Not Without Risk (16 page)

She shifted minutely so he had no choice but to drop his hand, then she stepped away
from him. She spoke with quiet, but desperate, firmness. “I’m not that woman. I
can’t
be.”

Paige leaned against the doorjamb, steaming mug of coffee in her hand, and studied
the man across the living room. Barefoot, dressed in jeans and a San Diego PD T-shirt—her
only indication he had moved at all since the evening before when exhaustion and heightened
emotion drove her to bed—Justin sat in the center of the couch. Late-morning sunlight
slanted through the front window, emphasizing the circles of fatigue that ringed his
eyes, the shadow of beard stubble across his cheeks. His thick hair was mussed just
enough to make her fingers itch to smooth it.

Although the newspaper lay open to what from her vantage point appeared to be the
classifieds, he didn’t seem to be reading. In fact, he seemed preoccupied, as if he
couldn’t see past the thoughts running through his mind to focus on the words printed
on the page before him. Or notice her studying him.

She’d told him about Rick.

Slowly, in an effort to cool the too-hot liquid, she raised her mug to her lips and
blew softly. Last night, he had pushed her for answers and she’d given him the cold,
unadulterated truth. Then, like a wounded animal, she’d gone off to lick her wounds.

In the light of day, after a night of deep, dreamless sleep that erased the mind-numbing
fatigue that had plagued her for days, she felt stronger. The wall around her memories
of Rick had crumbled. The pain those memories invoked, ebbed. Sleep brought about
mental clarity, as well as the ability to face what just yesterday all but crippled
her.

She was not the woman she had been three years before. She knew what she had to do.
The time had come to face the facts. Since the day she’d first felt the warmth of
Justin’s touch she’d told herself he wasn’t what she wanted. She couldn’t handle his
job. Couldn’t risk getting involved with him. But it seemed she already was. She could
continue to make excuses about why she felt about him the way she did, but deep down
she knew it was all a lie. It wasn’t fear that kept pushing her into his arms, but
something far more powerful.

She was falling in love with Justin Harrison. The acknowledgment tightened her throat,
gave her heart a jolt. Even so, she needed to face it. To deny her feelings would
change nothing, not the pain of her past or the uncertainty of her future. It wouldn’t
clear her present confusion. She wasn’t a fool. She knew better than to delude herself
into believing a future existed for them. It didn’t. In the end, he would leave her.

Shattered.

Broken.

Staying away from him seemed like the logical thing to do. She needed some time, space
to do some thinking. But with a killer out there, somewhere, wanting her dead, space
was not an option.

Biting her lip, she tried not to think about the next few days spent in his house.
She never sat idle for long, especially not when she worked through a problem. So
the thought of days spent in his company, with nothing to keep her busy, unsettled
her. If only she had thought to pack her camera. Even her digital could have provided
enough distraction to keep her thoughts off her growing desire for the man not ten
paces from her.

She closed her eyes and worked to purge thoughts of him from her mind. It didn’t help.
Every breath she took drew the warm, male scent of him deeply into her lungs. If anything,
her closed lids worsened her present situation. Without external stimuli, her mind
brought back how desire darkened his eyes when she told him she wanted him. Heat climbed
through her system, spread down to her breasts. Her pulse beat thick and fast.

Paige jerked her eyes open and forced the image from her mind. Only to find Justin
focused on her.

“You look well rested.” His eyes traveled from the top of her head, down to her painted
toenails and back again. “How do you feel?”

She forced her breathing to even out. “Better than I’ve felt in days.”

“Good.” His fingers took up a drumming rhythm against the closed file folder just
off to his right. “Look, I want to apologize for last night. I pushed you pretty hard.”

“You were just doing your job.”

“Yeah, my job.”

His grave tone and averted gaze had her frowning. “What’s wrong?” When he didn’t immediately
respond, she continued, “You look tired, Justin. And you’ve been staring blindly at
that same page of the newspaper since I came out of the bedroom.”

