B008DKAYYQ EBOK (20 page)

She spotted Austin’s camera on the top shelf and snagged it. “I take it there’s a reason you
snuck
up on me.”

“A.J. told me about the excitement last night.”

“I wouldn’t call it excitement. More like blinding terror.”

“But you weren’t hurt?”

Facing him, she noted the worry that tightened his features. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping much lately. Join the crowd, she thought. At the same time, his concern for her welfare touched her. “I’m fine.”
 

“Is that supposed to stand in for the equipment you lost?”

She gazed at him, distracted by the way the light beard tempered the angles of his face. Or maybe the fact he wasn’t grinding his teeth as he looked at her had softened the usual hard set of his jaw. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. What?”

He nodded at the old Nikon in her hand. “Did management bust you down to that until you prove you can be trusted with the high-tech stuff again?”

She glanced down. “Oh. No. This is Austin’s.” She paused. Mentioning her nephew by name to this man who’d been practically a stranger last week should have felt odd. But it didn’t. In a very short period of time, their relationship—if you could call it that—had made a fundamental shift.
 

She had expected him to move on. What rational man wouldn’t run as fast as he possibly could? More than anyone in her life, besides A.J., he knew firsthand that she and her family were a disaster. Add the baggage labeled “Daniel” to the pile and what Cole should have had was a mountain of reasons to drive right by the exit marked Bailey Chase.
 

“That was nice of Austin to let you borrow his camera for work,” Cole said.

She laughed lightly. He was trying to put her at ease. Which made her all the more uneasy. “Right.”

“So … you’re going to look me in the eye at some point, aren’t you?”

She turned to slam the locker closed. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

She pretended to concentrate on working the button that would release the door on Austin’s camera so she could take the rewound film out. Feeling Cole’s breath stir the hair at the back of her neck, she shivered. The office wasn’t even close to cool. If anything, it was too warm. Yet, goose bumps prickled her arms. She wished he’d step back so the scent of fabric softener that clung to him wasn’t quite so evident. Downy, she thought. That’s what he smelled like. Downy, and something else clean and crisp, like her favorite rain-scented candle.
 

Closing her eyes briefly, Bailey wished he wouldn’t step back after all. Going far, far away would be much better.

Cole cleared his throat. “I talked to one of the cops about your break-in. He said they got a hit on fingerprints they lifted at your place. You probably should have warned them that your brother has a criminal record.”

Her fingers fumbled with the release, and she swore under her breath. “Damn.”

Cole reached around her and lifted the camera out of her hands. “Let me do that.”

Turning, she resisted the urge to snatch it back. Instead, she watched him pop open the back of the camera with the easy flick of a finger. “What are you doing, Cole?”

He met her eyes, one eyebrow arching. “There’s some progress. You didn’t snarl ‘Goodman’ like you usually do.”

“You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

“Maybe I’m confused, too,” he said softly as he pulled out the roll of film.
 

The low timbre of his voice sent a chill racing up her spine. Fear quickly followed. This was a man she could easily fall for. And then what? She’d thought she’d been in love before, and look how that had ended. The number one lesson she’d learned then was to protect her heart at all costs. Being alone was far better than allowing another, possibly careless, man access to the parts of her that were breakable. She had to harden herself to Cole now, before it was too late.

She took the film he offered. “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

She moved to brush by him, but he put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait.”

She shifted back, rattled when her shoulder blades pressed against the metal surface of the lockers. She’d never felt claustrophobic here before, but she did now.

Glancing down, she focused on his hand on her arm. His knuckles were skinned raw.
 

He sighed. “Look, I made a mistake. I want to apologize.”

She had to concentrate on drawing air into her lungs. He smelled like clean sheets, and with a jolt, she realized that that’s where she wanted to be with him. Ever since he’d refused to leave her alone when she’d needed help the most. Ever since he’d carried her up a flight of stairs when she’d been too exhausted to climb them herself. Ever since he’d walked out of his bedroom without his shirt on. Ever since he’d bonded so sweetly with Austin. Ever since he’d yanked her out of a nightmare. Ever since he’d shown up to help her load what was left of precious memories into garbage bags.
 

Not only was this a man she could fall for, but this was a man she could fall for
hard
. Caring, dependable, considerate, strong. Sexy. As. Hell.

“What mistake?” she asked, mortified that her voice had dropped not just one octave but two.

“I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to be objective.”

“Not seeing the mistake yet.”

Smiling, he braced a hand against the locker behind her, cutting the space between their bodies by half. “You haven’t let me get to it.”

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. Nerves up and down the length of her body were on high alert. She imagined that if he touched her, she would spark like an electrified fence. “Go on.”
 

“I normally have good instincts, but I ignored them.”

“You shouldn’t do that.” Her gaze was drawn to his mouth. Such nice lips. Full, pink. They looked soft, and capable.

“Well, I did. And I was wrong. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I’m still not clear on what mistake we’re talking about.”

His gaze fastened on her mouth, and she watched it move slowly over her face before his eyes met hers. She couldn’t look away as the air locked in her chest. Good Lord, he was going to kiss her. She fought the first, raging instinct to shove him away. Maybe it would be nice.
 

