“I suppose anything’s possible.” She rose and walked through the arch into the living room where Maggie was lightly dozing on the couch to check on her. Actually she’d left the table more to get away from Nick’s intense look than because she felt Maggie needed her.
The older woman’s eyes opened slowly and focused on Tate. “Did Josh find the man?”
“Not yet,” Tate answered, straightening her pillows a fraction.
“I only wish he’d have pointed him out to me that day in the park. Maybe I’d remember his features. Four eyes are better than two, you know.” Wincing, she shifted the cast on her right arm to a more comfortable position.
“Not to worry. Nick will locate him sooner or later. Want some more tea?”
“Yes, dear, that would be nice.”
Tate went to the kitchen, passing through the dining room as Nick closed the third book and opened the final one in front of Josh. Turning slightly, Nick studied Tate.
She’d changed clothes after picking up Maggie from the hospital since the temperature was already in the nineties, not unusual for late May in Tucson. She wore a loose mannish shirt with sleeves rolled up over a white knit top and denim shorts that showed off her shapely legs. She wasn’t very tall, five-five or six, which at his height of six-three made him over a head taller. Yet she held herself so erect that she appeared taller. He noticed that she’d gathered her wild reddish hair at her neck and reined it in with a gold clip. Nick’s hands itched to run his fingers through the thick waves and watch it fall to her shoulders.
Knowing full well that she didn’t need him to make a pot of tea, he meandered into the kitchen anyhow. “Need some help?”
Lost in thought, Tate was momentarily startled to find him at her elbow. “Oh. Thanks, but I can manage.” Turning the kettle on, she saw he wasn’t going to leave, so she waved a hand toward Josh. “No luck yet and that’s the last book. I feel badly that we dragged you over here, wasting your time.”
“You’re not wasting my time. Police work is a slow process, not like in the movies or on TV where a witness sits down and spots the suspect on page two. I’ve learned to be a patient man.”
Tate rinsed the pot and selected two tea bags. Maggie liked hot tea even in the summer. “I think I’ll make some iced tea as well.” She reached for the tall pitcher on the top shelf, but even on her tiptoes, couldn’t quite make it.
“Here, let me.” Nick moved closer to the cupboard and reached up, effectively hemming Tate in between himself and the counter. As he handed her the pitcher, their gazes locked. Just that quickly, he saw that unmistakable male-female awareness leap into her dark green eyes. He didn’t move, scarcely breathed as both their hands encircled the pitcher. He wasn’t even touching her, yet his senses were acutely tuned to her. Fleetingly, her face registered confusion and an almost heartbreaking need before she deliberately stepped back and looked away.
“Tate, I…” Nick wanted to say something, to acknowledge the moment, the connection, if only in some small way.
Her back to him, she shook her head. “Please, don’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, genuinely curious. He’d known a lot of women and was well aware that that indefinable connection didn’t happen often. Hell, it scarcely happened at all. He also knew she’d felt it, too.
But just then, his beeper went off and Tate was saved from answering, from being confronted. Shaken yet relieved, she pointed to the desk through the arch. “Phone’s over there.”
Frowning as he recognized the number of the precinct dispatcher, he left the room. In moments, he hung up and turned back to Tate who was just closing the last mug shot book. “Not there, either?” he asked Josh. The boy shook his head.
Nick gathered up the books. “Thanks for trying.” He looked into the boy’s eyes, again thinking how much Josh reminded him of his mother, although he must have gotten his blond hair from his father. “If you ever see that man again, don’t go up to him or talk with him, but study his face very closely. And let me know right away if he shows up here, okay?” He watched the boy solemnly nod, then turned to Tate. “That goes for you and Maggie, too.”
Tate remembered the black car parked outside the other night and wanted in the worst way to tell Nick about it. But what good would that do? It would only open a can of worms she was unwilling to face. Even when she’d been confronted by the man Nick was looking for years ago, she hadn’t seen his features, either, for he’d worn a ski mask then, too.
The woman should never play poker, Nick thought as he caught her evasive look. Why wouldn’t she trust him? “I’ve got to go out on a call.”
“Another rescue?” Josh wanted to know.
Nick smiled at the boy and ruffled his hair. “Nothing so dramatic. At least, I hope not.” The call, unfortunately, was about a woman who’d been raped in the rest room of a supermarket. He was to meet his partner at the scene.
Hurriedly he said goodbye to Maggie and Josh as Tate followed him out onto the porch. “Are you going back to work tomorrow?” he asked her, wondering who would care for an incapacitated older woman and a young boy. Still, she had a job to protect.
“I’ve asked for a few days off, till Maggie’s better. And I’ve got to find some kind of summer program to enroll Josh in.” One that had iron-clad security.
Nick hadn’t forgotten that the creep who’d invaded Maggie’s house had been asking about the boy’s whereabouts. This whole incident somehow involved Josh, which led him inevitably to consider the father as a suspect. “Tate, I have to ask you. Is it possible that the break-in has something to do with Josh’s father?”
Tate stiffened, her features tightening. “I haven’t seen him in years. He didn’t even know I was pregnant.” Which was the truth, as far as it went. “I…I’ve got to go in.”
He knew he should have left by now, that he was needed at another crime scene, but he had one more point to make. He switched the heavy books under one arm and gently touched her hand. “Tate, I’m not the enemy. I want to help you.”
She felt the heat, from his touch, from his words. Tears leaped to her eyes, wanting badly to fall. But she couldn’t afford the luxury, nor could she let this kind man know her feelings. “I know,” she whispered, then quickly went inside.
All the way to his car, Nick swore inventively. Around the precinct, he was known as the great communicator. More often than not, he could get suspects to open up to him, to instinctively trust him. Yet here, with this woman who’d somehow gotten under his skin, he couldn’t get her to drop her guard, one he was certain she’d had in place for years.
Tossing the mug books on the back seat, Nick got behind the wheel. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, he reminded himself. He’d get Tate Monroe to trust him if it was the last thing he ever did, he vowed as he pulled away from the curb.
Nick left the interrogation room and stepped into the viewing room where the two-way mirror allowed others to observe and listen to a suspect or witness being questioned. He and Lou had just done their good-cop-bad-cop routine with Ronda Philips, the woman claiming she’d been raped in an eastside supermarket rest room by a burly man with long hair and a chipped front tooth wearing an oil-stained T-shirt and carrying a big knife. Nick let out a ragged
