“Someone could’ve been hurt,” the young cop blustered. “Someone could’ve—”
“If she’s not legally drunk, then we can’t hold her.” Bennett’s voice was as mild-as-you-please. “Trust me on this, buddy, you don’t want the headache that she will bring your way. Not when you’re still new to the force.”
She held her breath. Hoping. Praying—
“I’ll take care of her,” Bennett offered. His badge was clipped to his belt, gleaming dully. Other than the badge, he didn’t look like a cop at all. He just wore jeans, a loose shirt, and a rather battered looking coat. “I’ll make sure that she doesn’t jump off anymore floats tonight.”
Officer Chambliss hesitated.
The stupid cuffs bit into her wrists. She was wearing her Royal Ladies of Poseidon outfit, a thin bit of silk and lace that barely skimmed the top of her thighs. Sure, she had on tights, but the get-up was supposed to be seen from the perch of a float, not all up-close and personal. Ivy felt way too exposed, especially with Bennett’s gaze raking over her.
“She won’t cause any more trouble,” Bennett said. “I promise you that.”
He shouldn’t make promises that he couldn’t keep. Bennett didn’t know her well, not anymore. She excelled at trouble. She wasn’t the good girl he remembered. Not even close.
That girl was long gone. Being good didn’t solve problems. Taking risks—finding danger—that was the way to get the job done.
But the uniformed cop nodded and the guy actually freed her from the cuffs. Ivy exhaled on a harsh sigh of relief. It wouldn’t have been her first visit to the jail—unfortunately—but she was very glad she wouldn’t be returning that night.
“She’s your problem now,” Officer Chambliss growled then he turned and climbed into the driver’s seat of his patrol car.
Ivy glared after him. “I’m not a problem! I’m a person! You aren’t any kind of—”
Bennett snagged her wrist and pulled her toward him. “If you antagonize him, you will find that sweet ass of yours tossed into the patrol car.” His fingers slid over her inner wrist. “Were the cuffs too tight?”
Her pulse raced beneath his touch, and Ivy tried to jerk her hand away. Bennett shook his head and kept his hold on her.
“I have to look for the woman,” Ivy told him quickly. “I don’t know what you heard about what happened tonight—”
“I heard you jumped off a float.”
She rolled her eyes. “I saw a man, okay? A masked man with a knife. He was stabbing a woman who was wearing a gold evening gown.”
He kept rubbing her wrist.
“Stop it,” she ordered, refusing to be shaken by him or his touch. “This is important! I think—I think the woman may be dead.”
He let her go.
Ivy swallowed and tried to settle her nerves. Bennett was the lead homicide detective in the area. If anyone could help her, it would be him. “Please.” And she never begged him, but she was begging right then. “I’m not crazy. I’m not drunk. A woman was hurt tonight, and I’m afraid he killed her while the crowd just cheered around him.”
He searched her face. She stared back at him, her whole body tense.
Then Bennett swore. “Shit. Show me, now.”
She nodded quickly and spun on her heel. Bennett would get to the bottom of this nightmare. He was a good cop, even if he did have a tendency to piss her off way too much. Piss her off, turn her on, far too many things that she couldn’t think about in that chaotic moment. She’d taken about four steps when he grabbed her and pulled her back.
“Bennett—”
He put a coat around her shoulders. His coat.
She blinked up at him. They were all the way down in Mobile, Alabama, right on the Gulf Coast, so it wasn’t as if they were experiencing arctic conditions, but the night was definitely crisp. She could feel his warmth, clinging to that coat. She could smell his rich, masculine scent wrapping around her.
“You were shivering,” he muttered. “Don’t make a deal out of this, Ivy.”
No deal. She pulled the coat closer and got back to the business of returning to the crime scene. She was actually relieved to have Bennett with her. Until a few months ago, he’d been working with the FBI’s Violent Crimes division. She didn’t know what had occurred, but he’d left the Bureau abruptly and come back home. Some folks had whispered that he’d gotten burned on his last big case.
She couldn’t ever imagine the guy getting burned.
The parade was over, so that meant that the streets had cleared out—ghost town kind of clearing. That was the routine. Parades equaled people packing the downtown area, but as soon as those parades were over, people vanished. They went home, they went into the restaurants, or they hit the balls.