Bachelor Cop
Bachelor Cop
Gayle Kaye
AWARD OF DISTINCTIONpresented to Officer Whit Tanner, midnight rescuer of lost children and missing mutts, for being the last single guy in the precinct, and intending to stay that way….CITATION OF SEDUCTIONpresented to Jill Harper, divorced mother of four-year-old Brody Harper, for capturing the attention of Officer Tanner, and threatening his bachelorhood….RECOURSE: ROMANCEMix marriage-shy officer with romance-weary mother, add a tiny smattering of wandering dog and matchmaking little boy, toss in some heady kisses and sultry looks, then stand back and wait for hearts to melt…and merge.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uf104cbe2-a399-50db-8347-179e514fe928)
Excerpt (#ufd930dca-554e-521f-ba99-2d5f74e87eb1)
Dear Reader (#udbd239d6-36d0-5c77-b764-7a47aa8c6b3e)
Title Page (#uc4d62db8-47f5-5699-8fad-fd5bc200f1c5)
Dedication (#u287057de-29f3-5e67-8d02-a1415de6cb0f)
About the Author (#ubf2965dd-6ff6-5383-88ce-cc0ac561a75d)
Chapter One (#u28db2197-6ca9-5c95-9dbc-dbae3cd34101)
Chapter Two (#ub9116241-c0d8-5a46-88af-38af18748302)
Chapter Three (#ub440683a-875d-54b3-8a12-e47f8be6edfe)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Jill reacted to Whit on every level known to womankind.
And she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t want to—not to this man, a man who could steal all of her good sense from her.
She was the mother of a four-year-old son, and she needed to tread cautiously. For her own sake. For her son’s sake.
“Perhaps,” she said shakily, “tonight wasn’t a good idea. And the kiss this afternoon—”
He touched two fingers to her lips. “Don’t say it, Jill. I wanted to kiss you, had to know what you tasted like. Just once.”
But, Jill wondered, would it be just once—could it be—if she stayed anywhere near Whit Tanner?
Dear Reader,
From classic love stories to romantic comedies to emotional heart tuggers, Silhouette Romance offers six irresistible novels every month by some of your favorite authors-and some sure to become favorites. Just look at the lineup this month:
In Most Eligible Dad, book 2 of Karen Rose Smith’s wonderful miniseries THE BEST MEN, a confirmed bachelor becomes a FABULOUS FATHER when he discovers he’s a daddy.
A single mother and her precious BUNDLE OF JOY teach an unsmiling man how to love again in The Man Who Would Be Daddy by bestselling author Marie Ferrarella.
I Do? I Don’t? is the very question a bride-to-be asks herself when a sexy rebel from her past arrives just in time to stop her wedding in Christine Scott’s delightful novel.
Marriage? A very happily unmarried police officer finally says “I do” in Gayle Kaye’s touching tale Bachelor Cop.
In Family of Three by Julianna Morris, a man and a woman have to share the same house—with separate bedrooms, of course…
Debut author Leanna Wilson knows no woman can resist a Strong, Silent Cowboy—and you won’t be able to, either!
I’d love to know what you think of the Romance line. Are there any special kinds of stories you’d like to see more of, less of? Your thoughts are very important to me-after all, these books are for you!
Sincerely,
Melissa Senate,
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Bachelor Cop
Gayle Kaye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Dani Criss, whose critiques I value, whose friendship I cherish. May success always shine on you!
GAYLE KAYE
had a varied and interesting career as an R.N. before finally hanging up her stethoscope to write romances. She indulges this passion in Kansas City, Missouri, where she lives with her husband and one very spoiled poodle. Her first romance in 1987 reached the finals of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest.
When she’s not writing, she loves to travel or just curl up with a good book.
Chapter One (#ulink_111fc266-0050-5524-abfb-34f47a8198dc)
Officer Whit Tanner aimed his patrol car down the quiet, Kansas City, Missouri, street, thinking about his longtime friend on the force, Ben Jameson. He and Ben were the last two remaining bachelors in the department, but now in a few weeks Ben would be taking the plunge, leaving Whit as the lone holdout in the marriage game. He wished his old friend well, but he knew the statistics for cop marriages—and they weren’t good.
It was why Whit didn’t intend to fall victim to any female with home and hearth on her mind.
He turned up Elm, then onto Holly Lane, scanning the rows of small, well-kept homes. There’d been a rash of petty burglaries in the area lately, but nothing more serious than an occasional stolen ten-speed or lawn ornament, in direct contrast to the inner city where crime continued to flourish.
He usually drew that detail on a Saturday night, but he was luckier this time. His only big problem for the next few hours would be staying awake until his shift was over.
Then just ahead he saw movement, a flash of lightcolored clothing. If someone was bent on thievery, he thought, you’d think they’d wear dark, so they’d be less easily spotted—but then most crooks weren’t exactly noted for their intelligence, or they wouldn’t be doing the crime in the first place.
Whit cruised slowly, trying to get a better look at the figure darting through the yards, seemingly sticking to the shadows.
Then a few houses up he caught a good look at the would-be prowler. He was pajama-clad, about three feet tall and barefoot.
Whit might find some amusement in that, except that it was one o’clock in the morning, and no three- or fouryear-old had any business being out at that hour.
Where were the kid’s parents, anyway? At some damned party, leaving the boy home alone? Whit felt his blood begin to boil. In his job he saw what happened to neglected kids. He arrested them sometime after the age of ten. Occasionally sooner.
At least he didn’t have to call for backup on this one, but when he got the youngster home he intended to give his parents Holy Toledo for negligence. Hell, maybe he’d even run them in.
He stopped the car and got out. “Police officer,” Whit called out. “What’s the trouble, small-fry?”
It was dark, the moon obscured by clouds moving in, and as Whit stepped closer, he felt the first few drops of spring rain begin to pelt. Damn good thing he’d happened along or the kid’s pj’s would soon be soaked.
“What’re you doing out here this time of night?” Whit called again.
Then he saw the boy was crying, the biggest set of crocodile tears he’d ever run across. Something Whit wasn’t equipped to handle. Hell, he didn’t know a thing about kids. He’d had damn little experience in that department.
Another reason he wasn’t cut out for marriage. Marriage usually brought on fatherhood, somewhere around nine months later.
Deciding to let instinct take over and hope for the best, he walked up to the boy and knelt down eye level with him. “Hey, come on, it can’t be all that bad, can it?”
His reply was a snuffle and a sob.
“What’s your name, big guy?” he asked as gently as he could.
“Bro-Bro-Brody,” came a muffled answer.
“Brody.” Well, now they were getting somewhere. The boy was cute, the kind that tore at your heart-with red hair that at the moment was sticking up like a spike and fat freckles that danced across his kid-size nose. “Have you ever seen the inside of a police cruiser, Brody?”
Brody gave a slow shake of his red head. He wouldn’t look at Whit, just down at his bare toes he kept curling into the grass of the greening lawn. “Am…am I ‘rested?”
“Arrested? Did you steal anything?”
“N-no.”
“Shoot somebody?”
That brought a giggle combined with a hiccup.
“Then you’re not under arrest. But I’m getting wet out here in this rain.” The drops were coming down harder. And bigger. “Why don’t we talk in the car?”
He reached for Brody’s hand and felt a tug on his heartstrings as the child placed it in his big palm. When Whit seated him in the cruiser, the kid’s eyes went wide at the sight of the police paraphernalia—the squawking, squalling radio, the gun mounted to the dash—and Whit remembered the first time he’d seen the inside of a squad car.
He’d been nine years old, and his big brother—Officer Steve Tanner—had given him a quick ride down the block. Four years after that, Steve had taken a bullet, tracking down a man who’d been dealing drugs to children in an inner-city housing project. Neither were memories Whit would ever forget.
But right now Whit had a small kid to interrogate. “Okay, Brody, why don’t you tell me what you are doing out in your pajamas at this time of night?”
Though he’d softened his cop-edged voice, he still sounded like he was shaking down some street thug instead of an unarmed three- or four-year-old.
Brody squirmed a little on the seat. “Wolf,” he said, temporarily forgetting his interest in the police car to study his grass-stained toes instead.
For a fast moment Whit wondered what he was getting into here. Had the little guy had a nightmare involving werewolves and other things that go bump in the night? Whit wasn’t good with kids with nightmares.
“He’s my dog,” Brody said in a small, earnest voice. “He cried ‘cause he wanted to go out…so I letted him out, but then he runned away.”
So…the monster dog had hoodwinked his young master into letting him outside to water a bush or two, then split the scene. “And you went after him, am I right?”
“Uh-huh. I hadda ketch him,” he said, eyes wide and solemn.
Whit wondered how he could make a small boy understand just how dangerous a nightly adventure like this could be. He gave it a moment or two of thought, before realizing his small charge was sleepy and no doubt cold, so he decided to save the lecture for the parents. A stiff lecture.
“And where did you last see Wolf?” he asked the boy.
“In my yard.”
Whit glanced around the neighborhood. There wasn’t a porch light on, no one out looking for a child. He turned back to his young friend. “Which yard is yours, Brody? Can you show me?”
The boy turned around in his seat and peered out through the rain-streaked window of the squad car. Whit wasn’t sure just when he realized it, but somehow he knew there wasn’t anything up or down the block that looked familiar to the kid.
Jill Harper pulled her thin robe tighter around her shoulders in a futile effort to ward off the pelting rain and the fear that rose in her throat. Brody was gone from his bed. Wolf was missing, too. That meant the silly dachshund had run away again, this time Brody following him out into the night.
Heart squeezing with dread, Jill peered up the street and down, wondering in which direction her son could have gone. And how far. He was only four. They’d moved to this house less than a month ago, and Brody wasn’t familiar with his street.
Or neighboring streets.
A shiver raced along her spine. She had to find her son, but she wasn’t sure what to do first. Phone for the police. Or drive around and try to find him herself.
If only she could think clearly. Drive, she decided. She could do that faster than the police could get here.
But what if Brody came home in the meantime?
Just then fate solved at least part of the dilemma.
Jill prayed that the police car rounding the corner, its bar of red lights pulsing against the night, was real and not a figment of her fear. As it inched with maddening slowness down the street toward her, she knew it was no hallucination. She waved her arms in a frantic signal, though she doubted anyone could miss a woman in a silky white robe, standing on the curb in a rainstorm.
“Mom…!”
Jill heard the sweet sound of her son’s voice even before the car cruised to a stop.
“Brody!”
She tried to see past the officer, who filled the driverside window, to her small son beyond; needing the reassurance that only the sight of him could give her.
He was safe, wrapped in a large, dark blue blanket and looking very proud of himself as he sat beside the officer.
“Oh, Brody!” She wanted to cry and hug him all at the same time. That went for the man who’d brought him home, as well.
For the first time she glanced at the officer, noting his broad shoulders that looked as if they could take on the world—and the scowl of annoyance on his handsome, well-honed features. Yes, she thought, those dark eyes held censure, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her like a lightning bolt. He thought her a negligent mother.
Momentary anger stiffened her narrow shoulders. He wouldn’t think that if he knew the bond between her and Brody, a bond strengthened by shared hurt and disillusionment—hurt Jill desperately tried to shield him from.
“Your son is fine, Mrs…” His deep voice paused, waiting for her to supply him with the rest.
She hoped he didn’t want it for a report he intended to file against her.
“It’s Ms…Jill Harper,” she supplied bravely. “And you are?”
“Officer Whit Tanner, and I suggest, Ms. Harper, that in the future you keep a closer eye on your child. I found him three blocks away. Anything could have happened to him.”
“Three…!”
Whit saw the woman’s face blanch as white as the robe she was wearing, a robe he’d been trying not to notice was becoming more and more transparent with each drop of rain. Though her curves were lovely, despite her petite frame, he didn’t want to be picking her up from the pavement.
“Don’t faint on me, lady.” He shoved open the patrol car door and jumped out, ready to assist.
“I-I’m okay,” she replied unsteadily. “This has all been such a scare, that’s all.” She drew a deep breath, her small, but intriguing, breasts rising beneath her raindamp robe. The delicate outline of her nipples puckered visibly against the silky wet fabric, and Whit swallowed a groan.
