Ingrid Weaver - The Angel And The Outlaw

“Then how can you resent Adam? He was only doing his job.”

“Yeah, I know. But do you have much luck telling yourself how you should feel?”

Her gaze wavered. The color in her cheeks deepened. “No, but sometimes to get what we want, we have to put our feelings aside. That’s why we should work together, no matter how much you dislike me because of my brother.”

“Dislike you?” He moved to where she stood, unable to restrain himself from touching her any longer. He pulled his hands from his pockets and tipped up her chin with his index finger. “Where did you get that idea?”

“You said you don’t want to work together.”

“I don’t. That doesn’t mean I’m blind.” He stroked his thumb along the edge of her jaw. This was another one of those times he didn’t have much luck telling himself how to feel. Sure, she was a distraction he couldn’t afford, but his body wasn’t listening. “You’re an attractive woman, Hayley. I could see that even when you were wearing half of Sproule’s garden.”

She didn’t pull away from his caress. He’d expected her to. Then again, she did want something from him. She might think accepting his touch was as necessary as making a compliment about his bar.

He fingered a curl that rested against her neck. The way it sprang back against his hand made him smile. Her hair was soft but stubborn, sort of like her. “You cleaned up real good, too.”

Beneath the classy jacket her breasts rose as she inhaled unsteadily. The pulse beneath her ear beat hard against his fingertips.

She wasn’t much good at hiding her feelings, Cooper decided. He could see her awareness, just as he could see her distress over it. She didn’t want to be attracted to him any more than he wanted to be attracted to her. He should let this go, but some demon inside him wanted to push. Last night she’d said she’d do anything, hadn’t she? He leaned closer. “How about it, Hayley?”

Her lips parted. “What?”

“Aren’t you curious? I know I am.” He traced his fingertip down her throat to the V of her jacket neckline and tapped her breastbone. “What other passions do you keep inside here?”

Her gaze sparked with an unmistakable response. It was anger. She pushed his hand aside and stepped back. She didn’t get far. She was stopped when the back of her legs hit the edge of his desk. “Don’t think you’re going to scare me off with some fake come-on, Cooper. That’s just too obvious and it won’t get rid of me.”

He exhaled hard. Would he scare her off if he told her there had been nothing fake about his interest?

“Could we get back to business, please?”

He raked his hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. “We don’t have business together. Even if I wanted a partner, it wouldn’t be you.”

“What Adam did to you is history. Surely you can put your grudge aside and—”

“Hey, Coop!” It was Pete’s voice, coming from the hallway outside the office. The door rattled with a hard knock. “You better get out here.”

Cooper hadn’t heard him approach. That jarred him. Even through a closed door, Pete’s tread was always heavy enough to hear. Cooper must have been too focused on Hayley to notice. He stepped away from her and opened the door. “What’s going on?”

Pete looked worried. “Sorry to interrupt, boss, but your two o’clock appointment got here early.”

“My appointment? What the…” It took him a second to change gears. “Aw, hell. Where is he?”

“Still in his car out front. He sent four of his men to check the place out first.”

Cooper turned to look at Hayley. “Where did you park?”

She looked at him blankly. “I don’t understand. Why—”

“Just answer the question. Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have one. It was repossessed last month. I took a taxi here.”

He flicked his gaze to the window behind Hayley. He could see a man in sunglasses and a dark suit walking across the parking lot toward the loading ramp. Cooper hadn’t noticed him before, either. “It’s too late to get you out the back way,” he said. “They’ll see you.”

She twisted her head to follow his gaze. “Who? What are you talking about?”

He snatched her purse from the desk and shoved it into her hands, then grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the door. “Come with me. You’ll have to wait upstairs until they leave.”

Her heels slid across the floor. She hooked her purse strap over her shoulder and caught the door frame with her free hand before he could pull her through. “No. We’re not finished. I’m not going anywhere.”

He moved his grip to her upper arms and brought his face to hers. “Hayley, this isn’t the time to argue. You can’t be seen here.”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone in Latchford knows how you feel about Oliver Sproule.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“That’s why we can’t work together. It’s why you have to get out of sight now. If Oliver suspects that we teamed up, I don’t have a hope in hell of getting close to him.”

She shook her head. “You’re not making sense.”

He glanced past her to the window and muttered a curse. The man by the loading ramp had taken a gun from beneath his suit coat.

“Boss,” Pete warned. “He’s carrying.”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Cooper said. There was no time left for finesse. He pulled Hayley’s hand from the door frame, leaned down to wrap his arms around her thighs and tossed her over his shoulder. “Pete, call Ken. Tell him the game’s on.”

“Sure thing, Coop,” he said, digging his cell phone out of his pants pocket.

Hayley thumped her fist into Cooper’s back. “Put me down! What are you doing?”

“Saving your pretty little butt. Again.” He clamped his hand over her bottom to hold her steady, then jogged down the hallway to the door that was set halfway between his office and the barroom.

Pete called after him, “What do you want me to do after I phone Ken, Coop?”

“Give me five minutes to get Hayley out of sight,” he replied, raising his voice over her continued protests. “Then unlock the back door and bring Sproule to my office.”

“Sproule?” Hayley braced her palm against Cooper’s back to lift her head. Her heart was pounding, her palms wet. Had she heard him right? “Oliver’s here?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She clenched her jaw, fighting a wave of light-headedness as Cooper opened a door and made a sudden turn to his right. By the time she got it under control he was halfway up a staircase. The lighting was dim. Combined with the jostling from Cooper’s pace, it was disorienting.

Hayley stopped struggling and anchored her fingers in his shirt. She didn’t want to send them both tumbling down the stairs. “Why is he here?”

“Because I invited him.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have enough breath to explain and carry you at the same time.”

Hayley knew that wasn’t true. He was taking the stairs two at a time and wasn’t even breathing hard. She could feel the strength in his hands and in the corded muscles along his arms and shoulders. “Put me down,” she said. “I want answers.”

He didn’t comply until they reached the landing at the top of the stairs. He bent his knees and let her slide off his shoulder until her feet touched the floor.

There was a varnished wood door in front of them that looked identical to the one at the front of the building. A lock with a numbered keypad was set into the wood below the knob. Hayley had barely registered these facts when Cooper punched a combination into the lock and swung the door open. He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside with him.