Linda Howard - To Die For

“What’s between us is definitely personal,” he retorted as he gave my bag back to me.

“Nope. Not interested. Sorry. May I go home, please?” Maybe if I said it often enough, he’d get tired of hearing it. A big yawn punctuated the end of my sentence, and I swear I didn’t fake it. I covered it with my hand, but it was one of those jaw-cracker yawns that just took over and seemed to go on forever. My eyes were watering when it finally ended. “I’m sorry,” I said again, and rubbed my eyes.

Damn his eyes, he grinned. “Just keep saying you aren’t interested often enough, and maybe by the time you’re ninety you’ll believe it. Come on, I’ll take you home before you collapse,” he said before I could respond to his first statement, putting his hand on my waist and urging me toward the door.

Finally! I was so glad to be making progress toward home that I didn’t pay proper attention to where his hand was or how it looked. He leaned forward and opened the door for me, and as I stepped through it, what seemed like a hundred pairs of eyes turned toward us. Patrol officers in uniform, detectives in street clothes, a few people who were obviously there under protest-the department was a beehive of activity despite the lateness of the hour. If I’d been paying attention, I’d have noticed the hum of voices and ringing of telephones outside that closed door, but I’d been focused on my battle with Wyatt.

I saw a multitude of expressions: curiosity, amusement, prurient interest. The one expression I didn’t see, I realized, was surprise. I spotted Detective MacInnes hiding a grin as he looked back down at the paperwork on his desk.

Well, what had I expected? Not only had they witnessed our very public disagreement that ended with him putting me in his car-only the public part had ended, not our disagreement-but now I realized Wyatt must have said something that indicated we had a personal relationship. The sneaky rat was trying an end run around my objections, but more important, he had made certain none of his people would interfere in our argument.

“You think you’re so smart,” I muttered as we stepped into the elevator.

“I must not be, or I’d stay the hell away from you,” he replied calmly as he punched the button for the bottom floor.

“Then why don’t you up your IQ and go after someone who wants you?”

“Oh, you want me, all right. You don’t like it, but you want me.”

“Want ed. Past tense. As in, not now. You had your chance.”

“I still have it. All we did was take a breather.”

My mouth was open in astonishment as I stared up at him. “You call two years a breather ? I’ve got news for you, big boy: your chance was over by the end of our last date.”

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open-it doesn’t take long to travel three floors-and Wyatt did the hand-on-my-waist thing again, ushering me out of a small foyer and into the parking lot. The rain had stopped, thank goodness, though the trees and power lines still dripped. His white Crown Vic was parked in the fourth slot down, where a sign saying, “Lt. Bloodsworth,” was posted. The parking lot was fenced and gated, so there weren’t any reporters waiting outside that entrance. Not that there would be a lot, anyway; our town had one daily newspaper and one weekly, four radio stations, and one ABC affiliate television station. Even if every station and newspaper sent a reporter, which they wouldn’t, that was a grand total of seven.

Just to be a smart-ass, I reached for the back door handle. Wyatt growled and pulled me forward as he opened the front passenger door. “You’re a pain, you know that?”

“In what way?” I seated myself and buckled the seat belt.

“You don’t know when to stop pushing.” He closed the door with a solid thunk, and went around to the driver’s side. He got in and started the car, then turned in the seat to face me and draped one arm along the back of the seat. “We aren’t in an elevator now with a camera watching every move, so tell me again how my chance with you is over and you don’t want me.”

He was challenging me, actually egging me on so I’d say something rash and give him a reason to do something just as rash, such as kiss me. The parking lot lights were bright enough for me to see the glint in his eyes as he waited for my response. I wanted to fire a verbal blast back at him, but that would have been playing his game and I was so tired I knew I wasn’t at the top of my form. So I yawned in his face and mumbled, “Can’t this wait? I’m so tired I can’t see straight.”

He chuckled as he turned around and buckled his own seat belt. “Coward.”

Okay, so he didn’t buy it. What mattered was that he’d decided not to push the issue.

Well, I showed him. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, and despite the amount of caffeine I’d had that night, I was asleep before we were out of the parking lot. That was a gift I had; my dad called it Lights Out Blair. I’ve never been one to toss and turn at night, but with all the stress and coffee I thought this would be one night when sleep wouldn’t come. Not to worry; the lights went out as usual.

I woke when he opened the car door and leaned in to unbuckle my seat belt. I blinked sleepily at him, trying to bring him into focus. “Are we there yet?”

“We’re there. Come on, Sleeping Beauty.” He picked up my bag from the floorboard, then tugged me out of the car.

I live in the Beacon Hills area-the condos are called Beacon Hills, which is so original-meaning all the streets march up and down hills. Beacon Hills Condominiums comprises eleven separate buildings, each containing four three-story units. I live in the third building, first unit, which means I have windows opening to the outside on three sides, not just two. The end units cost more than the middle units, but to me the windows were worth it. Another big plus was the side portico under which I could park my car. Middle dwellers had to park at the curb. Yes, the side portico also upped the price of the end units. So what? I didn’t have to park my Mercedes in the weather, so the portico was worth the cost. Having been there before, Wyatt had parked under the portico.

There was a front entrance, of course, but there was a door connecting the portico and a small entrance nook that also contained my washer and dryer and then led into the kitchen. I almost never used the front entrance unless a date was bringing me home, and the lights beside the side door were on a timer. They came on at nine P.M., so I never had to fumble my way inside in the dark.

I took my bag from him and dug out my keys. “Thank you for bringing me home,” I said politely. I didn’t even point out that I would have preferred taking a taxi.

He loomed over me, standing too close, and I automatically tightened my grip on my keys in case he tried to take them from me. “I want to check the locks on your doors and windows.”

“Dad can do it tomorrow. I’ll be fine tonight, because no one will know I witnessed anything until the papers come out.”

“Is your dad knowledgeable about security?”

No more than I was, but, hey, I had an alarm system, and I could check my own doors and windows. “Lieutenant Bloodsworth,” I said as firmly as I could around another yawn. “Go home. Leave me alone.” As I spoke I unlocked the door and moved so I was blocking him.

He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and smiled down at me. “I wasn’t intending to force my way in, you know.”

“That’s good. Why don’t we pretend you’re a vampire and can’t ever come in unless I invite you?”

“You already have invited me, remember?”

Oh. Well, there was that. “I’ve redecorated since then. That starts everything over. Go home.”