“Someone has it out for me. Maybe it’s someone I prosecuted or someone who’s got a problem with the Davison case. Who knows?”
Who did know?
She was the one who hadn’t gotten a conviction for Davison, for Pete’s sake. And she could be as upset about that as she wanted, but Troy had to believe it hardly made her the first person Davison would change pattern for and come harm.
And Bowe?
In a lot of ways, her use of his data to get Davison off on all charges had reinforced the man’s motive. So once again, seeing her as his enemy and stalking her just didn’t fit.
Which put him back to more questions with no answers. And a series of incidents that felt off-kilter and way off pattern.
“I care about the answer, Troy.” She pressed on, her conviction clear, even as she remained close enough to touch. “I care about finding out who’s been after me and why these things are happening. But right now? I care about you more. About exploring this need between us. And about letting the rest of the world fall away for a while.”
It would be so easy. To simply take what he craved so desperately. To be with her and find a way to get past all the endless questions that roiled in his mind, seemingly without answers.
Because while the mystery of what surrounded her had no answer, in so many ways, it didn’t matter.
She was the answer.
To him. For him. And with this wild attraction he’d never expected or anticipated.
From the first night here in her kitchen, he’d had this unrelenting need for her. It kept whispering through him, suggesting she was meant to be in his life.
And meant for him.
Troy knew he stood on a precipice. But as he stood there and saw the need in her eyes—need that matched his own—he recognized something else.
There was nothing on earth he wouldn’t do to protect this woman. Nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her safe.
Making love wouldn’t change that. More to the point, it couldn’t change that. His commitment to her as a cop was unwavering.
Just like his need.
“I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”
He saw victory flash in her eyes, matched by the smile that filled with the knowledge of all that was to come. “I know.”
And then there was no more talking. What was the point?
There was only feeling.
Need had already wrapped around them both, but as he pulled her close, his lips sinking into hers, he found that it had shifted somehow. The greedy claws and snapping jaws that had driven him faded, replaced with the gentle need to explore. To touch. To fill them both with pleasure.
It was no less urgent, but it was different. As if the mere act of finally deciding to be with Evangeline had calmed the beast.
Moment flowed into moment as they drifted, never losing touch of one another, even as their clothing was lost somewhere between the kitchen and the bedroom. A shoe here. His shirt there. Her dress somewhere in the hallway.
And when he finally laid her down on the bed, covering her naked body with his own, he knew joy. The feel of her, so soft to his every touch, was like some sort of happy magic. Troy cupped the rounded curve of her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple, and lost himself in her. Especially when the act pulled sounds of pleasure from her throat and he felt an answering need curling low in the belly.
Want and need were no longer enough. No longer sufficient to describe what she did to him and what he wanted from her.
He wanted all of her.
Every bit she could give him and then he wanted more.
Her hands flowed over his skin, a matching exploration of her own. Over his shoulders, down his triceps, before curling around to his chest. Her touch moved over him, over the hard lines of his stomach, before drifting lower, then lower still to wrap those long, glorious fingers around the pulsing length of him. As she took him in her palm, Troy knew he was lost.
Utterly, completely lost.
“Troy. Now.” The words whispered against him, powerful in their simplicity and featherlight against his ear. He reached for the condom he’d set beside the bed and, quickly sheathing himself, moved back into her arms.
They found a rhythm, increasingly urgent as the pleasure built and built between them. He felt her tighten around him, her deep cry of pleasure a match for his own as her release crested.
And as he sank into her, burying himself in the glory that was Evangeline, Troy knew with absolute certainty why he’d resisted for so long.
He’d believed it was because she deserved better than a guy making the moves on her while she needed help. Then he’d convinced himself that he needed to keep work and personal separate, that his job required his full and complete focus. He’d even told himself that his inability to find a partner in life was a result of the fear for a loved one that had been instilled in him at the earliest age.
All were true.
It was only now—now that he’d made love to her—that he knew what his conscience had only whispered. Because all those things were only excuses. They’d covered up the truth.
He’d been in love with Evangeline Whittaker far longer than he’d realized.
And for all those reasons, there was no way he could have her.
CHAPTER 16
In the morning, he was gone.
Evangeline knew he would be. She’d mentally prepared for it, even as she’d gone willingly into his arms. But even with that knowledge, she’d given all she felt—all she knew down to the depths of her soul—to Troy.
She’d wanted him. And the feeling had been gloriously mutual. They’d spent the night wrapped up in each other. For all the time they’d spent talking since he’d come to her aid on a street downtown, their night together had held little conversation. It was almost as if the words had taken a back seat to action.
She didn’t regret it. She’d never regret it. But she’d dearly hoped she’d be wrong about the morning after.
