Hot Prospect

She glanced up. Funny, he wasn’t wearing a ring. And she did not get a married vibe from him at all, especially when you factored in his eyes being fastened to a variety of her body parts ever since he got here. Yes, he was a guy and guys did that kind of thing. But he just didn’t seem the type to be newly married and looking around, and she usually trusted her intuition when it came to guy matters.

Zoë considered this mystery for several seconds, before deciding there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and it was just too aggravating to contemplate. If he, his wife and his wandering eyes wanted to throw themselves into a newlywed encounter group, that was their business.

Wagging the Explorer’s Journey folio at him, she plastered on a wide, chipper smile. “This sucker was expensive and I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. But you do know it leaves first thing in the morning, right? Do you and your wife have time to pack?”

“I’m not married,” he said quickly.

She knew it! There was totally an unmarried aura just hovering all around him. She was thrilled for a second, realizing that her instincts had been right. But then she had another depressing thought.

“Oh.” Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re taking your girlfriend. I thought you could only do the program if you were married. Although now that I think about it, doing it before you get married sounds like a much better idea. Or are you planning to just lie and tell them you’re married? Not that it matters to me.”

Slowly he asked her, “Why would I need to be married?”

“Because…” That gave her pause. He wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey and he didn’t know? She narrowed her eyes. Feeling very shrewd, she inquired, “You don’t know what the Explorer’s Journey is, do you?”

He just looked at her for a long moment.

“You don’t!” she exclaimed. “I can tell you don’t.” Now this was getting interesting. Zoë advanced on him, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Why do you want to go if you don’t know what it is? Is your girlfriend making you go?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said reluctantly.

Yes! Zoë felt like doing happy dances. She refrained. But she felt the triumph in her heart. She wasn’t wrong about him! Single, single, single!

But if it wasn’t for a relationship, then why did he want to go? “Is it for work? You have to go for like, official police reasons?”

“No.” Other than that, he kept his mouth shut. His lips looked even more intriguing pressed together like that.

Zoë was nothing if not persistent when it came to mysteries and puzzles. She drew a little closer. “You don’t think I’m going to hand over my tickets unless you tell me why you need to go, do you?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you,” he said tersely. “And you said tickets, plural. I only need one.”

“Well, you certainly can’t go by yourself.” All by his lonesome? Mr. Cute Cop hadn’t done his homework, had he? She tapped the ticket packet against her chin.

“Why exactly is it a problem if I go by myself?” he asked. He was starting to sound a little testy. “What were you talking about before, about having to be married, or taking a girlfriend? What is this all about? What kind of exploration are we talking? North Pole? Mount Saint Helen’s? What?”

“Forgive me,” she said thoughtfully, looking him up and down, “but you don’t seem like the explorer type.”

“Neither do you.”

She shrugged, not at all concerned. “Are you going to tell me why you want to go? Or am I going to hold on to my tickets and my explanation of just what exactly the Explorer’s Journey is?”

Finally he muttered, “It’s none of your business, but the truth is… I have to find someone. I have reason to believe she’ll be on this tour.”

“She? So you have to find a woman.” Zoë was very close now, looking right up into his face, and she found this all fascinating. Her mind was working a mile a minute, considering possibilities. Not married. No girlfriend. Dying to go on the Explorer’s Journey to find a particular woman. “Is she your ex-girlfriend or something? She dumped you, hooked up with some other guy, got married, and now she’s going on the Explorer’s Journey with him. And you want to follow her. Why? Are you stalking her? Maybe you think you can get her away from the other guy? Or are you just torturing yourself?”

“You’re giving me a headache,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Oh, c’mon.” She jiggled his elbow. “Stalker? Win her back? Torment yourself?”

“None of the above. And why do you care?” he asked darkly. “I need to find her. She may be on this tour. That’s it.”

“Well, you can’t go by yourself.”

“Why not?” he snapped.

Zoë beamed up at him. “Because…if you must know…” She let her voice trail off. She was kind of enjoying letting him dangle now that she knew he was single. He was so very cute and his impatience only made him cuter somehow.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“Okay, okay. I guess you don’t watch Oprah, do you? Because the Explorer’s Journey has been all over Oprah. How to describe it?” She bit her lip. “Hmmm… I guess the closest I can come is to say it’s a kind of a combination of group therapy and a honeymoon.”

