Up In Flames (19 page)

Mick shook his head. “I can’t wait that long.” He flexed his right arm, winced, and added, “I don’t like being less than a hundred percent.”

He started out of the room and she scurried after him. He detoured into the bathroom, so she had to pull back. Damn, he shouldn’t be pushing himself. But how could she stop him? He far outweighed her and had double the stubbornness she possessed.

She waited in the hallway until she heard the bathwater start. She called through the door, “Mick?”

The door opened and he snagged her, pulling her inside. He looped his left arm around her waist, kissed her pursed mouth and said, “You soak while I get coffee. I’ll shower when you’re done.”

“You’re supposed to be resting!” she said, trying for a stern expression.

“Making coffee won’t tax my meager strength, I promise.” He kissed her nose and swatted her on the behind left-handed. “Now, soak.”

“Take your medicine!” she yelled to his back.

She was submerged in the hot water, letting it ease her aches and pains, when Mick came in carrying two mugs of steaming coffee. To her disappointment, he’d pulled on jeans, and she frowned at him. “No fair me being naked and you being dressed.”

He handed her a cup of coffee. “It’s the only way I can guarantee we’ll make it out of here today.” He grinned and added, “Otherwise I’m likely to join you in the tub. You’re a helluva temptation.”

She ignored his outrageous compliment and sipped—and moaned with pure, unadulterated pleasure. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Just what I wanted to hear. I’ll take over all the coffee duties.”

“You could just show me how to do it.”

“I’m not quite that trusting.”

Wondering just how trusting he might be, she splashed him. “So you’re saying you don’t like my coffee, either?”

“I had a hairless chest before drinking it.”

Del tried to feign insult, but she ended up laughing instead. “Okay, so I made it stronger for you. I thought all men wanted their coffee strong and black.”

He nodded. “So you know a lot of men with iron stomachs, impervious to the cold, fearless and reckless and invincible?”

“No, but that’s how I write them,” she teased.

Sounding far too serious, he asked, “Is that the kind of man you were looking for?”

Del considered getting serious, too. She considered telling him he was exactly what she’d been looking for, even though she hadn’t realized it until she met him. Instead, she shook her head. “I know the difference between reality and fiction, but I don’t have much experience with men’s preferences. And for the record, I wasn’t looking. I didn’t really think there was room in my life for a man, not since I’ve kinda thrown myself into my writing.”

Mick put the toilet lid down and sat. “You really enjoy writing, don’t you?”

Her need to write wasn’t always a pleasant one. “I suppose it’s a love-hate relationship. I feel the craving to write almost all the time. Sometimes it’s inconvenient. People think I’m dumb because I plot a lot. They consider it daydreaming, and write me off as being too fanciful. But I doubt I’d feel like me if I wasn’t writing.”

She hesitated, then tilted her head to look at him. “I hope you can understand. There’ll be a lot of times when I’m trying to listen, but my mind will go off track. And I get up a lot at night to write. It seems like as soon as I try to sleep, my brain starts churning and I just can’t shut down.”

“I’ll persevere.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m not aware of you. It doesn’t mean you’re not important.”

“I understand.”

His acceptance was just a tad too quick, making her suspicious. “Do you? Not many guys I’ve dated have.”

He gave her a measuring look, then asked, “Have you dated many?”

“Sure. In my younger days, when I was curious about things.”

“Things?”

She grinned. “Sexual things, though the sex was never enough to keep me...engaged for long. I outgrew my curiosity and my fascination with men. These days, writing is more interesting, and more important than any guy—especially when I have a deadline, which I almost always do.” She thought about that, and added softly, “Of course, those guys weren’t as important as you.”

Mick looked down at his coffee cup for a long moment. “Because I protected you?”

“Partly,” she agreed. “No one has ever tried to protect me before. You blew me away, putting yourself in line for a bullet.”

“What about your folks? Surely they’re protective.”

“I guess.” She idly soaped her arm, thinking about her family. “They’re wonderful, and they love me, but with two older, more serious brothers, I’m kind of the odd duck.”

Mick didn’t say anything to that, just continued to encourage her with his silent attention.

“You can imagine how they all reacted when I told them I wanted to be a writer.” She laughed, remembering. “They told me to get serious, and when they saw that I
was
serious, they worried. Especially whenever I did research. Now, though, they’re really pretty proud.”

“Are you close with them?”

“Oh, sure. And my brothers are great. They’re both married and have kids and houses. They still worry on occasion, but meeting you would probably fix that.”

