“So I’ve noticed.” Seth turned and winked at her, making her cheeks warm. “Nothing is wrong. Just being . . . neighborly.”
Worry eased from Big Jim’s expression, and he smiled. “Well, good. Why don’t y’all carry the conversation upstairs? April called my cell a few minutes ago. Lasagna’s on.”
With the haze of lust gone, reality set in. Seth at dinner? In
her
apartment?
King of the bad ideas!
• • •
“T
HE LASAGNA WOULD
have been better with organic oregano,” April complained as she shifted on the couch after dinner.
Jules was tempted to look at Seth as he came out of the kitchen, but thought better of it. There’s no way she could keep a straight face after April’s comment.
“I know what you mean, honey,” Big Jim said as he returned to the living room and handed April a fresh glass of water. “But dinner was excellent as usual.”
“For you,” Seth’s deep voice said, just before a wineglass seemed to appear from nowhere in front of Jules’s face.
She turned in her leather wingback chair to find Seth offering it. She smiled at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you, but I don’t drink alcohol.”
“I know. Ernie told me.” He set her glass on the table next to her. “It’s apple juice. He said it’s your favorite.”
Seth had been interminably polite all through dinner. Not once did he bring up dead bodies or lost cell phones. Now he brought her a glass of juice. He was so sweet, she could almost kiss him. Well, if she thought he’d actually kiss her back.
“It is,” Jules replied, smiling. “Thank you.”
He delivered a grin that made her heart race at hummingbird speed before claiming the matching chair on the other side of the end table. After he sat down, she noticed he’d brought a glass of red wine with him from the kitchen.
Seth raised the glass, gently tapped it against hers, and drank. Jules sipped her juice.
“How did you say you lost the oregano?” Big Jim asked, settling himself beside April and looping an arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, um . . .” Jules returned the glass to the table and searched for the right words.
Seth distracted her by crossing one long leg over the other and resting his right foot on his left knee. He swallowed a mouthful of wine and cast her a glance that she could only define as
taunting
.
She should change the subject or let the question go, but the wild child inside her couldn’t resist rising to Seth’s silent challenge.
“Oh, you know, Big Jim, it could’ve happened anywhere. The other night was crazy from the moment I arrived at the reunion. For all I know, someone could have gone through my purse when I wasn’t looking and assumed it was pot.”
“Who in their right mind would ever think
you
had drugs?” April laughed.
“Outrageous!” Big Jim agreed with a chuckle.
“I suppose the person who took it feels pretty foolish about now.” April brushed a finger at her blonde bangs and addressed Seth. “Are marijuana and oregano very similar? Is it easy to mistake one for the other?”
“Only for innocents like you, love,” Big Jim interjected, then laughed. “Seth here would never make such an asinine mistake.”
Jules snorted but quickly covered her mouth with her hand and pretended to cough.
Seth said, “Ernie’s right. Mistaking one for the other is an error no self-respecting police officer would ever own up to.”
Seth sipped his wine and cast Jules a sheepish look.
“On the other hand, it’s not like normal people carry around herbs in their purse.” Jules used the same words Seth had spoken. “If I hadn’t stopped by the health food store on the way to the party, I wouldn’t have done it myself. I can see where someone might, in a rush, assume I was carrying an illegal substance in my purse.”
“Wise woman,” Seth said with a wink that sent her heart skipping.
April waggled her eyebrows. Jules blushed and snapped her gaze back to Seth, who thankfully was looking over at the table as he deposited his half-empty glass. She breathed a small sigh of relief.
It was embarrassing enough that she’d nearly kissed him multiple times, but he’d not followed through once. Didn’t her parents know that something developing with Seth was in a race between impossible and never-gonna-happen?
Big Jim and April exchanged one of their patent “spousal glances.”
Jules had come to recognize them over the years. The look they shared whenever they were speaking silently. She’d asked them once if they were telepathic, but they’d assured her that they’d been together so long, they’d learned to guess what the other was thinking.
Right now, Jules could guess what they were thinking. They were planning to leave her alone with Seth.
Um . . . no!
