Careless (10 page)

She took a step forward, looking hesitant
as she extended her hand. “Okay, friends.”

He grinned when he slipped his hand into
hers. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

“But just so we’re clear, just friends,
nothing more. While you’re here, you’ll be stayin’ in the guestroom at the far
end of the hall. My bedroom is off limits. Understood?”

Mike had no doubt she’d be welcoming him in
to her bed before long, but he didn’t feel the need to push the issue tonight.
Tomorrow was a new day, and as long as he could look forward to seeing her
beautiful face over morning coffee, it promised to be a good day.

Mike Cooper was the most insufferable man
Tori had ever met. He insisted on driving her to rehearsal and refused to leave
until his father promised he wouldn’t leave her alone for a minute. Like Josh didn’t
have better things to do than babysit her.

“Uh-oh,” Nikki Spencer said, sitting down
beside her. “I know that look. Who pissed ya off this time?”

Nikki had been like a big sister to her
ever since Tori signed on with her father’s label, Titan Records. “Mike
Cooper.”

Nikki giggled. “You wouldn’t be the first
girl to get all wound up over him.” Nikki fanned her face. “Lordy, I used to
have a crush on that boy.”

“Really?”

“Sure, when I reconnected with my dad, Jay,
Mike, and I were all around the same age. I thought he was just about the
cutest guy I’d ever seen, but my daddy warned me about keepin’ my distance.”

Tori knew it was silly to be jealous of a
silly teen infatuation. Nikki was married to J.T. McCall, the sexiest cowboy
ever to don a Stetson, and they had a beautiful little girl. “Did y’all date
when you were younger?”

“Na, I saw J.T. for the first time when I
was about eighteen, and it kind of spoiled me for other men.”

Tori glanced at J.T., looking sexier than
any man should with a toddler on his hip. “I can certainly see why.”

Nikki laughed. “Yeah, he still has that
effect on women. Damn him.”

“You know you’re the only woman he wants,
Nik.”

“I know; it goes both ways. He knows that.”
Nikki covered her face, playing peekaboo with her baby girl, Erika, who giggled
at her mommy’s antics. “But I wanna hear more about you and Mike. What’s goin’
on there?”

Tori knew she could trust Nikki, but she
didn’t even know where to start. “Your dad has him workin’ this case. He didn’t
give me a choice, basically told me Mike was handlin’ it and I didn’t get a
vote.”

Nikki rolled her eyes. “Yup, that sounds
like my dad. But why wouldn’t you want him on the case? According to Derek,
he’s one of the best cops on the force.”

Derek McCall was Nikki’s brother-in-law and
Mike’s stepfather, which made them family, according to Nikki. She’d often told
Tori that theirs was one big extended family, trying to insist she was a part
of it now, whether she liked it or not. Thankfully, Tori did. She couldn’t
imagine working with any other group of people now that the members of Titan
Records had adopted her as one of their own.

“I’m sure he is. That’s not the problem.” Tori
took a moment to listen to Trey belt out his new hit single before she
responded. “He and I…” She didn’t even know how to describe it. It wasn’t an
affair, but to describe it as a one-night stand didn’t do it justice.

Nikki covered her mouth as her blue eyes
widened in shock. “No freakin’ way!” She slapped Tori’s denim-clad leg. “How
could you keep this from me? When? Where? More importantly, how was it?”

Tori didn’t embarrass easily, but the
thought of relaying the dirty details of her night with Mike while his father stood
less than twenty feet away was creeping her out. “Sssh!” Tori said, putting her
finger to her lips as she glanced in Josh’s direction.

“Oh please, you think Josh doesn’t know his
son’s a player?”

She felt an unexpected stab of disappointment.
Of course Tori knew Mike was a player. She’d seen the endless parade of
beautiful women who’d escorted him to various events over the past few years,
but it still hurt to think she was just another notch in his belt.

Nikki placed her hand over Tori’s. “I’m
sorry, that was insensitive of me. You really like him, don’t you?”

