*
Shay stirred her iced tea in silence as she watched James eat. He was nearly done and they hadn’t yet exchanged more than half a dozen words. The silence was worse than talking would have been; it gave her brain nothing to do but be acutely aware of every inch of the man sharing her table. He wore a Henley shirt of waffle fabric and, over that, an unbuttoned flannel shirt to ward off the evening chill. His hair, still damp from the shower, molded to his head in dark wet spikes. She wished she was bold enough to catch on her finger the single bead of water hanging from his right earlobe.
No, she mustn’t touch. Out of her league.
Annoyed with her thoughts, she got up and turned on her digital music player plugged into its dock across the room. It blared to life with a driving beat that scattered the silence.
Bogart sat up and glanced at her, his head and ears cocked to take in the unfamiliar music.
James continued to eat in silence because every time he looked up, his hostess was staring at his plate as if he were her last customer whose idling over his meal was keeping her past the end of her shift.
When he’d opened the bathroom door he hadn’t thought about the fact he was shirtless until he saw the blush flare in her cheeks and her top teeth catch her lower lip. She looked vulnerable and wary, and yet he knew she could be tough and bold. Because there, behind the surprise and instinctive modesty, was the shimmer of sexual interest. He’d felt himself expanding in reaction to the curiosity in those tortoiseshell eyes.
James swallowed, hard. He was thinking way too much about things he shouldn’t. Her interest died soon enough. He saw it the second she began to recoil. She must have thought he was being deliberately provocative with his unzipped jeans.
When he’d entered the kitchen, he half expected her to change her mind about him staying for dinner.
He stole a look at her plate, empty but for a smear of black-eyed peas and three rice grains. She’d said he’d taken so long to dress that she’d eaten her share of oysters ahead of him. He wondered if she had lied about having enough to share, and was forgoing the oysters so that he could eat the plateful she’d served him. If so, it was too bad for her. Honest to God, it was so good he wanted it all.
“When is the last time you had a meal?” she asked, as if she had read his mind.
A corn bread muffin paused halfway to his mouth. “Yesterday. I was too busy trying to keep my ass out of a sling today to think about food. According to the sheriff’s office and my sergeant, I broke enough rules today to get me fired.”
“Sounds intense.”
He shook his head. “If I was in serious trouble I’d have been sent home by escort.”
“That kind of stuff happen to you often?”
“Never before.”
James put his muffin down and gave her a level look. “I’m a by-the-book police officer. You don’t make the K-9 unit unless you’re above average in performance. That’s not a boast. It’s a fact. I made it on my first try. Even harder. What happened here today, that was about Bogart.”
“What about Pri—Bogart?”
James felt deep emotion push up through his police armor of professional distance when he thought about how long and hard he’d searched for his partner.
Embarrassed, he took a long gulp of his iced tea. He remembered being told the first day of training that when a K-9 officer served what was often a graveyard shift, night after night, just you and your dog, a bond of mutual respect and interdependence developed as tight as with any human partner. He and Bogart lived alone, ate alone, patrolled alone. How to explain a connection like that and not sound obsessive?
Then he remembered how fond she’d grown of Bogart in their few weeks together and knew he would be revealing their relationship to a sympathetic listener. Even so, he found himself staring at his plate as he spoke.
“He’s not a pet. I mean, Bogart’s my friend and I take care of him, feed him, and I enjoy his company off duty. But he’s really something special. Not one dog in a thousand can do what he does and do it as well, every time he’s asked. He’s tenaciously loyal and I completely trust him. He would die for me so I try to make certain that won’t occur because of a mistake I made. I’d give my right arm to protect him.”
He glanced at her to see the effect his words were having. She was still looking at him expectantly.
“I don’t expect you to understand but when I saw him last night, alive after I thought he could be dead … Something snapped.” He ran a hand across his mouth. “I’m not proud of it.”
“That’s some speech. You practicing it on me for your sergeant?”
That forced a chuckle from him. “How’d I do?”
“I’d cut the ‘right arm’ crap. Sounds lame.” She reached for the last oyster on his plate and stuck it in her mouth.
He smiled, almost accustomed to her contrariness after a day of exposure.