Chapter One

It was a sunny summer afternoon as Detective Lucas Sullivan drove onto Harper MacLain’s street. His stomach tightened when he saw her up ahead…through his windshield, sitting on her porch stairs. He had to force himself to focus on his driving when what he really wanted to do was feast on the sight of her. He felt like a starving man promised a meal. Last time he’d seen her, her face was pressed to his chest, her sobs shaking them both. Circumstances were little better now, and he knew if Harper had her way, he’d be back in Boston. Where she’d left him a year ago. Reason told him he should have stayed there, but when Harper’s life fell apart, and the tragedy happened…he found he didn’t have much use for reason. He took the promotion and came to Manchester to be near her. Not that he’d ever tell Harper that.

As his car drew closer, he could see it caught her attention; her posture tensed, and she averted her gaze. Harper knew what his car looked like. There weren’t many restored Chevy Chevettes driving Manchester’s suburbs. She had to know it was him.

He felt his palms grow damp. She’d rebuff him. It’s what she did. He regretted not warning her that he was coming.

Forcing himself to concentrate on parking without jumping the curb, Lucas released a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been holding and then took the keys from the ignition. He was losing his cool. This is Harper, for shit’s sake. Sweet, kind, wouldn’t-hurt-a-flea Harper. This last year, when he was with her, there were always others around…others who took the onus of conversation off their shoulders. It allowed him and Harper to pretend the room didn’t sizzle when they were together…it forced Lucas to play nice and not remind her what she’d given up. This was going to be their first time alone since she left him, and he had no idea what to expect. Though his body was already hinting what it wanted.

When he climbed out of the air conditioned car, a hot breeze rustled his blond hair, and the heat of the day oppressed him. Adjusting the holster at his hip, he made sure it didn’t break the line of his suit jacket—better to disguise its presence, thwarting onlookers’ curiosity about why he was here, who he was. Then he wiped his sweaty palms on his gray suit pants, and blamed their dampness on the heat, rather than his nerves. A final check on his purple paisley tie, making sure its knot was centered on his neck, had him ready.

There. Good as he got.

Sitting pretty in a green shirt, skinny jeans, and flats, Harper still pretended not to notice his arrival. Lucas took advantage of the moment and stood by his car. Looking at her. It was a luxury. Used to be a common one, like her time, her touch, her affection. Lucas was the one who ended relationships with women…until Harper. A year later, he still wasn’t sure how to handle these feelings she’d left him with. His body tightened as he looked at her, aching with a desire undeterred by rejection.

Her curly red hair was fiery under the sun, spilling over her shoulders. He remembered how soft it felt, how he loved to have it drag against his belly when they made love. Lucas could tell she was nervous, because she was hiding behind it; chin tilted down, draping curls over her right eye and cheek. It was her tell…Harper peeking out from behind its weight, bracing herself against the next thing that wanted to hurt her. Understandable.

She was a MacLain. Shit happened to that family.

He stepped up to the curb and then approached the fence’s gate, stopping at its edge. They were estranged. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was for ex-lovers who pretended each other didn’t exist. Should he approach or wait for permission?

“I’m here to bring you to the precinct.” He waited to see if she’d invite him into the yard. Instead, she peered at him, a delicate frown marring her brow. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.” Did he sound too eager? Because he was. Her frown deepened, but he felt too strongly about this to back off. “Change your mind, Harper. Please.”

She scrunched up her face and closed her eyes. “Stop it, Lucas. We’ve been over this a million times.”

“But—”

“No.” When she opened her eyes again, her gaze revealed fear and determination. And anger. “Say another word and I’ll call a cab.” Breathy, shaking with emotion, his Harper was freaked. “Does Dane know you’re here?”

“He doesn’t know about the meeting. The lieutenant wanted as few people involved as possible.”

Harper’s back straightened. Her eyes flashed with umbrage. “Joe killed Dane’s wife. I’d think Dane deserves a heads-up, at least. He got you the evidence you needed to bring down the extortion ring.”

“Your brother is technically the perp’s victim.” No one, least of all Harper’s brother, Dane, wanted to give Detective Joseph Folsom grounds to file for a mistrial. “He’s going to be pissed, but he’ll understand.” Folsom had promised a verifiable list of MPD police officers and officials who colluded with an extortion ring. Once Lucas had that in hand, the feds would take over. Seemed too easy…a big, fat bow on an otherwise messy case.