Mick went still. “Did you want me to meet them?”

She’d rushed things, she realized, and said, “Not yet.”

He frowned. “You said I’m different than the other guys you dated.”

“Well...yeah. I never invited any of them to move in with me.”

“How am I different?”

She shook her head, lost to rational explanations when it came to her response to him. “I don’t know. Everything just feels different with you, sort of sharper edged. Better. I hope that doesn’t alarm you. I mean, I won’t start pushing for more.”

Mick set his coffee aside and stripped off his jeans. “What if I push for more?”

Del felt her mouth fall open as he stepped into the tub behind her, forcing her to move up while the water sloshed inside the tub and over the sides. His hairy legs went around her, and he tugged her back into his chest. Against her ear, he whispered, “Delilah?”

“Then...” She swallowed, trying to get her thoughts collected. “Then I guess we’ll just take it one step at a time.”

He cupped his hand and poured water over her breasts. “Are you still sore?”

Her heart swelled and her stomach curled in anticipation. She leaned back, closed her eyes and whispered breathlessly, “No.”

CHAPTER NINE

They settled into a nice routine. Mick didn’t want Delilah in his house, where she might see evidence of him being a cop, so he had Josh and Zack alternately bring him more clothes as he needed them. Now her closet was filled with his things.

A dozen times he thought of telling her the truth, of explaining why he’d started the deception in the first place. But he’d only known her a little over a week, and working undercover made him more cautious than not.

Their relationship grew every day. He’d have a chance to tell her everything eventually.

Meeting with his sergeant had been difficult. Mick had set it up so that Angel and Dane would be visiting when Josh came by. They drove out for pickup pizza, and Mick slipped away to meet with the sergeant. He got a new gun, which he hid away, and an update on the robbery—which wasn’t promising, since they hadn’t discovered anything new.

He’d eventually have to see the shrink, as policy dictated anytime a shooting occurred. But under the circumstances, the sergeant was willing to give him more time for that.

Though he could have driven himself, Mick claimed soreness to keep Delilah with him when he went to physical therapy. She took her laptop and wrote in the waiting room while he went through a series of increasingly difficult exercises meant to bring him back to full strength. It was slow going, and frustrating, to say the least, but he knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he could make love to her as he wanted to, without concern for his injury.

Often he woke at night to an empty bed, and he’d hear her in the other room, tapping away at her keyboard. Rather than go back to sleep, he usually waited for her, and they’d make love when she crawled back in beside him.

Her unusual routine suited him just fine.

There didn’t seem to be any dwindling of the devastating chemistry between them, but little by little they were both less alarmed by it, and now they wallowed in the near-violent sensations. Delilah proved inventive and curious, and she had no shyness with his body, taking everything she wanted and giving back as much in return.

Ten days had passed before his sergeant called and told him Rudy Glasgow was finally awake and coherent and ready to talk. But strangely enough, he only wanted to talk to Mick. He’d actually awakened from his coma a few days earlier, but had remained stubbornly silent and still too weak to leave the hospital. There’d been no sign of the other men, but Mick wasn’t giving up, and neither was the police department.

His sergeant told him to give Detective Faradon, the lead investigator for the case, a call. Mick peeked in at Delilah, saw she was totally engrossed in her story, and punched in the numbers.

He spoke briefly with Faradon before requesting that the detective use Delilah’s number only for emergencies. “Anytime you need to get in touch with me, just call my place and leave a message. I’ll check the calls often.”

“Running a secret life?” Faradon asked.

Mick ground his teeth together. He didn’t want Faradon to know that he was still keeping secrets from Delilah. “I don’t want her to overhear anything,” he said as an excuse. “It could taint the case if she learned of anything important.”

“Just telling you is risky,” Faradon agreed. “We’re only keeping you informed because you were shot, which makes you damned involved, from where I sit.”

“Thanks.” Mick rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m glad you understand. So, you got a pen handy?” He recited his home number to Faradon, then they briefly discussed the condition of the man in the hospital before hanging up.

Now all Mick needed was an excuse to get away from Delilah. He didn’t want her to know that he’d be talking with Rudy Glasgow, yet he’d made such an issue of going nowhere without her, she was bound to be suspicious if he tried to leave on his own now.

As usual, she sat at her computer working when he finished making lunch and approached her. She was nearing the end of the book, and according to her, that’s when she got most involved with the story. She had to tie up loose ends and wrap up the novel with a punch. Mick considered the way her mind worked, conjuring up so many twisted mysteries, and he shook his head. “Hungry?”

