Superstition (48 page)

“Yeah, me, too.”

He definitely looked it, she thought, taking in the lines of fatigue around his mouth and eyes and the unshaven stubble darkening his chin. His red power tie was loose, his white shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and his navy jacket and khaki slacks were badly creased.

“Did you sleep last night?” she asked.

“Some.” He glanced her way with a half-smile. “How about you?”

“Some.” It was by accidentally falling asleep in her chair at Livvy’s bedside, which had resulted in a series of ten- or fifteen-minute catnaps interrupted by nurses, monitors, or wandering relatives. “I was kind of afraid to close my eyes. I kept thinking that if I quit watching Livvy, she might slip away.”

“The doctors say she’s going to make it.”

“I know.”

“By the way, in case I forgot to mention it while I was yelling at you for it, I think that was a hell of a brave thing you did, charging Livvy’s attacker like that,” Joe said. He glanced at her. “Stupid, but brave.”

Nicky’s eyelids were growing heavy. Lulled by the motion of the car, she blinked owlishly at him. “Hey, she’s my sister. And if that was supposed to be a compliment, it kind of sucked.”

His smile widened. “Yeah, well, bravery’s a fine thing, but so is good sense.”

Nicky made a face at him. She was simply too tired to argue.

They were driving over the South Causeway Bridge now, and the hollow rumble was oddly comforting. It was a sound she associated with going home. Below the bridge, Salt Marsh Creek gleamed like oil in the moonlight. Overhead, the sky was a softer black, ablaze with stars. She was just admiring the beauty of the pale sickle moon when she realized that they were turning the wrong way.

She frowned. “Where are you going?”

He glanced at her. “My house. You’re spending the night. Probably several nights. With everybody running back and forth to the hospital and all the investigative work still going on at Twybee Cottage, I figure it’s safer for you to stay with me than me to stay with you.”

Nicky considered. “All my clothes and things are at Twybee Cottage.”

“No, they’re not. Your mother packed you a bag. It’s in the trunk.”

“You got my mother’s permission for me to sleep at your house?” For some reason, Nicky found this amusing. Tired as she was, she had to smile.

“She thought it was a good idea.”

“My mother likes you.”

“I like your mother.” He pulled over to the curb and parked, and Nicky saw that they were in front of his house. He got out, and she got out, too, waiting while he got her suitcase from the trunk. Then they went inside.

Joe shut the door, dropped her case on the floor, and flipped on the living-room light.

Nicky suddenly felt a little awkward. The house had two bedrooms, she knew. She wanted to sleep with Joe, but she remembered that they had been on the outs before Livvy had been attacked. Maybe she should opt for the spare bedroom. . . .

She could clearly hear Joe saying it: I don’t do relationships.

She was too tired to get mad, too tired to do anything at all, so she sank down on the couch, which was tan corduroy, a little worn, a little lumpy, definitely well used. On one side of it was a navy plaid recliner, on the other an orange tweed rocker, neither one of them new. Joe headed for the kitchen, taking off his jacket as he went. Beneath it, she saw that he was wearing a black nylon shoulder holster over his white shirt. It made him look tough and capable and very masculine. And sexy. Way sexy.

“Want some eggs?” He called over his shoulder as he walked into the kitchen, turning on the light as he went. “Or a bologna sandwich?”

“You cook?” She settled deeper into the couch.

“Mostly just when I want to eat.” His voice floated back to her. “You like ’em scrambled?”

“Sounds good.” Nicky thought about going into the kitchen to help him, but she was just too tired to move. She thought about picking up the remote on the coffee table and turning on the TV, but she was too tired for that, too. In the kitchen, she could hear him moving around, opening the refrigerator, rattling cutlery. . . .

HIS COOKING WAS a poor, pitiful thing compared to the delicacies Nicky was probably used to, staying in the same house as her Uncle Ham, but food was food and Joe was hungry. When the eggs were done—he’d made toast, too, although with the pig looking through the window at him every time he cooked, he’d quit with the bacon a couple days ago—he called Nicky. When she didn’t answer, he went into the living room to get her.

