where she was coming from, but he was shooting for something far less complex. Leaning over her bed, he tucked the blanket up around her waist. “Stop being an FBI agent for a few minutes, C.J. Just for tonight, be little what’sits-name’s mom.”
He had no idea what she was experiencing, C.J. thought. How hard it was to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. Maybe it was just her hormones, running amok, but she was filled with so much love, so much everything that it was a miracle she was even able to draw a breath in. It felt so crowded inside of her.
But there was no way anyone, not even Warrick, was ever going to see just how vulnerable she actually could be. Weakness was always exploited, intentionally or otherwise.
“Okay,” she finally allowed somewhat cavalierly. “But promise me you’ll keep me posted about the case.”
“Right.” There was no way one word about the case was going to reach her ears from his lips until she was back to active duty, he thought, smiling at her. “I’ll call if there’s any breakthrough.”
That was too easy. She knew him better than that. “I’m not kidding.”
“I know.” Warrick took her hands into his and looked into her eyes, his expression softening just a little. Until a few hours ago he would have said that he was as close to C.J. as he was ever going to get. He’d been wrong.
Maybe it was just the excess of emotions he was feeling, he thought, searching for a reason for what was going on inside of him. “Don’t you ever relax?”
C.J. pressed her lips together. “The last time I relaxed, I wound up pregnant.” She instantly regretted the confession, but as she watched his eyes, she realized with relief that Warrick was being sympathetic.
He shook his head. “I know this is a new concept for you, Jones, but try for middle ground.” He bent over the bed, intending to brush a kiss on her cheek. Caught off guard, she turned her head. Her lips made contact with his. It was hard to say who was more surprised.
Something that had all the markings of an electric current snaked its way through her at lightning speed, making every hair on her body stand on end. She knew it was only a matter of extreme exhaustion mingled with being emotionally overwrought, but the end effect was still the same.
Her heart was pounding almost as hard as it had when she was struggling to give birth.
Very slowly Warrick lifted his head. His eyes held hers for a beat before he took a step back. He was as unsure of what had just transpired here as he had been about the feeling that had taken hold of him in the field office.
“You missed your target entirely,” she said quietly, struggling for a fragment of composure. She felt as if she was going to shatter into a million pieces if he so much as blew in her direction. “I think you’d better get back on the firing range.”
Warrick laughed then and ran his thumb along her bottom lip, wiping off the imprint of his lips. “Don’t worry about my ability to shoot straight. I can handle my own. See you tomorrow, Mommy.”
That term was reserved for her daughter when she learned to talk. C.J. loathed couples who referred to one another that way. “Don’t call me that.”
He paused. “‘Daddy’ doesn’t seem to fit, even if you do wear the pants most of the time.”
She didn’t want him thinking of her any differently. Not because of the baby. And not because of what had just accidentally happened here. “I’m still C.J.,” she insisted.
“Yeah,” he agreed. His eyes swept over her. “You’re still C.J. But as of two hours ago, you’re now a hell of a lot more.”
He winked at her and left.
Chapter 5
That old familiar feeling came over her. The one where she felt as if she was in the right place, where she was meant to be.
After completing three weeks of her maternity leave, C.J. absorbed her surroundings as she made her way from the elevator and down the hall. The last time she’d been here, she’d been done in by exhaustion, flat on her back and strapped to a gurney on the way to the hospital with a minutes-old baby in her arms.
God it felt good to be back.
She took a moment to gather herself together outside the office she shared with Rodriguez, Culpepper and Warrick, then pushed open the door.
Culpepper was the first to see her. Portly, with a layer of muscle beneath the fat, he rose to his feet and came forward.
“Hey, looks who’s here, Rodriguez. How’s it going, Mommy?”
Tossing her purse on her desk, she glanced toward her partner. “Warrick, did you warn these people about calling me that?”
“Hey, I can’t help it if they all have the attention spans of baby gnats.” Their desks butted up against each other. He rounded his and came to stand by hers. “Speaking of baby, why aren’t you with yours?”
She took a deep breath. Slightly stale air, lemon floor polish and Rodriguez’s ever-present jar of peanut butter. It even smelled good to be back here.
“The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, said I was fit to report back for duty.” C.J. had left the appropriate papers down at personnel on her way up here. “She actually thought I would be a nicer person if I went off to work every day.”
That was because even despite the work a new baby required, C.J. found herself going stir-crazy. The ability to multitask with speed was not always a good thing. It left her with too much time on her hands. She needed to fill that time with her job. Besides, ever since she’d become a mother herself, she had this overwhelming need to make the world around her a safer place to be for her daughter. She was doing it the only way she knew how.
“Besides,” C.J. continued, “My daughter’s actually got the semblance of a sleeping schedule down, and I’ve been kept in the dark long enough.”She looked at Warrick pointedly, then turned her attention to the other two men who were part of the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s task force. “Can either one of you two fill me in?” She nodded toward Warrick. “My partner here refused to say a word about the case to me. Every time I asked, he kept changing the subject so much, I began thinking that maybe Warrick was the Artful Dodger come to life.”
“Artful anything doesn’t sound like Warrick,” Ralph Culpepper hooted.
“Never mind that.” She sat down at the edge of her seat, as if poised to leap up at any second, Warrick noticed. Same old C.J. “I need input,” she told them. “Someone brief me.”
George Rodriguez raised and lowered his wide shoulders. At six-five, everything he did was big. “Nothing to brief, C.J., our boy’s laying low again. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be another three-year reprieve.”
That wasn’t the way she saw it. “We’ll get lucky when we nail the son of a bitch.” As long as the serial killer wasn’t off the streets, he could always strike again. “So nothing’s been happening while I’ve been out of touch?” C.J. underscored the final word, sending an accusing glance Warrick’s way.
“Well, Rodriguez, here, got engaged.” Culpepper slapped his partner on the back. Sitting, Rodriguez