Glancing up, she asked, “Who was on the phone?”

Mick stalled, then said, “Just a friend.”

“Josh? Zack?”

He hated lying to her, and often he didn’t even need to. She hesitated to pry, so if he just shook his head, she’d let it go at that. Sometimes it seemed to him that Delilah went out of her way to give him his privacy, to not push. That bugged him, since it took all his concentration to keep from pushing her. She came to him willingly, accepted him in all ways, but there were still pieces of her that remained hidden. It made him nuts.

Instead of answering her specific question, he asked, “What do you have planned today?”

She accepted the sandwich he handed her and took a healthy bite while shrugging. “Writing. More writing. I hope to finish this weekend. Why? Did you need me to take you somewhere?”

It amused Mick to see how she dug into her sandwich. Sometimes when she wrote she forgot everything else, including food. When her hands began to shake, then she’d remember and grab a bite to eat.

Other times she did nothing but eat while writing. She kept a variety of snacks in her desk drawer—white-chocolate pretzels, caramels, peanuts, chips. She shoveled food away like a linebacker, yet she stayed so slim, even delicate. Her metabolism astounded him.

Settling his hip on the edge of her desk, Mick shook his head. “No, I don’t want to interrupt you today. Looks like it’s going well.”

“It is. I’ve thought about this scene for ages. It’s a fun one to write. Really gruesome.”

He laughed at that. “Then you stay home and finish up, but I do need to go out for just a little while.”

“Without me?”

“Unheard of, I know, especially with how I’ve depended on you.” He studied her face, seeing the hurt and something more. “You don’t really mind, do you?”

She hedged, saying, “Why do you need to go out?”

Going with a sudden inspiration, he touched the end of her nose and smiled. “It’s a surprise.”

She flopped back in her seat and gave him a mock frown. “Not fair. What kind of surprise?”

“Now if I told you that, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?”

She hesitated, fiddling with the crust on her sandwich. “You don’t need to buy me things, you know.”

He nodded gravely, playfully matching her mood. “I know.”

She didn’t look appeased by his response. “You sure you’re okay to be on your own?”

“I’m a big boy, Delilah.”

“Ha! Don’t I know it.” Her lecherous grin had him laughing again.

Damn, how he loved her shifting moods, how he loved...

Oh no.
He pulled up short on his wayward thoughts, frowning at himself for letting such a deep insinuation intrude. He’d known her all of ten days—if he disregarded the two weeks prior to their formal meeting. He cared about her, more so every hour. No denying that. And he was drawn to her on the most elemental levels.

But it was far too soon to be thinking beyond that. Far, far too soon.

She mistook his frown and sighed. “Okay, I won’t play mother hen, but please don’t overdo it. It hasn’t even been two weeks since you were shot.”

Glad of the misunderstanding, he nodded. “Cross my heart.”

Mick was ready to leave ten minutes later. He reminded Delilah to keep her door locked and not to let anyone in when he wasn’t there. She was still skeptical about any personal threat, but she placated him by agreeing. She had few visitors, other than his friends, but she received mail from her publisher and agent regularly. She promised Mick she would be extra careful, and he finally left.

He was anxious to get some answers, anxious to face the man who’d put a bullet in his back.

The man who’d tried to kill Delilah.

The thought burned Mick, put a fire in his gut and a vibrating tension in his muscles. His sergeant had warned him not to overstep himself, to keep his cool, and Mick had agreed, even knowing it wouldn’t be easy. The case was out of his hands, turned over to Homicide, and they could have refused to keep him involved. But they’d agreed to let him in to talk to Rudy Glasgow, in hopes he’d be able to get additional information.

Knowing Delilah would stay in her apartment alone all day made it easier to be away from her. She’d said she intended to write, and Mick believed her. Once she got involved with her stories, not much, including him, could pull her away.

He found her intensity rather endearing.

An around-the-clock watch had been placed on Rudy’s room, even while he’d been unconscious. As Mick approached, the present guard came to his feet and set his magazine aside. Glancing down, Mick saw it was a periodical on martial arts. He smiled.

“Dawson, with City Vice.” Mick held out his credentials for the guard to verify.

He nodded. “I was told to expect you.”

“Has anyone else been in to see him? Has he talked to anyone else?”

The young officer rubbed the back of his neck. “Far as I know, he made a call to his lawyer and told the lead investigator that he’d speak with you. That’s it.”

