The Cop Page 6

  She glanced back. “No.”

  At the end of the street, he took another left, then a right at the following corner. J.C. kept her eyes glued to the rear window. After a few more minutes of the zigzag pattern, he asked, “Why catering?”

  “What?” She shifted her gaze to him.

  “Why catering? It seems an odd career choice for a rich girl.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Really? I suppose you think rich girls spend their time shopping, having manicures and flying to Paris for lunch?”

  Nik shrugged. “Toss in a little charity work, and that about sums it up.” One glance confirmed what he’d heard in her tone. She was annoyed—but her knuckles were no longer white.

  “Actually, I’m curious.” He met her eyes for a moment. “Really. We’ve got a half-hour drive ahead of us.” That was a lie, but talking would take her mind off the shooting. “Why catering?”

  “I’ll tell you if you put the top down. It’s a crime to have a car like this and drive it with the top up. I may have to make a citizen’s arrest.”

  He’d put it up after the shooting at the church, but since they weren’t being followed, he released the lever, and with a push of a button, the ragtop hummed back. He sent her a look. “Now, why catering?”

  “I got into it by chance. I received a liberal arts degree from Stanford, which prepared me for nothing and everything. But I love movies so I applied to NYU with some idea of doing some grad work in film.”

  “What films are your favorites?”

  “I like the classics—Hitchcock, Billy Wilder.”

  “It Happened One Night was a great film.”

  “What’s your favorite?” she asked.

  “A more modern classic. Raiders of the Lost Ark has never lost its charm for me. High Noon’s my runner-up.”

  “I’m attached to E.T., perhaps because it was the first movie I ever saw, and I love Redford and Newman in The Sting.”

  “Good flicks, but I distracted you. You were telling me how you got into catering.”

  She smiled. “As I said, by chance. I was in New York for an interview at NYU, and they took me to the American Culinary Institute for lunch. It’s a restaurant where chefs in training prepare the menu for that day, and that was it. I knew that I wanted to go there. What made you decide to become a cop?”

  “I suppose you could say it was fate, too. One day I got picked up for shoplifting. I was fourteen, and there was this group of boys at school that I admired. They were a little older and they had all the girls and a kind of prestige. I guess I wanted to fit in. My cousin Dino warned me they were trouble, but I knew better. I always knew better in those days.”

  J.C. raised an eyebrow. “In those days?”

  He shot her a grin. “Okay. I always know better. One day after school, these guys invited me to come along, and before I knew what they were up to, we were in this store, and I was told I had to steal something. It was a sort of initiation ritual. I did it, and I got caught by a cop in plain clothes. I must have looked scared as hell because he didn’t charge me. It helped that I hadn’t left the store.” Nik rolled his eyes. “Clearly, I wasn’t going to become the next super thief.”

  “What happened?”

  “The cop cut me a break. I begged him not to tell my father, and he agreed, providing I came down to the precinct every day after school for a full month. My job was to view firsthand the kinds of felons who were arrested and booked on a daily basis. It was supposed to scare the shit out of me and it did. But it also made me want to become a cop. There’s a daily challenge to the job that really appeals to me.”

  “You like seeing if you can meet it,” she said.

  Surprised, Nik turned to her and saw understanding in her eyes. He nodded. “There’s that. And there’s also the fact that John Kelly made a difference with me. I liked the idea of being able to do the same for someone else someday.”

  They drove on in silence for a while, and Nik had time to reflect on the fact that about fifteen minutes had passed and they’d neither argued nor ordered each other around. Perhaps they’d reached a new plateau.

  The illusion crumbled the moment they turned into his aunt Cass’s driveway and the house came into view.

  “Good grief.” She turned to face him. “It’s got a turreted tower and gardens and a view of the Pacific. Plus there’s a huge pond over there. What kind of a cop are you, Angelis, that you can afford a place like this?”

