The office seemed bigger after he left. Eve turned back to her desk and gathered her laptop and a stack of invoices. Eye Candy straddled the line between red ink and black. Her family wanted to turn her into a corporate drone. Her new bartender turned what should have been an uncomplicated hookup into something she couldn’t define, and she wanted to buy a building she flat out couldn’t afford.
Oh, and she’d agreed to inform on Lyle Murphy for the cops. No pressure. None at all in what used to be a pretty typical small businesswoman’s life.
Her palm still tingled from Chad’s gentle, relentless touch. Stroking her finger over the same spot calmed her, anchored her. But sleep well?
Not likely.
*
When he woke up there was always a moment, never lasting more than a heartbeat or two, when he was no one, no alias or rank or even his name, just breath and heartbeat and usually an assortment of aches and pains. This morning the blank slate frame of mind ended when he saw the dog tags looped over the corner of the mirror over his dresser. He hadn’t worn them in years, but the sight always grounded him: Matt Dorchester, former Army, now LPD.
A filter of identity settled into his brain: Chad Henderson, bartender.
A third facet of his current world took up residence in his awareness: Eve Webber, bar owner, informant.
Woman.
The woman he’d used the high-voltage chemistry with to sweet talk into getting to know him in a manner she would interpret as “date” when he meant “protect her without her consent or knowledge.”
He shifted to his back, directly under the vent emitting a tepid flow of air. The AC unit was clunking away outside his bedroom window. He had to find the time to fix the air conditioner, maybe get the HVAC guy to add some coolant, try to postpone installing a new one until next summer, after he’d paid off the anesthesiologist.
Thinking about the state of the family finances didn’t temper the uneasy pitch in his stomach.
He rolled out of bed, started the coffee, then stood under the shower until all the pieces of who he was today merged and the odd weight in his chest subsided. He was due at the precinct before his shift at Eye Candy, so he dressed in jeans and a polo before pulling the Eye Candy T-shirt from the dryer.
The damned thing had shrunk in the wash. “Fuck me running,” he muttered.
He gulped down half the pot of coffee while arming himself, then poured the rest into a travel mug. Before leaving, he stopped at his brother’s room and knocked on the closed door.
“Luke,” he said softly.
“It’s open.”
Matt turned the doorknob and watched his brother wince as he put his full weight on his arms to push himself up against his headboard. Luke’s hair was even longer than Matt’s and tousled from sleep. Jeans and an Oxford shirt were draped over the wheelchair next to the bed, meaning Luke had gone out last night. Matt inhaled, searching for the acrid odor of cigarette smoke. Luke had picked up recreational smoking in college, a vice Matt felt his brother couldn’t afford physically or financially.
“I told you, I quit,” Luke said, and Matt consciously relaxed his stance. “You got in late last night. Three a.m.?”
“Work. Could last a while,” Matt answered. Noon, and neither of them were at work, very un-Dorchester. He scratched through his memory. Was this Luke’s first day off this week, or second? “How many hours did you get this week?”
“Twenty-four,” Luke said.
That meant three eight-hour days, and this was Luke’s second day off. “Anything new on the career websites?”
“No,” Luke said, rubbing his shoulder with slow, deep strokes that meant sore tendons and ligaments close to the joint.
“You seeing the physical therapist today?”
“This afternoon.”
“No basketball.”
Luke shot him a narrow-eyed glare, and Matt tried to soften his tone. “Your shoulder won’t heal if you keep stressing it out on the court. I stopped on my way home last night and got a new bottle of ibuprofen. Ice, rest it, anti-inflammatories. Call if you need me.”
He was halfway to the front door before he heard Luke behind him. “Thanks, Matt. You didn’t have to do that.”
Matt paused. “No big deal. CVS is on the way home.”
“Thanks anyway. Hey, leave me the list of AC contractors and I’ll call around, get prices.”
“I’m going to do that before work today,” Matt said.
“You’re leaving for work right now.”
“Stop trying to duck out of PT. I’ve got it,” Matt said, and shut the door behind him. He climbed into his Jeep and drove on autopilot to the precinct, thinking about what he’d dreamed about all night: handling Eve Webber. He’d given her a simple choice in her office: back off the flirtatious little games or end up in bed with him. She went for option B with a delight that normally would have ended in the nearest decent hotel room, ASAP. Given that he was a cop charged with protecting her, her enthusiasm was a huge problem. He needed to find a new way to handle her.
Handle her.… Touch, however, softened her shoulders, made the corners of her wide, full mouth relax with pleasure.
His touch changed the quick wit into limpid desire.