She’d gotten him.

Gotten to him with her nails-on-chalkboard-grating cheerfulness and her over-the-top optimism. Because Cavanaugh seemed to care about everything and everyone, she’d somehow managed to get to him. To burrow her way under his skin and take up residence.

He didn’t want to be gotten.

He wanted to continue just as he was, being a dedicated detective working the cases he was assigned. He didn’t need a social life. Just work, just the feeling that somehow, some way he was making the slightest bit of difference by tilting the balance between good and evil to the plus side just a fraction.

That was all he needed.

But now, with this woman—his partner—buzzing around in his life like an annoying hummingbird that wouldn’t fly away, he needed more.

Wanted more.

Wanted her, he realized with a shock.

The Strong Silent Type
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Jessi and Nik, who grew up much too fast.

Love, Mom

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and twenty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

MEET THE CAVANAUGHS…

Detective Teri Cavanaugh loves a good conversation, but she loves a challenge even more. Can she get her gruff partner, Jack Hawkins, to warm up to her? Or will this sexy and oh-so-serious man show her a thing or two about his philosophy of less talk and more action?

Retired police chief Andrew Cavanaugh loves his children and hides from them his secret quest to find his long-lost love. Fifteen years ago his wife disappeared, and Andrew won’t give up hope that she’ll come home….

Rose “Claire” Cavanaugh went out for a drive fifteen years ago and found herself with a new identity and no recollection of her past. Can a kindly, handsome man who claims to be her husband bring her back to the fold?

Let’s not forget other members of the Cavanaugh brood:

Callie (Racing Against Time, IM#1249),

Clay (Crime and Passion, IM#1256),

Patrick (Internal Affair, Silhouette Books)

and Rayne (Dangerous Games, IM#1274).

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

There was no recognition in the woman’s eyes.

Try as he might to will it there, Andrew Cavanaugh didn’t see even the slightest hint of acknowledgment that he and she had grown up together, that the teasing and name-calling of two shy adolescents had masked the growing attraction they shared for one another.

There was no indication on her face that she remembered they had gotten married straight out of high school and that soon afterward, while he struggled to make his way up through the ranks of the Aurora police force, they’d been blessed with children. Five in total.

No indication that she even knew who he was or that he’d spent the past fifteen years of his life searching for her, praying that she’d somehow managed to escape the watery grave that had claimed the vehicle she’d been driving that day.

She was Rose, his Rose, he was sure of it, even though the name tag on her uniform proclaimed her name to be Claire. She didn’t belong in this diner. She belonged home.

With him.

With her family.

She was his Rose, even though her hair was a little less blond now than he remembered. Her eyes were still as blue and her shape as supple as the day he first made her his wife.

He could feel his heart aching as the woman walked by him again, then paused and retrace her steps.

“What will it be, mister?” the woman called Claire asked in Rose’s voice.

He desperately wanted to answer, “You,” then demand to know how she could look at him and not feel what he was feeling, not throw her arms around him the way he wanted to throw them around her. All his training as a policeman, as a detective and then as the chief of Aurora’s police force strained to hold him in check. To keep his hands from grasping her shoulders and shaking her until the clouds lifted from her eyes.

“Just a cup of coffee,” he told her.

He watched as “Claire” placed a cup and saucer before him.

She smiled, wrenching his heart further, and asked, “Cream?”

He took his coffee black—he always had. Why didn’t she remember that?

Patient, damn it. You’ve got to be patient, Andrew silently insisted.

He watched her slender fingers spread out on the counter as she waited for his reply. And then he knew what he needed to do.

“Yes, please.”

With a nod of her head, sending her soft dark blond hair bobbing, the waitress placed a small metal container filled with cream beside his full cup. Then, reaching into the freshly cleaned utensils, she plucked out a teaspoon and placed it next to the container.

Leaving him with his coffee and his memories, she went to wait on the family of five who had just taken the booth beside the entrance.

Andrew left forty minutes later, having nursed his coffee and his memories for as long as he could. The coffee was poor to fair, the memories almost too agonizingly sweet to bear. He’d remained because he couldn’t tear himself away.

And because he kept praying he’d see the light of recognition in her eyes.

But he didn’t. He was going to have to arrive at his goal by other, less quick means.

The spoon “Claire” had handled was carefully wrapped up in a paper napkin and tucked into his pocket.

At bottom, Andrew Cavanaugh was an emotional man and unashamed of it. But he’d spent too many years as a cop not to recognize the need for hard evidence.

He had her fingerprints.

Detective Teri Cavanaugh stole a glance at her partner’s heroic-in-a-superhero-sort-of-way profile as they came out of a hairpin turn.

Nothing.

No change of expression, no comment that the car he was driving had all but taken the turn on two wheels and probably come close to turning over. Nothing. It was like being partnered with a sphinx. A very sexy, sensual-looking sphinx, but a sphinx nonetheless.

It had been nine months since they had first been teamed up by some ironic whimsy of fate and her uncle Brian Cavanaugh, the chief of detectives. Nine months and Detective First Class Jack Hawkins had uttered maybe three dozen sentences on his own without having had the words pried out of him with a crowbar.

She sighed and shook her head. You’d think that after spending her childhood in the never-ending company of four brothers and sisters and six cousins, she would have welcomed these quiet moments of respite with the Aurora Police Department’s version of a mannequin.

But noise was her element—it always had been. She thrived on chaos and confusion, found herself thinking better that way. Detective Jack Hawkins, however, seemed to thrive on silence. The very same atmosphere that was guaranteed to drive her crazy.

Just as it was now.

Silence made her itchy, restless. She would have had trouble sitting still even if he wasn’t racing to a call dispatch had just taken.

Enough, she thought, completely abandoning her plan not to be the first to talk today but to wait him out. There weren’t enough minutes in the year for that.

“Do you realize that you haven’t said ten words since you came on duty this morning?”

Hawk spared her a glance only after enough beats had gone by to convince Teri that he was going deaf and hadn’t heard her.

“Don’t see the need. You’re doing fine on your own,” he answered without even a hint of a smile on his lips.

Annoyance had her shifting again, just before they flew through a yellow light. She blew out a breath. “Damn it, Hawk, I don’t like carrying on monologues. A little input once in a while would be nice.”

His wide, muscular shoulders rose and fell in less than the blink of an eye. “Yeah, well, we can’t always have what we want.”

She frowned. Lately, she thought, she’d done a lot of frowning. And this statue of a partner had a lot to do with that. “You stand a better chance of getting whatever it is you want if you vocalize it.”

Hawk allowed himself one swift glance in her direction before he looked back on the road. What he wanted was for her to stop prodding at him, to accept things the way they were and to maybe shut up for a while, while he still had his sanity. The woman talked more than any three other people he knew. It didn’t help his mood any that lately she seemed to be getting under his skin more and more. Not just because of how much she talked, but just by being. There was an itch growing within him, an itch he didn’t much care for and one he knew he couldn’t scratch. Ever.

His voice was stony, completely devoid of emotion. “Not from where I’m looking.”

And just where is that? she was tempted to ask, not that she figured he would get her an answer. Hawk didn’t do well when it came to give and take. Everything she knew about Jack Hawkins she’d gotten by hacking into his personnel file.