His eyebrows arched. “Group therapy? Honeymoon?”

Taking in his expression, she said slyly, “That’s right. And let me tell you, Jake, I can’t see you enjoying either all by yourself.”

He recovered quickly. “Yeah, but…somebody must go solo on this thing.” He sent her a quick glance. “People break up all the time. But, hey, they already paid the money, so why shouldn’t one of them go ahead and take the vacation? Like you. You broke up with your boyfriend, right? A few weeks ago.”

“He was my fiancé. Ex-fiancé. And that’s why I wanted to cancel my tickets. I sure wasn’t planning to go without him.”

Pacing farther away, over near the bookcase, Zoë shook her head, hoping they could change the subject. She did not need to be thinking about her lamented love life right now. She picked up the deck of tarot cards again, absently shuffling them.

His eyes measured her. Gruffly, in a way that told her it had nothing to do with the Explorer’s Journey, he asked, “So when were you supposed to get married?”

“Well…today.”

“Oh.” He lifted his shoulders in a very small shrug. “Sorry. That’s a tough break.”

“Yeah.” Zoë kept her mouth shut. There was no way she wanted to discuss that at this moment. Just don’t be nice about it, will you, Jake? Don’t be nice to me. I don’t want to lose control and melt all over you. Turning back, she asked, “So, Jake, tell me, are you going on this tour or not?”

He started to nod, but stopped suddenly. “That’s the second time you’ve called me Jake. But I never told you my name.”

Uh-oh. She covered quickly. “You must have.”

He shook his head.

“Wasn’t it on that identification thing next to your badge?” she tried.

“My ID was half a room away from you and you were upside down at the time.”

She bit her lip. “I have good eyesight.”

“Must be X-ray vision.” His expression was very guarded. “So how did you know my name?”

Zoë shrugged, shuffling the cards with more enthusiasm. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is…oops.” She’d dropped a card again. How very strange. Just one card. And she knew before she turned it over what it would be.

Yep. Her breath caught in her throat. Two swans, hearts, flowers, a pair of tiny kissing cupids flying in the air.

“The damn two of hearts,” she muttered. This was getting ridiculous.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The card, Jake. The card I keep pulling.” She held it up to show him the picture. “The two of hearts.”

“Fortune-telling cards?” He made a derisive snort. “You don’t believe in that junk, do you?” His tone grew more mocking. “Don’t tell me. It’s magic. That’s how you knew my name. You read it off one of your cards.”

“Don’t be absurd. I told you I saw it on your ID.” She should’ve been insulted. But she decided not to be. Okay, so he was misguided and cynical. But he would learn. She had faith. She’d dealt herself the True Love card. She’d felt the connection between them. Didn’t she feel this very minute that she could see right through him, clear to his heart?

Well, yeah, but…yikes. Even for her, this was taking a leap. He was self-righteous, he was way too honest, he had no apparent sense of humor, and he was…big. Very big.

Zoë chewed on a nail as she considered exactly what she was proposing. Nuttier than a fruitcake. Not likely to impress Jake.

But she was who she was. And Zoë Kidd was not afraid to take a risk. After all, how bad could it be? She’d expected to be going on this trip, anyway. In fact, she’d been looking forward to it. Meditation. Deep thinking. Personal growth. Surely she could do those things, make a break with the past, move on, and learn to be a better person, even if Jake was along. Even if he didn’t seem likely to be cooperative.

She sent him a quick glance. Okay, so he clearly wasn’t the meditation-and-deep-thoughts type. And he was more than a little intimidating, with that glower and the sizzle of sensuality she couldn’t ignore.

“Oh, yeah. That,” she said under her breath. “If I went along, what would I do about that?”

“What did you say?”

But she didn’t answer, still speculating on this wild idea. Could she really do this?

The eyes, the shoulders, the body that looked hard and hot in all the right places…and those lips. A girl could get lost in those lips for a long, long time. Could she not do this?

