Task Force Bride (8 page)

She’d latched onto the front of his shirt with both hands by the time he lifted his head and pulled away. Her breath blew against his lips with a gentle, stuttering whisper of heat. What the heck? He felt that tiny caress like a kick in the gut as he pried her fingers from his wrinkled uniform. This was a charade, wasn’t it? So why was he transfixed by those deep gray eyes peering at him over the top of her glasses? Why wasn’t he moving away?

It took a nudge from Hans to get Pike to pull his fingertips from the silky bun that wasn’t so tight and neat anymore. Pike plopped his hat on his head and tipped the brim before grabbing Hans’s leash and heading for the door. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

That ought to get some tongues wagging about his claim on Hope Lockhart. That soft, shy kiss, so at odds with the fingers grabbing at his chest, had certainly piqued
his
interest.

Chapter Six

“What in the world...?” Hope shielded her eyes and squinted at the bright square of light dancing on her bedroom wall. She picked up her glasses from the nightstand and put them on as she shuffled to the window to peek outside. Normally, the morning sun flooded her apartment with soft warmth and sunshine. It was one of the reasons why she’d converted this half of the second floor into her living space and had left the back half to be used as more storage for the shop below.

But today the clear autumn morning was playing tricks. While the windows facing her across the street remained dark and opaque in the shadows, the sun glinted off the windshield of a vehicle parked below on the street, nearly blinding her. For one frightful moment, her stomach clenched. Was that a white van parked in front of her shop? Was the man sitting behind the wheel watching her shop? Watching her?

A car drove past and she had to close her eyes and turn away. The light bounced from glass to glass and reflected up to her bedroom. No doubt that was the explanation for the dazzling rainbows shining in that had wakened her before the alarm. When her eyes had adjusted and she could lower her hand, Hope saw that the boxy vehicle below was a silver SUV of some type.

Not the van that had followed her home.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she shut the blinds behind the eyelet curtains and considered crawling back into bed. But she had a business downstairs that wasn’t going to open itself. And she had an even more important job to do today—help catch a rapist. Detective Montgomery had said she was the city’s best chance at ending the nightmare that stalked her neighborhood.

And just like on that fateful morning twenty years ago when she’d made the decision to find help for her starving, neglected brother and herself, Hope knew she couldn’t hide in her room and wait for someone to rescue them. She had to venture out and save herself.

Hope tied her blue chenille robe snugly around her waist and took a deep breath before leaving her room. The polished oak planks that ran the length of the entire loft were cool beneath her bare feet. The automatic coffeemaker in the kitchen was bubbling to life and filling her apartment with the rich, warm aroma of fresh java.

But the same odd light was bouncing through her living and dining room area now. When it sliced across the white pillars and exposed brick and hit her eyes again, she tiptoed to the bank of windows facing the street and looked down. As she pulled aside the curtain and leaned closer to the pane of glass, trying to make out a face to go with the gloved hands on the steering wheel below, she heard the engine revving to life. The silver SUV pulled out of its parking space and headed down the street—not an early riser coming to work, but a late-night partier finally going home, most likely.

Funny. Generally, the patrons of the nightspots down the block and around the corner parked in one of the garages down there. It wasn’t unheard of on a busy weekend to see cars parked this far up the street, and even in her private lot outside the shop. But on a Tuesday morning? Her heart rate kicked up a notch. Maybe not so funny. It was perfectly likely that the man she’d seen Saturday night had more than one vehicle. He was probably too smart to come back to her place in the van she’d already seen.

“You’re making too much of it,” she whispered against the glass, trying to calm her racing pulse. “He wasn’t watching you. You don’t even know it was him.”

Still, the nervous instincts refused to completely dissipate. Reflecting lights and unfamiliar vehicles weren’t the only differences in her regular morning routine. She had other reasons to be a little jumpy this morning. Her homey, countrified decor now included a large gray kennel with a steel mesh gate. The smells in her home were different, too. There was a slight pungency of dog food and heat from the beast dozing in said kennel. Even the sounds were different. In the early morning quiet before downtown Kansas City came to life again, she heard a soft, even snore coming from her guest room.

Maybe she
should
report the SUV. Just in case she was right to be worried about strange vehicles parked in front of her shop. A panic attack was embarrassing. But not responding to a real threat could be downright dangerous. Her footsteps took her back down the hallway.

