Drawing The Line (7 page)

Hell, she’d call it jam and bread for breakfast if it meant they’
d both forget her flinging herself at him face-first on nothing more than an emotional whim. “Fine by me, Detective.”

Jason lifted his phone to his ear, but didn’t turn his eyes from hers.
“This is Morgan.” His words echoed a rough path off the bathroom walls, and Serenity ducked her chin into the V of her dark blue T-shirt, intending to slip past him to gather a few things from her kitchen. But his body went taut in front of hers, the
don’t move
subtext coming through as if he’d shouted it into a bullhorn.

“When?
” His blue eyes narrowed in suspicion before swinging out to survey the hallway and the living room beyond. “No, we’re clear here. Roger that. I’ll check in when we get to the safe house. Thanks for letting me know.”

He dropped the cell ph
one into his pocket, stopping to skim the holster on his hip on the way back up, and a chill blasted all the way down her spine that had nothing to do with the room temperature. But it wasn’t like this day could get any worse, so she forced her voice to firmness as she asked, “What’s going on?”

“We need to get
moving. It’s getting late,” Jason said, his even-keeled tone betraying nothing as he gestured toward the door.

Oh, hell no. No way was she
letting him maneuver around a straight answer. “I’m happy to get moving just as soon as you answer the question.”

He closed his eyes for just a fraction too long to be a blink, but when they opened, they didn’t move from hers.

“That was the DA. Brody’s attorney is asking for the arraignment to hit the docket as soon as possible, which means he’s expecting to be granted bail. And if he gets it, Dirk Brody will be a free man until the trial.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jason eyeballed the quaint six-paneled bedroom door in front of him as if the thing were about to explode. It wasn’t, of course—he’d checked and re-checked every square inch of the single-story safe house last night when he and Serenity had arrived. But the antique brass knob hadn’t budged since she’d used it to pull the door shut sixteen hours ago, and she hadn’t let out so much as a creak on the old pine floorboards in that entire time.

Ch
rist, he shouldn’t have scared her by blurting out the straight-up truth about Brody, and he
damn
sure shouldn’t have kissed her. Being in a relationship with anyone, no matter how casual, would only mess with his priorities.

Being with Serenity would smash those priorities into dust.

But all it had taken was one little sliver of vulnerability to bubble up from those layers of toughness she normally kept wrapped around her like a super-serious force field, and bam. Jason had blown past all the rules, throwing every objective out the fucking window in exchange for the hottest kiss he’d experienced in a decade. Add to it the fact that he’d uprooted the woman from a place she clearly thought of as home and likely scared her into next week, and it made him feel like a jackass of the first order. If anyone understood the true depths of the family bond thing, it was Jason.

But better a little stir-crazy
than a lot dead. And keeping Serenity safe— not to mention keeping her at arm’s length— was his job. One he couldn’t ease up on, even if she locked herself in that bedroom for a month.

Shit. If Brody’s lawyer managed to swindle bail out of a judge on Tuesday
, they’d be stuck here three times that long.

He definitely shouldn’t have kissed her.

Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Jason moved down the hallway toward the white-walled kitchen. The place was nice enough, if a bit outdated, and he popped the blue and white ceramic knob on the cupboard in front of him in search of something to call lunch. A complete inventory of everything edible took less than ninety seconds, and he shut the last cupboard with an empty-handed frown.

They were going to have to figure out a way to get some groceries over here, stat. It was a hell of a lot less risky than having a delivery
guy show up two times a day. He and Serenity might be way out on the periphery of the city in this gently aging cottage, but precautionary measures weren’t optional, even with Brody still behind bars. Just because you could see someone coming from way out here in the sticks didn’t mean you’d be safe once he arrived.

And
according to the informants vice had in place, word in Brody’s business circles was that if the guy made bail, he was definitely coming.

The muffled thump and shuffle
of feet on floorboards sent a tendril of relief through Jason’s unfilled gut, and a few minutes after the groan of the ancient pipes from the bathroom sink came to a soft lull, Serenity appeared in the kitchen’s entryway. The taut stance holding her jeans-clad frame at attention was totally at odds with her sleep-kissed face and slightly mussed hair, and despite the just-business bargain he’d struck with his conscience, Jason was powerless against the half-smile creeping over his face.

“
Good morning, Ms. Gallagher. Or should I say good afternoon?”

She put a slow blink on the
sixties-era manual clock over the stove, surprise widening her dark lashes into a shadowy arc. “It’s after one?”

He
measured her with caution. He’d had a little extra time this morning after checking in with Lieutenant Martin and doing a phone brief with vice, so he’d done a quick Internet search on the after-effects of head injuries. Periods of prolonged sleep and mild confusion had topped the this-is-normal list, but still. Was she supposed to look so pale?

Jason tipped his head at the cupboards even though he knew they held precious little.
“Yup. How’s your head?”

“It hurts like hell,” she said, the words a steady reminder that she liked her conversations with a big, fat side order of nothing but the truth.

“I was just going to make some lunch. Are you hungry?” He hadn’t seen her throw back so much as a bite of anything in the last twenty-four hours. If he was hungry, she had to be downright famished.

Serenity nodded, her movements on a two-second delay with her words. “Maybe a little.” She padded into th
e space, and as she moved to stand next to him at the butcher block counter, the loose neck of her top dipped down over one shoulder to reveal the thin ribbon of her emerald green bra strap. “What’ve we got?”

“Uh,”
Jason said, feeling about as eloquent as a brick. Couldn’t this woman have undergarments in normal colors, like beige? His mind tripped back to the barely-there tank top and matching scrap of red cotton shorts he’d seen on her floor last night.

