Shut Up and Kiss Me (12 page)

An odd sensitivity tickled Shala’s mind, while something else tickled her backside. A warm body lured her closer, seeking safety and comfort. The back of her arm found skin. A slight movement against her hip brought a new thought wiggling into her half-slumbering brain: it felt like…She hadn’t felt one of
those
in a long, long time.

“Get that thing away from me!”

She bolted straight up, standing on top of the mattress. Sky Gomez, shirtless, jerked into a sitting position, uncovered, staring at her with unfocused eyes. His gaze shot to the door as if someone had broken in.

“What is it?” He wiped his palm across his face.

That’s when she noted that in addition to being shirtless, he was also without pants, wearing only boxers. And poking out of the slit was his bald-headed hermit! The dang thing had decided to come out to play and was standing at attention. It had been knocking on her shorts, no doubt thinking Shala’s boxers might be his ideal playground.

“What is it?” he asked again, dazedly.

“That!” She pointed to his crotch.

His gaze shot down. While he grabbed for the covers, she sprinted across the bed, jumped to the floor with a loud thump, and attempted to arm herself with her Mace. Unfortunately, she bumped the nightstand. The Mace, a gun, and some other stuff all went tumbling to the floor. Dropping to her knees, she latched her injured hand around the Mace and pointed it up at him.

“Whoa!” He held up one hand and shifted to the other
side of the bed, making sure to keep himself covered. He peered down at her. “I wasn’t trying anything. I swear to God.”

“You got in the bed!”

“Yeah…well, the chair wasn’t as comfortable as it looked.” He motioned to the mattress. “It’s a king-size bed, and you didn’t take up a fifth of it.”

She frowned harder.

“And…look,” he searched the mattress and held up one of the oblong bed pillows up. I even put up a barrier.” When she held the Mace higher, he frowned and said, “If you’ll notice, I was still on my side. You broke over the barricade.”

“You didn’t have a side!”

“My point is that I wasn’t…uh, wasn’t trying anything. So just put that down.”

She nervously shifted the can.

“Shit, Shala, can you at least let me have a cup of coffee before I get Maced? Come on, put it down. Please.”

“You took off your pants.”

“I couldn’t sleep with them on. But I wasn’t trying anything.”

“That’s not how it appears.” She motioned to the tented blanket over his crotch.

He brought his knee up to hide the evidence. “It’s morning. That happens. Besides, I’m wearing the same thing you are. Minus the shirt.”

“Well,
I
manage to keep my body parts inside my clothes.” The shock of waking up to…
that
was beginning to wane. She recalled drifting off to sleep last night actually thinking he was a decent guy. She also recalled shifting closer to him when she first woke up.

As more of her early-morning fog cleared off, she saw he was telling the truth. He hadn’t been trying anything. Which meant she didn’t have a good reason to Mace him. Not that she had to admit that. Not yet.

“Are you giving me my camera back?” she asked.

“We need to discuss that.”

She raised the Mace higher.

“Damn it, put that down,” he growled.

“Promise me you’ll give me my camera back.”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep. But if you spray me, I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll do what? Bring out your bald-headed hermit again?”

His eyes widened. “Put it down.”

She shifted, and her knee hit something that rolled across the floor. She looked down and saw a pill bottle. Her eyes widened. She snatched it up and…Yup, it read just what she’d thought it read.

She pointed to the covers. “If you’ve had that problem for over four hours, you need to call a doctor.” She threw the bottle at him.

“What do you mean…?” He looked at the pills and went pale. “Oh, hell no!” he said as she retreated into the bathroom. “These aren’t mine!”

She slammed the door and locked it. Standing frozen, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was bright red, her pupils dilated. She recalled with clarity that brief, half-asleep moment when she’d felt him against her and she’d wanted to give in to her body’s desire, to answer the tapping on her boxer shorts and let him play all he wanted.