If he was intimidating, he was also yummy, no two ways about it. Yummy in a once-in-a-lifetime way. Although it seemed unlikely, he might just be her True Love. That idea made her stomach flutter again, but she squashed the fear. Maybe she wasn’t considering this as a selfish path to True Love. Maybe it was because he was on some sort of mission that she could help with.

Good for her, good for him.

She could no longer ignore the fact that her intuition was pushing her in his direction. Hard.

She mashed together every ounce of courage she could muster. “How badly do you want to go on this trip?”

“I have to go,” he said flatly. “Just name your price and I’ll buy.”

“But you only want one of my tickets.” She moved closer, waving the two of hearts. “And what will I do with the other one?”

He shrugged. “If you’ll only sell them together, then I’ll buy both and toss one.”

All in a rush, she said, “I’ll let you buy Wylie’s. But I’m keeping mine. I want to use it.”

A half smile curved his adorable lips. “You want to use it, huh?” he asked dryly. “For what?”

Zoë smiled. The True Love card felt hot against her palms as she pressed it between both hands. “If you want to go, Jake, you’ll need a partner. So I’m going with you.”

3

JAKE LAUGHED. “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”

But the feisty little redhead wasn’t giving in. He could tell that by the determined look on her face. Just his luck. He needed entry into this tour group, there was only one person with an entry pass available, and she turned out to be a Grade-A flake, doing some kind of goofy acrobatics half-dressed in a sweltering, unlocked apartment, burning a boatload of candles that smelled suspiciously like marijuana, waving fortune-telling cards around, and refusing to hand over her ticket to a trip she didn’t want to make, anyway. And then there were her clothes.

Okay, at least he’d seen enough of her by now to be about ninety percent sure she wasn’t “Toni,” the object of his search. He’d checked out her feet and legs, and she didn’t match. No toe rings, no sparkly sandals, plus her feet looked a lot smaller than the ones in the picture.

He’d checked out a lot more than her feet.

He’d walked in on a truly delectable view of her frisky little bottom pointed his way, and then she’d turned around and given him a gander at her front side, which made a wet–T-shirt contest look tame. He was a guy, okay? Maybe an in-control, by-the-book guy, but still a guy. When small, round, perfectly shaped breasts were presented right in front of him, covered only by one layer of slick, wet fabric, he couldn’t look away. His mouth watered again just thinking about it.

She didn’t seem to be at all aware that her clothing—or lack thereof—was downright provocative. She did seem to be aware that he was aware, however.

Or maybe it was just the ungodly temperature in the apartment making them both so hot and bothered. He ran a hand through his hair. He had no idea what was happening here, except that it was rapidly getting out of control. All he could think about was getting his hands on her tantalizing curves.

Time to stop that right then and there. Time to get back on track.

“I’ll buy both tickets,” he announced, reaching for his checkbook. This was on his father’s tab, after all. What difference did it make how much he spent? And the sooner he disposed of this, the sooner he would be rid of Zoë Kidd.

“Oh, no, you won’t!” she shot back with enough fire to make him want to spank her. Or kiss her. Or both. “I’ll let you buy one. But you don’t get to tell me what to do with my other ticket.”

“Zoë, I—”

“Nope. Discussion over.” He started to advance on her, but she held up a hand. “Don’t think you can change my mind. If you want to go, it’s my way or the highway.”

“I hate it when people say that.” Her way or the highway. He had six or seven inches and at least fifty pounds on her and she was bossing him around. But she had the ticket.

She crossed her arms over her breasts, thankfully blocking his view for a little while, and gave him the most bullheaded look he’d ever seen in his life. Considering the family he came from, that was saying something. “Here’s the deal. We need to be at O’Hare by ten in the morning. So you’ll need to pick me up by eight, just to be sure. Rush-hour traffic, you know.” She marched back over to her desk, rooting around for a second and coming up with an envelope with a big “EJ”—Explorer’s Journey—logo on the outside. “The instructions are in here about what to pack.”

“Where exactly—” he began, but she cut him off, yanking out a sheet of paper and handing it over.

“I’ll give you the ticket and the rest of the details in the morning. Oh, and be sure to leave the gun at home. They won’t let you keep it, anyway. Bad karma.”

“It varies from state to state whether I could bring it, and since I don’t know where…” He gave her a wary look, not at all liking how this was starting to sound. Did she say karma?