Okay, she had to admit that the man hadn’t had an easy time of it. Orphaned at a young age when a drug dealer killed both of his parents, Hawk had swiftly been incorporated into the system when no relatives came to claim him. In effect he’d been given a one-way ticket into hell, to survive as best he could.

That he’d gone on to become a police detective rather than a drug pusher himself was a credit to the man, and she would have been the first to praise him. However, as far as she could tell, he hadn’t made the full transition from the dark side to the light even after he’d reached this plateau. And after nine months in his company, she was still utterly committed to the quest of dragging the black-haired, icy-blue-eyed man into that light. Or die trying.

It was on days like today that she was fairly certain it was going to wind up being the latter.

Teri saw another corner coming and she braced herself. “Then maybe you need to take another look, a clearer one this time.”

“Let’s just concentrate on the home invasion in progress,” Hawk advised without the benefit of giving her another glance.

Teri held on as her partner took the next corner sharply. The man might behave like a monk who was determined to observe a vow of silence at all costs, but he certainly didn’t drive like one. She braced both hands against the dashboard as he took another quick right.

He all but stole her breath away. The thought evoked an unconscious smile. There were days he did that when he wasn’t driving at all. But that was something she couldn’t allow to surface. It would throw the partnership right out the window.

They were on their way to a home invasion that was still in progress, having been alerted to it thanks to a call made by one of the victims, a brave little ten-year-old girl who, as far as Teri was concerned, had more on the ball than most adults.

It was the fifth such home invasion in Aurora in less than a month. This time, the robbery was taking place in an upscale apartment complex on the west side. Dispatch had the little girl, who was hiding with her cordless telephone receiver in a closet, on the line, allowing them to get a heads-up on what was happening as it took place.

Dispatch had just narrowed down the perimeter and confirmed the address less than two minutes ago. It was enough to make Hawk press down on the accelerator the rest of the way.

As cars frantically scrambled out of the path of the oncoming vehicle and its siren, Teri tried not to wonder if they were going to arrive in one piece.

“Think it’s the same ones who pulled the past four jobs?” she asked, slamming her hands back on the dashboard as Hawk made a razor-sharp left.

Horns blared at them from all directions, the sound blending in with the screeching of brakes.

He didn’t even appear to think about the question. For once, his answer was fired out. “Probably.”

Most people knew enough to quit while they were ahead, but those on the other side of the law were a special breed. The brains they were issued at birth weren’t the garden variety that enabled them to exercise restraint, to consider consequences instead of gains.

She shook her head as she saw scenery whiz by. Not a single red light had caught them. “I guess success makes you bold.”

Hawk was tempted to ask just what it was that had made her so bold and brassy, but he knew he’d probably get an answer several paragraphs longer than he was willing to bargain for. So he kept the question to himself, letting it die a natural death.

He wondered if she knew that he’d be willing to talk more if she talked less. Maybe it was just as well things went on this way. Talking led to places he wasn’t willing to go.

For the life of him, Hawk had no idea what the chief had been thinking, teaming them up like this. The man was her uncle, for God’s sake, he had to have a clue as to what she was like. For his part, Hawk came home every night, thinking about headache tablets and missing his old partner, a man who knew the value of silence and didn’t speak until he was spoken to. In three years he and Edmunds hadn’t exchanged as many words as were wont to fly out of Cavanaugh’s mouth in three hours.

He damned Edmunds for getting in harm’s way and then deciding the gunshot wound had been an omen that he’d used up his share of luck. Edmunds was now behind a desk, pushing a pen, which he found preferable to pushing up daisies, he said. The request for a desk job coincided with Cavanaugh’s partner retiring. From what he’d heard, it was her second retiree. Hell, he would have retired, too, if it meant finally getting a little peace and quiet—and putting a lid on this damn restlessness he felt inside.

Reaching his destination, Hawk abruptly brought the unmarked squad car to a halt in front of the building in question. They had beaten the uniforms getting here, but then he’d expected nothing less. That had been his intent all along.

The Wongs’ apartment, according to the terrified daughter who placed the call, was located on the second floor—2E. Hawk lost no time, jumping out of the vehicle and slamming the door in his wake. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder to see if the blond, blue-eyed bane of his existence was behind him. There was no need. If he’d learned nothing else in the past nine months, it was that the woman stuck like glue.

Probably had something to do with the fact that the rest of her family was in law enforcement, he reasoned. She’d been raised teething on a night stick and obviously felt she had something to prove.

Well, not to him. The one thing he would have liked her to prove was that she had the brains most people were born with. That meant not rushing into the heart of danger every time it reared its ugly head.

That he did was another matter. After all, he was a man. Men were supposed to do this kind of thing. Besides, he hadn’t anything to lose. The way she talked, Cavanaugh loved life. That meant she had everything to lose.

He, on the other hand, had never loved life. He tolerated it, just as it tolerated him. As far as he was concerned, he and life were nothing more than less than friendly adversaries.

Ignoring the startled inquiry of the doorman, Hawk tore into the building and quickly took the stairs to the second floor. The echo of footsteps told him she was right behind him.

His eyes took in everything in one swift, sweeping glance. The stately hallway before apartment 2E looked ready for photographing. Peaceful, elegant, it seemed an unlikely setting for a home invasion. Which was just what made it ripe for one.

Motioning Teri to the left side of the wide door while he took the right, Hawk strained to hear the sounds of discord coming from inside the apartment. Just the faintest of whimpers seeped into the air. His eyes met Teri’s. She nodded, indicating that she’d heard it, as well.

Holding his fingers up, Hawk did a silent count to three, then spun and kicked open the door, his service revolver poised to fire at anything that moved. He yelled out, “Police!”

His voice swiftly drowned in the onslaught of screams, curses and confusion.

In a split second, Teri saw six people, two elderly, two middle-aged and two children, in various stages of terror, frozen in place. Their arms were raised above their heads and they were obviously the victims rather than perpetrators.

Two others were fleeing to the end of the apartment—toward the apartment’s fire escape, if she didn’t miss her guess.

“Freeze!” Hawk shouted, but neither of the two men did.

Instead, both men, small, agile and athletic, propelled themselves through the open window and were gone in less time than it took for the scene to register.

Hawk was in hot pursuit. “Stay here,” he tossed over his shoulder, expecting her to obey. He should have known better.

“And when the hell did you become the boss of me?” Teri asked. Half a step behind, she followed him up the fire escape to the roof where the robbers had gone less than a minute before.

Hawk didn’t bother answering her, knowing it was useless to waste the energy or the air. Instead, he was focused on the two burglars who moved with the speed of men who had done this kind of thing more than once before. He was convinced that these were the men who had been reported breaking into homes, terrorizing their marks before they made their escape.

Grasping the black, newly repainted railing, he swiftly made his way up.

Sick, sick people, he thought, having less regard for the men he was chasing than he would for a beetle that crossed his path.

If he could have gotten a clear shot, he would have tried to wound the one closest to him in the leg. But if he took the time to aim, they would get too far ahead of him and he wasn’t about to risk firing wildly. What went up came down if it didn’t find a target and there were innocent bystanders on the street watching this minidrama unfold.

Why didn’t they all go home and just let him do his job?

Reaching the roof, Teri scanned it from one end to the other, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. The area appeared almost eerily still. She’d expected to see the two robbers trying to make the daring leap from one roof to the other. Buildings in this part of the city were structured close together enough for the reckless to attempt a leap.

