“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Cole stuck her left hand out from under Scott’s right sleeve and offered them a little wave. At the same time she reached up under his shirttail with her right and tucked his gun into his waistband.
“She’s shy.” Scott smiled at the two officers. He saw them exchange glances. “I know. We were breaking a few rules. We were just warming up for the ride home. No fault no foul.”
One of the officers snickered. “Take it home. It’s not safe out here.”
“So I noticed. Thanks.”
When the police had turned away Scott pivoted toward her. She plowed into him and gripped him as tight as she possibly could.
“You’re shivering.” Scott took her by the shoulders and tried to push her away so he could see her face. “Cole?” But she clung to him like he was a life raft.
He closed his arms and held her. “It’s okay. We were never in serious trouble. I would have announced I was in law enforcement next. I just didn’t want—” He felt her body heave and shudder inside his embrace. It felt suspiciously like a sob.
He couldn’t quite believe it. Nothing made her cry but slaughtered puppies and—him.
“Shit. I’m sorry, baby. I know I shouldn’t have brought you out here like this. I didn’t think…” He closed his mouth. That was the problem. He’d been too horny to think—about her, about the possible dangers, about her reputation, and worse.
Bikers. Coincidence, or something more? He needed to get her off the street to find out.
After a few more seconds he bent and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry but we need to get off the street. Now.”
She dropped her arms and stepped back. In the dim light he could see tear tracks on her face. He scrubbed one away with a thumb. “You poor kid.”
Cole pushed his hand away. “I’m sorry. I freaked. That was unprofessional.”
Scott didn’t reply to that. It was one thing to be a police officer in full gear facing down the bad guys you knew were out there. It was another thing altogether to be caught butt naked in a public alley. “Don’t worry about it. It’s over.”
For a few seconds Cole didn’t move, locked in the creepy-crawly sensation of nightmare memories hatched by the last few minutes.
The outlaw biker grabbing her butt on the empty stretch of highway.
His leer as he moved in close to let her know he had rape, and probably worse, on his mind.
If she hadn’t had her gun …
If Scott hadn’t been carrying tonight.…
“Cole?”
Cole jerked as if slapped. Scott was standing in front her with her shoes in his hand. Slowly the chill of the alley asphalt under her bare feet began to penetrate her senses. She took them. “My panties?”
Grim-faced, he moved a little away and scooped up a rag of red lace from a darkness her eyes could not penetrate. “There you go.”
She waved them away. The action helped move her back to the edge of rational thought. The way she had behaved required an explanation. She put on her shoes saying, “I need to explain.”
“Later.”
He glanced back up the alley, still as Hugo on alert. She could feel the air around him vibrate with watchfulness and something she couldn’t guess at.
He turned and grabbed her hand. “Let’s move.”
As he moved toward the street, he pulled her in under the protection of his arm until he could get them off the street.
Instead of returning to the pizzeria, he hurried her into a coffee shop and ordered two double espressos. His expression was harsh as he waited for her to take a sip. “Tell me what happened out there.”
“I had a flashback, sort of.” Cole felt her cheeks catch fire with embarrassment. “There was an incident near Harmonie Kennels last week. With a guy on a motorcycle.”
Scott went still as stone. “What guy?”
“I didn’t know him. But he wore a Pagan jacket.”
“Start at the beginning. I want to know everything.” The passionate lover in the alley had been replaced by the law-enforcement officer interrogating a witness.
She told him the story as matter-of-factly as she could.
Scott tried to hear what she was telling him about how she’d pulled her weapon on her assailant and held him off. But the primitive protect-my-woman rage building in him was quickly blocking reason and logic, or even his relief that she was a trained and prepared law-enforcement officer who knew how to protect herself.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this at the time?”
Cole met his hard stare. In the bright lights of the shop she felt that she had overreacted. Scott’s pissed-off expression seemed to confirm that.
“You were with your family. But that’s not the only reason. I didn’t tell anyone.”