She’d made a deal with KCPD—for LaDonna Chambers, for her late friend Janie Harrison, for her client Bailey Austin, for the women who lived and worked and played in this neighborhood, to end that threat. She’d made the deal to help capture the Rose Red Rapist for herself. Because she deserved to feel safe in her own home and shop. She’d gone to bed a shy woman who lurked in the background of society, and she’d woken up to a very different, unfamiliar world where she had to take action and play a starring role.

Hope paused outside the second bedroom and pushed the sleepy tumble of hair off her face. As much as her heart and conscience wanted to do this undercover job to help the police, her father’s voice inside her head was telling her she was doomed to fail. She could never pull this off—being the fictitious fiancée to one of Kansas City’s finest, playing the part of would-be witness to draw a dangerous man into KCPD’s trap.

“You’re too much of a coward,
girl.
Now quit thinkin’ on your own and dreamin’ those stupid dreams,
and do what I tell you.”

“Shut up, Hank,” she whispered, pushing open the door and peeking inside. She’d gotten her brother away from their father’s prison. She’d started her own business. She supported herself more comfortably than she’d ever dreamed possible back on that remote patch of land in the Ozark woods. She could do this, too. She could live with a man for a few days. She could tolerate his dog and get used to their habits. She could even learn to be more convincing as half of a couple.

Still, her heart beat faster and her breath locked up in her chest when she saw the big man sleeping in the bed. Pike Taylor’s broad shoulders and naked chest seemed at odds with the white, eyelet-trimmed sheets and hand sewn quilt draped around his waist. A more familiar light coming through the eyelet curtains at the window dappled his skin with tiny spots of sunshine, highlighting golden spikes of hair among the sandy shades of tan and brown on his scruffy jaw and chin, and farther down, in the hair that dusted his chest and narrowed into a thin line running down his flat stomach and disappearing beneath the sheet.

Watching a grown man sleep was as mesmerizing as it was unfamiliar. Other than her brother, Harry, her father ages ago, or catching an accidental glimpse of a customer trying on a tux in her changing rooms downstairs, half-naked men weren’t something she’d had much experience with. She’d never had that much muscle and testosterone sleeping in her apartment.

Hope’s skin suddenly burned beneath her nightgown and robe, and her mouth went dry. She was assuming Pike Taylor was only
half-
naked. What if he wasn’t? Her pulse thundered in her ears. She’d certainly never had
that
in her apartment.

The twin bronze medallions that marked him as uniquely male had puckered in the cool air and stood at attention atop the even rise and fall of his chest, mocking her inability to make a decision. Should she wake him up to tell him about the car? Politely retreat until he was awake and back in uniform?

They probably should have talked about the bathroom schedule and sleeping regalia last night while they were discussing ground rules for this charade. What if he was a sleepwalker? What if he sat up in bed right now and the quilt drifted farther south?

“It’s not polite to stare.”

Hope gasped as Pike’s deep, husky voice startled her from across the room. He was awake? He’d been watching her...watch him? One blue eye blinked open, confirming the worst. Embarrassment heated her face as the second eye opened. “There was a car out front,” she blurted. “It’s gone.”
Sound like an idiot much?
“I’m sorry.” She was already backing from the room, pulling the door closed behind her. “I am so sorry.”

“Hope? Wait. What car?”

Smooth,
woman.
She tucked her robe together at the neck and dashed to the kitchen. His teasing tone made it sound as though she’d been admiring the scenery. She hadn’t been, had she? Not intentionally. She’d been curious. Concerned. She was just trying to get used to having a man in her home so she wouldn’t freak out like...like the way she was doing right now. “Good grief.”

If Pike had any doubts about her ability to pretend she was in love with him, she’d just confirmed them.

“Hope?”

She spun around the corner in her haste to get away from the door opening behind her. Her hip bumped a chair and rammed it against the table, knocking the lid off the sugar bowl and waking up the beast sleeping by the front door. Hope shrieked at Hans’s deep woof and reversed course, plowing into Pike’s bare chest.

Her fingers brushed across ticklish hair and warm sinew before she flattened her palms against a sculpted swell of muscle and pushed away. The heat of his skin sizzled beneath her cool hands and her vision swam with a blur of faded blue. Hope realized he had on a pair of old jeans, and the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Thank God, you’re wearing pants.”

