Jill Shalvis: Serving Up Trouble

Was she for real? She wanted to pay him?

But the tremor that racked her was very real and she went suddenly, absolutely still. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, clutching her purse to her chest with a heart breaking expression. In her fist she held something that she smoothed out.

A paycheck for 198.00 made out to Angie Rivers.

“I never got to make my deposit.” She squinted at it. “I have my tips, but they’re not much.”

She looked as though maybe she didn’t ever have much, but he held his tongue as an unwelcome wave of emotion washed over him.

He hated this, he really did. All he’d wanted to do was to shift some money to his checking account, then head over to his partner and best friend Luke’s house for pizza and beer.

Instead he’d stopped a bank robbery, and now he sat on the floor, holding the most amazing woman, feeling everything he’d trained himself not to feel.

Finally the paramedics descended on them, taking the still shell-shocked woman from his arms. Sam rose to his feet, thankful to be free of the victim.

Even if his arms felt empty.

He had no idea why he followed her. She was sweetly arguing with the medics that she was fine, that she needed to hurry up and deposit her check and get back to work, she had tables to wait.

The on-duty officers stopped her. They needed her statement, which she gave. Then it was his turn, and they pulled him aside from where he’d been standing, watching over her.

When it was done, in front of all the wit nesses and far too many blood sucking reporters that had come out of the wood works, Angie reached out for him and hugged him. “I just wanted to thank you again,” she said, pulling him close, nearly squeezing the very life out of him with her nervous, awkward embrace.

His arms wrapped around her before he could stop himself, and when she placed a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek, he sucked in a hard breath, shocked. He, Sam O’Brien, shrewd detective and hardened, cynical cop, who was never shocked by anything.

She swiped at what he could only assume was lip gloss, which smelled like a bowl of peaches and cream. “Sorry,” she whispered, then beamed at him, her fingers still on his cheek, and because she was so close, he couldn’t help but feel her fingers tremble, see her smile wobble.

Ah, hell. “You’re not okay.”

“Yes, I am. Really.” But her smile was definitely shaky around the edges. “You were my hero today. I wish I could say I hadn’t needed one, but I did, and thank God you were here. I only hope someday I can somehow return the favor and do some thing this big for you.”

Before he could so much as blink, she was walking away.

Only to be mobbed by the press.

Sam watched them deluge her with questions, shoving their microphones in her face.

Just walk away, he told himself.

But Angie’s expression went from shock to lost, and he let out one pithy oath before striding over there. “Go,” he said into her ear, his hand at the small of her back, giving her a little push. “I’ll hold them off.”

That won him a smile that stopped him in his tracks.

For some reason-it couldn’t be anything as simple as her smile-Sam stood there long after she’d fled. Long enough to get him his own mob of reporters.

As a rule, he really hated the press. Most cops did. His dad had. It was one of those things he remembered about him. That, and how much his dad had loved everything else about being a cop. One of Sam’s first memories was of standing in front of the mirror, wearing his father’s police hat and holding up his fingers in a solemn vow to serve and protect.

He’d been four.

His conviction had held stead fast, even after his father had been killed in the line of duty during a routine traffic incident gone awry that same year.

So while Sam stood there, being thanked for his quick reactions, being hailed a hero, he felt only a bone-deep weariness.

He wasn’t a hero, not even close. He was just doing his job.

When Sam finally made it home to his modest, quiet condo, he realized he’d for got ten to go to Luke’s.

He’d for got ten the beer, the pizza.

He’d for got ten every damn thing, which was very unlike him.

To add to the insult, he dreamed about soft, creamy, satiny skin, and chocolate-brown eyes. Dreamed about her lithe yet curvy body and how it had felt against his. Dreamed about her voice, the intoxicating mix of sweet innocence and wild sexiness.

Dreamed about the woman to whom it all belonged.

Angie Rivers.

When Angie woke up the next morning, every single light in her apartment was glaring. Wincing, she rolled over and hid her eyes from the brightness she’d used to ward off her silly fears during the night.

So she’d nearly been killed. So what? She’d survived, hadn’t she? And the bad guy had been caught, so she didn’t really need to send her electric bill through the roof.

But she’d probably do the same tonight.

She really wished she’d somehow managed to save herself yesterday. Then she’d have felt stronger during the night. Invincible.

Maybe next time.

Getting up, putting on an old pair of glasses to replace the broken ones, she took comfort in her small, cozy and slightly messy apartment. Small and cozy being nice words for what was really postage-stamp sized.

But cluttered or not, it was clean, it was her home, and she refused to let anyone frighten her here.

“There. Take that, monsters. I’m not frightened.”

In the bathroom, she gave herself a good, long, hard look in the mirror. She appeared to be the same as yesterday, average height, average body, average everything.

But she wasn’t the same, not at all, and wouldn’t be ever again. “You know what? No more simply existing,” she told her reflection. “That’s not good enough for you.”

With that small but effective pep talk, she went into the kitchen and had her usual break fast of champions-a bagel that had more cream cheese than bagel.

A woman needed her protein.

By the time she left for work, she’d taken several phone calls from her worried parents and friends, wanting to make sure she was okay. And mostly, she was.

But what had happened to her yesterday had been a sign. A change-her-life kind of sign. A become-a-new-woman sign.

She knew this, and didn’t plan on wasting it. She’d been reminded-violently-how fast it could all end. And she wasn’t ready for an end, not by a long shot.

In light of that, she pulled out the local junior college application she’d received in the mail last month. Classes were due to start this week, a coincidence she’d take as another sign. She might love painting, but she couldn’t support herself that way. Time to find some thing she could do with her love of the arts that she could make a living at.

Without giving herself a chance to talk herself out of it, she filled in the required forms, wrote a check for late registration and stuffed them into her pocket to drop off on her way to work.

It felt…in credible. And she didn’t understand why it had taken her so long to do it, why she hadn’t seen what she’d needed to do a long time ago.

The phone rang again, and Angie answered with an indulgent laugh, feeling better, wondering which of her friends had felt the need to check up on her this time.

“Angie Rivers?”

The laugh backed up in her throat. She instantly recognized that low, deep, slightly husky voice. She had a feeling a hundred years could go by and she’d still recognize it.

That voice had been the first she’d heard after her terrifying ordeal yesterday. That voice had gone along with warm, strong arms and eyes filled with rage and concern, for her, in a way a man’s never had before.