Alone In The Dark

But why?

She leaned down until she was level with the window and his face. He looked none too happy to see her. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged carelessly. “I was just making the rounds.”

The hell he was. She glanced at his vehicle, one that, even in this light, she could tell had been lovingly handled and restored. She’d had no idea that he was handy around cars. Only someone who was handy could drive an automobile like this. It required a great deal of attention. “In a ’78 Mustang?”

He looked mildly surprised that she could identify not just the make and model, but the year, as well. “You know cars?”

She laughed shortly. In this light, the car looked a deep blood-red. Not exactly the most inconspicuous color for a vehicle. “Most of my relatives are male. I’d have to be deaf not to have picked up something about cars over the years. And don’t change the subject. You’re off duty.” She ran her hand lightly over the dog’s head. “You both are, unless the police chief has suddenly decided to relax the uniform code. Besides, you’re part of the narcotics division.”

He’d never seen her outside of the clinic and without her lab coat. She wore a pair of faded jeans that adhered to her like a second skin, a white T-shirt that just barely covered her midriff and a cardigan that did nothing to hide her curves. For once her red hair was loose, falling in waves around her shoulders. She looked a great deal more feminine and fragile this way. Something protective stirred within him, growing larger.

“Haven’t you heard about crime in the suburbs?”

She fixed him with a look that said she saw right through him. “Is that anything like lying in the suburbs?” Before he could say anything, she began, “Look, if you’re here because of this morning—”

He looked at her with an attempt at innocence she found endearing. “This morning? What happened this morning?”

She made no effort to suppress her grin. Amusement shone in her eyes. “If being a policeman doesn’t work out for you, Coltrane, promise me you don’t try being an actor. There’s no future in it for you. Trust me, you’re awful at it.” And then her grin softened into a smile. “I’m touched.” She nodded toward the house. “Why don’t you come inside for a cup of coffee?”

He reached for the key in his ignition. “I was just on my way home.”

“Sure you were.” Before he could start the car, Patience opened the rear door. Instantly, King came bounding out. His tail wagged so hard, had he been a smaller dog he might have succeeded in levitating himself off the ground. Laughing, she ran her hand along the animal’s head. “Well, I’m happy to see you, too. Why don’t you come on in and say hi to Tacoma? I’ve got this great extra soup bone I don’t know what to do with.” She began to lead the way, but King turned to look at his master. His expression seemed to implore Brady to come along. “Don’t worry about him, King. I already asked him, but he doesn’t want to come in. He likes sitting in cars in the dark. Let’s go.”

Turning on her heel, she started to walk back to her house. After a moment’s hesitation King followed her willingly.

She probably had treats in her pocket, Brady thought darkly. Patience was forever doling them out to the dogs she treated. Disgusted at being abandoned, he leaned out the window and called, “That’s bribery.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. Even at this distance, her expression looked purely impish to him. “Yes, it is.”

With a sigh, Brady got out of his car and shut the door. He made no effort to catch up to the duo. Instead he followed behind the clearly smitten animal and the woman who had made him give up his evening routine.

Not that it was any great sacrifice on his part. Evenings for Brady meant heating up whatever he found in the refrigerator, then stretching out in front of the television set, tuned to some news channel so that he could stay informed.

Law enforcement had advanced a long way from making sure the town drunk was locked up for the night. It had even progressed beyond the thieves, the drug pushers, the murderers, kidnappers and rapists that were all a part of the modern world. Now there was an international threat to be on the alert for, as well.

It never seemed to stop.

However, tonight the world had gotten a great deal smaller again and his focus was concentrated on the woman walking into the house, adoringly followed by his four-footed partner.

Entering the house, he followed woman and beast into a kitchen that was both warm and cozy. Something out of a sitcom, he thought, because it certainly wasn’t out of anything he’d ever experienced firsthand. He remembered hearing somewhere that the kitchen was the heart of the house. In his house, the kitchen had been where his father liked to do his drinking when he wasn’t throwing back shots at the local bar.

Brady watched as King followed every move Patience made. He liked her hair down, he noted, instead of up and out of the way. He hadn’t realized it was so long. The tresses moved with her like a strawberry-blond cloud.

He straddled a chair. “You know, he’s not supposed to do that. Divide his loyalties that way.” He gave King a dark look. “He’s supposed to respond only to me.”

Patience tossed the dog a treat out of her pocket. King stretched, catching the bone-shaped snack in midair. “Don’t feel bad, I have this way with animals, I always have. That’s why I became a vet when everyone else around me was cleaving to the Aurora Police Department.” And then she smiled, which Brady found oddly unsettling. “I promise I won’t get between you two unless absolutely necessary.”