What a night! He’d rather haul in a half dozen unruly drunks than pull neighborhood duty like this. It was too hard on a man’s body. “Look,” he said around a suddenly dry throat, “I’d better get you and small-fry here into the house. It’s raining out.in case you hadn’t noticed.”
And Whit wasn’t sure she had.
He’d meant to give her what for on the facts of rearing a minor—at least from a police point of view—but her own fear of what could have happened tonight was no doubt worse than any stern lecture from him.
Behind him Brody attempted to clamber out of the car, his short legs tangling in the department-issued blanket Whit had wrapped him in earlier. The boy looked tired and sleepy, a little worse for wear from his night’s escapade, and his mother flashed around Whit like a streaking bullet to reach him. He’d felt the zing from one or two before in his career, and this brush past him was no less charged.
Whit took one lingering moment to admire her pert derriere as she bent to pick up her child, then he remembered his civic duty, as well as his male manners. “Here, allow me.”
He scooped up Brody in his arms and headed for the house with its front door standing open, light pouring out invitingly into the dark night. He didn’t want to think of the woman who lived there, the small sprite of femininity who moved through the rooms, taking care of her son…and whatever else it was she did there.
She’d called herself Ms.—and there was no ring on her finger. To Whit that added up to single, but that didn’t mean she was available. And he had no business being curious.
“What about Wolf?” Brody asked, his soft breath muffled into Whit’s collar. “I gotta find him.”
He carried Brody up the three front steps to the porch. His mother was right behind. Whit could smell her sweet fragrance, and he could feel the heat of her. “Not tonight, pardner. That’s my job. And I promise to do my job if you do yours and go to sleep and don’t give your mom any more trouble, got that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Brody was fading fast, quickly becoming a sleeping weight in his arms.
“I can take him now,” Jill said, opening the screen door and holding out her arms for the boy.
“I’m sure you can, but I’ve already got him. Just point me to his bedroom.”
Jill didn’t need the big cop parading through her house, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Before she could answer, he’d waltzed past her and stood in the middle of the living room, looking around for a bedroom.
“In there.” Jill pointed down the hall to Brody’s room, then clasped her arms around herself.
For the first time she realized just how wet she was. Her thin robe was sticking to her petite figure in dangerous places, and she only hoped the man in the blue uniform hadn’t noticed. Her red-gold hair was damp, frizzing about her face, and her feet squeaked in her wet pink house shoes.
She had about as much sex appeal as soggy lettuce, while he, on the other hand, had more than should be allowable at this time of night. That was it—it was late—her defenses were down.
If she had her wits about her she’d probably have never noticed the man’s seemlier attributes, those gorgeously broad shoulders, his dark curly hair, damp from the rain, that strong, square chin he kept raised to regulation macho, tough-guy height. So…she’d allow him that one flaw.
On him, it looked good.
So did the uniform, she thought as he came out from the bedroom. She could bounce a quarter off the snug fit of the shirt molded so conformingly across his hard chest. Her gaze trailed down the length of him, then slowly back up—until she met with the small smile hovering at the edges of his hard mouth.
He basked for a moment in her easy perusal—and that, she thought, was his second flaw. He could have been a gentleman about it and pretended not to notice.
Finally he glanced away, centering his attention instead on the front door. “Is this how Brody got out tonight?” he asked, pacing over to it. “Did you forget to set the dead bolt before you went to bed?”
Jill wasn’t sure she liked the man’s tone. In fact, she was certain she didn’t. “I didn’t forget to set it,” she said. “The lock is broken.”
She’d meant to replace it, but there’d been so many things to do to make this small place livable for herself and Brody. Now, it seemed, she’d let one of the most important ones slide.
Jill felt the weight of her errant responsibility settle onto her shoulders like a stone. “Brody’s never done anything like this before,” she tried to explain. “I don’t know why he didn’t come and wake me if his dog needed to go out.”
But Jill was afraid she did know. Ever since her divorce a year ago Brody’s young life had been turned upside down. One minute he was a little boy, the next he tried to be a grown-up four-year-old, the man around the house. His efforts had touched Jill’s heart, but this time those efforts had been far from touching. They’d been foolhardy.
She wasn’t sure her explanation bought her leniency with the officer. He was frowning. “I’d suggest you have a talk with your son,” he said. “And—” he snapped the nonfunctioning dead bolt “—get this lock fixed.”
His tone had all the ring of an order.
“I’ll have a talk with Brody. Tomorrow,” she said. “Little boys don’t always think of consequences, of what might happen,” she added, meeting his dark-eyed gaze.
She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been a little boy himself—or had he been born in that uniform, possessing all the answers in life?
“Do you have children?” she couldn’t help but ask.
Her question seemed to surprise him momentarily, but finally he answered. “No—I don’t have children.”
She wondered if that held true for a wife, as well.
Somehow she had the feeling he was unattached—and that he liked it that way.
Too bad, she thought. She’d seen the surprising gentleness he’d shown with Brody, and she suspected he’d make a good father.
He turned to leave. “I’ll see what I can do about finding Wolf.”
It had stopped raining, and the hint of a moon was trying to peek out from behind a bank of clouds. Jill could just glimpse it over the tops of the trees. “I appreciate what you did tonight, but I wouldn’t think finding lost dogs would exactly be in the line of duty.”
He turned back to her. “I promised a little boy,” he said softly.
Jill only stared at him. Brody had had more than his share of broken promises lately. From his father. And for a moment Jill didn’t know what to say to this man. “Thank you,” she finally managed to say.
He shrugged off her thanks and started down the porch steps. At the bottom he stopped and glanced back at her. “Wolf—just what kind of a dog are we talking here?” he asked.
He made a gesture with his hands, approximating the height of a Great Dane or maybe a boxer.
Jill shook her head. “Maybe you should start your search a little closer to the ground,” she suggested.
He adjusted his hand’s height downward, then lower still.
“Try dachshund height,” she said.
Chapter Two (#ulink_10ec926f-3dea-5ef1-997f-16ab59d92dd5)
Wolf.
Whit found the sawed-off runt of a creature shortly before going off duty, having spotted him loping along the interstate at five a.m. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever live down the razzing he’d taken when a trooper friend of his happened by about that time and heard him calling to the animal and trying to lure him into the squad car with a hardened piece of jelly doughnut.
He’d wanted nothing more than to return Wolf to his home and forget this whole miserable night, but when he’d driven by Jill Harper’s house a short while later he’d found the place dark, leaving Whit with no choice but to take the little runaway home with him.
He just wanted a few hours of peaceful shut-eye, and then he would return the dog to Brody.
But at ten in the morning Wolf began whining to go outdoors. “I’m not about to chase you for six blocks, you miserable mutt,” Whit growled and rolled over onto his stomach, his body begging for a few more hours of much-needed sleep.
But guilt nagged at him, reminding him there was a small boy waiting for his dog. With a groan he crawled out of bed and pulled on his jeans, buttoning them up as he searched around the bedroom for a pair of shoes.
“Come on, hotfoot,” he said to the dog. “I’ll buy you breakfast, then take you for a walk.”
He and Wolf shared toast in the kitchen, then Whit tied a piece of rope to the dog’s collar as a leash and introduced him to a few trees in the neighborhood. A dog, one adorable little boy and his even more adorable mother added up to trouble in Whit’s book. The kind he didn’t need.
So why hadn’t he been able to get Jill Harper off his mind?
He’d been all too ready to jump to the conclusion that she was a bad parent. In his job he often had to size up a situation quickly—and accurately—but unless he’d missed his guess, the pint-size woman he’d met last night would walk through fire for her son.
And maybe she already had.
He thought he’d seen pain and a soft vulnerability in those wide-set green eyes of hers. And he found that he hated the possibility that someone might have hurt her.
Or Brody.
“Come on, pooch,” he said, giving Wolf’s makeshift leash a determined tug. “It’s time to take you home. And, you sawed-off excuse for a dog, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn a few of the finer points of protecting your family, instead of making these late-night forays of yours.”
Jill didn’t know what to do about Brody. For the past hour he’d been sitting on the front porch step, watching up and down the block for the big policeman he’d talked incessantly about all morning. He was convinced his new friend would be driving up any minute now, the missing Wolf in tow.
Officer Whit Tanner had made quite an impression on her young son. He had brought her child home safely—and for that she was grateful to him. But the missing Wolf could be anywhere—and she wished the man hadn’t made a promise he didn’t know he could keep.
She stepped out onto the porch and sat down beside Brody, wishing she knew some way to distract him from his front porch vigil. Earlier she’d fixed him his favorite breakfast of pancakes, but he’d barely touched them. She’d suggested he try his new Nintendo game she’d bought him last week, but he’d given her a quiet shake of his head and, instead, carried Wolf’s food dish outside, placing it beside him on the porch.
“Wolf will be hungry when he comes home,” he explained.
His hope nearly broke Jill’s heart.
It was already past eleven, and so far there’d been no sign of Whit, no sign of the dog, and Jill feared the worst. She put an arm around her son’s small shoulders. “Brody, honey, I know Officer Tanner said he would find Wolf for you, but. he may not be able to. Wolf could be a long way away, somewhere the policeman wouldn’t know to look for him.”
Brody shook his red head with a vehemence. “No, Mommy. He said he would bring Wolf, and he will—just like he promised. You’ll see.”
Jill knew all about promises made to little boys—they seemed to be the kind most easily forgotten. How many times had she tried to make it up to Brody for the broken promises of his father? How many times had Michael Harper been “busy” with a court case he needed to prepare for, too busy for a trip to the zoo with his son or even a night out for an ice cream?
“Look, sweetie…Wolf is such a little dog, and there are lots of streets, lots of places he might have gone. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, that’s all.”
“It’s okay, Mommy. Don’t worry. The policeman will find him.” Her son patted her on the arm. A child reassuring his parent—that gave Jill a moment’s pause.
With a sigh she knew she couldn’t shake her fouryear-old’s faith, his belief that Officer Tanner would prevail against all odds and find the missing Wolf:
At that moment she could have happily wrung the big cop’s neck. And it would have been better than he deserved.
Brody needed someone to look up to, someone strong and big he could believe in. A hero. And right now, to Brody, that hero was Whit Tanner.
Mommies were all right as far as they went. They worked well for patching up skinned knees or telling bedtime stories, but there were times when a mommy just wasn’t enough.
Jill felt a pang of pain at the knowledge and vowed to talk to Michael once again about giving his son a little fatherly attention. Though she doubted it would do much good. The man had his own agenda, one which unfortunately left little time for parenting.
She gave Brody a hug. “Maybe I’ll fix us each a glass of lemonade. Would you like that?”
Brody nodded that he would, and Jill left him there, staring off down the block.
Her heart squeezed in her chest as she headed toward the kitchen. Brody was such a little boy, and she knew she couldn’t protect him from every hurt in life. Still she tried.
She’d even bought Wolf for him as a way of assuaging his disappointment over being stood up by his father two weeks earlier. Now, in hindsight, she wasn’t so sure getting the dog for Brody had been a good idea. Her son had ventured outdoors late at night, something he never would have done had it not been for Wolf. And now the little runaway was lost, and Brody would be heartbroken if he wasn’t found.
Jill had just reached for the fresh lemons in the fridge when she heard Brody’s excited yelp from the porch. “He’s here, Mommy, he’s here! The policeman’s here with Wolf!” came his jubilant small voice.
There was a God after all, Jill thought, and dropped the bag of lemons to dart to the front door. She arrived just in time to see the hunk of a cop, out of uniform this time, emerge from a black Jeep Cherokee, a squalling, wriggling dachshund tucked unceremoniously under one arm.
Brody raced toward him, and Whit ruffled the boy’s red hair, while Wolf lathered Brody’s piquant face with exuberant licks.
“I told Mommy you’d come. I told her,” Brody said, bubbling over.
Whit laughed, a deep male sound that rumbled up from his chest. “You did, pardner? And where is this mommy of yours?”
