Love Under Fire. Frances Housden
away when she remembered. “Someone stole my space again.”
“I keep telling you, take one of the other guys’.”
Shaking her head, she didn’t pursue it. Harry didn’t realize she couldn’t do the very thing she was complaining of to someone else. She couldn’t be that hypocritical, or dishonest. Twelve years’ service and she still felt the need to mind her p’s and q’s.
“I just wondered who owned the S-type Jag.”
Harry’s smile deepened, becoming more knowing than friendly. “Go on upstairs and find out for yourself. He’s in your office.”
The words your office were a misnomer. Harry knew it and so did she. Jo shared with two other detectives, including Detective Senior Sergeant Bull Cowan. Since his section took up half the space, the likelihood of the car’s owner actually waiting to see her, in her office, wasn’t something she contemplated.
Logic told her the driver and the stranger Ginny had admired earlier were one and the same. It could prove interesting to discover if he lived up to his car’s image, and Ginny’s high approbation.
In less than a minute she would know.
The stairs disappeared behind her two at a time. She stopped her momentum by grasping the door handle, her palm sweating lightly in anticipation of the babe being inside. She heard a rumble of male voices through the gaps where the door didn’t fit the frame, too indistinct to decipher, and behind the gold-leaf lettering and frosted glass panel, their images blurred grotesquely.
Silently, she eased the door open, keeping hold of the handle so it wouldn’t spring back and give her presence away. She indulged her curiosity by watching through the six-inch gap. Disappointment, she decided, wasn’t a word she would use in the same breath as this man, not even from behind.
He had legs a mile high slicked in black denim. The supple, wash-softened fabric gloved his muscled thighs and calves in a way that set her mouth watering.
She knew her weaknesses.
His butt wasn’t half-bad, either. At least nine on a scale of ten. Just looking at those firm glutes made Jo’s hormones twitchy—a sensation she’d almost forgotten existed. And as if anything more was needed, he drove a Jag, her favorite car. Together they made one very attractive combination.
Sunshine caressed his tawny hair, the way a woman might to determine if the waves were real. It tipped the collar of his black cotton Polo shirt, which told her he wasn’t a cop, another point in his favor. To date, her association with the male members of her fraternity had been doomed to failure. She’d found that breed never let a lie stand in the way of a good story.
As a child, she’d grown up glorifying the force and its aims. Seeing it through her father’s eyes. But her father’s death had shattered her rose-colored glasses and she’d mourned the loss of her ideal almost as much as she’d mourned her father.
Jo’s mouth twisted as she puzzled over his presence. Could be the guy was undercover. In that case, why Nicks Landing? Nothing here ever warranted that kind of scenario. The biggest excitement to hit the sleepy little burg occurred two and a half months ago, and was the case they’d handed her on a platter. Because of its black-magic aspects, the media, TV and newspapers, had given the story a whirl at first, but that had died a natural death. Hence her male colleagues’ unconditional generosity toward her.
She’d never believed Rocky Skelton’s story. Satanists lurking in small-town New Zealand? Give her a break. Besides, she’d known for most of her life that the man was a liar.
Why should this time be any different?
Jo’s gaze slid up the tall stranger’s spine. It was a long, long spine, supporting a broad back and wide shoulders that hid the man he was talking to. Although, Bull Cowan’s flat country twang was more distinct now that the door was open.
It wasn’t every day of the week a woman got to see shoulders that broad. The fine knit of his shirt clung to them like a lover’s caress. Jo sighed. She should be so lucky.
As she continued to watch, the palm of his large hand fanned over the back of his neck. His muscles flexed under the sheen of taut, golden skin, stretching the ribbed band on his sleeve. He had the kind of lean strength she liked, powerful without being bulky or obvious, hardly an ounce of fat on his body. As she speculated about the amount of work it took to look that good, Jo felt something curl deep in her belly, then expand as heat, sending a bloom of warmth across her skin.
With a twitch of her nose, she delivered a small personal chastisement. Too much fantasizing, that was it. Why, she still hadn’t seen his face. Knowing her luck, he would be dog ugly, though likely he’d have more in common with a Doberman than a Saint Bernard, seeing as he was so lean.
Mind made up, she swung open the door and went to find out for herself. Both men turned as the door banged shut behind her, and Bull came into view at last. Now here was a man who lived up to his name. He had the kind of body that owed more to lifting a handle of beer than working out at the gym. Heaven only knew how he ever passed a physical.
Jo kept her eyes lowered slightly, her gaze hitting the stranger about midchest. It lingered over the glint of gold-edged sunglasses casually hooked in his shirt pocket, as a quick, indrawn breath tightened the fit of his shirt.
The view was everything she’d imagined.
Pretending disinterest, she didn’t raise her eyes until she drew level and Bull was saying, “This is the little lady you want to talk to. Detective Jo Jellic.”
Bull’s too precious diminutive put a hex on the smile she’d been holding back to blind the stranger with. Deliberately, she thrust out her hand, getting in first.
At chin level she got her first surprise. Not at the few days growth of dark gold beard that covered his skin, but the several weeks older sun-tinted moustache. Her eyes held on it as if counting each hair, each sun-lightened strand above his full, firm mouth. If he’d been smiling, his teeth would have made a dazzling contrast to all that gold. But he wasn’t.
Tilting her head—for the man topped her by at least five inches—Jo added another point to his total. It took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop, then her breath caught in her throat, and her greeting stuttered to a halt.
Shocked, her hand clutched air while she doubted her own eyes.
“Jo, meet Rowan…er…McQuaid,” said Bull with a quick look at the business card in his hand.
“Rowan McQuaid,” she wheezed as her oxygen ran out.
God, he’d changed!
Time froze as he looked down his long nose at her, nostrils flaring slightly, with eyes the opaque green of glass that has been battered by rough waves. Cold as ice, his hand enveloped hers. A shiver she badly wanted to hide slowly crept up her spine, never missing a notch. Jo let out another breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as his eyes lightened and hazel flecks patterned the green, the way she remembered.
“As they say, long time no see,” he drawled, a dry sound, lacking warmth.
And where was the surprise in that? The changes she perceived in this man, who had once been her friend, had all been her doing. All her fault.
“You…you look well. I hardly recognized you, Rowan.”
“Well, it’s been two years, and you know what they say about time.” It healed all wounds.
But what about their friendship, could it even come close to fixing that? Jo let her hand drop, and took the opportunity to ease her tense body through the narrow space between him and her desk, wary of brushing against him.
She’d once prided herself on nerves of steel, yet they quivered now, like a plucked bowstring. It puzzled her mightily when the dull, leaden feeling of guilt she’d expected was superseded by feelings of uncertainty. As if she was indeed that little lady her colleagues kept calling her.
Sitting