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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He woke urges she’d tried to quell, then sent them racing through every cell in her body. Giving in to the moment, she moved in rather than away and let herself soak in the pleasure of just feeling again.

His hands moved up her sides, strong, sure, then down again.

Tic, wanting his share of attention, tried to wiggle between them.

Easing back, eyes still on Sloan’s, Nash snapped, “Sit!”

Because her lips felt tender, warm and tender, Sloan lifted a finger to rub over them. “You have considerable skill.”

“Thanks. I’ve been working on it for a while.”

“Good job. Ah, the reasons against this still apply.”

“Do they, though?”

“We should talk about them. I like to think things through, weigh the pros and cons, rather than act on impulse, so we should talk about them. Later.”

Hands gripping his shoulders, she boosted up to wrap her legs around his waist and fuse her mouth to his.

“I know this is stupid,” she managed as he skirted around the dog and started for her bedroom.

“Odd. It feels really smart to me.”

“Stupid,” she said as she pressed her lips to his cheek, his neck. “It’s just that I haven’t done this since… for a few months. I’m probably overeager.”

“There’s no such thing. If it matters”—since the dark was deep, he slapped on the switch for the dinky overhead light in her bedroom—“I haven’t either.”

“Well, why—” She broke off when he dumped on the bed, and his body pressed hers into the mattress. “We’ll talk later.”

“Sure.”

His mouth took hers again, and his hands began to move.

Her system soaked in sensation like rain after a drought. For too long everything in her had focused on healing, on feeling whole again. This, this elemental need met was another kind of healing.

She was alive, a woman with appetites and desires who was desired in turn.

She reveled in it, and wanted more.

His weren’t the soft hands that had last touched her this way, but hard, strong, and sure. They demanded exactly what she wanted to give.

She shoved away the denim shirt, tugged up the dark tee under it. To take exactly what she wanted to take. To feel with her own hands that solid wall of chest that pressed against her, to dig them into the muscled shoulders, his back, the ripple of biceps.

And purred as she had over her new closet door.

He’d wanted her like this more than he’d admitted. Still, he’d have slowed his pace, gentled his touch, but she clearly wanted neither. So when she rolled, he went with her.

Those eyes, wicked fairy eyes now, stayed on his as she unhooked her utility belt.

“Not smart, not smart,” she said, but let it drop on the floor.

But when she started to tug off her tie, he pushed up to do it himself.

“The uniform kills me. Makes no sense, but it kills me. Let’s see what happens when I get you out of it.”

He made quick work of the tie, then the shirt. Then his gaze focused on the scar inches from her heart.

In the dim light, it struck him as surprisingly round, still pink around the edges. A vicious souvenir of violence.

When she started to lift a hand to cover it, he closed his hand over hers, looked back into her eyes. Because he saw distress, he followed instinct and laid a hand over the wound and her heart as he brought his lips back to hers.

This time tenderly.

She trembled, started to pull away.

“I’m not fragile.”

“No, you’re sure as hell not.” Keeping her close, he flipped open the hook of her bra. “And so far, even out of uniform, you just kill me.”

He laid her back again, kissed her again. This time not so gently.

He took her back where she wanted to be, where there was no thought, only feeling, where she could let go of everything but that single, focused, desperate need.

Those rough, seeking hands didn’t make her feel fragile, but demanded she give and she take in equal measure.

As her heart pumped wild under his hands, she yanked at his belt. She wanted all of him, everything, and now. Could barely breathe for the urgent beat of her own blood as he dragged her pants down her legs. As his hands followed them down her thighs.

“I want—I want—”

He said, “Shh.” Covered her mouth with his, slid his hand up between her legs.

She erupted, cried out in release as the first glorious orgasm tore through her, ripping off scars she hadn’t realized closed off emotions, need, longings.

Pulsing pleasure spread through her, bringing back to life what she’d feared had died while the rest of her survived.

