| |
They woke up early so he could return to his apartment to shower and shave before checking in at the station. His body was sore in a different way than after he’d done yoga in her class a few days ago, but he wasn’t complaining. These were aches he welcomed.
He had to admit that the soreness he’d experienced after Cali’s yoga class had felt kind of good, too. Not that he could imagine doing yoga on a regular basis. If he wanted to stay fit, he would have to get back into the gym to do some real exercises.
He’d be happy to work out in Cali’s bed any time she invited him. But he had to be discreet. He had to compartmentalize. He had to figure out who was sending her the damned emails and beat the sonofabitch to a pulp—metaphorically, of course. Once he did that, he could be a bit more open about his feelings for Cali.
Which were...confusing. He liked her. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to talk to her, listen to her, look at her. Have sex with her. Sleep with her. Did all that add up to love? Did he even know what the hell love was?
She was so different from the women he used to hang with in New York. But then, Brogan’s Point was so different from New York. Everything was different here.
Maybe including him.
But he wasn’t planning to plant roots in Brogan’s Point. He was here to heal, to get past the PTSD, and then he would return to the city and rejoin the NYPD. The quiet of Brogan’s Point continued to unnerve him. The relaxed pace of activity made him edgy. Having a fender-bender be the most demanding part of his work day was nice, but also weird.
He reminded himself that he could still get shot here. New York City didn’t own a monopoly on assholes with guns. Brogan’s Point was relatively safe, and he wanted safety. He wasn’t sure he belonged here, though.
But... But Cali Bowen was here. And after one amazing night with her, he couldn’t imagine leaving.
He’d be able to think more clearly once he’d closed the email case and she was no longer a crime victim he had to protect. As he ran his razor over his chin, he stared into the mirror above his bathroom sink, fogged from his shower, and digested what he’d learned yesterday—not about Cali but about the people who knew her on the commune.
His gut told him none of them, not even Howard Ellington, was behind the emails.
Which brought him back to Cali’s students.
Which meant he’d have to sit in on another yoga class. He reminded himself that this wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Cali would be there. He could watch her twist her amazing body into various shapes and remember how that body had felt on top of his, beneath his, around his.
He’d better not think that way during the class. Having a boner during the sun salutation would be pretty embarrassing.
He tossed his workout clothes into his backpack, headed to the police station, and spent an hour chugging coffee and reviewing his files on her students. He’d give Barry, the older guy with the assault-and-battery conviction, a closer look. He also wanted to check out a couple of men in her midday class. Young fathers, they might be frustrated with the constricted parameters of their lives. A wife, one or two screaming children, no opportunity for hot sex at home. It could drive a man over the edge.
And the other old boyfriends: Dane Stevens, Charles Bodine, Rico Ramirez. He’d already done research on all of them and they’d come up clean. But then, lots of people came up clean until they did something dirty. If one of those guys had harassed a previous girlfriend, she might not have taken the emails to the police the way Cali had. One of the exes could be a creep without having a record trailing after him.
Dane Stevens worked for an environmental organization in town, monitoring wildlife populations or something. Sam planned to talk to him—maybe that afternoon, if Cali’s yoga class didn’t leave him too sore. Rico Ramirez lived in Boston. Charles Bodine’s current address was Bangor, Maine. A person had to pass through Portsmouth, New Hampshire to get from Brogan’s Point to Bangor. Cali had sworn that Bodine was technophobic, but that didn’t mean the guy couldn’t send emails.
He arrived at the Body Shop fifteen minutes before her beginners’ class was scheduled to begin. Cali blushed when she saw him standing in the open doorway to her office. He liked that. She usually projected poise and tranquility, but Sam’s presence disconcerted her.
He wanted to disconcert her. Fair was fair. She disconcerted him, too. Just as he’d feared, seeing her a mere few hours after he’d awakened in her bed and given her an X-rated good-morning kiss jacked his body temperature up a few degrees.
“I take it you’re expecting to borrow a mat again,” she teased.
“I got the department to cover my expenses for yesterday’s trip. I don’t think they’ll reimburse me for a yoga mat, too.”
“You could buy one for yourself,” she pointed out. “That way you’d be more likely to use it.”
“I’m not really the yoga type,” he said.
Her smile widened. “Everyone is the yoga type.”
“Forget yoga,” a male voice behind Sam boomed. “You need taekwondo.”
Sam turned to see Cali’s colleague strutting down the hall to the office. Sam had met the beefy, crew-cut man in the hoodie after his first class at the Body Shop. “Rick Hennessy, right?” he said, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.
“Wow! Good memory.” Hennessy gave Sam a fist bump rather than a handshake. “Sorry, I can’t remember your name. But I can see just by looking at you that—your words—you aren’t the yoga type.” Hennessy looked past Sam to Cali. “Give this guy to me. I’ll turn him into a real man.”