Nothing came but the sounds from the street below.

That and a pigeon circling around overhead, looking for somewhere to land.

And then suddenly, Teri saw the glint of sunlight hitting metal. It was coming from behind the raised skylight.

Her heart froze. They were going to shoot him. Instinct rather than cold observation kicked in and she shoved Hawk out of the way.

“Gun!” she yelled by way of a warning and an explanation as Hawk went down, uttering a very terse oath centered around her.

The second she got the word out, a volley of gunfire echoed in its wake.

Out in the open, exposed, Hawk quickly darted toward the roof’s entrance.

Teri fell in behind him, although not as quickly as he would have figured she would have. Ordinarily, the woman was like his unshakable shadow, always less than half a breath behind, more than likely usually half a breath ahead. Concern instantly reared its head. Why was she dragging like that?

Sending a hail of bullets in the direction of the skylight, attempting to keep the burglars pinned down, Hawk looked behind him toward Teri. Like as not, he figured she probably saved him from getting shot. He owed her and he always paid up what he owed.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

For a moment, she didn’t hear him. The gunfire and pain blotted almost everything else out. And there was this strange buzzing in her ears that came accompanied by volleys of heat. When his words finally managed to echo in her brain, she forced a smile to her lips.

“Too much paperwork involved when your partner dies on you.”

Cavanaugh’s voice was strained. Even over the gunfire he could hear it. Hawk looked at her again, more closely this time.

And saw the blood that stained her jacket.

A barrage of curses materialized in his head, masking the deep concern he felt. “Damn it, are you hurt?”

She forced a smile to her lips. Was that concern? Sure it was. Looked bad on your record, two partners getting shot in less than a year.

“Just ketchup,” she managed to quip. “I’m a sloppy eater.”

Damn it, she was cracking jokes when that scum had just shot her. Shot her with a bullet that had been meant for him. She could have been killed.

Incensed, Hawk swung back around and began discharging his weapon in rapid succession, keeping the two home invaders trapped behind the skylight as he rushed them.

Clutching her weapon with both hands, Teri followed him in his charge, summoning adrenaline and exercising mind over matter. She told herself over and over again that her side didn’t feel as if it were on fire.

But it did. This wound hurt every bit as badly as when Clay, her twin brother, sent her flying from their tree house. They’d been ten at the time, embroiled in a heated argument she no longer recalled. All she remembered from the incident was that she broke her arm and her father had been furious with Clay. That had helped alleviate the pain somewhat.

No, she amended silently, gritting her teeth together, this definitely hurt more.

Firing as rapidly as she could, holding her side now as she went, Teri did her best to match Hawk step for step. She managed to keep the burglars pinned down as he gained ground.

“Damn it, woman, get back!” He roared the order, knowing in his heart she wouldn’t listen. Cavanaugh never listened. Wasn’t it enough that she’d gotten shot? Did she want to get killed, too? Fear echoed in his brain.

The next moment, he got the drop on both burglars, ordering them to drop their weapons or suffer the consequences.

One threw down his weapon, raising his hands above his head. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” he begged them each in turn.

The second man held on to his weapon, his dark eyes darting from one police detective to the other.

Hawk thought of Teri and what could have been. “C’mon,” he growled, pinning the second man down with a glare from his icy-blue eyes as much as with his gun. “Give me an excuse. Just one excuse.”

Clearly shaken, the second man threw down his weapon and raised his hands. His eyes never left Hawk’s. “Okay, I did like you said. Just don’t shoot me.”

“Step away from the guns,” Teri ordered, waving them back with her own weapon. Only when the men complied did she allow herself to look in Hawk’s direction. She did her best to brazen it out. “Good imitation of Dirty Harry. My father would really like you.”

Picking up the burglars’ weapons, Hawk didn’t trust himself to answer immediately.

Chapter Two

It seemed as if only seconds had gone by. Suddenly, the roof was alive with uniformed personnel that poured out from both the fire escape and the rooftop entrance.

The extra commotion only added to the lightheaded feeling Teri vainly struggled to keep at bay.

She was careful to keep her eyes trained forward. Any quick movements on her part seemed guaranteed to make her lose her bearings and fall.

“About time you got here,” she said to one of the policeman. “The fun’s all over.”

The officer closest to her took one look at the growing red splotch to the right of her rib cage. “Looks like it just started. In case you missed it, you’ve been shot.” Concerned, he raised his eyes to her face. “You better get yourself to a hospital.”

Drawing in a deep breath was out of the question. Breathing itself was becoming a challenge for her. She was deathly afraid she was going to pass out.

“Yeah, I guess I’d better.” She couldn’t manage the sentence without a sense of dread descending over her. The hospital was the last place she wanted to go.

“Finally, something sensible,” Hawk said.

Pressing her hand over her wound to stop the ooze of blood, Teri slowly turned to look at her partner. She wasn’t about to give in to this pain; she wasn’t. “Wow, you volunteered something on your own.”

“And you’re being smart. Red letter day for both of us.” Hawk stepped back as a patrolman snapped handcuffs on the two suspects. As he did, he glanced at Teri’s face. The last time he’d gone to the mountains, the snow hadn’t looked as white as her skin. Fear put in another appearance, stronger this time. “Hey, Cavanaugh, are you all right?”

Her knees suddenly went soft on her and someone had tilted the sky, leaving it at almost a right angle. Afraid of falling and embarrassing herself, Teri grabbed on to the first thing she came in contact with.

It turned out to be Hawk.

“Yeah.” She exhaled the word shakily. “Just peachy.” She needed a few minutes, just a few minutes to get a grip, then she would be all right. Pressing her other hand harder against her wound, she managed a tight smile. “Who turned the roof on? It’s spinning.”

The same police officer looked at Hawk uncertainly. “Want me to call the paramedics?” Hawk’s glare ended any debate that might have emerged on the pros and cons of the situation. “I’ll call the paramedics,” the officer volunteered.

She didn’t want a fuss, and least of all, she didn’t want to be excluded from the action. “I don’t need paramedics, just a bullet to bite on.”

“You need to dig it out of your side first.” With the suspects safely handcuffed, one of the officers raised a quizzical brow in Hawk’s direction. Frowning, Hawk waved the patrolmen on their way. “Take them to the precinct and book ’em.”

There were statements to take from the victims in 2E and that was best done while the memory of events and the order they transpired in was still fresh. But Teri had been shot, and who knew how bad it really was? He had to see to it that she was taken care of. He wasn’t about to leave her here and expect her to get herself to the ground floor. Right now, she didn’t look capable of getting herself two feet from where she was standing. Or sinking.

Turning toward Teri, he took hold of her by the arm. “I’ll take you downstairs.”

“I can walk,” she retorted, but two steps toward the rooftop entrance proved her to be a liar. She grabbed Hawk’s arm again. “Okay, maybe not.”

He didn’t have time for this—to help her take tiny steps to the roof’s stairwell and down the flight to the elevator—and she was obviously in no shape to do it on her own.

With an annoyed, unintelligible grunt, Hawk never hesitated. He swept her up into his arms. She didn’t weigh much, but then, he hadn’t expected that she would. She was five foot three something and filled with hot air. Hot air was never very heavy.