Jill stepped out onto the porch. She tried to keep her gaze off the devastating look of the man in his soft-worn jeans and faded black sweatshirt. If he’d been all male last night in that uniform, he was every bit as dangerously so today.
“His mommy is right here,” she said. “And I think you’ve made one little boy very happy.”
“Well, I aim to please.” Whit was a little disappointed to see she was wearing more than a robe this morning, though he couldn’t fault the fit of her soft yellow sweater or those form-fitting jeans that hugged her slender legs.
The color of the sweater let loose the gold fire in her hair and made the flecks in her green eyes dance like the sun. She had a smattering of freckles, like Brody’s, across her straight, refined nose, and Whit found the effect touching. A few were scattered on her arms below the pushed-up sleeves of her sweater, making him ponder where else he might find a provocative patch.
“You’d better hang on to him, Brody,” she called to her son, and Whit glanced toward the pair just as Wolf threatened to roar off again, probably to see if the youngster would give chase.
Brody made a valiant grab for the leash, but it slipped through his small hands.
“Oh, no, you don’t, you miserable piece of stuffed sausage,” Whit bellowed, and to the accompaniment of Brody’s giggles and his mom’s velvet-soft laughter, he lunged for the animal.
He and the dog tumbled in the grass, with Brody dancing about excitedly beside him and Jill not even trying to hide her amusement.
“Have you ever considered obedience training for this monster?” he asked, when he had Wolf finally in hand.
He thought of his friend, Joe Farrell, with the K-9 Unit. Joe could teach even the most worthless beast to “stay”—and Wolf certainly qualified as worthless.
“I haven’t—but it’s something I think I need to seriously consider,” Jill said, when she could finally manage the words. “A little obedience wouldn’t hurt him.”
An understatement if Whit had ever heard one. “I’ll see if I can come up with a name or two for you,” he volunteered. He might just ask Joe if he’d be interested in a little moonlighting.
However, knowing Joe’s reputation with the ladies, Whit would be damned if he’d allow the man to get within ten feet of Jill Harper without Whit being present.
He dusted off his jeans and offered Brody the end of the rope leash. “This time hang on to it, pardner,” he said.
“Okay, Off’cer.”
“That’s Whit to you, pardner,” Whit said, tousling the boy’s hair.
“Okay…Whit,” Brody said shyly before charging off with Wolf.
Whit gave renewed attention to the woman on the porch. Her eyes were bright as she watched her son play, then she turned her gaze on him.
“It seems I’m once again in your debt,” she said. “Thank you for bringing Wolf home. How ever did you find the little rascal?”
“Don’t ask.”
Jill raised an eyebrow at the low groan he gave with his answer. “Not an easy capture, Officer?”
He strode closer and leaned against the porch railing near her. Very near. She could see the dark heat of his eyes, the small razor nick at his jawline. “Let’s just say I didn’t relish standing at the side of the road calling to a short-legged, overweight animal, sadly misnamed. Wolf…”
She hid a smile. “It did damage to your image, did it?”
She was enjoying this, he thought. “It’ll heal. Sometime along about…Christmas.”
Her laugh was soft and it trickled along his nerve endings.
“I’m really very sorry. Brody came up with the name. And you’re right, it doesn’t fit.”
He accepted her apology with good grace. “No harm done. Just don’t let it happen again. It’s dangerous out there at night for boy and dog. Next time neither of them might be as lucky.”
Another of his good-citizen warnings, Jill thought, one she already knew to heed. He didn’t have to remind her. “I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”
“And get that dog an address tag,” he added. “I assume he’s had his shots.”
She wondered if the man’s bite was worse than his bark. “We’ve only had the dog two weeks, but he’s had his shots. And the vet has ordered him an address tag. Anything else, Officer?”
He saw the military-rigid set to her shoulders, realized the laughter in her eyes had disappeared. He wanted it back, but he had a point to make. “The dead bolt,” he added.
Her green eyes gleamed with glacier coolness. “The dead bolt.” She crossed one denimed leg over the other and fixed him with a fierce glower. “It may surprise you to know that despite Brody’s dangerous escapade last night I really am a good mother. I don’t let my child run loose, climb tall trees or play on the interstate. I take him to the pediatrician, the dentist, give him nutritious foods, his vitamins and tuck him into bed every night.”
Whit wouldn’t mind having her tuck him into bed at night. But as angry as he’d made her, he didn’t think that was going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
“I’m sure you’re a good mother. It’s just that accidents tend to happen the one time you’re not looking. I’m only offering a word or two of advice.”
“Advice.”
He held out a hand to her. “How about a truce? You continue to be a good mother—and I’ll continue to be a good cop.”
“Well, you’ve more than done your civic duty.” Jill was still angry, but she decided she’d give the overbearing man the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just trying to do his job.
She stuck out her hand. “I suppose we could try a truce and see how it goes.”
His touch was warm as his big hand swallowed hers. And in spite of herself a tingle traveled the length of her arm, heat chasing along behind it. What was it about the man that kept her a little off center in his presence?
“I was about to fix Brody and me a glass of lemonade when you arrived. Would…you care for one?” she asked, feeling an overwhelming need to retreat to the kitchen and search for her good sense.
“Lemonade? Sounds great. While you’re at it, I’ll uh, take a look at that door lock—I have a few tools in the four-by-four.”
She spun back around to face him, and he put up his hands in defense. “It’s just an offer of help, not an indictment of guilt.”
Her glance was wary for a long moment, then she relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “Yes—that would be helpful. Thank you,” she added.
Jill took longer than usual to squeeze the lemons into fresh lemonade, but she needed time to find that composure of hers that had slipped the moment Whit arrived on the scene.
Last night she’d thought the attraction was strictly for a man in uniform—but that didn’t account for the awareness she felt today.
She and Brody were just getting settled; she was recovering from a divorce and trying to get both her feet firmly planted on the ground. Now was not the time for her senses to take a trip to nowhere.
When she returned to the front of the house, tray of lemonade in her hands, she expected to find her dead bolt in parts, spread about the entry hall. Instead it was in one piece and, she suspected, functioning—if she knew Whit Tanner already. Once again he seemed to have come to her rescue.
She found him in the yard with Brody, playing a game of what looked like football—with Wolf as the pigskin. At least they were both scrambling after the animal as if he were a missed pass they were each trying to recover for their own side.
Brody’s whoops of delight reminded her how very much Brody needed some male influence in his life. But Whit Tanner was a man touching their lives only briefly, a knight in shining armor who’d ridden to the rescue—and who’d be gone just as quickly.
And considering the intensity of her attraction to him that was just fine.
One day she would allow another man into her life—but next time she’d go slowly, be sure she knew him well. Next time she would choose someone who had time for her and Brody.
“Yea! Lemonade!” Brody yelped, spotting her. He turned to Whit. “My mommy makes the bestest.”
Whit glanced toward the porch. She was back. Back with that sweet innocence of hers. And that slightly haunted smile. As if there was some pain still a little too fresh in her life.
“Best, Brody,” she said. “And I don’t know if it’s all that great. But it is cold.”
“Sounds good,” Whit said. The dog at his heels, he sauntered up and took a glass.
“Looks like that animal was getting the worst end of that game you were playing,” she said. She sat down on the porch step and Whit joined her.
“Nah, the dog loved it,” he said and took a swal1 low. A mixture of tart and sweet, like the woman beside him.
“I guess I owe you a thank you for the lock,” she said softly. “You were able to repair it?”
“Good as new—and no thanks necessary. As long as it keeps the kid indoors.”
He ruffled Brody’s hair and Brody grinned, a lemonade mustache decorating his upper lip. “Can we take Wolf on a picnic to the park, Mommy? An’. an’ can Whit come, too?”
Jill understood Brody’s exuberance—and where it was coming from. But she wasn’t sure Whit did. And she knew the man must have other things to do than spend a Sunday in the park.
“I don’t think today, sweetheart,” she told him, then turned to Whit. “I’m afraid my son has a giant case of hero worship. You’re all he’s talked about since he got up this morning—you and how you were going to bring his dog home.”
“I hadn’t realized the pressure was on,” he said. He turned to Brody, whose small face had puckered into a disappointed frown. “Maybe another time, pardner.”
Whit hated to do this, but the woman had given him an out—and he was damned well going to take it. Not that spending time with the pretty Jill wasn’t a temptation in itself, but even as that thought crossed his mind, a damnable hive began to itch, the way it always did whenever he ventured too close to any form of domesticity.
And what could be more domestic than a Sunday picnic in the park with a mom and a small boy—even a dog along to complete the picture.
He scratched at the hive on his neck. Besides, he had other things to do this afternoon. A date with a cold can of beer and basketball play-offs on the tube. Definitely less threatening than Jill Harper with her pretty smile and too-tempting manner, he thought.
He finished his lemonade and placed the empty glass back on the tray. “I should be going.” He stood up.
Jill stood, too. “Well,” she said, “thanks again for returning Wolf. And…for fixing the lock.”
She looked so young, so fresh, her lips dewy-soft and inviting—and he was tempted to taste the sweet-tart lemonade on them. Instead he turned to Brody. “You and Wolf wanna walk me to the car?”
Brody nodded, and Whit tweaked the boy’s freckled nose. He remembered what Jill had said about her son’s case of hero worship. But Whit wasn’t sure hero was an accolade he was all that comfortable with. Or deserving of.
That belonged to men like his brother Steve.
Jill watched the trio go, the big man towering over small boy, Brody’s head tipped up as he listened intently to something Whit was saying.
Curiosity piqued, she wondered what the two were talking about.
Jill had brought the account books home from the shop. The antique shop, Simply Treasures, she’d opened less than a year ago was doing a brisk business. In between buying trips, refinishing small, prized pieces of furniture, polishing silver and rewiring old lamps, she had little time for paperwork. She’d hoped to find time over the weekend to get caught up.
But instead of work, Brody came first today. This morning he’d been too upset over his dog for her to have the firm discussion with him that she’d needed to have, a mother-son talk about the dangers of a small boy venturing outdoors late at night. But that afternoon they took a walk with Wolf to the park a few blocks away. Brody listened to her parental concern for a while, then looked up at her.
“I know all that, Mommy,” he said with all the earnestness of a four-year-old. “Whit told me I coulda been hurt, maybe kilt, or never been able to fin’ my way back home.”
“He said all that?”
“Uh-huh. When he lefted.”
“Left, Brody.” But she wasn’t as upset at Brody’s grammar as she was at what the big cop had told him. Killed? Did he have to scare the child to death? A simple warning would have been sufficient.
“An’. an’ Whit said I should min’ you real good.”
That part, at least, Jill couldn’t take offense with.
She didn’t want her son to grow up a namby-pamby, and she often worried about the lack of male influence Brody had in his young life. She could hardly count the few hours Michael spent with him. A boy needed more than a halfhearted, all-too-busy father.
Whit was a cop. He was tough, but she didn’t approve of the tack he’d taken with her son. Brody was just a baby. And she wasn’t ready to have him know about all the dangers the world presented.
She knew law-enforcement officials and child—safety organizations would argue with that, but she wanted to believe that she could protect her son herself, that she could let him be a child—at least for a little while longer.
Still, last night had shaken her, frightened her beyond belief. She felt torn between giving Whit Tanner a piece of her mind—or her vote of thanks.
But, at least to all outward appearances, the man’s frank talk didn’t seem to have traumatized Brody’s young psyche any. He was full of smiles and boyish spirits. And the case of hero worship he had with Whit hadn’t been all bad, either. Brody walked a little taller, a little straighter, a little more proudly than he had before.
She recognized a little of Whit’s swagger in him as he left her side and marched over to the park’s big slide for a trip down it.
She loved her son. He was her life. And she spent as much time with him as she could. When she’d first started her business, she’d taken him to the shop with her, entertaining him with toys and children’s books in the small back room. Now he went to preschool, but Jill missed those times they’d had alone together.
On their trip back from the park Jill listened once again to Brody’s chatter about his favorite policeman, but her own images of the man played in her mind.
All of them dangerous to her senses.
It was only when she heard Brody discussing his idea of show-and-tell at preschool next week that she returned her attention to her son and what he was saying.
“So can I, Mommy? Can Iple-e-ease?”