She quaked under him, hips arching, nails digging in. Her eyes met his again, the green of them madly beautiful. Then she wrapped her legs around him once more.

“Now. Right now.”

He drove into her, wasn’t sure he could have stopped himself if someone had held a knife to his throat. The hunger for her, for this, clawed inside him, an animal he couldn’t cage.

Fast, rough, he took and he took while the air burned in his lungs, while she met his every desperate thrust.

She came again. He watched those eyes go opaque, felt her body shudder, then go lax. But still he didn’t, couldn’t, stop.

With a half sob she began to move again, to meet him again.

She fisted a hand in his hair, dragged him down into a kiss that burned into the savage.

“God! God, yes. Again.”

This time when she peaked and she fell, he had no choice but to follow her.

She lay splayed out on the bed. Used up. Melted. Burned out.

Even the barest whisper of tension in her body had been snuffed out. Any hint of stress in her mind, blown away into utter contentment.

Keeping her eyes closed, she basked in it.

“I know that was stupid, and I don’t care. Jesus, Littlefield, you’re really good at it.”

He lay sprawled, staring blindly up at the popcorn ceiling, the dinky light. “I can honestly say: Back at you, Cooper. That’s a hell of a body you got on you. What do you curl?”

“I’m up to fifteen. I had to start back at two. The dog’s whining.”

“Yeah, I hear him. Needs to go out. I’ll be back.”

He sat up, yanked on his pants. “You want anything?”

“Maybe water. A half gallon should do it.”

“I’ll take the other half.”

When he went out, she let herself float. Not toward sleep, she thought, but into bliss. Then remembered her utility belt, and rose to pick it up, set it on the dresser.

He walked back in, the dog loping with him, as she stood naked by the bed.

“There’s a picture.” He handed her one of the two glasses of water.

“Thanks.” She sat, then decided the hell with that. She piled up pillows, lay back against them.

He sat, work pants low on his hips and still unbuttoned.

“I saw you before.”

“Hmm.”

“Back late November, early December, walking with Mop.”

“Oh. Right.” She remembered seeing him and Theo, thinking them tourists. “And thought poor, pathetic woman. Felt sorry for her.”

“No, actually.” He raked his fingers back through his hair, which did nothing to tame it. “I thought you looked tired, shaky, and like every step brought you pain. But you just kept walking. I admired you for that.”

Her gaze shifted to his.

“I didn’t know who you were then, or what had happened to you. I admire you more now that I do. Coming back from that takes guts.”

“What choice was there? Come back, and it felt like an inch at a time, or give up?”

“That’s a choice.”

She let out a sigh, finished the water, then set the glass aside. “I nearly made the other one. At least I think I did.”

“Think?” Though he enjoyed looking at that excellent body, he tossed the throw at the foot of the bed over her, then propped himself up beside her.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you. Why not? Maybe it was a dream, but… No, it wasn’t. I died on the table in the OR, just a few minutes, but…”

“I know. Theo told me.”

“How did he—”

“Drea.”

“Drea.” She shut her eyes. “I didn’t think they knew that. I never told them about it.”

“If we’re playing that game, she told Theo the doctor told her and your parents. And the guy who was with you when you got shot.”

“Of course he did. Of course. I just shut that out, and they’ve never pushed. Well, I’ll deal with that later. When it happened, when my heart stopped, I saw myself. I looked down at myself.”

“Seriously?” Rather than the doubt, even amusement she’d expected, he looked interested. “Like a near-death thing?”

“Not near. I was. And I felt so calm, so quiet, weightless, and well, free. Look how hard they’re working, and I’m fine up here . Or wherever I was. I didn’t feel panicked, but—have to use the word—peaceful.”

She could bring it back, see it all again.

“I’m just sort of floating, and I saw Joel. He’d have been out in the corridor. He was talking to his wife, telling her I was in surgery. And he told her I wouldn’t give up. I’d fight. I was tough, I was strong. I wasn’t finished yet and I wouldn’t give up. My blood was on his uniform. He was crying.

