Force of Attraction (37 page)

X swung Cole around, fisted one edge of her shirt and brought his knife up to within inches of her face. “Ever wonder why they call me X?”

The deep guttural barking of an enraged canine coming at him full force jerked his gaze from her face.

Cole ducked, screaming, “Hugo!
Fass! Schnell!
”

The force of Hugo's attack knocked both of them off their feet. She heard X cry out as Hugo's powerful jaws closed over his arm. She grabbed for his knife hand but he threw her off. And then the awful sound of Hugo yelping in pain.

The knife. Cole scrambled to her feet as Scott reached her. “Oh God. Hugo!”

X had regained his feet and sprinted toward his bike.

Scott lifted his weapon but Hugo had regained his footing and was tearing after the biker. He didn't doubt Hugo's ability to close the distance.

He looked down at Cole. “How badly are you hurt?”

She shook her head though her hand was clamped over her arm. “Help Hugo.”

“Stay here.” Scott took off on foot after man and dog.

X swung a leg over his bike and rolled the throttle. As he began to move Scott cursed. But Hugo moved into overdrive.

As X came around, intending to head for cover in the trees, Hugo launched his heavy black body at the driver. The weight and momentum dropped the bike.

Scott heard a scream as the bike came down on X's leg and then another as Hugo clamped down on his arm, growling and tugging and swinging as he held on for all he was worth.

When he reached them Scott stepped on X's knife hand and pointed his gun at his head. “Don't give me a reason.”

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“He's going to be fine. The knife just scraped along his ribs. His heavy coat probably confused his attacker. He missed the gut.”

Cole clutched Hugo to her as the vet examined him. “Will he need stitches?”

“A few. And antibotics. Leave him with me overnight.”

“Only if you promise to take the best care of him. Anything he needs. He saved my life tonight.”

“He'll have everything he needs, Officer Jamieson.” The vet patted her shoulder. “Now I insist you see about yourself, young lady.” He offered Scott a significant look over her head. “You're bleeding all over my examining room.”

Scott had stood grimly to one side of Cole, arms folded, as Hugo was examined. Cole had insisted on bringing Hugo to the vet before she would even think about going to the hospital to be examined. But now that the vet had lifted Hugo out of her arms Scott saw with a surge of alarm that the front of her tee was soaked with blood that couldn't be all Hugo's.

“Damn, Jamieson. You're hurt.”

He jerked off his windbreaker and wrapped it around her before picking her up in his arms and carrying her out to his truck.

Cole, released from worry about Hugo, snuggled in against him. “I like it when you get all angry alpha male.”

“Shut up. You're woozy with blood loss. I can't take advantage.” His voice was light but his expression was grim.

Scott drove to the emergency room with the same urgency he had driven to her rescue, one arm holding Cole tight against him while his cherry top flashed red through the night.

*   *   *

“Superficial wounds.” The ER doctor held Cole's chart in his hand. “Officer Jamieson has lost blood and is in mild shock. We're keeping her overnight but she'll be fine.”

Scott nodded, his eyes hooded and expression nonactive. “What else?”

“We did a bit of suturing. Luckily we were able to pull in a plastics doc to do her cheek and the nose. It isn't broken but she may want to see him again if it doesn't heal to her liking.”

Scott swallowed. “Did he … are any of the wounds X's?”

“Excuse me?”

Scott made two crossing slash marks with a finger.

“No, nothing like that. There's a superficial cut down her sternum and one on her…” He paused. “Are you family?”

“Yes. Husband.” Scott doubted any of Cole's colleagues standing nearby, who had rushed to hospital for moral support, would contradict him.

“Very well.” The doctor pulled him aside from the others before extracting a photo from the file he carried. “It looks worse than it is.”

Scott saw with the professional, detached part of his mind that the cuts on Cole's exposed chest were superficial. Her battered face had been cleaned up. He knew the bruising and swelling would subside. But the primitive, protect-my-mate instinct was harder to convince. “Was the suspect also brought here?”

