none of my business what you do when you’re off duty,” she said in a stiff voice, shrinking even farther away from him. “It’s a free country.”
That made him grin again. “This country is bought and paid for, and you and I both know it,” he said, surprised at the bitterness that sneaked in there. “I buy them dinner,” he went on, wondering if someone like Caroline Jennings would ever really be able to understand. “They’re mostly young, mostly girls—mostly being forced to work against their will. I treat them like people, not criminals—show them there’s another way. When they’re ready, I help them get away and get clean. And until they are, I make sure they’re eating, give them enough money they don’t have to work that night.”
“That’s...” She blinked. “Really?”
“Really. I don’t sleep with them.” For some ridiculous reason, he almost let the truth slip free—he didn’t sleep with anyone. It was none of her business—but he wanted to make sure she knew he operated with all the ethical integrity she valued. “Carlson can back me up on that.”
“Who’s Maggie?”
Interesting. There was no good reason for her to be concerned about Maggie sending Tom her love, unless...
Unless Caroline was trying to figure out if he was attached. “Carlson’s wife. We grew up on the same reservation together.” He left out the part where he’d gone off to Washington, DC, and joined the FBI, leaving Maggie vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
There was a reason he didn’t sleep with prostitutes. But that wasn’t his story to tell—it was Maggie’s. He stuck to the facts.
The breeze gusted, surrounding him with her scent. He couldn’t help leaning forward and inhaling. “Roses,” he murmured, his voice unexpectedly tender again. He really needed to stop with the tenderness.
She flushed again, and although he shouldn’t, he hoped it wasn’t from the heat. “I beg your pardon?”
“You smell of roses.” Somehow, he managed to put another step between them. “Is that your normal perfume, or was that from the delivery?” There. That was a perfectly reasonable question to ask, from a law-enforcement perspective.
“From the flowers. The bouquet was huge. At least a hundred stems.”
“All roses?”
She thought about that. “Mixed. Lilies and carnations—a little bit of everything, really. But mostly roses.”
In other words, it hadn’t been cheap. He tried to visualize how big a vase with a hundred stems would be. “But you’re not taking any home with you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want them. My clerk got rid of most of them. Leland took home a huge bunch for his wife.”
“Leland’s a good guy,” Tom replied, as if this were normal small talk when it was anything but.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she blurted out.
“My record speaks for itself.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out to her. “You don’t know what you’re up against here. This kind of corruption is insidious and nearly impossible to track, Caroline. But if there’s anything else out of the ordinary—and I mean anything—don’t hesitate to call me. Or Carlson,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He didn’t want her to call Carlson, though. He wanted her to call him. For any reason. “No detail is too small. Names, car makes—anything you remember can be helpful.”
After a long moment—so long, in fact, that he began to wonder if she was going to take the card at all—she asked, “So we’re to work together?”
He heard the question she didn’t ask. “On this case, yes.”
But if it weren’t for this case...
She took the card from him and slid it into her shirt pocket. He did his best not to stare at the motion. Damn.
She gave him that look again, the one that made him think she was holding herself back. “Fine.”
He straightened and gave her a little salute. “After this case...” He turned and headed to his car. “Have a good evening, Caroline,” he called over his shoulder.
She gasped and he almost, almost spun back on his heel and captured that little noise with a kiss.
But he didn’t. Instead, he climbed into the driver’s seat of his Camaro, gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot as fast as he could.
He needed to put a lot of distance between him and Caroline Jennings. Because, no matter how much he might be attracted to her, he wasn’t about to compromise this case for her.
And that was final.
For a while, nothing happened. There were no more mysterious flower deliveries—or, for that matter, any kind of deliveries. The remaining half dozen roses on Caroline’s desk withered and died. Andrea threw them away. People in the courthouse seemed friendlier—apparently, handing out scads of flowers made Caroline quite popular. Other than that, though, things continued on as they had before.
Before Agent Tom Yellow Bird had shown up in her courtroom.
She got up, went for a jog before the heat got oppressive, went to the courthouse and then came home. No mysterious gifts, no handsome men—mysterious or otherwise. No surprises. Everything went exactly as it was supposed to. Which was good. Great, even.
If she didn’t have Tom’s card in her pocket—and that electric memory of shaking his hand—she would have been tempted to convince herself she had imagined the whole thing. A fantasy she’d invented to alleviate boredom instead of a flesh-and-blood man. Fantasies were always safer, anyway.
But...there were times when she could almost feel his presence. She’d come out of the courthouse and pull up short, looking for his black muscle car with the silver stripe on the hood, but he was never there. And the fact that disappointed her was irritating.
She had not developed a crush on the man. No crushes. That was that.
Just because he was an officer of the law with a gun concealed under his jacket, with eyes that might be his biggest weapon—that was no reason to lust after the man. She didn’t need to see him again. It was better that way—at least, she finally had to admit to herself, it was better that way while his corruption investigation was still ongoing. The more distance between them, the less she would become infatuated.
Tom Yellow Bird was a mistake she wasn’t going to make.
It was a good theory, anyway. But he showed up in her dreams, a shadowy lover who drove her wild with his hands, his mouth, his body. She woke up tense and frustrated, and no electronic assistance could relieve the pressure. Her vibrator barely took the edge off, but it was enough.
Besides, she had other things to focus on. She finally finished unpacking her kitchen, although she still ate too much takeout. It was hard to work up the energy to cook when the temperature outside
