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The next morning was Sunday, and as I headed downtown to check on Evie I had a little spring in my step. She might say she wasn’t attracted to me, but the way she’d softened against my palm yesterday and swayed close enough for the quickest kiss in the history of kisses made me think she wasn’t as immune to me as she thought she was.
Despite knowing at a cellular level that Evie was meant to be mine, I never would pursue her if I thought she truly wasn’t interested. I wasn’t a jerk. But her words and her actions didn’t match. Yesterday when we’d been standing close, I could see her pulse pounding in the throat and her nipples had hardened against the thin fabric of her shirt. When she’d leaned forward to kiss me I knew the truth; she might be fighting it, but the attraction was there.
After grabbing our coffees, I walked over to her store. Evie was standing in front of the cash registers, looking pissed as hell. She was wearing a short knit black skirt over hot pink leggings, a darker pink shirt with a scoop neck hugging her breasts. She’d paired the outfit with Doc Martins and her signature combination of metal and beaded bracelets.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Her eyes swung to me, then she pointed to the countertop. Someone had written ‘get out’ in large block letters, with what looked like black marker. They’d also taken a knife to the two chairs behind the counter, pulling the stuffing out of the backs and tossing it on the floor.
Whoever was messing with Evie was definitely determined, if not particularly original. I couldn’t figure out why the vandal was going through this much trouble for relatively minor damage. It didn’t make sense.
“I thought you changed the locks.”
She huffed. “I did. I have no idea how they got in again.”
I grabbed the radio that I always had with me and called into the station. “We have another break-in at the bookstore. Please send a uniform and a fingerprint kit.”
Evie stomped away and returned a few minutes later with a plastic trash bag in her hand. Moving behind the desk, she started picking up stuffing off the floor and shoving it into the bag.
“You should leave that,” I instructed.
She ignored me.
“Evie. You don’t know if that’s safe. At least wear gloves.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
I opened my mouth to argue, but the door opened. One of my officers, Dan Reyes, walked in and looked around cautiously, like he thought someone was going to jump him.
“Here, Reyes.” I gestured to the top. “Can you wipe the counter down for fingerprints?”
“There’s no fingerprints,” Evie said. “I already checked.”
“With what?”
“I bought a fingerprint kit on Amazon since the police weren’t doing anything. The vandal must be wearing gloves.”
“Well as impressive as that is, Nancy Drew, your kiddie fingerprint kit is not the same as ours.”
She stopped picking up stuffing to glare at me. I glared right back. Our eyes were locked in a staring contest that neither of us wanted to lose.
“Uh, Chief?”
Reyes cleared his throat, making me look away, but not before I saw a look of triumph on Evie’s face.
“There’s nothing here.”
“Score one for Nancy Drew,” she crowed. “By the way, we have the whole series here if you want to learn more about doing investigations from everyone’s favorite girl detective.”
This time Reyes and I glared at her in tandem, but Evie just raised her eyebrows, clearly unafraid of us. Evie returned to picking up stuffing and after checking the front and back doors again and taking pictures, Reyes left to file his report.
Evie took the bag of stuffing to the back room, then returned with cleaning supplies. Without a word to me, she got started scrubbing the marker off the counter. I understood that Evie was frustrated with us, but we literally had nothing to go on here. I still hadn’t ruled out this being some elaborate prank, although my instincts told me it was more.
“I left your coffee on that table,” I finally said, pointing in the direction where I left her drink. “I can check on you tomorrow.”
“I won’t be here. We’re closed on Mondays.”
“What will you do on your day off?” I asked curiously.
“Try to solve a mystery, I guess.” She frowned up at me, her forehead wrinkling.
“Call me if something else happens,” I reminded her, even though she’d ignored me every other time. “I know you’re frustrated that we haven’t figured this out yet, but you need to let the professionals investigate this.”
She shot me a salute and turned her attention back to the counter. With one last warning look, I marched out of the store and went home to enjoy the rest of my Sunday.