Jill glanced down at his small eager face. Her first thought was that she wasn’t sure how she could talk her son out of his enthusiastic idea. Her second thought was what Officer Whit Tanner would think of it.
Chapter Three (#ulink_65b9316c-3f9a-5a86-9ce3-0baedf01b484)
“Show-and-tell duty? What the hell kinda assignment is that?” Whit demanded of his superior.
Captain Vince Malloy hid a grin, but Whit saw the faint twitch at the edges of his mouth just the same.
“A wimp assignment, that’s what kind,” Officer Jake Foster said with a low chuckle as he passed by Malloy’s open office door on his way to the duty room.
They were enjoying this a little too much, Whit thought glumly. And at his expense. He dragged a hand through his hair and appealed to what he hoped was Malloy’s reasonable side. “Can’t the guys in Public Relations handle this? What do I know about talking to a group of preschoolers, anyway…?”
Whit would rather teach gun safety to rival street gangs. Kids scared the hell out of him.
“No deal,” Malloy said from behind his cluttered desk. “The kid asked for you—personally. No one else. A cute-sounding little shaver. Talked like you were his new best friend.”
“Brody.”
The image of the small, red-haired boy flashed into Whit’s mind, followed almost immediately by the kid’s all-too-alluring mom. Jill Harper had a way of haunting a man’s dreams—and Whit was no exception. For the past three days, and nights, he’d tried to forget that sweet smile of hers, her soft, easy sensuality.
“Brody—yeah, that was the kid’s name.” Malloy’s gravel-edged voice brought Whit back. “I got the school address here somewhere,” he said, and dug through the debris on his desk. “Ah, yes—here it is. School’s over on…Meadow Lane.” He read his illegible scrawl through three overlapping coffee mug rings on the paper, then shoved the note at Whit.
Whit felt his chances of getting out of this begin to sink like a torpedoed sub. Besides, what kind of a guy would he be to say no to a small boy who thought he was his new best friend?
Whit liked to think he wasn’t that low-down.
“The chief likes this goodwill kind of stuff, so try to put a smile on it, Tanner.”
Whit’s grumbling reply wasn’t intelligible, but the glower he shot Malloy couldn’t have been clearer.
Whit barely had time to file his traffic reports, let alone think of something to say to a group of eager youngsters.
By the time he arrived at the school at three that afternoon he still hadn’t a clue what one did for showand-tell. At twenty-eight it had been a long time since he’d participated in any such learning experience—if he ever had. Whit couldn’t remember his preschool days all that clearly.
But he would survive this somehow, he told himself as he approached the classroom with mounting trepidation. He had a quick image of his brother, Steve, and the impression he’d once had on a young boy a little older than Brody but every bit as starry-eyed. Whit knew what it felt like to look up to a cop.
With that memory, he knew he couldn’t let Brody down.
One of the preschool teachers met him at the door, hardly more than a youngster herself. Either that or he was getting older, he wasn’t sure which.
“Officer Tanner, Brody’s been expecting you,” she said cheerily enough. She drew him inside and tried to put him at ease, but Whit wasn’t sure the effort was working.
Before he could respond to the teacher’s pleasantries, Brody rushed up, all smiles with a little shyness mixed in. Whit supposed that made two of them.
“Hi-ya, pardner,” he said, and Brody beamed.
It didn’t take long before the teachers had the group quieted down and announced him to the class. He felt outsize, awkwardly outsize, in the room of small, red chairs, low shelves of books, and projects in various stages of completion.
Finally Whit discovered what show-and-tell comprised. He was the show and Brody did the tell, explaining in far too many superlatives about how his friend had not only rescued him in the middle of the night, but found his dog, as well. To hear Brody tell it, Whit deserved a commendation at the very least.
Then it was his turn to offer a few words.
“Thank you, Brody,” he said, though the kid’s praise was far more than was warranted.
He wondered again how the hell he’d gotten himself into this. And how he’d ever get through it.gracefully.
He summoned a smile he hoped looked more confident than he felt on the inside and decided on a topic that might be helpful to four-year-olds—street safety.
But before he could open his mouth and utter a word, the door at the back of the room squeaked open, and Whit glanced up into the glorious green eyes of Jill Harper.
Terrific, he thought. Just what he needed—more audience.
“Pardon the interruption,” she said in her silky voice. “Please go on.”
Go on? There wasn’t a coherent thought in his head as she wriggled onto a too-small chair and crossed one slim leg over the other, creating a diversion a blind monk couldn’t endure.
She sat poised, waiting for him to say something, but for the life of Whit he couldn’t gather his thoughts. They’d gone woolly the moment she’d wandered in. She wore something peach colored, the skirt of which had slid a delectable inch or two up her leg, making Whit’s position center stage even more uncomfortable.
Concentrate on the kids, he told himself and forced his gaze back to his young listeners. Brody sat in the front row, anticipation written all over his face. Somehow that gave Whit focus, and he stumbled into a speech.
Jill watched Whit Tanner from her vantage point at the back of the room. If she thought he seemed a little nervous initially, he didn’t now as he spoke to the children in that low, rumbly voice of his. She leaned closer to catch its resonance, let it vibrate through her.
She’d never considered herself a sucker for a man in uniform before, but today had just made a liar out of her. Her gaze trailed down from the stiff, starched steel blue of his collar, across his shiny badge and crisp folds of his shirt to the straight-as-an-arrow stripe down the darker blue of his pant legs, then back up again.
Oh, yes…she had sucker written all over her.
And so did the admiring women next to her. She’d heard more than one feminine sigh from Brody’s teachers.
The man gave new meaning to the phrase, Kansas City’s finest.
Jill hadn’t been enthused about Brody inviting him to school for show-and-tell, but she’d given in to her son in the end. Now, she wasn’t so sure she should have. Whit Tanner made her feel all too much like a womana—a woman missing any semblance of good sense.
He turned the last of his talk into a question-andanswer time for the children. And Jill was sure every hand went up, each boy and girl wanting a part of him. Brody’s small hand was lost in the group, but still Whit gave him his chance at a query.
“Can you go get an ice cream with me and my mom after school?” he asked Whit.
Whit glanced to the back of the room just in time to see Brody’s embarrassed mother hide her face in her hands. When she drew her hands down to peer up at him over the tips of her fingers he gave her a small smile.
“He hasta go catch the bad guys—don’t you know anything?” the kid beside Brody said with a nudge to Brody’s rib cage.
“Yeah,” a few of the others said in a chorus.
Whit moved to save the situation. “In between catching bad guys I’ve been known to eat an ice cream or two,” he answered.
“Yeah!” Brody’s chest puffed up. “And lemonade, too.”
By now Jill had recovered her aplomb and was able to laugh at what the class had deteriorated into. The teachers were smiling, as well, but quickly moved to restore order and thank Officer Tanner for his time and his talk.
Jill wanted to thank him, too. And apologize for her son’s exuberant behavior. It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately.
She caught up with him outside the class. He looked every bit as if he’d been waiting for her, as he lounged against the wall in the hallway, one shoulder propped against it, arms and legs crossed casually.
“I didn’t think you’d be here today,” he said quietly.
She walked closer and stopped in front of him. “I promised Brody I’d come for his show-and-tell.”
“And take him for ice cream afterward…?”
She ducked her head, embarrassed again. “About that ice cream…I’m sure you have other things to do.”
Whit gazed at her. Why the hell didn’t he get out of here now? He’d done the show-and-tell thing as asked. It hadn’t killed him after all. He might have a few taunts to live down back at the station, but he could do that.
Why add trouble?
He wasn’t sure why, but it had to do with this woman. Perhaps if he hung around a bit, unraveled the mystery of the hold she had on him, he could put his thoughts of her behind him and get on with his life.
Jill tried to read his expression. He seemed to be warring with something deep inside. It made her curious. In fact, the man made her entirely too curious in entirely too many ways.
He levered away from the wall. “As it so happens, I don’t have anything to do,” he said. “And I happen to like ice cream.”
They were the last words they were able to share for a while as the class dismissed, and its small army of preschoolers swamped Officer Tanner. They each wanted to shake his hand, some wanted to touch his gun, and the big, macho cop, Jill quickly realized, Was out of his element.
His dark-eyed gaze sought hers over the tops of the kids’ heads, a plea for help if she’d ever seen one.
She gave him a slow, easy grin, and for a quick half moment, considered leaving him there to fight his own way out.
She didn’t recall the cop who’d given her that last traffic ticket taking pity on her.
But she knew she couldn’t do that.
Over a group of boys chorusing that they wanted to ride in a police car, she reached for his hand and gave a surreptitious nod toward a fire door down the hall.
Whit said a quick goodbye to the crowd, and they hurried toward the door, Brody following.
Jill was laughing outright when they’d safely reached the outside. “You haven’t had a lot of experience with kids, have you?” she said.
He frowned. “Zilch.”
“No nieces or nephews?”
“A pair of nieces—my sister’s kids. But they’re safely away in Minnesota.”
Jill caught the emphasis on safely. His interplay with Brody was apparently a rare occurrence, then, something totally alien to his nature. And he had been nervous standing in front of the class; she realized that now.
So why had he agreed to ice cream with her and Brody?
“How do you feel about Dairy Delight?” he asked the two of them when they reached the school’s circle drive where she’d left her car.
Brody exclaimed that not only was it his favorite, there was one near his house.
They made plans to meet there in a half hour.
Whit needed to run by the station and finish a quick report. And no doubt endure a bit of razzing about his afternoon at school, he was sure. But an afternoon at school had its own reward, he thought, as he watched Jill settle her son into a well-worn green station wagon.
He took a moment to enjoy. Just enjoy.
What was it the woman did to his senses? he wondered as he leaned back against the fender of the patrol car. And why did it scare him to death?
Just then the kids issuing from the front of the building spotted him and the car. “Oh, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath and prepared for a siege.
It had been a long time since Jill had primped for a man, and she wasn’t really primping now, she told herself as she ran a quick comb through her hair. She was merely freshening up after a long day at the shop, then a visit to Brody’s school.
So why was she changing earrings, putting on that new pair she knew bobbed enticingly at her ears? Why had she changed into a pair of jeans that cut off circulation to her legs and impaired her breathing?
Could it be that she wanted to impair the breathing of one certain sexy cop?
“Don’t answer that, Jill,” she said aloud.
“Mommy, we’re gonna be late. Hurreeee,” Brody said, jumping around in the hall outside her bedroom.
Jill put down the bottle of perfume she’d been about to spritz on herself. Her son had a way of adding reality to her life—and this was one of those times. She was a mother, and she didn’t need to be losing her head over some man, any man. Not without considering the consequences beforehand.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to consider the consequences of losing her head over Whit Tanner.
“I’m ready if you are,” she told Brody.
The ice cream shop was a short walk from their house. Whit wasn’t there when they arrived, and for a quick moment she feared he might have decided against coming.
But not every man was like Michael, she tried to tell herself.
Besides, she’d seen him at school not forty minutes before. What could have happened in that length of time?
“Whit probably got detained at the station,” she said to her son. “Come on, let’s go find us a booth.”
“What’s d-de-tained?” Brody asked, sliding in ahead of her.
“Uh—that’s when something comes up that keeps you from being somewhere else.”
He pondered that for a moment. “Like when my daddy can’t take me to the park?”
Jill wasn’t sure how to answer that. Whatever else Michael Harper was, he was still Brody’s father. And though he wasn’t worth the effort, Jill steadfastly tried to preserve what image of the man she could. For Brody’s sake. Her own illusions of him had shattered long before.
“Not exactly, sweetie,” she said.
Fortunately she was saved from further explanation when Whit strode through the front door. Brody spotted him and let out a whoop of joy. Jill could have done the same, but held her own opinion of the man to herself, content instead to only take in the all-male look of him as he made his way toward them.
