Deathwatch (6 page)

* * *

“Mah,” Murph grunted as he stared at Miss Chirpy's bare feet.
Her toes, tipped with orange polish, looked like ladybugs marching on his dark slate kitchen tile as she walked and talked.

If she didn’t quit, they were going to have to discuss duct tape.
A man needed time to fully wake up before being confronted with that kind of happy-peppy energy.

He tuned her out as he raised his gaze.
Her skirt hid precious little of her long legs.
The way her soft cotton shirt outlined her breasts…okay, that eased his pain a little.

The basic male, caveman-Murph wanted nothing more than to roll back into his bed with her and celebrate his homecoming long and hard.

“
Want chocolate chips in your pancakes?”
She danced by him, smiling like a demented pep-rally queen.
 

Okay, nobody was
that
cheerful.
What was wrong with her?
 

“
No, thanks.”
He couldn’t afford to fall into a sugar coma.
He had a busy day ahead of him—first item on his list being getting her out of his house.
 

He got up with his mug in hand, the Broslin P.D.
logo comfortingly familiar and sane, walked over to the radio and turned it off.
“I thought maybe we could talk.”

She kept the smile on, but she had to work at it.

He refilled his coffee.
“So you waitress at the diner?
Bing mentioned it.”

She nodded as she put strips of bacon into the skillet.
“I’ll make toast.”
She grabbed the bag of bread on the counter and headed for the toaster.

“
What brings you to Broslin?”
 

She dropped the toast in, smacked the lever down, then hurried to the fridge.
“How many eggs?
Scrambled?
Sometimes I make them poached.
It’s no trouble.”

Those little ladybugs were ready to fly away as she zipped around his kitchen.
He sipped his coffee as he watched her, then set his mug down on the butcher-block counter of the kitchen island.
“How about you tell me how much money you paid Doug?
I can refund it.
I’ll even help you pack.
Obviously, now that I’m home, the house is no longer available.”

Her hand jerked as she cracked the egg, spilling some on the side of the bowl.
She kept smiling, but her muscles were tight around her eyes, her shoulders drawn in a defensive pose.

She was acting like a woman scared, and he didn’t think she was scared of him in particular.
At first, yes, but not now.

When she wasn’t putting on the happy-peppy show for him, her sparkling blue eyes turned into sad angel eyes the color of the winter sky.
Her shirt hid most of her scars on her chest and upper arms, but he hadn’t forgotten them from last night.

Her forced smile widened.
“Are you sure there’s no way I could stay?
Doug promised four months.
I still have almost three left.
I was really counting on this.
Mr.
Dolan-”

“
Call me Murph.”
He noted the air of desperation about her.
“I can help you find another place.
Bing owns a couple of rentals.
He’s a friend of mine.
I can call him for you.”
 

“
No!”
She nearly dropped the fork she was using to beat the eggs into oblivion.
“No,” she repeated a shade calmer, caught herself and set down the fork.
“Thanks.”
 

Scared of the police?
He watched her, his curiosity piqued.
Was she running from the law?
Or was she running from someone else?
That dark sedan from last night popped into his mind.

He finished his coffee and set the empty mug in the stainless steel sink next to her.
“What did you say, where did you move here from?”

She turned the bacon in the skillet.
“How many pancakes do you think you’ll eat?”

“
No pancakes.
Bacon and eggs will be fine.”
 

She avoided personal questions—a scared woman with secrets.
He was willing to bet there was a man in the picture somewhere.
He had to be a real gem.

Murph rolled his shoulders.
He had a special contempt for men who would beat up a woman.
He hoped that wasn't her story.

But then what?
As much as he was looking forward to getting her out of his house, he wouldn’t have minded having time to figure out the beautiful puzzle that was Kate Concord.

He could see no sense, however, in being drawn to her.
As willing as his body would be, an affair with a mysterious stranger wasn’t in his immediate plans.
He needed to focus on getting his life back together, and quit wondering about where she’d come from and what made her tick.

“
I’ll go take a shower while you get breakfast ready.”
He walked away from her and could swear he could sense her deflate behind him as the tension left her body.
 

He walked down the hallway that cut the three-bedroom fixer upper in half.
The run-down Victorian was the best he could afford on his cop salary.
He’d planned on renovating it little by little, had finished the most important parts, but then he’d gotten called up to active duty.

Right now the only working shower in the semi-renovated house was in the master bath, which was only accessible through the master bedroom.
The house was only half livable.

Nobody in their right mind would rent a place like this.
Nobody, unless they were desperate.
 

