Undercover Fiancee

“He’s one of the best!” she defended, furious with herself for not listening to the little voice inside telling her to end this now, before she got in over her head.

“My car’s right out front. We can go to the movie, then I’ll bring you straight back here.”

Annabelle was tempted. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t already been introduced. She’d spent all of yesterday afternoon with him looking for a bomb that didn’t exist. It had been her job to take down the background information on him as part of the paperwork. Everything she’d learned proved him to be an upstanding citizen and member of the community.

How could it hurt to go to one little movie with him before they went their separate ways for the rest of their lives?

Surely she could handle two hours while she pretended she wasn’t affected by everything he said and did, the way he moved and breathed. In the dark she could watch him out of the corner of her eye while he watched the movie. Just anticipating that pleasure made her insides melt.

“I’ve never had a date with a woman who could protect me before. It will be a novel experience.”

So that’s why he’d asked her out. His life experiences hadn’t paired him with a policewoman yet. Curiosity, not attraction, had brought him to the police station.

If it came down to who could protect whom, even with the moves she’d learned and a weapon in hand, she would place her bets on him any time of the day or night.

“A cop movie sounds like a good way to unwind. I can enjoy the chase without doing any of the work. Let me put my bag away and I’ll meet you out front. What kind of a car do you drive?”

She noted a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. For no particular reason it made her nervous, which was ridiculous. After all, she wouldn’t have liked it if he hadn’t been pleased she’d accepted his invitation. Face it, Annabelle. You’re hooked.

“A dark blue BMW sedan.”

What else? “I’ll be right out.”

It had only taken her a minute to stash her bag before she joined him. Because she was so used to doing everything herself even though she worked with a partner on duty, it felt nice to be treated like a woman for a little while. He opened and closed doors for her, cupped her elbow to usher her into the theater. If only her body would stop reacting to the contact.

No doubt they made an interesting sight. A big, gorgeous man escorting a little woman still dressed in uniform. While they stood in line for their tickets she noticed a lot of females staring at Rand, then more enviously at her. Annabelle would have done the same thing if she hadn’t been his date. He was really something to look at.

The film turned out to be a cliffhanger. In fact it was so good she forgot he’d brought her along to help him pick it apart afterward. Oddly enough, he didn’t appear to be nearly as involved. To her surprise, during several shoot-out scenes he dropped comments about hoping she didn’t expose herself to those kinds of dangers. At one point she heard him say that he couldn’t imagine her making police work a lifetime career.

His reaction was typical of most men when they found out what she did for a living. The women on the force had to get used to those kinds of asides to survive in a male dominated profession. She didn’t really take Rand’s comments seriously. At the time she’d thought he’d been teasing her. That had been her first mistake.

“Do you go off duty at the same time tomorrow night?” Quiet had reigned in the car until he’d pulled up next to her compact car in the station’s parking lot.

Her heart thundered out of control. “Yes.”

“Good. We’ll get a bite to eat and go bowling.”

She’d been so terrified of never seeing him again, it took her a minute to realize he wasn’t prepared to walk away yet, either.

“Have you ever been bowling?” She hated it when her voice shook like that.

“Not in years. But it doesn’t matter. I’d just as soon watch you. In fact, I’d ask you to breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow if I thought it were possible. When’s your next day off?”

By now her whole body was shaking, not just her voice. “Monday. But I have things I have to do.”

“So do I. We’ll do them together. I promise not to touch you until you tell me I can. I’m letting you set the pace.”

Annabelle knew exactly what he was talking about. She knew that he knew how much she wanted to touch him, to be touched by him. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. It was a revelation. Unfortunately her desire to be with him above all else had blinded her to certain unassailable truths.

He’d been deadly serious when he’d expressed his opinion about the dangers of her work and the hope that she would eventually give it up. Six weeks later, after they’d spent every conceivable moment together, he’d proposed.

When he’d put the diamond ring on her finger, he’d let her know that he expected her to have resigned from the police force by the time they were married. “I want a full-time wife, sweetheart.”

Aghast that he’d actually made such a stipulation, she spent the next week explaining what her job meant to her, how happy it made her. Why would she give it up? He had his work and loved it. Couldn’t they both do what they wanted and enjoy their marriage, too?

The more she tried to reason with him, the quieter he grew. Their relationship underwent a drastic change. At one point they agreed that dinner was a mistake and he’d driven her home without taking her in his arms.

Devastated by his reaction and desperate to get back what they’d shared, she went over to his condo that night, unannounced, offering a compromise. She would talk to the captain about working part-time.

“No,” was all Rand said, his face hardened by lines. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care if you only worked one hour a week. In that length of time you could be hurt or killed. Police work isn’t like anything else. If you loved me,” his voice grated, “you wouldn’t want to put me through torture every time you left our bed to report to your job.”

“If you loved me you’d accept it... I love what I do, Rand.”

“More than me?” he almost shouted, his eyes dark slits from the strength of turbulent emotions.

“Can’t I love both?”

“Of course. But you don’t offer me the same choice,” he bit out. “When you leave the house in the morning, there’s every chance that by the end of the day, you’ll have been shot by some lunatic. Should that happen, and statistics have proven that it will, who’s going to be in our bed to comfort me at night after a hard day’s work?”

“Don’t you have any faith in me at all?” she cried out. “I’m good at what I do.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His hands had formed fists. “But the percentages work against you no matter how expert you are, no matter how well trained.”

Her chest heaved. “Is that your final word on the subject?”

“It is.”

“Then this is mine!”

Her pain combined with the adrenaline rushing through her body, caused her to tear the ring from her finger and throw it at him.

White-faced he’d said in a forbidding voice, “If you walk out that door on me, Annabelle, I won’t come after you and beg you to come back.”

“Did I ask you to?” she flung at him before she fled his condo in agony.

Within the week she’d thrown out every reminder of Rand. After resigning from her job, she’d made arrangements to move back to Salt Lake.

The only thing she couldn’t bring herself to part with was her mother’s wedding dress, the one Annabelle had planned to wear when she took her vows with Rand. Just a few days earlier Janet had gone to Annabelle’s house in Salt Lake and had sent the dress Express Mail.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she’d packed it in the wardrobe part of her suitcase to take back home with her. It would remain a memento of her mother’s, nothing else.

When Annabelle finally boarded the plane, she felt shattered and broken. Her world had exploded and nothing would ever be the same again.

Rand stayed where he was, preferring to watch the expert way she handled the cycle in spite of her small size. It had been a long time since he’d been able to feast his eyes on her alluring body.

A pocket Venus. That’s what he’d thought of her the first time he’d met her dressed in a police officer’s uniform. Everything was there in exquisite abundance, in all the right places. Just sort of in miniature. Amazing.

In her boots she stood about as high as his heart. Her heavily lashed eyes glowed a greenish-yellow color like those of a calico cat. She possessed a generous mouth and a cap of curly auburn curls he had to resist tousling. Her small hands fascinated him. Hell. Everything about her fascinated him.