Too Sexy for his Stetson (10 page)

She glanced toward the floor. Blade followed the same path, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her skyscraper heels, all strappy in diva gold, showed off her shapely legs. But the edginess he felt rolling off her like water cascading over a dam punched him in the gut, and caused him to tighten his grip on her waist in support.

“Let’s get this over with.” She squared her shoulders, a tinge of panic flaring in her eyes.

“Come on, Rookie, you can do this.”

When they reached the front of the room, Coogan smiled and extended his hand. “Blade, glad you could make it, son.” Steel grey hair, trimmed mustache. Blade was sure the ladies still found Coogan a handsome man. What did Brandy see when she looked into his formidable eyes?

“Congratulations, Coogan,” Blade said. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He watched Skip’s face when he introduced his new colleague–date. “I brought someone with me. This is Brandy Wilcox, LCCSD’s newest recruit.”

Skip’s expression froze. “Wilcox?” he repeated. “Brandy?” The corners of his eyes remained crinkled in a smile, yet his brow creased.

“My name was Brianna when you knew me.”

Skip’s smile tightened a notch. Blade wondered if he should have given his friend a heads–up beforehand.

Seconds ticked by.

“You’re… all grown up.” Coogan broke the awkward silence. “What’s this? You’re a recruit with the sheriff’s department?”

Blade gripped Brandy’s hand and steadied it, almost feeling he should extend the same fortification to Coogan. Like haze over a glacial lake on a hot summer evening, something unspoken hung in the air. Blade couldn’t remember ever witnessing his friend so at a loss for words. His stomach knotted with guilt. He questioned his wisdom in forcing the situation, causing discomfort for both Brandy and Coogan.

Brandy picked up the verbal ball and lobbed it back. “That’s right. I’ve gone into law enforcement, the same as my mom.”

“Unbelievable, that you ended up here in Idaho. And Blade’s your FTO?”

Blade tried to read Coogan. He couldn’t. But the head of the Shoshone Police Department continued to wear his tense smile as though it were bronzed in place. “It’s been a long time, Brianna—Brandy. Guess you’ve done okay for yourself, considering you ran off on your own when you were… how old were you? Twelve?”

“Something like that.” She raised her chin.

Blade’s heartbeat stuttered. She’d been on her own since she was twelve? “She’s done okay for herself, all right. Graduated top of her class at the Academy. She’s one hell of a deputy candidate.”

Straightening his tie, Skip glanced past Blade and Brandy. “We’ll have to get together one of these days,” he said, before side–stepping and focusing on the couple behind them. “No hard feelings, Brianna? I’m truly sorry for what life handed you back then.”

“Right.” Her reply was rigid, clipped.

The couple in line behind them squeezed in to schmooze with Coogan.

Blade couldn’t put his finger on why Skip’s reaction bothered him. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get out of there. His heartbeat pulsed in his throat as he wrapped his hand over the smooth satin clinging to Brandy’s waist and whisked her toward the exit. “Well, we obviously caught him by surprise.”

“Obviously.”

“So, what’s this about you being on your own since you were twelve?” He guided her out the door.

She didn’t answer.

“Brandy?”

“My mom died. I took off.” She wrapped both arms around her waist and started toward the Tahoe.

“Took off?”

“Ran away.”

He studied her for a minute. “I’m sorry you had such a rotten childhood. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

As though his arm had a mind of its own, it slid up and draped itself around her shoulders, his hand settling on her upper arm. Against bare skin.

The warm night air closed in around them.

“I really am sorry.”

She tried to pull away, but he held tight and sucked in a breath that filled him with the essence of Brandy Wilcox. His gut warned,
inappropriate, off limits
. But he had the feeling his gut was going to lose this one.

Hours ago, when he’d first set eyes on her dressed in pink temptation with all that exposed, delicious skin, it had been all about how hot she looked, how he was going to have to work to control his attraction to her with her glistening kiss–me lips teasing him, and the fragrance of her perfume testing his willpower. But now… with Brandy’s face glowing in the moonlight, all he could think about was that she was a runaway and that she must have gone through hell in her young life.

