"How about we don't?" She tossed the question over her shoulder as she padded toward the living room. "It's late. I want to go to bed. Do you mind?"
He was behind her. "You're not worried about your visitor—oh, sorry,
one
of your visitors—coming back?" Okay, he had her there. Yes, she was.
"I have a gun." Unloaded, in a gun safe in a drawer in her room. With the bullets stored separately. As a mother, she considered such precautions an absolute necessity. But in practical terms, it made actually snatching up the gun and using it in an emergency problematic. "And I know how to use it."
"Believe me, I'm well aware." There was a dry note to his voice. It took Kate a second before she remembered she was supposed to have shot and killed Rodriguez. Like it or not, that lie was now part of what everyone—colleagues, friends and acquaintances, police, the general public, Braga—now thought they knew about her.
So be it.
"I've been taking care of myself and Ben for a long time." She was striding across the middle of the living room now, heading for the front door, meaning to show him out and be done with this. As soon as he was gone, she had already decided she would go straight upstairs, check on Ben, go to her room, retrieve and load her gun, and sit up in a chair for the rest of the night with it, just in case. Probably the man who'd tried to break into the house wouldn't be back. Probably even if he'd gotten in he'd meant only to frighten, not harm, her as a way of underlining the message Mario had sent earlier.
But with Ben's safety on the line, too, that wasn't a chance she was prepared to take.
"Mom." Ben's sleepy voice calling from the top of the stairs stopped her in her tracks. Braga stopped, too, right behind her. She could feel him just inches behind her back. "Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine, sweetie." Regaining her composure, she walked to the foot of the stairs and looked up at him. He was standing at the top, just outside his open bedroom door, wearing his favorite blue pajamas with rockets on them, his face flushed with sleep. Even as he looked down at her, he was rubbing his eyes with one fist. This was her baby, her little boy, and her heart swelled with fierce love for him. Whatever it took to keep him safe, she would do. "What are you doing up?"
"I thought I heard you scream. But I was so tired it took me a long time to get up."
Kate's blood ran cold at the thought that if Braga hadn't been there, Ben might have gotten up to find her at the mercy of whoever had been trying to break into the house. If he had the brains to realize Ben was her most vulnerable point, the thug might well then have turned his attention to her son.
"It must have been a bad dream," Kate said firmly. "Go on back to bed. I'll be up in just a minute."
Ben yawned. "Okay"
And he turned and went back into his room. A beat passed in which Kate remained standing at the foot of the stairs looking up, and then she heard the distinctive creak that meant he had climbed into bed.
She looked at Braga.
He was standing where she had left him, about eight feet away, almost in the middle of the small room. His hands were thrust partway into the front pockets of his pants. His hair was ruffled, his chiseled jaw was dark with stubble, and his eyes were tired. And he looked totally fed up with the situation in which he found himself.
Their eyes met. She was waiting to open the door for him until she was pretty sure Ben was once again asleep—the way the child had looked, she estimated that would take just a couple of minutes, max.
Then he jerked his head at her as if to say "come here."
She frowned. But she moved away from the stairs and toward him. There was, she saw, a grim twist to his mouth. When she stopped in front of him, their eyes met again. He rocked back on his heels a little.
"What?" she asked. It was an impatient near whisper.
"How about I stay the night?"
Her eyebrows went up. He had shocked her.
"What?"
He didn't look any too thrilled about what he was suggesting. By now—a moment after the thought hit her brain—she was guessing— assuming—it wouldn't be for sex.
"It's already after midnight. By the time I get home and get to sleep, it'll be closer to one A.M. I could sack out on your couch, go home in time to shave and change for work."
A beat passed in which they stared measuringly at each other.
"Why would you want to do that?" she asked at last.
"I don't like the idea of leaving you and the kid alone." His lips tightened. "That's twice in one night somebody's tried to get at you. What is it they say? Third time's the charm?"
Kate didn't say anything for a moment. Much as she hated to admit it, she didn't like that idea, either.
