Baby Dreams

“Oh!” Exasperated, she rose again, throwing a quick glare his way, and went back to pacing the room. “If you weren’t a cop…”

She left the threat up in the air, but it hit home. He was a cop and he’d better not forget it. Looking at her, he wished he could take her back up on the ridge route and start this all over again. Somehow they had gotten off on the wrong foot. He wasn’t acting like himself at all. He was usually cool and detached, a complete professional. Where had he lost that reserve? To make up for it, he was going to have to be tougher than usual. Mean. Could he be mean to her?

She turned her head and her golden curls danced in the harsh light and something curled inside him like a coiled spring. He groaned silently. No, he couldn’t be mean to her. And if he didn’t watch out, the cop in him would disappear, and the man was going to take over. No matter what, he couldn’t let that happen. Hardening his mouth, he tried to harden his heart at the same time, and years of practice made it that much easier to do.

“Let’s just get this done, Miss Calloway,” he said firmly.

She glanced at him and frowned, wanting to shake him, wanting to shake up everything and get to the truth. The truth should be plain for him to see, if he would only look at her without all his preconceived ideas.

“This is crazy,” she muttered, still pacing. Suddenly she found herself nearing the corner of the room she’d been avoiding, where the bars were, and her steps slowed. Reaching out, she tentatively touched the lock on the little cell. The door swung away from her and she stared into a space hardly big enough to keep a cat in. There was a simple cot and a chair, and that was it. Was she going to end up spending the night in that place? No way!

She turned back to look at the sheriff, scared but unwilling to let him see it. “You call this a jail?” she said scornfully.

He barely looked up, still involved in paperwork. “It’s got bars, doesn’t it?”

She made a face at him, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t see it. “So does the Las Vegas strip.”

He nodded, then looked up and actually cracked what might be considered a smile. “Yeah, but I don’t have the key to that,” he said.

Their gazes met, the lights flickered as a gust of wind hit the building, and something else happened.

She wasn’t sure what it was, but it hit her hard. Time seemed to stand still. His dark eyes turned smoky with a mystery she suddenly felt an aching need to unravel. All in a moment, she was intimately aware of his wide, sensuous mouth, his rock-hard shoulders, his long, lean, muscular hands. At the same time, she was alive to an acceptance within herself of an emotional embrace. This was not at all like her, and scared her to death. She’d never felt anything like this.

“No,” she whispered, still staring into his eyes. “No.” And then, finally, she tore her gaze away from his. “No, I’m out of here,” she muttered, rejecting it all as she whirled and began a headlong flight for the door.

He swore softly as he sprang up to catch her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her around to face him.

She stared up at him as though she were afraid of what she might see, and shook her head. If he hadn’t sensed what she’d sensed, so much the better. But it didn’t really help her. “I can’t stay here with you,” she said hoarsely.

His head went back and his eyes took on a distant look. “Why not?”

But she couldn’t put it into words. Putting it into words would mean acknowledging it, and that would only make things worse.

It seemed he hadn’t felt the stinging connection she thought she’d experienced. That was a relief, she supposed. Maybe. Or maybe he was just pretending not to notice. Or maybe he made these sensual links with women all the time.

Well, she didn’t. And she wasn’t about to go where such things inevitably led. What she really had to do was get out of here.

“I…I just can’t, that’s all. Let me go. Come on.” She looked up at him beseechingly. “You know, deep down, that I’m not a criminal. Just let me go and I won’t tell anyone you ever saw me. Nobody will know and…”

“Stop it,” he demanded, frowning at her as his fingers tightened on her arm. “Don’t get all worked up. There’s no point to it.” He jerked his head toward the outside world. “You hear that wind? You can’t go out in this storm, no matter how innocent you are. You’re stuck here. You might as well relax.”

Relax? Relax? When every nerve ending was quivering inside her? She took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes.

He was right. She couldn’t go anywhere until morning. At least she wasn’t huddled in her car on the side of the road, wondering if she was going to freeze to death.

She opened her eyes again and managed a bleak smile. “Okay,” she said softly, pulling away from his touch and turning back into the room. “I guess I’m more tired than I realized.”

