by Nora Roberts
this time. Why don’t you go sit by the fire? I’ll bring out the wine.”
If he read her this easily after a matter of weeks, Cilla thought as she went into the living room, how much would he see in a year? She settled on a low cushion near the fire. She wasn’t going to think of a year. Or even a month.
When he came in, she offered him a much brighter smile and reached for her wine. “Thanks. It’s a good thing I didn’t come here before I went house hunting. I never would have settled on a house without a fireplace.”
In silence, he settled beside her. “Look at me,” he said at length. “Are you worried about going back to work?”
“No.” Then she sighed. “A little. I trust you and Thea, and I know you’re doing what you can, but I am scared.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I said I did.” But she didn’t meet his eyes.
He touched a fingertip to her cheek until she faced him again. “Not just as a cop.”
She winced, looked away again. “No, not just as a cop.”
“And that’s the trigger,” he mused. “The fact that I am a cop.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“We both know better.”
“I don’t like it,” she said evenly. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I think I do understand.” He leaned back against a chair, watching her as he sipped his wine. “I’ve done some checking, Cilla—necessary to the investigation. But I won’t pretend that’s the only reason I looked.”
“What do you mean?”
“I looked into your background because I need to protect you. And I need to understand you. You told me your mother was a cop. It wasn’t hard to track down what happened.”
She clutched her glass in both hands and stared straight ahead, into the flames. After all these years, the pain was just as deadly. “So you punched some buttons on your computer and found out my mother was killed. Line of duty. That’s what they call it. Line of duty,” she repeated, her voice dull. “As if it were part of a job description.”
“It is,” he said quietly.
There was a flicker of fear in her eyes when she looked at him, then quickly away again. “Yeah. Right. It was just part of her job to be shot that day. Too bad about my father, though. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The old innocent bystander.”
“Cilla, nothing’s as black-and-white as that. And nothing’s that simple.”
“Simple?” She laughed and dragged her hair back from her face. “No, the word’s ironic. The cop and the public defender, who just happen to be married, are going head-to-head over a case. They never agreed. Never once can I remember them looking at any one thing from the same angle. When this happened, they were talking about a separation—again. Just a trial one, they said.” With a thoughtful frown, she studied her glass. “Looks like I’m out of wine.”
Saying nothing, Boyd poured her more.
“So I guess you read the official report.” She swirled the wine, then drank. “They brought this little creep in for interrogation. Three-time loser—armed robbery, assault, drugs. He wanted his lawyer present while the investigating officer questioned him. Talked about making a deal. He knew there wouldn’t be any deal. They had him cold, and he was going to do hard time. He had two people to blame for it—in his head, anyway. His lawyer, and the cop who had collared him.”
It was painful, still so painful, to remember, to try to picture an event she hadn’t seen, one that had so drastically altered her life.
“They caught the guy who smuggled him the gun,” she said softly. “He’s still doing time.” Taking a moment, she soothed her throat with wine. “There they were, sitting across from each other at the table—just as they might have been in our own kitchen—arguing about the law. The sonofabitch took out that smuggled snub-nosed .22 and shot them both.”
She looked down at her glass again. “A lot of people lost their jobs over that incident. My parents lost their lives.”
“I’m not going to tell you that cops don’t die by mistake, unnecessarily, even uselessly.”
When she looked at him, her eyes were eloquent. “Good. And I don’t want the crap about how proud we’re supposed to be of our valiant boys in blue. Damn it, she was my mother.”
He hadn’t just read the reports, he’d pored over them. The papers had called it a disgrace and a tragedy. The investigation had lasted more than six months, and when it was over eight officials had resigned or been replaced.
But over and above the facts, he remembered a file picture. Cilla, her face blank with grief, standing by the two graves, clutching Deborah’s hand in hers.
“It was a horrible way to lose them,” he said.
She just shook her head. “Yes. But in most ways I’d already lost my mother the day she joined the force.”
“She had an impressive record,” Boyd said carefully. “It wasn’t easy for a woman back then. And it’s always tough on a cop’s family.”
“How do you know?” she demanded. “You’re not the one who sits at home and sweats. From the day I was old enough to understand, I waited for her captain to come to the door and tell us she was dead.”
“Cilla, you can’t live your life waiting for the worst.”
