“Good to know,” Caleb said with obvious relief.
“He’s too skilled for that.” Ruthlessly controlled, in fact, a master of the very fine line between not hard enough and too hard. She’d felt the edge of his teeth against her shoulder, her thigh, the power of his grip on her hip or her wrist, giving her resistance to arch and writhe against, making her nerves sing in anticipation and need, but not enough to leave a single mark.
She was rewarded for her noncommittal manner with Caleb choking on his wine. “I didn’t need to know that,” he muttered.
“Then mind your own business.”
With a lift of his glass he acknowledged a point scored, but switched tactics in a lowered voice. “Jesus, Eve. You’re sleeping with him?”
“Five seconds later and still none of your business, Caleb,” she shot back.
“It is my business. You’re my sister. And if you’re being pressured in any way, then we call this off and the police department can figure out another way to get to Lyle. Are you okay working with him like this?”
“Trust me, I’m not being pressured.” She thought about it for a moment. “We are so close, Caleb. So close to making the East Side redevelopment efforts a reality. Yes, I want that for Eye Candy, but I want it for the East Side too. If we don’t stop Lyle now, the city council will pull backing again and give Mobile Media space for their location somewhere else. And if having him around for a few weeks will make that happen, then I’ll deal with it.”
“It’s not the having him around I’m worried about. It’s the consequences of living in close quarters in a difficult situation with someone you’re clearly, although inexplicably, attracted to.”
“It’s no big deal, Caleb.” It wasn’t. It was purely physical. No emotions involved, just intense, visceral, feral desire sweeping through her body and shutting down her brain. She kind of liked him. Given the way they’d begun, kind of liking him wasn’t a bad place to be.
“Eve,” Caleb said, in his serious voice. “This is a violation of about fifteen different statutes on police conduct.”
“Caleb,” she replied, in her serious voice. “I know when I’m being used. And it’s still none of your business.”
He swallowed the rest of the red and set the glass on the counter, then picked up a tea towel. “Remember Steve Hollister?”
She handed him a dripping plate and said, “From the Christmas party? Vaguely. Why?”
“He’s a mediator who specializes in troubled families in the court system for one reason or another. Never married. No kids. Volunteers with Habitat for Humanity when he’s not working. I guarantee he won’t treat you like a piece of ass, and anyone who drives a ten-year-old Honda Accord doesn’t give a damn about whether your outfit matches his car.”
No horrified shouts from the dining room. Mom must be out of earshot, she mused as she finished washing the crystal. “As much as you’d like to pretend we didn’t have a cop sitting at the dinner table, he was there and he’s not going anywhere. I can’t possibly date right now.”
“You never know. He might be into ménage.”
“Caleb!” she yelped with a glance at the door.
“Evangeline,” he said, his face completely serious as he dried the last glass, “medals aside, you don’t know jack shit about this guy. Even if you did, this isn’t real life.”
It was hard to remember, given the immediacy, the sheer intensity of “now.” “Now” meant she and Matt would go back to his house, and go back to bed, perhaps even to sleep for a while before returning to Eye Candy tomorrow. “Yes, I remember Steve Hollister,” she conceded. Barely. “I’ll think about it when this is over. I promise.”
She collected Matt from the front room and kissed her parents as they moved through the front door.
Neither one of them said anything until they were back in the Jeep. “So … not your first time at that rodeo?” she asked as she jammed the buckle into her seatbelt clasp.
“It’s what happens when you join the Army after nine eleven,” he said, his voice tight as he shifted into first and accelerated down the street. “You’re assigned to an infantry division in a war zone. People shoot at you and you shoot back. It happens less frequently as a cop, but it does happen.”
Are you freaking kidding me? “Are those your medals hanging at the end of the hall?”
“My dad’s,” he said abruptly.
“Where are yours? The Bronze Star? You have dog tags hanging from your mirror.”