“Huh?”

The dog barked again, either at her flighty distress or excitement at seeing his master.

Or the gun he held in his hand.

“Oh!” Hope ducked behind Pike, her fingers sliding around the bare skin of his torso as she tried to put him between her and Hans. The moment she noticed that the skin at the small of his back was smoother than the hard muscles of his chest had been was the moment she realized she was still touching him. Hope curled her traitorous fingers into her palms and clutched them beneath her chin. “Sorry. I shouldn’t keep grabbing you.”

“You shouldn’t keep apologizing, either.” Pike turned, filling her vision with his broad shoulders and chest. “It’s okay. I won’t break.”

“No. Obviously, you’re strong enough to...” Heat radiated off him in waves. Or maybe that was her own embarrassment making her feverish. “I was just caught off guard because you’re hot.” What did she just say? “I mean, your skin’s hot. Temperature-wise. Oh, God.”

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, thankfully silencing her double entendres, keeping the heavy black gun he carried pointed down at his right side. “It’s okay. I’m flattered more than I should be. Now tell me about the car you saw.”

Those clear blue eyes were all business when she looked above the bare chest. Hope nodded as some of the fluster faded. She knew how to respond to that. “A silver SUV was parked out front when I woke up. I wouldn’t have noticed it except the sun was reflecting off the windshield and coming into my bedroom. There was a man behind the wheel, but I couldn’t see him well because of the glare.” Pike was already moving across the apartment to peek out the front windows. “It’s gone now.”

“Did he see you look out the window?”

Pike’s concise movements made her think she’d been right to be suspicious. “From my bedroom, maybe. If he was looking up. He pulled away when I opened those curtains there.”

“He drove south?”

“Yes. Is that a bad thing?”

“I’ll find out. Come on, big guy.” Hope hugged the white pillar beside her couch as he released Hans from his kennel, hooked the leash to his collar and opened her front door. “Stay put. Lock the door. We’ll be back.”

As soon as the door closed, Hope hurried after them to throw the dead bolt. She heard the doors opening downstairs and dashed to the windows to see Pike and Hans rush out to the sidewalk below. Even with Pike barefoot and wearing holey jeans, there was something powerful, vigilant, relentless about the pair’s quick movements and watchful scans. They moved up and down the street, following Hans’s nose before disappearing around the side of the building into her parking lot.

Several more minutes passed, giving her plenty of time to imagine a dozen different dangerous scenarios, before she heard them on the stairs again. Hope met them at the door and opened it, standing behind its blockade while Pike wrestled for a few seconds with Hans, then tossed a thick rope with a rubber ball tied to it into the living room, where the dog curled up on her braided oval rug to chew on his toy.

“There’s no sign of anybody watching the place now.” Pike pulled the door from her hands and locked it, exposing her hiding place before she was certain the loose dog wouldn’t notice her here. But that long-ingrained phobia was of little consequence. Pike tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and started rummaging through her kitchen cabinets. “You’ve had company. There were footprints in the landscaping around your lot.”

Hope hugged her arms around her waist. “They could be from patrons coming or going to the bar or coffee shop on the corner last night,” she suggested. “They park on the next block and take shortcuts through one of the alleys or my parking lot.”

Pike shook his head. “Hans found deep footprints in the mud. Someone was standing there a long time. Facing your shop.”

Shivering at the possibility that she hadn’t imagined someone outside was watching her, Hope inched into the kitchen with Pike. “Can I help you find something?”

“A trash bag? This was left outside the door.” He pointed to a padded envelope he’d set on the table. “I want to bag it for evidence, just in case it’s important. Unless you recognize it?”

Hope shook her head. “Under the sink.” She looked at the package without touching it. Her name. No return address. No postmark, either.

“Hand-delivered,” Pike agreed as if she’d voiced her suspicion out loud, and shook open the plastic bag. “Just like the box of bugs. I’m guessing that whoever was loitering outside was hoping to see your reaction when you open it.”

“Should I?”

“Careful. Hans seemed to think whatever’s inside would be fun to play with. He didn’t indicate anything explosive.” Pike waited beside her while she picked up a knife and sliced open the end of the slightly bulging envelope. “Maybe it’s another gift from your father?”