Her gaze shot to her cell phone, which was on the bathroom counter. Picking it up, she saw she had a voice mail message. Lillian, her neighbor. Why would Lillian be calling her now?

Calling her voice mail she heard, “Hi, Shala. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when I walked by your house tonight I saw your front window was broken. I called the police. They said it must have been a burglar, but something must have scared them away, because the only thing it looked as if they got was your computer.”

Shala gritted her teeth. “Only my computer?” She had
homeowner’s insurance, but what was this, Crap on Shala Week? Was the universe trying to do her in? What had she done to it?

Remembering her reason for storming into the bathroom, she pushed down her pajama shorts and dropped onto the toilet. Only the seat wasn’t down. She dropped her ass right into the toilet bowl of cold water.
If
it was just cold water. Who the hell knew if he’d even flushed?

Seething, she stood. “I should have Maced you!” she yelled at the door. “I really, really should have Maced you!”

“They’re not my pills!” he yelled back.

Sky grabbed his pants, poking his legs inside them as fast as he could. “They aren’t mine!” he said again.

He heard the shower start and frowned. As luck would have it, he had to piss like a racehorse. Hence the hard-on that persisted even after she threatened to Mace him. Right then his phone rang, and the damn thing was somewhere on the floor with all the stuff Shala had sent flying as she went for her Mace—a huge overreaction, if you asked him. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a penis before, right?

“Bald-headed hermit, my ass!” he muttered.

He moved the clock radio and saw the time. Five forty-five. Who the hell would be calling at this ungodly hour? Snatching up his phone, he answered before even looking at the number.

“Sky, you need to do something.”

He recognized Maria’s voice, and his thoughts shot to Redfoot. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s passed out on the floor wearing my robe, which isn’t tied securely, thank you very much, and he still stinks.”

“Say what?”

“You heard me,” Maria snapped.

Sky dragged a hand down his face. “I’m sure I didn’t. Redfoot’s in the hospital. Aren’t
you
at the hospital?”

“Not Redfoot. Jose! Redfoot made me leave last night. And I was going to go back to the hospital, but my car’s there because Matt drove me and was going to take me back this morning, but then we found Jose in the bathtub and then Matt left.”

Sky tried to make sense of it all, but nothing computed. He heard sniffling. Was Maria crying? He shook his head. “Maria, Jose’s flight doesn’t come in until nine.”

“Well, then, he just had Scotty beam him down, because he was here when I came home last night. Actually, he had Scotty beam him into my bathtub with V8 juice, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and my douche.” She took a few deep breaths and sniffled. “Oh, and he said he hit a tree.”

“He hit a tree while being beamed down?” Sky scrubbed his palm over his face to make sure this wasn’t one of those crazy dreams that didn’t make an iota of sense.

“I need my suitcase,” Shala yelled through the bathroom door.

“Who’s that?” Maria asked.

“Nobody.” Sky looked around the room. He spotted the suitcase beside the closet and grabbed it just as Shala yelled again.

“Either get out of my room or pass me the suitcase. And for God’s sake, get your clothes on!”

“‘Nobody’ sounds pissed,” Maria remarked.

Frowning, Sky set Shala’s bag beside the bathroom door and covered his phone’s mike with a finger. “Here’s the suitcase. By the way, those aren’t my pills,” he said one last time, just in case she’d missed it. When Shala didn’t answer, he backed away from the door and moved his finger. “So, Jose’s there?”

“What pills aren’t yours?” Maria asked.

His finger must have been in the wrong place. Sky
groaned and watched Shala’s hand creep out to snag the bag. “Is Jose really there?”

“Yes. So, can I stay at your place for a few days?”

Sky had entertained the notion of Shala staying there, but Maria was family. “Look, I’ll be there in—” His mind wrapped around something else she’d said. “He’s wearing your robe?”

“Yeah. Probably because his clothes are ruined. But now my robe is ruined.”

“Why are his…? Never mind. I’ll be there shortly.”

