Tangled Hearts (14 page)

Jake now thought it might be one of her students. But why? What did she have that they wanted?

Brianna was dressed and in the living room talking with Harvey Benson when Jake arrived shortly after noon. Martha Benson was still in the kitchen cleaning up after a delicious lunch that Brianna was happy to eat. Martha had also brought a cane she’d had to assist Brianna in becoming more mobile. Because of her wrist, she couldn’t use crutches, but the cane helped immensely.

She met Jake at the door, proud to be on her own two feet.

He took in the situation with a quick glance, then leaned over to brush a light kiss on her lips.

“I thought the doctor told you to stay off that foot for two days. Is this how you obey?” he said as he shut the front door behind him.

“Hello detective. I'm afraid I'm the guilty one here,” Martha said, coming into the room still wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “I brought the cane. For when she's ready.”

“I'm right here,” Brianna said. “And I can't give into being an invalid. I have things to do!”

She’d been so proud of getting around and Jake was acting as if she’d committed a crime.

“I have some more sandwiches and soup, if you're hungry,” Martha said after her husband had greeted Jake. “Did you already have lunch?”

“No I didn't. You're a life saver”

She beamed and turned back to the small kitchen. “Sit at the table, I'll bring it right out.”

Jake shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it on the back of a chair and went to sit at the table. Brianna followed and sat opposite him.

Truth to tell, she was glad to get off her foot. Maybe she was rushing it a bit trying to be more mobile.

“This looks terrific,” he said when Martha brought in a plate piled high with freshly made sandwiches and a steaming bowl of vegetable soup.

“I guess she took one look at your size and figured you needed plenty to keep going,” Brianna murmured looking at the food in front of Jake.

“You eat half. You’re too skinny.”

“I ate plenty just a little while ago.”

“You’ve lost weight in the past two years. Were you pining away for love?” he asked sardonically.

“You have a mean streak in you,” she said, withdrawing slightly. “Just because you don’t believe in love, doesn’t mean others don’t.”

“You’re too smart and have too much going for you to waste away for love.”

“You’ve got that right. I’m going ahead with my life!”

He sat back in his chair, watching her, amusement dancing in his eyes. “How are you going to do that?”

Haughtily she lifted her eyebrow. “I don’t believe that is any concern of yours. You made that perfectly clear. Did you bring home the class listings?”

“Yes.” He went over to the chair, reached inside his jacket and withdrew a thick computer printout. He handed it to her.

“Good grief, I never knew I had that many students,” she was surprised at how many pages were in the stack.

“These are for all your classes last year and the year before, as well as last semester.”

“I wouldn’t count the current students. The first break-in happened over the Christmas break. Why would one of those students want to break in?”

“Why would any of them want to?” He resumed eating his lunch. “Tell me what you know about each one.”

She scanned the list for the first class. “You know, Jake, we can narrow this down right away by eliminating the women and short men. I mean, the guy on the steps was taller than I am, so that would eliminate anyone under five-nine. And we know it was a man, right?”

“Cross them off.” He tossed her a pen.

Brianna read through the list, crossing off the women, pausing now and then as she had to search her memory to bring an image to mind. It was slow going. Some names meant nothing to her. Others she remembered instantly. Rereading the list, she had to think about some of them. Jake finished and Martha whipped away the plates as if she'd been hovering around him ready to finish cleaning.

While Brianna was reviewing the list, he followed Martha into the kitchen.

“No trouble?” he asked.

“None at all,” she replied.

“I appreciate you and your husband coming to stay with her. I'll be here the rest of the day.”

“We'll get going then, soon as I have this kitchen to rights. You call on us if you need us again. Imagine someone breaking into a house in this neighborhood. Why I never heard of such a thing.”

While Jake was in the kitchen, Brianna rose and limped to the sofa, sitting on the soft cushions to resume her reading.

She glanced at Harvey, reading a book.

“Thanks for taking good care of me, Harvey,” she said with a sweet smile. “I think the next shift has arrived.”