“He called a lawyer?”

“Almost first thing after waking up. I heard he was real insistent about it.”

Mick supposed that with an attempted-murder charge on Glasgow’s head, getting a lawyer would be a huge consideration. “He’s doing okay now? They expect a full recovery?”

“Yeah. He’s a bit weak and shaky yet, and his leg is still healing, so they’re planning to keep him another day or so, but then they’ll ship him out.” The guard grunted. “If you ask me, he’s ready to go now, just dragging it out for the sake of a cushy bed.”

Mick didn’t doubt the probability of that. He pulled the door open.

The room was similar to the one he’d stayed in, only the shades were tightly drawn to keep it dim, and the TV played loudly. Mick took it all in with a single glance, then lounged against the wall. “You wanted to see me, Glasgow?”

Rudy Glasgow glanced over at him. His face was pale, his eyes shadowed, testimony to his physical state. It didn’t move Mick one bit.

Rudy studied Mick for a long minute before grinning and motioning him closer. “I won’t bite. Hell, even if I did, I doubt you’d feel it, I’m so damn weak.”

Mick refused to respond to that prompt. He went straight to the matter most important to him. “Why’d you try to shoot her, Glasgow?”

He had to shout to be heard over the television, and it annoyed him. Rudy had soft sheets under him, plump pillows behind his head, a mostly eaten meal still on the tray beside his bed. Except for his elevated leg, wrapped in gauze where the bullet had struck, and the guard outside his door, he seemed to be pampered.

It grated that a criminal—an attempted murderer—should be treated so gently.

With a long, lethal look, Rudy said, “That bullet may have crippled me for life.”

Mick bared his teeth. “No shit? That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

“Screw you,” Rudy suddenly said, lifting himself forward in a surge of anger. He kept his tone low, his voice a growl barely audible over the sound of the TV. His right hand twisted the sheet at his side.

Mick raised a brow, glad to see he’d riled the man. In his experience, information was always more forthcoming when your adversary was upset.

The information he got wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting.

Slowly, by tiny degrees, Rudy’s hand opened and he rested back on his pillows. He breathed deeply, as if that small fit of temper had taxed him, then a sardonic light entered his tired eyes and he actually chuckled. “But then,” he said, “she’s already doing that, isn’t she?”

“Doing what?”

“Screwing you.” He laughed again.

Feigning ignorance, Mick asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

His laugh was bitter and mean. “That double-crossing bitch you protected. Oh, she covered her ass real good, I’ll give her that.”

Impatient, Mick barked, “Turn that damn television down. I can barely hear you.”

“You heard me just fine, but I’ll keep the set on so no one else hears. This conversation is between me and you. What you do with it after that is your own business.”

“You planning on telling me something important, is that it?”

“Damn right. You,” Rudy rasped, and thrust a finger at Mick, “are making cozy with an accomplice.”

“Is that so?” Mick forced himself to speak casually, though a tightness invaded his chest. “And who would it be?”

“The woman you protected!”

“The woman
you
tried to kill?”

“She had it coming!”

Finally, Mick thought, finally he’d get some answers. He summoned a pose of boredom, when inside he seethed with anticipation—and something else, something damn close to dread. He blocked it;
he had to know.
“How do you figure that?”

“Because she was in on the robbery.”

Mick laughed, though he didn’t feel even an ounce of humor.

Rudy seemed beside himself. “Why the hell else did you think she was there?”

Mick stayed silent, not about to encourage him.

The man smirked. “My lawyer has been in contact with her, you know. He told me that she’s got you moved in and under her spell. She even bragged to him that you wouldn’t prosecute her, not while she’s keeping you happy in bed.”

“You expect me to believe this?” Mick knew Delilah hadn’t talked to any lawyers. He’d been with her twenty-four-seven. Protecting her, he thought... No, he wouldn’t let doubts intrude because of this scum! Delilah was an open, trusting woman. A gentle woman.

Who drove her car into rivers and learned how to hot-wire cars. A woman who kept company with criminals...

Mick shook his head. He knew every damn call she’d gotten. From her agent, her editor... But then, he’d just taken her word on that, when the strangers had called and she’d excused herself for a private conversation.

“You know she’s a damn publicity hound,” Rudy continued. “Don’t you read at all? This is her biggest stunt yet, though we sure as hell didn’t know about her twisted ending until we heard the cops coming. Then we realized she’d tipped them off. There was no other way they could have known we’d be there.”