What a Fool Believes (10 page)

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Authors: Carmen Green

BOOK: What a Fool Believes
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Chapter Thirteen
In the parking lot, Tia scrambled out of Byron's arms and wiped her hands over herself. “How dare you manhandle me? Don't ever touch me again!”
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
He had the nerve to keep himself between her and the station, as if he was in charge of weeding out the real criminals from the fake.
How many people had ever been uninvited to jail?
Tears filled her eyes at yet another bizarre happening in her life. Fate was kicking her ass right about now.
Close to crying, Tia sucked in a cold breath and tried to get her bearings. Second Street? She was at least one and a half miles from work, and she only had a half hour to get to her desk.
She started down the long driveway, heading toward the street. Maybe she could flag a cab or catch a bus that would put her close to the building.
She raised her arm and the taxi driver gestured up. He was off duty. Pulling her arms close to her body to conserve heat, Tia started walking.
“I've been ordered to escort you home. If you wait a minute, I'll get the car and drive you home. We can deal with Manuel right now,” Byron snarled.
“I
never
want to see you again.”
“Tia—”
“I'd rather stay in jail.” She circled and Byron blocked her and Tia went the other way.
“You made that clear,” he said, as officers ran past them and into the building.
She snatched her purse from him and walked faster.
Byron couldn't believe her. “Where are you going?” “Anywhere you're not.”
He thought of letting her go alone, but what if she got hit by a car or died of hypothermia? He'd be blamed for not following orders.
Then
he'd
be in jail. “You don't want a ride. Fine with me. I'm still going to do my job.”
She kept walking.
Hurrying back to his squad car, Byron trailed her for a block, flashers on, the stares from passersby almost as ridiculous as her walking in the thirty-degree weather.
They looked as if they were having a lovers' quarrel. On PD time.
Tia was creating a hazardous situation. He could arrest her, or leave her alone. Now that was a plan.
He radioed his captain.
“What is it, Rivers?” Hanks was angry, but there
was
a riot in his jail. Ever since their run-in, they'd kept a respectful distance. Byron was aware that everyone knew that Hanks was under investigation because of him, but he didn't rub it in the man's face. All Byron wanted was respect for himself and his fellow officers, and to his credit, Hanks had calmed down, a bit. But this call might change everything.
“State your business, Officer.”
“Ms. Amberson refuses a ride. I'll return to the station now.”
“Oh no, you don't.”
Tia crossed the street, and Byron stomped on the brakes. Horns blared behind him. He gritted his teeth and U-turned in the middle of the street. “What am I supposed to do? Arrest her?”
“Don't even think about it,” Hanks snapped. “I was just told her coat is still here. Is that true?”
Thin silk showcased the lines of a sexy black bra and a smooth back. He cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
“Officer Rivers, if Ms. Amberson so much as catches a head cold and we get sued, you'll be held personally responsible. Deal with her!”
There were terrorists to be caught, and what was he doing? Following an ill-tempered woman who'd rather march around with no coat than take a free ride.
“And don't think just because you passed the detective's exam, that will stop me from seeing you in the unemployment line.”
Byron's heart rejoiced. He'd made it. “You won't have the chance, sir,” he said with pride.
“Then we have an understanding. You have to successfully complete the anger management course and get it signed off by me.”
“I'll do whatever is necessary to earn my promotion.”
“You're catching on. You can start by adhering to the judge's order and making sure Ms. Amberson takes possession of her home.”
Life was nothing but a spring-loaded mousetrap. He swallowed a heavy sigh. “Yes, sir.”
“Rivers?”
“Sir?” Byron said.
“I consider it your personal responsibility to see that Tia Amberson never enters my precinct again.”
Byron didn't say that he thought it was more likely for him to get a job on the space station.
Tia turned the corner and crossed the street. Now her arms were folded over her middle, with her head dipped toward her chest. She had to be freezing.
“You can count on me, sir,” Byron said and disconnected the call.
The snarl of traffic behind his patrol car grew longer.
With Tia marching along as the lone soldier, Byron knew he'd have to be an officer of his word.
He pulled into the parking lot of a nearby building, yanked on his jacket, and retrieved a blanket from the trunk.
He started off on foot and caught up to Tia. Sure enough, she was shivering, but she didn't stop walking. That'd be too easy.
He draped her shoulders and prepared for the blanket to hit the pavement. When it didn't, he fell into step beside her.
“You have two choices,” he told her.
“Is that your standard pickup line?”
Byron couldn't help but laugh. “Who said anything about picking you up? Who'd want to? You're a hostile, volatile woman.”
“So I've been told by all the men I've encountered this past month.”
Tia jaywalked and horns blared.
Byron caught her by the arm. “Are you trying to be roadkill?”
“No, but I was hoping my stalker might.”
“You're a smart-ass, you know that?”
She kept walking.
His temper tipped the scale. “
Now
you don't have anything to say? While you were causing a riot and a traffic jam, you couldn't keep your mouth shut. The judge said for me to escort you. Why didn't you just call?”
Tia stood in stony silence at the light and began to cross with the other pedestrians.
“Unbelievable!” Byron's foot crunched against litter, the shine on his shoe marred with every furious step.
