Tactical Advantage (9 page)

Practicality cut the fantasy short. They were still out in the open, and if the guys in the black SUV
had
been watching for Annie’s arrival, then anyone else could just as easily be watching them from the shadows. He hooked her elbow and starting walking into the courtyard framed on three sides by the two-story brownstones. “Coffee sounds perfect right about now.”

“I’ll even throw in a sandwich or an omelet,” Annie offered, taking him to a more familiar place. Coworkers. Brainy lady and bodyguard. Crazies out there in the world who’d hurt her once, had nearly hurt her a second time and who wouldn’t get the chance to hurt her again.

“I get it. Now your strategy is to poison me so you can get rid of me.”

“It’s an option,” she teased, and Nick chuckled in his throat. This back-and-forth banter was definitely more familiar than the magnetic spell she’d cast over him today and very real concerns he had for her safety. “I’m starting to see how you might be useful to have around for a while.”

“I must have snow in my ears. That sounded like you just said something nice to me.”

She stopped on the front steps at the first building, and pulled the security card out of her pocket. She tilted her face to his, showing him something far too vulnerable and dangerously distracting in those soulful eyes. “I slipped on the ice and was on my way down to the pavement. Whether that SUV was just an idiot driver who can’t handle this weather, or it was something intentional, I would have fallen into the street, right into his path if you hadn’t been here. Thank you. Again.”

Nick took the card from her hand, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze before swiping the card to open the door and usher her inside. “Don’t think this makes us even, Hermann. I’m still going to look after you for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Just like the doctor said.”

“Twenty-four hours, max.”

He waited for the door to close behind them, then followed her up the steps to the second-floor landing. “You can’t get rid of me.”

“I still want my car.”

“Ain’t gonna happen.”

She’d pulled out her keys by the time he reached the top step. He was glad to see she had to unlock a dead bolt in the thick walnut door as well as the knob. While the security outside hadn’t been all it should be, it was reassuring to see things improving inside the building.

Or not.

The door on the opposite side of the landing swung open and a big man with a TV remote clutched in his hand joined them. “Annie? I was watching the game, but I thought I heard you coming in. Are you okay?”

She muttered something like
“Not now”
before turning with a smile. “Hi, Roy. I—”

Stifling her greeting, the man walked straight over to Annie and lifted her onto her toes in a hug. Something hot and protective jarred through Nick’s cold body at the man’s presumptive right to put his hands on her. She clearly knew the guy, but was this a neighbor? A friend? Something more?

Something worse?

“I was worried. When I took Betsy home this morning, I saw you were still gone. You left last night and you’ve been gone all day—” Just as Nick reached out to separate them, the man set Annie down and pulled away. His gaze zeroed in on the violet-and-purple swelling above her left eye. “Oh, man, you’re not okay.” The shoulders of the red football jersey he wore puffed up, and Nick saw his stance shift. “Did this guy do this to you?”

As soon as the guy thumped Nick’s chest, Nick grabbed his hand, twisted his arm behind his back and pushed his face up against the wall. “I’m KCPD, pal. Who are you?”

“Roy Carvello, neighborhood watch.” The remote clattered to the floor as his cheek rubbed against the plaster. “It’s my duty to check on her.”

“It’s okay, Roy. He never hurt me. Nick, let him go.” A gentle hand squeezed around Nick’s shoulder, shooting a tiny jolt of electric awareness through him.

“You said, ‘Not now.’ He grabbed you anyway.”

“I’m just tired. I’m not used to dealing with so many people all day long. Please.” More than the guy’s free hand raised in surrender, Annie’s touch and soft voice cut through the blinding frustration of yet another attempt to keep her safe gone wrong.

Nick eased his grip and slowly backed away, giving Roy Carvello room to turn around. Annie’s hand curled through the crook of Nick’s elbow, pulling him back another step. “Detective Fensom’s okay. He’s...” Her grip pulsed around his arm. “He’s a guy I work with. He gave me a ride home because I couldn’t drive.”

A guy I work with?
Their relationship had gotten a lot more complicated than that over the past twenty-four hours. How did she explain that kiss at the hospital? Clinging to him for protection and comfort? What about the way their endlessly argumentative banter had changed to teasing quips and grins and friendly intimacy in just the last few minutes?

He’d stopped being just a guy she worked with sometime between carrying her out of that alleyway and accepting her invitation for food and coffee.