“Coogan seemed almost human,” she whispered. When she looked up, her heart exposed, all he wanted was to hold her and make things right.

Not thinking with his head, he bent forward and touched his lips to hers. Innocent comfort on a hot night in the Fort Shoshone Veterans Hall parking lot. He leaned into pure feminine perfection and gently held her close. She settled against him, and her arms came up to his shoulders.

She tasted like cherry lip–gloss… like the chocolate mousse they’d had for dessert. Like someone who needed a friend. He slid his tongue between ripe cherries, knowing he could be headed straight for the danger zone. The innocent little sample meant to console, maybe to satisfy his curiosity, turned to craving. Flames of want burned through his bloodstream and came to rest low in his groin.

Brandy turned to fire in his arms, entwining her fingers in his hair. She sucked his bottom lip and made a soft mewing sound. Their tongues sparred. He pushed deeper into her sweet mouth and sank in a sensation that seemed like he was drowning. In an effort to take control, to keep from spiraling over the edge, he brought his hands to her cheeks and caressed her face.

He pulled his head back, though their upper bodies remained locked together, and looked into her eyes. “That was—”

“Yeah.” She leaned into him, looking for comfort, or for passion?

The woman had no idea what the press of her breasts against his chest was doing to him. His heartbeat tripled. Blood pulsed through his veins in a syncopated beat as her warm lips trailed across the skin above his collar, teasing the spot in his neck that was hammering like crazy. Her hot lips crept up his cheeks, across his chin.

This was where Lieutenant Beringer’s willpower was supposed to rein him in. Instead he cupped her bottom and nudged her closer, brought his mouth the fraction of an inch it took to devour hers again. His tongue automatically slid into her mouth, seeking to fill a need he didn’t know he had. Then there was the obvious need he
did
know he had, pulsing against his zipper, pressing into her stomach as he delved deeper. Got hotter. Spiraled at jet speed toward the edge of his restraint.

She suddenly flinched. His eyes flickered open. She pulled back, her lower lip trembling, her eyes shining and filled with want and guilt and a hundred obviously conflicting emotions. She heaved in a breath and half–heartedly braced her hands against his pounding chest. “Blade, we can’t… stop… please.”

With so much longing in her eyes, it was the damnedest excuse for the word “stop” he’d ever heard. But the lady had said
stop,
and stop he did. At least one of them had some common sense.

Still, blood pumped through his veins like white lightning as he bit back a curse and fought for control. “God, I’m sorry, Brandy. I should never have started that.” But she had needed emotional support, he rationalized, as though the kiss had been a simple, unemotional act of support, rather than some kind of wonderful. Some kind of wonderful that couldn’t be.

****

Brandy’s heart galloped. She’d known she’d been flirting with danger.
Extremely hazardous, scorching hot danger.
Blade’s kiss turned her knees to melted butter. The earth quaked beneath her five–dollar, Walmart spike heels.

It wasn’t like she’d never been kissed before. But no kiss had ever affected her like this. Oh God, Blade Beringer was a whitewater ride on the world’s wildest river, and something deep inside told her she’d be a fool to miss the thrill.

But they couldn’t.

Her glance trailed away from his hair, tousled from her fingers, and toward the building. “Jesus, let’s get out of here.” All she needed was to have Coogan walk out and find her making out with Blade like some juvenile delinquent in the parking lot. Coogan, who hadn’t seemed the ogre she’d always envisioned him to be.

When she studied Blade’s face, she discovered that her self–confident FTO appeared to be as shell–shocked as she felt.

“You’re right. Come on.” His hand trembled as he took hers and led her to the Tahoe.

Standing beside the car, she fumbled for something to say. “Skip looked…” He’d looked so normal, so impressive in his dress uniform, and slightly vulnerable, human. Not half as villainous as in her nightmares. Could she have been wrong about him murdering the Abbot woman and framing her mother? Had she been living on false beliefs all these years, carrying the grudge of a naive child, and pursuing an irrational vendetta? Her head spun.

Jeez.
Was he a villain or a hero? Yeah, he’d screwed around on her mother, but maybe that was his greatest sin. Her mind vacillated between everything she’d ever held to be true as she stood teetering from some freaking spell Lieutenant Blade Beringer had cast on her.

