Victoria Dahl - Good Girls Don't

He’d been a quiet kid, but now he looked mysterious. Almost dangerous. Dark and strong. As if she could lean on him and he’d banish her problems with one cold look.

Maybe it was just the hint of forbidden fruit. Her older brothers had rarely brought friends around when she was a kid. When they had, as Jamie had said, there’d been no introductions made. It was an unwritten rule that male friends were not allowed to simply hang around the house as if they lived there. But that hadn’t stopped Tessa from watching their brief visits with close attention.

Yeah. Forbidden fruit. And big strong shoulders. The kind of man who’d take care of all her problems, or at least make her forget them.

But at that moment, the fantasy was so far-fetched that Tessa switched off the music and set aside thoughts of Detective Asher. He might be able to solve the mystery of the robbery, but there was nothing he could do about the tangled mess Jamie had created. If anyone was going to do the rescuing today, it’d be her.

So she squared her shoulders and rode off into the sunset, clutching the steering wheel as if it were a weapon. Tessa to the rescue, one more time.

LUKE SUSPECTED ONE of the university students was behind the robberies. Not because he hated college kids—he only marginally disliked them—but because a college kid would fit the profile. Smart, tech-savvy, daring and in need of quick money. That also described the kids who’d dropped out of school and never managed to quite leave town. And there were a lot of those. Then, of course, there were the educated meth heads. Plenty of those around, too. In other words, without fingerprints or a hot lead, this case would be solved by running down every tiny detail, even the ones that seemed inconsequential.

Luke ran the surveillance video one more time, just for the hell of it. It offered little detail. At around 1:15 a.m., a shadow crossed the video of the loading dock. A few minutes later, it crossed again. This repeated a few more times, and that was it. No body, no height, no description. Just an approximate time of the robbery, and he’d already had that.

He backed up the digital feed a little farther, then farther still, looking for movement, just in case someone had cased the back door earlier in the evening.

But the only person who appeared was a woman with a blond ponytail and a happy smile. Tessa Donovan.

Luke very purposefully didn’t pause the video and look at her. Instead, he shut it down entirely just to avoid the temptation. She was cute, and that was that. There were thousands of cute women in this city. Granted, most of them were way too young for him, but then so was Tessa. Oh, she was past college age, but her eyes were still clear and bright and happy. She made Luke feel ancient.

“I’m heading home,” Simone said, gathering up her purse and briefcase. She wasn’t quite waddling yet, but she was definitely moving with more care. Luke shut his computer down and grabbed his own stack of work. “Here,” he said, reaching across his desk to grab for her heavy case. “Let me get that.” But she was still quick enough to jerk the briefcase out of his reach before he could touch it.

“I’ve got it,” she muttered, irritated by his offer of help. Lately, she always was, and that pissed Luke off. They were partners, damn it. They were friends, or they once had been.

“It’s seven,” he said as he followed her toward the front door. He watched her back as she shrugged. “You’ve been here since eight. You shouldn’t be working these kinds of hours.”

She slammed the door open with both hands, the briefcase banging against the glass. “You’re working them.”

“Simone. Don’t be stupid.”

Her shoulders snapped straight and she stopped so quickly that he had to grab her arm to keep from knocking her over.

“What,” she ground out, “is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to guess from your reaction that you feel stupid about something.”

“Luke—” She cut herself off at that one word, but he could read fury and sadness and resentment, all tied up in that one syllable.

She walked on, heading straight for her car, but he followed, waiting until she opened her door and ditched her bags. Before she could slip into the driver’s seat and escape, he put a hand across the door. “Please talk to me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know that, damn it. It’s pretty obvious. Why?”

“It’s none of your business.”

He felt a sharp stab of pain and a sudden anger. He tried his best to tamp it down, but some of it leaked past his hold. “It is my business, because the whole town thinks I knocked you up.”

“So tell them that you didn’t.”

“And then what? They’re going to want to know who did, and I can’t answer that question. What the hell are they going to think about you, then?”

“I don’t care.” Her face was as blank as any hardened criminal’s under interrogation. She’d always been good at that, but Luke used to be the one she’d actually talk to.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled.

She met his gaze with a cool stare, and when he tossed up his hands and backed away, Simone simply got in her car and shut him out. He felt the dull, hard thud of the door all the way through his body.

If he had knocked her up, he could understand this, but he and Simone had never had sex.

Luke retreated to his own car, then sat there with the windows down, trying to breathe his way to calmness. After a few minutes, he made his hands unclench from the steering wheel, and he laid his head back. The sun was setting and the breeze was cool enough to soothe his temper. He heard the subtle whir of a pack of bikes sliding past the parking lot. Then the click of dog claws against the cement. His gut still burned, but the rest of him was calm when his phone rang. By the time he raised it to his ear, Luke had convinced himself it was Simone calling to apologize.

“Asher,” he said neutrally.

“Hi, this is Tessa Donovan.”

His head snapped up so quickly that the world blurred around him.

“Am I bothering you?” she asked.

Tessa Donovan? “No, it’s fine,” he managed to say.

“You’re not in the middle of a big murder investigation or something?”

Luke smiled. “No, we don’t get a lot of those around here. Luckily there are enough lesser crimes to keep me busy.”

“Luckily!” She laughed, and the sound was richer than he’d expected, not the least bit like a giggle at all.

“So what can I help you with?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t seem to have a dinner companion. Could you help with that?”

“Um.” Not the smoothest answer, but Luke’s brain was having trouble making the transition. “Pardon me?”

“Dinner? I’m driving up from Denver right now, but I’m almost home. I could be changed and ready in forty-five minutes.”

“For dinner.”

“Yes. Unless it’s against the rules. I don’t want to get you put on desk duty because I’m a material witness.”

Luke found himself grinning at his dashboard. “You didn’t witness anything. And you watch too much TV.”

“Wow, you figured that out quick. You really are a detective.”

Shit. She was cute as hell. “I promised your brother I’d stay away from you.”

“Really? Well, that’s interesting. Which brother?”

“Jamie.”

“He told you to stay away from me?”

“He did.”

“Why?” she asked.

Luke wasn’t stupid enough to offer up his divorce at this point, not even the truthful version of it. Especially not the truthful version. “Why? Because I’m a man. And you’re his little sister.”

She chuckled again, and this time it was a soft, sensual sound. “Well, what my brother doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”