Eric snapped, out of patience.
“The police!” she shouted, wincing as he jerked his arm free of her clutching fingers.
“I am the police.”
Ten
I am the police.
Eric’s flatly voiced statement echoing in her head, Tina stood, still as a post, staring at the back door in wide-eyed disbelief.
“A cop,” she murmured dully. “Eric’s a cop.”
Questions tumbled into her mind.
How had Eric known there would be a delivery of drugs tonight to the house across the street? How long had he known? Had he moved into the neighborhood to keep that house under surveillance? Why hadn’t he told her? Had he had her under surveillance, real close surveillance, as well?
Could Eric possibly have believed that she was involved with whatever was going on over there?
Tina could handle the barrage of questions; what she couldn’t deal with were the obvious answers.
A queasy sensation invaded her stomach. A chill ran the length of her small form, a chill unrelated to the scant protection of the cotton shirt draping her otherwise nude body from shoulders to midthigh.
Eric’s shirt. And Eric was a cop.
So, what did that make her?
A dupe...again.
“Oh, God.” Tina’s stomach lurched, and, flinging a hand up to clap it over her mouth, she whirled and made a headlong dash for the bathroom.
* * *
Eric watched the red taillights blink, and then the van turned right at the end of the street. He pushed up his jacket sleeve and glanced at his watch. The hands stood at 8:16. His lips twisted into a wry smile.
Later than last week...but still in the ballpark, he mused, recalling the previous Sunday’s delivery. But then it had been furniture. Tonight it had been small white cartons marked Fine Crystal in large black letters.
Crystal. Right.
Eric snorted. And then he sneezed.
Hell, he was freezing. And no wonder, he thought, sliding his hands into the jacket’s slash side pockets. He’d run out of Tina’s little more than half-dressed.
Tina!
“Oh, sh—” Eric’s voice was carried off by the wind as he turned away from his position at a corner of the house directly across the street from the one under surveillance.
Retracing his tracks along the unpaved alley behind the homes lining the street, Eric approached Tina’s back door with a mounting sense of apprehension. His unease owed everything to his sudden recollection of having blurted out not only his suspicions about the drug dealing, but also his true occupation.
“Damn,” Eric cursed, grasping the doorknob. He had one whole hell of a lot of explaining to do. He only hoped Tina would be willing to listen.
No, his first hope was that she had not thought to relock the door. Holding his breat
h, he twisted the knob and gave a gentle push. The door swung open.
“Thank you, Jesus,” Eric whispered fervently. “Now, I may not deserve it, but if you’ll only hang in there with me a mite longer, I’d surely appreciate it, Sir.”
Moving as silently as smoke, Eric stepped into the kitchen and quietly shut the door. He saw her even before he reached the archway into the dining room. Apparently she had showered, for her hair was a dark and damp mass of loose waves cascading around her shoulders. She was dressed in faded jeans and an oversize green-and-white Eagles sweatshirt.
Eric sighed; she had looked so damn sexy in nothing but his shirt. He stared at her longingly a moment, then strode through the dining room.
“Tina.”
Tina started at the sudden, unexpected sound of her name, but caught back the scream that filled her throat.
Eric!
She had deliberately curled up on the chair by the window so that she couldn’t possibly miss his approach to the front door—if he had the gall to return. And here he was, standing bold as sin in her living room!
Scrambling out of the chair, Tina drew herself up to her full five-foot-two-and-three-quarter-inch height, planted her hands on her hips and glared him straight in the eyes.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded. “Do you have a damned master key or something?”
“Of course not.” Eric took a step closer. She narrowed her eyes. He stepped back. “You forgot to relock the door after I went out.”
“Well, you can just go right back out again,” she said in an emotionally strained voice. “And believe me, I won’t forget to lock the door after you.”
“Tina, listen...” he began in a soothing tone.
“I don’t want to listen to anything you have to say,” Tina cut him off. “I just want you to go.” A curl of disdain lifted the corner of her lip. “Officer Wolfe.”
“I couldn’t tell you.” Eric raked a hand through his snow-dampened tawny hair. “You have to understand—”
Tina again ruthlessly interrupted him. “Oh, I understand. Boy, do I understand. I worked it all out while I was waiting for you to show your face again...if you had the nerve.”
“Nerve has nothing to do with it,” Eric said, trying another tentative step.
“Stay right where you are!” Tina’s barely controlled voice cracked like a whip.
Eric came to a halt...two steps closer to her.
It was much too close for Tina’s peace of mind. She wanted to punch him out, tear into him with her fingernails, do severe bodily damage to him. She wanted to score his skin, make him hurt on the surface as much as she was hurting inside.
“Tina, please,” he said with edgy patience. “If you’d just let me explain, talk to you.”
“Now he wants to talk to me, explain,” she said to the air around her. “He thinks I’m stupid.... Ha! What am I saying? I am stupid!”
“Tina!”
“You lied to me!”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, right.” She laughed derisively. “You just conveniently omitted telling me what department you worked in for the city. Lord only knows what else you omitted telling me. Things like suspecting me of being involved with drug dealing...or whatever is going on across the street...simply because I was once married to Glen.”
“But only at first,” he said defensively.
“Only at first,” she repeated, feeling sicker with each passing second.
Eric was beginning to look harried, and tired. “Can’t we sit down and talk this out?”
