Kimberly Cates - The Perfect Match

Hurts, Daddy… Mac’s tear-choked voice raked Rowena’s memory. I hate you when you hurt me…

I hate myself.

What must it be like for him? Suffering through Mac’s tears day after day? Realizing that no matter how hard he fought, there were some things beyond his power to control? And that one of them was his daughter’s pain?

Entering the room he’d indicated, she looked around, trying to connect the man to his surroundings. But again, the setting didn’t fit him, his room yawning spaces of emptiness broken up by even more clusters of family pictures that marked places where furniture must have been.

A double-sized box springs and mattress sat on the floor, the bed made up so precisely Rowena could have bounced a quarter off of the simple navy spread. A folding TV tray to one side held a windup alarm clock, yet another ugly lamp and a James Patterson novel splayed pages down somewhere toward the beginning, the one and only thing in the house that actually had a thick layer of dust filming its cover.

After a moment, Cash strode in. “First aid kit’s in the other room.”

She jumped, feeling as if she’d intruded in something painful, something private. “Right. I, uh, was just looking at your pictures. The one of the tree house in the hall is terrific,” she scrambled to explain, trying to break the sudden tension. “I always wanted a tree house when I was a kid. But my mom and dad weren’t big on that kind of stuff. You know, doctors’ schedules, volunteer work, making sure their kids had a jillion after-school activities that would look good on applications to Harvard Medical School.”

What was she doing, telling him stuff like that? Next thing she knew he could ask the six million dollar question—with those family expectations, how did she end up here, in White-water, running a pet shop? Fortunately, he was too distracted by the picture tacked to his wall.

His gaze narrowed and he ran one fingertip over the tree house. “I never finished building it,” he said. “Mac got hurt.”

So Mac’s disability had come from an accident of some kind. Had she fallen out of the tree? Rowena wondered. No wonder he’d quit working on the thing. But it seemed somehow cruel to ask him outright.

“How long has she been in a wheelchair?”

“Two and a half years.”

“Mac’s injuries…what did the doctors say? Are they permanent?”

His eyes blazed. “My little girl will walk again. Got that? She won’t just walk, she’ll dance the way she did when she was three. I won’t let that wheelchair be all she ever knows.”

“No. Of—of course not.” Her chest ached as she remembered Mac in the little ruffled chick outfit, Mac with the purple tutu around her tummy when she’d been doing therapy.

Mac, the little fairy child…everyone knew that fairies had to dance.

“It must have been hard for you…and your wife.” She couldn’t help thinking about the perfect woman in the picture. The deputy’s face went cold.

“Yeah,” he said, scorn dripping from his voice. “It’s been pure hell for Lisa.”

Present tense. So the woman was alive. “Is their mother the reason the girls got so upset in the shop, worried about you leaving them?”

“We’re divorced and they haven’t seen her for months. Is that what you want to know?” he challenged, making her feel like a nosy jerk.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure as hell not. Let’s get that cut taken care of and get you out of here. I’ve got Mac’s therapy to finish.”

Rowena fled into the master bath, its walls stark white, almost painfully clean, nothing on the counter to show a man actually lived here.

She stiffened, startled as Lawless’s big hands closed around her waist, set her up on the bathroom counter as if she weighed no more than a cotton ball. She sensed he must’ve done the same with his daughters countless times. But there was nothing innocent in what Rowena felt in the wake of his touch.

His intensity seared into her, the imprint of his hands still burning as he opened the bathroom closet and stretched up to snag a Gortex bag from the highest shelf.

“Just hand me a bandage,” Rowena said, not sure she wanted him to touch her again. “I’ll get out of here before—” Before you realize you flustered me so badly…

Turned you on, you mean, she forced herself to acknowledge . It’s just a reflex, Rowena. With all that fire, all that passion in him you’re off to save the world again. Cash Lawless might be hard on the outside, but inside, where no one can see, he’s bleeding. And you could never stand for any living creature hurting that way to be alone…

He dampened a corner of his white towel. “This will just take a second.” He cupped her face with his long fingers, dabbed at the cut. Tingles shot down to Rowena’s breasts. The man might not be able to see them with her jacket on, but apparently they sensed him just fine.

He took out some antibiotic lotion, the kid-friendly kind that didn’t sting, and squeezed some onto an Elmo bandage. As he carefully stretched Elmo to hold the cut’s edges together butterfly fashion, his forearm brushed the tip of one nipple. Her breath hissed between her teeth.

“Hurt?” He gave her a concerned glance. She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

Oh, Lord, don’t let him feel how pointy I got…

“Looks like we’ll be even after today,” he said, unexpectedly trailing his fingertip down the side of her face. He had to feel the way her blood suddenly pounded in that tender spot where her jaw met her throat.

“Even?” Rowena squeaked.

“You’ll probably have a shiner come morning.”

A black eye? Rowena thought. That was all he was talking about? At least he didn’t know what that casual touch of his had done to her long-dozing libido. An instant later relief gave way to alarm. Drat. Drat. Double drat. Cash wouldn’t be the only one talking about her eye. Her bruise should be in all its purple glory by the time Wednesday hit.

“Great,” Rowena muttered aloud, pointing to her bandage. “I can’t wait to explain this to my mom when she stops by the shop on Wednesday.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be explaining things to your mom?”

“Heck, no. There’s no statute of limitations when it comes to mom-worry. She’ll be fussing over my scrapes and bruises until I’m eighty.”

“You’re lucky, then.”

She saw Lawless’s mouth tighten and thought of the blond goddess in the picture and his little girls, so afraid of being left by him.

Blast. She’d meant to make a joke. Instead she’d managed to stick her foot in her mouth again.

“Your family lives nearby?” he asked, ironing the emotion out of his face.

“No. Mom’s just swinging by on her way home from a medical conference in Iowa City to check up on me. Perfect timing, as usual.”

He stared at her, and she got that sensation she’d had before, that he was seeing things she’d rather keep hidden. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you tell the good doctor about your little performance today,” he said.

“My sister Ariel says that fibbing is legal when it comes to soothing mom-worry. Why tell her things that will only get her upset?”

“In this case, she’d have every right to be. Anything could have happened. You charge in here, alone, and try to wrestle me to the floor. I outweigh you by at least fifty pounds. I’m a cop with a temper you know can be dangerous and I’ve made it clear I don’t like you.”

“First impressions are deceiving.”

“Not in my experience.” His gaze skimmed slowly from her wayward curls to her non-existent breasts, then back up to her face as he seemed to consider. “My gut’s almost always right when it comes to getting a bead on someone’s character. A cop’s life depends on it. And on being smart about the risks he takes.”