“Want to dance?”
The question came from a man leaning over from her left. He was wearing a “Party Hearty” T-shirt, so she would have refused anyway, but she didn’t get the chance. Jack set the ginger ale on the table in front of her and said, “She’s with me.”
“Okay.” The guy immediately turned to another woman. “Want to dance?”
Jack settled into the chair beside her and tilted the beer to his mouth. She watched his strong throat work as he swallowed, and began to feel too warm again. Gratefully she seized the cold ginger ale.
After a moment she noticed how his gaze constantly moved over the crowd, occasionally pausing briefly while he studied someone, then moving on. She felt another little shock of awareness, of a completely different type. “You’re working, aren’t you?”
He shot her a quick glance, the gray-green of his eyes glittering. “I don’t have any jurisdiction outside of Hillsboro.”
“I know, but you’re still watching the crowd.”
He shrugged. “It’s a habit.”
“Don’t you ever just relax?” Abruptly her whole outlook on law enforcement officers changed. Were they all always on guard, watchful, wary? Was constant vigilance, even when they were off duty, part of the price they paid for their jobs?
“Sure,” he said, leaning back and hitching his right ankle onto his left knee. “When I’m at home.”
She didn’t know where he lived, couldn’t picture his home. Hillsboro, though a small town, was still large enough that it was impossible to know everyone or be familiar with all the neighborhoods. “Where do you live?”
Again that quick glance. “Not all that far from your mother’s house. Elmwood.”
Elmwood was just four streets over. It was a section of Victorians, some in good repair and some not. She certainly hadn’t pictured him in a Victorian, and said as much.
“I inherited the house, from my great-aunt. Aunt Bessie, the one I told you about.”
She sat upright. She had known a Bessie on Elmwood. “Miss Bessie Childress?”
“That was her.” He lifted his beer in salute to his dead great-aunt.
“You’re Miss Bessie’s nephew?”
“Great-nephew. I spent the best summers of my life with her when I was a kid.”
“She brought over a coconut cake when Daddy died.” Daisy was stunned; this was almost like going to Europe and running into your next-door neighbor. She had thought Jack a complete outsider, but instead when he was a boy he’d been spending summers just four streets away from her.
“Aunt Bessie made the best coconut cake in the world.” He smiled, reminiscing about coconut cakes he had known.
“Why didn’t I ever meet you?”
“For one, I only came during the summer, when school was out. For another, I’m older than you; we wouldn’t have hung out with the same crowd. You would have been playing Barbie while I played baseball. And Aunt Bessie went to a different church.”
That was true. Miss Bessie Childress had been solidly Methodist, while the Minors were Presbyterian. So it was logical they hadn’t met when they were children, but it still gave her a jolt to realize he was . . . why, he was almost home-folk.
There was a sudden disruption in the flow on the dance floor. A man sprawled on the floor, making couples scatter. A woman screamed, “Danny, no!” Her shrill voice cut through the loud music, which crashed to a discordant stop. The man who had fallen—or been knocked down—jumped up, lowered his head, and plunged toward another man, who swiftly side-stepped and bumped into a woman, sending her sprawling. Her partner took immediate exception, and the dance floor erupted.
“Aw, shit.” Jack heaved a sigh and grabbed her wrist, hauling her to her feet. “Here we go again. C’mon, we’ll go out the back.”
They joined the pack of bodies that was doing the same thing, but again Jack used his size and strength to bull his way through, and in just a moment they were in the humid night air, listening to the sound of shouts and breaking glass coming from inside.
“You’re a catalyst,” he said, shaking his head.
“This wasn’t my fault,” she said indignantly. “I wasn’t anywhere near those people. I was sitting with you.”
“Yeah, but it’s just something about you being here, like the universe is out of whack. Believe it or not, most nights there isn’t any trouble at all. Where’s your car?”
She led the way around the building to her car. People were pouring out of the front entrance, too. It was like an instant replay of the week before.
She sighed. She’d danced only three dances this week. At the rate things were going, next time she’d be lucky to get in one dance before the fight started.
When she got her car key out of her purse, he took it from her, unlocked the door, then opened it for her before returning the key. He watched, his expression inscrutable, as she buckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle to close the door.
He stood in the way, frowning a little now. “I’ll follow you home.”
“Why?” Her surprise was plain.
He shrugged. “Because I just got an itch between my shoulder blades. Because I heard you’ve moved and I don’t like the street. Just because.”
“Thanks, but it isn’t necessary. I left the porch light on.”
He bared his teeth in a grin that wasn’t a grin. “Humor me,” he said, and it wasn’t a suggestion.
THIRTEEN
Son of a bitch! When people started pouring out of the club like ants, Sykes would have pounded the steering wheel in frustration if it wouldn’t have gained him attention he didn’t want. What was it with these people? Couldn’t they go to a goddamn dance without fighting?
He didn’t like getting out of the car, but he did it anyway, searching in the turmoil for blond hair and a red dress. The scurrying crowd blocked his view of the section of the lot where she’d parked, so he worked his way in that direction, craning his head for a glimpse of her. In the dark, with people darting in every direction and headlights briefly slicing across the scene as cars left, the effect was almost like having a strobe light flashing.
