by Lori Wilde
She sank to the floor, crushing Mr. Jock Itch underneath her.
The contents of the shelf showered down. Boxes and boxes of condoms.
A dozen different brands. Viking. White Knight. Sir Lancelot. Color condoms. Ultra-thin condoms. Ribbed-for-her-pleasure condoms.
A clerk shouted in dismay.
People rushed over.
Edie felt a blush heat her cheeks and spread to tingle her scalp. Looking down, she saw she held a box of condoms in her hand.
Neon. Bargain count—fourteen for the price of twelve. Jumbo size.
“Edie? Are you all right?”
She heard Jonah’s voice and wished at that moment that she was naked on the interstate doing the tango with a dancing gorilla. It would have been far less embarrassing.
“I’m fine,” she managed to say.
“You’re sure?” he insisted, helping her to a sitting position. His hand lay pressed against her back, and all she could do was wish him away.
“Great. Never been better. I wreck drugstores all the time. It’s a little hobby of mine.”
She tried not to look at him, but he cupped a palm around her chin, and she found herself gazing into those compelling blue eyes.
“Well then, sweetheart,” he said, gently prying the box of condoms from her hand and tugging her to her feet, “if you’re planning that big of a Christmas party, maybe you should have these things delivered.”
HE HADN’T MEANT TO tease Edie about the condoms.
If Jonah was being completely honest with himself, he would admit he was jealous.
Who was she buying those condoms for? What was more important, why did he care?
She wasn’t married. Carl Dawson told him that. Another thing that irritated Jonah was the admiration in Carl’s voice when he spoke about Edie. He had been lauding her virtues since they’d left the drugstore.
Clearly, the guy had a major jones for her. That didn’t improve Jonah’s mood much either.
“Turn right,” he told Carl.
“Sylvan Street?”
“Uh-huh.”
They drove past an odd combination of houses in the ethnically mixed neighborhood. Hundred-year-old, multi-family Victorians sat on lots next door to newly built adobe structures. This house had a tile roof; that one had pink flamingoes in the yard.
Jonah liked the cultural diversity. On warm evenings in the summer, he could walk down the sidewalk and smell dinners cooking in an exotic mix of spices: curry and cumin, anise and fennel, garlic and oregano.
From one window would come a throbbing salsa beat, from another the wail of a blues guitar. There might be a low-rider parked in one driveway, a Harley in another, a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle in a third.
“Here’s my place.” Jonah pointed to the frame house built in the fifties that he had recently renovated himself.
Carl pulled into the driveway. “Do you need a ride to work tomorrow?”
“No, thanks. My car should be out of the shop.”
Carl nodded. “Hey, maybe you’d like to go out with me and Kyle and Harry a week from next Saturday night? Harry’s girlfriend is throwing him a birthday party at Kelly’s Bar. You interested?”
Jonah pricked up his ears. This is what he’d been angling for when he’d befriended Carl the afternoon before, and then he’d asked him for a ride home from work to cement the bond. People liked you better when they did you a small favor. Odd fact, but true.
“Sounds like a fun time,” Jonah said as he got out of the car with the bag of prescriptions he’d picked up at the drugstore for his Aunt Polly.
“See you at work.” Carl put the car in gear and backed from the driveway.
Jonah waited a moment then walked across the street to the house he rented for his aunt and rang the bell. When he’d moved to Rascal for his undercover assignment, he couldn’t very well leave his aunt alone in El Paso, now that her vision was going, and she could no longer drive.
But he also couldn’t have her living with him. She’d drive him around the bend; across the street was close enough. Also, on the off-chance that his undercover assignment turned deadly, he did not want her in the same house.
Although he pitied the fool who’d target his aunt. She’d been a crack markswoman in her youth and even half blind, she would take out an intruder without hesitation.
“Got your pills,” he said when she opened the door.
Although she was in her early seventies, Aunt Polly still possessed the same military posture from her youth. She reached out and took the sack. “Good boy, Jonah.”
When he did what she wanted, his aunt lauded him with compliments, but let him step out of line, and she lashed him with the sharp side of her tongue. Even now, at age twenty-nine, he was unable to escape her judgment.
He’d learned to live with it. He loved her after all, despite her harshness. She’d been there for him when no one else had.
“I always knew if I chewed on you long enough that you’d turn out to be a good boy. Of course, it took a whole lot of chewing.” She chuckled. “You certainly had a mind of your own. Always had to do things your way, and the rules be damned.”
“How’s the arthritis today?” he asked, not all that interested in cataloguing his faults.
She made a face, then held up her gnarled fingers. “Don’t ask. You want to come in? I’m cooking soup.”
“Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve got work to do.”
“Work, work, work. When are you going to settle down and get married?” His aunt shook her head. “If you don’t give me grandnieces and grandnephews soon, I’ll be too old to play with them.”
“Ha! That’ll be the day.”
“I’m serious, Jonah, you need somebody to watch out for you.”
That was the last thing he needed.
“I promise.” He leaned over to kiss his aunt’s dry cheek that smelled of lanolin. “When and if I decide to get married, you’ll be the first to know.”
