Kelsey Roberts - Handsome As Sin

She was barely aware of the sound of approaching footsteps as she tried furiously to sort through the bits and pieces fragmented in her mind. There was the fight. There was Jake’s obvious fixation with the stupid penny. There was the fact that he had followed them. There was the fact that she had seen no one else. There was—

“I’m Officer Sonnenmark,” a young, thin blond man in uniform said.

Ellie, startled by the sudden appearance of the policeman, instinctively pressed herself against Jake. She swallowed hard, trying, on the one hand, to keep from blurting out her suspicions. On the other hand, she was trying not to react to the solid, warm outline of his body where it touched her own. Shock, she decided. She had to be in shock; it was the only explanation for her juvenile and erratic, not to mention illegal, behavior for the past several minutes.

“Unusual weather,” Jake drawled, tipping his hat like the perfect Texas gentleman. “Something happen?” he continued with an innocent tone that could have earned him an Academy Award.

Officer Sonnenmark nodded, his boyish face completely devoid of emotion. “Y’all live around here?” Thankfully, the question was delivered to Jake.

“Nope,” Jake drawled. “We wanted to get a little inland, you know. Take a walk in the snow without having to fight the breeze off the harbor. It sure was pretty, but I’m afraid my blood just isn’t thick enough to stand the cold.”

Sonnenmark nodded and smiled down at Ellie. “Your husband may be romantic, but you look about frozen to death.”

“You’d think he was trying to kill me,” Ellie said through a fake smile. “I’m soaked through to the skin. I’ve been telling him for the past hour that I’ve had enough of this wilderness hike.”

“Now, dear,” Jake began as his gloved fingertips bit into the flesh of her upper arm. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I just thought a little walk would be invigorating. And a nice break from the kids.”

“Y’all got kids?” Sonnenmark asked.

“Six,” Jake replied without missing a beat. “All boys.”

“Hell,” the officer said, giving Jake an admiration-filled punch on the arm. “Since you got six kids at home, I guess any excuse to get out of the house works.”

“Any excuse,” Ellie repeated as she glared up at Jake’s relaxed jawline.

“What kind of trouble did you have?”

The officer bent forward, lowering his voice to an almost conspiratorial tone. “Murder. Guy in that apartment building there. Richardson was his name. You folks didn’t happen to see—”

“Naw,” Jake drawled. “We didn’t see anything. Didn’t even hear a gunshot.”

The officer leaned even closer. “No gunshot to hear. The poor guy was strangled with his own damned Christmas decorations.” Then, as if suddenly remembering Ellie was present, his face colored slightly. “Sorry, ma’am. Excuse my language.” He touched his fingers to the edge of the plastic covering the brim of his police hat.

“I’d appreciate it if you would be so kind as to excuse us. I’m freezing,” Ellie said to the officer.

Jake wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her against him and placing an unanticipated kiss against her cheek. The frozen skin tingled and warmed almost immediately, and it was everything Ellie could do to keep from shoving him away.

“I’d best get her home and warm her up,” Jake told the officer, none-too-subtly hinting at just how he expected to accomplish the task.

“Sure thing,” the officer said. “Your kids are probably ready for supper, anyway.”

“Exactly,” Ellie said with a nod. Then, glaring up at Jake, she added, “We wouldn’t want the little darlings to go hungry, would we?”

His green eyes darkened slightly. “No one should go hungry,” he fairly purred against her ear.

“What was that for?” she demanded in a harsh whisper as soon as the officer was out of earshot.

“I was ad-libbing,” he answered as he allowed his hand to fall away from her shoulder.

Ellie told herself that the sudden chill was the result of the dropping temperature. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that he was no longer touching her. After all, she didn’t want him to touch her, not with the same hands that in all likelihood had killed poor Josh.

Jake led her to a sleek Mercedes and held open the door. The interior smelled of leather and it had the feel of newness. It also had the feel of money. As her eyes scanned the elaborate collection of controls on the dashboard, she decided the car must have cost as much as her annual salary.

“Lead on.” He mimicked her earlier words as he slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, Ellie’s brain worked at warp speed. “Uh...you need to head back in the direction of The Rose Tattoo.”

Misty rain accompanied the dusk as he drove back toward town. Ellie cautiously watched him out of the corner of her eye. How could someone so gorgeous be a killer? she wondered. Just her luck. The first really attractive man she meets turns out to be a thief at the very best, a killer at the very worst.

“Still trying to figure out how I did it?”

Ellie’s mouth opened but nothing came out.

He smiled then, an action that she felt all the way down to her toes. The effect was from more than just the attractive combination of dimples and even, white teeth. There was something almost hypnotic in the simple action, something that seemed to draw her to this man like the proverbial moth. Only with this man, Ellie knew with relative certainty that she’d be consumed by the flames.

“I was thinking about the murder,” she hedged.

He nodded, apparently unfazed by the whole situation. “Whoever it was obviously wanted to make sure you were caught at the scene.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t have any enemies.”

“Really?” One pale brow arched high on his forehead. “What about that guy at the bar? The one with no neck.”

“Mike has a neck,” she insisted.

“The size of a tree trunk.”

“He works out.”

“With a bottle of steroids?”

“No,” she told him on an exasperated breath. “He has a very stressful job. He works out to release some of the stress.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a detective.”

Jake let out a low whistle. “So that’s how you know so much about police work.”

“Pretty much,” she said, lowering her eyes to study her hands. “Mike investigates murders, he doesn’t commit them.”

“Unless maybe he bought that little scene you staged with the bartender?”

Ellie shifted in the bucket seat, angling herself so that she could glare at his profile. “That’s crazy. Mike is not the violent type.”

“Really?” Jake asked, almost taunting her as he abruptly swerved over to the curb and threw the car in park. “Then what are these?”

Taking one of her arms, Jake pulled it free of her coat and rolled up her sleeve. Even in the dim light of early evening, she could easily make out the small, roundish bruises where Mike had gripped her arm.

“He doesn’t always realize his own strength,” she said.

Tossing her arm down in obvious disgust, Jake said, “Right. Have you always made excuses for him? Is that why your relationship with that Neanderthal ended?”

Ellie didn’t bother to fix her sleeve, but simply stuffed her balled fist through the armhole of her coat and stiffened in the seat. “My relationship with Mike is hardly any of your business.”

“Excuse me,” Jake grumbled as he pulled back onto the road.

For several minutes the only conversation consisted of Ellie’s minimal directions to take a left or a right. The tension inside the passenger compartment was as thick as the fog slowly settling over the city.