“Sure.” He sounded uneasy but that was his problem. He moved closer to Richards. “What’s this about a loan? Is Officer Jamieson running short of funds?”
“Naw. I sent her on a mission yesterday to find Noel. Looks like she’s done a good job.” Richards grinned. “Should have known that sometimes change for a woman is as easy as a new hairstyle. Gives her whole new personality.”
Cole set a cup of black coffee before Scott then casually braced her arm on his shoulder. “Sam likes it, don’t you?”
Scott looked up at her, cop face in place. “Sure. It’s okay.” He did not sound like he meant it but Cole ignored that.
“See that. Practically a new girlfriend without the pain of a breakup.” She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, as if he was a six-year-old, and then moved away to take her usual seat on the other side of the table. “What are we doing today, gentlemen?”
Smiling, Richards exchanged glances with his partner, who nodded. “Looks like we can move on today to surveillance techniques.”
At the end of the morning session, Cole swung by Richards’s chair. “The ride yesterday helped. Mind it I take your bike again this afternoon?”
That caught Scott’s attention. “What bike?” He stared at Richards. “I didn’t take you for a fan of ten-speeds.”
“Shee-it, son. We’re talking serious wheels. I ride a hog. Noel, here, took it for a spin yesterday.”
Scott looked at Cole. “You hate bikes.”
Cole rolled her eyes. “Men. The fact you manage a motorcycle dealership is what first attracted me to you. You know I like bad boys.” She slapped him on the butt.
The astonished look on his face was priceless.
“Got to put Hugo through his paces again. Be back after lunch.”
Scott came after her, catching up quickly with his longer stride. “We need to talk.”
As they stepped outside, out of view of their trainers, Cole turned and offered him a cool gaze. “Let me make this simple for you. Last night was about Noel and Sam. They are in love. They are hot together. Cole and Scott have issues but they don’t matter a damn at the moment. I needed to know that I could separate that. Now I do.”
She veered away quickly before Scott could use his cop instinct to read more into her expression than she could afford to divulge. He was good at that, when he bothered to pay attention.
That’s why she’d left him standing in the shower, grabbed a towel, and locked her bedroom door. As if sex with her ex wasn’t crazy enough, he had scared her at the end, scared her in a way she didn’t know was still possible.
Home.
That’s what he’d murmured as he slid into her body the night before. She wasn’t at all certain he knew he’d said it. She definitely hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Home is where the heart is. Home is wherever you are. Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.
Cole shook her head as those clichés swam through her mind and sped up her step. Let Scott think she was running away from him. It was better than him seeing an echo of his sentiment in her eyes.
As she crossed the yard toward the kennel, Cole fluffed her new haircut with both hands, making it look even choppier and wilder.
“Nice.” She looked around to see a soldier in desert fatigues wink at her as he passed.
She grinned back. It was a badass hairstyle with lots of angles and pieces, both long and short, the front raking across her forehead on a slant. She’d even put on eyeliner and doubled her mascara, something she never did for work. The haircut could handle it. She might even add highlights, when she got home.
Home.
Scott—dammit—Sam was messing with her mind.
It meant nothing. Men said all kinds of crazy things in the heat of the moment. And last night had been scorching hot.
Cole ignored the twinge of soreness between her legs as she walked on. She couldn’t afford to be mad or hurt over it. She most certainly couldn’t afford to be “home” for either Scott or Sam right now.
*
Cole watched Hugo weave his way around five poles before pausing to see if he’d done enough.
“Geh voraus. Go ahead.” Cole motioned to him with a hand.
Hugo, ears flattened and head low, moved in and out of another pair of poles then looked back again.
“That’s one unhappy dog.”
Cole spun around. She hadn’t heard Yardley approaching.
Cole smoothed her sweaty slant of bangs off her brow with her forearm. “We’ve got an issue, ma’am. Hugo hates the Weave. Even if that weren’t true, it takes weeks, sometimes months, to learn this obstacle.”
“That’s usually true, with an average dog. Hugo’s not average. And, he’s been trained to the peak of his ability. He’s just not concentrating. That makes me wonder who is really afraid of the Weave.”
Yardley knelt down to call the big black dog. “Here, boy.”