“Nothing to it, Brianna. But you won't need us old folks around when you have that young cop on hand. You call us if you need us again, you hear?”

“I will.”

When the Bensons had left, Jake joined her on the sofa.

“Well?” he asked.

“I can’t think of a reason for any of these kids to want to break into my house or car. Office, maybe, if it were finals time. But this all happened after finals. I don’t think it’s a student.”

He shrugged. “It may not be. But I'm not ready to discount it. What about faculty? Anyone you aced out of a promotion or something?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Not that I know of, but when I was hired, I wasn't the only one competing for the position. But that's been a few years. Surely no one hold a grudge that long.”

He shrugged.

“Impasse. I'm as puzzled now as I was after the first break in.”

“We'll find him. We just need a break somewhere.”

Brianna looked over the list again.

“Why do some names have question marks?”

“I can't remember these kids at all. They may have registered but not completed the course.”

“Can you cross check with grades?”

“Sure, but it'd be easier for the computer to do it. I can do that at my office.”

“Not today.”

“But I need to get back to work and can't have one of the town's detectives trailing me. You should be out there doing real criminal work, not trying to find some bozo out there looking for something I haven't a clue what.”

“I told you, I took a few days off. And the man's elevated to a higher threat when he pushed you down the stairs.”

“I need to get back to work. The semester's started and I have no lesson plans thanks to that guy.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. It doesn't look like you're going to be a model patient, anyway,” he said.

She grinned. “Oh, like guys are? I'll be ready soon. Help me up. And I'll use the wheelchair for the campus ride.”

“At least you show some sense.”

She ignored his muttered comment and limped in to get ready.

On the ride to the campus, Brianna remembered the reception. She looked at Jake, wondering what he'd say when she told him she wanted to go.

“There's a reception for a new computer science professor on Saturday evening. I'd like to go. It's always nice to welcome new professors and especially one that can help with computer work if needed.”

“No.” he said.

“Umm perhaps I phrased that incorrectly. On Saturday night I'm attending a reception for a new professor.”

“Too risky.”

“Then you come with me and be my bodyguard.”

The seconds ticked by with agonized slowness. Finally she dared risk a peek into his face.

His was all hard angles and planes. His eyes were dark and fathomless, his expression remote. He glanced at her. “If we haven’t found the man by then, I’ll go. I don’t want you going anywhere by yourself.”

She nodded. Surely no one would risk something in public. So far every incident had been in the dark, or alone.

“Is it fancy?” he asked.

“No, a suit would be fine.”

“I won’t have anything to say at a gathering of university professors,” he warned.

She smiled as she envisioned the normally academic event.

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. You won’t have to say anything to the women. They’ll fall all over themselves just to stand near you. You’ll be hotter than Damon. And the men will be so anxious to prove that they're just as macho, they’ll be ridiculous.” She remembered one event when her brother Jase had been there. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it for herself.

A dull flush spread on his cheeks and his eyes grew even darker.

Brianna was charmed at the reaction to her teasing. Not wanting to push her luck, however, she refrained from expanding on it. “If you turn here, you can access parking. “

He found a place not too far from her office building. Jake made quick work of parking and retrieving the wheel chair from the back.
As he pushed her along the quiet walkways, he kept a sharp eye out for anything suspicious.

“Classes have again.”

“I can tell,” he said as he dodged a group of students talking so much they didn't see him and the wheelchair.

Brianna moved from the wheel chair to her desk chair when they reached her small office. She turned on the computer and waited.

They'd passed several open office doors as others held office hours, or were in catching up.

“I think I'll be better able to do something if you stop watching my every move,” she said, irritated when she began to pull up the rosters from past semesters. Jake watched her like she was going to fall over or something.

He glanced out the hall, and then nodded once. “I’ll be back,” he said and left.

As she'd suspected, when she cross checked the lists, there were quite a few students who had signed up for the course and then dropped. There were several withdrawals after the grading had started.