  He stopped the car and turned to meet her eyes. The bad news was she was back in insult mode. The worse news was that he was beginning to like her that way. There was a part of him that badly wanted to clip her right on the chin. But there was another part of him that realized her mouth and her bravado was the way she was coping with what had happened to her. That part of him, the part that was beginning to understand her, wanted to simply take her in his arms and hold her. But if he did, there was a good chance that they would finish what they’d started in that parking lot. He couldn’t seem to be near her and not want to touch her. To have her.

  Telling himself that he wouldn’t follow through on his desire was a lie. The best he could hope for was that he could delay the timing until she was safe. In the meantime, he prayed for both patience and control.

  “Relax, Pipsqueak. I’m the kind of a cop who has an aunt who owns a place like this. She inherited the place from my grandfather.”

  J.C. turned back to study the house. “No shit? My stepmother would kill to own this place. All she’d need is one look, and she’d have a Realtor knocking down your front door with an offer you wouldn’t be able to refuse.”

  The admiration in her voice had any annoyance he was still feeling fading away. Truth be told, he loved the house. “My great-grandfather built the place with the money he made building boats. My brothers and sister and I were raised here after our mother died. Ironically, it was a freak boating accident that took both my mom and my uncle Demetrius, my aunt Cass’s husband.”

  She reached out to cover his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. After that, we all moved in here with Aunt Cass and her son, Dino. A couple years ago, we all chipped in and renovated the place into individual apartments. Now my dad lives over in the gardener’s cottage, my brothers and I have apartments on the second and third stories, and my sister Philly and Aunt Cass have individual apartments on the first floor. And Aunt Cass has an office where she runs her psychic consulting office.”

  “Your aunt is a psychic?”

  “Yes.” He went perfectly still for a moment. He usually didn’t just blurt that information out to people he’d only just met. Some people had a very low opinion of psychics.

  “That’s so cool. Have you inherited some of her abilities? I read that those kinds of talents are supposed to run in families.”

  Since admiration and curiosity was all he could read in her eyes, he said, “My sister has a talent with animals. Aunt Cass says she can talk to them.”

  “She’s a Dr. Dolittle?” J.C. asked.

  “I suppose that’s one way to describe it.”

  “Amazing. I can’t wait to meet her and your aunt, too. What about you? What’s your…specialty?”

  “I’m a cop. A good one. That’s all.”

  “I bet it’s not. Tell me. C’mon. Your secret will be safe with me.”

  The woman just never gave up. Exasperated, Nik said, “I wouldn’t call it psychic, but my thumbs start to prick whenever there’s danger or a disaster threatening.”

  “‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’”

  Damn. She even knew the rhyme. “Something like that,” he said. “Nothing that’s going to get me on Oprah. You were saying that your stepmother would kill for this place.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Changing the subject, Detective?”

  “Yeah.”

  Nodding at him, she glanced around. “My stepmother Alicia would take one look at this porch, the gardens and that lovely pond an
d she’d start planning a dozen different parties for my father’s reelection campaign. Lunches, brunches, cocktail soirees. Her specialty is garden parties—the kind you have to wear a hat to.”

  “Do you cater them?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Alicia and my dad are still sort of adjusting to my career choice. They’d prefer that I marry, settle down and produce children. If I appeared at one of their parties as the caterer, that might send the wrong signal to the string of eligible bachelors that Alicia is always introducing me to. Most of them seem to be looking for a Stepford wife.”

  “That’s not you.”

  “You got that right.”

  Nik pulled to a stop in front of the house, got out of the car and circled it to open her door. He wasn’t comfortable with what he felt when he imagined a string of eligible men parading past J.C. Not jealousy, certainly. And not fear. That was ridiculous.

  “You have something against marriage?” He kept his hand on the small of her back as he guided her up the stairs.