“I thought, well, I guess I can’t just go. And I didn’t. I don’t remember anything else, not clearly, until I woke up a few days later.”

She shrugged. “I’d say most people don’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“Sounds real enough to me.”

She tilted her head toward his. “Does it?”

“Why not? Maybe it’s just a consciousness thing. Heart stops, but that part’s still working. So you see, feel, hear, or get impressions. Somebody who matters to you is telling you not to give up, and you don’t. Add a medical team zapping you back.”

“I can still see it. It’s like… Wait!” She shot straight up. “Wait! Zapping me back. Wait.”

She rolled off the bed, grabbed his shirt because it was handy. Swinging it on, she rushed to the door.

“What? That’s my shirt.”

He rolled off himself, hitched up his pants, and went after her.

Hoping for more playtime, Tic followed.

He caught up with her as she pushed open the door to the room she used as an office. She hit the lights, then beelined for her laptop.

As she booted it up with one hand, grabbed a file beside it with another, he stared at the wall.

Pictures—of people, cars, parking lots, and more—crowded together with printouts of articles, handwritten notes. More notes she’d obviously written with a marker right on the wall itself.

“Interesting decor. A bold choice.”

“Zapped him back. Tarrington’s father, paramedic, portable defibrillator. Brought him back.”

“So you said.”

“Janet Anderson, paddleboarding last summer, fell off, board hit her head, and she went under. It’s in the file. You look at the husband. Cleared him, he’s clear. Didn’t pay much attention before. But… Yes!”

“What?”

“Required CPR, mouth-to-mouth. Got her on the patrol boat. Officer First Class Wilber—I know him—resuscitated her. He brought her back. I forgot. I didn’t connect it.”

Since the room didn’t boast another chair, Nash stood, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay.”

She sat, and her fingers started flying over the keyboard.

“Maybe Rigsby—the dentist—maybe he had an accident, a heart attack, something, and required… Cumberland’s not that big a town, but there’s a local paper. He’s had a practice there for more than twenty-five years. Big house, fancy car, prominent citizen.”

Curious now, Nash walked around behind her.

“See, here he is, last October—Halloween bash.”

She brought up another, highlighting his practice’s pediatric dental work, another in the spring when he and his wife attended a local fundraiser.

“Here! Single car accident a year ago last December. Icy road, Mercedes versus tree. Tree wins. Critical condition. Need more.”

“You can’t just go into somebody’s medical records. HIPAA.”

“Yeah, yeah, the investigators can get more, but… His wife uses social media. And he has a professional page. I didn’t go back this far.”

So he watched as she sat, swamped in his work shirt, going back through Karen Rigsby’s social posts.

Food pictures, kid pictures whizzed by. Photos of Karen and her husband beaming, Karen with a group of women, happy birthday posts.

She stopped at a post in March topped by a header.

ART COMES HOME TODAY!

It’s been a long haul with a lot of tears, a lot of worry, and a lot of work. Art and I, and our whole family, want to thank all of you for your prayers, your support during this difficult time. We will never forget the friends and neighbors who did so much to help. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.

Our deep and sincere gratitude goes out to the wonderful doctors and nursing staff at UPMC. Your skill, dedication, and kindness meant everything to all of us. At every step and stage, you went above and beyond.

So, so many thanks to the first responders. Without your quick action, your skill, I would have lost my husband, our children their father, our grandchildren their pop. You brought him back to us, and now he’s coming home.

“Brought him back.”

“I get it, but that could just mean they got him out of the wreck.”

“Going back, back to February. She’d have posted on it.”

She skimmed over progress reports—she’d read them later—and scrolled back to the first post on the accident.

“Here. Just happened, she’s calling for prayers. Worked late, accident. She’s scared, not as coherent as her other posts.”

