“Your training took over,” Rowena said. “Your instincts. You trusted yourself.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was just thinking about wringing Tyhurst’s neck. He figured he’d be as good with a gun as he is with a con, but he wasn’t. I took him by surprise—or at least enough by surprise that he only got off that one shot.” Joe’s eyes darkened suddenly. “I had him hanging over the stairs, Rowena. I could have flipped him over the side, killed him.”
“You’re not an Eliot Tyhurst,” Rowena said.
“No, I’m not.” He shook off his gloom and grinned at her. “A cop ‘til the bitter end, Rowena. That’s what I am.”
His truck was cleaner than he’d seen it in months, and impeccably parked between two white lines. “What’d you do, get out a ruler and measure?”
“Parking crooked is so discourteous in tight quarters like this.”
Discourteous? Joe climbed in the front seat and waited while she climbed in behind the wheel, her long braid flopped down her front, “You do that when you’re self-conscious, you know—talk in that prim way. I’ve had a week just of listening to you, without the distraction of seeing you. I’ve noticed.”
She scowled. “I am who I am.”
“Yeah. You are. It’s been fun to figure out just who you are.”
“And you have that figured out?”
“Working on it.”
She used more gas than he would have to start the engine. He went to warn her about how fickle reverse could be, but she seemed to know already and jammed the gearshift down hard, so it wouldn’t jump out, just as he would have. He watched her maneuver the finicky old truck out of the parking space and out to the street.
“Not bad,” he said.
“It can be exasperating on the hills. I almost rolled into a car a few times when I had to keep stopping and going. An automatic transmission is definitely easier in San Francisco, in my opinion. Have you ever considered trading this thing in?”
“No.”
She smiled. “You didn’t even hesitate. Well, I’ve found I enjoy driving. I might have to invest in my own car.”
On that first day when he’d rung her doorbell, Joe would have asked her why someone who didn’t go anywhere needed a car. But in their long talks over the past week, he had heard in her a pent-up longing to go, to do, to see. Rowena Willow had a zest for adventure he’d never have guessed possible when he’d watched her arrive in her tower sunroom just after five every afternoon.
He noticed she wasn’t taking the most direct route back to Mario’s Bar & Grill. Maybe she didn’t know it. “Rowena, where are we going?”
“Telegraph Hill,” she said.
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
When they came to her quiet, exclusive street, Joe saw nothing unusual, nothing changed. The fire damage was restricted to the interior. From the outside, Rowena Willow’s little castle looked as weird as ever.
Except there was a group of people milling about outside. About a half-dozen. They were well dressed, gesturing and talking excitedly.
“Looks like a committee meeting,” Joe said.
“It is. Before I tell you about it, however, I need to get a few things straight with you.”
“Okay.”
She’d double-parked in front of her house. Joe didn’t point out that that was more “discourteous” than being a little crooked within a parking space.
“First of all,” she said, still gripping the wheel with both hands, “you weren’t just ‘doing your job’ last week with Tyhurst. If you will recall, you weren’t on duty. You were—and are—still on leave of absence from the department. Our association was unofficial.”
She glanced at him, apparently to see if he had any comment, and he said, “Are those my jeans you’re wearing?”
He almost got a smile. “You’re impossible, you know that? I’m trying to have a serious conversation. Will you allow that you weren’t just doing your job?”
“I’m a cop, Rowena. It’s who I am.”
“Yes, I know that.” She pursed her lips. “But you don’t make love to all the citizens of San Francisco, do you?”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Not all.”
She sighed, exercising supreme patience. “You stayed in my house with me. After you were hurt, I stayed at your apartment.”
“Without my knowledge,” he observed. “You know, I think those are my jeans.”
This time she just ignored him. “Your family and friends took me under their wing. I’ve visited you every day. I’ve been driving your truck all around town.” She looked over at him, her eyes huge and luminous. “I’m wearing your jeans.”
“Ha, I knew they were mine.”
“I think I have longer legs than you do.”