  “No. I merely have something against marriage right now. I need to be focused on growing my business. And if I do eventually marry, it won’t be to provide my father with the dynasty he’s determined to create. Or to provide my husband with the same thing. Not that I’m particularly worried about that right now. Luckily, I’m not exactly the tall, blond, trophy wife type that the men on my parents’ list are looking for, if you know what I mean.”

  Nik was uncomfortably aware that he did. Her trophy wife description was too close a match to Dinah’s description of the women he dated. Not that he intended to marry any of them.

  “What about you? What are your feelings about marriage?”

  “I haven’t given it much thought. What will it take to convince you to marry?” Now where had that question come from, Nik wondered. It had just seemed to pop out.

  “I think that I’ll only get married to a man that I simply can’t live without. You know—the man that the Fates intend me for, if you believe in that kind of stuff.”

  Nik’s thumbs began to prick.

  “I’m not sure that I do, so I figure that I’ll probably end up being single. How about you?”

  “Me?” Nik opened the door and ushered her into the foyer and toward the oak staircase that circled upward.

  “This is lovely.” She nearly crooned the words as she ran her hand along the gleaming banister. “And that chandelier—it’s out of a fairy tale.”

  “My apartment is on the third floor,” he said, guiding her up the stairs.

  They climbed the three flights in silence, and he was just breathing a sigh of relief that the conversation had veered off from marriage when she asked, “Do you believe that there’s a woman in the world who’s just meant for you?”

  For a moment, he didn’t say a thing. He merely gazed at her as she stood there on the stairs in the house his great-grandfather had built, and he realized that she somehow looked right there.

  No, thought Nik. No way. No how. The idea was an aberration. He and J.C. Riley might have a primitive attraction to one another. That was one thing. And they might have a few things in common. But in spite of those facts, they were as different as night and day.

  7

  NIK USHERED J.C. into his apartment, shut the door, then stood rooted to the spot as she moved around. She turned on a floor lamp, then picked up his TV remote and returned it to the wicker basket where he kept the other remotes.

  He’d never brought another woman to his home. Perhaps that’s why he felt a bit…odd as she roamed. Was it just nerves that had him hesitating on the threshold? He tried to see the place as she was seeing it. It certainly wasn’t neat. He’d stripped out of his T-shirt after his morning run along Baker Beach and left it over the back of a chair. And his running shoes were on the floor nearby. An empty coffee mug and plate remained where he’d dumped them on the coffee table. She probably thought he was a slob.

  He’d picked the leather couches for comfort rather than style. They were tan, rather plain he supposed. And there wasn’t a lot of furniture. No paintings on the wall, and he’d chosen blinds instead of drapes. The only color in the room was offered by the Oriental rug, with its tones of deep blue, rust, ivory and dark brown.

  Philly had once called his décor “spare as a monk’s quarters,” and he supposed she was right. J.C. had turned her attention to his bookshelves, running her fingers along some of the spines. She picked up a framed photo, studied it for a moment, then turned to him. “You’re a sailor. This looks like quite a storm.”

  He knew the picture she was looking at. He’d been twenty, a bit on the reckless side, and he was on his sailboat, Athena. A storm had come up suddenly, and he’d nearly lost the battle getting the boat in. His fingers had started pricking before the wind had picked up, but he’d ignored the premonition. His struggle with the sea had been touch and go for a while, and he could still recall the thrill of victory he’d felt when he’d finally gotten the boat onto shore.

  Then he’d had to face his family. He knew when he’d seen the look in his father’s and aunt’s eyes that he’d been careless and selfish. It had been a similar storm that had taken his mother’s and his uncle Demetrius’s lives. But he’d kept the photo that Theo had snapped to remind himself of that day—of the exhilaration he’d felt, as well as his responsibility to his family.

  “You must be a very good sailor,” J.C. said as she set the photograph back on the shelf.

  Nik shrugged. “I’m Greek.” And lucky, he thought.

  With a nod, she picked up a leather-bound volume. “Greek myths. I’ve never sailed, but I read all of these when I took this mythology course. Of course, I read the Roman and Celtic ones, too. You’ll think this is silly.” She glanced at him, then looked away. “The first time I saw you, I thought of Adonis.”