He opened his closet and stared at Kate’s skimpy selection of women’s clothing before he remembered where his clothes were now.
He plodded back down the hallway to the basement door.
He was going to have to have a talk with his little brother and soon.

The key was, predictably, on the top of the door frame.
He shook his head as he turned on the light and drummed down the steps, then took in the haphazard pile of his belongings.
The boxes had seen better days.
Looked like Doug had rescued them from the liquor store dumpster.

Murph grabbed the nearest box, the side advertising cheap whiskey, and found a jumble of underwear.
Okay, that could come in handy.
He set the box on the bottom stair, then kept looking until he found his T-shirts, and finally his jeans.
Enough for now.
He carried the boxes up with him.

He took a quick shower, with soap that smelled like roses, and found one of his own gray towels in the back of the linen closet so he didn’t have to borrow any of hers.
She didn't have that many either, only three.

The glass shelf under the mirror wasn’t filled with tubs of creams.
She had a small bottle of body lotion, a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste and not much beyond that.
Like her clothes, her toiletries were sparse and nothing fancy, nothing that couldn’t be tossed into a suitcase at a moment’s notice, he noted.

By the time he ambled back into the kitchen, wondering about her story, his breakfast was waiting.

She refilled his juice.
“Hey, ready to eat?”

The mouth-watering aromas of bacon and fresh coffee floated on the air, the room bathed in the warm glow of the overhead lights, definitely a contrast to the gray winter morning outside.
Kate stood in the middle of it all, smiling.

Some unnamed emotion hit him in the chest, and he stared for a second.
It was
The Dream
, wasn’t it?
Most of them lonely bastards in the army wanted to come home to something like this: a beautiful woman in the kitchen cooking food for you with a smile on her face.
 

Except none of this was real.
She wasn’t here for
him
.
And she wouldn’t stay.
He had no idea why that thought suddenly made him feel grumpy.
 

He frowned as he strode to his chair.
“Thank you, Kate.”

“
No problem.
I hope you’ll like it.”
She hovered in the kitchen.
 

“
Aren’t you going to eat?”
 

“
I’ll have something at work.”
She wrung her hands then caught herself, dropped them at her side and forced another chirpy smile.
“If you could stay with your brother—”
 

“
That’s not an option,” he cut her off before she could run too far with that fantasy.
Doug’s wife, Felicia, wasn’t a fan of visiting relatives.
She wasn’t a fan of Doug, either, really.
Doug crashed on the living room couch here pretty frequently.
 

Kate glanced at the clock on the microwave.
“I have to leave for work.
Maybe we can talk when I come home later?”

Stalling once again.
Maybe she thought she could drag it out and make him put off the decision long enough for her to stay out her lease.

“
You’re going to tell me what you’re so scared of?”
 

Her shoulders immediately snapped straight, a tough-chick expression coming over her face—incredibly sexy, even if she was faking it.
Or maybe because of that.
He found the contrast in her, between the woman she really was and who she wanted him to think she was, intriguing.

Her chin came up.
“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“
Which is why you sleep with a loaded gun.”
 

“
It’s not much use unloaded.”
 

Okay, he had to give her that.
“
If you’re in trouble, maybe I could help.”
 

“
Because you’re a cop?”
Her tone turned derisive.
 

“
That and other reasons.”
 

“
No thanks.
I’m a small town waitress who’s renting your house.
End of story.
If you’re looking for intrigue, go back to work.”
 

All right, so she put him in his place.
Fine, rescuing damsels in distress wasn’t in his short-term plans anyway.
For all he knew, she was a bank robber on the lam.
That brought a few interesting thoughts.
He cut them off as she walked away from him.

He didn’t want to be intrigued by her, dammit.
He’d come home for peace and quiet.
But while he sipped his coffee and looked through the steam, he had a strong premonition that ship had already sailed, been set on fire by pirates and sunk into the sea.

* * *

Kate dragged on socks and her white work sneakers, shrugged into her coat then grabbed her purse on her way out.
Gaining time was good.
The two of them having a talk this afternoon was better than him putting her stuff out on the front porch right now.
She could think while she was at work today, come up with a winning strategy.

She was safe here, in Broslin, for the moment.
She needed to stay put until she found the next safe place.

“
Don’t worry about the dishes,” she called back from the door.
“I’ll take care of that when I get back.
Have a great day!”
 

She wanted, desperately, for him to like her enough to let her keep the lease.

She pulled her twelve-year-old green Chevy out of the double garage and drove away, so busy worrying about Murph, plus looking for chocolate in her coat pocket, that she didn’t notice the man in the dark sedan parked farther down the street.