Right. Because doing a mental catalogue of her lingerie drawer would
really
keep her at arm’s length.

Jason clear
ed his throat, but damn, it was a production. “Not much, I’m afraid. Looks like all we have is half a container of rolled oats, some condiments of questionable age and origin, and a can of Mountain Dew.”

“Well, it’s not coffee, but that Mountain Dew doesn’t sound half bad.” She moved to th
e fridge to grab the brightly colored can, popping the top with a one-handed flick. “Talk to me about the condiments.”

“You asked for it
,” he said, unloading the contents one by one. “Besides the oats, it looks like we’ve got some salt, a can of evaporated milk, powdered creamer, sugar packets, and…” He tugged at the jar on the back shelf until it gave up with a crackle. “The world’s oldest jar of molasses.”

Serenity
took another drink, and what do you know, her color actually did look a little better. “Well, it’s not ideal, but it’s workable.” She pushed the long sleeves of her form-fitting black T-shirt up to her elbows, her bare toes brushing the pine floor with banked energy as she went to wash her hands. 

“Into what, exactly?”
He looked down at the ragtag pile of ingredients he’d lined up on the counter, wishing like hell he could turn them into a pair of cheeseburgers.

Serenity reached up to grab a saucepan from one of the open-air shelves over the stove, the hem of her shirt riding up just enough to reveal a tantalizing sliver of cream-colored skin above her low-slung jeans.

Seriously. Between the neck and the hemline, the freaking top was a menace.

“Well, I can’t guarantee it’ll be fantastic, but
I think we have enough to make passable oatmeal,” she said, and mercifully, his stomach perked up and let out a low rumble.

Better to think with that than his dick, especially if he didn’t want to get slugged. Or fired. Or both.

“The only oatmeal I’ve ever made has been from those packet thingys. Is this the same stuff?” he asked, forcing himself to focus on the saucepan in her hands.

“
Not quite. You have to cook them differently. Unless you have a thing for eating cardboard.” Serenity smiled, the endearment warming into a grin as she moved over the wide-planked floorboards with an odd combination of strength and grace. “Rolled oats aren’t instant, like packaged oatmeal. They have to boil for a few minutes to thicken up and turn out right, kind of like pasta.”

She
filled the saucepan halfway with water, sliding it over the black, cast-iron grates of the burner between them, and man, he was really out of his element here. Why couldn’t they need a strategically orchestrated raid on a nightclub, or something easy like that?

Jason fiddled with the buttons on his shirt, watching as she readied the ingredients.
“I’m glad you know what you’re doing. For a minute there, I thought we might be forced to eat the molasses right from the jar.”

“This isn’t so hard once you get the hang of it.
I take it you don’t cook at all?”

The topic seemed safe
enough, especially since the more she poked around in the kitchen, the rosier her cheeks got. Although that crease in her forehead was still front and center, and great. It was still maddeningly cute, too.

He leaned one hip against the counter and dove into the subject.
“I’m not a total loss in the kitchen, poor oatmeal-making skills notwithstanding. But honestly, I think my sister got all the cooking genes.”

“Your sister cooks?”
Serenity coaxed some oats from the cardboard drum to the saucepan, turning her eyes to can of evaporated milk even though Jason got the impression her attention was on his answer.

“
That is quite the understatement. Violet’s a chef. She used to work at Coco’s, over on Eighth, but now she does the personal chef thing. Makes the best breakfast burritos you’ll ever have, I kid you not.” The thought of his sister and her family-famous breakfast recipe pushed a smile over his face, knocking his mood squarely into all-right territory despite the hunger gnawing at his belly.

Serenity’s brows popped. “Wow.
And you guys come to Mac’s for lunch every week even though she’s a chef?”

Jason o
pened the cupboards on the opposite side of the stove from the dried goods, rummaging for bowls. “Why wouldn’t we? The food is killer.”

“Thank you.
But Coco’s is kind of upscale. Mac’s isn’t really fancy or anything. It’s just comfort food.”

“That’
s why we like it, though. Our family is just me and her, and eating at Mac’s gives us the chance to hang out, nice and easy.”

Her expression
flashed with something he couldn’t quite peg, but in the next breath, it was gone, covered over by her all-business demeanor. “Well, I’m glad you’re not a huge fan of pretense. This oatmeal is pretty bare-bones, but at least it’s something.”

She filled the two bowls he’d unearthed
from the other side of the kitchen and topped each one with a sprinkle of sugar, and hell if it didn’t look like the most enticing meal he’d ever laid eyes on.

“Thanks.”
Jason parked himself in the chair across from her at the long, farmhouse-style kitchen table, waiting for her to take a bite before ladling up a heaping scoop of his own. The deep, earthy flavors of oats and molasses hit his tongue, and he paused in shock despite his stomach’s rough demand for more. Unlike straight-from-the-box oatmeal, the stuff in his dish split the difference between creamy and textured with simple, belly-warming perfection, and he filled his spoon once, then twice more just to get a handle on it.

Forget bare-bones. This kicked comfort food’s ass.

“Have you ever considered going on one of those reality cooking shows? You know, where you have to make something incredible out of a basket full of weird ingredients? Because this is really good.” Jason dug in again, wondering if they could get decent-sized bowls delivered along with some groceries.

He caught the edge of Serenity’s smile before she buried it between her lips. “I balked at leaving my diner to go into protective custody, Detective. Once this is over, leaving Mac’s won’
t be on my agenda again.”