She let herself into the lab and went straight to Kane, the tech who’d asked her to come.
“What is it?” Zoe said, coming straight to the point. “Tell me it’s good news.”
“Well, there’s some good news. We’re finally working through the last of the evidence that was collected at the murder scene. Obviously you know the scene was severely compromised by the flood—”
“Kane, don’t waste my time by telling me what I already know. I need something to go on.”
“Well, there’s this.”
Kane turned his computer screen toward her and magnified the picture displayed there. “As you can see, it’s a human hair.”
“You’ve examined plenty of human hair found at the crime scene. What makes this any different?”
“Well, it’s not like the others in that it’s naturally wavy and, get this, naturally red.”
“So we’re looking for someone with long, naturally wavy red hair?”
“Very possibly. Now, of course you know we can’t determine sex from a single hair, unless—”
“Unless there is a root attached. Tell me there’s a root attached.”
Kane’s face lit up. “Yup. This is definitely from a woman. Obviously we can’t determine age, but we can narrow it down to an adult versus a child.”
“Did you run the DNA? Did we get any hits in the system? A name, anything?” she demanded, trying her level best not to get excited at the news.
She hoped this could potentially lead her to Hamm’s killer, because goodness only knew everything else at the scene had driven them from one dead end to another.
“Not yet. We only just uncovered this information in the last few hours. I thought you’d appreciate knowing straightaway.”
“I do. I definitely do. Thanks, Kane. Let me know the minute you have anything else.”
“Will do.”
Zoe was almost in a good mood as she reentered the squad room, right up until the moment she saw the lingerie she’d thrown into the trash displayed on a crime-scene board behind her desk, with the heading Wanted...by Someone. A slow-burning rage filled her, but she knew better than to let any of that show to her team. She wouldn’t give them the pleasure, but she’d sure as heck give Cord Galicia what was coming to him the second she got home tonight. She planned on leaving his ears so blistered he wouldn’t bother her ever again. She pulled the lingerie off the board and furiously scored out the heading, then settled at her desk, acting as if nothing of importance was going on. Eventually, this would all settle down. It had to, because there was no future for her and Cord.
* * *
“Stop stalking me.”
The smile that had been on Cord’s face when he’d seen Zoe’s caller ID on his phone began to fade. She sounded really pissed.
“I’m merely expressing my affection,” he responded, fighting to keep his voice level.
There was one thing about this woman—she could get him from cold to burning hot in about three seconds flat. The fact that this time the heat had everything to do with irritation and nothing to do with sexual attraction was neither here nor there. No one had ever had the ability to excite or incite him so effectively.
“Well, stop it. It’s gone far enough. I thought I made myself clear when I said we have no future.”
“You did,” he agreed and leaned back against the fence railing behind him.
It was getting dark, and he probably should head inside soon but he enjoyed the peace of the late evening. Would enjoy it even better if he had someone special to share it with.
“Then why do you keep sending me stuff?”
“Tokens.”
“What?”
“They’re not stuff. They’re tokens of my—” He paused for a moment before he said something he’d really rather say face-to-face and not over a phone connection.
“I don’t care what they are, and I don’t want them. Cord, really, this has to stop. You’re making me a laughingstock at work.”
Ah, and there it was. There was genuine pain behind her words. It wasn’t the gifts she was objecting to—well, maybe not completely—it was where he was sending them. He hadn’t thought through the ribbing she’d be getting at work. He’d seen them in a display in town and couldn’t think past the mental picture of seeing her on his big, wide bed wearing them.
“You want me to send them to your apartment?” he offered, knowing exactly what the response would be.
She didn’t disappoint. For the next several minutes, Cord held his phone away from his ear while Zoe went on a tirade that showed a far more inventive use of expletives and instructions of where to put certain things in a person’s anatomy than he’d ever heard before. He was seriously impressed, although there was pretty much nothing about Zoe Warren that didn’t impress him. When she finally settled into silence, he put the phone back to his ear.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to distress you, Detective.”
“I’m not distressed,” she snapped back. “I’m angry. You’re not respecting my wishes. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
He felt the words like each one was an individual blow straight to his chest.
“But you don’t hate me, right?” He couldn’t resist digging at her one more time.
Her growl of frustration filled his ear until it was abruptly cut off as she severed the call. He nodded to himself. Yeah, she didn’t hate him. She was just driven to do her job to the best of her ability, and she didn’t see how she could make time for anyone, let alone him. Well, it was up to him to show her he could fit in her world, and maybe, just maybe, she’d change her mind.
* * *
It took a lot less time than he anticipated to get all his plans in motion. Turned out his parents had little emotional attachment to the things they had in their Palm Springs apartment and were happy to leave the place staged with all their new appliances and furniture and leave everything in the hands of the real estate agents. They’d arrived back home a week after his phone call, tired after the road trip but joyful to be back. And he welcomed them with open arms. Abuelita couldn’t be more in her element with all her family under one roof again, and Cord wondered how she’d take the news of what he planned to do. To his surprise she’d merely nodded, patted him on the cheek and told him that a man needed to do what a man needed to do.
