Careless (6 page)

Tori rolled her eyes. “They’re just fans,
Lieutenant. They’re harmless.”

He smiled in spite of the warning bells
going off in his head that told him to hold on to the anger and frustration
that had been helping him keep his distance from her for the past two years.
There had been dozens of times when he knew she was in town, he’d had a few too
many beers with the boys, and he’d been tempted to pick up the phone and ask
her how the hell she’d been able to walk out on him without thinking twice. He
wanted to know if she ever thought about him when she was winding down from a
crazy day, alone, in her bed, in the dark...

She snapped her fingers in front of his
face. “Hello? You still here?”

“Yeah, I was just...”
Fantasizing about
having you back in my bed.  
“Thinking about our best course of action.”

“I don’t know about you, but I do my best
thinkin’ with a stiff drink in my hand.”

 Tori was unlike any woman he’d ever met.
She didn’t try to be someone she wasn’t because she seemed genuinely satisfied
with who she was. And he couldn’t deny that confidence was sexy as hell.

Mike raised his hand to beckon the
waitress. He wasn’t surprised when she was at their table, pen poised above her
notepad, in record time. Tori was a V.I.P, and he was certain she got
preferential treatment wherever she went.   

She smiled up at the waitress. “Hey, hon.
Busy night?”

The poor waitress’s mouth dropped open as
she struggled to string a complete sentence together. “I… uh... yeah... I
guess.”

“I know what that’s like. I was a waitress
at a burger joint in high school. It was always rockin’ on Friday and Saturday
nights. I’d go home whinin’ about my poor achin’ feet, but of course I didn’t
get any sympathy, just a list of the chores that still had to be done.”

The pretty brunette smiled as she tucked a
strand of hair behind her ear. “Man, do I know what that’s like. I’m a single
mom, and it seems the list of things to do is never-ending. Between laundry,
grocery shopping, ballet...” She blushed when she realized she was rambling on
to a superstar who probably earned more in the time she’d spent bending her ear
than a waitress like her would earn all week.

Tori propped her chin in her hand, as
though she had all the time in the world to listen to this stranger’s life
story. “How many kids you got?”

“Two, a boy and a girl. He’s ten, she’s
twelve.”

“What’re they up to this summer?”

“A whole lotta no good if I believe
everything the neighbors tell me.”

Tori laughed. “Sounds like me and my
brothers when we were kids. Don’t worry, they’ll outgrow it.”

She blew her long bangs out of her big,
brown eyes. “I sure hope so.”

“They like country music?”

“Sure.”

Tori reached into her pocket for a piece of
scrap paper. “Can I borrow your pen?”

“Sure.” The waitress shot Mike a quick
sidelong glance, as though she thought he might be able to give her some insight
into what Tori was up to, but he was as clueless as she was.  

“Here’s my email. Send me your contact
info. I’ll make sure you get tickets and backstage passes for you and your kids
to our hometown show.” She handed the woman the pen and slip of paper, almost
thrusting it into her hands when she seemed too stunned to accept it.

“Oh my God, thank you so much. My kids are going
to die when I tell them about this.”

“My pleasure.” She looked at Mike, as
though she’d almost forgotten he was there. “What are you gonna have to drink?”

He was almost as speechless as the
waitress. Not only was she gorgeous, sexy, smart, and incredible in bed, but
he’d just found out she was a really
good
person. For the first time, he
felt like he was in over his head. “Just a Coke.”

Tori shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She looked
at the waitress. “One spicy Caesar, one Coke, and I’d just about kill for a
bowl of those barbeque peanuts.”

The waitress giggled. “Comin’ right up,
Tori. And thanks again...” She touched her arm as she looked into her eyes.
“Seriously, it means a lot.”

“My pleasure.”

Mike waited until the waitress walked away
before he asked, “Why’d you do that?”

“Because I can.” She propped her feet up on
the chair next to him before she said, “Listen, I’ve been so damn lucky in my
life, it oughta be a sin.”

“I think talent and hard work had somethin’
to do with it.”

“Sure, it did, but the talent was
God-given. I had nothin’ to do with that.”

Mike almost wished she would stop talking,
because with every word she spoke, he was starting to like her more and more.
He didn’t want to like her. He wanted to despise her, resent her...

“Sure, I’ve worked hard to get where I am,
but we all have. There isn’t a person in the music business who hasn’t paid
their dues. If you wanna know the truth, I kinda feel like I snuck in the back
door.”

Mike was sure some of her fellow musicians
would probably agree with that statement, but he knew she’d taken the
opportunity she’d been given and run with it. He respected that, and her. More
than he should.

He looked into her eyes and felt the past
come flooding back... images of her tongue dancing with his, her body writhing
under him, his name on her lips. Damn, he had to get his head back in the game.

The waitress returned with their order,
setting the glasses on the table between them. “Can I get you anything else?”

Tori glanced at the nametag pinned to the
front of her white cotton blouse. “No, we’re good. Thanks, Debbie.”

“Okay, just holler if you need anything.”

Tori popped a peanut in her mouth. “You
know I will.”

Mike couldn’t fight the urge to say
something to her about the night he kicked her out of his apartment. “Listen, I
think we should talk about what happened between us.”

She was taking a sip of her drink when he
made the comment, and she had to cover her mouth to keep from spewing liquid
across the table. “Hon, I’d say you’re a day late and a dollar short.”

He shouldn’t care that she was telling him it
was too late for them, too late to make amends for the mistake he’d made back
then, but he did care. “I just think it would make it easier for us to work
together if we put our cards on the table.”