He suspected Harper would agree. It would explain why her thick-lashed green eyes were shuttered, attempting to hide her fear. But there were things she couldn’t hide. Beneath her freckles, she was too pale. Her fine-boned fingers trembled as they nudged a curl off her high cheekbone. Delicate and small, at five feet four inches, she’d nonetheless always seemed larger than life. Now…not so much. She seemed afraid, and the combustible, bubbly personality he’d known had worn away, leaving her wounded. Delicate. He wanted to fold her into his arms and tell her everything would be okay, but those days were gone. She’d moved on. He wished he could.

His hands clutched at the white picket fence gate until the wood cut into his palms. The sun was baking him, causing him to sweat. She still hadn’t invited him into her yard, still had difficulty looking him in the eye. Damn. This shouldn’t be happening.

The lieutenant never should have asked Harper to meet with the perp, and stubborn, brave Harper never should have agreed. Last night he’d called her, demanded she not go. A year ago she would have listened, trusted his advice, but that was before she’d left him with a hug, explaining she wanted marriage, kids, and a happily ever after, knowing fully well that was not a future Lucas could sign on to. Harper might as well have asked for Tír na nÓg, because happily ever after with a cop was a mythical future. And being a cop was who he was.

“You didn’t have to come,” she said. What she was really saying was she wished he hadn’t. Well, tough.

“I saw your brother this morning,” he said. “We had coffee. He said your car was in the shop. I knew you’d need a ride.”

“I was just about to call a cab.”

“Now you don’t have to.” He tapped the top of the white picket fence, a subtle reminder that it and twenty feet of white petunia-edged walkway stood between them, that she needed to stand so they could head out, or she had to invite him in to join her in the shade. Harper ignored his hint.

“Why is my brother talking to you about me?”

“Like I said. We had coffee. He knows we were living together back in Boston. It would have been weird if I didn’t ask how you were doing.” Lucas saw her hackles rise and knew this was a battle he couldn’t win, so he changed the subject. “Be happy I didn’t send a cruiser.”

She avoided his gaze, probably searching for a polite excuse to call a cab anyway, but they both knew he wouldn’t put up with that nonsense. Their meeting with Folsom was in forty minutes. He’d arrived early hoping to change her mind.

Glancing left and right, he wondered how many neighbors were witnessing Harper interrogate him outside her garden gate, as if Lucas were an intruder or a salesman. He saw her neighbor’s drape pull to the side. It galvanized him to step through uninvited, niceties be damned, and head toward the porch before the gate could swing back and hit him on the ass. He didn’t know her neighbors, but knew Harper. People liked her. They were protective. He waved to another neighbor, an elderly lady who smiled back as she watered her flower garden, and made sure to project nothing to see here vibes.

He whistled with appreciation. “Nice yard.”

It was, in fact, spectacular. Blooms everywhere. He’d known she was good with plants and everything, but wow. The house was nice, too. Small and white. The cape’s exterior and gardens were…really, really nice. Pretty. Like Harper. Dane had told him that the house had been his late parents’ home, and that it was Harper’s now. It explained how she, a recent graduate from Boston College, could afford it.

Roses were everywhere, woven into the white fencing, splayed along the porch railing. The white and pink blooms were fragrant under the hot summer sun. The lawn was green and robust, and copious flowers lined the brick walkway to the granite steps of the porch. Care had been taken to make everything visually appealing. Homey. For a guy used to spartan accommodations, it was a pleasure. He’d missed flowers in his life. When she’d moved out of their place in Boston, it hadn’t taken long for her plants to wither. Soon thereafter, everywhere he turned, dead things greeted him…in this nook and that cranny. Moving had been a relief, if only to get rid of the constant reminder that he couldn’t even keep plants alive. No matter how much he’d watered them, they’d yellow and die. And she’d wanted to have kids with him? He’d done her a favor by taking that off the table.

“I like that.” He waved his hand to indicate a vine wrapping around the stair’s railing. “The purple flower things.”

“Clematis. It’s from the Buttercup family.”

“Buttercup, huh?”