He hung up and called the hospital to check on Redfoot. The news was good. He’d just gotten off when Shala came out of the bathroom and tossed her suitcase onto the bed. Unable to wait any longer, he darted into the bathroom.

Shala was stuffing her pajamas into her suitcase with her injured hand as he came out, putting her shoes on with the other. She looked great. The shorts she wore fit her backside like a glove, and her sandals showed off her painted toenails.

She caught him staring and frowned. “Bet you didn’t lower the seat this time, either,” she muttered.

He shook his head. “Don’t tell me. You’re definitely a morning person.”

“Bite me,” she growled.

Sky considered doing just that, studying the back of her neck where she’d pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Realizing that his thoughts would get him nowhere, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m packing.”

He had to stall, had to think up something fast. “Why?”

“Why? Because I’m getting the heck out of town. But don’t think for one minute that I’m not coming back for my camera. As God is my witness, if you don’t give it to me, I’ll—”

“I have a problem with that.” His mind reeled.

“It’s my camera!” she almost shrieked.

“No, I don’t have a problem with
that
,” he explained.

“Good, then you can give it back now.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, I can’t let you leave just yet.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Why? That was an excellent question. “Because…because you haven’t filled out any reports about what happened.” That had some truth to it.

“I
told
you what happened.”

“But it needs to be official.”

“And what makes it official?”

“A report signed at the station, and probably more questions. And—”

“You already asked me questions.”

“I’m sure I’m going to have more.”

She was shaking her head. “Then let’s go to the police station and you can ask your questions. Since my car window is broken and it’s going to get hot, I’d like to do most of my driving before noon.” She did up the latches on her suitcase.

Sky let out a deep breath. “Somebody tried to kill you,” he reminded her.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m getting the hell out of Dodge. You don’t want me here.”

“Yes, I do.” The moment he said it, he knew it was true.

“Not you. The town, or whoever, doesn’t want me bringing in tourism.”

“I don’t think that’s what this is about,” he remarked.

“Then what is it about?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s about your camera.”

“My camera? It’s not worth killing for. It’s not
that
expensive.”

“Which is why I think that it’s something you have in it.”

“In it?”

“You took a picture of something that someone doesn’t want exposed.”

That made Shala stop and think. “The only thing on my camera is what I’ve taken while here in Precious or on my way here.”

“I know, but you took the shots, and I need you to stay in town until I figure it out. To go through the pictures with me.”

She studied him. “You don’t mean for just another hour or so, do you?”

“No. Give me a couple of days. Give or take.” He got a vision of her standing over him on the bed, and couldn’t help but imagine many different kinds of giving and taking.

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m very serious.”

She shook her head. “No. You can call me with your questions. I’ve got a problem at home that—”

“What if whoever wants that camera thinks you have it when you leave?”

She eyed him. “I’ll put a sign in my rearview window. ‘Sky Gomez stole my camera!’”

“Get real, Shala.”

“I am real. The mayor said people didn’t want me here. Chances are, the person doing this is trying to scare me into leaving. And the truth is, they’re doing a damn good job. I want to go home and you can’t stop me.” She moved to her suitcase and closed it.

He didn’t really want to play this card. Truth was, it was a wild card. Oh, it was a real law, but he was about to bend it to hell and back. For Shala’s own good, of course. “That’s where you’re wrong. I can keep you here. You’re part of an ongoing investigation, and as the chief of police I can—”

“I freaking don’t believe this,” she muttered. “You’re arresting me.”

“No,” Sky explained, in what he hoped was a calming voice. “I’m not arresting you, I’m detaining you. There’s a difference.”

Shala shook her head. “Do you have any idea how much I’m growing to hate this town?”

“Yeah, Precious could really use some work on its image,” he joked.

“Good luck with that. I quit.” She flinched, looking guilty. “Don’t worry, I’ll return the town’s check in full. And I’ll be happy to give you the number of one of my competitors.”