But none of the names rang a bell. She still had no idea who would target her this way.

Jake hadn't returned by the time she compared the lists, so she began once again putting down her overview of the lectures for the coming term. Next time she was saving everything to the cloud. Even if no one broke in again, her laptop could be damaged or crash. She'd been too complaisant.

It was mid afternoon when Jake showed up again. She looked up, feeling a little tired with all the mental work on top of trying to ignore the pain in her ankle and typing wasn't helping her wrist at all.

“You ready to blow this joint?” he asked.

“Yeah. Maybe there was something to that doctor's advice. Let me close this down.”

“So you're not up to going shopping?”

She looked up. “For?”

“The things on the list for the cabin.”

A bubble of anticipation rose. Her fatigue vanished. She hadn’t meant to become so involved that she ended up shopping with him, but it beat staying home. And she'd make sure he got exactly what she’d envisioned. Make sure he bought the items to make his cabin the comfortable home he wanted. She could do that for him if nothing else.

In no time they were heading to the largest mall in town.

“This is nice of you to go to all this trouble. What can I do to pay you back?” Brianna asked.

“Do what you’re told for a change,” he replied.

“Of course, as long as what I’m told is what I want to do. But I promise to be totally agreeable this afternoon.”

“That'll be a switch.”

“I can be very agreeable. Just you watch.”

He glanced over to her, noting her smug smile as she gazed out the windshield. She was always easy to be with, even when she was in a snit. He smiled slightly, wondering what her idea of being totally agreeable was. How far could he push her? It would be an interesting afternoon.

Brianna teased and flirted and enjoyed herself tremendously. From the first moment when they arrived in the mall, she decided to make the shopping venture memorable. She knew from her brothers that men did not like shopping. Her goal was to make sure Jake remembered this trip all his life.

Jake initially protested every suggestion she made. At first, Brianna started to grow annoyed, but by the third time, she realized he was teasing her. From then on, they grew more and more outrageous in their discussions about the curtains, rugs and other accessories for the cabin.

The poor saleswoman was bewildered and tried to be so diplomatic.

Twice, Brianna caught Jake’s eye and they exchanged a secret smile at the obvious efforts of the saleswoman. In the end, they bought nearly everything on the list.

Giggling softly as he pushed the chair out into the open part of the mall, Brianna waited until they’d left the store before turning around to look at him.

“We were awful. That poor woman.”

He matched her grin. “She got a hefty commission out of the final sale. She’ll be fine. What were you doing arguing with me? I thought you were going to be totally agreeable.”

“Jake, I was the one being reasonable. That purple rug you wanted for the bathroom was hideous!”

“It’s my bathroom.”

“And you probably would have given up showering if you had to face that every day.”

“Want to stop for a cup of coffee?” He paused by a bakery that had small tables scattered around the opening.

Taking a deep breath of the fragrant air, Brianna nodded.

They took a table, moving one of the chairs so the wheel chair fit. The waitress quickly appeared, took their order and left.

He leaned back in his chair, all casual male animal. His long legs stretched out before him, he regarded her with a lazy, possessive air. “You’re pretty when you get worked up about something,” he said unexpectedly.

Brianna’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened and she stared at him. He carried himself with such a don’t-give-a-damn attitude, he was almost scary. But she never feared him— only her own reactions and feelings around him.

Now watching him stare at her caused her heart to race. She wanted to fling herself into his lap and hold on for dear life. The image of their kisses the other night sprang into her mind. Unconsciously she licked her lips. His gaze was drawn to her mouth and slowly he sat up, reached over and brushed her damp lips with the pad of his thumb. Cupping her chin with his palm, he rubbed her lips again.

Brianna felt the touch to her toes. Every cell quivered to attention. Butterflies danced in her stomach. Her gaze was captured by his and she couldn’t look away. She knew he’d see the love residing deep within her, but there was nothing she could do to conceal that. He already knew, so what did it matter?