“No!” Tori lowered her voice when several stagehands
turned around to stare at her. “I mean, we were together a couple of years
back. I’ve barely spoken to him since.”

“I can’t believe it was that bad,” Nikki
said, in a stage whisper.

“Believe me, it wasn’t.”

“Ha! I knew it! It was that good, wasn’t
it?”

Only good enough to warrant center stage in
her fantasies after all this time.
“Yeah, but that’s not the point.”

“Then what it is?”

“You said it yourself, he’s a player.”
Deluding herself wasn’t Tori’s style, and she didn’t put much stock in pillow
talk.

“So was J.T. when we got together. People
change, hon.”

“Not Mike.”

“I don’t believe that. He just needs a good
woman to tame him. They all do.”

“Regardless, it’s gonna make it tough to
live under the same roof with him, given our history.”

Nikki choked on the water in her mouth as
her eyes began to water.

Tori tried not to laugh as she patted her friend
on the back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to catch ya off guard there.”

When Nikki finally caught her breath again,
she said, “Uh yeah, you did. Okay, back up. I want to hear the whole story. You
and Mike are gonna be
living
together? How the hell did that happen?”  

Tori was still trying to come to terms with
the idea herself. “Like I said, your dad hired him to find out who’s been
tailin’ me. He came back to my place last night to pick up the letters that
jerk’s been sendin’ me, and it turns out he’d been there.”

Nikki’s face drained of color. “Oh my God,
are you serious?”

“Yeah, ’fraid so. Fortunately, Mike handled
the situation like a pro.” She smiled. “Of course, that’s what he is.”

“So, that’s why he’s staying with you… in
case this guy comes back?”

“Yeah.”

Nikki put her arm around her friend’s
shoulders. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that he’s there. I wouldn’t be able to
rest if I knew you were in that house all alone. Does my dad know about this?”

“I’m sure Mike or Josh has filled him in by
now.”

“Hey, they’re gonna find this guy, and
until they do, Mike’s not gonna let anything happen to you.”

“I know.” It wasn’t the stalker she was
worried about right now. The bigger issue was how she was going to keep her
clothes on around her new roommate.

Mike was watching the seconds tick by on
his watch as he waited for the first guy on his list to show up. Luc had
offered to let him use one of the offices at Titan Records since his
conversations with these guys would be off the record,
for now
. He
couldn’t believe he was about to interview Tori’s past lovers. Just thinking
about it nearly gave him an ulcer.

As he reviewed his list of gut-wrenching
questions, Luc popped his head in the door. “Hey, man, you got a minute? I
wanted to talk to you about what happened last night.”

“Yeah, come on in. Close the door. I’m
waitin’ on a couple of people.”

Luc raised an eyebrow. “By people, do you
mean suspects?”

“At this point, I’m lookin’ at the guys
Tori’s been…” Mike clenched his fist under the table, hoping Luc couldn’t read
the change in his demeanor. “
Intimate
with in the past two years.”

“Since she got that tattoo, right?”

Mike nodded. Just thinking about that
tattoo set him off. When he’d seen it, he’d been riding a high, but he came
crashing down just as quickly when he realized it meant nothing to her. He
represented a night of great sex, a nice memory to haul out when she was
feeling lonely, but he’d never be the kind of man a girl like Tori would give
her heart to.   

Luc grinned. “Did she give you the deets
about the tat? I’ve been tryin’ to get it out of her for weeks now.”

If Mike told him he’d seen it and that he’d
been the inspiration behind it, his new boss would know his relationship with
Tori went too deep for Mike to remain objective in this case. “She didn’t wanna
tell me either.” At least that much was true. She didn’t want to tell him, and
she hadn’t intended to show him, but once again, their hunger for each other
overshadowed their common sense.

“So, tell me about these guys you’ve got
your eye on. Anyone look promising?” Luc leaned over and glanced at the sheet
of paper on the table between them. “Three guys, only three, in two years?”