Nick was a tangled-up mess inside, going on thirty-six hours without sleep, dealing with guilt, fighting his own hormones and on guard against any man until they could ID her attacker. He knew the perp would come back to finish what he’d started. And she was shootin’ the breeze with Tall, Dark and Nosy here?

Carvello straightened the jersey he’d put on over a black hoodie and jeans. “Isn’t there some law against police harassment?”

He’d thrown the taunt at Nick, but it was Annie who answered. “It’s been a long day, Roy. Detective Fensom is a little overprotective of me.”

“What’s wrong with your car?” Roy asked. Turning his eyes to the petite brunette, his accusatory tone eased back into friendly concern. “Were you in an accident?”

“My car’s fine. It’s parked downtown.” She released Nick to point to the bandage above the bruise. “I got this bump on my head and the doctor doesn’t want me to drive. How was your party? Looks like you and Betsy were having a good time.” Annie tilted her head to peek into his open apartment. “She didn’t stay for the game?”

“No. She helped me clean up the place. Then I took her to breakfast and drove her home.” Roy reached out to touch Annie again, but a warning look from Nick forced his hand back to his side. “Who did that to you?”

“That’s a crime we’re trying to solve.”

“You look like you’ve been in the boxing ring for a few rounds.” He thumbed over his shoulder into his tidy apartment. “Do you need anything? I’ve got an ice pack. Aspirin. Leftover pizza. A private phone you can use?”

“I’m okay.”

Did this bozo really think Nick had hurt Annie? “We appreciate your concern, Mr. Carvello, but I’ve got it covered.”

“Yes, sir, Officer.” Roy dropped his gaze to the puddle around Nick’s feet. “Dude, you’re dripping on the floor. The landlord refinished these last summer. He won’t like that you’re making a mess.”

Nick opened his mouth to mention snowstorms and ice and the jackass who’d nearly plowed into Annie. But her hand was on his arm again, cutting through the tension, calming him down. She picked up the remote and slipped it into Carvello’s hand. “It’s okay. I’ll get a mop and clean it up.”

“I’ll do it for you. It can’t stay there for long or it’ll pull up the finish. It’s halftime anyway. You just go get into some dry clothes and let me take care of it.”

“That’d be a great help, Roy. Thanks. Good night.”

Her smile was contagious. “Good night, Annie.”

But once they were inside her apartment, the smile vanished and Annie turned on him. “What was that?”

“What was what?” While she unbuttoned her coat and unzipped her boots, Nick locked everything.

Her boots thumped down on the throw rug beneath his feet. “That Neanderthal reaction to my neighbor looking out for me?”

Nick paused with his hand on the chain that added another layer of security. What was that knee-jerk reaction to Roy Carvello wanting to touch Annie all about anyway? Protective instincts? Or jealousy? It better damn well not be the latter, or else his ability to watch over Annie the way he needed to would be in serious trouble. He hooked the chain and faced her. “Did I interpret that wrong? Did I not see you cringe when Carvello opened his door? Remember, I’m not waiting to be blindsided by the one guy who
is
a threat.”

“Okay, so Roy doesn’t understand boundaries.” She hung her coat on the rack beside the door and indicated he do the same. “But he’s not a bad guy. He keeps an eye on things when I’m gone.”

“Why didn’t you want him to touch you?”

“Because I’m happy being friends and he wants... How did you know?”

Nick tapped the badge hanging at the center of his chest. “Detective?”

With a heavy sigh, she knelt down to cuff the hem of her jeans above her stockinged feet. “He wants to be more than that. Well, actually, I think he wants to be more than that with every woman he meets. I had to fend off his advances once when he was drunk.”

“So he’s a player.”

Annie stood, still defending the guy. “Sober, he’s a good neighbor.”

“I don’t like him. And I don’t think you like him much, either.”

“How would you know? You’ve known him for only five minutes, and you spent half that time with your forearm pressed against the back of his neck.”

“Then he shouldn’t have touched you.”

“Look, I don’t have that many friends around here, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t alienate the one guy...” She worked her rosy pink lips between her teeth, stopping the argument. Before continuing, she plucked his stained, dripping scarf from his hands and carried it into her galley-style kitchen where she rinsed and squeezed it dry in the sink. “Coffee, sandwiches and dry clothes, remember? I owe you that much.”

