Karma Patrol (28 page)

“Actually, I called to ask you for a favor,” she said, a seductive note in her voice. Aaron tugged at his collar, which was suddenly too tight.

“What do you need?”

“I have the spare keys to Jade’s place, so I went by to pick up a few things for her and bring them to your partner’s apartment, but the cops guarding the crime scene in her lobby won’t let me upstairs because I don’t live there. Can you come wave your badge at them and get me in?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there in a few.”

“Thanks, handsome.”

He hung up the phone, taking a moment to make sure there was no hint of a smug smile on his face before he turned back to the other detectives.

“Guys? I’m going to swing by and check on Luke. When I get back, I’ll requisition phone records for all of the victims. I don’t think we have enough for a warrant to search Cowden’s apartment, and even if we did, our asses are all grass if the FBI finds out we’re pursuing this. Would you two mind tailing Cowden and making sure he doesn’t shoot anybody else while we build the case against him?”

“Oh, sure, stick me in an enclosed space with Typhoid Mitch all day,” Kalindi groused, but Mitch nodded.

“Tell Jackson we said hi,” he advised Aaron. “And make sure you mention that we wholeheartedly respect his getting shot to protect a beautiful woman and then seducing her. Excellent use of the Hollywood cop stereotype.”

“What is this ‘we’?” Kalindi demanded. “Tell him I said that if the girl isn’t smart enough to duck, he should forget the protecting, save himself, and wait for a piece of ass with better instincts to come along.”

Jade woke slowly, her lips curving into a lazy smile. She’d had a dream that she’d actually found her soulmate, that they’d met on the street and he’d fallen instantly in love with her—

A hand brushed against her bare arm, fingertips stroking her skin, and she jerked fully awake.

“Relax, Jade,” Luke murmured, his deep voice rough with sleep. “You’re safe.”

She exhaled, sinking down onto the bed again. Her dream had come half-true. She’d found her soulmate… but he wasn’t in love with her.

On some level, she knew her desire for love at first sight was ridiculous, a little girl’s romantic dream that she should have abandoned years ago, but she also knew that it sometimes happened. There were soulmate pairs who met and fell instantly in love. She was aware that she was lucky to have a soulmate at all, that there were people who would give anything for the opportunity she had with Luke, but there was also a part of her that felt horribly cheated. She’d expected to have her childhood dream come true, to be given the perfect soulmate and the perfect relationship she’d hoped for her entire life—and why not? She’d done everything Karma Division had ever asked of her. Luke had suffered through what sounded like an abysmal childhood, and then led a lonely life as an adult. Didn’t they both deserve to have the relationship she’d always fantasized about?

She’d been silent long enough that Luke had started to worry. His arm came around her waist as he shifted onto his side to look at her.

“Are you okay, babe?” he asked.

She shrugged, her face heating up. “I’m fine. Just forgot where I was for a minute.”

He leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, and she closed her eyes as his lips brushed against her skin.

“It’ll be all right,” he told her, misreading the ambivalence in her expression. “We’ll catch the guy. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

“No?” she murmured, her eyes opening again to look up at him, and he gave her a reluctant half-smile.

“I don’t believe in love at first sight, Jade,” he told her softly. “But I’m starting to wonder exactly how fast you can fall in love with someone, because you…” He reached out to touch her face, brushing an errant curl off of her cheek. “I’ve only known you for a few days, but you’re the closest I’ve ever come to loving anyone.”

She couldn’t resist the smile that spread across her face, surprised pleasure warring with guilt. How could she be upset when it was clear that he was making an effort to reach out to her? What right did she have to demand that Luke fall madly in love with her when he had already admitted he’d been hurt so badly in the past that he’d never allowed himself to love anyone? She was acting like a spoiled child while he struggled to cope with his feelings, at least some of which were probably being forced on him by the soulmate bond. The bond would ensure that they stayed together, cementing the soulmate relationship, and it was a rare person who could fight what it made them feel. For a man who’d resisted falling in love his entire life, it had to be a difficult transition.

“Technically, this is day four,” she pointed out, taking his hand in hers and interlacing their fingers. “And I do believe in love at first sight.”

“So you…” He hesitated again. “You love me?”

She almost temporized, not sure she was ready to take that step with the soulmate who was so different than what she’d spent her whole life dreaming about, but one look at the vulnerable expression on his face made her breath catch in her chest and reminded her again that Fate didn’t give people what they wanted. They got what they needed.

“Of course I love you,” she said, and meant it. The shock and disbelieving joy written across his face were an immediate confirmation of her words, his pleasure kindling a fire in her chest. “But I’ve had a long time to adjust to the idea of having a soulmate. You’re allowed to need a few extra days to figure out that I’m perfect for you and you’re the luckiest guy in Manhattan.”

He laughed at that, a jubilant noise that made her heart skip another beat. She knew without having to ask that he wasn’t a man who’d had many reasons to laugh in his life, but now that she’d come along, things would be different. She was going to make him happy.

“You’re something special, Jade,” he told her fondly, kissing her forehead again as he pulled back the covers and slid out of bed. “What do you want to do about breakfast?”

His studio apartment wasn’t any bigger than hers, and she rolled over to watch as her shirtless soulmate wandered into the kitchenette.

“I don’t usually eat breakfast,” she admitted, taking the opportunity to admire his physique. The view was marred only by the white gauze wrapped around the upper part of his left arm, and as she watched him gather up the ingredients to make omelets, she realized he was favoring that arm.

“Your arm is bothering you,” she said, consternation bringing her up to a sitting position. “I can make breakfast—”

His heart-melting smile stopped her in midsentence. “Honestly, babe, I’m enjoying having a beautiful woman lounging around in my bed. I can do it myself.”