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Gayle Kaye
AWARD OF DISTINCTIONpresented to Officer Whit Tanner, midnight rescuer of lost children and missing mutts, for being the last single guy in the precinct, and intending to stay that way….CITATION OF SEDUCTIONpresented to Jill Harper, divorced mother of four-year-old Brody Harper, for capturing the attention of Officer Tanner, and threatening his bachelorhood….RECOURSE: ROMANCEMix marriage-shy officer with romance-weary mother, add a tiny smattering of wandering dog and matchmaking little boy, toss in some heady kisses and sultry looks, then stand back and wait for hearts to melt…and merge.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uf104cbe2-a399-50db-8347-179e514fe928)
Excerpt (#ufd930dca-554e-521f-ba99-2d5f74e87eb1)
Dear Reader (#udbd239d6-36d0-5c77-b764-7a47aa8c6b3e)
Title Page (#uc4d62db8-47f5-5699-8fad-fd5bc200f1c5)
Dedication (#u287057de-29f3-5e67-8d02-a1415de6cb0f)
About the Author (#ubf2965dd-6ff6-5383-88ce-cc0ac561a75d)
Chapter One (#u28db2197-6ca9-5c95-9dbc-dbae3cd34101)
Chapter Two (#ub9116241-c0d8-5a46-88af-38af18748302)
Chapter Three (#ub440683a-875d-54b3-8a12-e47f8be6edfe)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Jill reacted to Whit on every level known to womankind.
And she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t want to—not to this man, a man who could steal all of her good sense from her.
She was the mother of a four-year-old son, and she needed to tread cautiously. For her own sake. For her son’s sake.
“Perhaps,” she said shakily, “tonight wasn’t a good idea. And the kiss this afternoon—”
He touched two fingers to her lips. “Don’t say it, Jill. I wanted to kiss you, had to know what you tasted like. Just once.”
But, Jill wondered, would it be just once—could it be—if she stayed anywhere near Whit Tanner?
Dear Reader,
From classic love stories to romantic comedies to emotional heart tuggers, Silhouette Romance offers six irresistible novels every month by some of your favorite authors-and some sure to become favorites. Just look at the lineup this month:
In Most Eligible Dad, book 2 of Karen Rose Smith’s wonderful miniseries THE BEST MEN, a confirmed bachelor becomes a FABULOUS FATHER when he discovers he’s a daddy.
A single mother and her precious BUNDLE OF JOY teach an unsmiling man how to love again in The Man Who Would Be Daddy by bestselling author Marie Ferrarella.
I Do? I Don’t? is the very question a bride-to-be asks herself when a sexy rebel from her past arrives just in time to stop her wedding in Christine Scott’s delightful novel.
Marriage? A very happily unmarried police officer finally says “I do” in Gayle Kaye’s touching tale Bachelor Cop.
In Family of Three by Julianna Morris, a man and a woman have to share the same house—with separate bedrooms, of course…
Debut author Leanna Wilson knows no woman can resist a Strong, Silent Cowboy—and you won’t be able to, either!
I’d love to know what you think of the Romance line. Are there any special kinds of stories you’d like to see more of, less of? Your thoughts are very important to me-after all, these books are for you!
Sincerely,
Melissa Senate,
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Bachelor Cop
Gayle Kaye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Dani Criss, whose critiques I value, whose friendship I cherish. May success always shine on you!
GAYLE KAYE
had a varied and interesting career as an R.N. before finally hanging up her stethoscope to write romances. She indulges this passion in Kansas City, Missouri, where she lives with her husband and one very spoiled poodle. Her first romance in 1987 reached the finals of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest.
When she’s not writing, she loves to travel or just curl up with a good book.
Chapter One (#ulink_111fc266-0050-5524-abfb-34f47a8198dc)
Officer Whit Tanner aimed his patrol car down the quiet, Kansas City, Missouri, street, thinking about his longtime friend on the force, Ben Jameson. He and Ben were the last two remaining bachelors in the department, but now in a few weeks Ben would be taking the plunge, leaving Whit as the lone holdout in the marriage game. He wished his old friend well, but he knew the statistics for cop marriages—and they weren’t good.
It was why Whit didn’t intend to fall victim to any female with home and hearth on her mind.
He turned up Elm, then onto Holly Lane, scanning the rows of small, well-kept homes. There’d been a rash of petty burglaries in the area lately, but nothing more serious than an occasional stolen ten-speed or lawn ornament, in direct contrast to the inner city where crime continued to flourish.
He usually drew that detail on a Saturday night, but he was luckier this time. His only big problem for the next few hours would be staying awake until his shift was over.
Then just ahead he saw movement, a flash of lightcolored clothing. If someone was bent on thievery, he thought, you’d think they’d wear dark, so they’d be less easily spotted—but then most crooks weren’t exactly noted for their intelligence, or they wouldn’t be doing the crime in the first place.
Whit cruised slowly, trying to get a better look at the figure darting through the yards, seemingly sticking to the shadows.
Then a few houses up he caught a good look at the would-be prowler. He was pajama-clad, about three feet tall and barefoot.
Whit might find some amusement in that, except that it was one o’clock in the morning, and no three- or fouryear-old had any business being out at that hour.
Where were the kid’s parents, anyway? At some damned party, leaving the boy home alone? Whit felt his blood begin to boil. In his job he saw what happened to neglected kids. He arrested them sometime after the age of ten. Occasionally sooner.
At least he didn’t have to call for backup on this one, but when he got the youngster home he intended to give his parents Holy Toledo for negligence. Hell, maybe he’d even run them in.
He stopped the car and got out. “Police officer,” Whit called out. “What’s the trouble, small-fry?”
It was dark, the moon obscured by clouds moving in, and as Whit stepped closer, he felt the first few drops of spring rain begin to pelt. Damn good thing he’d happened along or the kid’s pj’s would soon be soaked.
“What’re you doing out here this time of night?” Whit called again.
Then he saw the boy was crying, the biggest set of crocodile tears he’d ever run across. Something Whit wasn’t equipped to handle. Hell, he didn’t know a thing about kids. He’d had damn little experience in that department.
Another reason he wasn’t cut out for marriage. Marriage usually brought on fatherhood, somewhere around nine months later.
Deciding to let instinct take over and hope for the best, he walked up to the boy and knelt down eye level with him. “Hey, come on, it can’t be all that bad, can it?”
His reply was a snuffle and a sob.
“What’s your name, big guy?” he asked as gently as he could.
“Bro-Bro-Brody,” came a muffled answer.
“Brody.” Well, now they were getting somewhere. The boy was cute, the kind that tore at your heart-with red hair that at the moment was sticking up like a spike and fat freckles that danced across his kid-size nose. “Have you ever seen the inside of a police cruiser, Brody?”
Brody gave a slow shake of his red head. He wouldn’t look at Whit, just down at his bare toes he kept curling into the grass of the greening lawn. “Am…am I ‘rested?”
“Arrested? Did you steal anything?”
“N-no.”
“Shoot somebody?”
That brought a giggle combined with a hiccup.
“Then you’re not under arrest. But I’m getting wet out here in this rain.” The drops were coming down harder. And bigger. “Why don’t we talk in the car?”
He reached for Brody’s hand and felt a tug on his heartstrings as the child placed it in his big palm. When Whit seated him in the cruiser, the kid’s eyes went wide at the sight of the police paraphernalia—the squawking, squalling radio, the gun mounted to the dash—and Whit remembered the first time he’d seen the inside of a squad car.
He’d been nine years old, and his big brother—Officer Steve Tanner—had given him a quick ride down the block. Four years after that, Steve had taken a bullet, tracking down a man who’d been dealing drugs to children in an inner-city housing project. Neither were memories Whit would ever forget.
But right now Whit had a small kid to interrogate. “Okay, Brody, why don’t you tell me what you are doing out in your pajamas at this time of night?”
Though he’d softened his cop-edged voice, he still sounded like he was shaking down some street thug instead of an unarmed three- or four-year-old.
Brody squirmed a little on the seat. “Wolf,” he said, temporarily forgetting his interest in the police car to study his grass-stained toes instead.
For a fast moment Whit wondered what he was getting into here. Had the little guy had a nightmare involving werewolves and other things that go bump in the night? Whit wasn’t good with kids with nightmares.
“He’s my dog,” Brody said in a small, earnest voice. “He cried ‘cause he wanted to go out…so I letted him out, but then he runned away.”
So…the monster dog had hoodwinked his young master into letting him outside to water a bush or two, then split the scene. “And you went after him, am I right?”
“Uh-huh. I hadda ketch him,” he said, eyes wide and solemn.
Whit wondered how he could make a small boy understand just how dangerous a nightly adventure like this could be. He gave it a moment or two of thought, before realizing his small charge was sleepy and no doubt cold, so he decided to save the lecture for the parents. A stiff lecture.
“And where did you last see Wolf?” he asked the boy.
“In my yard.”
Whit glanced around the neighborhood. There wasn’t a porch light on, no one out looking for a child. He turned back to his young friend. “Which yard is yours, Brody? Can you show me?”
The boy turned around in his seat and peered out through the rain-streaked window of the squad car. Whit wasn’t sure just when he realized it, but somehow he knew there wasn’t anything up or down the block that looked familiar to the kid.
Jill Harper pulled her thin robe tighter around her shoulders in a futile effort to ward off the pelting rain and the fear that rose in her throat. Brody was gone from his bed. Wolf was missing, too. That meant the silly dachshund had run away again, this time Brody following him out into the night.
Heart squeezing with dread, Jill peered up the street and down, wondering in which direction her son could have gone. And how far. He was only four. They’d moved to this house less than a month ago, and Brody wasn’t familiar with his street.
Or neighboring streets.
A shiver raced along her spine. She had to find her son, but she wasn’t sure what to do first. Phone for the police. Or drive around and try to find him herself.
If only she could think clearly. Drive, she decided. She could do that faster than the police could get here.
But what if Brody came home in the meantime?
Just then fate solved at least part of the dilemma.
Jill prayed that the police car rounding the corner, its bar of red lights pulsing against the night, was real and not a figment of her fear. As it inched with maddening slowness down the street toward her, she knew it was no hallucination. She waved her arms in a frantic signal, though she doubted anyone could miss a woman in a silky white robe, standing on the curb in a rainstorm.
“Mom…!”
Jill heard the sweet sound of her son’s voice even before the car cruised to a stop.
“Brody!”
She tried to see past the officer, who filled the driverside window, to her small son beyond; needing the reassurance that only the sight of him could give her.
He was safe, wrapped in a large, dark blue blanket and looking very proud of himself as he sat beside the officer.
“Oh, Brody!” She wanted to cry and hug him all at the same time. That went for the man who’d brought him home, as well.
For the first time she glanced at the officer, noting his broad shoulders that looked as if they could take on the world—and the scowl of annoyance on his handsome, well-honed features. Yes, she thought, those dark eyes held censure, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her like a lightning bolt. He thought her a negligent mother.
Momentary anger stiffened her narrow shoulders. He wouldn’t think that if he knew the bond between her and Brody, a bond strengthened by shared hurt and disillusionment—hurt Jill desperately tried to shield him from.
“Your son is fine, Mrs…” His deep voice paused, waiting for her to supply him with the rest.
She hoped he didn’t want it for a report he intended to file against her.
“It’s Ms…Jill Harper,” she supplied bravely. “And you are?”
“Officer Whit Tanner, and I suggest, Ms. Harper, that in the future you keep a closer eye on your child. I found him three blocks away. Anything could have happened to him.”
“Three…!”
Whit saw the woman’s face blanch as white as the robe she was wearing, a robe he’d been trying not to notice was becoming more and more transparent with each drop of rain. Though her curves were lovely, despite her petite frame, he didn’t want to be picking her up from the pavement.
“Don’t faint on me, lady.” He shoved open the patrol car door and jumped out, ready to assist.
“I-I’m okay,” she replied unsteadily. “This has all been such a scare, that’s all.” She drew a deep breath, her small, but intriguing, breasts rising beneath her raindamp robe. The delicate outline of her nipples puckered visibly against the silky wet fabric, and Whit swallowed a groan.
What a night! He’d rather haul in a half dozen unruly drunks than pull neighborhood duty like this. It was too hard on a man’s body. “Look,” he said around a suddenly dry throat, “I’d better get you and small-fry here into the house. It’s raining out.in case you hadn’t noticed.”