He didn’t want her competitors. He wanted Shala—in more ways that he wanted to admit to her. So he decided to ignore the whole quitting issue. Later, he hoped to change her mind. “I want you to go through your pictures with me, but first I’ve got to take care of something. And I need you to come with me.”

“What? Why?” She dropped down on the bed as if worn out. He spotted smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, a fatigue which his own body echoed. She let out a deep huff. “If I’m detained, I think I’ll go back to bed.
Alone
this time.”

Alone? What fun was that? “The problem is, I don’t know if it’s safe for you to be alone.”

“So it’s not safe for me here alone, but you won’t let me leave town.” Shala nodded as if it all made sense. Then she said, “Would you explain that to me again?”

Sky exhaled in frustration. “Shala, this is more than someone trying to scare you out of town.”

“You don’t know that.” She sounded hopeful.

“No, I don’t,” he admitted. “But let’s look at what’s happened. He went looking for the camera at the lodge. There’s no way he thought you would have been there. He broke into your car. It’s your camera he’s wanting. And whoever did this knows who you are. Thanks to your Internet presence, all it takes is a few clicks to find out your home address. If you leave Precious—”

“Crap!” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Her brow crinkled.

“What?” he asked again.

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.” But Shala’s face looked grim.

“What’s a coincidence?”

“I had a message on my phone. My neighbor called last night. On top of everything else, my house was broken into yesterday.”

This announcement sent a jolt of alarm through Sky. “Anything taken?”

“She said it looked as if it was just my computer.”

“See! Your pictures are digital. You save them on your computer, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m not there,” she said.

“Don’t you ever e-mail the images home?”

“Yes, but I haven’t sent…” She frowned. “Why is this happening to me?”

She stood up and hugged herself tight, the way she’d hugged herself last night. Was this foreshadowing another mini-meltdown?

“I friggin’ can’t believe it. What the heck could I have taken a picture of that is worth all this? For someone to go this far, I must have caught something really bad on film. But I didn’t notice anyone burying a body or anything. I think I’d have noticed that.”

Yes, it was another mini-meltdown. But by the time she
finished, her eyes looked sane again. She just looked tired.

He hadn’t seen anyone burying a body in those pictures last night, either, but they’d go over them again. “Whatever it is,” he promised her, “we’ll figure it out together.” He really liked the last part.

She flopped back down on the bed and shook her head. “Staying in Precious doesn’t solve anything. They could get to me here just as well as at home.”

“Like hell,” he rumbled. “
I’m
here. I won’t let anything—”

“I can go to the cops in Houston,” she interrupted.

He growled inwardly. “Small towns come with perks that big cities don’t have. I can make you my personal project. The most a Houston cop’ll do is send someone by your house every eight hours.”

“You don’t know what a Houston cop will do,” she accused.

“Yes, I do. I worked for almost a year in San Antonio until this job came open. I know how big-city cops work. They don’t have time to really watch out for one person.” Unless said cop was single and took a personal interest in Shala. His inner growl deepened.

“But I need—”

“You need to stay here.” He studied her. “This guy isn’t playing. He wants your camera, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get it. If my dogs hadn’t intervened last night…” No, he didn’t want to say that. “He nearly ran down Sal with his car. He could have killed Redfoot and—”

“What?” Shala’s eyes widened. “Redfoot was hurt because of this?”

Sky realized he hadn’t told her those details. Seeing the sympathy in her eyes, he wasn’t above using it a little. “He caught the guy breaking in. The guy was after your camera. Look, Redfoot really likes you. He’s worried.”
But he wasn’t going to explain how his foster father felt Shala was future family.

She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. He’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yes. I thought we might go by the hospital to see him after I…after I take care of this other problem.”

“What other problem?”

“Family,” he said. Because for the life of him, Sky still didn’t understand the details of what was going on with Maria and Jose.

