Oh no, not a good time to think of that. Not when he was looking at her like, like he was the big bad wolf.
Law watched her trying to absorb his new look. The uniform, the shorter hair, and the lack of a beard. It had taken him a couple of days to stop doing double takes in shop windows after he’d shaved. Yet the look was a reversion to his old self. She was recalculating her opinion of him based on what, for her, was a completely new persona. He didn’t like the way it was adding up in her eyes. Her gaze was guarded, and this time Argyle was fiddling with the end of the braid slung forward over her shoulder.
He frowned. “You’re staring.”
“I didn’t expect to see you like this.”
He rested his hands on either side of his belt, elbows flared. “You mean on the road?”
“No.” She waved at his patrol car. “The whole law enforcement thing.”
“What bothers you most? The uniform? Or that I’m wearing it?”
It wasn’t even close. It was the man himself. She’d wondered what his bushy beard disguised. Now she knew. The man was flat-out gorgeous in a totally rugged male way. She let out a slow breath of admiration, a purely feminine response. Not good. She needed her body to stop reacting to him.
She tucked Argyle into her vest, needing an excuse to stop staring. “You got your job back. Congratulations.”
“The chance to pass the physical is next week. After that, I’m back with full duties.” He slanted a speculative gaze down at her. “You could ask me for help.”
Jori noted the glint in his eye. He was enjoying this.
She folded her arms across her chest. “I didn’t think law enforcement officers ran errands for civilians.”
“How about asking a favor from a friend?” It was a flip reply, and she wanted to answer it in kind. But friendship was one thing she’d never considered with this man.
“We’re friends?”
“Unless you got a better name for it.” He was looking at her with an expression that said he was considering a few other possibilities. All of them sexual. This was the Battise she remembered.
The heat rising up her neck and behind her ears betrayed her vulnerability to his potency. Discretion was called for. “Yeah, let’s go with that. Friends.”
“I live just up the road.” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “I keep a full gas can in my garage. Come on.”
Jori followed with reluctant steps to his patrol car. By then her goose bumps had goose bumps of anxiety.
“Where should I sit?”
Law frowned at her over the hood until reason dawned. She thought he was about to put her in back. She’d probably been in the back of enough squad cars to last her two lifetimes. “Sam’s in the back and she’s very territorial about her space. It’s either the trunk or the front seat with me.”
Jori smiled. He’d actually made a joke though nothing changed in his face. “I’ll take my chances in front.”
He grinned at her. The experience was revelatory. Without a beard to cover it, his smile was shark-bright and just as dangerous. It hit her like a shot of tequila. Maybe the trunk was the safer choice.
She slid into the small passenger side crowded by his computer and other equipment and was immediately accosted from the rear by a wet tongue. “Samantha!”
Sam had watched her Alpha leave their vehicle with careful eyes. Usually there was no uptick in his pheromones as they rode together. But something had kicked Alpha’s output into high gear. He was shedding emotions. Not anger or fear but excitement of some kind.
Sam was on alert because he hadn’t let her out to accompany him. Alpha had yet to learn that was her job to be with him, always. But then she spied the WWP trainer through the front windshield and her worry faded.
Her Alpha was happy to see the Alpha female. Happy was a good place.
Sam was happy, too. The Alpha female always brought treats and toys. Sam’s whole body wagged with anticipation.
And then Sam saw it. The cat.
Sam’s happy dance wiggled down to a squirm. No happy dance for the high-anxiety feline whose claws were sharper than the veterinarian’s needle. Too bad the Alpha female brought it. Cat was definitely not pack.
Still, Sam greeted the Alpha woman with a sloppy lick. She would not lick cat.
Cat hissed when she spied dog.
“No, not nice.” Jori tucked Argyle deeper into her vest. “Play nice.”
Argyle just grrrr-oowled low in a strangled cat way that was part snarl, part yowl.
*
They hadn’t traveled more than two miles when Law turned off High Sky Inn Road onto an even narrower unpaved lane that didn’t have enough room for a center stripe. The patrol car was no sleek machine but a big powerful vehicle that took the sudden rises and sharp turns of the hill country with the souped-up aggression of an armored tank crossing enemy territory.