And Whit wasn’t sure she had.
He’d meant to give her what for on the facts of rearing a minor—at least from a police point of view—but her own fear of what could have happened tonight was no doubt worse than any stern lecture from him.
Behind him Brody attempted to clamber out of the car, his short legs tangling in the department-issued blanket Whit had wrapped him in earlier. The boy looked tired and sleepy, a little worse for wear from his night’s escapade, and his mother flashed around Whit like a streaking bullet to reach him. He’d felt the zing from one or two before in his career, and this brush past him was no less charged.
Whit took one lingering moment to admire her pert derriere as she bent to pick up her child, then he remembered his civic duty, as well as his male manners. “Here, allow me.”
He scooped up Brody in his arms and headed for the house with its front door standing open, light pouring out invitingly into the dark night. He didn’t want to think of the woman who lived there, the small sprite of femininity who moved through the rooms, taking care of her son…and whatever else it was she did there.
She’d called herself Ms.—and there was no ring on her finger. To Whit that added up to single, but that didn’t mean she was available. And he had no business being curious.
“What about Wolf?” Brody asked, his soft breath muffled into Whit’s collar. “I gotta find him.”
He carried Brody up the three front steps to the porch. His mother was right behind. Whit could smell her sweet fragrance, and he could feel the heat of her. “Not tonight, pardner. That’s my job. And I promise to do my job if you do yours and go to sleep and don’t give your mom any more trouble, got that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Brody was fading fast, quickly becoming a sleeping weight in his arms.
“I can take him now,” Jill said, opening the screen door and holding out her arms for the boy.
“I’m sure you can, but I’ve already got him. Just point me to his bedroom.”
Jill didn’t need the big cop parading through her house, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Before she could answer, he’d waltzed past her and stood in the middle of the living room, looking around for a bedroom.
“In there.” Jill pointed down the hall to Brody’s room, then clasped her arms around herself.
For the first time she realized just how wet she was. Her thin robe was sticking to her petite figure in dangerous places, and she only hoped the man in the blue uniform hadn’t noticed. Her red-gold hair was damp, frizzing about her face, and her feet squeaked in her wet pink house shoes.
She had about as much sex appeal as soggy lettuce, while he, on the other hand, had more than should be allowable at this time of night. That was it—it was late—her defenses were down.
If she had her wits about her she’d probably have never noticed the man’s seemlier attributes, those gorgeously broad shoulders, his dark curly hair, damp from the rain, that strong, square chin he kept raised to regulation macho, tough-guy height. So…she’d allow him that one flaw.
On him, it looked good.
So did the uniform, she thought as he came out from the bedroom. She could bounce a quarter off the snug fit of the shirt molded so conformingly across his hard chest. Her gaze trailed down the length of him, then slowly back up—until she met with the small smile hovering at the edges of his hard mouth.
He basked for a moment in her easy perusal—and that, she thought, was his second flaw. He could have been a gentleman about it and pretended not to notice.
Finally he glanced away, centering his attention instead on the front door. “Is this how Brody got out tonight?” he asked, pacing over to it. “Did you forget to set the dead bolt before you went to bed?”
Jill wasn’t sure she liked the man’s tone. In fact, she was certain she didn’t. “I didn’t forget to set it,” she said. “The lock is broken.”
She’d meant to replace it, but there’d been so many things to do to make this small place livable for herself and Brody. Now, it seemed, she’d let one of the most important ones slide.
Jill felt the weight of her errant responsibility settle onto her shoulders like a stone. “Brody’s never done anything like this before,” she tried to explain. “I don’t know why he didn’t come and wake me if his dog needed to go out.”
But Jill was afraid she did know. Ever since her divorce a year ago Brody’s young life had been turned upside down. One minute he was a little boy, the next he tried to be a grown-up four-year-old, the man around the house. His efforts had touched Jill’s heart, but this time those efforts had been far from touching. They’d been foolhardy.
She wasn’t sure her explanation bought her leniency with the officer. He was frowning. “I’d suggest you have a talk with your son,” he said. “And—” he snapped the nonfunctioning dead bolt “—get this lock fixed.”
His tone had all the ring of an order.
“I’ll have a talk with Brody. Tomorrow,” she said. “Little boys don’t always think of consequences, of what might happen,” she added, meeting his dark-eyed gaze.
She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been a little boy himself—or had he been born in that uniform, possessing all the answers in life?
“Do you have children?” she couldn’t help but ask.
Her question seemed to surprise him momentarily, but finally he answered. “No—I don’t have children.”
She wondered if that held true for a wife, as well.
Somehow she had the feeling he was unattached—and that he liked it that way.
Too bad, she thought. She’d seen the surprising gentleness he’d shown with Brody, and she suspected he’d make a good father.
He turned to leave. “I’ll see what I can do about finding Wolf.”
It had stopped raining, and the hint of a moon was trying to peek out from behind a bank of clouds. Jill could just glimpse it over the tops of the trees. “I appreciate what you did tonight, but I wouldn’t think finding lost dogs would exactly be in the line of duty.”
He turned back to her. “I promised a little boy,” he said softly.
Jill only stared at him. Brody had had more than his share of broken promises lately. From his father. And for a moment Jill didn’t know what to say to this man. “Thank you,” she finally managed to say.
He shrugged off her thanks and started down the porch steps. At the bottom he stopped and glanced back at her. “Wolf—just what kind of a dog are we talking here?” he asked.
He made a gesture with his hands, approximating the height of a Great Dane or maybe a boxer.
Jill shook her head. “Maybe you should start your search a little closer to the ground,” she suggested.
He adjusted his hand’s height downward, then lower still.
“Try dachshund height,” she said.
Chapter Two (#ulink_10ec926f-3dea-5ef1-997f-16ab59d92dd5)
Wolf.
Whit found the sawed-off runt of a creature shortly before going off duty, having spotted him loping along the interstate at five a.m. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever live down the razzing he’d taken when a trooper friend of his happened by about that time and heard him calling to the animal and trying to lure him into the squad car with a hardened piece of jelly doughnut.
He’d wanted nothing more than to return Wolf to his home and forget this whole miserable night, but when he’d driven by Jill Harper’s house a short while later he’d found the place dark, leaving Whit with no choice but to take the little runaway home with him.
He just wanted a few hours of peaceful shut-eye, and then he would return the dog to Brody.
But at ten in the morning Wolf began whining to go outdoors. “I’m not about to chase you for six blocks, you miserable mutt,” Whit growled and rolled over onto his stomach, his body begging for a few more hours of much-needed sleep.
But guilt nagged at him, reminding him there was a small boy waiting for his dog. With a groan he crawled out of bed and pulled on his jeans, buttoning them up as he searched around the bedroom for a pair of shoes.
“Come on, hotfoot,” he said to the dog. “I’ll buy you breakfast, then take you for a walk.”
He and Wolf shared toast in the kitchen, then Whit tied a piece of rope to the dog’s collar as a leash and introduced him to a few trees in the neighborhood. A dog, one adorable little boy and his even more adorable mother added up to trouble in Whit’s book. The kind he didn’t need.
So why hadn’t he been able to get Jill Harper off his mind?
He’d been all too ready to jump to the conclusion that she was a bad parent. In his job he often had to size up a situation quickly—and accurately—but unless he’d missed his guess, the pint-size woman he’d met last night would walk through fire for her son.
And maybe she already had.
He thought he’d seen pain and a soft vulnerability in those wide-set green eyes of hers. And he found that he hated the possibility that someone might have hurt her.
Or Brody.
“Come on, pooch,” he said, giving Wolf’s makeshift leash a determined tug. “It’s time to take you home. And, you sawed-off excuse for a dog, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn a few of the finer points of protecting your family, instead of making these late-night forays of yours.”
Jill didn’t know what to do about Brody. For the past hour he’d been sitting on the front porch step, watching up and down the block for the big policeman he’d talked incessantly about all morning. He was convinced his new friend would be driving up any minute now, the missing Wolf in tow.
Officer Whit Tanner had made quite an impression on her young son. He had brought her child home safely—and for that she was grateful to him. But the missing Wolf could be anywhere—and she wished the man hadn’t made a promise he didn’t know he could keep.
She stepped out onto the porch and sat down beside Brody, wishing she knew some way to distract him from his front porch vigil. Earlier she’d fixed him his favorite breakfast of pancakes, but he’d barely touched them. She’d suggested he try his new Nintendo game she’d bought him last week, but he’d given her a quiet shake of his head and, instead, carried Wolf’s food dish outside, placing it beside him on the porch.
“Wolf will be hungry when he comes home,” he explained.
His hope nearly broke Jill’s heart.
It was already past eleven, and so far there’d been no sign of Whit, no sign of the dog, and Jill feared the worst. She put an arm around her son’s small shoulders. “Brody, honey, I know Officer Tanner said he would find Wolf for you, but. he may not be able to. Wolf could be a long way away, somewhere the policeman wouldn’t know to look for him.”
Brody shook his red head with a vehemence. “No, Mommy. He said he would bring Wolf, and he will—just like he promised. You’ll see.”
Jill knew all about promises made to little boys—they seemed to be the kind most easily forgotten. How many times had she tried to make it up to Brody for the broken promises of his father? How many times had Michael Harper been “busy” with a court case he needed to prepare for, too busy for a trip to the zoo with his son or even a night out for an ice cream?
“Look, sweetie…Wolf is such a little dog, and there are lots of streets, lots of places he might have gone. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, that’s all.”
“It’s okay, Mommy. Don’t worry. The policeman will find him.” Her son patted her on the arm. A child reassuring his parent—that gave Jill a moment’s pause.
With a sigh she knew she couldn’t shake her fouryear-old’s faith, his belief that Officer Tanner would prevail against all odds and find the missing Wolf:
At that moment she could have happily wrung the big cop’s neck. And it would have been better than he deserved.
Brody needed someone to look up to, someone strong and big he could believe in. A hero. And right now, to Brody, that hero was Whit Tanner.
Mommies were all right as far as they went. They worked well for patching up skinned knees or telling bedtime stories, but there were times when a mommy just wasn’t enough.
Jill felt a pang of pain at the knowledge and vowed to talk to Michael once again about giving his son a little fatherly attention. Though she doubted it would do much good. The man had his own agenda, one which unfortunately left little time for parenting.
She gave Brody a hug. “Maybe I’ll fix us each a glass of lemonade. Would you like that?”
Brody nodded that he would, and Jill left him there, staring off down the block.
Her heart squeezed in her chest as she headed toward the kitchen. Brody was such a little boy, and she knew she couldn’t protect him from every hurt in life. Still she tried.
She’d even bought Wolf for him as a way of assuaging his disappointment over being stood up by his father two weeks earlier. Now, in hindsight, she wasn’t so sure getting the dog for Brody had been a good idea. Her son had ventured outdoors late at night, something he never would have done had it not been for Wolf. And now the little runaway was lost, and Brody would be heartbroken if he wasn’t found.
Jill had just reached for the fresh lemons in the fridge when she heard Brody’s excited yelp from the porch. “He’s here, Mommy, he’s here! The policeman’s here with Wolf!” came his jubilant small voice.
There was a God after all, Jill thought, and dropped the bag of lemons to dart to the front door. She arrived just in time to see the hunk of a cop, out of uniform this time, emerge from a black Jeep Cherokee, a squalling, wriggling dachshund tucked unceremoniously under one arm.
Brody raced toward him, and Whit ruffled the boy’s red hair, while Wolf lathered Brody’s piquant face with exuberant licks.
“I told Mommy you’d come. I told her,” Brody said, bubbling over.
Whit laughed, a deep male sound that rumbled up from his chest. “You did, pardner? And where is this mommy of yours?”
Jill stepped out onto the porch. She tried to keep her gaze off the devastating look of the man in his soft-worn jeans and faded black sweatshirt. If he’d been all male last night in that uniform, he was every bit as dangerously so today.
“His mommy is right here,” she said. “And I think you’ve made one little boy very happy.”
“Well, I aim to please.” Whit was a little disappointed to see she was wearing more than a robe this morning, though he couldn’t fault the fit of her soft yellow sweater or those form-fitting jeans that hugged her slender legs.
