corrosion on her car’s battery cables with a wire brush. Seconds later, a flash of awareness hit her. With her instincts blaring the warning she was no longer alone, she jerked her head up hard enough to thud against the hood of her car.
“Easy!”
She heard the shout at the same time she whirled, the wire brush raised like a weapon. Her heartbeat faltered when she saw Bran. She’d known he was coming by. But for the past week she’d schooled her thoughts toward the possibility of Heath or one of his pals showing up. Going into defense mode with the wire brush had been knee-jerk reflex.
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Bran cuffed one hand behind an ear. “What?”
Turning, she leaned across the span of the car’s engine toward the portable CD player propped on the fender. When she flipped the switch, silence dropped on the garage like a stone.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she repeated.
“Go figure.” Unzipping his insulated jacket, he hooked a brow at the wire brush she still held defensively. “You planning on making a run at me with that thing?”
In his sharp-pressed uniform, he looked much the same as he had on the night he’d stepped into her life, hauling Danny home from a shadily-run poker game. Whipcord-lean and ramrod-straight, chiseled jaw and thick, sandy hair, Bran McCall had quite literally made her mouth water. Now, without warning, a lot of complex sensations surged up out of the past, washing over her in waves.
“You’re a good guy, so you’re safe,” she said, pleased that her voice sounded cool and calm. “But this wire brush would do a wicked job on some bad guy’s face.”
“True.”
Hoping to jettison her jangling nerves, she turned back to the battery and tackled a small spot of corrosion still left on one terminal. Maybe the sight of Bran in his uniform wouldn’t have had such an effect on her if she hadn’t spent the past week trying to rid her mind of maddening thoughts of how it felt to lie beneath him again, to look up into his face while his body molded against hers, to feel his sure, firm weight while the musky scent of his cologne filled her lungs.
When he stepped beside her and stuck his head under the hood, her belly tightened. Blood warmed. The slouchy red sweater she’d pulled on that morning was suddenly doing too good a job at keeping her body heat contained.
“Did your battery give out?” he asked. “Or are you just making sure it doesn’t?”
“Making sure.” He smelled wonderful, like soap and something musky and male that hinted of sleep and sex. While a rivulet of sweat trickled between her breasts, she continued scrubbing, even though the corrosion was gone. “I’m working a case involving nighttime surveillance at the downtown library learning center. The guy I’m watching is a slime. Last night when I left there, my battery barely kicked in.”
She was babbling, but couldn’t make herself shut up. “It’s supposed to get even colder tonight. Didn’t want to risk the battery giving out. Decided to do some maintenance.”
“Good idea.”
When he leaned in for a closer look at the engine, the knots in her stomach tightened.
He gave a hose a testing squeeze. “This feels a little hard. You might want to replace it.”
“I’ll put it on my to-do list.” She slanted a look at his profile. Hero-perfect with a hint of rugged. Why did just looking at him cause those damned chemical signals to zip through her? Flash red alerts?
A second later he had the oil dipstick out. “Oil’s a little low.”
“I planned to check it.”
Nodding, he replaced the dipstick, then leaned in farther. “How about your power-steering fluid?”
“You know, I really don’t need….” Her voice caught when she turned her head and found they were eye-to-eye and mouth-to-mouth. Her throat tightened when his warm breath skated across her face. If either of them moved in, their mouths would touch. The heat coiling inside her belly streaked up into her cheeks.
She knew that heat had turned to a flush when his Viking-blue eyes darkened. A second later something sharp and reckless slid into those eyes and his gaze dropped to her mouth. The ache in her belly turned into a throb.
“You really don’t need what, Tory?”
“I….” Oh, God. She didn’t need to be thinking about her soon-to-be ex touching her in places that had frozen over during their months apart.
She jerked back. “I don’t need help with my car.”
“Yeah, what the hell was I thinking?”
Watching him, she could feel his withdrawal even before he stepped back.
His mouth thinned. “You’ve always made it clear just how little you need me.” His voice was now about ten degrees colder than the air in the garage.
“Look, I wasn’t trying to make a statement. I just…. Dammit, I don’t need help checking the fluid levels in my car.”
“Or anything else.” He loomed over her, tall and unfathomable, staring at her with those hot blue eyes.
She eased out a breath. He knew about her past. About her mother. Just as she knew all about his. About Patience. He wanted a woman with a fragile side. She wanted a man who didn’t view her take-charge personality as a liability. He had left because he knew their situation was hopeless. Nothing had changed.
Resigned, she laid the wire brush aside. “On the phone, you said you’d found more of Heath’s associates?”
Bran watched her for a long, silent moment, then nodded. “Somewhere along the line in his criminal career, he started a motorcycle club with ties to drug smuggling, pornography and prostitution. The club was called the Crows.”
“Was?”
“It supposedly disbanded.” He pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his heavy coat. “But plenty of the members still live around here. There’s about twenty names of former Crows on this list. I’ve included copies of mug shots and surveillance photos to go with the names. A couple are relatives of Heath’s, others just running buddies. Three on the list made regular visits to Heath while he was in prison. I put checks by those names.”
“Are the cops watching them all?”
“The ones we can find.”
“Do you know yet who helped Heath kill the corrections cop and escape from the funeral home?”
“No.” He laid the envelope on the workbench. “The vice cops say if any of their snitches know, they’re not talking.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“I expect to hear from you if you spot any of them.”
“You will. Bran,” she said when he took a step toward the door. “Since you’re here…”
He