Her trembling hand nudged the curls near her cheek, so now he could see both eyes, her fear and uncertainty. Uncertainty he could work with. A glance at his watch told him they had time before the meeting, especially if it meant Harper was using it to talk herself out of attending. So he sat next to her, happy to wait, and took a moment to enjoy the shaded porch, the breeze, and the company. She smelled good but not familiar. He supposed she must have changed her shampoo. He didn’t approve. When he thought about Harper, everything about her was distinct and memorable, from her curls to the curve of her waist. That she’d changed in any way was unsettling. More proof that she’d moved on from what they’d had together.

He didn’t know how to approach the subject of bailing on the meeting again without her biting his head off, so he sent out a few feelers; trying to catch her gaze, nudging her knee with his. No response. “You always did have a green thumb.”

Harper nodded politely but didn’t seem interested in taking him up on casual conversation. He found consolation in her company, silent though it was, and turned his attention toward the oak and maple trees lining the street. Their leaves rustled as the breeze picked up, casting needed shade over the kids playing hoops two houses down. Skateboarders wove street to sidewalk and back again, seemingly content to master this move or that trick. It was an old neighborhood and well maintained. The white or taupe colonials and capes were built close and sectioned off by picket fences or thick honeysuckle hedges. He found the view relaxing.

After a while, when he’d shifted his seat for the tenth time because his ass had gone numb, Lucas noticed Harper throwing him side glances. “What are you doing?” she said.

A trick question. He was either waiting for her to gather the courage to meet the evil fuck that was Joseph Folsom, a disgraced cop, murderer, kidnapper, and friend, or he was waiting to congratulate her on the decision to back out of the meeting. He supposed either wouldn’t be kind to point out, so he equivocated. “Enjoying the breeze and your gardens. It’s much better than waiting downtown under fluorescent lights, smelling day-old coffee in a littered conference room.” He took a cleansing breath and stretched his neck. The scent of freshly mown grass was competing with the roses perfuming the air. “This neighborhood is great.”

She arched a brow, clearly skeptical. “Kids playing outside? Lawn mowing? Ice cream trucks? It’s a family neighborhood. Careful, Lucas, it might give you the hives.”

He smiled, wondering if she were right. She could be. No one knew Lucas better than Harper. That’s why it was a blow when she’d left. “Seems nice enough.” Right out of a 1950s sitcom. Unreal. Glancing at his watch, he knew time was getting tight, and the porch stairs weren’t becoming any more comfortable. “Ready to go?” He hoped she’d take this chance to back out of the meeting. “Or stay.”

“Go.”

He sighed, knowing if he pressed too hard, she’d dig in and stop listening to him altogether. His best bet was to bide his time and work on her during the trip downtown. She stood, hung her leather pocketbook over her shoulder, and led him down the walkway and through the gate. As was his habit, he surveyed the neighborhood as he hurried her to the street and the passenger side of his car. He wanted to say something to ease the tension, but Harper beat him to the punch.

“I see you finally gave her a new paint job.” Harper ran her fingers along the sleek lines of his Chevy, reminding him it wasn’t so long ago she’d caressed him with such studied attention. He wondered if she’d triggered his memories on purpose, but then a quick study of her expression told him he was suffering from wishful thinking. She was oblivious and he was resigned and disappointed by that reality.

“The Chevy’s a work in progress.” The new black paint, two white stripes down the hood’s center, hid delayed maintenance, but one day Lucas would make the innards as beautiful. He gripped the passenger door’s handle, about to open it for her, when a breeze wafted the scent of her new shampoo toward him, distracting him long enough to morph his glance into a stare. Harper noticed, flushed, and looked away.

“Aren’t we all?” she said.

“Aren’t we all what?”

“A work in progress. Are you going to open the door, or do you want me to wrestle you for it?”

Lucas realized he was still holding the handle. He popped the door open and stood back, thinking it unfair only he was affected by their close proximity, only he felt the electricity in the air. His body thrummed with it. He was grateful she took care not to brush against him as she entered the car, sitting in the bucket seat. He wouldn’t have been able to handle that. Closing the door with more vigor than necessity, he hustled around the car and sat behind the wheel.

“I’m surprised you agreed to meet with Folsom. I mean, considering all the danger that brings with it.” He’d spent a good ten minutes on the phone last night detailing that danger. Her response was silence and it was deafening, last night and now. It tempted Lucas to start the car if only to break it, but then she glanced at him.