Blade cleared his throat and thrust his hands in his pockets. “What about Skip?”

“He’s different than I remembered.”

The longer Blade stood at a distance and held her in his clear–water gaze, the more foolish she felt. Sanity edged its way in. Her heart sank. Of one thing she was sure. She’d been zapped. Blade was a zapper, and she was a stupid zappee.

“I’d better get you home,” he said. “Early day tomorrow.”

She nodded and climbed into the passenger side of the Tahoe. On the way back to Little Chute, she huddled as close to the door as possible and pretended to sleep so they wouldn’t be forced to talk.
No talking.
Not when she was still reeling from a kiss that had been so explosive it had knocked her senseless. To make matters worse, there was a part of her that wished she’d asked for more instead of telling him to stop.

The minute the car halted behind Tour d’Alene, she jumped out. For an entire stupid minute, she stood like an idiot, holding the car door, when she should have been running away as fast as she could.

“Sorry, Brandy, I was out of line.” Blade climbed out and edged toward her.

“Don’t be sorry.” Stupid Brandy shrugged.

When she looked into his eyes, which she hadn’t planned to do, her mouth lifted in a smile she hadn’t intended to give.

Silently, they walked toward the steps. Of course, he wouldn’t leave until she made it safely inside. She navigated the wooden treads as quickly as she could in four–inch heels. Without glancing back, she jammed the key into the lock. Jiggled it when it didn’t open.

“Let me try,” Blade said.

She shook her head and tried again. The door decided to cooperate, and she opened it and stepped inside. Her hands scrabbled to find the light switch. The wash of brightness momentarily blinded her.

“Want me to come in and check things out?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

“Meant it when I said you’re going to be a great deputy. I don’t want to mess anything up for you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good night, Brandy.”

“Good night, Lieutenant Beringer.” She closed the door and leaned against it. Listened to the sound of Blade’s footsteps on the stairs. The Tahoe’s motor rumbled to life.

Instead of feeling invincibly independent, she suddenly felt incredibly lonely.

She flicked off the outside light and threw her little evening bag on the table. And sensed that everything wasn’t
fine.

Before she could turn toward the darkness of the bedroom, someone grabbed her from behind. An arm snaked around her neck. Her unsteady heartbeat flared as a hand clamped over her nose and mouth. She couldn’t breathe.

But she could fight.

She jammed her spike heel into the attacker’s instep. His hold loosened. She spun and pulled free. Staggering toward the stove, she grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on. A frying pan. But when she swung around, he’d already dodged out the apartment door, and she heard him thundering down the steps.

Frozen to the spot, she gasped for air, then lunged to close the door and noticed a note on the floor. With a trembling hand, she reached for it.

Give it up, Wilcox, or you’re going to end up dead.

She swallowed. A ragged breath billowed out.

Was this another threat from the Neo Nazi Freedom Fighters? Or did someone else want her dead? Hiring a lawyer and digging into a decade–old homicide case could have pushed someone’s buttons. She picked up the phone to call the sheriff’s department.

The muscles in her solar plexus pulled tight, and her will stiffened.

No way
in hell was anyone going to scare her off.

CHAPTER NINE

F
ifteen minutes into her morning jog with Tonya Crawford, the closest thing to a girlfriend Brandy had ever had, her mind struggled, equally torn between last night’s kiss and the intruder she’d encountered in her apartment.

Tonya, the owner of Tour d’Alene and technically her landlady, stopped and grabbed a water bottle from her pack, flipped her long dark braid over her shoulder, and said, “So, how are things going with you and your new FTO since the false arrest?”

Brandy’s heart thumped, though not because of the jogging effort. She surprised herself when she left an opening for personal conversation and replied, “It depends how you look at
things.
”

“How many ways are there to look at a man?”

Brandy reached down to tighten her shoelace. “I did mention that he’s really hot?”

“I believe that entered the blow–by–blow account. Somewhere between sexy eyes, ripped body, and the part where you ordered him to lose his Levis.”

With Tonya’s prompting, Brandy proceeded to explain about the awards banquet and the kiss that shouldn’t have happened.