person who’d gotten off that elevator.
He knew the woman was a runner. From her job application, he knew Jane was thirty-eight, but she worked out and kept in shape like a woman half her age. She probably had to in order to keep up with headstrong patients like his father. He couldn’t be the only man in Kansas City noticing her. She didn’t wear a ring. So if there wasn’t a current boyfriend, there had to be an ex.
A gut-check transformed his irritation into concern. Maybe that was the explanation—the calls, the texts, the dimpled brow. Maybe this was some type of harassment campaign. Could be the messages were more than a distraction from her job—maybe she was in some kind of trouble that could explain being so upset one moment, defensive the next, and guarded as she watched the people below in the parking lot. Thomas crossed the hallway. Since the woman didn’t talk about herself much beyond family recipes she shared with Millie and her medical training, he had to ask. “Did you two have a fight?”
Jane startled at the sound of his voice at her shoulder. “No.”
Thomas stepped up beside her and looked into the parking lot, scanning for anything that looked out of place. “So he is your boyfriend.”
Her ponytail bounced as she whipped her face up to his. “Don’t play your interrogation games on me, Detective. I work for you. I’m too old to be your daughter and I’m sure not your wife. You don’t have to know about my personal life.”
“I do when it interferes with your job.”
“How does this...?” She held up the phone and used it to gesture back to the physical and occupational therapy room. “Seamus doesn’t need me right now. I can take two seconds to answer a stupid text.”
Thomas had years of experience keeping his tone calm in the face of uncooperative witnesses or panicked rookies facing a dangerous or difficult call. “A text that clearly upsets you. Like the other texts and calls that you’ve been receiving these past few weeks? You’ve skipped out of meals, left in the middle of conversations. You’re about to jump out of your skin right now.” He pointed to the cell phone now clasped to her chest like some kind of lifeline. “Every decision you make seems to be centered around whatever is happening on that phone.”
“It doesn’t... It’s some business I need to take care of.” With a brush of her fingers over the neat simplicity of her hair, Jane’s cool facade returned. She pocketed her phone and resumed the clinically professional tone he was used to hearing. “I’m sorry if you think the calls are affecting my work. After dinner, once I get Seamus settled in his room and I’m off the clock, I’ll deal with them.”
“It’ll be after dark by then. What kind of business do you take care of at night?”
“None of yours.”
“None of my what?”
“None of your business,” she groaned and touched her hair again, this time actually pulling a few strands loose. “I was trying to be clever and shut you up.” She glared at the caramel-colored hair falling over her cheek and shoved it back behind her ear. “Never mind.”
Thomas heard the words coming out of his mouth before he rationally evaluated the impact of saying them. “I know the signs of someone in trouble. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No.” Her response was a little too vehement for him to accept that something wasn’t bothering her. Jane inhaled a deep breath and spoke in a softer tone. “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Detective.”
“Technically, it’s Detective Lieutenant. Or Lieutenant. Or just Thomas.” Thomas propped his hands at his belt and dropped his chin so he wouldn’t tower over her quite so much. “We’ve talked about this. You’ve been working for me and living at the house since the first of March. I think we can call each other by our names.”
“Thank you for your concern, Thomas. But I’m fine.”
“Is it an ex who’s giving you trouble?”
“There’s no trouble.” She could see he wasn’t buying her answers. She glanced out the window one more time before tilting her gaze, which was more green than gold now, to his. “Not that it’s any of your business, but if you must know—I’m a widow. I have been for three years, before I ever moved to Kansas City. There’s been no boyfriend since my late husband, so there’s no ex, either. Now let it go. Please. And I’ll do my best not to let this situation interfere with my work performance.”
She’d lost the man she loved? Although her loss was more recent than the years he’d been without Mary, he remembered the gutted feeling that had stayed with him for a long time, the way he’d buried most of his emotions so he could get through the demands of the day, that habit of second-guessing and overanalyzing every decision because the teammate who’d always been his sounding board and ally was no longer there to back him up. Maybe her husband had phoned or texted her often, and each time she received a message, it reminded her of the love she’d lost. That could explain the secretive behavior and testy reaction to his prying.
Thomas didn’t want to have something so visceral and private in common with Jane. Lumped on top of the intellectual curiosity and sexual awareness that had been buzzing through his system from the moment she’d moved into the spare bedroom of his house, he did not need to feel this emotional empathy. It felt as though they belonged to an exclusive club, and exclusive was an entirely inappropriate connection to feel about someone who worked for him. But it was the most personal information she’d ever revealed to him, and he felt himself worrying about her well-being, anyway. He laid his hand over her fingers, which were still resting on the windowsill. “I’m sorry about your husband. But you said situation. If there’s some other issue that we need to deal with—”
“We do not need to deal with anything.” He felt her hand tremble beneath his, as if she was fighting some sort of internal battle—maybe whether or not to slap his face for overstepping the bounds of employer-employee concern? She surprised him by turning her palm into his and lacing their fingers together, accepting the strength, comfort and understanding he offered. Her hand felt small in his, but her grip was strong. “I’ll be fine.”
Thomas tightened his hold around hers. “Jane—”
The door swung open across the hall and Stephanie came out smiling, hurrying around the slow-moving Seamus with his walker. “He passed with flying colors.”
Seamus’s face was wan with fatigue, but he was smiling, too. “On to de next s-tage of terapy.”
Jane pulled away from Thomas’s touch, wiping her fingers against her pant leg as if erasing the heat he could still feel in his own hand. Although the effort seemed to cost her, Jane returned her patient’s grin. “That’s my guy.”
She kissed Seamus on the cheek and patted his arm, studiously ignoring Thomas and the unexpected moment of human connection that had passed between them.
Why had she reached for Thomas’s hand?
Jane scooted the au gratin potatoes around in their dish, wondering if she could stomach another bite to justify ordering the special side with her barbecue brisket. At least she’d had the good sense to pass on the dessert that everyone else at the table had ordered.
She’d
