Virginia Kantra - All A Man Can Do

“And you drove down here to shut me up.”

“Actually, he drove down to shut Nowicki up,” Aleksy said.

She waited for Jarek to deny it. He didn’t.

She straightened her spine. “Excuse me. I’m going home.”

“Let me take you,” Jarek offered. “We can argue in the car.”

She wouldn’t go home with him if he were the sexiest man alive and she hadn’t had sex in a billion years. Which was a good thing, because at least one of those was true.

“I have my own car,” she said.

His gaze went to her drink. “Are you okay to drive?”

“It’s soda water,” she said through her teeth.

He nodded. “Fine. I’ll follow you, then.”

Aleksy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not spending the night at Mom and Pop’s?”

“Why?” Jarek asked.

“To see Allie.”

“What’s the point? She’ll be busy getting ready for school in the morning. She won’t have time for me.”

“Who is Allie?” Tess wanted to know.

“His daughter,” Aleksy said.

Tess sucked in a breath. “You have a daughter? Who lives with your parents?”

Jarek’s eyes narrowed at her tone.

“Just since Linda died,” Aleksy explained. “That’s why he took the job in Pleasantville.”

Jarek shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay. I think we’re done here.”

“I guess we are,” Tess said.

He had a daughter.

And he hadn’t shared even that much of himself with her. Not over breakfast, when they’d talked about their families, not tonight when she had asked him directly about his reasons for moving to Eden.

Maybe he didn’t think the daughter was important.

Maybe he didn’t think the interview was important.

Maybe—and this was depressingly likely—Tess wasn’t all that important, either.

She slid off her bar stool. Well, the hell with him. It wasn’t like they had a personal relationship. She didn’t even want a personal relationship. Not with any man. Certainly not with Officer Frosty here, with his hot kisses and his cool silence and his family secrets. Tess had more than enough family and plenty of secrets of her own.

She tugged her sweater down over her suddenly cold midriff. Jarek Denko was only another story. Twenty column inches and maybe a picture above the fold. And she wasn’t about to let his tall, dark and silent routine stop her from doing the one thing she did well.

“Nice talking to you,” Aleksy said cheerfully.

“I’ll bet,” said Tess.

She stalked out of the bar.

He could have handled that better, Jarek acknowledged as he drove north.

He watched the baleful gleam of Tess’s red taillights five car lengths ahead. She’d indulged in one short burst of speed and temper as they merged with a couple of trucks making an early morning run on Highway 12. But she settled down quickly enough. He had no trouble following her car. He wished he could follow her thought processes as easily.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. On the job, he was known for his ability to take all the facts of a case into account. But he’d sure miscalculated with Tess. He’d underestimated her determination to make him a news item. He’d misjudged the timing and the amount of the personal information he’d needed to give her to keep control of her story.

And he definitely hadn’t reckoned on his own reaction to their kiss.

He practically broke a sweat just thinking about it. About her. She was hot. And unexpectedly sweet. When he kissed her, his body went hard and his mind went blank. For a minute there, kissing her, he’d felt hot, too. Hotter and more dangerous than a stolen pistol, and about as likely to go off. Heady stuff for a disciplined cop and responsible family man.

He unrolled his window to let the cool, damp night stream in over his arm. Living like a monk for the past eight years had obviously made him susceptible to pushy reporters in black leather pants. And the potent contradiction posed by Tess’s curl-up-and-die looks and little-girl-lost mouth would tempt a saint.

But his loss of control wasn’t her fault. Her voice echoed accusingly in memory, her flip tone not quite hiding the insult to her feelings. Anyway, you kissed me.

She was right, Jarek acknowledged fairly. His frustrated body was his problem. Her hurt feelings were his responsibility.

And if Tess, in a typical female snit, decided to smear him in the paper and stake him out for the local gossips to feed on, then the resulting loss of public goodwill would be his headache.

Jarek frowned as he watched Tess’s tin can compact zip toward the off ramp. He signaled his intentions to the empty lane behind him and then followed her down the exit to Eden. He was determined to keep his private life private. His failed marriage and his unhappy daughter were off-limits as topics for the press. But ticking off the reporter assigned to introduce him to the town was bad public relations.

Maybe he should agree to that interview Tess wanted. He could steer the talk away from his hopes for his family and onto his plans for the town.

He would have to be nice to her, he decided. If he wanted her cooperation. It was practically his duty.

His mind drifted to all the ways he’d like to be nice to Teresa DeLucca. His body buzzed with anticipation.

He did his best to ignore it.

Tess’s fingernails beat a nervous, angry tattoo against the steering wheel. Every time she looked up, she saw Denko’s car in her rear view mirror, a dark blue, unmarked Crown Victoria. Nothing new, nothing flashy, nothing to signal whatever midlife crisis had triggered his move to Eden.

His driving was like the rest of him: patient, dogged, steady. She told herself these were not qualities that appealed to her. He probably made love the same way. She pulled a face at her windshield. Nothing kinky or exciting for Chief By-The-Book Denko.

She passed the brightly lit Gas-N-Go and turned under an arch of trees onto a dark residential street. Of course, Denko would still get where he was going that way. She bet he made sure his partners did, too.

The barred moonlight ran over the hood of her car. She shivered a little, with temper and lust.

The Plaza parking lot was quiet, all the seniors’ cars tucked in safely for the night. Tess found an empty space and cut her engine. In the silence, she heard the rumble of Jarek’s engine as he pulled in behind her. His door slammed.

She took a deep breath and got out of her car. “You want my license and registration, Officer?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” He strolled toward her. “I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee, though.”

The moon had ducked behind the trees. The glare from the building’s security lights could hardly be called romantic. That was okay. She didn’t want romance. Particularly not with a tight-lipped cop who came equipped with a school-age daughter.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Offering you coffee is what got me into trouble in the first place.”

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of trouble are we talking about here?”

Tess cursed her big mouth. One of these days she was going to learn to think before she spoke. Yeah, and then she’d probably never talk at all.

“I just think we should keep things on a professional footing,” she said weakly.

Denko nodded, his gaze still fixed on hers. “I wasn’t suggesting anything else.”

Disappointment and a lack of sleep made her incautious. “Sure you weren’t. I bet you invite yourself up to women’s apartments at three in the morning all the time.”

Maybe his lean cheeks reddened slightly. Under the sodium security lights, it was hard to tell.

“You wanted an opportunity to talk,” he said.

“So I’ll call the station and make an appointment.”