April let out a big yawn that would have been believable if Jules had been raised by monkeys on Venus. Still, Big Jim practically leapt to his feet to offer his arm to his wife.
Oh, brother! Do they really think Seth is going to fall for this?
“I guess I should be going too,” Seth said, starting to push to his feet, but Big Jim waved at him to remain seated.
“No, sit, stay,” Big Jim replied as he helped April stand with one hand on her back. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow morning. But that’s no reason for you to leave. Stay as long as you want. Jules will kick you out when she’s ready to go to
sleep
. Right, Juliana?”
“Sure.”
She didn’t miss the glint in his eye. What did they think would happen when they left the room?
It’s not like she’d have sex with Seth on the coffee table. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest.
Must not think of Seth and sex in the same sentence.
“Good night,” she called out as Big Jim and April abandoned her and went to their bedroom.
• • •
“A
LONE AT LAST,
precious
.” Coming up behind Jules, Seth couldn’t resist inhaling her scent. The faint smell of strawberries hit his senses and shot through his system like an aphrodisiac-laced bullet. Damn, she was turning him into a strawberry junkie.
“So we are. What do you want to do?” She turned to face him. Wide green eyes gazed up at him with curiosity that didn’t quite mask her desire for him. That flare of attraction had him reaching for her when he shouldn’t.
“Shall we finish our interview?” he asked, stroking a knuckle down her silken cheek.
“What?” She blinked, clearly taken off guard. Then she rolled her shoulders once and slid away from his touch. The heat of her gaze disappeared along with her welcoming smile. She reclaimed her seat. Her expression dulled and she spoke with a crisp civility. “Oh, right. You need to interview me. Fine, let’s just get this over with. I’m tired anyway.”
What the hell?
Why had she suddenly gone cold?
“Jules, I don’t want to interview you. I need to.” Still, the warmth hadn’t returned to her gaze.
“Of course,
Detective.
”
Her clipped tone didn’t chafe as much as the pain and acceptance in her eyes. It was the resignation and doubt in her expression that had him moving until he braced his hands on the arms of her chair.
She gasped, but something hot and sensual flared in her gaze. That was what he wanted to see. He was breaking every bit of protocol, but damn, he liked the look of attraction in her eyes.
“Juliana,” he whispered, leaning until his lips grazed her cheek as he spoke. “You’ve driven me crazy since I met you. I’d like nothing better than to kiss you right now and spend the rest of the week exploring your body with my tongue.”
She shivered.
He pulled back only far enough to look into her eyes before adding, “But before we can go
exploring
, I need to make sure I’ve conducted my case properly without compromising my integrity or the case itself. There’s a killer out there and I’d hate to be the one who lets him go free because I didn’t do my job properly.”
He waited. For a moment she just stared at him, then she nodded. “What can I do for you?”
“Ah, precious, that’s my girl.” He gave her a chaste kiss on her head. Even though he’d just given her a speech about keeping his behavior proper for his case, he’d already crossed the line.
Seth stepped back, released Jules’s chair, and put some much-needed space between them. Not an easy task, considering he wanted to wrap his arms around her and taste her lips.
Hell, he wanted to drown in her. But he needed to finish questioning her.
Grabbing his notebook, he said, “Give me a minute to review my notes.”
“Take your time.” She smiled. “I’ll just put away the glasses.”
She gestured to the coffee table. Ernie and April had left their dishes. Seth watched as Jules bent over to pick up a napkin that April had left under her water glass.
His eyes trailed up Jules’s long, jean-clad legs. The jeans clung to her backside snugly.
I’d kill to be her pair of jeans.
Seth shook his head to clear his thoughts. Good thing Jules didn’t read minds or she’d have slapped him repeatedly by now.
Then he saw the flash of color at the base of her spine as her shirt rode up. “Do you have a tattoo?”
Jules twisted at the waist, tugging her shirt down with one hand. “Yes, why?”
“May I see it?”
She nibbled on her lower lip then slowly gave him her back.
Scooting forward on the chair, Seth raised the hem of her top to reveal the artwork. And it was definitely art. Three intricate roses—one red, one purple, and one yellow—were wrapped in a green banner with the name
Scott
emblazoned on it.