Then he saw her, walking calmly across the gravel as if she’d just left a wedding instead of a brawl. He sidestepped as a car went by just inches from his toes, but never took his gaze off his quarry. Then he halted, swearing to himself. She had gone inside alone, but she came out with company, in the form of a guy who looked like he ate rocks for breakfast. Sykes was close enough to hear him say, “I’ll follow you home,” and he immediately swerved away, lingering only long enough to note which car was hers, so he could match it to one of the tag numbers and makes of car he’d written down. Okay, so he couldn’t follow her home tonight; three cars would make a damn parade. But he had her tag number now, so essentially he had her. Swiftly returning to his car, he glanced down the list and immediately saw the description he wanted: eight-year-old Ford sedan, beige—which was a pretty blah car for a woman with such sexy class—with a 39 prefix on the license plate, meaning the car was registered in Jackson County.
That made it easy. He’d give the number to Temple Nolan, who could have someone in his police department run it. He could have the woman’s name and address within a matter of minutes from the time he talked to the mayor.
On the other hand, it was smarter to play it cool. If the mayor called his P.D. tonight, whoever he talked to would remember the license plate that was so important that the mayor had wanted it checked late on a Saturday night. It was always best not to call attention to yourself, even in the smallest detail. Monday morning would be plenty of time.
Everything was cool; nothing had to be done tonight. Waiting might even be better, give him time to make sure there were no mistakes. This really should be easy, the elements were already there. She did the bar scene, and he had a supply of GHB handy. She’d be just another overdose, and since he had no intention of having sex with her, the cops would write her off as a user who tossed the dice one too many
times.
Daisy pursed her lips as she glanced in the rearview mirror. The headlights behind her were way too close: Jack was tailgating her. She might have known he would. The man was constantly crowding into her personal space, and she didn’t know if he did it just to annoy her or if that was his working style, to keep people off balance. She did know she didn’t like it.
She slowed, looking for a safe place to pull off the road, and turned on her blinker. By the time she got her car stopped, Jack’s car was tucked in behind hers so closely she couldn’t even see his headlights, and he was opening her car door before she could find the switch for the emergency flashers.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” she began, then said, “My goodness.” He had a gun in his hand—a big one, held down against his leg. It was an automatic, probably a nine millimeter. She leaned over and peered at it. The night-sights on the barrel glowed despite the light coming from her car. “My goodness,” she said again. “Those little suckers are bright, aren’t they?”
He looked down. “What little suckers?” He was examining the ground as if he expected to find glow-in-the-dark ants.
“You night-sights.” She pointed at the weapon. “What kind is it? An H&K? A Sig?” In the dark, and with it in his big hand, she couldn’t tell.
“It’s a Sig, and what in hell do you know about handguns?”
He certainly was grouchy. “I helped Chief Beason research handguns when he wanted to upgrade the weapons the department carries. That was before your time,” she added, just because she knew it would annoy him. Chief Beason was his predecessor.
Sure enough, she saw his jaw clench. She could almost hear his teeth grind. “I know who Chief Beason is,” he growled.
“He was very thorough. We spent months looking at all the models. In the end, though, the city council didn’t vote the money to buy new weapons.”
“I know.” His teeth were definitely grinding. “I had to take care of that when I came on board, remember?” That had been his first act, to raise hell with the city council because they had let their police department become woefully outgunned. He’d gotten the weapons he wanted, too.
“To be fair,” Daisy said, “at that time the city was spending a lot of money on the sewer system—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the sewer system!” He shoved his hand through his hair—or he would have, if it had been long enough. Daisy thought he really should let it grow a little. He drew a deep breath, as if struggling for control. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
“You were tailgating me.”
He stood frozen in her open car door. Another car went by, its tires whooshing on the pavement; then the red taillights disappeared around a curve and they were alone on the road again.
“What?” he finally said. He sounded as if he were strangling.
“You were tailgating me. It’s dangerous.”
There was another long moment of silence, then he stepped back. “Get out of the car.”
“I will not.” So long as the car was running and she had the steering wheel in her hands, she was in control. “You were wrong and you know—”
The sentence ended in a squeal as he leaned in, swiftly unclipped her seat belt, and hauled her out of the car. Embarrassed by the squeal, because she thought she’d outgrown such noises, she was too distracted to be alarmed as he slammed the door and backed her against the car, his big body leaning in and pinning her to the cold metal. It was like being caught with fire on one side and ice on the other, and the fire was strongest because she immediately felt that peculiar internal melting again.
“I have two choices,” he said conversationally. “I can either strangle you, or I can kiss you. Which one do you want?”
Alarmed at the prospect that he might kiss her, she said, “Those are your choices, not mine.”
“Then you shouldn’t have worn that red dress.”
“What’s wrong with my dress—uummph.”