He lowered his head, brushed his lips across hers very lightly. Then he settled his mouth more firmly on hers, and she felt his forearm tense where it rested gently against her shoulder as he braced a hand on the locker. It started out friendly enough, and she was thinking, oh, he’s a pretty good kisser, but her knees weren’t weak or even slightly rubbery. She could live with that. In fact, she was relieved. This was a kiss she could live without. She didn’t need the complications anyway.

The instant she relaxed, his free hand came up to cup her face, and he stepped into her. The press of his hard body against her was a shock, and her lips trembled open, admitting his tongue.

Apparently, he’d required a brief warm-up, because the sparks she’d expected earlier starting flying. She would have gasped if her senses had not been so overwhelmed by the intimate slide of his lips and tongue over hers, the burning heat of his thigh against her hip, the soft, dry warmth of his palm at her jaw, the feathery caress of his fingers just below her earlobe. Her knees didn’t turn to rubber. They turned to melted butter.

When he pulled back, her head started to follow before she stopped herself.

Her heart was doing a frantic dance against her ribs, and she felt his heart doing the same under the palms she had, at some point, flattened against his chest.

She concentrated on controlling her breathing. Oh, dear, he’d made her pant.
 

That was
not
a nice kiss, she thought, dazed. That was sinful. Treacherous. Devastating. She wanted him to do it again. Now.

Opening her eyes, not recalling when she’d let them close, she found him watching her. His gaze glittered with what could be described only as blatant hunger. She imagined that expression mirrored in her own eyes.

Well, she thought. This was an interesting twist.

She swallowed hard. “So what were you apologizing for again?”

* * *

Cole smiled, satisfied—on one level, anyway—with the results of their first kiss. He’d hoped to set her back on her heels, maybe even, if he was lucky, make her head spin a little. As it was, her green eyes looked glazed, as if her thermostat had been cranked and the heat of a fever had set in. That would do for now, he thought, struggling to control his own ragged breathing.
 

He shifted back from her to break the physical contact of their bodies. He didn’t want to rush her. Correction: He most definitely
wanted
to rush her. He wanted to put his hands on her right now, wanted to make her shudder for him, wanted to make it impossible for her to ever want any man but him. But he understood that she couldn’t be rushed, and he sensed she would be worth the wait.

“I’m sorry I misjudged you,” he said.

She blinked up at him, and he saw her swallow again. The daze in her eyes cleared some. “Okay.”

Her voice was still low, husky. With longing, he hoped. It made his insides clench. “I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.” He inwardly cringed. That wasn’t exactly what he meant. “I mean, I should have gotten all the information before making a judgment.” Damn, that wasn’t it either.

“I see.” She stepped to the side, all but sliding her back across the uneven metal surface to get out from between him and the lockers.

Fearing he was making a mess of things, he put his hand on her arm to stop her. She paused, and he felt the tension in her, as if she braced for a blow. For a moment, fury at Daniel hummed near the top of his head, until it occurred to him that she didn’t fear him physically—she had no reason to, at least from a violent perspective. No, she feared him emotionally. He was certain that if he hadn’t first been blocking her way and now practically restraining her with a hand on her arm, she would have bolted long ago.
 

He took another stab at apologizing. “What I’m trying to say is, I’ve been a jerk, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Bailey nodded, careful to keep her gaze averted. “All right then.”

Frustration began to seep in as he felt himself losing ground. Her cool response, no doubt calculated to be just that, opened a chasm between them. “Don’t you want to know what changed my mind?”

She met his eyes, and hers sparked with anger. “I’m guessing the six months we’ve been co-workers and the time we’ve spent together recently didn’t do it.”

“I did some digging,” he said, wishing they could back up and he could start again. But, then, he wasn’t certain why she was mad, so that probably wouldn’t have helped anyway.

She crossed her arms, lifting her chin a notch. “Oh, good.”

“I know about what happened between you and Daniel.”

Her lips parted, but she didn’t bolt and she didn’t falter. “And you got this mind-altering information from him?”

“Hardly.”

She straightened her back. “Then where?”
 

Too late, he realized his blunder. Bailey was an intensely private person. If she weren’t, nearly everyone at this newspaper would have known exactly what had happened between her and Daniel. As it was, Cole had had to negotiate unofficial channels to get the lowdown. Which meant that him knowing the details might not be such a good thing from Bailey’s perspective.
 

“Where did you get it?” she asked again.

“Maybe we should talk somewhere else.”
 

“There’s no one else here.”

But he needed time to think this through, to figure out how to make it clear that he had gone snooping because he liked her, because he wanted to understand her better, to get to know her. And yet, he realized, he was an idiot to think that she would be okay with the backward and dysfunctional way he’d gone about getting to know her.

“Well?”

When he focused on her, he noted that the pink their kiss had brushed over her cheeks was completely gone. And the heat in her eyes had nothing to do with arousal. “I’ve done this all wrong.”

“If you would explain what ‘this’ is, then maybe I can help you.”

Yeah, he needed help all right. Help getting through the next several minutes without completely destroying any chance he had of getting to know her better.

He drew in a fortifying breath. “I talked to Molly Jenkins yesterday.”

The name seemed to mean nothing to her. “I don’t know who that is.”

“She’s the officer who filed the police report after you took a header through a sheet of glass.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “You talked to her? Why would you do that?”

“I wanted to know. It was important to me to know.”

“But why? Why would you think it’s any of your business?”

“You were here just now when I kissed you, right?”

“Are you kidding me? You think that gives you the right to go digging around in my life?”