He gave her a penetrating look. “And this was necessary.”

“Absolutely.” Taking the coffeepot she always kept brewing, she poured Brady a cup, then filled her own. Just talking to Brady made her feel better. “I didn’t want your butt falling asleep because of me.”

“No part of me was going to fall asleep,” he informed her tersely. When she reached for the sugar, he shook his head. He took his coffee the way he took his view of life: black.

“It would if you sat out there long enough.” Reaching into the cupboard, she took down two small plates. “Just how long were you planning on staying there?”

He tried not to notice how tight her body was when she stretched. “Not long.”

She shook her head. Opening the drawer beneath the counter, she took out two forks and a long knife. “Like I said, you just don’t lie well. Look, Coltrane, I’m touched—”

“Most likely,” he said in a disparaging manner, which made her think that he meant the term in the old-fashioned sense, as in touched in the head, “but it’s my job to protect the citizens of Aurora and last time I looked, you were among that number. Besides…” He paused to take a sip of coffee. It was so strong, it jarred his teeth. He gave his silent seal of approval. “Anything happens to you, the department has to find a new vet. King doesn’t like adjusting to anyone new.”

She turned to look at him, a smile playing on her lips. “Oh, King doesn’t, does he?”

He could see exactly what she was saying. That she thought he was substituting King for himself. Obviously the woman didn’t suffer from an inferiority complex. “You know, I never realized it before, but you’ve got a smart mouth.”

“Lots of things you probably haven’t realized about me, Officer Coltrane.” She flashed him a very significant look. “Lots of things I apparently didn’t realize about you.”

He cut her off before she began to wax sentimental or something equally as unacceptable to him. He never knew what to do when confronted with either tears or gratitude. He usually wound up ignoring both. “I think we should stop the conversation right here.”

Patience nodded, agreeable up to a point. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

He felt like a mustang, cornered in a canyon with only one way out. The way he’d come. “Who said I wanted to talk?”

For a second she stopped what she was doing and studied him. “Well, you don’t want to just sit there like a department store mannequin, do you?”

No, he wanted to finish his coffee and leave, but he kept that to himself. For the moment. “What’s wrong with that?”

She laughed again and the sound went right through him. “It’s too quiet for one thing.”

The last time it had been too quiet for him, he’d found himself, without warning, looking down the business end of a Smith and Wesson. Other than that, he took his silence where he could. “I never saw the need to litter the air with words.”

She gave a careless shrug of her shoulder and reached for a handful of napkins. She shoved a thick wad into the napkin holder she was always forgetting to restock. “It’s only littering if it’s garbage. Something tells me you don’t spout garbage.”

“I don’t ‘spout’ at all.” He regretted the impulse to drive by her house tonight. Just went to show him that no good deed ever went unpunished.

“I guess that’s what makes King such a perfect partner for you.” She glanced over at the dog who was hunkered down in corner, focusing his attention on the soup bone she had given him. Tacoma was close by, enjoying a similar feast. Patience could feel Brady watching her every move. “You always study people so intently?”

“You’re not even facing me,” he protested.

“I don’t have to be.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “I can feel your eyes.”

He drained his cup. There was nothing to keep him here. So why wasn’t he getting to his feet? “That’s just not possible.”

Removing the lid from a cake she’d just baked less than a hour ago, Patience paused before cutting into it. “So how did I know you were watching me?”

“Deduction.” It was the logical response. “You’re the only thing here worth looking at.”

Her mouth fell open before she could catch herself. Patience stared at him, not sure she’d heard what she thought she had. “Is that a compliment?”

Annoyance creased his brow. “That was just an observation. That’s what a cop does, he makes observations.”

She sighed, cutting two slices and placing them on the plates. Why did he sound so put off, so irritated whenever she tried to guide the conversation to a more personal path? Who was he beneath that bulletproof vest? There had to be a softer side to him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been there tonight, outside her house.

She brought the plates over to the table. “You make it very hard to say thank-you, you know that?”

“There’s no need to say thank-you.” Brady glared at the plate she placed in front of him. He nodded at it. “What’s that?”

Patience sat and made herself comfortable. She pushed one fork toward him and took the other one for herself. “I call it cake.”

“I know what it is. I meant, why are you putting it in front of me?”

“I’d just assumed that maybe you’d like some with your coffee.” She saw that he’d finished his and rose again, going to the counter to get the pot. Holding it over his empty cup, she paused. “Unless a can of oil might be more to your preference.”

He nodded at the pot, indicating that he wanted her to pour. “What kind of cake?”