Teri wanted to protest, but she couldn’t find the energy. This was a whole lot better than trying to concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other. “I had no idea you were this gallant.”

He ignored the looks of officers who were vacating the roof. He’d never much cared about what people thought one way or another, as long as they didn’t get in his way. “I’m not. I’m pragmatic.”

She smiled at him. He could say what he wanted, but she knew he cared about her. This was a whole other side of Hawk she’d never seen before. Too bad it had taken her getting shot for it to emerge. Something warm began to stir within her. “Was that one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table?”

She was babbling more than usual. “Are you getting delirious on me?”

“Delirious,” she repeated as if trying to remember. “First handmaiden to Queen Guinevere, right?”

Either she really was delirious, or she was taking this opportunity to yank his chain. Either way, it didn’t improve his mood. “Shut up before I think better of this and throw you off the roof.”

“I’m shutting.”

Trying very hard to ignore the fire that was eating up her side, Teri threaded her arms around his neck. She was fairly certain that the bullet had only grazed her, but that didn’t change the fact that everything was spinning around her. Even though she would have hated to admit it, she wasn’t that much of a trouper when it came to looking at her own spilled blood. She liked keeping it just where it belonged. In her veins.

She forced a smile to her lips as she looked at him. “Am I supposed to be out of my head right now so I can’t remind you of this gallantry later on?”

Coming to the door, he let one of the remaining policemen open it for him. He ignored the look the man gave him. Ignored, too, the strange feeling he felt in response to holding her against him like this. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re always out of your head, Cavanaugh.”

Maybe if she talked, she could keep her head from spinning off. “Spoken like a true gentleman. At least you’re making progress.” He was taking the stairs down and each step vibrated along her side. “That was almost a complete sentence. There’s hope for you yet, Hawk.” She sucked in her breath as he jostled her.

She was hurting, he thought, frustrated because he was powerless to help her. He didn’t like seeing her in pain like this. “Hang in there,” he muttered.

“Don’t have much choice, do I?” Her mind jumped from topic to topic like a frog going from one lily pad to another in a pond. She thought of word leaking back about her wound. It would spread in no time like a prairie fire across dry grass. “Oh, God, Dad’s going to freak.”

The moment she said it, a protectiveness gripped her heart. Andrew Cavanaugh had had enough to contend with in his lifetime. She didn’t want this added to the pile, at least not until he could see for himself that she was all right. Since she lived at home, there was no way she could hide this indefinitely, but she wanted to spare him as much as possible for as long as possible.

She looked at Hawk, her eyes imploring him. “Don’t call my father and tell him about this.”

They’d finally made it to the landing. He’d gone as slowly as he dared. Hawk brought her over to the elevator. Angling for the best position in order to get at the button, he raised Teri up slightly in his arms, then pressed. He’d bench-pressed twice her weight just yesterday. Didn’t she eat?

“I have no intentions of calling your father.”

No, he wouldn’t, she realized. He wouldn’t see the need for it. Hawk didn’t understand the kind of closeness a family like theirs generated. She wondered if he’d ever experienced anything remotely resembling closeness amid all the foster families he’d been shipped off to during his youth.

Probably not.

She felt something stir in her heart. It wasn’t pity, just an overwhelming amount of sympathy, but he probably wouldn’t have understood that, either. In an odd way, he appeared to be content in his life with things just the way they were.

But she wasn’t.

“Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to,” she mumbled. Teri withdrew her arms from his neck, but he made no move to set her on the floor. Given a choice, she would have rather remained this way, in his arms, for a host of reasons. But it ate at her independence. “You can put me down now,” she said softly.

His eyes met hers and she almost expected him to try to argue her out of it. He didn’t. Instead, without a word, he allowed her to test her own legs.

And find herself wanting. Teri’s knees all but buckled out from under her.

“Any other bright ideas?” he asked as he picked her up into his arms again.

“Several, but they all involve less clothing.” She gave him a sexy, sidelong glance to mask the pain she felt shooting up and down her entire left side. It was a joke, purely a joke, or so she told herself. But for one moment, something telegraphed itself between them, something almost erotic. The next moment, it was gone and he was looking at her with what appeared to be confusion. “Gotcha,” she muttered in triumph.

He made no comment. With Teri, it was safer that way. He glared instead at the light, which testified that the elevator car had not left the second floor in all this time. More than likely, it’d temporarily been commandeered by the officers going over the victims’ apartment. There was no telling when they would release the elevator. Probably not before checking out the rest of the building in case the burglars had accomplices who had fled to other floors.

He also didn’t know how long he would be required to remain standing here with Teri. And she was in no shape to wait indefinitely. Making up his mind, Hawk headed back toward the stairwell. When he reached it, he pushed open the door with his back.

Teri stared at him. “Where are we going?”

“To never-never land,” he said between clenched teeth. There she went, asking more questions, butting heads with him at every turn. Why couldn’t she just be cooperative and pass out like any normal person in her place would have?

Teri blinked. “A joke. You made a joke. I must be dying. Is it that serious?”

Hawk sighed, trying hard not to jostle her any more than he had to. He didn’t even look at his partner. “If I said yes, would you shut up?”

She wanted to thread her arms back around his neck to secure herself, but she felt that if she didn’t keep pressing her hand against her side, everything would come tumbling out. “Now you’re starting to hurt my feelings, Hawk. And just when we were getting so close, too.”

“We’re not getting close,” he informed her tersely, taking the next set of stairs down. “I don’t get close.” And because there was a real danger of that happening here, he put out a special effort to keep her at arm’s length.

Deep down, he didn’t really believe that, she thought. It was just something he’d talked himself into. “Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.”

This time he did look at her. “I’m not interested in having anyone.”

She thought of the way the women at the precinct looked at him when he wasn’t paying attention. Which was all of the time.

“Oh, well, that’s a shame, because there are plenty of people interested in having you.” Determined not to let him know how much this was hurting, she pushed harder against the wound praying it would stop radiating pain.

He almost slipped and told her she was delirious again, but stopped himself in time. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She gave him that smile, that knowing, almost smug smile that said she was privy to some kind of inside information that he wasn’t. The one that never failed to test the parameters of his temper and find him seriously lacking. The one that got under his skin no matter how much he tried to keep it out.

“You know,” she said in an almost breathless manner that concerned him the moment he heard it, “for a police detective, you’re not very observant. Female people,” she finally elaborated. “You don’t seem to notice all the heads that turn whenever you come into the room, partner. You definitely raise blood pressures.”

He gave her a look that would have silenced a babbling brook, but had no effect on her. “You’re raising mine right now.”

She chose to interpret his comment the way she knew would drive him crazy. “What a lovely thing to say, Hawk.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Why did five flights feel so endless? She was surprisingly light, even in boots and a winter jacket, but he was being careful not to jostle her any further, and that took time and effort. He wasn’t happy about having to hold her against him like this. He had her so close, the blood from her wound had gotten onto his clothing.

It wasn’t the blood he was concerned about. With a little cold water, a lot of soaking, blood washed out. It was breathing in that cologne of hers—the one she swore she didn’t wear—that was getting to him. It made the closed-in area of the stairwell almost suffocating for him. He responded to her in ways he didn’t want to even think about.

In ways he didn’t want to respond. He couldn’t think of her as a woman, he reminded himself.

He couldn’t not.