So now it was a matter of convincing the woman of his heart that she needed him, too. How hard could that be? Cord grimaced as he readied the helicopter for the flight to Houston, in no doubt this would likely be the most difficult thing he’d ever done. He stowed the package he’d painstakingly wrapped for her, one last gift in an attempt to win her heart, and towed the chopper from the hangar.
“You’re really doing this, then?” a voice asked him from behind.
Cord turned around and smiled at Jesse. “Damned if I don’t.”
His best friend raised his brows in surprise. “Seems all rather sudden, don’t you think?”
“When you know, you know,” Cord said. “And I know if I don’t try this one last time, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
Jesse stepped forward with his hand outstretched. “Then I can only wish you the best, buddy.”
Cord clasped his best friend’s hand firmly. “Thanks. I need all the help I can get.”
He climbed aboard and fired up the chopper as Jesse took the ground-handling wheels back inside the hangar for him. In a matter of minutes he was skyward and headed toward Houston with hope and trepidation warring for dominance deep inside him.
Cord hangared the chopper just outside Houston, the way he’d done on his last visit, and picked up his rental car. Sitting in the parking lot at the small airfield, he dialed Zoe’s number.
“I’m going to block you,” she said upon answering.
“Then I’m glad you answered this one last c
all,” Cord replied smoothly. “I’m also hoping you’ll agree to see me one last time.”
He heard the weight of her sigh through the phone. “Cord, really, stop flogging a dead horse. We can’t work. You know we can’t, and you know damn well why. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“One last time, Zoe. Please. We owe it to ourselves,” he cajoled her.
“I thought the last time was the last,” she answered.
He could tell by her tone she was thinking about it.
“I promise you, this will be the last time I bother you. No more gifts, no more calls, no more touching you—”
“All right!” she interrupted in a fierce whisper. “You win. One last time. When?”
“Can you manage a few hours off today? Say I pick you up at your apartment about two?”
“Cord—”
“Please,” he all but begged. “Just this one last time, Zoe.”
He held his breath as she hesitated.
“Fine, pick me up at two. I’ll be ready.”
She severed the call before he could say another word, but inside he felt his heart begin to beat again and felt the air around him refill his lungs. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted the rest of today to go right.
* * *
Zoe paced her living room, waiting for the buzz from security downstairs to say Cord had arrived. She’d left explicit instructions for him not to be let up to her apartment. If she was being totally honest with herself, she didn’t know if she could trust herself around him. Since their last night together she’d missed him with a physical ache that no amount of overtime could assuage.
Her apartment phone buzzed, making her flinch. She picked up the receiver.
“Your guest has arrived, Ms. Warren.”
“Thank you. Tell him I’ll be right down.”
Her heart was fluttering in her chest as she entered the elevator to head to the lobby. She clenched her hands into fists and deliberately relaxed each finger in turn, telling herself this reaction was ridiculous. This was their final meeting. The last goodbye. She felt a twist of sorrow deep inside her and pushed it ruthlessly away. This was what she wanted. Closure. An end to the restless nights and the unexpected and totally unbidden memories that flooded her mind at the most inopportune moments. An end to seeing a dark head on a tall, rangy body everywhere she went and wondering if it was him.
And then the elevator doors were sliding open and her eyes were searching for that figure that never seemed far from the periphery of her thoughts. The second her gaze alighted on him, she felt his presence with a physical impact that robbed her of breath and made a hot flush of need rise slowly through her body. She tugged at the front of her leather jacket and strode toward him as if she were totally in control and not at all feeling like she was on the verge of wrapping her arms around him, absorbing him—everything from his heat to his breath to the flavor of him—so she could tuck it away forever.
She came to an abrupt halt about three feet away. He gave her a nod.
“Thanks for making time for me today. I know it probably wasn’t easy, especially at such short notice, but I want you to know I appreciate it. Shall we go?”
Wow, heavy on the formal, she noted as he gestured for her to precede him from the building. Not even an attempt to take her hand or kiss her? What was with that, and why the heck was she so upset about it, anyway? It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She came to a stop on the sidewalk and felt him come up behind her, stopping mere inches from her body. She sensed everything about him with a heightened awareness that was going to drive her absolutely crazy if she didn’t wrestle it under control.
“Where to?” she asked, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice. Inside, her nerves skittered as he drew up beside her.
“My car.” He gestured to the nondescript sedan parked in the visitor’s area.