Sitting up, she pulled on a robe and made quick work of her morning routine. In moments her face was freshly scrubbed and her hair was pulled up into a loose bun on top of her head. She ambled down to the kitchen for coffee, touched to see he’d started a pot for her. He’d even had a cup, his mug now rinsed and sitting in the drainboard next to her sink.
All without waking her.
Her gaze caught on the note on the table and she picked it up. It might be cliché, the “morning after” note, but knowing him now as she did, she also recognized it as purely Troy.
Evangeline—
It’s an early day and I need to meet Brett to go over the latest on Bowe. We’ve been trying to run down Bowe’s brother and Brett has a contact who might be able to help.
Troy
As goodbye notes went, it was nicer than most, she imagined. She wouldn’t know, exactly, as she’d never received one. But it was clear that he had a job to do and she’d do well to remember that.
A killer was still on the loose, as was the department criminal who’d enabled him. Her night with Troy was a gift for them both. One that had allowed them to escape that for a while. But now, in the fresh light of a summer morning, they had to return to reality.
And she needed to return to some sense of normalcy.
A shower and then a call to Arielle was first on her list. She wanted to set a timeline to return to her job. Because despite the unrest in Grave Gulch and in her own personal life, she needed to be doing something. And sitting home day in and day out wasn’t the answer.
An hour later, she returned to the kitchen, hair and makeup done and clad in her favorite work-casual blouse and pressed slacks. She wanted every ounce of confidence she could muster for her call with Arielle and wasn’t immune to the benefits of a good session with the eyelash curler.
Evangeline had her phone in hand and was about to rin
g her boss when the glass face lit up with a call. The number came up, one she didn’t recognize. She would have let it go to voicemail, but considering how many people were working on her behalf at the GGPD, she decided to answer. If it was a robocall, she could always hang up.
“Hello?”
“Evangeline.” Her name came out in a frightened whisper.
“Who is this?”
“Shh. Shh. He’ll hear me.”
Hear her? Who?
The voice trembled before the woman continued on. “It’s Ella, Evangeline. I live upstairs from you.”
Instantly, an image filled Evangeline’s mind’s eye. The young woman who lived upstairs was small and waiflike and, if she remembered correctly, worked at one of the restaurants downtown.
“Ella. What’s wrong?”
“It’s him. He’s out of control. I’m hiding in the bathroom.”
“Who?”
“He’s mad. He’s in a rage because I broke up with him.”
They didn’t keep the same hours, and other than their casual conversation earlier in the week, Evangeline hadn’t seen much of Ella, but she did remember the day she moved in. She had a large, muscled boyfriend who looked about the same age. Although he hadn’t been super-friendly, he hadn’t struck Evangeline as a problem, either.
You can’t always tell on the surface.
That idea whispered through her mind as an image of her father’s face, red and mottled as he screamed, rounded out the thought.
“I’ll come up. I can help you.”
“No!” The urgency was there, but Ella managed to keep her voice low. “He hit me and split my lip. He’ll hurt you, too.”
“No, he won’t.” While she had no way of knowing if that was true, Evangeline hoped she could help defuse the situation and get Ella out of there. “I’m going to call the police.”
“No! You can’t. He’ll kill me if the cops show up.”
“All the more reason for me to do it,” Evangeline pressed urgently.
“Oh no! He’s coming. He’s trying to break through the door. He’s going to strangle me if he finds me!”
“I’ll be right there.”
Evangeline disconnected, immediately dialing Troy. She was already rushing out of her door, the baseball bat she kept in her hall closet in hand, swinging around to the landing that held the stairwell to the second floor.
“Evangeline.” He answered on the first ring.
Although it seemed incongruous after what they’d shared, she didn’t have time for anything sweet or pleasant. “My neighbor. Upstairs. She’s in danger. Her boyfriend is trying to strangle her.”
“Stay downstairs. I’m on my way.”
“I can’t do that. He could hurt her.”
“Stay downstairs!”
She wasn’t going to argue, and while she recognized the reason for the direction, she was sick and tired of waiting while things went on around her. Whatever happened in the end of that alley had vanished because she didn’t go down there and engage.
She wasn’t letting her neighbor suffer the same fate.
Fully aware of how rude it was, she kept climbing the stairs anyway.
And hit the disconnect button.
Someone needed help. And she wasn’t sitting around waiting for someone else to handle it.
* * *
Troy slammed his phone on the desk and let out a string of curses as he dragged on his sports coat.
“What is it?”
“Evangeline’s neighbor is in the middle of a domestic dispute.”
Brett was already up and following him out the door, Ember in their wake.
“I told her to stay put.”
“And she’s rushing in to help.”
The two of them ran for their vehicle outside, Brett hollering instructions to dispatch as they moved through the precinct.
Troy flew through the streets of Grave Gulch, his lights flashing. Brett got on with dispatch the moment they were in the car, Mary’s voice echoing through the car speaker.
“I’ve got two officers nearby en route.”
