Pride And Pregnancy

“You smell of roses.” Somehow, he managed to put another step between them. “Is that your normal perfume, or was that from the delivery?” There. That was a perfectly reasonable question to ask, from a law-enforcement perspective.

“From the flowers. The bouquet was huge. At least a hundred stems.”

“All roses?”

She thought about that. “Mixed. Lilies and carnations—a little bit of everything, really. But mostly roses.”

In other words, it hadn’t been cheap. He tried to visualize how big a vase with a hundred stems would be. “But you’re not taking any home with you?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t want them. My clerk got rid of most of them. Leland took home a huge bunch for his wife.”

“Leland’s a good guy,” Tom replied, as if this were normal small talk when it was anything but.

“How do I know I can trust you?” she blurted out.

“My record speaks for itself.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out to her. “You don’t know what you’re up against here. This kind of corruption is insidious and nearly impossible to track, Caroline. But if there’s anything else out of the ordinary—and I mean anything—don’t hesitate to call me. Or Carlson,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He didn’t want her to call Carlson, though. He wanted her to call him. For any reason. “No detail is too small. Names, car makes—anything you remember can be helpful.”

After a long moment—so long, in fact, that he began to wonder if she was going to take the card at all—she asked, “So we’re to work together?”

He heard the question she didn’t ask. “On this case, yes.”

But if it weren’t for this case...

She took the card from him and slid it into her shirt pocket. He did his best not to stare at the motion. Damn.

She gave him that look again, the one that made him think she was holding herself back. “Fine.”

He straightened and gave her a little salute. “After this case...” He turned and headed to his car. “Have a good evening, Caroline,” he called over his shoulder.

She gasped and he almost, almost spun back on his heel and captured that little noise with a kiss.

But he didn’t. Instead, he climbed into the driver’s seat of his Camaro, gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot as fast as he could.

He needed to put a lot of distance between him and Caroline Jennings. Because, no matter how much he might be attracted to her, he wasn’t about to compromise this case for her.

And that was final.

Three (#u40d66ad4-ca20-5fc7-9e04-db7204e6e0b2)

For a while, nothing happened. There were no more mysterious flower deliveries—or, for that matter, any kind of deliveries. The remaining half dozen roses on Caroline’s desk withered and died. Andrea threw them away. People in the courthouse seemed friendlier—apparently, handing out scads of flowers made Caroline quite popular. Other than that, though, things continued on as they had before.

Before Agent Tom Yellow Bird had shown up in her courtroom.

She got up, went for a jog before the heat got oppressive, went to the courthouse and then came home. No mysterious gifts, no handsome men—mysterious or otherwise. No surprises. Everything went exactly as it was supposed to. Which was good. Great, even.

If she didn’t have Tom’s card in her pocket—and that electric memory of shaking his hand—she would have been tempted to convince herself she had imagined the whole thing. A fantasy she’d invented to alleviate boredom instead of a flesh-and-blood man. Fantasies were always safer, anyway.

But...there were times when she could almost feel his presence. She’d come out of the courthouse and pull up short, looking for his black muscle car with the silver stripe on the hood, but he was never there. And the fact that disappointed her was irritating.

She had not developed a crush on the man. No crushes. That was that.

Just because he was an officer of the law with a gun concealed under his jacket, with eyes that might be his biggest weapon—that was no reason to lust after the man. She didn’t need to see him again. It was better that way—at least, she finally had to admit to herself, it was better that way while his corruption investigation was still ongoing. The more distance between them, the less she would become infatuated.

Tom Yellow Bird was a mistake she wasn’t going to make.

It was a good theory, anyway. But he showed up in her dreams, a shadowy lover who drove her wild with his hands, his mouth, his body. She woke up tense and frustrated, and no electronic assistance could relieve the pressure. Her vibrator barely took the edge off, but it was enough.

Besides, she had other things to focus on. She finally finished unpacking her kitchen, although she still ate too much takeout. It was hard to work up the energy to cook when the temperature outside kept pushing a hundred.

Still, she tried. She came home one Friday after work three weeks after the floral delivery, juggling a couple of bags of groceries. Eggs were on sale and there was a recipe for summery quiche on Pinterest that she wanted to try. She had air-conditioning and a weekend to kick back. She was going to cook—or else. At the very least, she was going to eat ice cream.

She knew the moment she unlocked the front door that something was wrong. She couldn’t have said what it was because, when she looked around the living room, nothing seemed out of place. But there was an overwhelming sense that someone had been in her home that she didn’t dare ignore.

Heart pounding, she backed out of the house, pulling the door shut behind her. She carried the groceries right back out to the trunk of her car and then, hands shaking, she pulled her cell phone and Tom’s card out of her pocket and dialed.

He answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“Is this Agent Yellow Bird?” He sounded gruffer on the phone—so gruff, in fact, that she couldn’t be sure it was the same man who had laughed with her in the parking lot.

“Caroline? Are you all right?”

Suddenly, she felt silly. She was sitting outside in the car. It wasn’t like the door had been jimmied open. It hadn’t even looked like anything had been moved—at least, not in the living room. “It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s going on?”

She exhaled in relief. She was not a damsel in distress and she did not need a white knight to come riding to her rescue. But there was something comforting about the thought that a federal agent was ready and willing to take over if things weren’t on the up and up. “I just got home and it feels like there was someone in my house.” She winced. It didn’t sound any less silly when she said it out loud.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and she got a sinking feeling that he was going to tell her not to be such a ninny. “Where are you?”

“In my car. In the driveway,” she added. Cars could be anywhere.

“If you’re comfortable, stay there. I’m about fifteen minutes away. If you aren’t, I want you to leave and drive someplace safe. Understand?”

“Okay.” His words should have been reassuring. He was on his way over and she had a plan. But, perversely, the fact that he was taking this feeling so seriously scared her even more.

What if someone really had been in her house? It hadn’t looked like a robbery. What had they been after?

“Call me back if you need to. I’m on my way.” Before she could even respond, he hung up.

Wait, she thought, staring at the screen of her phone—how did he know where she lived?

She turned on her car—all the better to make a quick getaway—and cranked the AC. She knew she shouldn’t have bought ice cream at the store, but too late now.

She waited and watched her house. Nothing happened. No one slunk out. Not so much as a curtain twitched. It looked perfectly normal, and by the time Tom came roaring down the street, she had convinced herself she was being ridiculous. She got out of the car again and went to meet him.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Then she pulled up short. Gone was the slick custom-made suit. Instead, a pair of well-worn jeans hung low off his hips and a soft white T-shirt clung to his chest. He had his shoulder holster on, which only highlighted his pecs all the more. Her mouth went dry as his long legs powerfully closed the distance between them.