  “Really.” Adonis, the lover, he thought, a man with the almost impossible task of handling two women. Personally he didn’t envy the guy. He was having enough trouble trying to figure out how to handle just this one. It occurred to him then that handling a woman had never posed much of a challenge before he’d met J.C.

  Setting the volume back carefully on the shelf, she picked up the newspaper he’d read that morning and left in a rumpled heap on the couch, then the empty coffee mug and plate, and carried them through the archway that led to his small kitchen. “I’m starving,” she said. “Do you mind if I whip something up?”

  Following her, he watched as she put the newspaper in the recycle bin, placed the dishes in the sink, then ran hot water to rinse the plate. She was tidying up. And it was a shock to realize that he was enjoying having her here, puttering around in his home.

  She opened his refrigerator, then glanced over her shoulder. “There’s no food. Don’t you eat?”

  It was an accusation. She was definitely back in J.C. mode again. “Don’t you stop eating?”

  Her chin shot up. “I didn’t have dinner. I was shot, I lost some blood, and at the hospital, they didn’t offer me anything. When I give blood, they at least serve cookies.”

  “I’ve got beer and bottled water and…”

  She sent him a withering look. “Moldy cheese and a bag of salad greens that’s long past its expiration date.” Scooping it up with two fingers and holding a hand under it in case it leaked, J.C. carried it to the garbage can. Then she closed the refrigerator door with a little snap and began to methodically search his cupboards. By the time she’d made her way down the wall that was lined with cabinets, she’d pulled out an empty cereal box, two empty boxes of crackers and a bag of stale potato chips.

  “I’m starving, and your cupboards make Mother Hubbard’s look plentiful. Do you at least have a stash of chocolate somewhere?”

  Nik shook his head, studying her. “You eat when you’re nervous or frightened. Which are you?”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m hungry. It’s nearly eleven and I haven’t had anything to eat for dinner but those sugar-coated almonds.”


  “I think you’re nervous because we’re alone here in my apartment.”

  “You don’t make me nervous, Detective.”

  “Oh, I think I do.” Most of his own tension eased. “Maybe we should talk about what happened between us in the parking lot. Clear the air and lay some ground rules.”

  He waited a beat and when she didn’t reply, he said, “I’ve been thinking it over, and I’d like to start by saying that it was a mistake.”

  She flinched. Not physically, but he saw it in her eyes and cursed himself. Taking a step forward, Nik continued, “Let me explain. You’re in mortal danger, and my job is to make sure you’re not killed. When I kissed you, I didn’t know that Parker would assign me to be your bodyguard. But even then, I shouldn’t have been making a move on a material witness. And what we did—what I did—in the parking lot…that was inexcusable.”

  J.C. held up a hand. “Stop right there. I get it. It’s not politically correct to…fool around with your…your…You’re going to have to help me out here. What am I?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out.”

  “Cute. I’m talking about the correct term. You’re the bodyguard and I’m the what?”

  “Assignment.”

  “Okay.” She tucked some loose curls behind her ear. “Well, I’ve been thinking, too.”

  He moved to the refrigerator and he wasn’t displeased when she scooted out of his way. “Water,” he said. He extracted a bottle, offered to her. When she refused, he opened it and drained half. It did nothing to quench the heat that was building inside of him.

  “You are attracted to me, right?”

  Nik nearly dropped the water bottle. Was he ever going to predict what she would say or do next? “Yeah. I think we’ve established that.”

  “And I’m attracted to you. I don’t usually…I mean, I’ve never…what happened in the parking lot…I…I never…” She let out a little huff of breath. “That was a first for me.”

  He took two steps toward her before he stopped himself. She’d moved to the other side of the small island in the center of the room. It took every ounce of strength he had not to follow her. “It was a first for me, too, but…”