“Small wonder.”

“Concussion, internal injuries, in surgery. Collapsed lung, and bang. ‘Art’s big, generous heart stopped on the way to the hospital. They had to shock it to start it beating again. Please, please, send all your prayers that it keeps beating, that he heals and comes home to us.’”

“Son of a bitch,” Nash muttered. “Looks like you found that common denominator.”

“Three for three?” He saw those fairy eyes go fierce. “That’s not coincidence. That’s deliberate. That’s the reason.”

“What kind of a reason is that? We’re going to grab people up who’ve been dead for a minute?”

“Probably not that simple, but that’s the crux. Three different hospitals, different locations. How do they know? How do they pick? Where are they holding them? Or more likely, where are the bodies? A lot of questions.

“But this is the reason.” She nodded, tapped the screen. “This is the motive.”

“So what do you do now?”

“Talk to my captain tomorrow. Pass what I’ve got on to the investigators in each case. Start looking for more with this connection, as Janet Anderson might not have been their first. Find the answers to the lot of questions.”

“They were grabbed up about a month apart, right?”

“Yes, and yes, they’ll have another picked out.”

“You fit. It could be you.”

Tic wedged in, so she rubbed his head.

“I was in Hagerstown—the hospital. Out of their range. And it’s really risky to go after a police officer. But since I’ve been there, I can tell you they stole that second chance, wiped out all the pain and effort of healing and moving on. Killed the joy and relief of the families at having their loved one alive.

“And that pisses me off.”

She switched off the computer.

“I’ve got regular duty tomorrow, but I’ll make time for this. Hell, maybe this is another reason I came back. I’ll make time for this.”

“If you want me to take off, I’m going to need my shirt.”

She glanced up over her shoulder, then shifted her chair so she could stand up in the limited space.

“You know how I said we’d talk later about the thing we shouldn’t be doing?”

“Now you want to talk?”

“No, I think we should go back and do the thing we shouldn’t be doing again. Then we’ll have more to talk about later.”

“That works for me. I still want my shirt back.”

She smiled. “Come and get it.”

He left early, but had a chance to try out her new shower—with her in it.

She surprised him. Not just the sex, and he could admit now he’d imagined that before the reality of it.

The reality far outpaced his imagination.

Having her ask him to listen to her theories on police work, that had surprised him. The way her mind worked surprised him, though it shouldn’t have, he thought. He’d seen how she approached the improvements to her house.

Step by logical step.

He’d enjoyed being with her—and not just in bed, or the shower. He’d enjoyed sitting, listening, talking over pizza in her ugly kitchen. And standing in that poor excuse for a home office watching her dig for answers.

That wall, he remembered as he let himself and the dog in the house. That showed a lot more than casual, professional interest.

It showed an investment of time, of effort, and over three people she’d never met.

He went back to the kitchen, fed the dog, got coffee, looked out the big window at the snow, the trees, the path he’d cleared to the workshop.

He’d surprised himself, he admitted, telling her he’d seen her walking, that he’d admired her. Usually, he tended to be more cautious in sharing his personal thoughts.

But there’d been something about her, sitting there, that excellent body marred by that scar so close to her heart.

Not marred, he corrected immediately. More a badge, he decided, for someone who’d faced the worst and fought back.

Now, he realized, he was thinking about her too much. They’d had sex—really good sex. He found her interesting, appealing, all fine. No need to dwell on it.

He looked down at the dog. “And I guess, since we never did reach that later for talking about why not, we’ll keep the whole thing between us. No blabbing out of you.”

Tic wagged, then rushed over to pick up the old pair of socks Theo had knotted together.

“Not now.” But Nash gave the other end of the socks a couple of tugs. “I have to go change my famous shirt. Got work to do, and the appliances are coming. Thank Christ.”

He’d started downstairs again when Theo came in, and Tic raced to greet him.