The color of the sweater let loose the gold fire in her hair and made the flecks in her green eyes dance like the sun. She had a smattering of freckles, like Brody’s, across her straight, refined nose, and Whit found the effect touching. A few were scattered on her arms below the pushed-up sleeves of her sweater, making him ponder where else he might find a provocative patch.
“You’d better hang on to him, Brody,” she called to her son, and Whit glanced toward the pair just as Wolf threatened to roar off again, probably to see if the youngster would give chase.
Brody made a valiant grab for the leash, but it slipped through his small hands.
“Oh, no, you don’t, you miserable piece of stuffed sausage,” Whit bellowed, and to the accompaniment of Brody’s giggles and his mom’s velvet-soft laughter, he lunged for the animal.
He and the dog tumbled in the grass, with Brody dancing about excitedly beside him and Jill not even trying to hide her amusement.
“Have you ever considered obedience training for this monster?” he asked, when he had Wolf finally in hand.
He thought of his friend, Joe Farrell, with the K-9 Unit. Joe could teach even the most worthless beast to “stay”—and Wolf certainly qualified as worthless.
“I haven’t—but it’s something I think I need to seriously consider,” Jill said, when she could finally manage the words. “A little obedience wouldn’t hurt him.”
An understatement if Whit had ever heard one. “I’ll see if I can come up with a name or two for you,” he volunteered. He might just ask Joe if he’d be interested in a little moonlighting.
However, knowing Joe’s reputation with the ladies, Whit would be damned if he’d allow the man to get within ten feet of Jill Harper without Whit being present.
He dusted off his jeans and offered Brody the end of the rope leash. “This time hang on to it, pardner,” he said.
“Okay, Off’cer.”
“That’s Whit to you, pardner,” Whit said, tousling the boy’s hair.
“Okay…Whit,” Brody said shyly before charging off with Wolf.
Whit gave renewed attention to the woman on the porch. Her eyes were bright as she watched her son play, then she turned her gaze on him.
“It seems I’m once again in your debt,” she said. “Thank you for bringing Wolf home. How ever did you find the little rascal?”
“Don’t ask.”
Jill raised an eyebrow at the low groan he gave with his answer. “Not an easy capture, Officer?”
He strode closer and leaned against the porch railing near her. Very near. She could see the dark heat of his eyes, the small razor nick at his jawline. “Let’s just say I didn’t relish standing at the side of the road calling to a short-legged, overweight animal, sadly misnamed. Wolf…”
She hid a smile. “It did damage to your image, did it?”
She was enjoying this, he thought. “It’ll heal. Sometime along about…Christmas.”
Her laugh was soft and it trickled along his nerve endings.
“I’m really very sorry. Brody came up with the name. And you’re right, it doesn’t fit.”
He accepted her apology with good grace. “No harm done. Just don’t let it happen again. It’s dangerous out there at night for boy and dog. Next time neither of them might be as lucky.”
Another of his good-citizen warnings, Jill thought, one she already knew to heed. He didn’t have to remind her. “I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”
“And get that dog an address tag,” he added. “I assume he’s had his shots.”
She wondered if the man’s bite was worse than his bark. “We’ve only had the dog two weeks, but he’s had his shots. And the vet has ordered him an address tag. Anything else, Officer?”
He saw the military-rigid set to her shoulders, realized the laughter in her eyes had disappeared. He wanted it back, but he had a point to make. “The dead bolt,” he added.
Her green eyes gleamed with glacier coolness. “The dead bolt.” She crossed one denimed leg over the other and fixed him with a fierce glower. “It may surprise you to know that despite Brody’s dangerous escapade last night I really am a good mother. I don’t let my child run loose, climb tall trees or play on the interstate. I take him to the pediatrician, the dentist, give him nutritious foods, his vitamins and tuck him into bed every night.”
Whit wouldn’t mind having her tuck him into bed at night. But as angry as he’d made her, he didn’t think that was going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
“I’m sure you’re a good mother. It’s just that accidents tend to happen the one time you’re not looking. I’m only offering a word or two of advice.”
“Advice.”
He held out a hand to her. “How about a truce? You continue to be a good mother—and I’ll continue to be a good cop.”
“Well, you’ve more than done your civic duty.” Jill was still angry, but she decided she’d give the overbearing man the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just trying to do his job.
She stuck out her hand. “I suppose we could try a truce and see how it goes.”
His touch was warm as his big hand swallowed hers. And in spite of herself a tingle traveled the length of her arm, heat chasing along behind it. What was it about the man that kept her a little off center in his presence?
“I was about to fix Brody and me a glass of lemonade when you arrived. Would…you care for one?” she asked, feeling an overwhelming need to retreat to the kitchen and search for her good sense.
“Lemonade? Sounds great. While you’re at it, I’ll uh, take a look at that door lock—I have a few tools in the four-by-four.”
She spun back around to face him, and he put up his hands in defense. “It’s just an offer of help, not an indictment of guilt.”
Her glance was wary for a long moment, then she relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “Yes—that would be helpful. Thank you,” she added.
Jill took longer than usual to squeeze the lemons into fresh lemonade, but she needed time to find that composure of hers that had slipped the moment Whit arrived on the scene.
Last night she’d thought the attraction was strictly for a man in uniform—but that didn’t account for the awareness she felt today.
She and Brody were just getting settled; she was recovering from a divorce and trying to get both her feet firmly planted on the ground. Now was not the time for her senses to take a trip to nowhere.
When she returned to the front of the house, tray of lemonade in her hands, she expected to find her dead bolt in parts, spread about the entry hall. Instead it was in one piece and, she suspected, functioning—if she knew Whit Tanner already. Once again he seemed to have come to her rescue.
She found him in the yard with Brody, playing a game of what looked like football—with Wolf as the pigskin. At least they were both scrambling after the animal as if he were a missed pass they were each trying to recover for their own side.
Brody’s whoops of delight reminded her how very much Brody needed some male influence in his life. But Whit Tanner was a man touching their lives only briefly, a knight in shining armor who’d ridden to the rescue—and who’d be gone just as quickly.
And considering the intensity of her attraction to him that was just fine.
One day she would allow another man into her life—but next time she’d go slowly, be sure she knew him well. Next time she would choose someone who had time for her and Brody.
“Yea! Lemonade!” Brody yelped, spotting her. He turned to Whit. “My mommy makes the bestest.”
Whit glanced toward the porch. She was back. Back with that sweet innocence of hers. And that slightly haunted smile. As if there was some pain still a little too fresh in her life.
“Best, Brody,” she said. “And I don’t know if it’s all that great. But it is cold.”
“Sounds good,” Whit said. The dog at his heels, he sauntered up and took a glass.
“Looks like that animal was getting the worst end of that game you were playing,” she said. She sat down on the porch step and Whit joined her.
“Nah, the dog loved it,” he said and took a swal1 low. A mixture of tart and sweet, like the woman beside him.
“I guess I owe you a thank you for the lock,” she said softly. “You were able to repair it?”
“Good as new—and no thanks necessary. As long as it keeps the kid indoors.”
He ruffled Brody’s hair and Brody grinned, a lemonade mustache decorating his upper lip. “Can we take Wolf on a picnic to the park, Mommy? An’. an’ can Whit come, too?”
Jill understood Brody’s exuberance—and where it was coming from. But she wasn’t sure Whit did. And she knew the man must have other things to do than spend a Sunday in the park.
“I don’t think today, sweetheart,” she told him, then turned to Whit. “I’m afraid my son has a giant case of hero worship. You’re all he’s talked about since he got up this morning—you and how you were going to bring his dog home.”
“I hadn’t realized the pressure was on,” he said. He turned to Brody, whose small face had puckered into a disappointed frown. “Maybe another time, pardner.”
Whit hated to do this, but the woman had given him an out—and he was damned well going to take it. Not that spending time with the pretty Jill wasn’t a temptation in itself, but even as that thought crossed his mind, a damnable hive began to itch, the way it always did whenever he ventured too close to any form of domesticity.
And what could be more domestic than a Sunday picnic in the park with a mom and a small boy—even a dog along to complete the picture.
He scratched at the hive on his neck. Besides, he had other things to do this afternoon. A date with a cold can of beer and basketball play-offs on the tube. Definitely less threatening than Jill Harper with her pretty smile and too-tempting manner, he thought.
He finished his lemonade and placed the empty glass back on the tray. “I should be going.” He stood up.
Jill stood, too. “Well,” she said, “thanks again for returning Wolf. And…for fixing the lock.”
She looked so young, so fresh, her lips dewy-soft and inviting—and he was tempted to taste the sweet-tart lemonade on them. Instead he turned to Brody. “You and Wolf wanna walk me to the car?”
Brody nodded, and Whit tweaked the boy’s freckled nose. He remembered what Jill had said about her son’s case of hero worship. But Whit wasn’t sure hero was an accolade he was all that comfortable with. Or deserving of.
That belonged to men like his brother Steve.
Jill watched the trio go, the big man towering over small boy, Brody’s head tipped up as he listened intently to something Whit was saying.
Curiosity piqued, she wondered what the two were talking about.
Jill had brought the account books home from the shop. The antique shop, Simply Treasures, she’d opened less than a year ago was doing a brisk business. In between buying trips, refinishing small, prized pieces of furniture, polishing silver and rewiring old lamps, she had little time for paperwork. She’d hoped to find time over the weekend to get caught up.
But instead of work, Brody came first today. This morning he’d been too upset over his dog for her to have the firm discussion with him that she’d needed to have, a mother-son talk about the dangers of a small boy venturing outdoors late at night. But that afternoon they took a walk with Wolf to the park a few blocks away. Brody listened to her parental concern for a while, then looked up at her.
“I know all that, Mommy,” he said with all the earnestness of a four-year-old. “Whit told me I coulda been hurt, maybe kilt, or never been able to fin’ my way back home.”
“He said all that?”
“Uh-huh. When he lefted.”
“Left, Brody.” But she wasn’t as upset at Brody’s grammar as she was at what the big cop had told him. Killed? Did he have to scare the child to death? A simple warning would have been sufficient.
“An’. an’ Whit said I should min’ you real good.”
That part, at least, Jill couldn’t take offense with.
She didn’t want her son to grow up a namby-pamby, and she often worried about the lack of male influence Brody had in his young life. She could hardly count the few hours Michael spent with him. A boy needed more than a halfhearted, all-too-busy father.
Whit was a cop. He was tough, but she didn’t approve of the tack he’d taken with her son. Brody was just a baby. And she wasn’t ready to have him know about all the dangers the world presented.
She knew law-enforcement officials and child—safety organizations would argue with that, but she wanted to believe that she could protect her son herself, that she could let him be a child—at least for a little while longer.
Still, last night had shaken her, frightened her beyond belief. She felt torn between giving Whit Tanner a piece of her mind—or her vote of thanks.
But, at least to all outward appearances, the man’s frank talk didn’t seem to have traumatized Brody’s young psyche any. He was full of smiles and boyish spirits. And the case of hero worship he had with Whit hadn’t been all bad, either. Brody walked a little taller, a little straighter, a little more proudly than he had before.
She recognized a little of Whit’s swagger in him as he left her side and marched over to the park’s big slide for a trip down it.
She loved her son. He was her life. And she spent as much time with him as she could. When she’d first started her business, she’d taken him to the shop with her, entertaining him with toys and children’s books in the small back room. Now he went to preschool, but Jill missed those times they’d had alone together.
On their trip back from the park Jill listened once again to Brody’s chatter about his favorite policeman, but her own images of the man played in her mind.
All of them dangerous to her senses.
It was only when she heard Brody discussing his idea of show-and-tell at preschool next week that she returned her attention to her son and what he was saying.
“So can I, Mommy? Can Iple-e-ease?”
Jill glanced down at his small eager face. Her first thought was that she wasn’t sure how she could talk her son out of his enthusiastic idea. Her second thought was what Officer Whit Tanner would think of it.
Chapter Three (#ulink_65b9316c-3f9a-5a86-9ce3-0baedf01b484)
“Show-and-tell duty? What the hell kinda assignment is that?” Whit demanded of his superior.