"It's nice of you to offer," she said at last, grudgingly. By not turning him down, she was, in effect, accepting, and they both knew it.
"You're welcome." His tone was dry. His eyes slid over her. "You look beat. If you'll toss me down a blanket and a pillow after you get upstairs, we can both get some sleep."
Kate hesitated. Letting him sleep on her couch just felt like a really bad idea. But she was so tired, and so scared, and having him in the house would make all the difference to how the remainder of her night went.
And then maybe, if she got some decent sleep, tomorrow her head would be clear enough to allow her to figure some way out of this.
Still, she hesitated.
"There were reporters out in front of the house this morning from about seven on, waiting for me to come out and head for work. If they show up tomorrow, having you spend the night might cause more problems than it solves."
At the thought of the kinds of stories that would go around in that case, Kate practically shuddered. Even if "the heroine of courtroom 207 sleeps with the detective who tried to save her" angle didn't make the newspapers or airwaves—and surely it wouldn't—local reporters knew the Philly legal and law-enforcement communities well. Gossip about her and Braga would spread like wildfire. She didn't know how he felt about that, but as one of the low prosecutors on the totem pole at the DA's office, she definitely didn't need it.
He grimaced. "I'll be out of here long before seven, don't worry."
"I usually get up at six. I could wake you."
"I imagine I'll already be up. Look, go on to bed, would you? I got everything at this end covered. Quit worrying."
Worrying was one of those things she was really good at, even when life was normal, but he couldn't know that. Pursing her lips, looking at him consideringly, Kate knew there just wasn't much else to say. The truth was, the idea of having him under the same roof was so tempting it was impossible to turn down. She wasn't going to argue anymore. She was going to go upstairs and go to sleep, secure in the knowledge that at least she and Ben were safe for the rest of the night. "All right, then. I'll just go get some things for the couch." With that she turned and headed for the stairs. When she came back, loaded down with a pillow and a couple of mismatched blankets and a set of Ninja Turtle sheets—the only twin-sized sheets she had that were clean—he had taken off his jacket. With just a couple of steps to go before she reached the bottom, she faltered, looking across the room at him. He had his back turned to her, and his shoulders looked very broad in his white dress shirt. The black straps of his shoulder holster stood out sharply against it, and she was reminded—as if she needed reminding—that he was a cop. He had an athlete's narrow hips and a great butt—had she really expected anything else?—that was small and tight-looking in the navy slacks. His head was tilted slightly forward, and she could just see the clean angle of his forehead and cheek and jaw. His hands were at chest height in front of him, moving in such a way that she thought he might be unbuttoning his shirt. Her breath caught at the thought, and she stood there on the second step from the bottom without being able to move or say a word while, with no warning at all, a rush of awareness of him as a totally hot guy engulfed her. Once again, to her total dismay, she felt the unwanted pull of sexual attraction.
It caught her by surprise, set her heart to beating just a little faster, quickened her breathing, warmed her like nothing else had been able to do all night.
Whoa. Chill. Hold it right there. Not happening. Put it out of your mind.
" I've got blankets," she said in a firm voice before the temptation to just remain mute and watch while he stripped off his shirt could get the better of her, and walked down the remaining stairs.
"Thanks."
He glanced over his shoulder at her, sliding his shoulder holster off at the same time. Even as he folded the thing and placed it—and his gun—on the lamp table at the far end of the couch, she realized that that was what he had been doing all along: unfastening his shoulder holster.
Her breath escaped in a small sigh of relief and disappointment that to her ears sounded like a deflating balloon. He didn't appear to notice, but she did, and it annoyed her.
"You know, you might want to think about getting a security system put in here," he said, as she reached the coffee table, where she dropped the pillow and blankets before moving on to the couch with the sheets.
"I am thinking about it." She focused on shaking out the bottom sheet over the couch cushions, determined not to notice that at the same time he was pulling off his tie and tossing it onto the gold chair, where his jacket already waited. "But a security system is expensive, and I'm just leasing this house."