But her gaze flickered from one corner of the room to another, looking for a possible escape route, something he noted with a cynical gleam in his eyes. He took hold of her again, by the shoulders this time, just to drive the point home. “Don’t get any more ideas, lady,” he said firmly. “You’re not leaving here until I let you go.”

She stood stock-still, her gaze icy. It was obvious to her that she was going to have to defend herself against him—or at least, against letting him beguile her in any way. “You’re touching me,” she said. “That’s not allowed, is it?”

His fingers tightened, and so did his mouth. She was getting to him at last. Anger was smoldering in his dark eyes.

“Isn’t it?” he said softly. “It all depends on whose rules we’re following.” But he released her, standing back as she flexed her shoulders and glared at him.

“You’d better just hope I don’t get any bruises,” she said smartly. “I’ll charge you with police brutality.”

His head went back. “You know all the buzzwords, don’t you?” Real anger shot through him like a hot gulp of whiskey.

Those were city words, words he hadn’t heard for a long time, words he had come here to forget. Around here, he was a part of the community. Everybody knew him. Everybody turned to him with their problems, with their worries, anytime they needed help—not every time they needed a scapegoat. No one here would ever think to charge him with brutality. It made him angry to have her bring city words and city concepts here. He reached out and took up the handcuffs, then turned toward her with a glint in his eyes.

“Tell you what,” he said, eyes narrowing. “I’m going to have to put the cuffs back on you.”

She shrank back. “No!”

He moved toward her, holding the cuffs up where she could see them. “You tried to make a break for it, lady. You’re not cooperating like you should. There’s no reason not to suspect you might do it again. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”

She glared at him, but when she spoke, she worked hard to keep her voice low and polite. “I’m sorry I did that,” she said, backing away as she spoke. “I won’t do it again. Honest.”

He watched her for a moment, dangling the cuffs before her. “It’s your choice,” he told her at last. “As long as I can trust you…”

“Oh, you can trust me,” she assured him hurriedly. “Believe me, you can trust me.”

He hesitated. She was saying the right words, but the look in her eyes told him she was feeling anything but meek. Still, what was he going to do, tie her up?

No, he reminded himself. He was going to put her in a cell.

And even at that, a part of him cringed. She was so pretty, so…

No. He turned and dropped the handcuffs on the desk. What was the matter with him? He’d locked up prettier women than this, back in Los Angeles. There was that time he’d been in on that raid of the porno movie set in Burbank. And the time he and his partner had broken a ring of young women who pretended to sell cosmetics door-to-door but were really casing the houses for visits later on in the night. And Doris, the sticky-fingered contortionist. Gorgeous women, every one. He’d locked them up without a qualm. And he was going to do the same here.

But not yet. They still had paperwork to finish. It could wait.

Three (#ulink_521cae6a-8a20-5cc9-8c1a-b0a505fde4d6)

Rafe Lonewolf, sheriff, and Billie Joe Calloway, con artist extraordinaire. This was going to be some night. He looked at her narrowly, and she looked right back. It was evident that whatever had spooked her a few minutes earlier was under control now. She had her confidence back, and her spirit.

She plunked herself in the chair and he sat back down in front of the typewriter, and she watched for a moment as he filled in spaces on the form.

He was just a man. And as the song went, she’d known a lot of men before. Now that her pulse had calmed and her nerves had steadied, she couldn’t imagine what had upset her so much a few minutes earlier. She couldn’t let this situation, this man, this night, get to her. She was woman, she was strong, and all that. And he was just a man.

And she was no victim. She could hold her own, and she could act like an equal. She could, in fact, go on the offense. That was often the best defensive strategy anyway. Put him off his guard. Keep him guessing. She wet her lips and launched her game plan.

“That’s quite a little Hitler complex you’ve got there,” she said, speaking softly, as though she were musing about an interesting detail rather than accusing him of being a world-class despot.

He glanced up, determined not to take her too seriously. “No. I’ve got a cop complex. That’s all.”

“Hmm,” she reflected, studying her fingernails. “Suspicious, cynical, mean. It can’t be much fun going through life like that.”