Troy barked out the layout for the condo complex, the access points to the second floor and the likely condo number for Evangeline’s upstairs neighbor.
The other officers were already there, their car parked and flashing in front of Evangeline’s building as he pulled into the parking lot. Troy swung into the closest spot he could find and leaped out of the car as soon as he cut the ignition.
Panic swam in his veins. For her, for the situation. And for the rising sense of unease that Evangeline would be in the middle of some new mess.
He took the metal stairs to the second floor two at a time, and heard the calm, steady voices as soon as he cleared the landing.
“Ma’am. Nothing is wrong here.”
“But he’s inside. She’s frightened and afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. Of anything.”
Troy puzzled through the different voices, from Evangeline’s rising one to the steady voices of everyone else. It was the same voice someone used when trying to calm an animal or a small child.
And as he came down the landing he could see by the look in Evangeline’s dark eyes that it wasn’t working.
Her gaze kept darting between the half-open door, filled with a sleepy-looking woman in a T-shirt and short-shorts and two uniformed officers outside the door.
Her hand was white-knuckled around a bat, but the piece remained firmly at her side. “But Ella, you just called me. You said he was coming after you to strangle you. You said you were locked in the bathroom with a split lip.”
“There’s no one here. I already told you that, like, five times.” The young woman still lounged against the doorframe and Troy took in the odd look on her face.
Whatever was going on—and it increasingly looked like Evangeline was wrong again—still didn’t match that reaction. Even if Evangeline had imagined whatever had gone on, the woman’s casual pose struck him as off.
It also hit him that he’d met her before. Staring up at the building, trying to figure out the situation with the firecracker fuse.
Ella, he remembered on a rush.
“Officers.” Troy moved up to the door, his badge out. He eyed Evangeline, willing her to understand his silent instruction, before turning to the woman in the doorway. “Ma’am. I’m Detective Colton. What’s going on here?”
“My neighbor is all freaked out for no reason.” The young woman stood taller at his approach, her gaze darting toward Evangeline. “She’s been pounding on my door and screaming about letting her in. She woke me up.”
“But you called me,” Evangeline said from behind and Troy turned once more, his gaze dark.
“I didn’t call you,” Ella said, her voice rising. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Brett and Ember joined them on the second-floor landing and the woman’s eyes went wide at the appearance of yet another cop and a dog. “Whoa. Look. I’m not sure what you’re all doing here but I didn’t make any calls. I was sound asleep up until a few minutes ago and her knocking.”
Evangeline must have gotten the message because she said nothing else and Troy ratcheted up the charm. “I’m sorry that you were disturbed, Ms.—” He left it hang there and she picked it up.
“Fields. Ella Fields.”
“Ms. Fields. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” He lowered his voice, well aware her casual pose and insistence that nothing was wrong could easily be a ploy to protect the boyfriend. “If there’s anything you need, we’re happy to help. And if it would set your mind at ease, we can do a sweep of your home.”
The woman swung the door wide and extended her hand toward the interior. The layout was similar to Evangeline’s and while he couldn’t see the full condo from the doorway, it didn’t appear as if
anyone had gone on a rampage through the apartment. “I have nothing to hide. No one’s here.”
“We have permission to enter your apartment, ma’am?” Brett stepped up.
“Sure.” Ella shrugged. “But just you guys. I don’t know what her problem is but I don’t want her in here.”
Brett moved forward and Troy gestured the officers to follow.
“I’ll just take Ms. Whittaker back to her home. Thank you for your time, Ms. Fields.”
“Troy!” Evangeline started in the moment he moved up beside her.
“Shh.” He let the word out in one quick order and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Not now.”
He didn’t miss the puzzled look on her face but she said nothing further. He retraced his steps back down to the first floor and escorted her to her home. The moment they were through the door, he closed it behind them. “Stay here.”
Gun drawn, her swept her apartment, the sudden realization he’d had upstairs looming large in his mind. What if the girl upstairs was a diversion? A way of getting Evangeline out of her apartment so an intruder could get in?
The sweep turned up nothing and Brett’s text a few minutes later that Ember hadn’t found anyone else reinforced the idea taking root.
As he walked back into the living room, he purposely kept his mind blank, desperate to avoid the images that wanted to take hold. He would not think about the way he’d retrieved his clothing off the hallway floor this morning. Nor would he remember the way they’d used every inch of her big bed, making love several times throughout the night.
“You hung up on me.”
“I had to help her.”
He wanted to be stern. More than that, he needed to be. She put herself in danger, responding to a call that required the police. But the raw fear that had iced him cold on the drive over needed an outlet, too. Without considering all the declarations he’d made to himself—those uncompromising ones about leaving her alone—that very morning as he rinsed his coffee mug, he pulled her close, his mouth crushing hers.
Evangeline responded immediately, her arms wrapping around him as she answered the deep pull within him.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 38