Something To Talk About

His son. Ten years old. Rangy as a winter deer. Silent. Resentful. A sackcloth-and-ashes martyr to parental whims.

His ex hadn’t wanted to let him see his son at all when they’d divorced five years ago. Then, two weeks ago, she shows up at the apartment, announces she’s getting married again and she can’t handle his son, so he’ll have to take the boy.

Bingo! He’s a full-time father again…with a shattered knee and uncertain prospects about his future.

Washed up. Has-been. He squashed the descriptive words as they seared across his brain.

Since he’d put in his twenty years and had been injured in the line of duty, he would have a pension from the Houston PD, so all was not lost.

Wasn’t life just too damn wonderful? Jess thought as he climbed down from the truck.

Standing on the springy grass, the dappled, afternoon light shifting in soft patterns across the green, he studied the house and gardens.

His years as a cop had taught him to ask another cop when he needed information. The house was precisely as described by the police detective in Wind River, Wyoming, where he’d stopped to inquire about a place to stay. Its location couldn’t be better for his purposes.

The yellow Victorian had black shutters and white trim. Its posts and spindles were graceful but sturdy. A porch, with a white wooden swing hanging from its rafters, wrapped across the front and disappeared around the side of the building.

The house, the valley, the snow-tipped mountain peaks poking at the sky—the whole area looked like the set for one of those ideal-family TV shows where the major sin was using someone else’s hairbrush without asking. On “mean street,” as cops called the ones where violence reigned, that could get a person diced into salad-size bits real quick.

A bitterness that had nothing to do with the postcard prettiness of the scene and everything to do with home and family and his own expectations of life rose in him.

He turned, wanting only to get out of there, then sucked air between his teeth as agony lashed at his leg. God, he hated being weak. He clutched the door handle of the pickup until the pain receded. When he could think clearly again, he acknowledged he needed a resting place. That’s why he was here.

The garage was nestled in the shade of two walnut trees, the door open, disclosing a beige four-door compact station wagon. It was the type of car a woman living alone would drive—dependable, not too big, but capable of carrying a rosebush home from a nursery or hauling boxes of clothing to the church bazaar, exactly the vehicle he’d have picked for Kate Mulholland, a “wonderful, but reclusive widow,” according to the detective.

The widow also had an apartment over the garage. Two bedrooms. Private. Away from noise and traffic and people. Perfect. His other reasons for choosing this locale, besides rest and recuperation, made it ideal.

But first things first. He’d better find the widow and see about the apartment. Just as he reached into the truck for his cane, a scream rent the air. He instinctively crouched.

Dropping the cane and grabbing his gun instead, he muttered, “Stay down,” to his son and headed around the side of the house at a fast hobble. And came to a dead stop.

The woman shrieked again as the garden hose, loose and writhing around on the grass like some kind of demented green snake, slung a stream of water over her face and chest. The stream hit the back steps of the house, slid across the kitchen windows, slapped him in the face and slithered back the other way, covering the same objects on the return trip.

Cursing, Jess looked around for the tap. However, the widow beat him to it. While he’d been getting his drenching, she’d run to the faucet. With several deft turns she had the monster subdued in a limp coil on the ground between them.

In the silence he saw a hundred things at once. The way her dark hair gleamed with fiery sparks in the late-afternoon sun. The transparency of her wet T-shirt and the bra that was clearly visible beneath it. The dark nipples of her breasts, beaded from the cold water. The drip of water down her faded slacks, which clung damply to her hips and long legs. The way her bare toes, with bright red nails crinkled as she pressed them into the serpentine green of the grass, as if she were embarrassed at being bested by the marauding hose.

Also, the dart of fear across her face as she faced him.

Her eyes, big and blue and truly beautiful, gleamed in the sunlight. Other emotions mixed with the fear and flitted briefly through their depths.

Slowly she raised her hands. “Don’t shoot,” she said, a hint of careful humor mixed with the wariness. “We’ll go peacefully.” With her foot she jabbed the hose as if it were her companion in crime. Her voice was pure honey.

The words hit home. He glanced at the gun with a scowl, then shoved it into the back waistband of his jeans. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was something real and urgent and compelling about her…and something elusive and mystical. He couldn’t explain it.

“Sorry. I thought you were being attacked,” he said, his tone harsh as he tried to close the breach in his emotional defenses with the anger that usually drowned out all else.

She gestured in apology. “You got wet—”

“It’s okay, Kate. Don’t fuss.”

She visibly drew back, her gaze suspicious. “How do you know my name? I don’t know you.” She picked up the garden rake.

“Detective Bannock sent me. She told me your name, what you looked like.” He spoke curtly, like a cop on a case. He tried to keep his eyes above her neckline. He cursed again. That didn’t erase the picture of her from his inner vision, though, or cool the blood that pounded hotly through him.

The last thing he needed was a fractious libido to go with his other problems. He glanced down at his soaked shirt.

Washed up. Has-been.

“Shannon sent you?” the widow asked.

“Yeah, she said you had an apartment I could rent. I’m Jess Fargo, Houston Police Department. I’ll show you my ID.” He reached slowly into his hip pocket for his wallet.

The water and the breeze produced a cooling effect. He could see goose bumps on her arms and neck. Her nipples were still tight. A shudder ran through him, reminding him of all the things he had once liked about a warm and willing woman. Well, he still liked some things…except the closeness sex demanded and the emotional baggage women wanted as a result.

He flipped open his wallet and held the badge toward her. When she didn’t move, he took a step. His left knee buckled.

Flinging out a hand for balance as he teetered awkwardly, he encountered the rake, then warm flesh. An arm wrapped around his waist. She dropped the rake and took part of his weight until he got his legs under him again.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Did you hurt your leg?”

“Got it shot up during an arrest last month. It isn’t real stable just yet.” He gritted the words as pain raced up his thigh and lodged in his spine.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Her sympathy was real and immediate.

He directed an irritated glance her way, then lingered, fascinated by the fine hairs at her temples, each glowing like a dark ember as the wind tumbled them in the sunlight.

“You smell good,” he said, the words springing from a need inside him that he hadn’t known existed.

“Lemon basil, I suspect. I’ve been weeding it.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Can you get up the steps? Or I’ll bring you a chair—”

“I’ll manage. Just let me hold on to you.”

“Of course.”

She was compassionate but brisk, and he was pretty sure she didn’t know about the wet T-shirt. Or what it was doing to him. If so, she had more guile than any woman he’d ever met.

“Lean on me as much as you need,” she invited while she eyed the distance to the house and obviously appraised their chances of getting there. “I’m pretty strong.”

She was. Beneath the curves, he could feel the ripple of toned muscles as she tried to take more of his weight. He held on with an arm about her shoulders, aware of one firm breast snug against his cracked rib, which had gotten its share of punishment in the shoot-out and ensuing tussle.

Her hold hurt yet felt so unbearably good he would have begged her to continue even knowing his rib was going to puncture his heart if she did.

He was startled at the admission. He hadn’t realized he needed contact with another human this badly—

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He stared into eyes so pure a blue they defined the color. “Your eyes,” he murmured, trying to find words for them.