He sighed. For a moment he thought she might have had the same tattoo as his victim. After a second long look, he could see no similarities. Thank God!
“Why’d you get a tattoo?” he asked, tugging her shirt back in place.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Although she delivered her answer flippantly, she stumbled and nearly dropped the glasses in her hand.
She recovered quickly and hurried to the kitchen.
He waited for her to return. When she did, he said, “Come on, there’s got to be more to it than that.”
“I thought you needed to interview me. What does my tattoo have to do with your case?”
She had a point. Checking his notes, he decided to focus on his case, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know why someone as smart as Jules would want to walk around permanently branded with another man’s name.
“Earlier, you mentioned that you’d seen Mason Hart recently,” he said as she sat back down in her chair. “When exactly was that?”
“Yesterday.” She frowned. “Oh, I promised I’d call him today.” She checked her watch then shook her head. “Too late now.”
Invisible bands around Seth’s chest tightened. Jealousy. Oh, he recognized that uncomfortable sensation. Though why the hell he experienced it now, he had no idea. “I thought you told me you two weren’t close?”
Jules gave him a frustrated look. “He came in to buy flowers for his
fiancée
yesterday. He wanted to get together and chat. His fiancée is upset with him. He hoped I could give him some advice on women like I used to do in college. That’s it. Nothing dark or sinister. I told you, before this weekend, I hadn’t seen him in years. Not since I got married.”
“Ah, yes, to the cheap bastard who gave you a knockoff purse.” Seth knew it was not part of his case, knew he shouldn’t ask, but he had to know. “You never did tell me. What did he do that was so bad that he tried to buy your forgiveness?”
Jules tugged on her earlobe. “He didn’t trust me. And when it came right down to it, I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
“He cheated on you?”
“Eventually,” she admitted with a shrug. “But the real betrayal came long before that. He didn’t know me, not the real me. He had this image in his head of who he thought I should be, but when he was faced with the truth, he denied it. Denied me.”
Jules leaned forward in her chair and propped her chin on one hand. At the same time she rubbed at the tattoo on her back. It didn’t appear to be a conscious act. And it made him wonder. “You got your tattoo while you were married?”
She glanced up at him, startled. “How did you guess?”
“I’m a cop, remember?” He grinned but frowned when she tensed at his comment. “You really don’t like police, do you?”
“Nothing personal,” she said, then blew out a breath. “It’s just my ex was a cop.”
And just like that, several comments she’d made finally made sense. “That’s why you get so jumpy.”
She neither agreed nor disagreed. Instead she started talking about her tattoo again. “You guessed right, though. Billy was always a suspicious cynic.”
“Who’s Billy?”
“My ex.” She gave Seth a puzzled look.
He gaped at her. “No wonder your ex was suspicious. You have some other guy’s name on your back.”
“Scott is my last name.” She scowled at him. “Jeez, what kind of a person do you think I am?”
A very confusing one.
“Sorry, precious. Scott’s your last name, which you had tattooed on your back while married to the cheap bastard named Billy.”
Jules wrinkled her brow at him then shrugged and continued her story. “
Billy’s
doubts about me only worsened when I came home with the tattoo. It didn’t matter that I’d gotten it while visiting my parents. Or that he knew the names of everyone on it.
“He refused to believe I didn’t have a nefarious reason behind
disfiguring my body
as he put it. But really, three roses with our first names designed into each one and wrapped in a banner with our last name is hardly something to be worried about. How can anyone assume there’s something underhanded about that?”
She looked lost as she said, “He never understood why I wanted to find my sisters.” Jules blinked her eyes quickly as if holding back tears. “But he always had his family. Mine was taken from me when I was just a child. And out there somewhere are my sisters, Hannah and Shelley. When I told him I’d gotten the tattoo to honor them, he told me to just let go of the past. I had enough family.
Him.
” She balled her fists in her lap. “I should have walked away from him right then. My instincts told me to, but like a fool, I stuck around until he crossed a line I couldn’t forgive.”