“You owe me nothing.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of fighting with me?” She circled the counter into the hallway and pulled out a towel to wrap up his scarf. She tossed him a second towel and pointed to the radiator beside the front windows. “You can warm yourself over there while I change and come up with something for you to wear. And don’t scare my cats the way you scared Roy.”

“You have cats?” Right on cue, a brown-and-cream Siamese slinked out from under her sofa and rubbed himself against Nick’s ankles. Roy Carvello had been just as bold, just as determined to touch. The big guy across the hall hadn’t been scared. If anything, he’d been angry, defiant, when Nick had intervened. The way he’d touched Annie... And he’d done more than that when he was drunk? Yeah, he’d better look a little more closely at that jealousy thing. “I’m sorry if I overstepped the line between friends. Coworkers,” he clarified.

But she’d already marched down the hallway and closed the bathroom door behind her.

“Yeah.” Nick knelt down to stroke the cat between the ears and make his confession to it. “So, between you and me, I’m tired of fighting, too.”

Chapter Six

Fortified by a quick shower, her gray sweats and a toasty warm pair of hot-pink slipper socks, Annie pulled her father’s red plaid flannel shirt out of her keepsake drawer and carried it down the hallway to the living room. She stopped at the end of the hall, hugging the soft shirt to her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was the sight of Nick’s broad, naked back, tapering down to the belt on his jeans, the cat curled around his bare feet, or the fact he was inspecting the precious memories displayed on her mantel with such curiosity that made her pause in nervous anticipation.

Was that really the same man she’d been butting heads with ten minutes earlier? And for months before that?

A traitorous little gasp gave away her presence and Nick’s blue eyes met hers in the mirror above the mantel. He grinned and turned, giving her a view of his muscular chest, dusted with curling dark hair and decorated only by the KCPD badge and silver chain that hung around his neck. An appropriate zinger about winter temps and bare skin and common sense refused to form on her lips.

Must be the concussion that let a half-dressed man she had no interest in whatsoever warm her blood and cloud her thoughts.

“I went ahead and made myself at home.” When Annie didn’t speak, Nick took the initiative. He pointed to the sodden sweater and white T-shirt and socks draped over the radiator beside his charcoal-colored scarf. “I set the towels underneath so they won’t drip on the floor. Hope that’s okay. I checked the flue, too. I could start a fire for you if you have any wood.”

“I don’t.”
Snappy conversationalist, Hermann.
She tried for something a little less reactionary. “Reitz and G.B. don’t like the fire.”

“Reitz and G.B.?”

“The cats.”

He nodded toward the bundle of plaid flannel in her arms. “Is that for me?”

Oh, right. Stop staring.
This was Nick Fensom—arch nemesis, pain in the posterior, overprotective bodyguard with a debt he thought he had to pay—not some hottie who could invade her personal space and turn her logic-loving brain to mush.

Shaking off the foggy stupor, Annie met him halfway across the living room and handed him the shirt. “I kept some of my parents’ things after they passed away. My dad wasn’t very tall either, but he was built like a tank. I wear it for a robe sometimes. It hangs off me like a sack, so I hope it’s big enough to fit.”

“It’ll do.”

The soft material strained to accommodate Nick’s upper arms, but he managed to button it across his chest and roll up the sleeves. Annie wasn’t sure if that tight fit was any less distracting than the bare skin had been, but at least the familiar brass-and-blue enamel badge he pulled from inside the collar reminded her of that coworker status they were supposed to share.

“Thanks.” He took another few seconds to tuck the shirt into the waist of his jeans, and adjust the gun holstered at his hip. “You look refreshed.”

“Are you kidding? I look like a New Year’s Eve hangover, complete with tired eyes and pale skin.” She tilted her eyes in the direction of the bandage and bump on her forehead. “Except for the colorful bruise, of course.”

“I still vote for pretty.”

“You said
refreshed
.”

His gaze swept over her from her curling toes up to the damp curls of her hair, lingering for several timeless seconds at her lips, leading her to suspect that neither
pretty
nor
refreshed
was the adjective he’d really been thinking. Was he remembering that kiss at the hospital? Because suddenly, she couldn’t think of anything besides the feel of Nick’s hands tangled in her hair, and his mouth sliding over hers. Beneath the baggy fit of her sweats, Annie’s body tightened in remembered awareness of his heat and hardness pressed against her body. He might as well have started a fire in the fireplace. Even now, his leisurely perusal turned her blood to molten honey, making her breasts feel heavy and her skin sensitive to even the soft brush of the cotton fleece she wore.