Captain Vince Malloy hid a grin, but Whit saw the faint twitch at the edges of his mouth just the same.
“A wimp assignment, that’s what kind,” Officer Jake Foster said with a low chuckle as he passed by Malloy’s open office door on his way to the duty room.
They were enjoying this a little too much, Whit thought glumly. And at his expense. He dragged a hand through his hair and appealed to what he hoped was Malloy’s reasonable side. “Can’t the guys in Public Relations handle this? What do I know about talking to a group of preschoolers, anyway…?”
Whit would rather teach gun safety to rival street gangs. Kids scared the hell out of him.
“No deal,” Malloy said from behind his cluttered desk. “The kid asked for you—personally. No one else. A cute-sounding little shaver. Talked like you were his new best friend.”
“Brody.”
The image of the small, red-haired boy flashed into Whit’s mind, followed almost immediately by the kid’s all-too-alluring mom. Jill Harper had a way of haunting a man’s dreams—and Whit was no exception. For the past three days, and nights, he’d tried to forget that sweet smile of hers, her soft, easy sensuality.
“Brody—yeah, that was the kid’s name.” Malloy’s gravel-edged voice brought Whit back. “I got the school address here somewhere,” he said, and dug through the debris on his desk. “Ah, yes—here it is. School’s over on…Meadow Lane.” He read his illegible scrawl through three overlapping coffee mug rings on the paper, then shoved the note at Whit.
Whit felt his chances of getting out of this begin to sink like a torpedoed sub. Besides, what kind of a guy would he be to say no to a small boy who thought he was his new best friend?
Whit liked to think he wasn’t that low-down.
“The chief likes this goodwill kind of stuff, so try to put a smile on it, Tanner.”
Whit’s grumbling reply wasn’t intelligible, but the glower he shot Malloy couldn’t have been clearer.
Whit barely had time to file his traffic reports, let alone think of something to say to a group of eager youngsters.
By the time he arrived at the school at three that afternoon he still hadn’t a clue what one did for showand-tell. At twenty-eight it had been a long time since he’d participated in any such learning experience—if he ever had. Whit couldn’t remember his preschool days all that clearly.
But he would survive this somehow, he told himself as he approached the classroom with mounting trepidation. He had a quick image of his brother, Steve, and the impression he’d once had on a young boy a little older than Brody but every bit as starry-eyed. Whit knew what it felt like to look up to a cop.
With that memory, he knew he couldn’t let Brody down.
One of the preschool teachers met him at the door, hardly more than a youngster herself. Either that or he was getting older, he wasn’t sure which.
“Officer Tanner, Brody’s been expecting you,” she said cheerily enough. She drew him inside and tried to put him at ease, but Whit wasn’t sure the effort was working.
Before he could respond to the teacher’s pleasantries, Brody rushed up, all smiles with a little shyness mixed in. Whit supposed that made two of them.
“Hi-ya, pardner,” he said, and Brody beamed.
It didn’t take long before the teachers had the group quieted down and announced him to the class. He felt outsize, awkwardly outsize, in the room of small, red chairs, low shelves of books, and projects in various stages of completion.
Finally Whit discovered what show-and-tell comprised. He was the show and Brody did the tell, explaining in far too many superlatives about how his friend had not only rescued him in the middle of the night, but found his dog, as well. To hear Brody tell it, Whit deserved a commendation at the very least.
Then it was his turn to offer a few words.
“Thank you, Brody,” he said, though the kid’s praise was far more than was warranted.
He wondered again how the hell he’d gotten himself into this. And how he’d ever get through it.gracefully.
He summoned a smile he hoped looked more confident than he felt on the inside and decided on a topic that might be helpful to four-year-olds—street safety.
But before he could open his mouth and utter a word, the door at the back of the room squeaked open, and Whit glanced up into the glorious green eyes of Jill Harper.
Terrific, he thought. Just what he needed—more audience.
“Pardon the interruption,” she said in her silky voice. “Please go on.”
Go on? There wasn’t a coherent thought in his head as she wriggled onto a too-small chair and crossed one slim leg over the other, creating a diversion a blind monk couldn’t endure.
She sat poised, waiting for him to say something, but for the life of Whit he couldn’t gather his thoughts. They’d gone woolly the moment she’d wandered in. She wore something peach colored, the skirt of which had slid a delectable inch or two up her leg, making Whit’s position center stage even more uncomfortable.
Concentrate on the kids, he told himself and forced his gaze back to his young listeners. Brody sat in the front row, anticipation written all over his face. Somehow that gave Whit focus, and he stumbled into a speech.
Jill watched Whit Tanner from her vantage point at the back of the room. If she thought he seemed a little nervous initially, he didn’t now as he spoke to the children in that low, rumbly voice of his. She leaned closer to catch its resonance, let it vibrate through her.
She’d never considered herself a sucker for a man in uniform before, but today had just made a liar out of her. Her gaze trailed down from the stiff, starched steel blue of his collar, across his shiny badge and crisp folds of his shirt to the straight-as-an-arrow stripe down the darker blue of his pant legs, then back up again.
Oh, yes…she had sucker written all over her.
And so did the admiring women next to her. She’d heard more than one feminine sigh from Brody’s teachers.
The man gave new meaning to the phrase, Kansas City’s finest.
Jill hadn’t been enthused about Brody inviting him to school for show-and-tell, but she’d given in to her son in the end. Now, she wasn’t so sure she should have. Whit Tanner made her feel all too much like a womana—a woman missing any semblance of good sense.
He turned the last of his talk into a question-andanswer time for the children. And Jill was sure every hand went up, each boy and girl wanting a part of him. Brody’s small hand was lost in the group, but still Whit gave him his chance at a query.
“Can you go get an ice cream with me and my mom after school?” he asked Whit.
Whit glanced to the back of the room just in time to see Brody’s embarrassed mother hide her face in her hands. When she drew her hands down to peer up at him over the tips of her fingers he gave her a small smile.
“He hasta go catch the bad guys—don’t you know anything?” the kid beside Brody said with a nudge to Brody’s rib cage.
“Yeah,” a few of the others said in a chorus.
Whit moved to save the situation. “In between catching bad guys I’ve been known to eat an ice cream or two,” he answered.
“Yeah!” Brody’s chest puffed up. “And lemonade, too.”
By now Jill had recovered her aplomb and was able to laugh at what the class had deteriorated into. The teachers were smiling, as well, but quickly moved to restore order and thank Officer Tanner for his time and his talk.
Jill wanted to thank him, too. And apologize for her son’s exuberant behavior. It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately.
She caught up with him outside the class. He looked every bit as if he’d been waiting for her, as he lounged against the wall in the hallway, one shoulder propped against it, arms and legs crossed casually.
“I didn’t think you’d be here today,” he said quietly.
She walked closer and stopped in front of him. “I promised Brody I’d come for his show-and-tell.”
“And take him for ice cream afterward…?”
She ducked her head, embarrassed again. “About that ice cream…I’m sure you have other things to do.”
Whit gazed at her. Why the hell didn’t he get out of here now? He’d done the show-and-tell thing as asked. It hadn’t killed him after all. He might have a few taunts to live down back at the station, but he could do that.
Why add trouble?
He wasn’t sure why, but it had to do with this woman. Perhaps if he hung around a bit, unraveled the mystery of the hold she had on him, he could put his thoughts of her behind him and get on with his life.
Jill tried to read his expression. He seemed to be warring with something deep inside. It made her curious. In fact, the man made her entirely too curious in entirely too many ways.
He levered away from the wall. “As it so happens, I don’t have anything to do,” he said. “And I happen to like ice cream.”
They were the last words they were able to share for a while as the class dismissed, and its small army of preschoolers swamped Officer Tanner. They each wanted to shake his hand, some wanted to touch his gun, and the big, macho cop, Jill quickly realized, Was out of his element.
His dark-eyed gaze sought hers over the tops of the kids’ heads, a plea for help if she’d ever seen one.
She gave him a slow, easy grin, and for a quick half moment, considered leaving him there to fight his own way out.
She didn’t recall the cop who’d given her that last traffic ticket taking pity on her.
But she knew she couldn’t do that.
Over a group of boys chorusing that they wanted to ride in a police car, she reached for his hand and gave a surreptitious nod toward a fire door down the hall.
Whit said a quick goodbye to the crowd, and they hurried toward the door, Brody following.
Jill was laughing outright when they’d safely reached the outside. “You haven’t had a lot of experience with kids, have you?” she said.
He frowned. “Zilch.”
“No nieces or nephews?”
“A pair of nieces—my sister’s kids. But they’re safely away in Minnesota.”
Jill caught the emphasis on safely. His interplay with Brody was apparently a rare occurrence, then, something totally alien to his nature. And he had been nervous standing in front of the class; she realized that now.
So why had he agreed to ice cream with her and Brody?
“How do you feel about Dairy Delight?” he asked the two of them when they reached the school’s circle drive where she’d left her car.
Brody exclaimed that not only was it his favorite, there was one near his house.
They made plans to meet there in a half hour.
Whit needed to run by the station and finish a quick report. And no doubt endure a bit of razzing about his afternoon at school, he was sure. But an afternoon at school had its own reward, he thought, as he watched Jill settle her son into a well-worn green station wagon.
He took a moment to enjoy. Just enjoy.
What was it the woman did to his senses? he wondered as he leaned back against the fender of the patrol car. And why did it scare him to death?
Just then the kids issuing from the front of the building spotted him and the car. “Oh, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath and prepared for a siege.
It had been a long time since Jill had primped for a man, and she wasn’t really primping now, she told herself as she ran a quick comb through her hair. She was merely freshening up after a long day at the shop, then a visit to Brody’s school.
So why was she changing earrings, putting on that new pair she knew bobbed enticingly at her ears? Why had she changed into a pair of jeans that cut off circulation to her legs and impaired her breathing?
Could it be that she wanted to impair the breathing of one certain sexy cop?
“Don’t answer that, Jill,” she said aloud.
“Mommy, we’re gonna be late. Hurreeee,” Brody said, jumping around in the hall outside her bedroom.
Jill put down the bottle of perfume she’d been about to spritz on herself. Her son had a way of adding reality to her life—and this was one of those times. She was a mother, and she didn’t need to be losing her head over some man, any man. Not without considering the consequences beforehand.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to consider the consequences of losing her head over Whit Tanner.
“I’m ready if you are,” she told Brody.
The ice cream shop was a short walk from their house. Whit wasn’t there when they arrived, and for a quick moment she feared he might have decided against coming.
But not every man was like Michael, she tried to tell herself.
Besides, she’d seen him at school not forty minutes before. What could have happened in that length of time?
“Whit probably got detained at the station,” she said to her son. “Come on, let’s go find us a booth.”
“What’s d-de-tained?” Brody asked, sliding in ahead of her.
“Uh—that’s when something comes up that keeps you from being somewhere else.”
He pondered that for a moment. “Like when my daddy can’t take me to the park?”
Jill wasn’t sure how to answer that. Whatever else Michael Harper was, he was still Brody’s father. And though he wasn’t worth the effort, Jill steadfastly tried to preserve what image of the man she could. For Brody’s sake. Her own illusions of him had shattered long before.
“Not exactly, sweetie,” she said.
Fortunately she was saved from further explanation when Whit strode through the front door. Brody spotted him and let out a whoop of joy. Jill could have done the same, but held her own opinion of the man to herself, content instead to only take in the all-male look of him as he made his way toward them.
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Gayle Kaye
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: AWARD OF DISTINCTIONpresented to Officer Whit Tanner, midnight rescuer of lost children and missing mutts, for being the last single guy in the precinct, and intending to stay that way….CITATION OF SEDUCTIONpresented to Jill Harper, divorced mother of four-year-old Brody Harper, for capturing the attention of Officer Tanner, and threatening his bachelorhood….RECOURSE: ROMANCEMix marriage-shy officer with romance-weary mother, add a tiny smattering of wandering dog and matchmaking little boy, toss in some heady kisses and sultry looks, then stand back and wait for hearts to melt…and merge.