After telling her goodbye, he trotted back across the street to his house. The place seemed unnaturally silent, unusually empty.
To heck with self-pity.
Jonah turned the television on a bit too loud, trying to drown out his loneliness. He should think about getting a dog for company.
Marriage. Aunt Polly seemed to think that was a cure. Never mind that she’d never married herself.
Truthfully, he was too busy for marriage or a dog. He often worked long, dangerous hours. He’d seen too many police officers’ marriages fail for those very reasons. Jonah had decided maybe he wasn’t the marrying kind. Why should he surrender his independence?
A lump formed in Jonah’s throat.
Yes. It would take someone pretty darn special to get him to the altar. His fantasy woman would have to accept him for who he was, a stomach-scratching, bad-joke-telling, junk-food-loving caveman. She wouldn’t try to force him into some ridiculous mold the way Dawanda had.
An old embarrassment flared in him. Why had he allowed Dawanda to manipulate him? When in love, his self-respect seemed to fly right out the window.
No more.
In the past, love had twisted him into shapes he didn’t fit. He wasn’t a hunk of pasta dough ripe for the press of some woman’s choosing. He wasn’t fancy. No rigatoni or farfalle or Mafalda. He was elbow macaroni, slightly bent, but down-to-earth.
And then, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, he thought of Edie Preston.
Sweet Edie with the face of an angel and a ditzy, interfering, endearing personality. Right now, she was probably making love to her boyfriend.
Jonah ground his teeth.
Drat. He had a job to focus on. Thieves to catch. A penance to pay so he could return to real police work. Some pixie with a smile that rocked his world wasn’t going to distract him.
Too bad she had the most stellar pair of legs he’d ever seen and a chest that could rivet a man to the spot. Too bad she possessed eyes as green as deep summer. Too bad she was such a wide-eyed innoc
ent.
She deserved some socially conscious, human rights activist over a world-weary guy whose life revolved around dark-hearted criminals, perilous risks, and touchy situations.
Unlike Edie, Jonah had no illusions about changing the world. He was a cop because he wanted to see justice done, not because he was out to save humanity.
Unfortunately, Christmas was still over three weeks away. Could he resist her until the twenty-fifth? Or better yet, could he solve the thefts before then and get the heck back to more important assignments?
Tomorrow, he’d go into the store early.
Chief West had gotten him a key from J. D. Carmichael. He would snoop around and see if he could unearth anything before everyone else came into the store.
Playing Santa wasn’t getting him anywhere, especially since he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off a certain charming elf.
If he didn’t watch out, if he didn’t keep his guard piled higher than the Great Wall of China, Jonah feared he could fall for Edie Preston.
Fall hard enough to shake the plaster on his rebellious self-image.
For a man who had spent his entire life trying to prove that he was too tough for mushy stuff like love, that wouldn’t do.
Chapter Six
The way Jonah had called her sweetheart in that deep sexy tone stayed with her.
Edie jogged the parking lot of the strip mall, unsuccessfully trying to focus on anything but Jonah and the previous day’s humiliation.
She’d spent the entire night tossing, turning, and thinking about that infuriating man.
Around dawn, she came to one conclusion. She still wanted to do a case study on him. He was a sphinx. The riddle she had to solve. If she could come to understand the real Jonah Stevenson, Edie felt she could understand anyone.
How was she going to face Jonah again after yesterday’s fiasco at Serve-Rite Drugs?
Edie cringed.
He would look at her and think—glow in the dark condoms, jumbo size. Then, just like any virile, red-blooded American male, that thought would lead to another, and his mind would ride the sensual track, only a mental hop, skip, and jump to picturing her naked.
Her face flamed.
Head down, she pumped her arms and legs faster, propelling herself from one side of the parking lot to the other, desperate to outrun her folly.
She approached a side entrance near Carmichael’s, and from the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of someone striding through the door. She tried to slow up and put on the brakes, but it was too late.
She slammed into the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man.
“Whoa, there.”
A hand reached out and wrapped around her waist, holding her close, holding her safe.
That voice. That touch. That unique masculine scent.
It couldn’t be. She looked up and blinked.
But it was.
Talk about Murphy’s Law. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Talk about the fickle hand of fate.
She was cursed. Doomed to continually embarrass herself whenever she was around him.
Jonah.
Standing before her, big as day and twice as nice. Inwardly, she groaned, as if he didn’t already consider her the world’s biggest klutz. He was probably beginning to think she had some kind of medical condition.
“Edie?”
“Sorry about rear-ending you,” she blabbered, then realized how that sounded.
“Try keeping your head up when you’re jogging.” He chucked a finger under her chin, sending a shiver of sexual energy straight through her. “It’ll cut down on mishaps.”
“Th-thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He smiled, and she found herself lost at sea in his eyes.
“What are you doing here so early?” Edie glanced at her watch. “The store doesn’t open for another half hour.”
“Uh...” Jonah hesitated and dropped his gaze.