My phone rang around midnight that evening.
“Chief Wilson.”
“Chief, it’s Officer Johnston. I’m at the bookstore on patrol and I can see someone moving around in there. Dispatch said we were to call you right away if anything happened, day or night.”
“Wait for me,” I ordered. “I’ll be there in five.”
I threw on my shoes and grabbed my holster and service revolver, driving as fast as I could to Evie’s bookstore. I parked on the corner and closed the remaining distance on foot. I found Johnston across the street, watching the windows closely.
“Do you have the master key?”
Every business in town had to have their locks keyed so our master would work in an emergency. We crossed the quiet street together, and I pressed my face against the glass, noticing a movement between the shelves. It was too dark to get much of an impression beyond that.
“I’ll go in the back,” I told Johnston. “You stay here and catch them if they leave through the front. Call for backup if things go south.”
Not waiting for his response, I ran silently around the building, using the master key to open the back door. I crept past the storeroom and office and headed through the employee door that I knew led to the main store area. The door made a squeaking noise I hadn’t expected.
I heard a female voice yell, “Freeze!” then I felt something hit my chest, hard enough to knock me off my feet. I fell to the ground, dropping my gun, just as someone turned on the overhead light.
It was Evie. She held a rifle in her hand, pointed in my direction. I looked down and saw a large red splotch of paint right over my heart. My girl was a good shot. Thank God she was using a paintball gun and not the real thing.
“Evie! What the HELL are you doing?” I bellowed as I rubbed my chest. Wet paint covered my hand, irritating me even more. I wiped it off on my tee shirt since it was ruined anyway.
“Oh my God, Jake! What are you doing here? You scared me half to death. I thought you were the vandal.”
She dropped to her knees next to me, looking concerned, but held on tight to her paintball rifle.
“Did I hurt you?”
I pulled up my t-shirt and saw a nice bruise forming over my left pec.
“Nice shot,” I grumbled. “You’re damn lucky I didn’t shoot you back.”
Evie’s mouth opened but no words came out. If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have appreciated the way her eyes darkened as she checked out my chest and abs. I might have been in my fifties, but I worked hard to keep myself in shape.
I sat up and gripped her shoulders, not caring that I was smearing paint on her shirt. My mind was racing with what could have happened if it hadn’t been me in the store if Evie’s shot had missed. What if she’d gotten hurt by the intruder?
“What the hell were you doing in here with that? You could have been hurt or killed!”
She looked down at the paintball rifle in her hands, then back to me, going from worried to angry in five seconds. I wrestled it out of her hands and set it next to us on the ground next to the gun I’d dropped. Rookie mistake but I hadn’t been expecting to be shot.
“I’m doing what the police won’t do: figuring out who the hell is messing with my store!”
Still holding onto her shoulders, I dragged her closer and slammed my mouth down on hers. My kiss was hard and angry. I tightened my grip on her shoulders and bit her lower lip, demanding entrance. She made a squeaking noise, then opened for me. My tongue swept in, and she met me, our tongues dueling for control. My cock hardened painfully against my pants. I tilted my head to get a better angle as the kiss continued.
Our kiss was hot and almost violent. The way she was kissing me back told me two things: she was pissed as hell at me but liked the kiss as much as I did.
I heard footsteps and pulled away, panting. Evie sat back on her heels, chest rising as she gasped for breath. Her lips were as red and swollen as I imagined mine were. There was a paint handprint where I’d gripped her shoulder.
Johnston appeared, service weapon in hand but pointed at the ground. He stopped when he saw us sitting there in the back of the store, glaring at each other, and breathing heavily. He looked between us curiously.
“Um. Sorry Chief, I thought I heard something.”
I gestured to my paint-splattered t-shirt.
Johnston’s eyes widened as he took in the scene. “Someone shot you with a paintball rifle?”
I inclined my head towards Evie and Johnston puffed himself up to his full height.
“Do you want me to arrest her for assaulting an officer of the law?”