“Finished the trim at Sloan’s,” Nash began. “I’ve got Robo going over to poly it. I’m going to work on the backsplash. Since we’ve got the appliances coming, and aren’t scheduled to start the Kildare job until tomorrow, you can start on the crown molding in the dining room.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Giving Tic an absent pat, Theo walked by him in what Nash considered a daze.

“You okay?”

“Huh? Good. Great. You?”

“Fine.” Unsure, Nash followed his brother back to the kitchen. “No coffee at Drea’s?”

“What? Oh, coffee. Yeah, I’ll get some.”

“Did she suck out your brains through your ears last night?”

“We had a really good time,” Theo said, and dreamily. “We decided to stay in, so we made dinner.”

“And did a lot of drugs?”

Theo stopped staring into space long enough to laugh. “Come on, man! We put on music, and talked. So, I need you to come with me.”

“Where?”

“To buy the ring. The engagement ring.”

“The—” They didn’t have the counter stools yet or Nash would’ve sat on one. Immediately. “You asked her to marry you?”

“Not yet. I need the ring first. I’m going to do this right.”

At that moment, Theo looked so young to him. Impossibly young and open, and the next thing to shiny.

“Maybe doing it right should involve a few more months of being with someone.”

“I know it’s quick.” The dreaminess cleared with an easy smile. “But she’s it. Nash, she’s it for me. I knew it the first time I saw her, and I feel it more now. I didn’t know I could feel this way about somebody, anybody. Like I can see us together in a year, in ten years. Building a life together, having a family.”

Theo gave a quick little shrug. “When you come from what we did, you wonder if you can ever have that. I know I can with Drea.

“You like her.”

“Sure I like her. She’s likable. Her whole family’s likable.”

“I love her,” Theo said simply. “She loves me. So I need you to come with me when I buy the ring. I don’t want to screw up there.”

“What do I know about buying a ring? I’ve never bought one.”

Because Tic made his needs known, Theo let him out.

“You won’t let me go overboard. She wouldn’t want something overboard. It’s not her. She’d want classic. And if she says yes, you’d be my best man, so you could start now.”

“Jesus Christ. You’re absolutely serious.”

“Absolutely serious. Positively sure. I haven’t ever been this sure about anything. Coming here, talking you into taking me into the business, that comes close.”

Theo finally made the coffee.

“And I was right about that. So, you’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ll come with you.” Nash dragged both hands through his hair. “It might—hell, it will take me a while to process this.”

“If she says yes, I’m hoping we can get married in the fall, whatever kind of wedding she wants.”

“One giant step at a time, Theo.”

“Yeah, but. Drea deserves whatever kind of wedding she desires, and time to plan it. I don’t want to push for sooner because I really want to get started.”

He turned back with his coffee. “I’m not going to invite them, Nash.” His eyes went hard, determined. “I know if they find out, they’ll hit at you about it more than me.”

“Don’t think about that now.”

“I have thought about it. We both know how they’d react, how they’d take shots at Drea, and I won’t have it. And I’ll make it clear it’s my decision.”

“Have you talked to Drea about them?”

“Yeah. She knows it all. She knows why it’s just you and me. She said how some people don’t know how to be parents, or family. And we were lucky to have each other, you and me, because we knew how to be family.”

A little dreamy again, Theo let Tic back in.

“See why I love her?”?

“Yeah, I do. I may end up half in love with her myself. Where the hell do you buy an engagement ring around here?”

Theo grinned. “I’ll find out.”

“Later. Now get to work. Since it looks like you’ll be moving out by or before the fall, I need to wring all the work out of you I can.”

Then it hit him. “Do you want her to move in here?”

“No. I mean there’s room, sure, but it’s going to be a construction zone for a while.”

He bent down, obliged Tic with some tug.

“We’ll find a place. I’d really like us to find a place we can start building that life together. So you’re stuck with me until.”

“Then stop playing with the dog and go get a hammer.”