Nora Roberts - Remember When

and get stitches.

He couldn't quite clear his brain, but he pushed himself to a sitting position. Since the head he was now reasonably certain was still on the correct way seemed in danger of falling off his shoulders, he lowered it to his hands until he felt more secure.

He needed to get up, turn on a light. Take stock of himself and what the hell had happened. He wiped at the blood, opened his aching eyes and scowled at the open rear door.

Whoever'd hit him from behind was long gone. He started to get to his feet with the idea of taking a quick look around the place before following suit.

And the rear doorway was suddenly filled with cop.

Max took a long look at Vince Burger, and at the police-issue pointing in his direction and said, "Well, shit."

***

"Look, you can pop me for the B and E. It'll sting. I'll get around it, but it'll sting. But-"

"I did pop you for the B and E." Vince kicked back in his desk chair and smiled humorlessly at Max, who sat cuffed to a visitor's chair in the office of the station house.

Didn't look so big city and cocky now, Vince thought, with the bandage on his temple and the sizable lump on his forehead.

"Then there's attempted burglary-"

"I wasn't stealing anything, damn it, and you know it."

"Oh, so you just break into stores in the middle of the night to browse around. Like window shopping but on the inside." He lifted an evidence bag, gave it a shake that rattled Max's burglar tools and personal data assistant.

"And you carry these around in case you have to do some small home repairs?"

"Look-"

"I can pop you on possession of burglary tools."

"That's a goddamn PDA. Everybody's got a PDA."

"I don't."

"Surprise, surprise," Max said sourly. "I had reasons for being inside Laine's shop."

"You break into all the shops and homes of women you date?"

"I never broke into her house, and it's pretty damn elementary, Watson, that whoever was in the store ahead of me, whoever coldcocked me was the one who did. You're protective of her, I get that, but-"

"Damn right." The good old boy's eyes went hard as cinders. "She's a friend of mine. She's a good friend of mine, and I don't like some New York asshole messing with my friends."

"I'm a Georgia asshole, actually. I just live in New York. I'm conducting an investigation for a client. A private investigation."

"So you say, but I didn't find any license on you."

"You didn't find any wallet either," Max snapped back, "because whoever knocked me out helped himself to it. Goddamn it, Burger-"

"Don't swear in my office."

At wits' end, Max leaned his head back, closed his eyes. "I didn't ask for a lawyer, but I'm going to beg you, I may even work up some tears along with it, for some fricking aspirin."

Vince opened a desk drawer, took out a bottle. Maybe he slammed the drawer just for the satisfaction of seeing Max wince, but he heaved himself up and poured a cup of water.

"You know I'm what I say I am." Max took the pills, downed them with the water and prayed for them to break Olympic records swimming into his bloodstream.

"You've run me. You know I'm a licensed investigator. You know I used to be a cop. And while you're wasting time and getting your jollies busting my balls, whoever was in her place has gone back to ground. You need-"

"You don't want to tell me what I need to do." The voice was mild enough to have Max respecting the cold fury under it-particularly since he was cuffed to a chair. "You told Laine all that? About the used to be a cop, going private, working on a case here in the Gap?"

Just his luck, Max decided, to run foul of the Norman Rockwell version of a hard-ass town cop. "Is this about my relationship with Laine or about me being inside the shop?"

"Six of one to me. What's the case you're working on?"

"I'm not giving you any details on that until I talk to my client." And his client was unlikely to be pleased he'd been busted slithering around the fine points of the law. Not that he'd slithered, but that he'd gotten caught. But that was another problem.

"Look, someone was in that shop when I walked in, and that same person tore up Laine's house. Laine's the one we need to be concerned about right now. You need to send a deputy out to her place and make sure-"

"Telling me how to do my job isn't going to make me feel any more kindly toward you."

"I don't care if you want to ask me out to the prom. Laine needs protection."

"You've been doing a good job of that." Vince settled his weight on the edge of the desk, like, Max thought with a sinking heart, a man settling in for a nice, long chat. "Funny how you show up from New York right after I end up with a guy from New York in the morgue."

"Yeah, I'm still laughing about that one. Eight million people in New York, give or take," Max said coolly. "Seems reasonable a few of them would pass through here from time to time."

"Guess I'm not feeling real reasonable. Here's what I see. Some guy walks out of Laine's shop, gets spooked and runs into the street, ends up dead. You show up, talk Laine into having dinner with you, and while you're moving on her, her house gets burgled and vandalized. Next thing you know, you're inside her shop at three-thirty in the morning carrying burglar tools. What are you looking for, Gannon?"

"Inner peace."

"Good luck with that," Vince said as they heard the quick march of footsteps down the hall.

Laine swung into the room. She wore sweats, and her hair was pulled back into a tail that left her face unframed. There were smudges from lack of sleep under her eyes, and those eyes were full of baffled concern.

"What's going on? Jerry came by the house, told me there was trouble at the shop and that I had to come right in and talk to you. What kind of trouble?

What's-" She spotted the handcuffs and stopped short as she stared at them, then slowly lifted her gaze to Max's face. "What is this?"

"Laine-"

"You're going to want to sit quiet a minute," Vince warned Max. "You had a break-in at the store," Vince told her. "Far as I could see there wasn't any damage. You'll have to take a look yourself to see if anything was taken."

"I see." She wanted to sit, but only braced a hand on the back of a chair.

"No, I don't. Why have you got Max cuffed?"

"I got an anonymous call that there was a burglary in progress at the location of your store. When I got there, I found him. Inside. He had a nice set of lock picks in his possession."

She took a breath-air in, air out-and shifted her gaze to Max's face. "You broke into my shop?"

"No. Well, yes, technically. But after someone else did. Someone who bashed me on the head, then called in the tip so I'd get rousted for this."

She studied the bandage on his temple, but the concern had already chilled out of her eyes. "That doesn't explain what you were doing there in the middle of the night." After I left your bed, she thought. After I spent the night in your bed.

"I can explain. I need to talk to you privately. Ten minutes. Give me ten minutes."

"I'd like to hear it. Can I talk to him alone, Vince?"

"I wouldn't recommend it."

"I'm a licensed investigator. He knows it." Max jerked a thumb at Vince. "I have a case and a client, and I'm pursuing leads. I'm not free to say any more."

"Then you'd be wasting all our time," Vince pointed out.

"Ten minutes, Laine."

An investigator. A case. In the time it took her to absorb the blow, she'd added her father into the mix. Hurt, anger and resignation rolled through her in a messy trio, but none of it showed. "I'd appreciate the time, Vince. It's personal."

"Figured as much." Vince pushed to his feet. "As a favor to you, then. I'll be right outside the door. Watch yourself," he added to Max, "or you're going to have a few new bruises to go with the old ones."