Sweet Reward (6 page)

Jared silently followed Mia to her SUV and held the door open for her while she got in behind the wheel. He closed the door and then took off for his rented vehicle, aware that her dark, somber eyes followed him. She hadn’t asked where he was going or if she’d see him again. And he hadn’t bothered to tell her. Letting her go home alone would be stupid. The killer might be waiting for her there. He’d ensure that she was fine, and then they needed to talk. Someone had gone out of their way to make sure she didn’t get the information she needed. Question was, was this related to the abduction of Lara’s child? If not, he needed to get his ass back to Paris and continue the investigation from there. And he would. Once he made sure she was going to be all right, he’d head home.

He didn’t ask himself why Mia had become his responsibility. He wasn’t sure he would have an answer.

Mia was aware that Jared followed behind her in his SUV. She had just assumed he’d come back to the house with her. Of course, they needed to talk about the case. About whether this was related to the one he was working on for LCR. That was the only reason he was following her; still, she was glad for the company. For the first time in years, solitude held no appeal.

Her heart grieved for Spunky. The poor guy had been alone in the world. In the three years she had known him, she’d learned that he’d been married years ago but had lost his wife to cancer. He had no family left and, as far as she knew, no friends other than Mia herself. Who would attend his funeral and mourn his death? She already knew the answer.

To avoid the inevitable tears, she turned her mind to Jared. What did he think about all of this? He’d been stoically quiet—not unusual for him. However, she sensed something seething beneath the surface. Anger? Frustration? She would soon see.

She turned into her drive and parked. Before getting out, she unlocked the console and pulled out her spare weapon; she’d had to relinquish the Beretta to the police. With a weary sigh, she leaned against the side of the Explorer and waited for Jared. Even though it was after three in the morning, she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. However,
Jared had flown in from Paris today … he had to be exhausted.

He didn’t look tired, though. Energy and strength emanated from him as he stepped out of the SUV and offered her his usual abrupt nod.

She flashed him a grateful smile. “I know you must be worn out, but thanks for following me back here. I’ll make some coffee, and then we’ll talk.”

If she’d thought that would elicit some kind of verbiage from him, she was mistaken. He just looked at her. Blowing out another weary sigh, she went to her door.

“Hold on.” A hand grabbed her shoulder.

She jerked to a stop and turned back to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you going to just walk inside like nothing happened? Someone tried to kill you tonight. How do you know he’s not in there waiting for you?”

She tried hard not to take offense, really she did. But his condescending tone, mingled with her sadness over losing a friend and her exhaustion, proved too much for her hard-fought patience. “If anyone is in there, I’ll just flutter my eyelashes and charm him with my wit. Think that’ll work?”

Apparently sarcasm, like everything else, made no impression on the man’s rawhide-tough exterior. He just stood there with that brooding expression.

Fine. She was too tired to argue anyway. She held up the gun she had in her hand. “I have this, a sophisticated security system, and five dogs who are friendly only as long as I’m around. What else do you think I need?”

“Maybe a little caution before you go running into danger again? What the hell would have happened if I hadn’t been in that alley with you?”

Too startled to even pretend she wasn’t insulted, she
said, “Excuse me, but are you under the impression that you saved my life?”

“Maybe not saved it, but the bastard would have shot you if I hadn’t been there to scare him off.”

She opened her mouth, ready to rattle off her unique talents and training, and then snapped it shut. Hell, she had nothing to prove to anyone. Not even this condescending and infuriating, albeit gorgeous, imbecile.

She allowed herself one simple statement: “I know how to handle myself.”

His disbelieving snort was an ignorable irritant. She pressed her thumbprint onto the door lock to open it. Immediately the security alarm dinged. Since her dog walker came each day, Mia usually set the alarm only at night. After the close call tonight, she would change that routine.

