Bear Claw Conspiracy (7 page)

Then she went for the bag with Blackthorn’s shirt in it. And caught herself hesitating.

For crap’s sake, Lynd, it’s just a shirt. You can process it without picturing him naked. Half naked. Whatever.

She did her best, anyway. It helped that Blackthorn had ended the evening by trying to run her off the case again. It was really too bad the fates had matched such a truly excellent body with that superior—and totally annoying—attitude.

Remembering his look of horror when he’d heard she wanted to be a critical response cop made it easier to pull the uniform shirt out of the bag, spread it out and start going over it, working her way toward the chest pocket.

His name tag was still in place, the engraved letters spelling out
Matthew H. Blackthorn.
She spent way too much effort not staring at it and wondering about the
H.
Under other circumstances, it would have made her nervous to realize how much she was thinking about him. As it was, she gave herself a pass and called it what it was: a defense mechanism.

If she was thinking about Blackthorn’s great ass and borderline personality, she didn’t have to think about the fire…or worry about how she was going to smooth things over with Alyssa.

They were good friends and clicked on a level that Gigi didn’t connect with many other people on, but now they were heading square into an argument they had skirted around once or twice before, knowing they weren’t going to agree.

She was just teasing the feather out of the shirt pocket when the door swung open and Alyssa came through, expression set. She was moving slowly in the final week or so of her pregnancy, but that only added to the impression that she was, in her own way, as much of an immovable force as her husband.

Gigi could be a solid wall when she needed to, though. And if her family hadn’t managed to get her to stick with the lower-risk analyst’s position, her new best friend didn’t have a prayer.

Alyssa lowered herself to a swivel chair, put her feet on the waist-high desk that ran the perimeter of the room, folded her hands atop the curve of her belly…and fixed Gigi with a look. “Officially, I’m impressed with the drive and dedication you showed last night. That will go in your file. Unofficially, though, I’ve decided that being your friend isn’t for the faint of heart.” She paused, and a crack of hurt and concern showed through. “What were you
thinking,
Gigi? You could’ve died.”

“I know that.” She met Alyssa’s baffled stare. “But right then, all I was thinking about was getting that sketch. It was evidence, and my job is to collect the evidence, period. Not to mention that ‘identify the goal and go for it’ is pretty much a family motto.” She tried a smile. “I think it got cribbed by a sneaker company in edited form:
Just do it.”

“This isn’t a joke, damn it. How do you think I felt, sitting down here while Tucker blasted up into the park, with no clue whether you were okay or not? And then to find out what you
did
do? God.” She knotted her fingers together. “I was up half the night thinking about what it would’ve been like to have you lying in a hospital bed like Tanya, or worse.”

“Sorry.” The word was an automatic knee-jerk response, but Gigi followed it up with, “Seriously, I’m sorry. I know you care, and I…” She was going to say “I appreciate your concern,” but that was a total brush-off line and Alyssa deserved better. The thing was, she
did
appreciate the concern…but it also made her feel squirrelly and trapped, made the basement walls seem suddenly closer than they had been last week, or even an hour ago.

“You can’t promise to stay out of trouble,” Alyssa finished for her, “because you’re hardwired to play hero.”

“I’m not playing anything,” she said, trying to make her friend understand. “This is my
life
we’re talking about—not just the safety part of it, but the living part of it, too. If I compromise on this, I’m giving up part of what makes me…
me.”

“I just want you to be a little more careful. You admit that going back into the station was stupid, right?”

“Now? Yes. But that doesn’t happen often.” And there had been extenuating circumstances. Distractions in the form of one Matthew H. Blackthorn. She didn’t say that, though, partly because she didn’t want to go there, and partly because it was no excuse. There would always be distractions during a crisis. “The thing is, I can’t promise that I won’t make the same mistake again.” She paused, trying to choose words that would get across to Alyssa something she hadn’t yet gotten even her family to understand. “If I get picked for the program and make it through the training—”

“You mean ‘when.’ Because if you’re not at the top of the list, your bosses in Denver are a bunch of idiots.”