“You want me to tell it like it is?” She
laced her fingers behind her head and glared at him. “Fine. I don’t like you. I
don’t respect you. And I sure as hell don’t wanna work with you, but Luc told
me I don’t have a choice. So, here I am, tryin’ like hell to make the best of a
bad situation.”

He hated that she had the power to hurt him
with a few well-aimed insults. No one had ever been able to cut him down so
effectively with so few words. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Tori.”

She smirked. “Don’t tell me you wanna be
friends
?”
She reached her hand across the table as she tried to keep a straight face.
“Come on, take my hand. Isn’t this the part where we start singin’ ‘Cumbaya’?”

He wanted to reach across the table and
kiss that smug smirk right off her face, but instead he whipped his leather-bound
notebook out and glared at her. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“Finally.”

Tori was trying hard to act as though she
didn’t have a care in the world, but with an international tour looming, a
madman out to get her, and an ex-lover glowering at her, it wasn’t easy to
maintain the façade.

She took a sip of her drink before asking,
“What do you need to know?”

“My dad tells me this guy has been sending
you letters?”

“Yeah.” She tried not to think about the
most recent one. They seemed to get more graphic and disgusting with every
passing day.

He scribbled something in his notebook.
“How often are you receiving them?”

“Daily.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “When did this
start?”

“About three weeks ago.” Tori took another
sip of the alcohol to coat her dry throat. She could only imagine how he made
his suspects feel during an interrogation. She was the victim in this case and
still he made her feel like she’d done something wrong.

“The police have been investigating?”

“I guess so. Luc tried to use his influence
to get them to step up the investigation, but Derek told them he didn’t have
the resources to put another man on it.” She shrugged. “That’s when Luc decided
to hire you.”

Mike frowned. “I’m surprised it wasn’t
given higher priority. Derek knows you, he likes you, and the department sure
as hell wouldn’t want to deal with the backlash if something happened to you on
their watch.”

Tori took a bite of celery and chewed
before responding. “To tell you the truth, I got the impression Derek thought
we were all overreacting.”

“Why would he think that?”

There was no way to sugarcoat the situation,
and she knew he would find out the dirty details sooner or later, so she might
as well come clean now. “I think he just assumes it’s a jilted lover tryin’ to scare
me.” She took another bite of celery, trying to buy a little more time. “He’s
probably right.”

“According to my father, this guy mentioned
a tattoo...” He gripped his black Waterman pen tighter. “In an intimate place?”

She tried to look into his eyes, to pretend
his inquisition wasn’t rattling her, but she couldn’t. “Only someone who’d seen
me in the buff would know about that tattoo.”

He leaned forward, his light blue eyes
darkening with indiscernible emotion. “I trust you didn’t have it when we were
together
?”

He made the last word sound like an erotic
caress and she had to resist the urge to squirm in her seat. “No, I got it a
couple of weeks later.”

She’d had a few too many drinks and she was
still reeling from their one-night stand when she and her girlfriends went out
and tied one on. One thing led to another, and she spilled her guts to them
about her night with the sexy lieutenant. When she woke up the next morning
with the brand, she was mortified, but she didn’t have the nerve to eradicate
the mistake, so she simply learned to live with it, hoping her future lovers
wouldn’t question her about the ink decorating her body.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“No!” She would die of embarrassment if he
ever saw what he’d driven her to in a moment of weakness.

“Fine... moving on. I’ll need to see these
letters.”

If there was any way she could have denied
his request, she would have, but she knew the letters were an integral part of
this case, and she just wanted this nightmare to be over. “Fine, but they’re at
my place. I can have them to you tomorrow.”

“I’d rather get them tonight. The sooner I
can get started on this, the better.”

She scowled. “Don’t you sleep? Are you
gonna stay up workin’ on this all night?”

“If I have to.” He brought the soft drink
to his lips. “I take my job very seriously, Tori. Whatever I have to do to
apprehend a suspect, I do it. If it means workin’ around the clock, sacrificin’
sleep, food, sex... that’s what I do.”

She knew he threw the last part in just to
taunt her, but she wasn’t used to letting anyone one-up her, so she said, “I
seem to recall you let your phone go to voice mail the night you were
entertainin’ me. Weren’t you workin’ on any important cases back then?”

He gripped his glass tighter. “Yeah, I
was.” His eyes fell to the cleavage spilling out of her denim dress. “But I
couldn’t seem to tear myself away from you.”

It seemed her plan was backfiring when her
mouth and brain reached an impasse. “I… uh...”

Mike grinned when he knew he had her.
“What’s wrong, baby? You don’t want to remember, or you can’t seem to forget?”

She hated him for being so smug and so
intuitive. “You’re crazy. I’ve barely had time to give you a second thought
since that night.”

He threw his head back and laughed.
“Darlin’, you forget I read people for a livin’, and you’re a terrible liar.”

She knew he was right, she couldn’t tell a
decent lie if her life depended on it. “Think what you want. It makes no
difference to me.” She sipped her drink, wishing he’d stop looking at her like
he was uncovering a salacious secret he couldn’t wait to share. “Why the hell
are you lookin’ at me like that?”

“Just tryin’ to figure you out.”

“Well, quit it. You’re pissin’ me off.”

He stroked the dark stubble covering his
jaw as he regarded her carefully. “Kinda makes me wonder what you’re tryin’ to
hide.”

“I’m not hidin’ anything, so just back the
hell off.” The only thing she was trying desperately to conceal was the fact he
still had the ability to turn her inside out with little more than a lingering
glance.

“Let’s get one thing straight, darlin’. If
we’re gonna be workin’ together, you need to understand I’m the one callin’ the
shots, not you. Understand?”