“No.” Tina shook her head, and swallowed the acrid taste of loss. “No, Eric. I don’t want to talk to you. I can’t bear the thought of talking with a man who will go to any lengths, even to making love to me, to use me.”
“I did not.” Eric’s voice was hard; his eyes were harder, glittering like frozen chunks of morning sky.
Tina knew she had to end this, get him out of her house. Because she was weakening, beginning to long to believe him, she was vulnerable.
“Get out of here, Eric,” she said, in a voice made cold by the fear of her love for him.
“All right.” He sighed, and it was then that she noticed he was shivering. “I’ll go.”
“Don’t forget your shirt.” Tina moved her hand to indicate the garment draped over an arm of the sofa.
Eric grabbed his shirt and strode to the door. Then he turned to look at her. “But I’ll be back, Tina, after you’ve had a chance to cool down.”
“That’ll be never,” Tina said, wishing he would just go, before the tears stinging her eyes betrayed her by spilling over onto her cheeks. “Twice burned, and all that.”
He just stood there, staring at her, staring, as if imprinting every one of her features on his mind. Then, finally, he turned, pulled open the door and left.
And not an instant too soon. Tina collapsed onto the carpet, wrenching sobs racking her trembling body before the door clicked shut.
* * *
Eric sneezed. Then he coughed. Then he swore. He had developed a head cold. Happens when a man stands in the snow only partially dressed, he thought, sneezing again.
Some two inches of snow had accumulated on the ground by late Sunday night. It had turned to mush, then melted entirely by sundown Monday...along about the time Eric began sneezing in earnest.
By Tuesday night, he felt lousy...but not only from the effects of the viral infection. Tina had adamantly refused to talk to him...twice.
Eric had called her early Monday morning... between sneezes. In a tone of voice at least twenty degrees colder than the outside temperature, Tina had told him, in a scathing tone, to drop dead.
By the next morning, Eric had felt that he just might comply, but, undaunted, he’d dialed her number again.
She’d hung up on him.
Deciding that perhaps Tina needed a little more cooling-off time, Eric resisted the gnawing desire to call her on Wednesday. He called his boss instead.
His trusted gut feeling had joined forces with his standby hunch, and both were telling him the big shipment was due...probably this coming Sunday. Eric figured it was time to apprise his superior of the situation.
“I had a sneaky suspicion you were up to something,” Lieutenant Dan Phillips drawled after Eric finished telling his story. “You, on vacation. Ha.”
“You wound me.” Eric grinned, then sneezed.
“Yeah, well, get yourself and your wound downtown,” Dan retorted. “We’ve got an operation to set up.”
By Friday, everything was in place. Eric was feeling slightly better...at least as far as his head cold was concerned. But he was missing Tina more than he would have believed himself capable of ever missing any one individual.
Wanting Tina, wanting just to be with her, was driving him crazy. Eric consoled himself with a promise to confront her as soon as this drug business was over, and convince her of his love for her, on his knees, if necessary.
He fervently hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
* * *
Tina had a miserable week.
Business at the shop was brisk. She was making money. But she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm about either the business or the profits.
She missed Eric so badly she felt like screaming...primarily at him for not being the man he had led her to believe he was...damn his lying soul.
By closing time on Friday, Tina was exhausted. It was hard work acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world, to stave off speculation and questions from her assistant, and being pleasant and helpful to her customers.
Using the old-standby excuse of a headache, Tina did not join her friends at the tavern on Friday evening. By Saturday evening, the excuse had become a reality.
Tina swallowed two aspirins and crawled into bed as soon as she got home from work.
She didn’t sleep; she cried.
By morning the headache and the tears were gone. Tina had found something more important to replace them. It was Sunda
y. She knew from what Eric had let slip that he suspected the drug deliveries were made on Sundays.
Tina didn’t have time for a headache or tears; she was too busy worrying herself frantic about Eric.
By sundown, Tina was pacing the house like a crazed lioness forcibly separated from her cubs.
It was after six-thirty when she saw Glen’s distinctive Lincoln moving slowly down the street. She held her breath, then let it out on a relieved sigh when, instead of heading straight for her door after parking his car in front of her place, as he had the two previous Sundays, he crossed the street and went directly to his friends’ house.
Afraid to move away from the window, and too keyed up to sit, Tina stood back a ways from the glass pane, waiting, and watching, and wondering if Eric was watching, too.
It was nearing nine-thirty when Tina saw the vehicle lumbering down the street. Without pausing to consider or even think, she flew to the phone and dialed Eric’s number. The minute she heard his voice, she blurted out the information.
“Eric, there’s a motor home coming down the street!”
“I see it.” He voice was terse, clipped. “Stay inside, Tina. And that’s an official order.”
“Be careful, Eric. I—” Tina broke off; Eric had disconnected. “I love you,” she whispered too low for him to hear. Then, replacing the receiver, she ran back to the window.
* * *
Eric was tense with anticipation, poised for the coming action. Yet inside, a glimmer of hope sent tendrils of warmth curling around his heart.
Tina had cared enough to warn him.
It wasn’t as good as a declaration of love, but it was something to hang on to.
His full attention now on the business at hand, Eric watched, a satisfied smile quirking his lips, as Glen Reber and Bob Freeman exited the house and strode to the RV. As the two men drew close to the vehicle, the door opened and another man handed out two large suitcases.
Eric activated his two-way radio.
“Company’s here.” he said tersely. “I’m going to a party. Wanna come?”