“The lieutenant told me what Joe had,” she said. “That list of dirty cops will give my brother closure and make my family safe again. Joe killed Dane’s wife, kidnapped my niece, but those dirty cops are the people who allowed Joe to thrive in the Manchester Police Department. They enabled him, hurt many others, and a day doesn’t go by when I’m not afraid they’ll hurt me or my family again. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to stop the people on that list.”

Swagger or resolve? Lucas couldn’t help but wonder, because Harper’s hands, so neatly folded on her lap, trembled. She’d always been a contradiction. Courageous and afraid. Sweet and salty. Innocent and naughty. What did it say about him that he’d always found that incredibly hot?

It was clear she’d made up her mind. He shrugged. “You’ll meet with Folsom. He’ll give up the names of the dirty cops. Then you’ll never see him again. The FBI and federal marshals will swoop in, and then it’s the DA’s problem.”

She held his gaze with such intensity Lucas suspected she was attempting to read him, or worse yet, see into his heart. He wasn’t sure what she’d see, having avoided looking too closely himself, but having Harper poke around in there made him feel under threat. He didn’t like it.

“I think it’s a mistake to keep Dane and Marnie out of the loop,” she said.

Not what Lucas expected her to say, but it was better than what he’d feared she would throw at him…feelings and stuff. Detective Dane MacLain, Harper’s brother, had been instrumental in bringing down the Whitman Enterprises extortion ring. If things were different, Dane would be here, picking Harper up…but they weren’t.

“Duly noted.”

“I’m not a cop,” she said, “but it doesn’t take a genius to know Joe’s life won’t be worth a damn when—” She hesitated. “When people discover he’s a snitch. Dane hates Joe, but—” She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t go there. When she opened them again, there was less defiance and more pleading, as if Lucas could fix this. He couldn’t. If Lucas had his way, Folsom would rot in jail and the department would find another way to acquire the names of those who colluded with Whitman Enterprises. “Dane should know what’s going on,” she said. “It’s not right to keep him in the dark. He should have a say in what happens today.”

Correct on all counts, but it didn’t matter a damn or change that it was the lieutenant’s call. The integrity of the case had to be protected, or none of their efforts over the last year would be admissible in court. Dane couldn’t be anywhere near this meeting. And anyway, Internal Affairs would keep Folsom safe until he could be handed off to the feds. He’d already be in witness protection but for the little detail of his withholding testimony. The little shit. With no confession and list to corroborate it, he’d be just another dirty cop…so no federal protection. Today’s meeting would change all that. If—and that was a huge if—Folsom wasn’t lying, which was a distinct possibility. Hell, in Folsom’s dire straits, Lucas would lie up a storm if it meant seeing Harper one more time.

“Fuck.” Forced to chew on that unwelcome epiphany, Lucas started the car, pulled away from the curb, and drove.

“Excuse me? I express a reasoned argument why we should include my brother in this meeting, and you respond with fuck?” Harper grimaced, avoiding his gaze.

“What do you want me to say? You know the answer to that as well as I do,” he said.

When they’d begun dating, Harper and he had always been on the same page. They’d practically finished each other’s sentences and had, more than once, been called out on that when they’d gone drinking with friends. It was their thing. Now, it was as if they barely spoke the same language.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Are you okay?” He was worried about her. A lot.

Her disdain was thick, even though her tone was a mere whisper. “No, Lucas. I’m not okay.”

He shifted gears and took the turn tightly. “I know. I mean, that’s not what I meant to say. I know you’re not okay.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Lucas shut up. She had him all tied up in knots. Harper made him crazy when she acted like this. He wanted to help, but he never seemed to get things right with her. Not since he’d followed her to Manchester and taken this new job. Since she’d made it clear he wasn’t welcome in her life. Since he wasn’t sure if winning her back was the right thing to do when she so clearly wanted things from life that he couldn’t give her. The whole dynamic between them—him wanting her more than breath, and knowing…knowing she felt the same. Yet she confused the hell out of him.

“I won’t let Folsom hurt you,” he said. That had to give her some level of comfort.

Harper arched a brow, unimpressed. “My hero.”

