Dawn Atkins - Her Sexiest Surprise

Idle whined desperately.

Chloe laughed. “Maybe you can have a bite, Idle,” she said. “Did he get that name because he idolizes you?”

He laughed. “It’s Idle. Like an engine. He was in a cage in a suspect’s house, so skinny and weak I thought he was dead, but when I got close he vibrated with this low buzz like a car in Neutral. It was all he could manage.”

“How sad.” Idle stared up at her as if she was some kind of doggie saint.

“The way he’s looking at you at the moment, maybe I should spell it the other way. I know how you feel, boy,” Riley added.

She lifted her gaze to his.

He was leaning in, going for a kiss, kicking himself the whole way, when the timer dinged. They both pulled apart like boxers at the end of a round.

Chloe turned back to her cooking and he busied himself setting the table with the white plates and cheap silverware he’d bought when he got into the Academy. He dressed up the table with Chloe’s purple flowers in their pot. Not bad…

“If this meal turns out as good as I think it will, I’ll use it at my new job,” she said.

“You’re quitting Enzo’s?”

“No. I’ll still be there. My birthday gift from the Sylvestris was an offer to be their cook and housekeeper. They’re paying me too much, but it’s really to help me with culinary school. How could I say no?”

“That’s generous of them.” What was she doing getting so hooked up with a mob family? Not safe and not wise.

“It’s the kind of people they are. Our families go back a long way. My father worked for Enzo’s dad back in Chicago.”

“Really? How’d you all end up in Phoenix?” He needed to learn what she knew before he said more.

“Ten years ago, Enzo had a heart scare and retired so he could spend more time with his family—Natalie’s his second wife and the kids were little. We came out two years later. My dad drives him around and does odd jobs. Enzo mostly golfs, fishes, does the restaurant. He…putters, really.”

Putters? Not exactly how Riley would describe profiting from drugs, vice and extortion, but he kept that to himself. Instead, he said, “The guy hardly needs a driver. Can’t he drive himself?”

“It’s more of a favor, I think. See, my dad saved Enzo’s father’s life back in Chicago. He drove a taxi and was waiting for a fare when someone shot at Arturo as he came out of a restaurant. My dad threw him into the cab and drove him to safety, catching a bullet in his thigh for his trouble. That leg still bothers him.”

“So, the Sylvestris owe your father.”

She stopped working and turned to him. “They’re grateful, sure, but it’s more about how close our families are.”

This was worse than he thought. Chloe couldn’t be so naive she didn’t realize the Sylvestris were a crime family, could she? Or had she closed her eyes to it? Either way, he was disappointed in her.

Chloe flipped the waffle expertly onto a plate, then swung over to the oven to pull out the egg dish. “Let’s eat,” she said, smiling at him.

They sat at the table across from each other. The plant blocked his view of her, so he shifted it to the floor.

“This looks great,” he said, looking down at his plate.

“Dig in.” Chloe waited for him to cut into the waffle and put it in his mouth.

The bite melted on his tongue like cinnamon-flavored butter. “God,” was all he could say, going for more.

She grinned. “Now the eggs.” She leaned in, waiting.

He sampled the dish. “Incredible. See for yourself.”

As she tasted, she analyzed improvements—more oil, less cream, fewer scallions, homemade preserves and a dab of crème fraîche for the waffles.

As she talked, he watched the gleam of butter on her lips, caught glimpses of her tongue until he wanted to take her mouth. He pictured her last night, her hair wild, her body perfect, moving in complete sync with him. Control yourself.

Idle’s snuffle thankfully distracted him. The dog was nosing into the plant, so he carried it to the living room.

Back at the table, he kept eating. Every time he got the urge to kiss Chloe, he took another bite. Before long he was working on thirds.

“You really like it, huh?” Chloe asked, resting her chin in her palm, watching him as if this were her greatest pleasure.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, swallowing.

“Did you always want to be a cop?”

“I guess,” he said, caught off guard by the new topic. “My dad was one.” He pushed away from the table, way too full. He’d be in the gym all night working this off.

“Did he retire?”

“Killed in the line of duty when I was twelve.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” She grabbed her heart, like the tragedy had struck someone she loved.

“That was twenty years ago,” he said, shrugging.

“What was he like, your father?”

“Strict. Serious. No bullshit. If I even thought about doing anything wrong, he was on me.”

“What wrong things did you do?”

“The usual kid nonsense. Fistfights, staying out late, setting off fireworks.”

“He must have inspired you, though.”

“He didn’t talk much about the job, but I knew he was proud.” He remembered the crisp uniform and the smell his pop brought in of metal and smoke and upholstery and clean sweat. He’d set down his gun hard, like it was the weight of his job on the shelf, waiting to be picked up the next day.

“Was your mom scared of the danger?”

“She got pissed over his hours. I remember that. When she bitched about a ruined dinner, he’d say, ‘What should I tell the folks that got broke into? Cold air coming through the smashed window, their belongings tossed to the floor, scared the guy’ll come back on ’em? Sorry, the wife’s got pot roast waiting?’”

“She probably felt guilty.”

“I guess. I was a kid, so I don’t know the whole story. After my dad died, she couldn’t handle me, so I went to live with my dad’s brother, Frank.” Who had been distant like his dad, but angrier. Seething and sulky. It took Riley a while to figure out it was because Riley’s parents considered his father a hero, while Frank was a mere truck driver.

“Did you get along? You and your uncle?”

Jeez, the woman didn’t leave anything alone. “We did okay.” The resentment played out with Frank beating the crap out of him over stupid shit—a broken plate, an unmade bed, coming in at eleven instead of ten-thirty. Finally ashamed, Frank started taking long hauls and staying on for a return job to avoid Riley. “He was a truck driver. I was on my own a lot.”

“No aunt on the scene? Or a girlfriend?” She spoke tentatively, as if she’d read something into his silence.

“Frank wasn’t much with the ladies. Not that I saw, anyway. He died when I was at the Academy. Heart attack…asleep in his truck. Just how he’d have wanted to go—on the road.”

“Sounds like he wasn’t much of a parent to you.”

“He called once a trip. You can’t expect more of people than they have to give. Same with my mother. She did her best.”

She was silent for a moment, as if she disagreed, but didn’t want to argue with him. “I’m sorry, Riley.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Everybody has troubles, Chloe.” You took the blows, got up, dusted off and moved on. That was life.

“You lost both your parents, really. My mom left us when I was ten and my sister was six.”

“That’s a shame.” He didn’t know what to say to that. She looked sad. “You see her much now?”

“Mostly she writes. We talk at Christmas and birthdays. She feels guilty about having left us, I know now.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Same with my mom.”

“So we have a sad thing in common, huh? Moms missing in action.” Her blue eyes held his, full of sympathy and sorrow and he got the old ache in his gut. He didn’t think about it much, but losing his parents so fast, then trying to live with his belligerent uncle, had been tough. He’d fought to please Frank—cooked him dinner, polished his dress shoes, built bookshelves. The kiss-up bullshit only made the man harder.