Love Under Fire. Frances Housden
He’d outgrown the habit of enclosing his senses in a protective coating when Jo was near. He’d even ousted her from his dreams. Deliberately, he hadn’t kept up with her whereabouts. Seeing her today had come as a shock. But he would be damned if he’d let her know why, or pity him for it. Feigning a grin, he put his weight on his injured leg and lifted his arms. “Look, no hands.”
Jo’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. Their dark brown irises melted like chocolate. A look that Rowan wanted to reach out and smooth away. And therein lay the danger.
Now he knew why the hairs on the back of his neck had lifted, as if a ghostly hand ruffled them, filling his palm with an urge to brush them down. Now he knew it was a ghost from his past.
“So, Rowan, what brings you to Nicks Landing?”
“McQuaid’s here about that case you’re working on. Wants it cleared up fast,” Bull answered for him, rushing the gate like the animal he was named for. Unlike most other things in Nicks Landing, Bull hadn’t changed. He still acted the way he had when they were both boys, running wild during summer vacation.
“I thought you’d left the force….”
Her words dwindled away softly, but Rowan noticed she hadn’t said “had to.” Or “you were unfit.” No, he’d give her that. She’d finally learned discretion. The art of not running off at the mouth and saying exactly what she was thinking.
“Take a look at this.” Bull handed over Rowan’s business card. “Insurance Investigator.”
Rowan watched Jo’s eyes linger over the card. He’d had a few of them made under two or three different headings, today’s one for Allied Insurance. Few knew that even his name was misleading, only people like Bull and Harry Jackson who remembered him from the old days. He’d counted on their friendship not to give him away, using it to oil the wheels with this Skelton business.
“And what’s that to do with me or my case?” Jo gasped, her mouth quivering as if disturbed by the turn of events.
Bull answered, “Allied has been taking a lot of crap from Rocky and his wife, and they want this puppy put to bed.”
“Just like that. I can’t just call it quits to suit your employer.” Her chair bumped the wall as she stood leaning forward, fists clenched. “This case is important to me.”
“C’mon now, girlie. You know that case is going nowhere.”
Jo blinked, and under her lashes her eyes flashed a warning in Bull’s direction before turning back in his.
She was good and mad now. He preferred her spitting fire than looking all soft and sad, tempting him to do something about it.
“I’ve only been on this case two weeks. That’s not enough time. I need more. I deserve more.”
Bull came round the side of her desk, mouth open to speak. She cut him off. “I know what you’re going to say, Sergeant. You only gave me the case so I could tidy it up and stick it away in a file, but that’s not the way I work.”
“Don’t worry, Bull. I know what Jo’s like. Once she gets her teeth into something it’s hard to prise them apart.”
Bull looked from one to the other. Rowan could almost see his mind working. His brow furrowed and black eyebrows twitched. His mouth twisted to one side, then the other, as if making a decision his divided loyalties found difficult to spit out. “Just to be fair, I’ll give you a week.”
“A week!” blurted Jo.
Drawing himself up to full height, Bull sucked in air, pushing his gut up to his chest. “One week. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it.”
Regretfully, Bull wasn’t done. He eyed Rowan with a lift of one brow. “McQuaid here can help you. Two heads are better than one, and maybe that way you’ll both be satisfied.”
Satisfied? Rowan would never dare to be satisfied when it came to Jo. He’d spent years avoiding that kind of satisfaction. He’d recognized the danger the first moment he saw her. Like reading an old map that warned, here be dragons.
Although he still counted meeting Jo as the point in time when his life started going downhill, the image had fixed in his mind. A memory, which the unlikely scent of locker rooms could trigger off.
That’s where he’d been, Auckland Central locker room, reading a long boring letter from his brother, Scott, after a hard night keeping his friend Max Strachan company. When your best friend’s first marriage breaks up, what else can you do but help him tie one on over a bottle of whiskey?
Someone barging through the door of the shower room had jarred him from a miasma of facts and figures he really couldn’t be bothered sorting, but Scott insisted on relaying. Downing a cup of coffee at his desk had suddenly seemed like a much better deal. Prepared to slip by with a quick wave and a “Hi,” he’d stopped dead in his tracks, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
Wild animals took notice of the time-honored signal and ran for their lives. He hadn’t been able to drag his gaze away.
He’d yet to see a woman who could match her. Smooth, honey-colored skin all the way down to her toes; lush, rounded hips and long, long legs that were stepping into a pair of scarlet, silky French knickers. God knows how long he stood there caught in a trap by his hormones like a pubescent schoolboy. It seemed like forever. He’d wanted it to be forever, even while he recognized the danger as the elastic snapped on a scrap of red silk that would color his fantasies for the rest of his life, he’d known he should leave—get out of there quick. Instead he’d taken a step back, and watched her turn to snag a matching bra from the locker.
Instant arousal!
Her long tangle of black curls swung back, revealing the face behind their curtain. Strong features, straight nose, high Slavic cheekbones and lips that even memory couldn’t improve upon. All that before he’d seen her breasts. Once that happened, his hands itched to cup them and his mouth went dry at the thought of suckling their treacle-dark nipples.
Honey and treacle.
Poison where he was concerned.
The last thing he’d wanted from life was to meet a woman who could tempt him to fall in love.
So, he’d worked alongside her, knowing the pain he endured was nothing compared to the hurt that loving and losing her could bring. And he’d based his security in the knowledge that Jo couldn’t see him for Max, his best friend, and the man Jo loved.
How was he going to get through this week and still maintain that distance? He’d shaken the dust of Nicks Landing off his boots once before and all he could think of now was how soon could he do it again?
A week. Seven days. A hundred and sixty-eight hours, give or take a few if she wanted to sleep. It was going to be difficult working alongside Rowan. She’d never felt so unsure of herself in her life. Never felt as if her life was balanced on a knife’s edge with Rowan responsible for which way she’d fall. Never in all the years she’d known Rowan had she felt the mouth-gaping, heart-stopping attraction he had for her now.
She and Ginny had more in common than she had realized, for when she looked at Rowan she didn’t feel any older than the kid she’d left downstairs with Sergeant Jackson.
Why did it have to happen now, when she was on the most important case of her life, and the prize her father’s reputation?
She took a deep breath and settled the squirmy feeling in her gut. “Okay. Here’s where we start. I’ll give you all I’ve got to look over….”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed slightly, their cool, flecked green at odds with the slight curl of his lips. “Generous of you, Jo, but don’t you think the work on hand should be our first consideration?”
Well, she’d left herself wide open to that one and blushed. Rowan was sharp, too