She blushed at the compliment but refused to let it go. “I’m just as beautiful making breakfast as I am lounging in bed,” she rebutted, slipping out from beneath the covers and joining him next to the stove. “And I’m not going to lay there and watch you hurt yourself trying to make us something to eat.”

“If you’re going to insist on being useful, would you mind grabbing that bottle of antibiotics they gave me in the ER last night? I need to take a dose with breakfast.”

He’d dropped the white paper bag on the bookcase next to the front door when they’d come in late last night. Jade retrieved it, opening it to find two bottles of pills and a tube of ointment.

“What’s this?” she asked, taking out the tube, and he glanced up from the frying pan where he was flipping an omelet one-handed.

“Burn gunk,” he replied succinctly. “Most bullet grazes have as much burn to them as anything else. They stitched up the part of the muscle that was torn by the bullet, but the part of my arm that was burned by the heat of it needs that stuff on it under the dressing.”

“When are you supposed to change it?”

“Not until tonight.”

“I can do it,” she offered, and he raised his eyebrows at her. “I can,” she insisted. “I may not look like I’ve got an iron stomach, but my mother is a surgeon and I volunteered at the hospital when I was in high school. I’ve changed dressings before.”

“Well, if you’re my better half, then the arm is half yours, so it’s up to you,” he told her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head as he reached past her for a plate. “Go sit down. Let me make you breakfast. It’s not going to kill me, I promise.”

Jade stared at him for a long moment, realization dawning.

“Shannon told you I can’t cook, didn’t she?”

“She may have mentioned it while she and I were talking the other night,” he admitted.

She folded her arms across her chest, feeling betrayed that Shannon had let it slip to her soulmate that she was anything less than perfect.

“I’m not that bad,” she fired back, defensive.

“She said you burn toast.”

“I do not.” To her horror, she felt her eyes filling up with tears, and she turned away from him on her heel as they threatened to overflow.

“Hey.”

She heard him set down the plate he was holding, and a moment later his hand was on her shoulder.

“Don’t be upset. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“It’s not that,” she snapped, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks. “You didn’t hurt my feelings. I’m not a
child
.”

He got the sense that there was nothing he could say to make the situation better and a whole lot of things he could say that would make it worse, so he decided to just keep his mouth shut. His strategy was rewarded after several long moments when she spoke again, this time in a voice choked with emotion.

“I just—it’s been a rough couple of days. You know?”

“Yeah,” he said, slipping his arms around her waist from behind and tugging her back to rest her head against his chest. “Yeah, I know.”

They were silent for a while longer, leaning against each other for support, until the smell of burning eggs started to fill the apartment.

“Damn,” Luke snapped, releasing Jade to grab for the frying pan. By the time he’d dealt with the smoking mess in the pan, Jade was bent nearly double and gasping for air, her arms folded over her midsection. He was worried she was having some kind of nervous breakdown right up until she lost her battle with gravity, fell over onto her rear end, and tossed her head back as she let loose with gales of laughter.

He waited until she was finished, shaking his head as he threw out the ruined omelet. When she seemed to have finally caught her breath, he put down the frying pan and went back over to where she was sitting sprawled on the hardwood floor.

“Feel better?” he asked, his tone paternalistic. She nodded, wiping away tears of mirth.

“So much better.”

“Good, because that was your omelet.”

She swatted at him as he laughed, retreating to the kitchen. The problem, he reflected ruefully, was that the burnt offering really had been her omelet. He would’ve been happy to make another one if he’d had any more eggs, but he was officially out. They could split the first one he’d made, which was currently cooling on a plate, but half of an omelet wasn’t going to be enough to fill him up.

Luke opened the cabinet he used as a miniature pantry, hoping some additional groceries might have magically appeared in its recesses since the last time he’d looked. Unfortunately, the grocery fairy hadn’t visited overnight, and he contemplated the cabinet’s contents for a long moment before he felt Jade come up behind him.

“That was the last of the eggs, wasn’t it?”

It wasn’t really a question, but he nodded anyway.

“I don’t have bread, or cereal, or bacon,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve got—well, here.” His rummaging had turned up a single oatmeal raisin granola bar that he was sure must have originally belonged to his partner, relegated to the cabinet months ago after it had somehow ended up in his pocket at the end of a long shift. “Any interest? I hate raisins.”

She snapped it out of his fingers with a smile. “I love them,” she informed him. “And like I said before, I don’t usually eat breakfast. This is plenty of food for me. You can have the eggs.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, but he was already reaching for a fork. He was starving.

“I’m sure. We’re going to have to talk about lunch, though, because if all we get to eat until this impromptu house arrest is over is the contents of that cabinet, we’re going to be resorting to cannibalism by the end of the day.”

“We could always order a pizza,” he proposed, and she smiled.

“My favorite indulgence,” she admitted. “I don’t like pizza with toppings, though. I’m a cheese purist.”

“No kidding? I am too.”

Jade mimed drawing an imaginary tally mark in the air. “That’s one more thing we have in common to add to the soulmate checklist.”

“What are we up to now? Two?”

She bumped him with her hip as she walked past him and back into the living room area of the studio apartment. He didn’t have a kitchen table, so she sat down on the couch with her granola bar. He followed her in, setting his plate of eggs down on the coffee table.

“We need drinks,” he said, realizing they didn’t have any beverages.

“I wouldn’t say no to a mimosa,” she replied, sounding hopeful.

“I’d be happy to bring you one if I had champagne. Or orange juice. Your choices are pretty much coffee or water.”