“Yes. The police brought him in first, about an hour ago. He's suffering from a crushed leg, exhaust-pipe burns, and two serious dog bites.”

“That's too bad. I was hoping he was really hurt.”

Scott turned and walked away from the gaping gaze of the dedicated caregiver.

*   *   *

“I'll look like Frankenstein in a bikini.”

Scott's eyes lit up. “A bikini. There's an image.”

Cole rolled her head on the pillow away from him, toward the window of her hospital room. After a moment, a sound suspiciously like a sob broke the silence.

“You're not crying?” Scott's stomach hit the floor. He came around on the other side of the bed. “Cole?”

She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him.

“Cole!” Her eyes opened.

He was standing over her, still wearing his clothes from the night before. He wore a navy T-shirt stained with her blood, a weary expression, wary gaze, and a heavy stubble. He scrubbed his face with a hand. “I'm not good at this sort of thing. But, dammit, I don't care if you look like you've been trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I didn't fall for a few unblemished inches of skin.”

“I'm not being vain.” Cole sucked in her lower lip and winced. It was twice its normal size.

Scott moved in beside her bed and took her hand. “You're the most unvain person I know. Undies choice aside.” His heart did a flip when that drew a small smile from her. “So, you'll have a few scars. Tiny scars,” he amended when she frowned. “The doctor said a plastics guy did your face. No scarring there.” He crossed his fingers out of her line of sight. “You brought down a bad guy. Helped catch puppy-mule drug smugglers. You deserve to have some proof of your courage. Would you rather have a tattoo?”

Cole watched with quiet eyes that intensified as he held her gaze. He knew she was seeing him as she first had, like he was the best man in the whole world. It scared him to see that. It was something he couldn't live up to. But he was going to try. So help him God, he was going to try.

“You're a good man, Agent Lucca.”

He shook his head and took her hand and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I'm an ass. An idiot. You deserve better but you're stuck with me.”

She gazed up at him, seeing weariness and worry in every line of his face. “If I'm so wonderful, why do you look so awful?”

Laughter sputtered out of Scott, the first carefree laughter he could remember for a long time. And then he took her face very carefully in his hands and kissed her even more gently.

She looked at him through wet eyes. “You really don't mind?” She made a gesture toward her face and torso.

He reached out and ran his hand over the contours of her body until he could cup a breast beneath her hospital gown. “You'll have proof to go with the story you tell our kids of what a badass their mama is.”

Her eyes got bigger than he'd ever seen them. “Our kids?”

Scott smiled but sat down in the chair he'd not slept in as he sat by her side. He'd said enough. Probably too much. And he had nothing left, for now.

The Nikki he'd met was long gone. Yardley had been right about that. This woman, Cole, was stronger, more assured. And the miracle of it was, she was still with him.

She reached for his hand, confirming that.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“It's a jurisdiction fight. The feds want X, formerly known as Agent Alphonso Harney of the LAPD, brought up on charges for having divulged information about an ongoing investigation. Your department is protesting that they have first dibs because he assaulted a police officer in their jurisdiction. Then there are the state police in Virginia, New Jersey, and Maryland who want their pound of flesh for violations, too. Meanwhile, X violated his parole in so many ways that he's back finishing his time while he awaits two or more trials on these new charges.”

Scott looked over at Cole, who sat with her legs tucked up under her on her sofa. Hugo sat on the sofa beside her, providing her with a very unnecessary woolly blanket on this Labor Day weekend. He was reporting information to her on the disposition of X's case that he'd brought back from D.C. this afternoon.

“He'd been a cop.” She shook her head. “I still don't get it. How could he switch sides like that?”

Scott was silent for a moment. “He was in Special Operations when he went undercover to infiltrate a gang. The usual scenario is you step over the line so many times you stop seeing it, and start resenting anyone who points that out. In Harney's case, he killed a man while undercover. Tried to make it look like a clean hit. But there were too many rumors of revenge. The department did what most do. They covered it up. No one talked. He was retired. So he came East, where he wasn't known, and exchanged the blue code for gang code where he was already accepted.”

