no doubt, for why he was out driving around so late at night. Following someone? Officer, that was just an unfortunate coincidence. I was going to the supermarket to pick up some ice cream.
Yeah, right.
As Syd moved closer, one of the police officers approached her.
“Sydney Jameson?” he called.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for responding so quickly to Detective McCoy’s call. Does this guy have identification?”
“He does,” the officer said. “He also says he knows you—and that you know him.”
What? Sydney moved closer, but the man who’d been following her was still surrounded by the police and she couldn’t see his face.
The police officer continued. “He also claims you’re both part of a working police task force…?”
Sydney could see in the dim streetlights that the truck was red. Red.
As if on cue, the police officers parted, the man turned his face toward her and…
It was. Luke O’Donlon.
“Why the hell were you following me?” All of her emotions sparked into anger. “You scared me to death, damn it!”
He himself wasn’t too happy about having been frisked by six unfriendly policemen. He was still standing in the undignified search position—legs spread, palms against the side of his truck, and he sounded just as indignant as she did. Maybe even more indignant. “I was following you home. You were supposed to go home, not halfway across the state. Jeez, I was just trying to make sure you were safe.”
“What about Heather?” The words popped out before Sydney could stop herself.
But Luke didn’t even seem to hear her question. He had turned back to the police officers. “Are you guys satisfied? I’m who I say I am, all right? Can I please stand up?”
The police officer who seemed to be in charge looked to Syd.
“No,” she said, nodding yes. “I think you should make him stay like that for about two hours as punishment.”
“Punishment?” Luke let out a stream of sailor’s language as he straightened up. “For doing something nice? For worrying so much about you and Lucy going home from that bar alone that I dropped Heather off at her apartment and came straight back to make sure you’d be okay?”
He hadn’t gone home with Miss Ventura County. He’d given up a night of steamy, mindless, emotionless sex because he had been worried about her.
Syd didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him.
“Heather wasn’t happy,” he told her. “That’s your answer for ‘what about Heather?’” He smiled ruefully. “I don’t think she’s ever been turned down before.”
He had heard her question.
She’d spent most of the past hour trying her hardest not to imagine his long, muscular legs entangled with Heather’s, his skin slick and his hair damp with perspiration as he…
She’d tried her hardest, but she’d always had a very good imagination.
It was stupid. She’d told herself that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter. She didn’t even like him. But now here he was, standing in front of her, gazing at her with those impossibly blue eyes, with that twenty-four-carat sun-gilded hair curling in his face from the ocean’s humidity.
“You scared me,” she said again.
“You?” He laughed. “Something tells me you’re unscareable.” He looked around them at the three police cars, lights still spinning, the officers talking on their radios. He shook his head with what looked an awful lot like admiration. “You actually had the presence of mind to call the police from your cell phone, huh? That was good, Jameson. I’m impressed.”
Syd shrugged. “It wasn’t that big a deal. But I guess you just don’t spend that much time with smart women.”
Lucky laughed. “Ouch. Poor Heather. She’s not even here to defend herself. She’s not that bad, you know. A little heartless and consumed by her career, but that’s not so different from most people.”
“How could you be willing to settle for ‘not that bad?’” Syd countered. “You could have just about anyone you wanted. Why not choose someone with a heart?”
“That assumes,” he said, “that I’d even want someone’s heart.”
“Ah,” she said, turning back to her car. “My mistake.”
“Syd.”
She turned back to face him.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” she said. “Warn me in advance all right?” She turned away.
“Syd.”
She sighed and turned to face him again. “Quickly, Ken,” she begged. “We’ve got a seven o’clock meeting scheduled at the police station. I’m not a morning person, and I’m even less of a morning person when I get fewer than six hours of sleep.”
“I’m going to follow you home,” he told her. “When you go up to your apartment, flash your light a few times so I know everything’s okay, all right?”
Syd didn’t get it. “You don’t even like me. Why the concern?”
Lucky smiled. “I never said I didn’t like you. I just don’t want you on my team. Those are two very different things.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“SIT ON THE COUCH—or in the chair,” Dr. Lana Quinn directed Sydney. “Wherever you think you’ll be more comfortable.”
“I appreciate your finding the time to do this on such short notice,” Lucky said.
“You got lucky,” Lana told him with a smile. “Wes called right after my regular one o’clock cancelled. I was a little surprised actually—it’s been a while since I’ve heard from him.”
Lucky didn’t know the pretty young psychologist very well. She was married to a SEAL named Wizard with whom he’d never worked. But Wizard had been in the same BUD/S class with Bobby and Wes, and the three men had remained close. And when Lucky had stopped Wes in the hall to inquire jokingly if he knew a hypnotist, Wes had surprised him by saying, yes, as a matter of fact, he did.
“How is Wes?” Lana asked.
Lucky was no shrink himself, but the question was just a little too casual.
She must have realized the way her words had sounded and hastened to explain. “He was in such a rush when he called, I didn’t even have time to ask. We used to talk on the phone all the time back when my husband was in Team Six, you know,