“I’ve been going over the case most of the night. Looking for something, anything
I might have missed the first thirty times.”

“Did you find anything?”

“I wish I could say I had. About two this morning I finally accepted the answer is
not here.”

Several moments passed as she considered what he meant. “Where does that leave you?”

His sigh was audible. He pushed both hands through his hair leaving it even more messed
and standing on end, then dropped them to hang between his knees. “Spinning my wheels.
Going nowhere fast.”

Paige crossed to the couch and sank into the corner, leg tucked beneath her. She dropped
her gaze to her still-f mug. “Where does it leave me?”

Good question
, Justin thought, and just one of the many he’d spent the night contemplating. Unfortunately,
it was also one he hadn’t found an answer to. He settled his hand over hers, felt
the air between them warm and shift when she linked her long, slender fingers with
his. Color tinted her cheeks. The faintest shadow of desire flared in her eyes.

She wore a pair of those jeans with the waistband that sat below her navel. Her shirt
hugged her small breasts and ended just above that waistband, teasing him with a glimpse
of pale flesh. With her feet bare and her hair hanging loosely, she looked comfortable,
at home in his living room. A thought he should have found unsettling but didn’t.

A hot ball of need settled in his stomach. He needed to decide just what to do about
Paige Conroy. And fast. He wanted her physically, but was he ready for something more,
an emotional relationship? Did he even know how to go about having one?

“Justin?”

Somehow, the warmth of her hand in his stole his ability to think straight. The unique
smell of her, mixed with the soap from his bathroom, sent his head spinning. He fought
the urge to drag her into his arms, to touch her, taste her.

Because desire was there, clouding his logic, he took a quick, mental step backward
and removed his hand from hers. He busied himself with the task of refolding the newspaper
and placing it aside, deliberately ignoring the flood of questions in her eyes.

She blinked once, curled her hand back around her mug. “When I awoke this morning,
I realized I’ve been too busy pretending this isn’t happening to me to give much thought
to what you said to me the night Leroy was killed.”

“What?”

“That he was looking into Rick’s murder. What did he find, Justin?”

“I wish I knew.”

“But you’re fairly certain Leroy was killed because of his re-interest in Rick’s murder?”

“Yes. The trouble is, I can’t prove it one way or another. If St. John uncovered something
new, he didn’t share it with anybody. We’ve found no notes, no link between his trip
here and Preston’s murder. No link, that is, except you.”

“The person he came all the way from Boston to see.”

“The last person to speak with him. The woman who knew Rick Preston best.”

Paige rose and began to pace. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“St. John or Preston?”

“Neither.”

“Preston’s service record made him out to be some kind of superhuman.”

“Superman,” she said quietly. “Some days I think he believed it to be true.”

“What happened eight months before his death?”

She stopped before him. “What do you mean?”

Justin stared into Paige’s waiting face and considered telling her his growing suspicions
about Rick Preston. That the absence of motive in the St. John homicide was not the
only thing his late night had produced. In fact, his complete absorption in Preston’s
service record left him with more questions than answers and a growing feeling that
Rick Preston was a cop gone bad.

He clenched his jaw. Would it solve anything? Help the case in any way? He didn’t
believe it would. “Are you aware of Preston having any problems?”

“What kind of problems? Problems at work?”

“There or in his personal life that might have affected his work.”

Paige began to pace once more, down the length of the couch and back again. “Rick
didn’t talk to me about work. Not ever. His job meant everything to him, yet remained
something he never shared with me.”

“That must have been difficult for you.”

“I accepted it. I accepted a lot back then. He shaped me into the type of woman he
wanted, one who didn’t question when his cell phone would ring and he’d just stand
up and leave. Who didn’t wonder about the large areas of himself he didn’t share with
me or the increasing number of nights he wouldn’t come home.”

Anger tightened the knots in his side and sent a shaft of pain down his arm. He leaned
back and swore under his breath. “Another woman?”

She stopped pacing and pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. A minute
passed before she replied, “I honestly don’t know. Maybe.” She closed her eyes for
the space of a heartbeat. “Probably.”