Teri took a deep breath. The dizziness was beginning to pass slightly. Maybe she was getting her second wind, she reasoned. She looked at Hawk. “Let me walk down the rest of the way,” she said. “I don’t want you naming your hernia after me.”

This wasn’t even up for discussion. If he let her try to stand up, he was fairly certain she was going to go down like a stone. He would have bet his next month’s pay on it.

“You weigh twelve and a half pounds—don’t worry about it.”

She wasn’t exactly worried, but this definitely had the makings of something he was going to use to his advantage throughout their partnership. “This isn’t something you’re going to let me live down.”

She was out of her head, wasn’t she? he thought. Other partners had rapports where there was a certain amount of give and take, of banter. He would have liked nothing better than to spend his time with her in completely silence except for the dispatch radio.

“This isn’t something I ever intend to talk about. Ever,” he underscored.

She tried to guess at his reason. “Don’t like people reminding you that you’re kind?”

“Don’t like people being pains in the butt,” he countered.

Jack Hawkins was a hard nut to crack, she thought. But here he was, being nice to her. He could have waited for the elevator, could have waited for the paramedics to arrive on the roof, for that matter, instead of taking it upon himself to carry her down five flights of stairs to the ground floor. Six if they counted the set of stairs that had led from the roof to the fifth floor. Which meant the big lug cared.

“You can huff and puff all you want, Hawk, but I’ve got your number. You’re not the big bad wolf you pretend to be.”

Reaching the final landing, he paused long enough to look her right in the eye. She had to get over this noble image of him she was trying to paint. It got in his way.

“I don’t waste my time pretending.” So saying, he pushed down on the door handle with his elbow, opening the door that led out into the lobby.

Hawk could protest all he wanted; she knew better. But she played along, her mouth curving. “What you see is what you get, huh?”

He didn’t bother looking at her. Instead, he walked by the doorman, whose mouth dropped open when he saw the wounded woman in Hawk’s arms. “Right.”

“Wrong,” she countered just as the ambulance came into view.

Seeing journey’s end, Hawk almost sighed with relief. Not long now.

The doors of the stark-white vehicle with its red letters popped open. One of the two paramedics assigned to it jumped out.

Hawk deposited her inside the rear of the ambulance.

“She’s all yours,” he announced, backing away with his arms slightly raised, like a rodeo star who had just tied up a calf. “Best of luck to you.”

A ray of panic flashed between the shafts of pain vying for possession of her. He was leaving.

“You’re not coming?”

If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she looked scared. But if he’d learned nothing else these very long nine months, he’d learned that Theresa Cavanaugh did not get scared. Or, and this was probably more likely, if she did, she never showed it.

“Someone has to fill in the reports.”

Hawk began to walk away when he saw her wince as the paramedic slid off her coat. There was blood everywhere, spearing on his guilt. If it hadn’t been for her pushing him out of the way, he would have been the one with the wound. And, more than likely, his would have been more serious. He was taller than she was. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that the bullet would have probably found its way into his gut.

The encroaching panic continued spinning out its web, swirling around her. She saw the way Hawk looked at her wound and guessed at what he was thinking, if not saying. She shamelessly used it to her advantage. “We caught the bad guys, Hawk. The paperwork can wait for a couple of hours.”

The paramedic was administering to her wound, bandaging it up as quickly as possible. Hawk averted his eyes from the exposed area, giving her her privacy. “Why do you want me to come with you?”

She could lie. She could make a joke about it. But right now, she needed to have him come with her. To chase the specters away. So she went with the truth and hoped it would work.

“I need someone to hold my hand,” she told him honestly. “I never liked hospitals. People die in hospitals.”

He wasn’t sure if she was putting him on again or not. But there was a look in her eyes that didn’t allow him to retreat the way he wanted to. He couldn’t just abandon her.

Hawk looked around the area. The so-called suspects had been placed in the back of a squad car that was about to pull out. There was protocol to follow, he reminded himself.

The paramedic was urging her onto the gurney. “Only the good die young,” Hawk informed her. “I’ll catch up with you.”

To his surprise, she said nothing. She only continued looking at him. Continued looking even as the paramedic closed the doors, severing eye contact.

“Ah, hell,” Hawk bit off, shaking his head. Spinning around on his heel, he looked around until he saw a face he recognized. Quickly, he crossed to the heavyset detective. “Hey, Mulrooney, tell Mr. and Mrs. Wong that I’ll be back to take their statements after they’ve had a chance to pull themselves together.”

Mulrooney looked surprised that Hawk wasn’t on his way back upstairs. “Where are you going?”

Hawk clenched his teeth together. He didn’t like having to explain himself, especially when he was having trouble understanding is own motivation.

“My partner’s been shot. I’m heading out to the hospital to make sure she’s all right.”

Again Mulrooney nodded, this time looking at the ambulance that had just peeled away, its siren going full blast. He grinned broadly. Everyone liked Teri Cavanaugh. The same couldn’t be said about her partner. “Trade assignments with you, Hawkins.”

Hawk made no answer. Given his choice, he would have liked to take Mulrooney up on that. The latter had the better end of the deal.

Muttering a few choice things under his breath, Hawk hurried to his car.

Her side throbbed wildly to the beat of the 1812 Overture by the time the ambulance pulled into the parking lot behind Aurora Memorial Hospital’s ER. Even so, Teri braced herself as the paramedic went to open the rear doors.

This was the hospital where they had brought her uncle Mike the day he’d been shot.

This was the hospital Uncle Mike had died in.

The shooting had happened less than a month after her mother’s car had crashed through the guardrail and gone over the side, to be submerged in the river. Teri had been twelve at the time and the two events combined had overwhelmed her almost completely. She’d come away with a lasting phobia of hospitals.

That same phobia was alive and well now, fifteen years later, even though she knew that logic dictated that she come here to be treated.

Logic was one thing, but superstitious and phobias didn’t understand logic.

“You better lie down.” The paramedic who’d treated her placed a hand on her shoulder, intending to help her get comfortable.

She stiffened as if she’d been shot again. There was no way in hell they were going to strap her down to the gurney, not while she was conscious.

“I can get out on my own power.”

She didn’t want to be held down while they wheeled her in, not as long as she could walk. There was something helpless about being pushed in through the electronic doors, not being able to move a muscle.

She pressed her lips together, her body tense, her side stinging like crazy as the rear doors opened, braced for the inevitable wave of fear to hit her with the force of a tidal wave.

What she wasn’t prepared for was to see Hawk standing there when the doors opened.

Chapter Three

He came.

The words vibrated in her brain, bringing with them a wave of relief and happiness. Teri waved away the paramedic who’d just tried to get her to lie on the gurney.

“I’ll sit, but I won’t lie down.” She looked at Hawk who stepped back as the gurney was brought out of the ambulance. The dread drained out of her. She didn’t have to face going in alone. “Did you forget something?”

“Yeah, my better judgment.” He’d seen the relief that had leaped into her eyes, so intense that for a second it stopped him in his tracks. What was that about? Was she actually afraid of hospitals? He hadn’t thought she was afraid of anything. It was part of the woman’s appeal.

The paramedics were pushing her through the doors. And Hawk was not fading back into the parking lot—he was coming in with her. “What about the statements?” she asked.

“I told Mulrooney to tell the victims I would be by later to take them.”