This was not turning out well. There was something very screwy about Zoë Kidd. Cute, pushy and screwy. His least favorite kind of woman.

And he sure as heck didn’t want to be stuck with her all the way to wherever it was they were going. He sent her one more glance, noting that she was smiling, which was pretty frightening. Shaking his head, Jake turned to leave.

“See you tomorrow, partner,” she called out.

“We’re not partners,” he shot back. “We’re going on the same tour. But separately. Got it?”

She just kept beaming at him. “We can sort it out tomorrow.”

Jake strode through the door without looking back. Let her have her small victories tonight. Once she handed over his ticket in the morning, there was nothing she could do to him.

“If she insists on tagging along,” he said under his breath, “it’s not like we’ll be attached at the hip. I’ll stay as far away as possible.”

“Don’t be late!” she yelled behind him.

But he just shook his head and got out of there before Zoë Kidd did any more damage to his psyche.

JAKE WAS SOMEWHAT CHEERED up by the packing list. Please leave valuable jewelry, watches, etc., at home. You won’t need much in the way of clothing, it continued, since we provide all that for you. You may also choose one special item of personal significance, like a stuffed animal or a keepsake. That struck him as fairly goofy, but even goofier was the fact that he already knew what Zoë would bring. It would definitely be that stupid tarot card she kept clutching last night, looking as if she was going to kiss it or cry over it.

As he put the last of his things in his duffel bag, Jake pressed his lips into a disapproving line. He’d busted a fortune-teller once. Some loser from the suburbs had paid big bucks to a self-proclaimed “mystic healer” in Old Town to get a curse lifted. And then, when the loser’s luck at the track didn’t change, the guy had proceeded back to Old Town to try to choke his money out of the mystic healer. After which said healer had cracked him over the head with her crystal ball. When Jake came in to break up the fight, the lady told him he was cursed now, too. Yeah, right. If Zoë was into that stuff, she was more seriously demented than he thought. Which was another reason to steer clear.

Hanging on firmly to that idea, he cast his mind over the packing list, one item at a time, as he drove up Lake Shore Drive, heading north to pick up Zoë. After all, he was a cop. He could look at evidence and draw conclusions, couldn’t he?

First off, there had been nothing in the papers about passports or foreign currency, so they must be staying in the country at least. No hiking boots, no special equipment. And no mention of parkas or warm boots. So maybe it was somewhere warm.

“Let it be Palm Springs,” he said as he pulled up in front of Zoë’s building. “Or Hilton Head. Someplace with sand and ocean. A golf course. Scuba diving.”

Of course, if he had his druthers, he would be headed to a plain old lake full of trout, with a fishing pole, some bait…and no Zoë.

He frowned. How had she described this trip? A honeymoon crossed with group therapy. Sounded ridiculous. Like Club Med for neurotic people who wanted to whine about their rotten childhoods in between cocktails, parasailing and heavy doses of honeymoon sex.

“Aw, jeez.” That was one wrinkle he hadn’t considered. Accommodations. He certainly had no intention of getting close enough to Zoë to have sex be any kind of a problem, but a honeymoon suite might be awkward. He could just see Zoë insisting they share the bed. We won’t touch, she would say. You paid half. It’s only fair.

Sharing a bed? With Zoë Kidd? Jake gritted his teeth.

Yeah, well, maybe the accommodations would be awkward, but not impossible. Surely he could sleep on the sofa for a few days. He had a momentary vision of Zoë traipsing around in her undies or her clingy, skimpy exercise wear, all wet with sweat…

Maybe he could sleep on the beach.

He smacked a hand into the steering wheel. Whatever it took, whatever the problems, he would get around them. Because he had no intention of sharing a room—or a bed—with Zoë Kidd.

He glanced up at her windows, on the second floor above a New Age shop that he seriously suspected of selling drug paraphernalia. “She’s screwy all right. Living above a head shop and leaving her door wide-open.”

