October wind snapped like a whip, stinging her face. “Did you kill someone?”
His smirk faded. Kyle was a highly decorated Desert Storm soldier, a full-blown war hero. He didn’t take death lightly. But neither did she. Joyce was a homicide detective.
For an instant, they simply stared at each other, trapped in a challenging moment. Then she glanced at the rottweiler. He remained on teeth-gnashing alert. “Will you call off that damn dog?”
The smile returned, the crisscross pattern on the fence distorting Kyle’s handsome features. “He doesn’t like cops.”
“I doubt he likes anyone.”
“He likes Olivia.”
Trust Kyle to bring up his former lover. Olivia was a mutual friend, a psychic who assisted the LAPD and the FBI and every other law enforcement agency Kyle claimed to hate.
But Olivia was also a beautiful, strong-willed woman who trained with Kyle in his private compound, something Joyce was hoping to do.
Especially now, while she was desperate to piece her shattered emotions back together.
“I’m willing to pay you,” she said.
That caught his attention. He gave the dog a subtle command, and it stopped snarling. He’d spoken in what sounded like a foreign language. Not anything Joyce recognized. Most likely, he’d trained his rotty to respond to Apache.
“Pay me for what?” he asked.
“For your sessions. Hand to hand combat. War games. Everything you offer here.”
“I don’t train cops.”
“Then I’ll be your first.”
He gave her a suspicious glare. “Why?”
“Because I’m going through a tough time, some personal issues I can’t seem to resolve.” She didn’t like revealing herself to him, but she wasn’t going to unearth every little detail. Joyce’s biological clock was ready to explode, something she couldn’t begin to understand, something that was spinning out of control. “I need to blow off some steam. Get physical. Take my mind off my problems.”
“Then go to the police range and fire your gun. Do whatever your kind do.”
“My kind?” She wanted to kick him through the fence, but she knew the rottweiler would go nuts if she staged an attack. “Quit hiding behind your dog and let me in.”
“Nice try, Detective. But I’m not macho enough to fall for that.”
Yeah, right. He was as macho as a modern-day warrior could get. “Olivia told me all about you, Kyle. Everything.”
He had the gall to grin. “So you know I’m good in bed. So what?” He paused, looked her up and down. “Is that why you’re really here, Detective? To bang my brains out?”
She roamed her gaze over him, giving him a taste of his own chauvinistic medicine. “What brains?”
He almost laughed. Almost. But not quite.
As for her, she was used to sparring with hard-edged men, with criminals, with other detectives. Being a woman in a male-dominated environment made her stronger.
But sometimes it made her lonely, too.
A second later, Kyle surprised her by unlocking the gate. “You can come in if you want to.”
She motioned to the rottweiler. “What about him?”
“Clyde won’t hurt you. Not unless I tell him to.”
Clyde. She glanced at the sturdy black and tan canine. He didn’t move a well-toned muscle. He sat like a statue at his master’s feet. She scanned the grounds for the dachshund and couldn’t help but smile. The little wiener dog was wiggling like a ballpark frank trying to escape from a bun.
“What’s that one’s name?” she asked.
Kyle’s lips quirked. “Bonnie.”
She raised her eyebrows. Bonnie and Clyde. He’d named his dogs after bank robbers.
He rattled the gate. “Are you coming in or not?”
Suddenly a voice in her head told her to go home, to stay away from Kyle Prescott. But the need to fight her way out of her problems, to train with him, kept her grounded.
Besides, he didn’t have a record. And although his activities often bordered on the suspicious, Joyce wanted to believe that when the chips were down, he could be trusted. On the day they’d met, he’d helped the LAPD apprehend a killer, a case that involved Native witchcraft. Of course, he’d only done that for Olivia, for a woman who’d fallen in love with someone else. Not that Olivia had ever been in love with Kyle. She’d claimed he was a bit too bizarre to make her feel secure.
Nonetheless, Joyce took a chance and stepped onto his property. Instantly he moved forward and snapped the padlock back into place, locking her into his domain, telling her, without words, that it was too late to turn tail and run.
As if he could scare her off. She wouldn’t dream of chickening out, even if the rational voice in her head was calling her an idiot.
When he turned away from her, she noticed the small-of-the-back holster attached to his belt. She glanced at the semiautomatic SIG and wondered if he armed himself every morning. She knew darn well that Kyle didn’t have a permit to carry a gun, open or concealed, but he was on his own property and that put him within the limits of the law.
“Expecting some bad guys to show up?” she asked.
“Just a bad girl.” He caught sight of her holstered gun, too. “But she’s already here.”
“Touché.”
“It was your idea to invade my world.” He motioned to his house. “Want some coffee?”
“As long as you don’t poison it.”
“My coffee is poison.”
And so were his pheromones, she thought. The sparks he sent flying, the sexual energy that made him seem like a predator.
She walked beside him, and Clyde fell into step. She could tell the rotty was aware of everything she did. But so was Kyle.
Refusing to give the males too much attention, she focused on Bonnie. The sweet little thing tagged along, her low-slung belly nearly dragging on the ground.
As they continued toward the house, as Bonnie skirted around salvage items that got in her way, Joyce studied the outbuildings on Kyle’s property.
“Is that where you store the rest of your merchandise?” she asked.
He followed her line of sight, then nodded. “Furniture, collectables, memorabilia. Things you’d find in trading posts and antique stores. I’ve got some nice pieces for sale.” He paused. “Do you like vintage stuff?”
“Yes.”