There were nurses and attendants scattered throughout the rear of the ER. Hawk flashed his badge at the one closest to them. The tall woman in dark green livery immediately pointed the paramedics to an open bed.

“We,” Teri corrected him. “We would be by later.”

There was brave, and then there was stupid. Cavanaugh had crossed the line. “Thinking of going somewhere, Superwoman?” Before she could answer, he asked, “Don’t you think that you’ve done enough damage to yourself for one day?”

Again she waved back hands that reached out to help. “I can do this,” she told the nurse who eyed her dubiously. Bracing herself against the mattress, she slid off the gurney and onto the hospital bed. Her body hated her for it. “It’s not like I stood there, daring the guy to shoot me. Hawk. I took a bullet for you.”

Guilt corkscrewed into him a little further. “Yeah, you did.”

Sitting on the bed, she read the look in his eyes. “And you feel guilty, don’t you?”

“Guilt’s not in my file folder.” He wasn’t about to have her poking around in his head, thinking she could read him. There were things there she couldn’t see.

Teri laughed shortly. “Don’t tell me that. I’ve seen it often enough on the faces of my brothers to know guilt when I see it.” Pain dragged spiked shoes across her side. Teri waited to catch her breath. It wasn’t easy. “No need for guilt. You would have done the same for me.” And then she surprised him by taking hold of his hand in hers. “Thanks.”

The simple gratitude he both saw in her eyes and heard in her voice stirred something within him and made him uneasy. He shrugged her words away.

Emotions of any kind, other than cold, steely anger, made him uncomfortable. They always had. He’d never had any outlet for them. The parents he’d once wanted so desperately to notice him, to get themselves clean and turn him and them into a real family, had rejected him. They had ignored him for as far back as he could remember. Instead, they had more interest in the drugs that could remove them from their world and take them to somewhere he had no desire to go.

Even as a kid, he’d known that drugs were bad. He’d watched firsthand as first his father, then his mother became firmly entrenched—because of drugs—in the land of the living dead.

He’d attempted, in his own way, to make his parents come around. He’d cooked, cleaned and tried to take care of them. There were tiny glimmers, moments when he thought things were finally on the right path, but in the end, all his efforts came to nothing.

When he was just twelve, a drug dealer, enraged because his parents were into him for several hundred dollars, had killed them both. Snuffed out their lives without so much as a peep from either for them. They were that far gone into their make-believe worlds.

And he had seen it all through the crack created by the doorjamb and a closet door.

He’d tried to wake them, knowing even as he desperately shook his mother, then his father, that they were both dead. And he’d been the one who had called 911 to report their murders.

Any shred of childhood he might have still possessed died with his parents that day. He’d become a man with all the burdens, all the sorrows that entailed. A man within a boy’s body, but still a man.

Which was why he had such a hard time in the system, a hard time trying to adjust to strangers, some of whom did their best to make him feel at home. Strangers who thought their rules applied to him. They didn’t realize that it was too late for him. He didn’t fit into a family structure anymore.

That door had closed for him when he was twelve.

He’d grown up isolated, insulated, not needing anyone or anything and not allowing anyone to need him.

So what was he doing here, letting this woman hang on to his hand as if it were her tether back to life as she waited for a resident doctor to examine her? Why wasn’t he back at the apartment complex, taking down statements, doing his job? That was what he was good at—detective work, not comforting.

Hell, he wouldn’t be able to comfort someone if his life depended on it. He just didn’t know how. So there was absolutely no point in trying.

Yet Cavanaugh seemed glad to see him, glad to hang on to his hand as if it were some kind of talisman that could keep her safe. Her hand felt small within his. It made him want to protect her.

“You looked scared.” He finally answered her earlier question.

He knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, but it was why he was here. He saw no point in sugarcoating, or lying. He’d used lies to survive on the street when he’d run away from his last foster home. When he’d wound up living in an abandoned warehouse with another kid named Tierney. Used lies until the lines between reality and fantasy became completely blurred for him. He wasn’t about to go there anymore. The path back always became hard to find.

Teri’s first instinct was to say, no, she wasn’t scared. The only thing that scared her was having harm come to the members of her family. Beyond that, she was pretty much fearless—like the rest of them.

But her reaction to hospitals, to what they represented to her, wasn’t logical. It wasn’t anything she wanted to explain to Hawk. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

The nurse had returned to take her pulse, then asked her a couple of quick questions, all of which went down on her chart. “How’s the pain?” the woman asked.

“Not good,” Teri muttered.

“This’ll help.”

Before she could ask what she was referring to, the nurse had given her an injection. Leaving to dispose of the needle, she returned with a starched hospital gown and deposited it on the bed.

“Here, put this on. Someone’ll be here with you shortly.” With that, the woman promptly disappeared again.

Teri pushed the gown onto the chair.

“What are you doing?” Hawk asked.

“There’s no way I’m putting one of those things on. If they want to see this wound, all I have to do is lift up my shirt and they can cut away the bandages the paramedic put on.” She saw he was about to say something and cut him off. “I won’t be reduced to something sitting on an assembly line table.”

Color rose to her cheeks. In the nine months they’d been partnered, he didn’t remember ever seeing her get angry.

Or was that fear doing it to her? “Try me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you didn’t think I would understand why you’re afraid of hospitals. Try me.”

Even as the words came out of his mouth, he wasn’t entirely sure just how they got there. He made his way through life not getting involved on any level with anything but the cases he was assigned, and then only in strictly a professional way. It was more than a matter of needing to be focused or possessing tunnel vision, he just didn’t care to have people’s lives touch his. It was cleaner that way. Neater.

Getting involved in someone’s life wasn’t worth the effort or the trouble. That, too, had been a lesson he’d gleaned while raising himself in his parents’ rundown, rat-infested apartment.

Yet there was something about Cavanaugh that reached out to him.

Hawk was probably going to use this against her somehow, but since he asked, she felt she owed him an explanation. After all, he was still here, not turning his back and walking away.

“My uncle died in a hospital. This hospital,” she added. “I was twelve.”

Twelve.

The same age as he’d been when everything in his life had changed for him.

It felt odd having something beyond the police force in common with her. But then, having an uncle die in the line of duty wasn’t exactly the same thing as seeing your parents gunned down in front of you for less money than some people spent for a week’s groceries.

Restless, he shoved his hands into his pockets and wondered why he wasn’t leaving. “You and your uncle were close?”

“Not as close as I am to my other uncle. Or my father,” she added.

The time her father had been wounded in the line of duty, she thought her whole world had been shattering. She’d been so terrified, she couldn’t get herself to come to the hospital with the rest of her siblings, afraid that if she did, if she came, it would be the last time she would see her father alive.

Just as it had been with her uncle.

“My whole family’s close,” she told him. Her words echoed back to her. Because he had no family, would he take that the wrong way? Would he think she was gloating because she had such a wonderful support system and he had no one to turn to?

Hawk made it seem as if he didn’t need anyone, she reminded herself. He liked being alone.

Someone was paging a doctor to neurology. Hawk waited for the voice over the loudspeaker to fade away. “If you’re so close, why didn’t you want me to call one of them?”

“Because I don’t want them to worry.” She could almost envision the lot of them, crowding around the bed, shooting questions at her, looking like a backup for a worried Greek chorus. She could deal much better with them once she was completely patched up and this was behind her. “You, on the other hand, won’t worry. You can just keep my mind off the fact that it hurts like a son of a gun.”