She was asleep on his couch. Sitting up, head resting back against the cushions so that her glorious hair fanned out around her face, lashes forming thick, black crescents against milky skin, luscious lips slightly parted—and gentle snores issuing from between them.

Joe grinned. He walked over to the couch. For a long moment, he simply stood looking down at her, enjoying her beauty, enjoying the slightly ridiculous, wholly endearing picture she made. Then it occurred to him that he was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, which wasn’t a state he was either used to or comfortable with, and the reason was zonked out on his couch. His grin faded. He was in trouble here, already way too entangled with this girl, and his best course of action would be to cut and run before he got sucked in any further.

Unfortunately, cutting and running was impossible. She was in his house, asleep on his couch, and the reason she was there was because it was his job to keep her alive.

That being the case, he was left with three options: He could wake her and see if she was still hungry for eggs, he could leave her where she was, or he could carry her off to bed.

He chose the last one, picking her up carefully so as not to wake her. Not that there was much fear of that. She was a dead weight in his arms—surprising how heavy a hundred twenty pounds could feel—and she didn’t so much as miss a snore while he maneuvered her through his open bedroom door and put her down on the bed. She was wearing white jeans and a pale yellow T-shirt and sandals with little bitty heels. The bedroom light was off, but he could see her well enough because of the light spilling in through the open bedroom door. He cast a quick look around—no Brian anywhere in sight—and considered.

He could let her sleep in her clothes. On the other hand, she would be far more comfortable without them.

Slipping off her shoes, he set them on the floor beside the bed. Then he unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and pulled them down her legs. She wore tiny, deep-red panties, he was interested to see, that made the curve of her hips and the slender length of her legs look sexy as hell. His body’s reaction was instant and automatic, and he grimaced as he tossed her jeans over the chair in the corner. That left her T-shirt. Getting that off was more of a struggle, but he managed and was rewarded by the sight of her gorgeous, creamy breasts in an itty-bitty bra. The deep-red color looked fantastic against her pale skin. Something—either the laboring breath of the air conditioner blowing across the bed or her subconscious reaction to his touch (he preferred to think)—made her nipples jut visibly through the flimsy fabric of her bra. She was smiling faintly in her sleep, and the temptation was almost overwhelming. More than he had ever wanted to do just about anything in his life, he wanted to crawl into bed with her and kiss her awake and . . .

She’d been through a terrible trauma, and she was dead tired. Sleep was what she needed, not sex.

That being the case, and also because he was a really good guy and a true credit to the fortitude and willpower of the red-blooded American male, he bundled her under the covers and left her to sleep.

And he went back into the kitchen to feed the pig a plateful of cold, greasy eggs.

NICKY SLEPT DREAMLESSLY until the sensation of a warm, firm mouth pressing down on hers woke her with a start.

She stiffened, and her eyes flew open.

“Hey, sweet thing, it’s eight o’clock.” Joe straightened away from her. For a moment she goggled at him, disoriented. He was fully dressed except for his jacket, and was in the process of sliding his knotted tie up to his shirt collar. He smelled good—like soap and toothpaste. He looked good, fresh out of the shower, clean shaven, with his hair brushed and his clothes pressed. He looked, in fact, like a man who had enjoyed a good night’s sleep, and as Nicky cast an eye around the room, she realized that they were in his bedroom and he had, in fact, slept with her.

And she didn’t remember a thing.

Oh, wait, she did remember something. She had told her mother that she would be back at the hospital by nine.

She groaned.

She was still wearing her bra and panties, she discovered as she scooted a little higher against the pillows while still keeping the covers she’d been burrowed under more or less in place across her chest. Which meant that Joe must have undressed her—but not all the way.

So he was a gentleman, was he? A slight smile curved her mouth. He could cop an attitude all he wanted; she was going to get to the truth about her big, bad cop anyway.

“I’ve got to go to work.” Joe was strapping on his shoulder holster, which he had retrieved from the night table. “Dave’s in the kitchen. He’s going to drive you to the hospital and stay with you until three. Then Andy Cohen is going to take over until eleven, by which time I’ll be back here and, presumably, you will be, too. I want you to promise me that no matter what, you won’t go anywhere without one of them with you.”