She must have taken a hard knock to the head. They were locked away from the rest of the world, cocooned by the snow and night outside. Just the two of them. And she wanted Nick Fensom to kiss her again. Desperately.

He broke the lingering silence. “I promised the cat I wouldn’t argue with you anymore this evening.”

“You promised the cat?” Desire short-circuited her brain, making sensible conversation impossible for the moment. The twitch of a tail at Nick’s feet thankfully drew her attention to the Siamese twisting between his legs and stretching out across his feet. She clapped her hands. “Reitzie, shoo.”

“He’s all right. He was keeping my toes warm. You said you had
cats,
plural? I’ve seen only the one.”

Move someplace. Do something.
Her thoughts and emotions would get her into trouble otherwise. Annie scooted the big Siamese to his favorite chair and turned into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. “That’s Reitz. He’s the extrovert. G.B. won’t show himself until he decides he likes you.”

“G.B.?”

“George Brett.” The Kansas City baseball legend her dad had worshipped and her mom had crushed on.

“You named your cats after third basemen?”

Annie carried the coffeepot to the sink and filled it with water. “You know your sports history. My dad and I were both big fans of Missouri baseball—the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals. The ’85 World Series tore him up—he didn’t know who to root for. I had to be fair and represent both teams.”

“That explains these pictures.” Annie looked over the peninsula counter and stools at the end of the kitchen to see Nick pick up the last photograph she’d taken with her parents. “That one’s old Busch Stadium and this is Kaufmann Park here in Kansas City before the big renovation. Is this your dad in the ball cap?”

Remembering that last, wonderful birthday together squeezed Annie’s heart with fondness and sorrow. “Yes.” She started the coffeemaker and went back to the living room. At least she had those memories to cling to. Nick set the frame back on the mantel and Annie reached up beside him to gently touch the image of the stocky man, dark-haired woman and happy teenager smiling back at her. “He and Mom took me to a Royals game for my seventeenth birthday.”

The coffeemaker hissed and bubbled and filled up the room with its rich, homey scent as Nick moved along the mantel, asking about each picture. The trip to Mount Rushmore, one to Washington, D.C. Holiday pictures, a school band competition. The self-indulgence of sharing memories and comparing childhood stories was a balm to Annie’s lonesome soul, and as special a gift as anything she’d received since Adam had left. That Nick Fensom seemed so genuinely interested in her family history surprised her as much as her reaction to finding him half-dressed in her living room had.

“What’s the scoop about this one here at the Baseball Hall of Fame?” He picked up the most recent photograph, taken a year and a half earlier at Cooperstown, New York. It featured her and a tall blob of Hall of Fame wrapping paper she’d matted behind the image of her standing in front of Stan Musial’s statue. Nick traced the outline where she had cut out a part of her life from the picture. “Let me guess. Your friend here was wearing a rival Cubs jersey?”

If only. “Dad always wanted to go to Cooperstown, but never got the chance to. So my ex-fiancé and I made the trip summer before last in Dad’s honor.”

“Ex?”

“Musial was Dad’s favorite player.”

Grinning, Nick placed the photo back on the mantel. “And she carefully sidesteps
that
conversation.”

“What’s to say? Adam and I had different plans for our lives, and he didn’t think I would fit into his. Too much pink and paisley and obsession with my work, I guess.”

“And not enough into his?” The grin flatlined. “I’m sorry. His loss.”

Annie tilted her gaze to Nick’s. From everything she’d heard through the grapevine, Adam had done just fine moving on with his life. “How do you mean?”

“Duh.” Mischief danced across Nick’s square features again. “You know more about Missouri baseball history than any woman I’ve met. What man in his right mind would give that up?”

Her grateful smile lasted until they reached the last picture of a Christmas tree, all lit up and full of presents, standing in front of her apartment windows.

“The walls are a different color,” Nick observed. “But I recognize the woodwork around the windows. Looks like this apartment has been around awhile. You grew up here?”

Annie nodded. “It’s where we were living when my parents died. And because I’d just graduated high school, I wasn’t in any position to be buying a new place. I’ve remodeled the kitchen, repainted and added the cats, but it’s pretty much the same.”

The material around the buttons of Nick’s borrowed shirt puckered as his chest expanded with a deep, measured breath. “You lost them both? So young?”

“Car accident.” For a moment, the only sound in the place was the hissing and popping of the radiator coming on.