In Mike’s mind, that was three guys too
many, but he couldn’t tell Luc that. “Yeah, only three.”

Luc chuckled. “Hell, when I was single,
that was a good weekend. You too, huh?”

Mike couldn’t think about his other lovers
when Tori and her safety was at the forefront of his mind. Thankfully, a knock
at the door interrupted Luc’s debriefing.

Luc stood and extended his hand to Mike.
“I’ll let you get on with it. I just wanted to thank you for doin’ this. Havin’
someone like you on this case makes me feel a hell of a lot better.”

“No problem.” Mike reached across the table
to shake Luc’s hand. “I’m glad you asked me to get involved.” He wouldn’t have
trusted anyone else to take care of Tori the way he could.

“Hey, Josh told me that dirtbag actually
broke into her house last night?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry, we’ve got it
covered. If he’s stupid enough to come back, I’ll be waitin’ for him.”

Luc smiled. “Glad to hear it. You’ll be
stayin’ there with her until we hit the road?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Sounds like a good one.” Luc pointed to
the door. “You’ll fill me in on what happens here today?”

“You got it, boss.”

Luc opened the door and nodded to the man
standing just outside as Mike stood up, beckoning him inside.

It took everything in him to pretend this
was just another case. He wanted to grab this guy by the neck and throttle him.
As he extended his hand, he decided to put him on the defensive from the start.
He’d usually go in for the softer approach, try to disarm his suspect with his
good ol’ boy spiel, but this time he wanted nothing more than to intimidate the
hell out of him. “Lieutenant Mike Cooper, we spoke on the phone.”

The guy’s eyes drifted to the gun strapped
to Mike’s waist. “Oh man, I didn’t know you were a cop. I thought you worked
security for the record label.”

Mike assessed his reaction. He was clearly
nervous. “I’m consultin’ on this case. Don’t worry, our talk today will be off
the record.” He pointed to the chair on the other side of the table once the
man offered him a limp handshake. “Have a seat. I want you to tell me about
your relationship with Tori Warner.” Mike would rather thrust hot pokers into
his own eyes than have to listen to this.

He folded his tall, skinny frame into the
leather guest chair and linked his hands in front of him on the table. “Uh
well, we met at the horse races. My old man was racin’ the front-runner, Blue
Thunder. Tori had a lot of money ridin’ on his horse.” He chuckled. “She sure
was gettin’ into it. Sexier ’n hell… a lady who knows how to pick ’em.”

Mike wanted to reach across the table and
snap his scrawny neck like a dry twig. “So, your common interest in horses led
to a…
relationship
?” The word tasted sour on his tongue and Mike had the
urge to spit it out, like a rancid piece of cheese.

“Yeah, we dated for a couple of months.
She’s a really cool chick.”

“How so?” He gripped his pen so hard as he
scribbled his notes he was surprised the piece of plastic didn’t snap in two.

“You’d think she’d be all stuck up, ya
know, since she’s so famous and all. But she’s not. She loves horses, grew up
on a ranch not too far from my old man’s spread.”

“She ever take you to her parents’ ranch?”
If he said yes, Mike didn’t trust himself to maintain his tenuous grip on his
restraint.

“Nah, I kept hopin’ it would get more
serious, but it never did.” The guy frowned suddenly as he pointed at Mike. “Hey,
that tattoo… you’re not the guy, are you?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll ask the
questions.” He’d love nothing more than to tell him yes, that his was the name
inked on Tori’s sweet body from now through eternity, but he couldn’t reveal
too much. If this was his guy, he didn’t want to risk setting him off. “So,
when was the last time you talked to Tori?”

“Jeez, it’s gotta be a year, maybe more.”

“Did she end the relationship, or did you?”
Like he didn’t know the answer to that question. A guy like this would be
willing to kiss the ground at Tori’s feet if it meant five more seconds in her
presence.