Cali grinned and exchanged a look with Sam. She knew he was already schooled in the martial arts. She also had intimate knowledge of how real a man he was.
But what the hell. Some of Hennessy’s students might be worth checking out. Given Hennessy’s approach, his students might be insecure boys yearning to become real men by practicing taekwondo. Maybe they thought they could also be real men by threatening a woman with sexual assault.
“Can I audit your class to see if I like it?” Sam asked.
“Sure. We take over the dojo—excuse me, the yoga studio—” he put a sarcastic spin on the words, although his smile assured Sam he was just teasing Cali “—at ten-thirty, after her nine o’clock class is over.”
“Great. I’ll do back-to-back classes and drop dead from exhaustion.” Sam winked at Cali. “I’ve got to hit the locker room. And then...” He shot a smile in Hennessy’s direction. “I’ll use the yoga to warm up for taekwondo.”
“You’ll see,” Cali called after him as he headed to the men’s locker room. “Taekwondo is for wimps. Yoga is the discipline for tough guys!” Cali’s and Hennessy’s laughter followed him down the hall.
Barry and one of the other male students were in the locker room when Sam entered. “You’re back,” Barry greeted him. “Cali hooked you, huh.”
Yeah, Sam was hooked. He gave Barry a canny look. “Hooked me on yoga, or hooked me on herself?” he asked, testing the guy.
Barry grinned, his leathery skin pleating into deep dimples. “Both, I guess. She oozes karma, you know?”
The other man chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t think karma is something you can ooze. You’re thinking of charisma.”
“Karma, charisma—whatever.” Barry shrugged. “She’s got it in spades.”
“She seems like a good teacher,” Sam said, trying to nudge reactions out of them.
“She is,” the other man said. “She’s tough. She pushes you. But you feel so good afterwards.”
“If you had something kinky going with her,” Barry said, “she’d be the dominant one. She’s tough. She pushes you to the point of pain sometimes.”
“Good pain,” the other man said.
Sam kept his expression neutral. Who would have thought a couple of seventy-something guys would be talking about dominance-and-submission sex? “Really?” he asked, keeping his tone casual. “Do you ever wish you could push her back?”
“Oh, lord, no,” Barry said with a laugh. “We submit willingly. She’s really a great teacher. A Yogini,” he added. “She once told us that’s the technical term for a female yoga instructor. Also the term for a divine goddess, which in her case seems appropriate.”
“Guru,” the other man said. “I like that term. It sounds wise.”
Sam took it all in. “Yogini sounds like the name of a yogurt smoothie.”
The men laughed. “You watch her do the routines and take the poses. She’s the epitome of smooth,” Barry said. “Not like us geezers, creaking and cracking.”
“You can hear our joints popping two miles away when we get into some of those positions,” the other guy said. “But my orthopedist swears it’s all good. Said if I keep doing yoga, I’ll never need new knees.”
Barry checked his watch. “You better get changed if you don’t want to be late for class,” he chided Sam.
Sam thanked them and unzipped his backpack. The older men exited the locker room, leaving him to digest everything they’d said. Their comments had contained hints of naughtiness, but mostly they seemed to revere Cali.
Who could blame them? Sam revered her, too.
He scrambled into his sweats and T-shirt, and didn’t waste time tying his sneakers since he’d only have to take them off for the class.
Most of the other students were already in place when he reached the studio. Cali handed him a rolled up mat, which he accepted with a nod of thanks, careful not to let his hand brush hers. He moved to the back of the room, unrolled the mat, and kicked off his sneakers.
“Okay, everyone. Welcome,” she greeted the class, taking her position at the front of the room. “Let’s start with some cleansing breaths.”
Through the thicket of students, he could see her beautiful face, her elegant body, her hair pulled into a girlish pony-tail. He could see her back reflected in the mirror on the wall behind her. She was smooth. She was hard. She was wise. She was a divine goddess. She was everything the men in the locker room had said she was.
Looking at her filled his mind with thoughts of the night before, her gentle questions, her genuine responses, her generous lovemaking. To block out those distracting memories, he closed his eyes and obeyed her quiet voice as she talked the class through the breathing exercise. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, slowly, gradually, obeying her tempo.
By the third breath, he noticed a difference. Something had loosened inside him, a knot unraveling, tangled cords releasing their grip on him. His pulse slowed. The muscles in his back stretched. His joints didn’t pop, but they felt spongy, cushioning him.
He filled his lungs again, and when he exhaled, his tension glided out of his body on his breath. At that moment, he wanted to do nothing but breathe these amazing cleansing breaths.
He knew he was strong. He also knew he didn’t have enough balance to stand on his head.
But peace. She had promised him that yoga would give him peace. As Sam breathed in sync with Cali’s hushed, hypnotic voice, he experienced something he hadn’t known since that horrible day in New York City a year and a half ago.
He experienced peace.