“I lived my life waiting for a mother. The job always came first—it came before Dad, before me, before Deb. She was never there when I needed her.” She snatched her hand aside before he could grasp it. “I didn’t care if she baked cookies or folded my socks. I just wanted her to be there when I needed her. But her family was never as important as the masses she’d sworn to serve and protect.”
“Maybe she was too focused on her career,” he began.
“Don’t you compare me with her.”
His brow rose. “I wasn’t going to.” Now he took her hand despite her resistance. “It sounds like you are.”
“I’ve had to be focused. She had people who loved her, who needed her, but she never took time to notice. Cops don’t have regular hours, she’d say. Cops don’t have regular lives.”
“I didn’t know your mother, and I can’t comment on the choices she made, but don’t you think it’s time to cut it loose and get on with your life?”
“I have. I’ve done what I had to do. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do.”
“And you’re scared to death of what you’re feeling for me because of my job.”
“It’s not just a job,” she said desperately. “We both know it’s not just a job.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “It’s what I do, and what I am. We’re going to have to find a way to deal with it.”
“It’s your life,” she said carefully. “I’m not asking you to change anything. I didn’t intend to get this involved with you, but I don’t regret it.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, and drained his own glass.
“What I’m trying to say is that if we’re reasonable I think we can keep it uncomplicated.”
He set his glass aside. “No.”
“No what?”
“No, I don’t want to be reasonable, and it’s already complicated.” He gave her a long look that was very close to grim. “I’m in love with you.”
He saw the shock. It flashed into her eyes an instant before she jerked back. The color drained away from her face.
“I see that thrills the hell out of you,” he muttered. Rising, he heaved a log on the fire and cursed as he watched the sparks fly.
Cilla thought it best to stay exactly where she was. “Love’s a real big word, Boyd. We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks, and not under the most ideal circumstances. I think—”
“I’m damn tired of you thinking.” He turned back to face her. “Just tell me what you feel.”
“I don’t know.” That was a lie, one she knew she would hate herself for. She was terrified. And she was thrilled. She was filled with regrets, and hammered by longings. “Boyd, everything that’s happened has happened fast. It’s
as if I haven’t had any control, and that makes me uneasy. I didn’t want to be involved with you, but I am. I didn’t want to care about you, but I do.”
“Well, I finally managed to pry that out of you.”
“I don’t sleep with a man just because he makes me tingle.”
“Better and better.” He smiled as he lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “I make you tingle, and you care about me. Marry me.”
She tried to jerk her hand free. “This isn’t the time for jokes.”
“I’m not joking.” Suddenly his eyes were very intense. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
She heard a log shift in the grate. Saw the flicker of a new flame as it cast light and shadow over his face. His hand was warm and firm on hers, holding, waiting. Her breath seemed to be blocked somewhere beneath her heart. The effort of dragging in air made her dizzy.
“Boyd—”
“I’m in love with you, Cilla.” Slowly, his eyes steady on hers, he pulled her closer. “With every part of you.” Soft, persuasive, his lips cruised over hers. “I only want fifty or sixty years to show you.” His mouth skimmed down her throat as he lowered her to the hearth rug. “Is that too much to ask?”
“No … Yes.” Struggling to clear her mind, she pressed a hand against his chest. “Boyd, I’m not going to marry anyone.”
“Sure you are.” He nibbled lightly at her lips as his hands began to stroke—soothing and exciting at the same time. “You just have to get used to the fact that it’s going to be me.” He deepened the kiss, lingering over it until her hand lost its resistance and slid to his back. “I’m willing to give you time.” His lips curved as her murmured protest hummed against them. “A day or two. Maybe a week.”
She shook her head. “I’ve already made one mistake. I’m not ever going to repeat it.”
He caught her chin in his hand in a movement so quick that her eyes flew open. In his eyes was a ripe, raging fury that was rare for him, and all the more dangerous.
“Don’t ever compare me with him.”
She started to speak, but his fingers tightened once, briefly, and silenced her.
“Don’t ever compare what I feel for you with what anyone else has felt.”
“I wasn’t comparing you.” Her heart was hammering against his chest. “It’s me. It was my mistake, mine alone. And I’m never going to make another one like it.”