"If your life keeps on being this exciting, it still might be better than the alternative."
He had moved to help her. They were at opposite ends of the couch, and he tucked his part of the sheet around the cushions with aplomb.
"Yeah, well, I hope my life doesn't go on being this exciting. Really, boredom's more my thing."
He smiled at that. Kate smiled wryly back. They were standing there not doing anything except smiling at each other, and the atmosphere in the room had gone all cozy, and she was suddenly starting to feel way too comfortable with him. Her brows snapped together, and she dropped her gaze, looking around for the top sheet. It was on the coffee table. When she picked it up and started to shake it out, he took it from her.
"I can do this. Go to bed."
His tone was abrupt. Kate flicked a quick look up at his face. There was nothing in his expression at all now: His face was wiped clean. Every bit of warmth and humor—and, yes, even his earlier aggravation with her—had disappeared.
The thing she had to keep in mind was that he might be spending the night, but they weren't even friends. At best, he was a cop with an oversized sense of responsibility doing his job. And she was a scared potential victim grateful for the protection.
At worst, he was a homicide detective and she was one of the objects of his investigation.
"Okay." She stepped away from the couch, moved around the coffee table, and headed toward the stairs. No protest at all. Keeping it impersonal.
"Good night," he said.
With one hand on the newel post, she looked over her shoulder at him.
"Good night," she answered, and headed on up the stairs.
C h a p t e r 17
DESPITE EVERYTHING, Kate slept like the dead. If she had dreams, she couldn't remember them. When her alarm went off at six, she felt like she was swimming through fathoms of deep water before she finally surfaced, heard the shrill beeping, and silenced it. It was only then, as she lay there blinking in the first few moments of "I really want to go back to sleep, but I know I can't" stupor, that she remembered Braga.
Then she was out of bed like a shot.
It took her less than five minutes to do everything she needed to do and, barefoot and wrapped in her ratty blue terry robe, head downstairs. Her mission: make sure he was up and on his way out before anyone knew he'd been there. It was still dark outside, but now that her mind was clear and a new day was at hand she felt embarrassed that she had allowed him to stay the night.
No need to compound the error by getting the fact in the news.
The smell of coffee greeted her as she neared the bottom of the stairs. Clearly, Braga was up. A quick glance around showed her that the couch was empty; the sheets were stripped off the cushions and folded along with the blankets at one end. The pillow was stacked on top. And while the rest of the house was dark, a light was on in the kitchen.
She headed toward it.
The coffeemaker was on, she saw as she reached the kitchen doorway and cast a single sweeping glance around, along with the overhead light. One of her thick, white mugs waited, empty and apparently unused, beside the coffeemaker. But there was no sign of Braga.
Kate turned back toward the dark living room just as the door to the powder room under the stairs opened and Braga walked out. He was wearing his pants, for which she was thankful, and was rubbing his face with a towel. Despite a narrow black belt, the pants rode low on his hip bones. His chest was bare.
She looked. Of course she did.
It was a very masculine chest, a classic V shape, wide and broad-shouldered on top, then tapering down to a narrow waist and hips. His leanness when dressed was deceptive. Shirtless, he was surprisingly muscular and tanned, with well-developed pecs, impressive biceps, and brawny forearms. A wedge of curling black hair adorned the center of his chest, then tapered down before disappearing beneath his pants. His nipples were flat and dark, barely visible beneath his chest hair. It was difficult to see his abs in the gloom, and if he possessed a six-pack, its definition was lost in the shadows. But his stomach was definitely flat.
Also, sexy didn't begin to cover it.
Her eyes jerked up and away at just about the time he emerged from beneath the towel.
"Morning," he said, sounding surprised to see her.
She looked at him again, all innocent greeting, just as if—she hoped—she hadn't been looking at him in a whole other way seconds before. He crumpled in one hand the small maroon guest towel she kept in that bathroom, and continued walking away from her, toward where, she saw now, his shirt waited with his tie and jacket on the gold chair.