“I know Redfoot would like to see you. Then I need to go to Lucas’s place to get that gun and see if I can get any prints off it. I figure by lunchtime we can go to the police station and start going through your Nikon.” She bit her lip as if considering. Encouraged, he said, “Stay. Please.”

She sighed. “Promise me it’s only for a few days.”

“I’ll do the best I can.”

It was the first straight-out lie he’d told her—or anyone—in a long time. Yet he didn’t think she could handle the truth right now. He was just coming to terms with it himself. The truth was that Shala Winters intrigued the hell out of him. And not just in a sexual way. She triggered a “protect and serve” instinct that went far deeper than the one that had got him into law enforcement in the first place. Not for one second did he buy into all that soul-mate crap, but a few days would never be enough with her.

“You ready?” He offered his hand.

She hesitated, then slipped her uninjured palm into his. When she stood up, he didn’t let go and she didn’t pull away. The feel of her palm against his gave him a shot of confidence.

She met his gaze. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Making me your personal project.”

Yeah, why
are
you doing this?
He pushed back the feeling that the answer had layers of truth and told her what he
wanted to believe. “I’m chief of police. It’s my job. And when you’re not trying to get me arrested, aiming Mace at me, or talking about castration, I find you sort of likeable.”

She smiled. Then, looking down at their locked hands, she lost that smile and released him. That’s when he recalled another matter that needed clearing up.

“About this morning.”

“I’m trying to forget that.” She took a step, then spun, her expression defensive. “Which, by the way, won’t happen again. You’re not staying in my hotel room.”

He nodded, hoping she’d relocate to his place. Guessing that humor would maybe help the mood, he offered, “Was it really that bad?”

She cut him off with a glare. But while those blue eyes said “Don’t go there,” they also said “Come get me.” He wondered if she knew what she wanted. He knew that he did.

He held out his hands. “I really wasn’t trying anything.” When she didn’t appear convinced, he added, “Come on, you were married. You have to know that men in the mornings have a tendency to…‘get up’ before they get up.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten in bed with me,” she replied, “or removed—”

“Okay, I’ll admit that I might have crossed a few lines. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Really?” Her voice held a teasing quality, which made him happy. “The almighty Chief Gomez admits he wasn’t thinking.”

“I made a mistake,” he agreed. “I don’t have a problem admitting when I’m wrong. Not that it happens a lot.” He grinned. Nothing beat being in the presence of a witty and beautiful woman—except perhaps being in the presence of a witty and beautiful
naked
woman. But give that time.

“Right.” She grabbed her purse and started for the
door. “Other than your athlete’s foot and toilet-seat issues, you’re perfect.”

“What?”

“Wait.” She glanced back, her blue eyes twinkling. “I’m forgetting about your ED issues.” Then she walked out the door.

He grabbed his phone and followed. “My…Oh, hell, I do
not
have erectile dysfunction!”

Sky would have done just about anything—including dance naked in the street with a party hat over his privates—to take his words back. Jessie, Sal’s wife, the gossip queen of Precious, stood right outside. She was grinning from ear to ear, and mentally he could see her rubbing her hands together in glee, desperate to announce to every man, woman, and child in Precious, their brothers, sisters, and probably their pet guinea pigs, that Sky Gomez had been discussing his inability to get it up.

Redfoot woke with a start, and the dream pushed him to focus. Where the hell was he? His mind tried to absorb the white room. Had the spirits taken him? No, he was in the hospital. But pieces of a dream flashed in his head.

He closed his eyes, trying to capture it. The bulldog had reappeared, bigger, more powerful than before, but after that the images were fuzzy. Obviously the sleeping pill had made his dream harder to remember. He saw images of Jose and Maria, but then the white boy, too. Why was Matt involved?

He couldn’t grasp enough to understand the spirits’ entire message, but another part of the dream was crystal clear: the river of blood, Shala Winters standing nearby. Blue Eyes still wasn’t safe. And she hadn’t been standing by the river alone. Others were in danger, too. But who?