He'd arrested fourteen prostitutes and pimps over the past four days, but Tia's brief yet memorable incarceration would be all he heard about, possibly for the rest of his career. They walked down Peachtree Street, toward the Fox Theatre marquee glittering on their left. At the corner they crossed, and his nose perked up the scent of brewing coffee and scrambled eggs when two women balancing Styrofoam containers and coffee cups stepped outside the diner.
His stomach yelped like an excited puppy. At this hour of the morning he would have had a light dinner and been in his bed. But twelve hours of hard police work wasn't enough. He had to baby-sit.
She turned then, the depth of her anger etched down the center of her face. “I'm tired of being told what to do. Everybody else lives by their own rules, but I have to ask permission. Last night I didn't have anywhere else to go. I just wanted to go home. And I didn't want to ask you to take me there.”
Pedestrians streamed past, staring openly. “People live within the law, Tia. When they don't, that's when Atlanta PD steps in.”
The reprimand fell on deaf ears as the crowd mobilized, herding them across the street. Byron picked up the pace as Tia power-walked around other pedestrians. Several times he dropped back to let people traveling south the opportunity to pass, but the distance between him and Tia grew.
She walked on oblivious of him, like she had been since they'd met. He wasn't sure he liked that, given that many of his thoughts centered around her. “Step to the left. Left. Left,” he said, directing the comment to three women whose looks said they didn't give a damn who he was, they weren't moving.
The shoulder of a blonde woman brushed his, but she didn't break stride.
“Watch it,” he ordered, to which she responded by flipping him the backward bird.
What happened to respect for the damned law?
Pissed, Byron caught up to Tia and grasped her shoulder just as her foot left the curb to jaywalk. “Enough,” he said, and she stopped.
He tried to ignore that she bumped his hand off her shoulder with a shrug. “Let's get him out of your house now.”
Misery collapsed her features and she looked like she was going to cry. “I can't.”
Was this another game? He could hear the sympathy symphony start rehearsals. With every curse word he thought, her face changed to a darker, angrier Tia. How many levels did this woman possess?
“After all you've been through, you didn't just say no. I didn't hear that.”
He looked into her eyes and saw the truth. “What the hell is it now, Tia?”
“I'm in trouble at work. If I'm late or don't show up, I'm fired. Here's your blanket.”
Wind skittered up Peachtree, scattering debris around their ankles. Byron noticed a lone maintenance man wrestling a broken bag of garbage, hunkered down in his blue quilt jacket, losing the battle, terribly.
Byron held the blanket helplessly, not wanting to yield. Wanting to sleep. With her, he realized, with surprising clarity. Not with Lynn, but with the difficult yet beautiful woman an arm's length away.
He urged Tia to the door of the building. “I'll explain to your boss you have urgent business to attend to.”
She spun out of his hold and headed back to the cold street. Chill bumps raced over her chest and up to her cheeks. He wanted to kiss her, but instead, he held her close.
“No.”
His desire ratcheted up in degrees. “You don't have a choice—”
“She won't care! She wants to fire me. She's practically given my job away. Without a job, I have no home—considering I don't have it anyway, I don't have too far to go before I'm the best dressed woman on skid row. Then I'm going to need a house! This crappy piece of a job is all I have, and I can't screw that up, too.”
Her gaze flew toward the busy traffic and he wondered if she was planning to end it all right here, right now.
She wouldn't. Not because the thought hadn't occurred to her, but because he wasn't a lucky man.
Tia started toward another door, her lower jaw trembling.
He wasn't sure if from the cold or her burst of helpless anger, although it didn't matter. He was going to bed before noon, even if he had to cuff her to the steering wheel in his car to do it.
Tia started inside and Byron blocked her. “We have to leave.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “Go away, I don't want my boss to see you.”
“Dammit. You're coming with me.”
“No! No! No, I'm not!”
Everyone within a five-foot radius stopped walking, aimed their cell phones, and pressed record. Every citizen was, after all, one event away from being on
The Today Show.
“Hold on.” Byron let her go, holding up his hands to show no police brutality was taking place. “Let's talk calmly.”
“I am calm,” she said, her jaw jutting. “You're trying to bully me and I won't have it.”
“That's not true. We just have two different agendas,” he said agreeably, as the cameras continued to record. “What do you propose?”
“I'll go to work, and we go to my condo as soon as I get off.”
That was eight hours from now. Plenty of time for Tia to find trouble and dive in. If Hanks found out Byron disobeyed orders, no amount of pimp and prostitute arrests would save him. His career rested on this decision.
He'd made detective. No more uniform. No more McNult and Joey. No more Captain Hanks. He had too damned much to lose. “I can't.”
Byron guided her away from the building by the hand without any resistance. He felt as if he were leading a toddler away from the big swings.
“Are you going to hit her?” a disappointed man asked, his camera phone pointing at himself, then Byron for the impromptu interview.
“No, sir. I'm only offering aid.”
The man snapped his phone shut and muttered foul language at Byron for wasting his time.
Byron tugged Tia's hand as she lagged. When he turned to look at her, his heart flipped over.
She was crying. Tears fell in great big drops off her chin. She covered her eyes and yielded to the flood of emotion.

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