“When did this happen?”

“About six months before his murder.” Her intense, unwavering gaze locked with his.
“What did you find in his service record?”

He stared up at her. He knew nothing short of the truth would appease her. “Nothing
definitive, just a feeling that something’s missing. More questions than answers,
really.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

He remained silent, studying the way the morning sunlight danced like fire through
her thick, dark hair. Absorbing the appealing lines of her profile, the elegant curve
of her throat. After a moment, she raised her hand and tucked an errant curl behind
her ear, looking frustrated and defeated.

He narrowed his gaze. The days of stress must be making him soft, for suddenly he
wanted more than anything else, to chase the shadows from her green eyes, bring a
warm, radiant smile to her lips and know it was all for him. To experience just once
what it felt like to have a woman look at him the way Suzanne looked at Allan. The
way his mother looked at Nicholas Parsons.

He couldn’t. He didn’t even know where to start.

“Justin, how old are you?”

Justin blinked, more bemused than stunned by her sudden and abrupt change of topic.
“Where did that come from?”

She shrugged dismissively before tilting him farther off axis by settling herself
on the coffee table directly before him, her knees sandwiched between, though not
touching, his. “Here we are, digging through the ghosts of my past and I know very
little about you. Tell me everything about you that I don’t know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Have you been a cop long?”

“Going on thirteen years.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

Her innocent question made him more uncomfortable than he liked. The job was all he
had. It defined him. For thirteen years he’d lived it, breathed it and been happy.
Only recently had he begun to wonder if it was enough. “I’m good at it.”

“Thirteen years, huh? That would make you about thirty-four?”

“Thirty-five,” he corrected.

“Have you ever been engaged?”

“No.”

“Married?”

“No. And before you ask, no, I don’t have any children.” His mouth lifted into a wry
curve. “However, I am about to become a godfather.”

She gave him a bright smile. “Really?”

“Allan and his wife, Suzanne, are expecting their first. They’ve asked me to be the
child’s godfather.”

Her smile grew. Her voice went soft and serious. “You and he are close.”

“Allan’s more than my partner, he’s my family. He’s like a brother to me.”

“How long have you been partnered?”

“Ten years.”

“You don’t have any family?”

“My mother. A few aunts and uncles.”

“But no siblings.”

“No. Maybe that’s part of what brought us so close.”

She gave him an odd little grin. “Sort of an odd pair.”

“Allan and I? Why do you say that?”

“You seem very outgoing and he’s so quiet.”

“He’s got a lot on his mind right now.” Like worrying about his partner’s ability
to do the job he’d only just returned to. “Our caseload is pretty hefty and Suzanne
is having a problem with her blood pressure all of a sudden.”

“Pre-eclampsia?”

“Pre-what?”

“Her blood pressure problems, do they think it’s preeclampsia?”

“I have no idea. The point is, in another couple of weeks, Allan will be back to talking
your ear off.”

“Will I still be around in a few weeks?”

Paige watched as the warmth of his smile chilled by ten degrees. Justin dropped his
stare and curled the fingers of his right hand around his left. “I don’t do relationships,
Paige.”

“You mentioned that before.”

“I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship. Now I’m telling you I’m never looking
for a relationship. I don’t do relationships.”

Feigning indifference, she took a sip of coffee and studied him over the rim. “What’s
there to do? You enjoy someone’s company, spend time with them. Talk.”

Silence locked in.

Just when she thought they were at the end of their conversation, he spoke up. “My
mother is getting married, again.”

The slight emphasis he placed on the word ‘again’ spoke volumes.

“This will make husband number four. It’s been a while for her. My father left us
when I was five. By the time I turned sixteen she was going through her third divorce.”
He wore his cop face—a mask as cool and emotionless as his voice. “I thought she was
through with it, her relentless pursuit of happily-ever-after. You’d think she’d have
figured it out by now.”

“What?”

He sighed and returned his gorgeous brown eyes to hers.