“Okay, ‘when’ I get on a team, my teammates are going to be depending on me to react appropriately, no matter what’s going on around me. And although there’s lots more sitting-and-waiting-and-planning than you’d think, there will also be times that I’m going to need to prioritize the job over my own safety. I’m not stupid and I’m not suicidal…but I can’t be as cautious as the people who care about me want me to be.”

People like Alyssa and her other analyst friends, who didn’t get why she needed to escape from pure after-the-fact labwork. And like her mother and sisters, who still sent her job listings from their universities, somehow thinking that teaching and doing were the same thing.

“Are you sure the program is going to be right for you?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why?’” Gigi would have rolled her eyes, but she didn’t want to minimize Alyssa’s concerns—she just wanted to get at something. Choosing her words carefully, she said, “I want to get into the program because the members of the hazardous response teams are the ultimate cops, and their work is the ultimate adrenaline rush.” Which wasn’t far off from the answer she had given the selection committee during her interview. More, it was the truth. Her parents had given her every opportunity to excel, and she intended to do exactly that. Maybe not the way they had intended, but still.

“And you’re happiest when you’re the ultimate?”

“It’s not about being happy or unhappy, it’s about establishing myself. Once I’ve done that, then I can think about the other stuff in life—a husband, family, that sort of thing.” But that rang false, and honesty forced her to add, “Not that I’m likely to do the family thing if I’m with HRT. Not many guys can deal with having a wife who’s right out on the front lines.”

“Especially one who’d jump back into a burning building because she forgot her jacket.” But Alyssa paused, then shook her head. “I think you’d be surprised. More guys than you might imagine are okay with stuff like that. Or at least some of them can get themselves square with it if that’s what it takes to make things work.” She sent a speculative look. “Tucker said Matt was pissed about you going back in there.”

“I can’t totally blame him. He was the one who had to carry me out.”

Whether thanks to hormones or a shared desire not to turn this into a friendship-leveling fight, Alyssa let herself be diverted. Unfortunately, she veered in a direction Gigi had been hoping to avoid. “He
carried
you?”

Gigi flushed and focused on the feather, dropping it into the bottom half of a plastic Petri dish and slipping it into position beneath the bright field of a light microscope. “He was probably just making sure I didn’t double back again.”

But Alyssa wasn’t buying it. “Tucker said there were vibes. What’s going on with you two?”

“Me and Tucker? Nothing, I swear.”

“Ha ha. Very funny. Spill.”

“There’s nothing
to
spill.” At least nothing she was ready to talk about. “Blackthorn is rude, temperamental, arrogant, cynical and…” She trailed off because that wasn’t fair. He was all of those things, yes, but he was also tough, capable and fiercely committed to his job and the people who worked for him.

“And?”

“And I’m not interested.” Gigi made a few notes, switched the scope from 100x to 400x and looked again. No big foam finger yet.

“There’s a difference between ‘not interested’ and ‘don’t want to be interested.’”

“Fine. I don’t want to be interested. Aside from the know-it-all attitude, the guy’s got some pretty serious layers, and I’m not into layers. I prefer men where what you see is what you get.”

Alyssa made a “no kidding” face, but then sobered. “I could tell you about a couple of those layers if you want.”

She hesitated, but shook her head. “No. Don’t.” She had her path charted, her goals set. A pleasant detour was one thing. A cross-country trip on dirt roads without a map or GPS was another. The first one was fun. The second could go really wrong.

Increasing the magnification another notch, she got up close and personal with some little alien-type creatures that were crawling on the feather.
Ew.

Alyssa pressed further. “Look, Tucker has known Matt a long time, and says he’s never seen him act the way he was acting last night over you. And maybe I haven’t known you all that long, but I’ve never seen you do the verbal duck-and-weave like this before. That tells me there’s something there…or could be.”

“No.” Gigi shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. The timing is…well, it’s wrong. That’s all.”

“You’re the one who pointed out that moving back to Denver wasn’t the same as taking a trip to Mars.”