Mia went to the wall and punched in the code, then turned to greet her furry companions. They once again came at her as if it had been days since they’d seen her, instead of a few hours. She dropped to her knees and hugged each one a little tighter than normal, taking comfort from their unconditional love. The man behind her stood at the door, no doubt thinking her silly once again.

As the fuming woman in front of him greeted her animals, Jared scanned the area. He saw nothing out of the way, and the animals weren’t acting nervous—a good sign that there were no intruders. He’d pissed her off, but better she be angry than dead. The woman appeared to have absolutely no self-preservation instincts.

As if sensing her anger at him, the dogs, which had been friendly only hours before, stood and stared at him, looking decidedly unfriendly.

“It’s okay, guys,” she said to the group of fur at her feet. “He’s an ass, but he’s harmless.”

Hmm. Two insults in one. Impressive.

“I’m going to make some tea.”

Jared headed to the living room, where he’d sat and waited before. This time, instead of waiting, something prompted him to go into the kitchen. There he found Mia standing at the sink, her hands covering her face as she quietly cried.

He told himself tears didn’t move him. Death was part of life, and if she was too tender to handle the loss of an informant, she sure as hell didn’t need to be in this kind of business. She’d learned a painful but valuable lesson tonight. He told himself to go back to the living room while she finished her cry. This kind of thing was a private matter. He needed to let her grieve in peace. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her.

So why the hell was he walking toward her, putting his hand on her shoulder, and whispering, “Mia?”

Instead of being embarrassed to be caught crying or telling him to get the hell away from her, she did something totally unexpected. She turned and threw herself into his arms. Hell, women did not cry in his arms. Whenever he held a woman, it was for one purpose and never had anything to do with comfort. Jared Livingston was no comforter.

Figuring that she was clueless about that, too, Jared pulled her closer and held her as she sobbed against his chest. He was good at pretense and had played various roles most of his adult life. Surely he could pretend for a few minutes that he was the kind of guy who could offer a woman something besides sex or protection.

She felt delicate in his arms and smelled like some kind of exotic spice he couldn’t identify. Despite his intent to offer her only comfort, arousal surged thick and hard. Jared closed his eyes and ground his teeth. Hell, if she felt the erection pressing against her, she’d realize exactly what kind of man he was. And stupid as it seemed, that bothered him.

Doing the difficult thing, Jared dropped his arms and pulled away. When she looked up at him, he lost his breath. No one should look that beautiful after a meltdown. Dark brown eyes, drenched with tears, gleamed up at him, full pink lips trembled, and her slightly pointed chin, wet from tears, quivered. He needed every bit of his steely self-control to take two steps back. If he didn’t, he’d be crossing a line he’d never crossed before.

“Sorry about that.” Her soft voice was thick with tears.

“He was your friend.” He knew the words sounded cold and mechanical, but that’s who he was, how he operated. She needed to understand that.

Instead of looking disappointed by his hollow, empty words, she pulled her trembling lips into a smile. “Thank you. Yes, he was a friend.”

For some stupid reason, he wanted to say more—something substantial that had meaning. He wanted her to feel better. His eyes locked with hers; seconds passed as something profound clicked between them. He didn’t understand it, had never experienced anything like it. Without will or purpose, his legs moved forward again, his arms reached for her—

The shrill ring of a cellphone broke the moment. Jared breathed out a low sigh and stepped out of the way of temptation. What the hell had he been about to do? He was apparently more tired than he’d thought.

Shaking herself from the odd, mesmerizing spell Jared Livingston’s eyes had cast on her, Mia pulled the phone from her pocket. “This is Mia.”

“Mia, you okay?”

She smiled at the concern in the warm male voice. “I’m fine. Guess you heard about everything.”

“Yeah. Just now. You should’ve called me.”

“I didn’t want to bother you. I knew it was your night off.”

“You know you could never bother me.”

“Do you guys have any suspects yet?”

“No, but we’ll find him, I promise. The report said another man was with you.”