Her attitude stumped him until he put it into context. Harper’s grandfather, father, and brother were cops. She knew how this would shake out. She’d arrive in the interrogation room. Folsom would be leg shackled, wrists cuffed to the table, and Lucas would be in the room. Folsom would have to be Houdini to get at her. Harper knew this. Yet her fear was real and well-founded. There were dirty cops at the precinct and her agreeing to this meeting would put her in their crosshairs. It wasn’t Folsom she was afraid of.

Which brought up the question… “Why is Folsom demanding to speak with you before he gives up the list of names?” Grapevine gossip said Folsom wanted to chat with her brother, but Dane said no, that he’d kill Folsom if he ever saw him again. Lucas didn’t blame him.

“What do you mean? Lieutenant Zimmerman says he wants to give up the list.”

He detected defensiveness in her tone, and in the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “But why you?”

“Ask Joe.”

She was definitely deflecting. And kept calling Folsom Joe. No one called Folsom Joe but Dane and Harper. He reminded himself she’d known Detective Joseph Folsom since she was ten. He’d been her brother’s best friend through college, the army, and then as partners on the force. Yet the moment she discovered what an evil fuck he was, Lucas thought it might have been a good time to start calling him something else. Something less intimate. Like…evil fuck would be appropriate. It didn’t seem healthy to continue calling him Joe. Lucas would bring that up later, when things were less tense between them, like maybe in a hundred years.

He shifted gears and found consolation in his engine’s purr, rumbling and vibrating. He gave her more gas and opened her up on the highway. She drove smoother at high speeds, something to do with gears that had to be fixed…but until then, he’d drive his Chevy fast.

“Folsom could have asked for partial immunity,” Lucas said, “maybe even put wit sec on the table, but all he wanted was a meet with you.” Harper MacLain. He glanced at her, hoping she’d reveal some hint and maybe, just maybe, it would be the key to making her agree to cancel this meeting. Folsom was self-centered, did nothing unless it served his purposes. Lucas feared how Harper meeting Folsom might serve the evil fuck, willingly or not. “He’s been in solitary confinement for a month, no contact with the outside world but guards and his court-appointed attorney, who, incidentally, said Folsom hasn’t communicated with anyone since his arrest. So what changed?” He shifted into a lower gear as traffic bunched ahead of him and taillights lit up. Traffic fairly crawled on I-93, and he was not in the mood for it. “Why give up the list now, and to you?”

Harper shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.” Her expression was clean as a slate, and he didn’t like it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on and he was in the dark.

When the traffic dissipated, he shifted gears and drove faster than he probably should have. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of MPD’s downtown precinct. Harper was out of the car, slamming the door, before he pulled the keys from the ignition. He didn’t try to stop her, because he knew she wouldn’t go far. Without his badge and escort, she’d have to wait in the secure lobby. It gave him breathing room…time to pull his shit together.

“She’s an ex. Just an ex. So suck it the fuck up, Sullivan.” He slammed his palms on the steering wheel, watching her walk away, and heard his father’s voice in his head, haunting him. In life, a career is the meal, love, the seasoning. His father’s legacy. The guy who’d married and divorced three times, because the love of his life was the job—being a cop. Lucas’s dad had lived for the chase and died on it, gut shot by a perp escaping a robbery. Lucas was fourteen. He’d loved his dad, still did, but part of him just couldn’t forgive him for dying.

Now Lucas was a cop. Born to be a cop like his father before him. And he knew from firsthand experience how cruel the job was to a cop’s family. Especially a kid…a son. He couldn’t do that to a kid. A wife.

None of that had changed because he met Harper. Yeah, a month before she left him, Lucas got an offer to transfer out of Boston PD to Manchester PD, a promotion to lead undercover investigator. He was interested, but hesitated. His hesitation should have told him he was in over his head with Harper. But life was good— Harper, his job, no strings. Why change anything? Then she left. The job offer was still there…he took it. Some part of him thinking, maybe…if Harper changed her mind…maybe following her to Manchester might give them another shot to make things the way they used to be. Then Detective Joseph Folsom killed her brother’s wife and the Whitman Enterprises case happened.

Last year could have been about Lucas wooing Harper back, but instead was her living through hell and him investigating it. It gave him perspective. Harper was a happily-ever-after girl, and he was looking for happily-for-now. She deserved better. Hell, a year ago, those were the words she threw at him when she left.

So why did her new shampoo piss him off so much?