“It’s not the logistics, it’s…” Everything. She made another note, caught herself looking at the shiny name tag again. “You know how I’ve told you about how my family lives life full blast? Well, the same thing goes in the relationship department. It’s all or nothing. Consuming. The emotions…there’s no room left for anything else except the emotions. And when it crashes, the debris field goes on for miles.” She couldn’t risk something like that. Not when she was so close to nailing a slot in the accelerated program.

Alyssa narrowed her eyes. “Who was he?”

“What are you, an analyst or something?” But Gigi lifted a shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.” She could barely picture him now, in fact. All she knew was that for one glorious, tumultuous summer during college, he had been her whole universe. And when he left, she had crashed hard, nearly washing out of her senior year in the process. She had graduated, but had been the only one of her four sisters to miss getting summa cum laude honors. “What matters is that I let everything else around me take a backseat to a guy, and I can’t afford to do that right now.”

Maybe not ever. Miserable wasn’t a good color on her.

“I think first love is supposed to be awful like that,” Alyssa pointed out. “You’re all grown up now. It’ll feel different.”

“Yeah. It’s worse. After Matt kissed me—” She broke off.

“Hel-lo. He
kissed
you?” Alyssa’s feet thumped to the floor. “Was this before or after he carried you out of a burning building?”

Gigi pressed a gloved hand to her lab-coat-covered stomach in a gesture that did zilch to settle the jitters. “After. I dreamed about him last night.”

What was it about him? He wasn’t anything like the men she usually gravitated toward.
Opposites might attract,
her grandmother liked to say,
but they don’t stick for the long haul.
Was this some sort of belated teenaged rebellion on the part of her subconscious? Had her hormones latched on to him because, like her job choices, he went against the grain? She didn’t have a clue.

All she knew was that even though he had done his Ranger Surly routine last night, the thought of him still sent hot and cold shivers racing through her body. And that, more than anything, warned her that there wasn’t any sort of compromise to be had. She couldn’t get involved with him partway, couldn’t have the sort of “just having fun” interlude that had once been as natural to her as breathing.

“I can’t go there,” she said, more to herself than to Alyssa. “I’m on the verge of my big break. I need to concentrate on that. Besides, even if I were inclined to get involved with someone right now—which I’m not—I need someone who respects my career choices. Which he doesn’t. He made that perfectly clear last night.”

“About that—” Alyssa began, but the ring of the lab’s landline interrupted her. She checked the display, and her expression softened as she answered, “Hello, McDermott, Homicide. What’s the word?” She listened for a second before her expression shifted. “Really? Wow. Okay. Come on down.”

Gigi went on alert. “What’s going on?”

“The P.D. is forming a new task force, and I’ve been officially asked to release you to them for the time being. You and your new partner will both be deputized for the duration.”

The words banged around in Gigi’s head for a moment, refusing to compute. She was thrilled about being tapped for the task force, but… “What do you mean, deputized? And what new partner? I ride with Jack.”

“Not anymore you don’t,” an all-too-familiar voice said from the doorway behind her.

She froze. Oh, no. Tucker hadn’t. He wouldn’t.

Would he?

The look Alyssa sent her—part sympathy, part dare—said that he would, and he had.

Gigi’s body washed hot, then cold, then back to hot again. She turned slowly, not ready to face Blackthorn, especially not now, when her usual defenses were gone, stripped away by girl talk.

But there he was, and she was going to have to deal with him. And with the way her body lit up at the sight of him filling the doorway. His presence seemed larger somehow down here in the rapidly shrinking confines of the basement.

Heat speared through her, tempting and tantalizing, and making her think of hot sheets and waking with his taste on her lips.

Maybe her awareness was so thoroughly heightened because she knew him now, had kissed him, been kissed by him. Or maybe it was the jeans and short-sleeved white button-down he wore in place of his tan-and-green uniform, making him look different, somehow less aloof.

But then he shifted away from the doorframe, and her eyes zeroed in on his worn leather belt. Or, rather, on the badge and holster that rode together on his left hip.