Mia looked up to see Jared pouring steaming water into the mugs she’d set out. She liked that he was doing that. She liked too many things about him, which was ridiculous, since there were so many things about him that pissed her off.

“Yes, a friend who’s in the business.”

“I’m assuming you were meeting Spunky for information.”

“Yes … someone didn’t want me to get it.”

“What was it for?”

“The abduction case—the Hempstead baby. I thought it might be related to another case.”

“Guess you haven’t heard the news. They found the baby.”

“Seriously? Where? Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Family got a ransom call; money was delivered, and the baby was found. Don’t know who did the deed, though.”

Then that case had nothing to do with hers, after all. “But why kill Spunky? Something doesn’t make sense.”

“What about other cases you worked with him on? Could it be one of them?”

That was a possibility; he’d been her main informant and had helped her on several recent cases. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and felt no better. Exhaustion and grief had frazzled her mind. “Let me think this through. Can we talk tomorrow?”

He dropped his voice to a softer, more intimate tone: “How about I take you to dinner?”

An instant before saying yes, Mia stopped herself. Todd was one of several friends she had at the police department,
but he’d made it clear that he’d like a different relationship. Mia liked him immensely, but she felt absolutely no attraction toward him. Saying yes to dinner would be leading him on. She had been used before; it wasn’t pleasant.

“I can’t, but thanks. How about I come to the station around eleven? Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee.”

His responding sigh was heavy with disappointment. “Okay, I’ll clear some time for you around eleven.”

“Thanks, Todd.”

Mia closed her cellphone, more than aware that she’d hurt her friend but unable to do anything about it. She turned to find Jared holding a mug of tea for her.

Smiling her gratitude, she took the tea and swallowed a sip. Sugar exploded on her tongue.

“Put in a little extra sugar. You’ve had a few shocks tonight.”

“Just had another one. That was a friend of mine. He’s a detective at the Fifteenth Precinct. The Hempsteads’ baby was found alive after a ransom drop.”

His eyes narrowed in thought. “Were you working with your informant on any other cases?”

“He’d recently given me some information on an abduction for hire. I rescued the girl, but the police are still looking for the suspect.”

“You think this was payback?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s sit down and see if we can figure this out.”

Mia knew she had some choices to make. And though part of her didn’t want to say the words, she knew they had to be said. “With the ransom demand, it’s apparent that this has nothing to do with your case. Tell Noah I’m sorry to have involved LCR.”

He considered her for several seconds. Those silver eyes did something to her blood pressure, and she wasn’t
sure she liked it. But what she knew for certain was that Jared Livingston couldn’t be a permanent part of her life. Not only did he live thousands of miles away, she had grave doubts that her heart could handle him. Her life was all about taking chances, but that didn’t include falling for a guy this dangerous or unattainable.

“You’re right that the two cases aren’t related, but we need to talk this out. You were almost killed tonight.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was shot at—big difference. I’ve been shot at before, and I’m sure it’ll happen again.”

“Then let’s figure out who did it this time.”

She knew where this was going. Jared, unimpressed with her competence, thought he needed to stay and help her out on this case. She was torn between gratitude for his caring and irritation that he had misjudged her so completely.

“I’ve got people working on this. You need to get back to your case.”

Again those eyes seared her; Mia could feel every bone in her body melting. How long had it been since she’d been this attracted to a man? Years. Her disastrous engagement had made her ultra wary. “Once burned, twice shy” had become her mantra. And this man had a more dangerous edge than most. She’d definitely be setting herself up for more than she could handle. Best to say goodbye now.

She walked past him, out of the kitchen, and headed to the front door. Get it over with, clean and quick.

“Mia.”

She turned and saw hesitation and something else in his expression. That something had her heart pounding. She quickly pulled the door open before she could change her mind. “Have a good flight home. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

Jared wasn’t used to indecision, especially about something
like this. The woman obviously wanted him gone. Being unwanted wasn’t a new thing for him, so why was it so difficult to walk out the door?