Julie Miller - Kansas City Cowboy

She was businesslike yet compassionate, strong in body and resolve, yet she was the softest thing he’d held in his arms in a long time. At this moment, she was everything he needed.

But his timing couldn’t be worse.

With something else waking inside him—something that was more about family and the job, more about protecting one’s own than it was about himself—his wants, his needs and the beautiful woman who’d assuaged them both for a few stolen moments—Boone pulled his hands up to Kate’s shoulders and abruptly pushed her away.

He needed the chilly rush of air-conditioning filling the gap between them. He needed to see the self-conscious splotches of color on Kate Kilpatrick’s cheeks. He needed to watch her straighten the front of her coat and tug the sleeves back into place.

He needed to see her fixing her personal armor around her so he could do the same himself.

“Sorry about that, ma’am,” he apologized.

“Not a problem, Sheriff.” She smoothed her short hair back behind her ears. “Sometimes grief can be too much to bear. And I was here.”

“You’ve already done more for me than you should.” And yet he had to ask her to do something else. As of this moment he knew Kate Kilpatrick better than anyone in Kansas City, now that Janie was gone. They were virtual strangers, yet she was the closest thing he had to a friend right now. She was also the best source of information he’d found thus far. Dr. Kate was a pipeline straight to the detectives who were working Janie’s case. He glanced over to give his sister one last loving look, before facing the police psychologist’s guarded expression. “I want to see the crime scene and any evidence your team has on Janie’s murder and the previous rapes that bastard committed.”

The green eyes blinked. Dr. Kate was shaking her head. “Sheriff Harrison … Boone … you need to take your sister home. You need to take care of your family right now.”

He set his hat on his head, adjusting the crown to its familiar, comfortable fit. He closed his fingers around the crisp sleeve of Kate Kilpatrick’s trench coat and the warmer, softer woman underneath, and walked her to the door with him.

Her psych degree and whatever heat was simmering beneath that cool exterior might have her programmed to be all touchy-feely with his emotions. But he didn’t have the time to feel right now. “I need to work.”

THE MAN PEELED OFF his shirt and tossed it into the hamper beside the socks and pants he’d worn last night.

His eyes were glued to the television across from his bed, and on the haughty blonde being interviewed on the morning news show. He paused, stripping down to his skivvies. The bitch was looking right at him, taunting him.

“We will find this man. The task force members investigating these crimes are top-notch specialists—the best in KCPD. I guarantee that we will not rest until this attacker is caught and arrested.”

His gaze dropped to the bottom of the screen as the press conference was interrupted. He didn’t really notice the cowboy or the commotion of wonky camera angles and muffled sounds as the reporters scrambled to pursue them. He was reading the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen— Dr. Kate Kilpatrick, KCPD police psychologist and task force liaison officer .

A shrink. He could just bet that woman wanted to get inside his head. Change him. Fix him.

A familiar resentment boiled inside him. “We will find this man?” he mocked. “You wish. You’ve got nothing on me, woman.” She thought she could threaten him, intimidate him into making a mistake. This one looked right at him and challenged him. Yet she looked all sympathetic, like she thought she could help him. Like he needed help. “I didn’t do those things. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Dr. Kate Kilpatrick was all blond hair and sharp tongue and classic beauty. She looked so much like her . She sounded like her . That entitled, smarter-than-him attitude was just like her .

Despite everything he’d done, despite the promises he’d made, she’d talked to him as though he wasn’t good enough, as if he was some kind of broken thing that needed to be fixed.

The rage spilled over into his veins. She was trying to humiliate him. publicly. Again.

A nagging voice of reason piped up in his head. It isn’t her. You know she’s a different woman .

No. Women like that were all the same.

He could feel the irritation crawling beneath his skin. They took. They demanded. They emasculated. If they ever deigned to notice him, that is. A woman like that—so confident, so beautiful—she’d look right through him. You don’t know that , the voice argued. Don’t let her get to you. She’ll make trouble for you if you let her get to you .

“She won’t get to me.” He read the name scrolling across the bottom of the screen again. Kate Kilpatrick. She’d mocked him. Right there on television, for all the world to see.

He rolled his neck, scratching at the itch beneath his skin until he realized there was blood beneath his fingernails. Feeling the sticky stain on his fingertips more than the pain in his forearm, he dashed into the bathroom to check the mark in the mirror—to assure himself that he had put the mark there. There was no DNA that the brunette from the flower shop had taken from him.

He’d never make a mistake like that.

Breathing away the momentary panic, assuring himself that no woman had dared to get the better of him, he turned on the water in the sink and let it run hot before he picked up the soap and plunged his hands beneath the spray. After he’d washed his hands, using a brush to get rid of any trace of blood or skin beneath his nails, he opened the medicine cabinet. He pulled out rubbing alcohol, medicated ointment and plastic bandages to doctor the scratch he’d made, reveling in the sharp bite of pain that cleared his thoughts.

You were too smart. Too careful . The voice praised him, stroking his ego and fueling his pride. You didn’t make any mistakes .

“Damn right I didn’t.” His heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out as the utter self-assurance of his actions returned.

Once he had finished doctoring his wound, he returned to the bedroom to remove the last of his clothes. Using his undershirt as a barrier to keep from touching any buttons, he picked up the remote and turned off the blonde liar and the morning news.

Then he stepped into the shower to clean up and get dressed for work.

“You let Janie close up the store all by herself that late at night?” Boone braced one hand on the cash register and leaned over the counter at the Robin’s Nest Florist Shop.

“I trust her with my keys. She’s my assistant manager … Trusted. She was my—”

“After eleven o’clock? In the dark? Knowing that bastard was running around out there?”

“We close at nine p.m. Why was she here that late?”

“You tell me.”

Boone couldn’t keep the raw tinge of frustration out of his voice, and knew that the clipped tone and deep pitch and bulk of his shoulders were probably more intimidation than the brown-haired woman hugging the design book to her chest could handle. But damn it all, that redheaded detective in the suit had run him out of the alley where Janie had been found, and then set up a brick wall of a K-9 cop and his German shepherd sidekick to keep him away from the crime scene.

Normally, he was a patient man, a methodical investigator. But this crime burned far too close to the heart. His family was his responsibility, and he’d already failed if his sister had suffered so and ended up dead. He needed answers to why this unthinkable act of violence had happened—and he needed them sooner rather than later if he was going to have any chance of assuaging the guilt and rage and grief thundering along with every blood cell in his veins. If KCPD wouldn’t let him comb through the crime scene with fresh eyes, then his next best avenue was to retrace Janie’s steps yesterday and start talking to the people she’d had contact with.