to carry it with her for the rest of her life, too. Because although fear slithered away, it always waited, out of sight, to strike again.
The Santa Raquel High Risk Team was meeting every Tuesday in a conference room at the police station—for those who could make it or had news to share. Eventually the meetings would taper back down to once a month, but while the team was building, they were keeping in close contact.
In jeans and a striped shirt, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, Tad sat and listened. He wasn’t an official member of the team, although he had his moment to report that during his dozen drive-bys of Danny Williams, he’d noticed nothing untoward. Everyone, including Danny’s mother, Marie, was following established protocol.
Sara Havens Edwin, a licensed professional clinical counselor, head counselor at The Lemonade Stand, looked relieved, and Tad nodded in her direction. In a private conversation, Sara had informed him that one of the biggest concerns in a situation like the Williamses’, one of the greatest threats to life was Marie herself. She not only loved her husband, but she’d been manipulated by him since high school. She was driven from within to keep him happy.
Miranda had her turn, too, telling everyone about Marie’s visit to her office the morning before, leaving out specific medical information that wasn’t pertinent to the case, but letting them know that while Marie had been concerned about her son’s wound, the boy’s healing was completely on track. There’d been no sign of any other injury. Sara took notes on that, too.
A few minutes of administrative discussion took place then. A new email loop was being set up; contact information was dispersed. Funding was mentioned, finances appropriated. He listened, but found himself paying more attention to the little park benches with primary-colored rainbows over them that dotted the scrub top Miranda was wearing.
They dipped and fell with the shape of her breasts and he knew he shouldn’t be noticing that. Tried not to. And looked again.
Her breasts weren’t the only ones in the room. And he wasn’t the type of guy who generally went around noticing them in any case. A shapely, curved butt was his more usual distraction. But those rainbow-covered breasts across from him... They were so captivating. Like the woman.
Miranda’s ability to nurture flowed from her with every breath. And he kept wondering how it would feel to lay his head on her breasts.
Wrong. Wrong, Newberry. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
They’d be soft, with hard nipples. Womanly softness with a core of strength.
And they’d smell like flowers.
Because she did. Something in her soap, probably. Or whatever lotion she used.
When he started envisioning himself rubbing lotion onto her back, into her shoulders and the sensitive parts of her neck, he sat forward. Brought his thoughts to a screeching halt—to catch her watching him stare at her breasts.
Their charged gazes held for a second.
How could something so not good feel so great?
* * *
Tad wasn’t feeling too great half an hour later as he sat with Miranda over coffee in a shop they’d visited several times before. Others had been there with them, the last of them just leaving.
“Let’s move to a smaller table,” he suggested when she didn’t get up with the others. He was pleased she’d stayed, but the look on her face didn’t bode well. Something was bothering her.
And since she’d been fine until the others left, he was pretty certain that something had to do with him.
Or rather, his wandering eyes. He’d screwed up. Badly. Bringing sexual awareness into the workplace. He of all people. Back home, at the station, he’d developed a reputation for being the one guy who hadn’t fallen under the spell of a young female cop who’d apparently joined the force to find herself a husband in uniform, not to serve and protect.
He’d also refused friendly advances from a forensic specialist he’d actually liked a lot because he knew better than to bring sex into work.
Letting Miranda pick the table, he followed her to a two-seater in the far corner, and his mood dropped another notch. He was supposed to be gaining her trust, not losing it. For her own safety. And because he’d given his word to a man he trusted.
It wasn’t about the money. It had never been about the money for him—not one day of his working life.
He had to fix this.
“I’m sorry,” he said the second they were seated across from each other at a table so small he had to turn so his knees weren’t touching hers.
Absolutely no touching. He had fences to mend, not further destroy.
“I was completely out of line, but I swear to you, I’ve never, ever had a problem keeping personal and work separated.”
Miranda’s frown made her look smart rather than confused. Assessing rather than seeking. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? What are you talking about?” She sipped from her half-full cup of latte, which had to be getting cold.
His straight-up black had been gone a quarter of an hour after they’d arrived. An espresso sounded good. He wasn’t used to all the sitting in his car staring out at life that he’d been doing these past six weeks. If nothing else, the time off was letting him know that much as he loved detective work, he wasn’t cut out to be a private investigator.
He was more of an action type of cop. Following leads. Hunting down the bad guys.
Not being one of them. “You and I... I appreciate the chance to learn about the High Risk Team, to help out while I’m here. I might have crossed a line and—” He stopped. “Uh, I want to tell you that—”
He broke off as she shook her head, and then looked him straight in the eye. “If anyone crossed a line, it was me, Tad. Letting my son talk you into playing video games with him...”
“I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was kind of hoping for a rematch,” he said. She thought she was the one being inappropriate?
“He is, too,” she said. But she wasn’t smiling. So he wasn’t getting his hopes up. Or his worries, either.
He had to talk to her father. His current boss. To let him know he could be developing feelings for his daughter, so the chief had a chance to get him off the case before anything happened between them.
And then he’d lose his reputation for good. Lose any chance of resuming his career in North Carolina, and possibly anywhere else depending on how the internal investigation into his last case went down.
“I told Ethan I’d talk to you about it,” she said, surprising him further. “But...this is all so awkward, you know? You haven’t even asked me out, or hinted that you wanted to, and it feels like we’re having ‘the talk’ or something.”
“I’d say apologizing for possibly crossing a line could be construed as a