Joe didn’t know why he didn’t just drag her out of the truck and cart her upstairs to one of Aunt Adelaide’s strange rooms.
“And I certainly have a smaller waist,” she said.
Hell, he’d even make love to her in with the critters.
“My point is,” she went on crisply, “that you can’t just push me out of your life when bad things happen.”
Joe grew serious. “Rowena, falling for a man like me is dangerous.”
“I’m not falling for a man like you. I’m falling for you. Have fallen, I should say. Your profession carries with it certain risks. I accept that. Life’s a risky business. And retreating from it doesn’t lessen the risks. I was just sitting in my office minding my own business when something about Eliot Tyhurst’s financial activities caught my eye. Look how dangerous that proved to be.”
Joe digested her words, raking a hand through his hair and staring out at the people on the sidewalk. One was pointing to Rowena’s tower room. ‘‘Tell me about the committee,” he said.
She hesitated. He knew that what she’d just told him, how she’d just exposed herself, hadn’t been easy for her. He understood, even if he hadn’t yet acknowledged it to her.
“They’re from the historical society. I contacted them a few days ago. It turns out they’ve had their eye on the Willow house for a long time—I had no idea. When I told them that Aunt Adelaide had made very few changes from Cedric’s day, and I very few changes from her day, they were ecstatic.”
Joe turned in time to see her run her tongue along the bottom of her lip, then bite down with her top teeth. She still had the steering wheel in her grip.
She went on, “But when I told them I would consider donating the house and its entire contents to them, they were speechless.”
“So am I,” Joe said.
She smiled at him. “You’re never speechless, Sergeant Scarlatti.”
“It’s a valuable piece of property. The fire damage was confined to the third floor. You’d be giving up a fortune.”
“I make a good living doing what I do,” she said. “And I want to be free. I want my own house, my own furnishings, my own garden.”
“You won’t keep anything?”
“Just a few personal things Aunt Adelaide gave me, and any Willow family pictures and papers. Not Cedric’s portrait, though.” She nodded to the house her great-grandfather had built. “It belongs here.”
“I see,” Joe said.
“I just wanted you to know.”
She pried one hand loose from the wheel, turned the key in the ignition and started back down Telegraph Hill.
For a long time Joe didn’t say anything. He had to process what Rowena had just done.
Finally, he said, “You’re not even keeping one dead bird?”
“Not one.”
“Good. I did kind of like the owl in the library, but I’d probably get the heebie-jeebies having a beady-eyed thing like that hanging around my place.”
“Your place?”
“Our place, then.”
“Scarlatti—”
“There is one thing I’m going to arm-wrestle the historical society for, though—Sir Lance
lot in the front hall. I figure the only way I’m going to be a valiant prince is to have a suit of armor kicking around for the right occasion.”
“Aunt Adelaide purchased it.” She was going along with him, he could tell, showing him she understood what he was trying to say. “I suppose I could speak to the committee.”
“I figure it can be payment for my having saved your ass.”
“Mine! I saved yours! You’d have been burned alive if I hadn’t got you down that fire escape.”
“Nah, I’d have found my way out. You, on the other hand, would never have gotten out of there if I hadn’t freed your wrists.”
“No way. If you’d have managed blind, I’d have managed bound.”
“You’re stubborn, Rowena,” he said, enjoying himself, “and you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
He grinned at her. “Quite the shrinking violet, aren’t you? Well, I warn you, I’m not one to back down from a good fight. I’m not easy to live with.”
“Neither am I,” she said.
“Oh, I already know that.”
“You’ll always be this honest?”
“Always.”
“We’re not a disaster together, Joe, are we?”
“Depends on your point of view, I guess. From mine, no, we’re far, far from a disaster together. What about yours?”
She smiled. “No.”
He sat back. “Great. Now, do I get the armor?”
Epilogue
Joe got the armor.
The historical society considered it a small price to pay for a valuable historic house on Telegraph Hill, built by one of San Francisco’s true rich eccentrics. He tried setting it up in Mario’s, but his cousin came after him with a carving knife and Joe carted it upstairs to his apartment.
