not interested in having anyone.”
She thought of the way the women at the precinct looked at him when he wasn’t paying attention. Which was all of the time.
“Oh, well, that’s a shame, because there are plenty of people interested in having you.” Determined not to let him know how much this was hurting, she pushed harder against the wound praying it would stop radiating pain.
He almost slipped and told her she was delirious again, but stopped himself in time. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She gave him that smile, that knowing, almost smug smile that said she was privy to some kind of inside information that he wasn’t. The one that never failed to test the parameters of his temper and find him seriously lacking. The one that got under his skin no matter how much he tried to keep it out.
“You know,” she said in an almost breathless manner that concerned him the moment he heard it, “for a police detective, you’re not very observant. Female people,” she finally elaborated. “You don’t seem to notice all the heads that turn whenever you come into the room, partner. You definitely raise blood pressures.”
He gave her a look that would have silenced a babbling brook, but had no effect on her. “You’re raising mine right now.”
She chose to interpret his comment the way she knew would drive him crazy. “What a lovely thing to say, Hawk.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Why did five flights feel so endless? She was surprisingly light, even in boots and a winter jacket, but he was being careful not to jostle her any further, and that took time and effort. He wasn’t happy about having to hold her against him like this. He had her so close, the blood from her wound had gotten onto his clothing.
It wasn’t the blood he was concerned about. With a little cold water, a lot of soaking, blood washed out. It was breathing in that cologne of hers—the one she swore she didn’t wear—that was getting to him. It made the closed-in area of the stairwell almost suffocating for him. He responded to her in ways he didn’t want to even think about.
In ways he didn’t want to respond. He couldn’t think of her as a woman, he reminded himself.
He couldn’t not.
Teri took a deep breath. The dizziness was beginning to pass slightly. Maybe she was getting her second wind, she reasoned. She looked at Hawk. “Let me walk down the rest of the way,” she said. “I don’t want you naming your hernia after me.”
This wasn’t even up for discussion. If he let her try to stand up, he was fairly certain she was going to go down like a stone. He would have bet his next month’s pay on it.
“You weigh twelve and a half pounds—don’t worry about it.”
She wasn’t exactly worried, but this definitely had the makings of something he was going to use to his advantage throughout their partnership. “This isn’t something you’re going to let me live down.”
She was out of her head, wasn’t she? he thought. Other partners had rapports where there was a certain amount of give and take, of banter. He would have liked nothing better than to spend his time with her in completely silence except for the dispatch radio.
“This isn’t something I ever intend to talk about. Ever,” he underscored.
She tried to guess at his reason. “Don’t like people reminding you that you’re kind?”
“Don’t like people being pains in the butt,” he countered.
Jack Hawkins was a hard nut to crack, she thought. But here he was, being nice to her. He could have waited for the elevator, could have waited for the paramedics to arrive on the roof, for that matter, instead of taking it upon himself to carry her down five flights of stairs to the ground floor. Six if they counted the set of stairs that had led from the roof to the fifth floor. Which meant the big lug cared.
“You can huff and puff all you want, Hawk, but I’ve got your number. You’re not the big bad wolf you pretend to be.”
Reaching the final landing, he paused long enough to look her right in the eye. She had to get over this noble image of him she was trying to paint. It got in his way.
“I don’t waste my time pretending.” So saying, he pushed down on the door handle with his elbow, opening the door that led out into the lobby.
Hawk could protest all he wanted; she knew better. But she played along, her mouth curving. “What you see is what you get, huh?”
He didn’t bother looking at her. Instead, he walked by the doorman, whose mouth dropped open when he saw the wounded woman in Hawk’s arms. “Right.”
“Wrong,” she countered just as the ambulance came into view.
Seeing journey’s end, Hawk almost sighed with relief. Not long now.
The doors of the stark-white vehicle with its red letters popped open. One of the two paramedics assigned to it jumped out.
Hawk deposited her inside the rear of the ambulance.
“She’s all yours,” he announced, backing away with his arms slightly raised, like a rodeo star who had just tied up a calf. “Best of luck to you.”
A ray of panic flashed between the shafts of pain vying for possession of her. He was leaving.
“You’re not coming?”
If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she looked scared. But if he’d learned nothing else these very long nine months, he’d learned that Theresa Cavanaugh did not get scared. Or, and this was probably more likely, if she did, she never showed it.
“Someone has to fill in the reports.”
Hawk began to walk away when he saw her wince as the paramedic slid off her coat. There was blood everywhere, spearing on his guilt. If it hadn’t been for her pushing him out of the way, he would have been the one with the wound. And, more than likely, his would have been more serious. He was taller than she was. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that the bullet would have probably found its way into his gut.
The encroaching panic continued spinning out its web, swirling around her. She saw the way Hawk looked at her wound and guessed at what he was thinking, if not saying. She shamelessly used it to her advantage. “We caught the bad guys, Hawk. The paperwork can wait for a couple of hours.”
The paramedic was administering to her wound, bandaging it up as quickly as possible. Hawk averted his eyes from the exposed area, giving her her privacy. “Why do you want me to come with you?”
She could lie. She could make a joke about it. But right now, she needed to have him come with her. To chase the specters away. So she went with the truth and hoped it would work.
“I need someone to hold my hand,” she told him honestly. “I never liked hospitals. People die in hospitals.”
He wasn’t sure if she was putting him on again or not. But there was a look in her eyes that didn’t allow him to retreat the way he wanted to.