Trying to wipe the smile off her face, Shala watched Sky gaze around the parking lot as they walked to his truck.
Did he really expect the crazed ski-masked man to appear in broad daylight? Not smiling suddenly became easier.

“You enjoyed that,” Sky accused as they slipped into his truck.

“Enjoyed what?” she asked innocently, knowing full well what he meant.

“You know,” he growled.

“You embarrassing yourself with your erectile-dysfunction comment in front of that hotel owner? Maybe a little.” She smiled again. When she looked at him, his black hair glistened in the sun and his dark eyes showed frustration but amusement. Damn, if his smile wasn’t the type to jump off a man’s face and curl up inside a woman’s heart. The kind that made a woman want to run her fingers across a man’s lips, the kind that made a woman feel the expression was for her alone. It was the kind of smile that made a woman answer, “Yes, hell, yes!” without considering the specifics of the question.

“I hope you enjoyed it, because I’m going to pay.” He shook his head. “By lunch today, this whole town will be thinking I can’t…man up when I want to. The only time Jessie isn’t gossiping is when she’s sleeping or has her mouth full of food. Wait. I take that back. At the community picnic, she gossiped while eating a hot dog.”

Shala’s gaze fell to Sky’s chest, appreciated the way it filled out his white button-down shirt. She remembered seeing him without it, stretched out on the bed like a lover. She could also remember that fraction of a second where she’d wanted to lie down on top of him and feel the heat of his body against hers. Inside hers.

Her heart did a little tap dance,
clickety-clacking
her down the path toward a real, full-fledged attraction. It was a place she hadn’t been in so long, a place she wasn’t sure she was ready to visit. And yet for the life of her she wasn’t ready to call it quits. Not that she’d stay around for the long haul. No way was she planning on losing her head,
her heart, or even her clothes. But was it so wrong to just enjoy flirting? To enjoy feeling alive?

Sky sighed. “That woman can get information passed around town faster than the five o’clock news.”

“Then why didn’t you just explain, tell her it was Redfoot’s medicine?” Shala asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. “You knew they were Redfoot’s pills all along? So why were you giving me such a hard time?”

“I’m not responsible for your hard time. You got that all by yourself.”

“You know what I mean!”

She did, but she was having fun. She shrugged. “I saw his name when I picked them up, but just because they were prescribed to him doesn’t mean you don’t take them to—” He squinted and made another growling sound, one that reminded her of an angry bear waking up after a long winter, and she almost laughed. “Okay, I probably did it because it was funny, and because you deserved to be teased for taking off your pants and climbing into my bed. But you have to admit—”

“I admit nothing. Redfoot handed me the pills last night and asked me take them home. I sure as hell didn’t know what they were. I didn’t even know he was…in a position to need…happy pills. And I couldn’t tell Jessie, because then she’d go announcing
that
to the world. Knowing Redfoot, he’d kill her, and then I’d have to arrest him.”

“So you’ll allow people to think you have ED to protect Redfoot?” Her question was humorous, but she found his affection for his foster father touching.

Sky’s gaze shot to the hotel office. “God, I’ll bet she’s already on the phone.” He shook his head. “Maybe Redfoot’s method is better. I could kill her and you could help me bury her body.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and then started the truck. “I seriously don’t see what Sal sees in that woman.”

Shala grinned. “She’s pretty.”

“She’s a menace to society.”

“She seems sweet.”

“She is,” he admitted. “And I’m going to feel guilty killing her, but I think I can still do it.”

Shala laughed wholeheartedly. Sky turned to look at her and stared. The frustration melted from his expression and he said, “Damn, you’re beautiful when you do that.”

Was she so desperate for a man’s attention that one little comment could send her high-stepping it up to the clouds? Yes. The compliment, delivered with heat both in his gaze and voice, sent Shala’s heart soaring. But while the trip to that light and fluffy feel-good place was fun, God knew falling could hurt like hell. Caution flags started waving in Shala’s head. She really, really needed to stay grounded.