She saw the lights flash as he unlocked it and then stepped forward as he held open the passenger door. She got in, glancing at him as she settled into the seat. He hadn’t smiled yet, not so much as a glimmer. That wasn’t like him, and the firm set to his jaw made her nervous. This was ridiculous, she told herself. She knew this man, intimately, she reminded herself with a curl of desire licking its way through her body. Whatever he had planned for her, she had nothing to fear except maybe the loss of her own self-control.
And maybe that was what she feared most. She knew he affected her on levels she had never experienced with any of her previous lovers. Heck, even that word—lover—was enough to make her entire body tighten in a wave of lust so intense it almost made her cry out.
Cord settled into the driver’s seat and started up the vehicle.
“How’ve you been?” she asked, desperate to break the silence that filled the car so awkwardly.
“Not great. You?”
She sighed. So much for that gambit. “Same,” she answered and fell silent again, at a total loss for words.
What did you say to a man whose very presence turned you into a melting puddle of mush, desperate for his touch and to touch him in return? A man you’d turned away from your bed, your life. A man whose absence left a gaping hole in every single day. She turned her head and stared out at the road, watching as they headed out of the city.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her nerves stretched to breaking point.
“Airfield.”
“What’s with the short answers?” she demanded, letting her anger begin to rise in the vain hope it would quell the insecurity that plagued her.
“I’m saving myself,” he answered shortly.
“For what?”
He took his eyes from the road ahead and flung her a searing glance. “You’ll find out.”
“What if I don’t want to find out?” she said, taking refuge in belligerence.
This time it was his turn to sigh. “Zoe, just be patient, okay? You granted me this time, and I promise you it won’t tax or harm you in any way. For now, we’re headed to the airfield. What I want to show you is a short way from town, but I want you to see it from the air, rather than the ground.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her. “Thank you for at least telling me that much.”
She didn’t have to wait much longer. At the airfield, Cord pulled into a restricted zone and swiped a card at the security gate before driving alongside the tarmac to where she recognized his helicopter sitting just inside a hangar. Questions tumbled through her mind, but she resolved to hold her tongue as they walked to the chopper, and he dragged it to the helipad and prepped it for takeoff.
Before she knew it, she was feeling that delicious lurch in her stomach as they took to the air. She loved the sensation. The only thing better was sex, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to go there. Not when she was doing her level best to remind herself of all the reasons why she and Cord would never work. She began to list them in her mind, taking strength from each one. He lived too far away. He hated her job. He hated the fact she carried a gun. He was traditional and wanted to take care of her, when she was eminently capable of caring for herself. He... Her thoughts trailed off. Okay, so there were four reasons, but they were important enough to be deal breakers as far as she was concerned.
Her headset crackled to life.
“Look down there, to your left.”
Zoe did as he suggested. “Looks like a ranch.”
“It’s a goat ranch. Angora, mostly.”
“And the reason you’re showing me this is...?”
“It’s mine.”
She swiveled to face him. “It’s yours? But what about your spread in Royal? Who’s going to look after that?”
“My parents, and some extra hands.”
“But why?”
“Well, you remember the cheese, right?”
“Sure, it was delicious.”
“I’ve been wanting to diversify for a long time, but Dad’s a cattleman through and through. So we had an honest talk. Turned out he wasn’t enjoying retirement but didn’t want to step on my toes by coming back home.”
“But why not run the goats on your existing family property, or buy more land closer to home?”
“Because you’re not there.”
His words hung in the air between them.
“But—” She started to protest, but he cut her off.
“Just hear me out. I can do what I want to do anywhere, especially now that I’m no longer tied to the family spread. Sure, I’ll help Dad when necessary, but I don’t have to live there.”
“But your family, your history. That ranch is everything to you, isn’t it?”
“It’s not you.”
Zoe felt her stomach dip again as he took the chopper down and settled it in an empty field at the top of a rise. Once he’d shut down the engine, they alighted from the chopper, and Zoe stomped after Cord as he moved away from the machine to where there was a great vantage point over the land they’d flown over.
“What do you mean, it’s not me?” she demanded, poking him in the chest for good measure.
“Exactly what I said. I’ve fallen for you, Detective. You have my heart in your custody, and that’s where it’s going to be for the rest of my life.”
“You can’t say that. You barely know me,” Zoe protested, fear threatening to choke her.
This was all too intense. This was supposed to be goodbye, and here he was, telling her he’d walked off his family’s land and bought a ranch close to Houston so he could be nearer to her. Who did that? What craziness had crawled into his brain?
“That’s true, but what I do know is that you’re a prickly pear with a soft inside. You’re diligent in your work, you’re a fierce advocate for the underdog, whether they’re a good person or not. I know you have the softest lips of any woman I’ve ever met and that you make love as fiercely as you defend your independence.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you did this. I made it clear we had no future. I’m not giving up my work to set up house with any man.”
Tangled With A Texan (Texas Cattleman’s Club: Houston Book 8) Page 15