“It takes two people, damn it.” Enraged, he braced himself over her, then took both her hands in his. “If you want to play it that way, fine. Ask yourself one question, Cilla. Has anyone else made you feel like this?”
His mouth swooped down to take hers in a hot, rough, frantic kiss that had her arching against him. In protest? In pleasure? Even she couldn’t tell. Sensations swarmed through her like thousands of swirling stars, all heat and light. Before she could draw and release a breath, she was tossed into the storm.
No. Her mind all but screamed it. No one. Never. Only he had ever caused a hunger so sharp and a need so desperate. Even as her body strained against his, she struggled to remember that it wasn’t enough to want. It wasn’t always enough to have.
Whipped by fury and frustration, he crushed his mouth to hers, again, and then again. If only for this moment, he would prove to her that what they had together was unique to them. She would think of no one, remember nothing. Only him.
Her response tore through him, so complete, so right. The small, helpless sound that purred up from her throat shuddered into him. Like the flames that rose beside them, what they created burned and consumed. The gentle loving that had initiated them both during the night was replaced by a wild and urgent hunger that left no room for tender words and soft caresses.
She didn’t want them. This was a new, a frenetic storm of needs that demanded speed and pushed for power. Hurry. She tore her hands from his to drag at his shirt. Touch me. Twin groans tangled as flesh met flesh. More. With a new aggression, she rolled onto him to take her mouth on a frantic race over his body. And still it wasn’t enough.
His breath ragged, he stripped the layers of clothing from her, not caring about what he tore. One driving need was prominent. To possess. Hands gripped. Fingers pressed. Mouths devoured.
Agile and electric, she moved over him. Her face glowed, fragile porcelain in the firelight. Her body arched, magnificent in its new power, sheened with passion, shuddering from it, strengthened by it.
For one glorious moment she rose, witchlike, over him, her hands lifting up into her hair, her head thrown back as she lost herself in the wonder. Her body shuddered once, twice, as separate explosions burst within her. Even as she gasped, he gripped her hips and sheathed himself inside her.
He filled her. Not just physically. Even through the racking pleasure she understood that. He, and only he, had found the key that opened every part of her. He, and only he, had found the way inside her heart, her mind. And somehow, without trying, she had found the way into his.
She didn’t want to love him. She reached for his hands and gripped them tight. She didn’t want to need him. Opening her eyes, she looked down at him. His eyes were dark and direct on hers. She knew, though she didn’t speak, that he understood every thought in her head. On a sigh that was as much from despair as from delight, she bent down to press her mouth to his.
He could taste both the needs and the fears. He was determined to exploit the first and drive away the second. Staying deep inside her, he pushed up so that he could wrap his arms around her. He watched her eyes widen, stunned with pleasure, glazed with passion. Her fingers dug into his back. Her cry of release was muffled against his mouth seconds before he let himself go.
***
Bundled in a large, frayed robe, her feet covered with thick rag socks, Cilla sampled the chili. She liked sitting in the warm golden light in the kitchen, seeing the blanket of snow outside the windows, hearing the quiet moan of the wind through the pines. What surprised her, and what she wasn’t ready to consider too carefully, was this feeling of regret that the weekend was almost over.
“Well?”
At Boyd’s question, she looked back from the window. He sat across from her, his hair still mussed from her hands. Like her, he wore only a robe and socks. Though it made no sense, Cilla found the meal every bit as intimate as their loving in front of the fire.
Uneasy, she broke a piece of the hot, crusty bread on her plate. She was afraid he was going to bring up marriage again.
“Well what?”
“How’s the chili?”
“The— Oh.” She spooned up another bite, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed. “It’s great. And surprising.” Nervous again, she reached for her wine. “I’d have thought someone in your position would have a cook and wouldn’t know how to boil an egg.”
“My position?”
“I mean, if I could afford to hire a cook I wouldn’t hassle with making sandwiches.”
It amused him that his money made her uncomfortable. “After we’re married we can hire one if you want.”
Very carefully she set down her spoon. “I’m not going to marry you.”
He grinned. “Wanna bet?”
“This isn’t a game.”
“Sure it is. The biggest in town.”
