Force of Attraction (6 page)

“Tell me more about it. Maybe you can make me believe it's a good idea.”

Actually, what she was about to say was guaranteed to do the opposite. Time to confess. “Scott called me.”

Becca's final forkful of salad paused halfway to her mouth. “What? When?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“Three weeks…” Becca stared at her so long Cole began to feel a blush creep up her neck. “Your anniversary. That's the day he called?” Becca dropped her fork back into her plate. “What did he say?”

“He said wrong number and hung up.”

“The bastard!” Becca's usually mellow voice lost all tone. “I can't believe even he has the nerve…”

“Isn't it my place to be the one upset?”

On a roll, Becca didn't pause. “… after all you tried to do for him, defended him against the family, and his family, and everything. For him to betray…”

Her sister sputtered to a stop as Cole's gaze narrowed. “Right. We can't talk here.” Becca glanced around to signal for the check.

A few minutes later, they were walking toward the park where Becca had scheduled a mid-afternoon dog obedience class.

“So what, exactly, is going on? Why did you wait to tell me about Scott's call?” Becca's head turned back toward Cole. “DEA task force. Hah! There's more to it than you're telling me.”

No moss growing on her sister. “When I went in for the initial interview Scott showed up. He's part of the team.”

“He's what?” Becca paused momentarily on the sidewalk, uncaring that they upset the park traffic of strollers, runners, and lunch-hour walkers. “Scott calls you out of the blue and then just happens to be part of this DEA business? That's just a little too convenient. He's up to something. This is a trick.”

They were so in tune it was scary.

“It's what I thought at first. But my sergeant got a visit this morning from a DEA representative. It's been cleared through my department for me to go. I have this lunch hour to think it over and say yes or no.”

“Say no.”

“As my big sister, you're supposed to tell me that I shouldn't let a great job opportunity slip through my fingers just because there's a bump in the road.”

“Bump? Scott Lucca is an axle-busting deal breaker. The last time you saw him, he was screwing another woman.”

Cole winced.

“Okay. You're right. I'm sorry. Picking a scab.” Becca embraced her sister's waist and leaned her head against Cole's as they continued walking. “I saw what Scott did to you. You fell so hard, when you landed there were scarcely enough pieces left to collect to put you back together. I'll never forgive him for that.”

“It wasn't all Scott's fault.”

“No. You should have known better than to get involved. He had bad-to-the-bone written all over him.”

“Then why did you point him out that night?”

“Come on, Cole. It was a game. Find a hot guy. Turn him on. Then turn him loose. You were supposed to know better than to take it seriously.”

Cole looked out across the park. Is that what she had done? Taken the game with a sexy stranger too seriously?

Truth or Dare on a girls' weekend. After dinner they decided to move out of their comfort zones and find a bar that didn't cater to middle-class twenty-somethings. They found one on the outskirts of D.C. Another round of drinks, and the game was on.

“Him.” Her sister and three girlfriends had pushed her out of the booth. “We dare you to kiss that guy.”

Cole had noticed him even before her sister pointed him out. He was hard to miss, even in a room full of men. Even from the back. He wore a leather jacket with a lot of miles on it and jeans that hugged his hips and thighs like they were happy just to be along for the ride. And then he turned around.

He was gorgeous; hard-eyed, hard-bodied, and so laid back it seemed as if he didn't care if the world kept on spinning or not. Thick black hair with a tendency to wave, light eyes. He didn't show any emotion, just went very still as their gazes met.

Maybe it was the adrenaline rush of the dare. Maybe it was what she'd been drinking. Or maybe it was just lust. She wanted him with an awful urgency that felt truer than any sexual craving she'd ever had before. Like steel to a magnet, the force of attraction was undeniable.

It was as if she'd been waiting all her life for this moment, even if it was a total lie and he probably was everything he seemed, bad-news-dangerous, and then some. But she was just drunk enough to want to find out. She had reached up on tiptoe and kissed him.

A few more kisses and a couple of slow turns on the tiny space that served as a makeshift dance floor, and she'd left with him. She never looked back.

“Earth to Cole.”

Cole glanced up.

“Where did you go?” Becca had her serious face on. “And why are you blushing? “Oh. My. God. You still have a thing for the bastard. You're thinking that if you spent time together you might patch things up? You're an idiot!”

Several nearby park visitors glanced their way.

“Uniform, Becca.” Cole said the words quietly.

Becca's turn to blush. “I'm sorry. I forgot. Respect for the badge.”

She turned to the people looking their way. “She's my sister. We fight. Get over it.” She looked back at Cole. “Better?”

Cole pulled her sister to a nearby bench and made her sit. “I know this won't make any sense to you but I need something from Scott. Maybe just to hear his side of the story of what went wrong.”

“How can there be another side to what you saw with your own two eyes?”

“I don't know.” Cole closed her eyes for a moment. “But I never heard what he had to say. I ran away.”

Becca stared at her for a long time then nodded slowly. “You need closure.”

“I hate that expression. But, yeah, I guess that's what it is.” Cole took a deep breath. “It's been two years. I have to do something. You, more than anyone, know I haven't been able to move on.”

Becca brushed a stray hair from her sister's cheek. “Promise me you won't let him hurt you again.”

“I'm armed, Becca.” She grinned as her sister eyed with alarm the pistol she wore. “That's not what I meant. I have Hugo.”

Becca smiled. “How is that bruiser of yours?”

“At home alone, probably ready to chew my upholstery. He hates days when I'm called in for desk duty.”

They rose and hugged. “You be careful. And tell your ex if he so much as makes you tear up, he'll have to deal with your newly edgy hormonal big sister.”

Cole laughed and hugged her sister. “Love you, too.”

