Dana Nussio - Strength Under Fire

“Sorry.”

“No big deal.”

He leaned in close and spoke again in a low voice. “Just promise you won’t compliment me again.”

She tried not to shiver as his warm breath tickled her ear and neck. She forgot about the pain in her arm altogether. “Oh, I promise,” she choked out.

If only she hadn’t opened her big mouth earlier today, then maybe she wouldn’t be on sensory overload now. She wanted to believe that, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that even if she’d shut down her primary senses, she would still be every bit as unsettled by his nearness.

“Good. Of anybody, I knew I could count on you to keep this in perspective.”

Of anybody? His words ripped her right out of her off-limits daydream, leaving a path of irritation in the gaping tear. Was he praising her or slamming her? Did he know that she’d been watching him to see how he would handle his moment in the spotlight? She expected him to look back to her with a knowing expression, but instead he turned to the waitress and ordered a bacon cheeseburger.

Without saying more, he leaned in to listen to a conversation farther down the table. Apparently, this was just like any other day for him. She was the only one who’d worried that there had been a shift in their professional relationship. Had she overreacted? She might as well have called in the bomb squad for a one-block power outage. With a frown, she turned to the waitress and ordered the salad.

Ben, whom she’d suddenly started thinking of as Ben, was oblivious to her discomfort as he spoke to the other lieutenant across the table.

“What did you think about that Red Wings game last night? Killed the Avalanche, didn’t they?”

Lieutenant Campbell shook his head, chuckling. “A man with five kids? When would I have time to watch pro hockey?”

Delia rolled her eyes. Not that she cared, but male officers often used sports talk to exclude women from their conversations. Just another reminder that it was a mistake to think of any man, Lieutenant Peterson included, as different from the others. Using sports to shut her out only proved what little he knew about her. It would serve him right if she spouted sports statistics until his eyes crossed.

“Don’t let him kid you,” Sergeant Leonetti piped in. “His whole gang was watching that game. And doing the wave on their couch.”

“Who do you think started the wave?” Lieutenant Campbell said.

She was dying to talk about last night’s overtime goal or how much the team had suffered since their star player’s retirement, but she held back. Then Ben gestured toward her.

“Delia, you’re a Wings fan, aren’t you?”

His words startled her as much as his touch had earlier. Maybe more. “How did you—”

“Just a guess.”

But he reached down to the purse at her feet, her car keys resting on top. When he lifted his hand, her winged-wheel key chain, the symbol for Detroit’s professional hockey team, dangled from his fingers.

“I’m a cop. They pay me to notice details.”

He jiggled the keys until she reached for them, and then he lowered them into her hand, accidentally brushing her fingers.

“Well, you blew that case wide-open.” She ignored another round of tingles as she stored away the keys.

Ben had made a point of including her in the conversation. It shouldn’t have surprised her, given that he’d been suggesting ways for her to become more involved with the team for the past few months, but it did.

“He’s on a roll this week, then,” Sergeant Leonetti piped. “First the bank and now this.”

Ben pointed at the team’s comedian. “Come on. No more.”

His warning only started the ball rolling, though, and soon hero jokes were shooting from both ends of the table. He accepted several jabs with good humor before putting up his hands.

“Enough already. I thought we were talking about hockey.”

“Were we?” Trooper Warner lifted a brow, but as if he realized they’d pushed the lieutenant far enough, he turned to Delia instead.

“Fair-weather or die-hard?”

“Excuse me?”

“Fan. Which kind are you?”

She shrugged, her gaze shifting among the others, who were suddenly focused on her. Was this how Ben had felt that afternoon after the big announcement, like a bug under a microscope, smothering between the slide’s glass panes?

“Die-hard, I guess. I mean, the Tigers and Lions are great, too, but there’s nothing like the Wings during playoffs.”

“You’ve got that right,” Ben agreed.

The waitress and a second waiter appeared then, carrying trays laden with food. Delia was relieved to be forgotten as everyone got down to the business of distributing and inhaling their late-night meals.

Even as she took tiny bites of her salad, Delia couldn’t help but to steal glances at the man beside her. Because she wasn’t even sure that she needed his help to fit in with the team—or if being enmeshed in a team was critical to her job—she found her rush of gratitude toward him unnerving. But she did find his actions awfully sweet. He’d gone out of his way to invite her tonight and then to include her in the conversation. She couldn’t remember anyone who’d done something just for her. Was it only for her sake? Or was he just paying her back for the things she’d said earlier? Maybe he wanted to even the score. Or have her owe him.

Delia shifted in her seat, pulling her elbows tightly against her sides, her closed hands pressed against her hips below the table. He might have done something nice, but that didn’t mean she owed him.

She would never owe any man. Anything. Ever.

She drew in a ragged breath and let it out slowly. Now she was really being paranoid. If Ben did have an ulterior motive for directing attention to her, it was probably just to deflect some of it away from him. And who would blame him for that after the day he had just spent?

If only she didn’t always have to question people’s motives. Didn’t have to suspect that there was an evil grin lurking behind every smiling face. But she couldn’t help it. Some hard-learned lessons couldn’t be forgotten no matter how much she wished she could whitewash the gate guarding her memories.

She risked one more peek at him. One too many. He was looking back at her, watching so closely that he could have described each of her pores. Only this didn’t feel like an examination. More of a caress, really. One that smoothed from her temples to her baby toes. And from the heat building in her private places, that touch hadn’t missed any tourist stop along the way, either.

Hell, even her arches tingled.

Then it was over. Well, on his end, anyway. He turned away as if nothing had happened. She, on the other hand, was too shocked to do anything but hold herself perfectly still, as her frayed nerve endings still snapped with sparks. Obviously she was out of practice at reading signals from men, not that she’d been all that good at it when she was in practice. But her reaction now was not just inappropriate, it was downright indecent.

You know you wanted it.

She swallowed, ice water dousing the heat that had radiated along her skin. Those words and their speaker shouldn’t still have been able to reach out from the past to club her, but they could and had. The few bites she’d managed to swallow turned to acid in her stomach. Swirling. Clenching. She couldn’t go back there. If she allowed herself to slip down those shadowy halls and become lost in that maze of lies and blame, she might never find her way back.

“You okay, Delia?”

It took her a few seconds to decipher the concern creasing his brows. What had he seen? Had she given herself away? “Oh. Just a headache.” She rubbed her temples with her thumbs for effect. If only it were that easy to rub away those thoughts.