She made a low sound of frustration. Picking up her spoon again, she began to tap it against the wood. “That’s such a typically male attitude. It’s all a game. You Tarzan, me stupid.” His laughter only enraged her further. “Why is it men think women can’t resist them—for sex, for companionship, for handling the details of life? Oh, Cilla, you need me. Oh, Cilla, I just want to take care of you. I want to show you what life’s all about.”
He considered a moment. “I don’t remember saying any of those things. I think what I said is I love you and I want to marry you.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Not even close.” He continued to eat, undisturbed.
“Well, I don’t want to marry you, but I’m sure that won’t make a
difference. It never does.”
He shot her one brief and dangerous look. “I warned you not to compare me to him. I meant it.”
“I’m not just talking about Paul. I wasn’t even thinking about Paul.” After pushing her bowl aside, she sprang up to find a cigarette. “I hadn’t given him a thought in years before all of this.” She blew out an agitated stream of smoke. “And if I want to compare you to other men, I will.”
He topped off his wine, then hers. “How many others have asked you to marry them?”
“Dozens.” It was an exaggeration, but she didn’t give a damn. “But somehow I’ve found the strength to resist.”
“You weren’t in love with them,” he pointed out calmly.
“I’m not in love with you.” Her voice had a desperate edge to it, and she had the sinking feeling that they both knew she was lying.
He knew, but it still hurt. The hurt settled into a dull, grinding ache in his belly. Ignoring it, he finished off his chili. “You’re crazy about me, O’Roarke. You’re just too pigheaded to admit it.”
“I’m pigheaded?” Stifling a scream, she crushed out the cigarette. “I’m amazed that even you have the nerve to toss that one out. You haven’t listened to a simple no since the day I met you.”
“You’re right.” His gaze skimmed down her. “And look where it’s got me.”
“Don’t be so damn smug. I’m not going to marry you, because I don’t want to get married, because you’re a cop and because you’re rich.”
“You are going to marry me,” he said, “because we both know you’d be miserable without me.”
“Your arrogance is insufferable. It’s just as irritating—and just as pathetic—as moon-eyed pleading.”
“I’d rather be smug,” he decided.
“You know, you’re not the first jerk I’ve had to shake off.” She snatched up her wine before she began to pace. “In my business, you get good at it.” She whirled back, stabbing a finger at him. “You’re almost as bad as this kid I had to deal with in Chicago. Up to now, he’s taken the prize for arrogance. But even he didn’t sit there with a stupid grin on his face. With him it was flowers and poetry. He was just as much of a mule, though. I was in love with him, too. But I wouldn’t admit it. I needed him to take care of me, to protect me, to make my life complete.” She spun in a quick circle. “What nerve! Before you, I thought he couldn’t be topped. Hounding me at the station,” she muttered. “Hounding me at the apartment. Sending me an engagement ring.”
“He bought you a ring?”
She paused long enough for a warning look. “Don’t get any ideas, Slick.”
Boyd kept his voice very cool, very even. “You said he bought you a ring. A diamond?”
“I don’t know.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “I didn’t have it appraised. I sent it back.”
“What was his name?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t know how I got off on this. The point I’m trying to make is—”
“I said, what was his name?”
He rose as he asked. Cilla took a confused step back. He wasn’t just Boyd now. He was every inch a cop. “I— It was John something. McGill … No, McGillis, I think. Look, he was just a pest. I only brought it up because—”
“You didn’t work with a John McGillis in Chicago.”
“No.” Annoyed with herself, she sat down again. “We’re getting off the subject, Boyd.”
“I told you to tell me about anyone you were involved with.”
“I wasn’t involved with him. He was just a kid. Starstruck or something. He listened to the show and got hung up. I made the mistake of being nice to him, and he misunderstood. Eventually I set him straight, and that was that.”
“How long?” Boyd asked quietly. “Just how long did he bother you?”
She was feeling more foolish by the minute. She could barely remember the boy’s face. “Three or four months, maybe.”
“Three or four months,” he repeated. Taking her by the arms, he lifted her to her feet. “He kept this up for three or four months and you didn’t mention it to me?”
“I never thought of it.”
He resisted the temptation to give her a good shake, barely. “I want you to tell me everything you remember about him. Everything he said, everything he did.”
“I can’t remember.”
“You’d better.” Releasing her, he stepped back. “Sit down.”