Cole sighed, stroking Hugo absently. In their concern for each other, they were hardly ever more than arm's reach away.

Hugo was fine. Except for the shaved place on his belly where stitches went in, no one would ever have known anything was wrong. Scott had proof of that every day when he took him out for exercise.

Cole was getting better, too. During the past ten days her face had healed nicely. The nose was not broken. And the discoloration had subsided enough for makeup to perform miracles. She was on medical leave, however, for a few more weeks. Her department agreed. She'd been through a lot and needed to recoup and reassess.

But Cole was bored beyond belief by the restrictions placed on her. Scott had been sitting on her like an egg that needed to be hatched. He worked most days by computer from her home. When he did go into D.C., like this morning, he was back like a boomerang before dark.

Worst of all, he'd become a monk.

Cole fidgeted with the remains of a sandwich he'd brought her for dinner. All those weeks they'd lived together undercover, there'd always been this red-hot current running between them, even when, no, especially when they were resisting touching each other. She had only to enter a room to feel his eyes on her with a hunger that kept her humming with awareness.

Now. Since X was taken down. Nothing.

Cole stole a glance at him. He looked at ease, slouched down in that chair with Izzy sleeping with her head propped on one of his shoes. But she knew better. He had that edgy vibe going on. His dimples were nowhere to be seen. He was a cop on guard duty, even though she no longer needed surveillance.

Guilt. He felt guilty. And unworthy. And, so like a man, he was doing the exact opposite of what he wanted to do, to punish himself. Hence Agent Celibate, while he looked after her.

Cole tried not to, but it was getting really hard not to resent the loss of the badass man she'd fallen in love with, twice.

A nursemaid she hadn't needed after day two. Housemate, she didn't have any use for, either. Except it was nice he exercised Hugo in ways her stitches hadn't allowed.

What she needed was a lover, and a friend. And she had just formed an idea of how to get what she wanted.

She slanted a glance at Scott. “About your parents' barbecue and open house this weekend.”

Scott grunted. “I told them not to expect us.”

“I'd like to go.”

He glanced at her with sudden wariness. “Why?”

“I want to see the house renovation. Will you take me?”

He groaned so low Hugo lifted his head in curiosity. “Sure.”

*   *   *

They arrived early enough to help with the preparations. While delighted to see
her
again—Scott's father went so far as to kiss her cheek—Scott and his father shook hands like prize fighters and then retreated to their corners: Scott to watch a ballgame while his father begged off to finish working on his office files.

“The house is gorgeous.” Cole reached for a head of lettuce. She'd offered to make a green salad. “And finished so quickly.”

“Yes, it's very nice to have a fresh coat of paint everywhere. Of course there are things lost that can't be replaced.” She paused and, very much like her son, shook her head to toss off the emotion that threatened her. “We are blessed to be alive and whole.”

She perked up. “Scott's father is doing remarkably well. His doctor said it was a wakeup call. Now my husband lets me feed him more vegetables and we've taken all red meat off the menu.”

“I'm glad. We were so worried.”

She glanced at Cole. “I'm not prying but I have to ask, how are you and Scott doing?”

Cole smiled. “We're well. We have some things to work out. It's a cliché. We were young and both made mistakes. This time we know what the potholes look like.”

She reached out and squeezed Cole's arm. “I'm so very happy to hear that. I knew the very first time I saw you together that you were the best thing that had ever happened to him. He just glowed around you.”

“Thank you for telling me that.” Cole put her rinsed lettuce in a colander to drain. “May I ask you a sensitive question?”

“About what, dear?”

“Gabe. We met once but I know almost nothing about him.”

Again, Cathy Lucca's eyes lost their brilliance but she nodded. “What would you like to know?

Cole dried her hands and turned toward Scott's mom. “Tell me about him. What was he like?”