Karen Rose: I Can See You

For a while she’d thought he’d come to watch her, but after weeks had gone by she’d given up on any such notion. Not that she’d reciprocate any move he made, so the question was moot. Although her mind still stubbornly wandered, imagining what she’d say if Noah ever uttered the lines that fell so meaninglessly from Jack’s lips.

Of course, fantasy and reality were very different things. This fact Eve knew well.

“We have to be fair here, Eve,” Callie said dryly. “Katie’s more than a bimbo du jour . She’s been with Phelps for three whole weeks. That could be a record for him.”

Katie had come in with the other groupies after the MSP article had hit the stands and Jack had reeled her in like a walleye. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, Katie would be gone soon and Jack would move to his next conquest. “So she’s more the flavor of the month. You gonna take these drinks or not?”

“Not on your life. Katie doesn’t like me much. You’re on your own, pal.”

“I thought so. I have to talk to Phelps anyway. That magazine you found is Sal’s copy. He wants Phelps to sign the cover so he can add it to the Hat wall.”

Sal had covered one wall of his bar with TVs, but the others were covered in photos, most taken by Sal, all of cops. One wall he’d dedicated to his favorites-the homicide detectives known as the Hat Squad for the classic fedoras they wore. The wall had, in fact, inspired the MSP article. One day one of their staff writers had wandered in to Sal’s and been instantly charmed. To the public, the hats were an unofficial uniform, but to the detectives who proudly wore them, the hats were a badge of honor. Every member of the squad owned at least one fedora.

When a newly promoted detective solved his first case, he was presented with a fedora by his or her peers. It was tradition. Eve liked that. As years passed and more murders were solved, the detectives supplemented their own hat collections according to their personal style and the season-felt in the winter, sometimes straw in the summer.

Eve had never seen Noah Webster wear anything but black felt. It suited him.

“I was wondering why Sal moved the picture frames around,” Callie said, pointing to the large, new bare spot on the wall. “But not even Phelps’s head is that big.”

Eve chuckled. “Sal’s done a collage. He got all the detectives whose pictures were in the article to sign the page from the magazine. Phelps’s cover is supposed to be at the center.” She sobered. “But Phelps won’t sign it, even though Sal all but begged him.”

Callie’s brows shot up in surprise. “Why? Jack’s not going for humble now, is he?”

Eve studied Jack, who was discreetly checking his cell phone for the third time in a half hour. He returned the unanswered phone to his pocket, and his lips to Katie’s pouting mouth. “Who knows why men like Jack Phelps do the things they do?”

A bitter frown creased Callie’s brow. “Because they can. Poor Sal.”

“I promised him I’d ask Phelps one more time.”

Callie closed the magazine and Jack’s face stared up from the cover. He was a dead ringer for Paul Newman, down to his baby blues. And, Eve thought, he knew it. “You’re going to pander to that ego?” Callie huffed. “You hate Jack as much as I do.”

Eve smiled. “But I love Sal. He’s given me so much and this means a lot to him. He found some old photos of himself wearing his hat before his accident.” Before he’d been forced to give up the career that had been his life. “He wanted to do a Hat Squad photo exposé of his own. For Sal, I can pander to Phelps’s ego for a few minutes.”

Callie’s frown eased. “You have a good soul, Eve.”

Embarrassed, Eve put the drinks on a tray. “Watch the bar for me.” But she hadn’t taken a step when the door opened, jingling the bell and letting in a gust of frigid air. Her eyes shot to the door before she reminded herself that it was Sunday.

She started to turn back to the bar, then stopped. Because Sunday or no, there he was. Noah Webster. Filling the doorway like a photo in a frame.

Suddenly, as always, all the oxygen was sucked from the room. He paused in the doorway and Eve couldn’t tear her eyes away. Dressed in black from his fedora to his shiny shoes, he looked, as always, as if he’d stepped straight from an old film noir . There was something edgy, almost thuggish in the way he carried himself, a coiled danger Eve didn’t want to find attractive. As if she’d ever had a choice.

He was linebacker big, his shoulders nearly touching the sides of the door, so tall the top of his hat brushed the doorframe most men cleared with ease. Heavy stubble darkened his jaw and her fingers itched to touch. Look, but don’t touch . The mantra was ingrained.

He closed the door and Eve dragged in a ragged breath. Normally she was prepared before he came through the door, defenses ready. Today he’d taken her by surprise.

“I’d say that’s a yes,” Callie said softly.

“Yes, what?” Eve asked, her gaze hungrily following Noah, who was striding across the bar toward Jack’s table. He was angry. She could feel it from where she stood.

Apparently Jack did, too. Eve watched the briefest shiver of alarm pass through Jack’s eyes, followed by sly calculation, then wide-eyed surprise. He frowned at his cell phone and Eve remembered seeing him check it, three times. SOB . His partner needed him and here he’d sat, showing off his sexual prowess with his bimbo du jour .

“Yes to number six,” Callie murmured. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Eve jerked her eyes to Callie and saw she’d flipped the magazine open to that damn quiz again. “Will you cut it out? The answer is no. N-O.”

“Lust then. Can’t say that I blame you. He’s a lot more potent in person, all burly and broody.” She turned to the article and the picture of Webster. “Doesn’t do him justice.”

Eve refused to look. It didn’t matter. She’d seen that picture hundreds of times. At home. In private. That Callie had seen her reaction to Noah’s entrance in public was bad enough. But who else had seen? And worse, pitied her adolescent fascination with a man who’d never said more than please or thank you?

Her face heated, making it worse. She knew the scar on her cheek, almost invisible under her makeup, was now blazing white against her scarlet face. Out of habit, she turned her face away, reaching for his bottle of tonic water. Then she put it back. From the look of their conversation, Webster had come to fetch Jack. He wouldn’t be staying.

She busied her hands, pouring coffee into two Styrofoam cups, adding spoonfuls of sugar. “Can you just put that damn magazine away?”

“Eve, I only could see it because I’m your best friend. Nobody else noticed a thing.”

Eve’s laugh was bitter. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

Callie smiled wryly. “Did it work?”

“No.” Eve lifted her eyes, saw Jack Phelps putting on his coat. “But on the upside, Phelps is leaving. I won’t have to ask him to sign that damn cover for Sal.”

“Unfortunately, he’ll be back.”

As will his partner. Next time I’ll be ready. And next time I won’t even look . Eve snapped lids on the coffee cups. “Do me a favor. Take these to them. It’s cold tonight.”

“Thank you.” Noah took the cup of coffee from Sal’s new weekend bartender. The men had been talking about her. Curvy and blonde, she was quite a package.

But she wasn’t the woman he’d been coming to see for months. The one he thought about long before walking into Sal’s every week, and long after leaving. That would be the tall, willowy brunette quietly standing behind the bar, dark eyes wide. Watching me .