“Good cake.” She grinned as she set the coffeepot down on the table and took her seat again. “Rum cake. I made it.”

It smelled enticing. Almost as enticing as she did. The thought sneaked up on him from nowhere. He sent it back to the same place. “You bake?”

“Bake, cook, clean,” she enumerated, flashing a bright smile. “I’m multitalented. I’m still having a little trouble clearing tall buildings in a single bound, but I’m working on it.”

He shook his head. Half the time she made no sense at all. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The ‘Superman’ intro.” There was no light of recognition in his eyes. It was as if he’d grown up on another planet. “Never watched classic TV programs from the fifties?”

There’d been no television set in his house when he was growing up. No money even for a cheap set because every available penny went into his father’s shot glass. He’d started school in Salvation Army clothes. Books were a luxury, never mind a television set. If there was something that his father wanted to see, he watched it on a set at the bar, the rest of them be damned.

The woman hadn’t stopped probing since the second he’d walked into her house. “Why?” he asked.

“For fun. Do I have to explain fun to you, Officer Coltrane?”

He’d absently taken a bite of the cake and he had to admit, the woman knew her way around ingredients. He couldn’t remember enjoying something so much. As he’d gotten older, food became for functioning only. But this had pleasure attached to it.

Now if she’d only stop talking…

“There’s no need for you to explain anything to me, Doc.”

Patience picked at her cake, her attention completely focused on the man in her kitchen. The more she talked to him, the less she knew.

“I beg to differ. Since you’ve taken it upon yourself to act as my protector, I think it’s my duty to reciprocate by opening up a whole new world for you.”

He put down his fork. “This isn’t a joke, Doc. I’m here because you have a stalker.”

Her expression grew serious. She didn’t want to dwell on this. What she wanted was just to make it all go away. She didn’t like looking over her shoulder, being afraid.

“Had,” she emphasized. “Look, I’ve been giving this some thought. We don’t even know that the rose is from Walter. Maybe one of my other pet owners wanted to say thank-you.”

“So where’s the note?”

She shrugged. “Maybe it got lost. Blew away. The wind’s been pretty bad off and on today.”

Was she afraid? he wondered. Was that why she was so determined to ignore the possible seriousness of the situation? “If someone wanted to say thank-you, why didn’t they just say it?”

“I don’t know.” Why was he making it so difficult for her? “Because they’re shy. The point is, although I really do appreciate it, you don’t have to go out of your way for me, Coltrane.” And then her expression softened. “Unless of course you felt like coming over and sharing a cup of coffee with me and this was just a handy excuse for you.”

He wondered if she knew that her vulnerability was getting to him. “The coffee was your idea.”

“You’re drinking it.” She shook her head. It was official—her brother was going to have to surrender the pigheaded crown because there was a new champion in town. “Does everything have to be a debate with you?”

“It wouldn’t be if you didn’t automatically jump in on the other side.”

“Sorry, it’s in my nature.” Patience shrugged, willing to back off for now. “There were a lot of people I had to hold my own with.” She thought of her brother and cousins. “You know how it is.”

“No,” he replied flatly, “I don’t.”

“No siblings?”

Finishing his cake, he pushed the plate aside. “I have a sister.”

From his tone, she made a natural assumption. “But you’re not close.”

He and Laura had once been extremely close, the way two siblings involved in a dire situation could be. But now both wanted to forget the childhood that linked them to tragedy.

“We exchange Christmas cards.” How was it that she’d managed to turn things around again? “Look, this isn’t about me.”

“No,” Patience agreed cheerfully, “it’s about me. And I’m curious about you. This is the first time I’ve seen you out of uniform and outside the clinic.” And as such, she wanted to make the most of the opportunity. She’d been curious for a while now. Unlike the other K-9 cops who came to the clinic, Brady volunteered nothing. “You never come to my uncle’s parties.”

He finished his second cup, then set it down. “I’m not much of a party person.”

“Neither is my brother Patrick, but he shows up.” She reached for the coffeepot, but Brady shook his head, placing his hand over the top of his cup. Patience withdrew her own hand from the pot. She nodded toward the cake, silently offering him another slice, but he turned that down, too. “Haven’t you heard, Coltrane? Socializing is good for you.”

“General rules don’t usually apply to me.”

A rebel. She’d known as much when she’d first seen him. There was something about the way he’d held himself, something about the way he’d walked that told her he preferred the road less taken.

Why did she find that so intriguing?

“I’m beginning to get that.”

Brady rose from his chair. “Good.”

No, Patience thought, rising to her own feet, not good at all.

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