Although he was prepared to go up to get her, he didn’t need to. She ran out the minute he pulled up, and he decided he at least had to admire her enthusiasm, especially at this hour of the morning. It might be well before eight, but she was already perky and ready, wearing some kind of soft, low-rise pants that exposed her belly button, a white peasant top with embroidery on it, and flat shoes that made a flapping noise as she ran out to the car. Presentable. And a heck of a lot more clothes than last night, thank goodness. Plus there was the added grace that this morning she was dry. His body still wasn’t recovered from the long, long cold shower he’d taken when he got home.

“Hi there,” she said happily, dropping a small bag in the back seat of his old Ford and hopping into the front seat next to him.

“Have you got the tickets?” he asked.

“Don’t waste time saying good-morning or anything.”

“I won’t.”

“So you’re not a morning person, is that it?” she said sympathetically.

Somebody honked at him, trying to get him to leave his parking space. He ignored it. “Do you have the tickets?” he asked again.

“Yes, sir,” she answered smartly, making fun of him all the way. She dug into the goofy straw purse she was carrying and produced the same envelope he’d seen last night.

“I want mine now,” he told her. “Hand it over.”

“Nope. I can’t. There’s just one pass for both of us.” She grinned, holding up a square yellow laminated card with “Your Ticket to Exploration” and “Couple Confirmed” stamped on it. “We have to enter the program two by two. Like Noah’s ark.”

This just kept getting worse and worse. As he pulled out into traffic and headed toward the expressway, he asked darkly, “They don’t shackle us together or anything, do they?”

Her smile widened. “No, but they might if we asked nicely.”

Jake groaned. Undertaking a ridiculous journey with a chirpy morning person was bad enough, but one with a body that wouldn’t quit and a habit of sticking it way too close to him—and now, bringing up shackles, as in handcuffs, not the way he usually thought of them, on a perp headed for jail, but instead as something to do with brass beds and naughty games—it was a nightmare.

“I was kidding,” she assured him, patting his hand where it lay on the steering wheel. He tamped down the impulse to jerk his hand away. She added casually, “I’m not into that kind of thing. I believe in free, unfettered sex where you can move around.”

Which was way more information than he needed. Way more. “I want one thing clear,” he announced. “We may be going in on the same pass, but we are going separately. There’s you.” With his left hand on one side of the wheel, he slid his right to the total opposite edge. “And then there’s me. No us. Got it?”

She made some sort of noncommittal noise he took as a yes. Purposely not looking at her or her body, Jake tried to keep conversation to a minimum on the way to the airport. But damned if she didn’t ask questions nonstop.

“So you’re a cop. How long have you been doing that?” she opened with. “Do you like it?”

“Eight years. I like it fine.” He kept his eyes on the car in front of him. Road repair. Traffic slow down. Not paying attention to Zoë. Not at all.

“And what do you do? Do you pound a beat?” she asked, scooting a little closer. “Is that what they call it?”

“A beat, yeah, some people call it that. But that’s not what I do.” He didn’t even glance her way. “Put on your seat belt.”

“All right, all right.”

If she interrogated all the men she met this way, it was no wonder she was taking her honeymoon trip solo. Except she wasn’t. He was there. Tortured, hog-tied, provoked…but he was along for the ride.

“So what do you do?” she prompted, safely fastening herself in. “Since you’re not pounding a beat, I mean.”

“I’m a sergeant,” he said gruffly. “And a supervisor for tactical teams.” He held up a hand. “And before you ask, tactical teams keep an eye on criminal activity in the district. Mostly undercover, looking for burglaries, gangs, narcotics, syndicates moving in, anything like that. We gather info, put two and two together, watch for patterns.”

“Cool. And does this trip have something to do with your job?” she asked, turning practically sideways inside her shoulder harness so that she could look at him more directly. “This woman you’re looking for, is she related to gangs or drugs or something?”

“No.”

“Is she dangerous? Like, armed and dangerous? Maybe a fugitive from justice?”

He cracked a smile. “You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“So is she a fugitive?”

“No,” he allowed. “Not as far as I know.” That was the truth, wasn’t it?

“Good,” she put in, relaxing into her seat. “I mean, I’m up for some excitement while we look for her, but nothing involving bodily harm.”

“While we look for her? You’re not looking. I am.”

But she didn’t react or respond to that observation. “You still haven’t said what you want with her.” She waited. “Well?”