In that instant, Edie knew he was about to lie, and her heart plummeted into her sneakers.
“Er... I’m meeting someone.”
If he’d been Pinocchio, his nose would be punching her in the chest right about now.
“Someone?”
“Carl Dawson. He gave me a ride home last night. My car is in the shop and in return, I told him I would help him with his, um...”
“Yes?” Edie could see him searching for a plausible excuse. Why, Jonah, why do you lie?
“His taxes.”
“Carl’s an accountant,” she pointed out.
A desperate expression crossed his face. “Uh, I know but...er...I have an investment opportunity he’s interested in.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Jonah,” she said softly. “If you don’t want me to know something, tell me that it’s none of my business.”
“Edie...” He reached out to her, but she stepped away.
“It’s okay. For whatever reason you feel compelled to steal cars and lie. I’m not judging you. I’m just curious as to why you’re self-destructive.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. There are things I can’t explain to you.”
“You don’t owe me any explanation, but you do owe it to yourself, Jonah, to question your own behavior.”
“I’m not what I seem.”
“No,” she said, “you’re not.”
That was why she found him so mesmerizing. Was Dr. Braddick correct? Was she under the spell of nothing more than a desire to tame the bad boy? Was she so gullible as to believe she could change this man who oozed potential, and yet seemed so eager to throw it all away?
Nonsense.
She would prove to both herself and Dr. Braddick that Jonah was worth saving, and she was just the psychologist to do it.
EDIE COMPLETELY UNNERVED him.
The expression of disappointment in her eyes sent him hurtling back to his childhood when he’d had to face Aunt Polly after being collared by the store detective for shoplifting a screwdriver at Brunson’s Hardware.
What had begun as a humiliating experience had, in the end, turned into an interest in police work. The officer who’d come to the store had a long talk with him about right and wrong, and in the end, Jonah had joined the afterschool community basketball team sponsored by local law enforcement. Because he had admired and respected the officer so much, Jonah became a police officer himself.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain that to Edie. What troubled Jonah was how badly he wanted to tell her that he was an undercover cop, not some two-bit criminal serving out court-appointed community service as she believed. But he couldn’t because it could put her in jeopardy.
Forget her, Stevenson, and get on with your job.
Today, he planned on befriending another man from Carl’s halfway house, Kyle Spencer. Kyle, a mechanic by trade, had been hired at Carmichael’s as a maintenance worker last week, and he was currently dating a fellow employee, Jules Hardy.
He tried to concentrate on his work, both as Santa and an undercover cop. He bounced kids on his knees, all the while keeping his eyes on the crowd. He skipped lunch and instead hung around the parking lot talking to the employees who sneaked out to smoke, surreptitiously asking questions about their colleagues.
Yet no matter how hard he struggled to keep his mind on track, time after time Jonah felt his attention irresistibly drawn to Edie.
He loved the way she smiled at the children and the way she hummed Christmas songs under her breath. He adored the way she smelled like warm chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven and the way she made his heart pound whenever she occasionally brushed against him.
At that moment, Edie bent over to pick up a photograph that had fallen off the printer, favoring him with an up-close-and-personal view of the world’s most spectacular behind.
Jonah gritted his teeth. He could resist.
Well, he could!
CASE STUDY—JONAH STEVENSON Observation—December 8
Subject hangs around the depa
rtment store long after his shift has ended. Why? Today, a thousand dollars’ worth of tools were discovered missing from the hardware section. Early this morning, subject was seen in that area of the store, violating the new store policy against loitering in other departments. Could there be a connection between subject and the missing tools?
Edie nibbled on the end of her pen, then crossed out the last sentence. Conjecture had no place in an objective case study, yet, she couldn’t help wondering.
Was Jonah involved with the stolen tools? She didn’t want to believe it, but it was suspicious.
Little things gave him away. The furtive manner in which he kept glancing around the store at the oddest times as if he expected a burly policeman to tap him on the shoulder. The way he would suddenly disappear, leaving Edie to entertain the waiting children until he returned.
One thing was clear; she had to follow Jonah again.
Feeling like a cast member from a Mission Impossible movie, Edie mentally played the theme song in her head as she sat slouched in the front seat of her Toyota, waiting for Jonah to appear.
A shiver ran through her, and she snuggled deeper into her coat. She thought of letting the engine idle and running the heater, but she’d just bought a book called, How to Find Out Anything About Anybody. The author suggested when tailing someone it was best to remain as unobtrusive as possible and that meant not running your car engine, despite the cold.
She glanced at her watch. Over forty minutes had passed since the end of their shift.
Carl Dawson came and went. Still no Jonah. Just when she’d decided to call it quits, Jonah emerged from a side door and headed for a classic red Corvette parked in a far corner.
He hesitated a moment, casting a furtive glance first left, then right. Then he pulled something from his hip pocket.
What was he doing?
Edie twisted around and grabbed the binoculars resting on the back seat. Bringing the field glasses to her eyes, she studied him.
He held a straight metal object in his hand, and he was feeding it alongside the car window and down into the driver’s side door.