Rowena had been out looking at office space in a real office building. When she came back, she found Joe kneeling over the damn thing. “It won’t fit in here standing upright,” he said, not looking at her. “Ceilings are too low. Guess we’re going to have to get busy finding a place of our own.”
“Your grandmother will be thrilled. She’s been clipping ads.”
Finally, he looked at her. And his jaw, literally, dropped. She realized he was as close to speechless as he probably would ever get. “Rowena,” he managed to say.
She ran both hands through her hair, still getting used to its new length. “I stopped by a hair salon on impulse. Do you know, I’d never been to one? It was quite an experience. I thought they were going to throw me out because I didn’t have an appointment, but—”
“But once they saw your hair, they couldn’t let you out of there.”
“I told them to take off a good eighteen inches.”
Joe climbed to his feet, never taking his eyes from her.
She liked the feel of her freshly cut hair. It was still long—below her shoulders—but she relished its bounce, its lightness. She felt free.
He was in front of her now, touching it. “It’s beautiful.”
She smiled. “I might never wear it up again.”
* * *
Only days later—when they had a house all picked out and Mario already had a couple hundred meatballs in the freezer for their wedding—did Joe discover the little surprise Rowena had in store for him when he was sorting through a bunch of junk in his bedroom closet.
He almost screamed. Him, a tough cop. He’d returned to the force a week ago, ending his self-imposed leave of absence. It felt good to be back. Still, who the hell wouldn’t be shocked by a pair of beady eyes staring from inside a dark closet? “Rowena!”
She materialized behind him. “Oh, I see you’ve found Arnold.”
“Arnold? It’s a dead bird!”
“It was my great-grandfather’s favorite.”
Joe stepped back so the overhead light could angle in and he could see better. Yep, it was the stuffed owl from the library. He looked around at Rowena, all gorgeous from her haircut, as free and loose as he had ever imagined her. His heart seemed ready to burst with loving her. How had he survived those horrible six months on leave, before he’d met her? He didn’t think he’d ever felt this alive.
And something became clear to him now, with the stuffed owl staring down at him, that hadn’t been clear before.
“You know something, Ms. Willow?”
“I know a lot of things, Sergeant Scarlatti.”
“Yeah, you’re an eccentric genius. You know a hell of a lot of things. Did you know that you didn’t rescue me?”
“Yes, I did.”
He shook his head. “Nope.” He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. “We rescued each other.”
A Note from Carla Neggers
When I was a little girl, we lived in a very old house in the country, and among its many “treasures” was a thick, musty, moldy book of fairy tales. I would read them high up in a tree or on a rock in the middle of a brook or upstairs in my bed while listening to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. They fired my imagination about love and romance, good and evil, honor and betrayal, jealousy and devotion. They opened my mind to human emotions, ideals, strengths and weaknesses on a grand scale.
These days, my idea of romance doesn’t involve castles and frogs and white horses, although I still love that stuff. I’m more interested in two whole, independent people who help each other discover, and become more fully, who they are. That’s why I chose the story of Rapunzel as inspiration for Night Watch. Through their love for each other, Rowena and Joe learn to “let down their hair” in a metaphorical sense, and in the best sense, by freeing their best selves.
About the Author
Carla Neggers is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than seventy-five novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Whether creating stories of friendship, family and love or razor-sharp suspense, Carla always takes readers on a captivating journey. Her books have been called “smart and satisfying” (Kirkus Reviews), “extraordinarily memorable” (RT Book Reviews) and “highly entertaining” (Publishers Weekly).
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In addition to writing, Carla is a dedicated runner, having completed the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Vermont several times as well as the Dingle Half Marathon in Ireland. Frequent travelers, especially to Ireland, Carla and her husband live in New England, where they love to garden, hike and enjoy good times—and a taoscán of whiskey—with family and friends.
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To learn more about Carla and her books, and to sign up for her newsletter, please visit www.CarlaNeggers.com
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