As she walked back to her cruiser, Cole realized the decision was made. She was going to do this.

She had made only one other rash decision in her life, and it had cost her, emotionally, everything she had. At least this time, she knew what to expect.

Trouble.

As she slid behind the wheel her cell phone beeped with a text.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Cole laughed. Becca could so read her mind.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Scott pulled into the driveway of a modest-sized two-story Colonial house on Eastern Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There were no other cars parked there yet. He was early. That didn't help his state of mind. Going home was like taking a dive headfirst into murky waters with unknown hazards. Showing up early only meant he'd have more time to think about that dive.

When fellow D.C. law enforcement officers found out he was originally from New Jersey they teased him about being “connected” à la
The Sopranos.
That, or that his life growing up must have been a version of
Jersey Shore.
Neither could be further from the truth. His parents were scholarly professionals. His dad was a professor of political science at Rutgers University. His mother was a judge in family court. Today, his father's sixtieth birthday, marked the first time he'd been home in more than a year.

Izzy, who had been a silent passenger all the way up, poked her big snout through the doggy door of her backseat kennel and rested her chin on Scott's right shoulder. He reached up absently to scratch her head. That was all the invitation she needed. She was through the opening and onto the front seat in a long chocolate-fur movement.

Unlike most times, the sight of his partner didn't improve Scott's mood. “Down, girl.” He gently stiff-armed her head aside. His mother would notice if he came in smelling of dog.

Undeterred, Izzy made a few turns then stretched out to fill the bench seat and rested her large head on his thigh. A thin thread of doggy drool traced across his chinos as she bounced her chin in a comforting motion. So much for spotless.

In no hurry to get out of his truck, Scott pulled Izzy in close to his body and studied the house he had been reared in, as if the outside would give him clues to the mood inside.

The house could stand a coat of paint. His father would be certain to point that out to him, as if he should have thought of it beforehand and brought along cans of paint, brushes, scrapers, and a ladder in order to get started. His father never thought anything Scott did do was as important as what was not being done. Only Gabe had ever gotten a pass. Nearly three years after his older brother's death, the pain still felt raw for the entire family.

Gabe was the stuff of legend. His father never spoke about his eldest son without a catch in his throat. Gabe had graduated from a military academy while Scott was still trying to make his way through public junior high school. Gabe went to college and then into the Marines. In no time he was Special Ops. By the time of his death, he'd made SEAL Team Six.

“Stay, Izzy. I'll be back for you later.” No point in bringing her in until he decided if he was staying long, and/or if the number of people his mother promised were coming would be too much for Izzy to deal with on an informal basis.

Scott wiped a hand across his mouth as he headed toward the back door, nervous in the way chasing an armed suspect down a dark alley made him edgy. Gabe had been his lodestar for as long as he could remember. He used his older brother as the measure of how he was doing in the world. Success was according to how close he could come to Gabe's scores on everything: college grades, physical endurance, drinking, even women. He'd always come up short. Except with Nikki—Cole. “Shit.” She would always be Nikki to him.

When he'd asked her opinion of his brother, after the one and only time they met, Nikki had said Gabe had obviously inherited the Lucca charm and good looks, but he wasn't her type.

Her response had made Scott want to take out a full-page ad. Always before, when Gabe was around, Scott was an also-ran for women's attention.

And then three years ago, six months into Scott's marriage to Nikki, Gabe was gone. Killed in action in a covert operation somewhere in the Hindu Kush mountains of the Kunar province. The military returned a small locker with his personal effects. They said Gabe's body wasn't recoverable.

Scott sucked in a long breath as he reached for the back-door knob. His compass and direction, his benchmark, his nemesis, and his much loved brother, all of it was gone. He knew to whom his father had looked to fill those shoes, and how miserably he had failed, and was still failing.

“Scott!” His mother greeted him with a big hug as soon as he entered. “I thought I heard your truck.”

She held on to him for so long Scott began to color with embarrassment. Message clear; he'd visited so rarely these last two years, she couldn't control her joy at actually laying her hands on her only surviving child.

Even when she released his body she held on to him at the elbows, smiling despite wet eyes. “You look good, Scott. Your hair's longer. And you're tan.” Her gaze fell to his arm. “But what's this?”

“Zigged when I should have zagged. It's nothing, Mom.”

She touched the bandage very gently, biting back the urge, he knew, to warn him to be careful. “As long as you're okay.”

He grinned and leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek. “You're looking good. You stepping out on the old man?”

“Smart mouth.”

Scott looked up past his mother's shoulder. “Happy birthday, Dad.”

John Lucca stood a few feet away. He looked much younger than the sixty years they were gathering to celebrate. Tall and still lean from a regimen of handball and swimming, he had a full head of gray hair that suited his professorial status. According to his mother's e-mails, his father's students still adored him, though four decades now separated him from most of them.

When his mother released Scott, his father came forward and held out his hand. “You're almost late.”

Scott shook it. “A worse offense than actually being late, right, Dad?”

His father immediately frowned, making Scott wish he hadn't been so fast with the comeback. But, damn, his father always had something negative to say about whatever he was doing or not doing. No way to win.

“Now, John, don't tease Scott.”

“I wasn't—”

“He wasn't—”

Father and son exchanged uneasy glances before looking away.

“Please come in and relax. We're waiting for your father's sisters, and cousins Edward and Sharon. And, of course, Ashley and Teddy's brood before we get started.” His mother waved a hand toward the kitchen table that all but groaned under the weight of dishes waiting to be served. She was prepared to serve an army. “Would you like a beer?”

“Maybe later.”

“Come through.” His father turned and headed toward the living room. Scott joined him.

His mother followed. “What do you hear from Nicole?”

His father rolled his eyes. “Now why would he hear from her, Cathy?”