The Strong Silent Type

“Second nature, I guess.” The pain had been melting away, but now the room was in danger of having the same thing happen to it. She grasped on to the metal railing on one side of the bed. “Damn, what did that nurse jab into me?”

“Well, if I’m lucky, something to put you to sleep.” She began struggling to get off the bed. He caught her by the arm, holding her in place. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I don’t want to go to sleep here. I want to go home.” She was going to leave while she could still feel her legs. Sort of.

“Cavanaugh—”

She clutched his hand and raised imploring eyes up to his face. That was twice today she’d looked at him that way, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like the position it put him in or how it made him feel—uncertain of his parameters around her. “Promise me that you’ll take me home.”

He’d seen prisoners less desperate to escape their jail cells. Hawk tried to remove her fingers and found that they were locked in almost a death grip around his wrist. Very firmly, he peeled back her fingers from his flesh. “Look, they have to stitch you up first, clean the wound—”

“Okay, okay,” she interrupted, “but I’m not staying here overnight. Do you understand?”

What he understood was that somehow, the department had paired him with a woman who was a damn good detective, but that didn’t change the fact that she was irritating and crazy to boot.

“If I say no, you’re not going to let go of my hand, are you?”

He saw Teri slowly move her head from side to side and knew that she wasn’t kidding. He could, of course, disengage himself from her. She had a good grip but she was, at bottom, absolutely no match for him. Even if he were a ninety-pound weakling, once the medication put her out, he could easily just slip away.

Again, he didn’t know why he didn’t. Maybe it was because for some reason she looked as if she needed him, and even though he told himself he didn’t want to become involved, he had a hell of a hard time turning his back on that. On her.

It was why he was in law enforcement in the first place. Because people needed to be protected. From drug dealers, like the ones who had snuffed out his parents long before they were murdered, and from burglars, like the ones they’d caught today who had gotten off on seeing the terrified faces of their victims.

People needed protecting. And his badge made him a protector.

He sighed, surrendering the battle that had never really gotten onto the battlefield. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

“And take me home when the time comes.”

“And take you home when the time comes,” he finally said after she’d pinned him with those blue-gray eyes of hers.

It was another three hours before she was finally able to get into his car again. Three hours in which she’d been tortured, injected, stitched and finally bandaged. Three hours in which she’d hovered between pain and a drug-enabled euphoria.

She was still somewhere in the region of the latter. Stretching as best she could, she sighed and leaned back against the seat.

“God, I feel like I could just leap off the top of something and fly,” she said.

Knowing that a silly grin had taken over her face, and not caring, Teri turned to flash it at her partner. She congratulated herself for finding a soft spot within his hard exterior. It made her feel giddy. She liked getting to him. Because he sure as hell had gotten to her.

Cavanaugh wasn’t even attempting to put on her seat belt. Probably out of her head, Hawk decided. Reaching over her, he took hold of the seat belt and pulled it around her until he could fit the metal tongue into the groove and snap it in place.

“You feel that way because they pumped you full of Vicodin.” He snapped his own seat belt into place, then looked at her. A tinge of amusement came out of nowhere and almost made him smile. She looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “You don’t have much tolerance for medication, do you?”

“Nope,” she breathed, watching as the word floated away from her. She could almost see it. “But I can tolerate pain pretty well. And pain-in-the butts,” she tacked on, looking at him significantly. Her grin widened, then narrowed as she attempted to pull thoughts together. It was like trying to corral six-week-old puppies in an open yard. “You know, you’re a pretty nice guy when you let yourself.”

Hawk began to thread his way out of the small side parking lot. He wasn’t about to let her get sloppy on him. He was already having a hard enough time dealing with her and the strange undercurrent of feelings bubbling within him, as well. “You didn’t leave me any choice.”

“Oh, c’mon, Jackie, we both know better.”

His spine stiffened at the sound of the name. He stepped a little too hard on the brake at the light. “Don’t call me that.”

His mother had called him Jackie when he was very, very young. Hearing the name set off chords he didn’t want touched.

Her head spinning and bursts of joy throbbing through her veins, Teri backed off. “Sorry. ‘Hawk’ just seems too harsh for someone who held my hand.”

“I didn’t hold your hand, you held mine,” he reminded her. It wasn’t strictly true. He’d held hers while the doctor had stitched her up. “And it’s Hawk. It always has been.”

She sighed, cotton beginning to spread itself all around her as she sank back in the seat. The scenery was whizzing by her at a rate that made it hard for her to fully absorb. She still had trouble putting the sequence of events in order. Everything seemed to be vying for the same exact place. Holding her head didn’t help. “My brain feels like mush.”

He laughed under his breath. “And this is different from normal—how?”

Even in her present state of confusion, she was aware that he was trying to regain ground, trying to come off like the fire-breathing prince of darkness he always was. Too late.

“Sorry, I’ve seen your underbelly. You can’t retrace your steps.”

She was babbling. It was probably the codeine the doctor had injected her with. But, God help him, she’d aroused his curiosity. “Retrace my steps? What are you talking about?”

“I’m on to you, Jack Hawkins. You come on like some Clint Eastwood knockoff, snapping out eight, nine words a day and keeping everyone at bay, but inside, you’re a decent guy.” She turned to look at him. “Just like your alter ego.”

“What alter ego?” Bullet wound or no bullet wound, he was quickly losing his patience with her. “Cavanaugh, what the hell are you babbling about?”

It was as clear as a bell to her. “Clint Eastwood’s a really nice guy when he’s not playing tough guys. I heard somewhere that he’s a real pussycat.”

There was traffic on the road at this hour, which meant that he was stuck in the car even longer than he could tolerate. Served him right, he thought darkly. No good deed ever went unpunished.

“Cavanaugh, get this through your addled brain. I am not interested in your font of useless knowledge or your Vicodin-laced attempt at psychoanalysis. Now why don’t you be a good little detective and just pass out the way the doctor said you would?”

“And make it easy for you?” she scoffed gleefully. “Nope. I want to enjoy this little breach.” The sound of her own voice egged her on. “Don’t get me wrong. I like tough guys. My cousin Patrick could spit nails—until his fiancée came into his life.” And good luck to her, she thought. She adored her cousin, but living with him was going to be a tough thing. Patrick had his demons.

Not unlike the man next to her.

He had to stop her before she was off and running in another direction. He’d thought she was bad before, but that didn’t hold a candle to the way she could run off at the mouth with this painkiller in her.

“Look, I don’t know what gave you the idea that I’m interested in your family history, but I’m not, so save your breath.” He glanced at her as he came to a light. She was smiling broadly at him. “Now what?”

“It’s not working.”

He knew he should just keep quiet. After all, that was his way, wasn’t it? Allowing himself to enjoy silence? But something about the look on her face had him ask, “What’s not working?”

“Your tough-guy act. I’ve seen the light.”

He just bet she had. And it was probably all the shades of the rainbow. “That’s the pain medication. It distorts things.”

“Not enough to fool me.”

There was no point in arguing with her. He’d already learned that she could argue the ears off a stone statue.

“Look, Cavanaugh, just save your breath,” he repeated. “Okay?”