The rest of her indignant sentence was smothered by his mouth on hers. Daisy went still, her entire system thrown into a weird kind of suspended animation as her mind struggled to adjust expectation with reality. No, not expectation, because she’d never expected Jack Russo to kiss her. Such a thing was not on her mental list of Possible Happenings. Yet he was kissing her, and it was the most amazing thing she’d ever felt.
His lips were soft in touch, and firm in application. She could taste the beer he’d drunk, and something else . . . something sweet. Honey. He tasted like honey. One big fist was twined in her hair, holding her head tilted back, while he leisurely kissed her deeper than she’d ever been kissed before, his tongue in her mouth, and the honey taste of him dissolved her bones and turned her internal organs to mush.
She slowly went limp, held upright only by the pressure of his body all along hers. Vaguely she was aware that nothing in her life had ever felt as good, or as comfortable. It shouldn’t have been comfortable, not with the cold metal of the car behind her, but she lifted her arms and twined them around his neck, and her body fit to his as if they had been custom-made to go together. Curves and mounds, angles and planes—they fit. The heat of his body seared her all the way through, the scent of his skin permeated her, and his honey taste beguiled her into wanting more, needing, demanding more. And he gave her more, holding her even closer, so that her hips cradled his pelvis and the ridge of his erection rode hard against the juncture of her thighs.
Another car went by, horn blaring. Jack raised his head long enough to mutter, “Bastard”; then he kissed her again, more of those deep, hungry kisses that fed her own hunger. Her heartbeat hammered wildly against her breastbone. Part of her mind—a tiny, distant part—was astonished that this was happening to her, that she was actually standing beside a road in the dark letting a man kiss her as if he intended to strip her naked and take her right there, standing up, in public. And she wasn’t just letting him kiss her, she was kissing him back, one hand clasped on the back of his head and the other slipped inside his collar to touch the back of his neck, that small touch of his bare skin making her almost dizzy with delight.
Finally he lifted his mouth, gasping for breath. She clung to him, bereft, needing more of those honey kisses. He rested his damp forehead against hers. “Miss Daisy,” he murmured, “I really, really want to get naked with you.”
Fifteen minutes ago—or maybe it was twenty—she would have told him in no uncertain terms that his attentions were unwelcome. Fifteen minutes ago, however, she hadn’t known she was addicted to honey.
“Oh, this is bad,” she said distractedly. The man was positively narcotic, and she had never suspected. No wonder so many of the women in town were nuts over him! They’d been tasting him, too. Suddenly she didn’t like that idea at all.
“I thought it was damn good.”
“It’s totally ridiculous.”
“But damn good.”
“You aren’t my type at all.”
“Thank God for that. I’d never survive otherwise.” He came back for another kiss, one that had her rising on tiptoe and straining to get closer. His right hand closed firmly over her breast, weighing and kneading, unerringly finding her nipple and rubbing it into a tight little point. The sensation splintered through her, making her moan. The sound of her own voice shocked her back into a small measure of sanity; she let herself revel in the feel of his hand on her breast for another few seconds, or twenty; then she dragged her hands from around his neck and braced them against his chest. Oh, goodness, even the feel of his chest was an enticement, so warm and hard with muscle, and with his heart thundering under her palm. Knowing he was just as excited as she, was as heady as her own arousal. She, Daisy Ann Minor, had done this to a man! And not just any man—Jack Russo, of all people!
He’d lifted his mouth as soon as she planted her hands against him. If his hand was slower to leave her breast, she didn’t complain. As if every inch were agony, he eased awa
y from her, putting a small space between them. Suddenly deprived of his heat, she felt as if the night had turned icy cold. It was a balmy summer night, but compared to Jack, the air felt almost wintry.
“You’re ruining all my plans.”
“What plans are those?” He bent his head and began nibbling at her jawline, quick little biting kisses, as if he had to taste her again. He didn’t touch her in any other way. He didn’t have to. She caught herself automatically leaning toward him, and jerked upright again.
She was distracted enough to say, “I’m hunting for a man.”
“I’m a man,” he muttered against her collarbone. “What’s wrong with me?”
Her neck was getting weak, too weak to hold up her head. It was as if she were Superwoman and he was Kryptonite, robbing her of strength. Desperately she fought back. “I mean a relationship man.”
“I’m single.”
She burst out, “I want to get married and have babies!”
He straightened as if he’d been shot. “Whoa.”
Now that he wasn’t touching her, she could breathe more easily. “Yes, whoa. I’m husband-hunting, and you’re getting in the way.”
“Husband-hunting, huh?”
She didn’t like his tone, but there was an oncoming car; she waited until it had passed before glaring up at him. “Thanks to you and your little show in the pharmacy, everyone in Hillsboro already thinks we have a—a thing, so no one there will ask me out. I have to go out to nightclubs now to find a man, but you’re still doing the same thing, making people think we’re together and keeping other men away from me.”
“I’ve been keeping you out of trouble.”
“Last week, yes, but this week I wasn’t in any trouble, I wasn’t causing any trouble, I wasn’t even near any trouble. That man you ran off might have been the love of my life, but now I’ll never know because you told him I was with you.”