Automatically, she hugged her arms around her middle, reliving that horrible day when her principal and school counselor had pulled her out of physics class to give her the news about the jackknifed semi and pileup on the Interstate. She’d spent the rest of the week learning how to make funeral arrangements and read legal documents. There were no grandparents, no aunts or uncles—just some awesome school friends and the counselor—and a very empty apartment and future waiting for her night after night.

“You don’t have any brothers and sisters? Any aunts or uncles?”

She shrugged. “Just little ol’ me. The only child of two only children.” She summoned her standard joke for when strangers questioned her family tree—or lack thereof. “Saves a lot of hassle shopping for Christmas presents.”

Nick didn’t laugh.

“Annie...”

She saw him reaching for her and knew she couldn’t bear to be touched right now, not if she had any hope of holding on to the friendly civility of this conversation before bursting into tears. When his fingertips brushed against her sleeve, Annie pulled away and retreated to the kitchen. “Smells like the coffee’s ready.”

He followed right behind her. “Wait. You can’t drop a bombshell like that and just walk away. You were only seventeen?”

The warm, fuzzy camaraderie was evaporating as the reality of her life in the present set in. She knew she was different from most people. She was cautious about what she revealed, preferred the black-and-white clarity of science and logic over emotional risks. She struggled with trust issues, interpersonal communication skills, the works. She’d been called everything from reclusive to odd to absentminded. And tonight she’d chosen to open up her personal life to
this
man of all people?

Suddenly, she was very busy pulling mugs out of a cabinet and unloading items from the fridge. “Do you take it black? Milk? Sugar? I’ve got leftover roast beef, or I can make a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Stop.” Nick took the milk and set it on the counter. He scooted the mugs aside and plucked the loaf of bread from her hand when she reached for it, and turned her to face him. She stared straight at the badge hanging at the center of his chest, knowing what eye contact would do to the tears brimming in her eyes.

“Don’t,” she pleaded when she felt the tug on her wrists.

“Gonna do it anyway.” He gathered her in his arms, turning her cheek into his shoulder, carefully avoiding the bandage and bruising on her forehead. “I’m so sorry about your folks.”

“It happened ten years ago.”

He tunneled his fingers beneath the hair at her nape and gently massaged her there. “Yeah, but I can tell you still miss them—probably more over the holidays than any other time of year. I shouldn’t have said anything. Not tonight.”

The holidays
were
the worst. And Nick got that? Mr. Insensitive, bull-in-the-china-shop of her world, understood what she was feeling? She must be so tired and beat-up after their long day that nothing was making any sense. Most of the time, she could handle the emptiness—she could live her life and function like a normal person. But talking about her past had stirred up too many memories for her to manage much of anything right now.

With a weary sigh, Annie relaxed her stiff posture. Her hands followed the path of Nick’s belt around to the back of his waist to hold on to the comfort he offered. “You’re a detective.” She sniffled against the pillow of his shoulder, making one last, valiant effort at normalcy between them. “It’s your nature to be nosy and ask questions.”

But he didn’t take the bait. A few tears spilled over and Nick’s arms tightened, settling her more snugly against his chest. “Ah, slugger, I had no idea. I’ve got family coming out my ears and making me crazy sometimes, but I can’t imagine losing a single one of them.”

The flannel was soft against her cheek—the man beneath, solid and warm and caring. Annie closed her eyes and let the grief and fatigue and utter isolation burn through her eyelashes and spill over her cheeks. All the while, he whispered soft, wordless nothings against her ear, and his fingers stroked the back of her neck, soothing her. His warmth seeped into her chilled skin. His strength held her up for a few moments until it sank into her bones and tapped into her own reserves. Her tears dried up sooner than she expected, leaving her feeling far less melancholy than she’d been moments earlier. Her eyes felt gritty and her throat was parched, but she felt she could stand on her own two feet again and think straight. But for some reason, her hands couldn’t seem to unlock the grip they held on the back of Nick’s shirt. Some of her hair caught in the stubble of his beard as she nestled beneath his chin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for feeling what you feel. It’s been a hell of a day—a hell of an investigation. I understand
this
a whole lot better than the woman who has to have a reason for everything.” Were those his lips grazing the crown of her hair? “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“I know. I’m such an odd duck.” That had been Adam’s teasing endearment for her.

“Um, no. I was thinking that all that complicated stuff is just on the surface—that you’re a real, live girl underneath it all.”