His eyes narrowed. They both knew that she was responsible for ninety-nine percent of the conversations they did have. “And just how do you figure I’d do that?”

Teri grinned from ear to ear despite the pain that insisted on shooting through her with the precision of a Swiss watch. “Snappy patter comes to mind.”

The remark was so incongruous, the image so out of character for him, Hawk laughed. The rich sound encompassed the tiny area they occupied.

She thought of her father’s fresh coffee, first thing in the morning. Rich, smooth. Fortifying. “You know that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh. Nice. You should do that more often.”

His face was somber again. “You do like telling people what to do, don’t you?”

“Second nature, I guess.” The pain had been melting away, but now the room was in danger of having the same thing happen to it. She grasped on to the metal railing on one side of the bed. “Damn, what did that nurse jab into me?”

“Well, if I’m lucky, something to put you to sleep.” She began struggling to get off the bed. He caught her by the arm, holding her in place. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I don’t want to go to sleep here. I want to go home.” She was going to leave while she could still feel her legs. Sort of.

“Cavanaugh—”

She clutched his hand and raised imploring eyes up to his face. That was twice today she’d looked at him that way, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like the position it put him in or how it made him feel—uncertain of his parameters around her. “Promise me that you’ll take me home.”

He’d seen prisoners less desperate to escape their jail cells. Hawk tried to remove her fingers and found that they were locked in almost a death grip around his wrist. Very firmly, he peeled back her fingers from his flesh. “Look, they have to stitch you up first, clean the wound—”

“Okay, okay,” she interrupted, “but I’m not staying here overnight. Do you understand?”

What he understood was that somehow, the department had paired him with a woman who was a damn good detective, but that didn’t change the fact that she was irritating and crazy to boot.

“If I say no, you’re not going to let go of my hand, are you?”

He saw Teri slowly move her head from side to side and knew that she wasn’t kidding. He could, of course, disengage himself from her. She had a good grip but she was, at bottom, absolutely no match for him. Even if he were a ninety-pound weakling, once the medication put her out, he could easily just slip away.

Again, he didn’t know why he didn’t. Maybe it was because for some reason she looked as if she needed him, and even though he told himself he didn’t want to become involved, he had a hell of a hard time turning his back on that. On her.

It was why he was in law enforcement in the first place. Because people needed to be protected. From drug dealers, like the ones who had snuffed out his parents long before they were murdered, and from burglars, like the ones they’d caught today who had gotten off on seeing the terrified faces of their victims.

People needed protecting. And his badge made him a protector.

He sighed, surrendering the battle that had never really gotten onto the battlefield. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

“And take me home when the time comes.”

“And take you home when the time comes,” he finally said after she’d pinned him with those blue-gray eyes of hers.

It was another three hours before she was finally able to get into his car again. Three hours in which she’d been tortured, injected, stitched and finally bandaged. Three hours in which she’d hovered between pain and a drug-enabled euphoria.

She was still somewhere in the region of the latter. Stretching as best she could, she sighed and leaned back against the seat.

“God, I feel like I could just leap off the top of something and fly,” she said.

Knowing that a silly grin had taken over her face, and not caring, Teri turned to flash it at her partner. She congratulated herself for finding a soft spot within his hard exterior. It made her feel giddy. She liked getting to him. Because he sure as hell had gotten to her.

Cavanaugh wasn’t even attempting to put on her seat belt. Probably out of her head, Hawk decided. Reaching over her, he took hold of the seat belt and pulled it around her until he could fit the metal tongue into the groove and snap it in place.

“You feel that way because they pumped you full of Vicodin.” He snapped his own seat belt into place, then looked at her. A tinge of amusement came out of nowhere and almost made him smile. She looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “You don’t have much tolerance for medication, do you?”

“Nope,” she breathed, watching as the word floated away from her. She could almost see it. “But I can tolerate pain pretty well. And pain-in-the butts,” she tacked on, looking at him significantly. Her grin widened, then narrowed as she attempted to pull thoughts together. It was like trying to corral six-week-old puppies in an open yard. “You know, you’re a pretty nice guy when you let yourself.”

Hawk began to thread his way out of the small side parking lot. He wasn’t about to let her get sloppy on him. He was already having a hard enough time dealing with her and the strange undercurrent of feelings bubbling within him, as well. “You didn’t leave me any choice.”

“Oh, c’mon, Jackie, we both know better.”

His spine stiffened at the sound of the name. He stepped a little too hard on the brake at the light. “Don’t call me that.”

His mother had called him Jackie when he was very, very young. Hearing the name set off chords he didn’t want touched.

Her head spinning and bursts of joy throbbing through her veins, Teri backed off. “Sorry. ‘Hawk’ just seems too harsh for someone who held my hand.”

“I didn’t hold your hand, you held mine,” he reminded her. It wasn’t strictly true. He’d held hers while the doctor had stitched her up. “And it’s Hawk. It always has been.”

She sighed, cotton beginning to spread itself all around her as she sank back in the seat. The scenery was whizzing by her at a rate that made it hard for her to fully absorb. She still had trouble putting the sequence of events in order. Everything seemed to be vying for the same exact place. Holding her head didn’t help. “My brain feels like mush.”

He laughed under his breath. “And this is different from normal—how?”

Even in her present state of confusion, she was aware that he was trying to regain ground, trying to come off like the fire-breathing prince of darkness he always was. Too late.

“Sorry, I’ve seen your underbelly. You can’t retrace your steps.”

She was babbling. It was probably the codeine the doctor had injected her with. But, God help him, she’d aroused his curiosity. “Retrace my steps? What are you talking about?”

“I’m on to you, Jack Hawkins. You come on like some Clint Eastwood knockoff, snapping out eight, nine words a day and keeping everyone at bay, but inside, you’re a decent guy.” She turned to look at him. “Just like your alter ego.”

“What alter ego?” Bullet wound or no bullet wound, he was quickly losing his patience with her. “Cavanaugh, what the hell are you babbling about?”

It was as clear as a bell to her. “Clint Eastwood’s a really nice guy when he’s not playing tough guys. I heard somewhere that he’s a real pussycat.”

There was traffic on the road at this hour, which meant that he was stuck in the car even longer than he could tolerate. Served him right, he thought darkly. No good deed ever went unpunished.

“Cavanaugh, get this through your addled brain. I am not interested in your font of useless knowledge or your Vicodin-laced attempt at psychoanalysis. Now why don’t you be a good little detective and just pass out the way the doctor said you would?”

“And make it easy for you?” she scoffed gleefully. “Nope. I want to enjoy this little breach.” The sound of her own voice egged her on. “Don’t get me wrong. I like tough guys. My cousin Patrick could spit nails—until his fiancée came into his life.” And good luck to her, she thought. She adored her cousin, but living with him was going to be a tough thing. Patrick had his demons.

Not unlike the man next to her.

He had to stop her before she was off and running in another direction. He’d thought she was bad before, but that didn’t hold a candle to the way she could run off at the mouth with this painkiller in her.

“Look, I don’t know what gave you the idea that I’m interested in your family history, but I’m not, so save your breath.” He glanced at her as he came to a light. She was smiling broadly at him. “Now what?”

