thirty-eight

It was three in the morning when Bear pulled his cruiser into the parking lot at Three-A West at the Hunter’s Ridge Garden Apartments just outside Winchester. He climbed out of his cruiser, stretched, and breathed in the crisp, cold December air. For a second, it invigorated him, but that lasted only as long as it took him to feel the ache in his back and exhaustion everywhere else.

When he reached the sidewalk, footsteps behind him sent alarm bells off. Other than old man winter, there was no one awake at this hour. As he moved toward his apartment, the footsteps synced with his. They stopped as he did at his stoop. They stopped again when he reached his front door.

He spun around, pulled his handgun, and peered into the night. “Who’s out there? Come forward—easy.”

A dark, long-coated figure stepped from the shadow of a tall spruce tree and into the stoop’s light. “A little jumpy, aren’t you, Bear? Afraid of little ol’ me?”

Lee Hawkins?

The thermometer hit 100 and climbed.

“What are you doing here, Lee? Trying to get shot?”

She giggled and closed the distance. She carried two heavy, handled paper shopping bags and handed one to him. As she did, she pressed herself into him, kissed his cheek, and lifted the other bag.

“You left the Kit Kat at one thirty. Where have you been?” She smiled a smile that made him fifteen years old again. “I’ve been waiting an hour.”

“Waiting?” Bear holstered his gun and fumbled for words to overcome the uneasiness rising inside. He found none. What was it about her? She was pushy and forward—a strong woman who put him on his heels and made him feel awkward. But she was beautiful and alluring, and above all, interested. That combination hadn’t slapped him in the face—or kissed his cheek—in a very long time. The last woman to cross his stoop was almost killed by a madman. That attack sent her hundreds of miles away never to return.

Now, Lee’s smile cut through the night like a beacon.

“Waiting for what?” he asked. “It’s three a.m. You said lunch.”

“I changed my mind. Now it’s breakfast.” Glass clinked against glass inside her paper bag. “Or dinner, whichever. You never finished yours and Calloway paid for it. So I brought it—for two, of course.”

“Calloway?” He rolled his eyes and dug his house key out of his pocket. “Look, you should go home, Lee. I can’t do this. I’m tired, and you’re involved in my case. So you better go home.”

Her face fell and her lips formed a pout. “Go home? Detective Theodore Braddock, since I was sixteen, no man has told me to go home at three in the morning.”

“I’ll bet that’s true.” Bear unlocked his door and opened it. “Sorry, Lee. Maybe after this case. Please, it isn’t a good idea. Good night.”

“But …”

“Good night, Lee—I’m sorry, really.” He shut the door and realized he still clutched her shopping bag.

What was she thinking? More importantly, why was she thinking it? In all his years, he’d never been good with the ladies, least of all a lady like her—beautiful, successful, and, well, beautiful.

His doorbell rang. He groaned and opened the door. “Come on, Lee, I said …”

She pushed past him and strode into the living room. She set her bag on the small oval coffee table strewn with gun magazines and days-old takeout containers. Then she turned around, peeled off her Moncler coat, and tossed it on a chair. Gone was her sexy, satin dress that had earlier made his eyeballs bleed. It was replaced with tight jeans and a button-down silk shirt that was open to oh-my-God. She leaned down and took a bottle of Dom Perignon and two crystal champagne glasses from her bag. When she did, she had little beneath the silk but his imagination—and that was not a requirement.

“Three things, Detective Braddock.” Her eyes melted his reticence and sizzled the air between them. “First, I’ve said I haven’t been sent home in quite a while. Second, I have two wonderful filets and two lobster tails in this bag, buster, and this bottle of Dom is chilled just right—I should know, we’ve been chilling outside your apartment for an hour.”

Bear peeked into the paper bag he held and found a rolled white cloth, some plates, and silverware. “What’s all this?”

“You look like a guy without a maid—or plates.”

He laughed. “You’d be right.” He found her eyes again, unable to hold them, unable to break free. “You said three things.”

With champagne and glasses in hand, Lee floated across the room. “Did I?” She crushed into him and kissed him—long and soft like he hadn’t been kissed in a very, long time.

Without removing her lips from his, she whispered, “Third, I’m fragile, so be gentle with me.”