“Don’t worry,” Nicky said fervently, watching with interest as he checked his gun before tucking it securely in the holster.

“I do worry. And I want you to keep in mind that this Lazarus guy still doesn’t have his number three.” Joe picked up his jacket from the armchair in the corner and shrugged into it. There was something extremely intimate about lying in his bed and watching him dress, Nicky realized as her body tightened and a little tingle ran down the insides of her thighs. Then she remembered him saying “I don’t do relationships” and clamped down on her way-too-forgetful body. “I’m going to give you a key so you can come and go as you please.”

Joe picked up his keys from the night table and extracted a key from the ring. He held it up so that she could see it, then put it back down beside the lamp.

“Try to be careful, would you, please?” There was a wryness to his tone and an almost regretful gleam in his eyes as they ran over her. Then he was gone.

Nicky lay there for a moment longer, savoring the feeling of being rested, of being relatively free of worry about Livvy, of being warm and comfortable in Joe’s bed. She could see the indentation from his head in the pillow beside hers and could tell from its position and her own that they had slept snuggled together. Her body had probably been attracted to his during the night like metal to a magnet.

Just the thought of it was turning her on, so she quit thinking about it and got out of bed. Her suitcase was leaning against the wall near the door, and Nicky felt another little glimmer of warmth for him as she registered that he had very thoughtfully put it where it was most convenient for her, especially considering that Dave was somewhere in the house. Chalking up one more sliver of evidence that the Joe she had come to know was not the Joe that Sarah Greenberg had described, she extracted some clothes and toiletries from the suitcase and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, following the smell of coffee, she walked into the kitchen.

The back door was open, and Dave, in full uniform, was crouched just outside on the deck, apparently in earnest conversation with the pig. They were just about eye level, almost nose to snout, and Dave seemed to be chatting away.

Curiosity trumped even the lure of coffee. Nicky stepped out on the deck. It was a beautiful late-spring morning, she saw, sunny and just hot enough to be pleasant. The backyard was small, fenced, and dominated by a large black gum tree and a gorgeous stand of sunflowers. The deck was smaller still, maybe eight by twelve feet, with an octagon-shaped wooden table and benches and a pair of deck chairs—and Dave and a pig.

“Good morning.” Dave glanced up at her with a quick smile and got to his feet. He, too, looked much more rested than the last time she had seen him. Last night must have provided a lull in which they had all gotten some much-needed sleep.

“H-hi.” The stutter was because of the pig, which came snuffling around her legs. As she was wearing a short tangerine sundress and sandals, she could feel the animal’s warm, moist breath against her skin. The sensation was disconcerting.

Her experience of pets had been pretty much limited to dogs and cats. She knew nothing about pigs.

“Have you met Cleo?” Dave regarded the animal fondly as it checked out the brightly colored beads that decorated Nicky’s shoes. Since she wasn’t quite sure what its intentions were toward the beads, and it clearly seemed to like shiny colored things, she curled her manicured toes as close to the soles of her shoes as they would go and gave it a clumsy pat on the head. Its black hair felt wiry and smooth. Its ears twitched in acknowledgment, and its little corkscrew tail gave a wag.

Think dog,
Nicky told herself,
with hooves and the snuffles.

“Not formally. I’ve seen her through the window. And on TV.” Even with the pig still eyeing her beaded feet, Nicky had to smile at the memory.

Dave grinned, too. “Joe took some heat for that, didn’t he? I felt bad.”

“You
felt bad?”

“Yeah. He was kind of doing me a favor to let her stay here.”

Understanding dawned in a flash. “You mean it’s
your
pig?”

“Yeah, she’s mine. But my girlfriend doesn’t really like her and, well, what with one thing and another, Joe said she could stay here.”

“How . . . nice of him.” Nicky thought of all the grief Joe had endured at the hands of the media because of the whole police-chief-with-pet-pig thing and shook her head. He had never once, not even to her, said that the animal wasn’t his. That, she was coming to realize, was typical Joe: never complain, never explain.