“It’s not working.”

He knew he should just keep quiet. After all, that was his way, wasn’t it? Allowing himself to enjoy silence? But something about the look on her face had him ask, “What’s not working?”

“Your tough-guy act. I’ve seen the light.”

He just bet she had. And it was probably all the shades of the rainbow. “That’s the pain medication. It distorts things.”

“Not enough to fool me.”

There was no point in arguing with her. He’d already learned that she could argue the ears off a stone statue.

“Look, Cavanaugh, just save your breath,” he repeated. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He’d won that round. Hawk found that difficult to believe. She never retreated like that. It wasn’t like her. As he came to a stop before another light, wondering if she was all right, Hawk looked at her.

The next thing he knew, Teri was kissing him.

Chapter Four

It just happened. She hadn’t planned it, or even thought it out.

To say she had never thought about kissing Hawk would have been a lie. She had. Several times. The man was tall, dark and handsome by absolutely anyone’s standards. But she wasn’t really attracted to him, she’d insisted. Brooding men weren’t her type. She liked outgoing, gregarious men. Men who knew how to have fun and didn’t mean anything by it once the good times were over.

Simple. That was the way she liked it.

Jack Hawkins, on the other hand, just breathed complexity. Every word he uttered—when he deigned to utter any—all but screamed the word.

No, she wasn’t attracted to him. Nope, not a whit.

If anything, Hawk was her pet project. She meant to drag her partner out among the living if it was the last thing she did on this earth. She had to get him to loosen up and smile more than once every nine, ten months or so. Nothing else, just that.

Kissing him hadn’t been a means to that goal.

What had brought her today to this junction of skin pressed against skin was extreme gratitude, or at least that was the excuse she fed herself. Hawk had remained by her side at the hospital when she knew every single inclination inside his body leaned toward walking away. That he didn’t meant a great deal to her.

So she was kissing him because she was filled with gratitude. Gratitude and a healthy dose of Vicodin, or whatever painkiller the nurse had injected into her.

And maybe it was the Vicodin spiking up through her system, but suddenly, the outside world faded away. The wound, the traffic, the car itself that Hawk was driving—all melted into oblivion as she became aware of this intense rise of heat all around her. Not like when she’d gotten shot and yet, somehow oddly similar.

Except without the pain.

No matter which way you sliced it, Teri felt she was definitely having an out-of-body experience and not really minding it one bit.

What the hell was going on here? Always aware of his surroundings, Hawk had not seen this coming. Not in his wildest dreams. Not Cavanaugh.

It wasn’t even as if they had particularly easy access to one another and her lips had accidentally bumped against his. The car had bucket seats, for Pete’s sake.

One hand on the wheel, he grabbed Teri by the shoulder with his other for the purpose of removing her mouth from his. He was as surprised as anyone when he found himself holding on to her instead.

Surprise very quickly turned into something that involved not just his brain but his whole body. Desire moved through it like a sleeping snake uncoiling itself after an aeon of inactivity.

Worse still, Hawk could feel himself reacting to her in ways he didn’t welcome. Sure, the woman was attractive—anyone with eyes could readily see that. But she was also a walking mouth, someone who never knew when to cease and desist—which for him would have been before the very first word was uttered. As it was, Cavanaugh had more words in her arsenal than could be found within the pages of a congressional investigation.

So why the hell did he feel as if someone had just knocked him off his feet by swinging a wrecking ball into him?

The sound of horns blaring directly behind his vehicle pulled Hawk out of the center of the vortex he found himself in and pushed him quickly back out into the real world.

Finally wedging a space between them, he turned and quickly clamped both hands firmly on the steering wheel before he was tempted to repeat the offense.

Before he was tempted to initiate the next kiss himself.

The woman tasted sweeter than anything he’d ever had.

The moment his eyes were back in focus, Hawk took his foot off the brake and stepped down on the gas pedal.

Hard.

They flew through the intersection.

He realized that they’d come extremely close to having an accident. It would have taken very little for his foot to have slipped off the brake while his attention had been directed to other regions. Although there was no car in front of them, there was an intersection. They could have been smack in the middle of it with through traffic slamming into them before his brain would have registered the danger.

That had never happened to him before.

His pulse was racing harder than if he’d just done a 10K run.

Once they were on the other side of the intersection, he glared at her. She’d made him lose control and he didn’t like that. It didn’t go with the image he had of himself.

“What the hell was that?”

Teri took a deep breath. It didn’t help. Her heart was pounding harder than a drum soloist showing off his expertise. She took another breath before slanting her eyes in his direction. “Boy, you do need to get out more. That’s commonly known as a kiss.”

If he clenched the steering wheel any harder, he had a feeling it would shatter. “I know what the hell it is, I want to know why it was coming from you.”

She’d come on to him, she realized. Oh, God, how had that happened? What was she acting on? Did she really feel that attracted to him? No, it was the medication—that’s what it was—taking away the restraints, the walls. Her judgment. Her mind fuzzy, she searched for something plausible to use as an excuse. “I kiss, Hawk. I kiss a lot. Don’t look so uneasy. A kiss isn’t always a prelude to sex—”

“I wasn’t uneasy,” he snapped. The next moment, he got himself under control. It was a lie. He was uneasy and he had no idea why he was uneasy, why his nerves felt as if they were being pulled apart, which just made the situation that much more irritating. “And before you and I have sex, hell will be selling overcoats.”

“Charmingly put,” she said. He probably had no idea that if she hadn’t had a healthy self-esteem, that would have gone a long way toward destroying it. “Have I told you how great you are for my ego?”

Hawk snorted. She was the last person who needed to be treated with verbal kid gloves. “You don’t need me for your ego. You’ve got other guys for that, hanging around like mindless flies.”

She shook her head, then regretted it. The inside of the car spun a little. “Honey, pure honey on that tongue of yours.” And then she smiled. Well, well, well, he was aware of other men looking at her. Interesting. “So you do notice things sometimes.”

“I’m a detective. I’m supposed to notice things.”

“You don’t notice the women drooling after you.”

There she went, exaggerating again. “Nobody’s drooling,” he heard himself snap.

Damn it, Cavanaugh was doing it to him again, making him lose his cool, his control. How did she manage to do that when he usually could keep such tight rein on what was happening inside of him? And why did he have to be partnered with her in the first place?

He realized that she still hadn’t answered his question to his satisfaction. “Why did you kiss me?”

His profile was rigid. It was the kind of profile, she caught herself thinking, that could have easily been chiseled in rock. No soft edges, no curves, just planes and angles. A born tough guy. “Just the facts, ma’am,’ right?”

“What?”

“Joe Friday. Dragnet,” she said.

She could see that the names of the program and its chief character meant nothing to Hawk. The man needed color in his life. Broad strokes. She had a feeling his life was done in fine-point pencil.

He sure didn’t kiss that way, a small voice from the inside of her ebbed delirium whispered.

Teri made the only assumption she could. “I take it you weren’t raised on police dramas the way I was.”

A great many of the programs had come via cable channels that featured old series from bygone eras. She could remember watching them, sitting on the floor in front of her father’s chair. Once in a while, when police work allowed, he was even in the chair, explaining things to her. Her desire to be a police detective had come just as much from those programs as it had from wanting to emulate her father, to give her something in common with him.

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