Cavanaugh Justice: The Strong Silent Type Part 4

I t just happened. She hadn't planned it, or even thought it out.

To say she had never thought about kissing Hawk would have been a lie. She had. Several times. The man was tall, dark and handsome by absolutely anyone's standards. But she wasn't really attracted to him, she'd insisted. Brooding men weren't her type. She liked outgoing, gregarious men. Men who knew how to have fun and didn't mean anything by it once the good times were over.

Simple. That was the way she liked it.

Jack Hawkins, on the other hand, just breathed complexity. Every word he uttered-when he deigned to utter any-all but screamed the word.

No, she wasn't attracted to him. Nope, not a whit.

If anything, Hawk was her pet project. She meant to drag her partner out among the living if it was the last thing she did on this earth. She had to get him to loosen up and smile more than once every nine, ten months or so. Nothing else, just that.

Kissing him hadn't been a means to that goal.

What had brought her today to this junction of skin pressed against skin was extreme grat.i.tude, or at least that was the excuse she fed herself. Hawk had remained by her side at the hospital when she knew every single inclination inside his body leaned toward walking away. That he didn't meant a great deal to her.

So she was kissing him because she was filled with grat.i.tude. Grat.i.tude and a healthy dose of Vicodin, or whatever painkiller the nurse had injected into her.

And maybe it was the Vicodin spiking up through her system, but suddenly, the outside world faded away. The wound, the traffic, the car itself that Hawk was driving-all melted into oblivion as she became aware of this intense rise of heat all around her. Not like when she'd gotten shot and yet, somehow oddly similar.

Except without the pain.

No matter which way you sliced it, Teri felt she was definitely having an out-of-body experience and not really minding it one bit.

What the h.e.l.l was going on here? Always aware of his surroundings, Hawk had not seen this coming. Not in his wildest dreams. Not Cavanaugh.

It wasn't even as if they had particularly easy access to one another and her lips had accidentally b.u.mped against his. The car had bucket seats, for Pete's sake.

One hand on the wheel, he grabbed Teri by the shoulder with his other for the purpose of removing her mouth from his. He was as surprised as anyone when he found himself holding on to her instead.

Surprise very quickly turned into something that involved not just his brain but his whole body. Desire moved through it like a sleeping snake uncoiling itself after an aeon of inactivity.

Worse still, Hawk could feel himself reacting to her in ways he didn't welcome. Sure, the woman was attractive-anyone with eyes could readily see that. But she was also a walking mouth, someone who never knew when to cease and desist-which for him would have been before the very first word was uttered. As it was, Cavanaugh had more words in her a.r.s.enal than could be found within the pages of a congressional investigation.

So why the h.e.l.l did he feel as if someone had just knocked him off his feet by swinging a wrecking ball into him?

The sound of horns blaring directly behind his vehicle pulled Hawk out of the center of the vortex he found himself in and pushed him quickly back out into the real world.

Finally wedging a s.p.a.ce between them, he turned and quickly clamped both hands firmly on the steering wheel before he was tempted to repeat the offense.

Before he was tempted to initiate the next kiss himself.

The woman tasted sweeter than anything he'd ever had.

The moment his eyes were back in focus, Hawk took his foot off the brake and stepped down on the gas pedal.

Hard.

They flew through the intersection.

He realized that they'd come extremely close to having an accident. It would have taken very little for his foot to have slipped off the brake while his attention had been directed to other regions. Although there was no car in front of them, there was an intersection. They could have been smack in the middle of it with through traffic slamming into them before his brain would have registered the danger.

That had never happened to him before.

His pulse was racing harder than if he'd just done a 10K run.

Once they were on the other side of the intersection, he glared at her. She'd made him lose control and he didn't like that. It didn't go with the image he had of himself.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?"

Teri took a deep breath. It didn't help. Her heart was pounding harder than a drum soloist showing off his expertise. She took another breath before slanting her eyes in his direction. "Boy, you do need to get out more. That's commonly known as a kiss."

If he clenched the steering wheel any harder, he had a feeling it would shatter. "I know what the h.e.l.l it is, I want to know why it was coming from you."

She'd come on to him, she realized. Oh, G.o.d, how had that happened? What was she acting on? Did she really feel that attracted to him? No, it was the medication-that's what it was-taking away the restraints, the walls. Her judgment. Her mind fuzzy, she searched for something plausible to use as an excuse. "I kiss, Hawk. I kiss a lot. Don't look so uneasy. A kiss isn't always a prelude to s.e.x-"

"I wasn't uneasy," he snapped. The next moment, he got himself under control. It was a lie. He was uneasy and he had no idea why he was uneasy, why his nerves felt as if they were being pulled apart, which just made the situation that much more irritating. "And before you and I have s.e.x, h.e.l.l will be selling overcoats."

"Charmingly put," she said. He probably had no idea that if she hadn't had a healthy self-esteem, that would have gone a long way toward destroying it. "Have I told you how great you are for my ego?"

Hawk snorted. She was the last person who needed to be treated with verbal kid gloves. "You don't need me for your ego. You've got other guys for that, hanging around like mindless flies."

She shook her head, then regretted it. The inside of the car spun a little. "Honey, pure honey on that tongue of yours." And then she smiled. Well, well, well, he was aware of other men looking at her. Interesting. "So you do notice things sometimes."

"I'm a detective. I'm supposed to notice things."

"You don't notice the women drooling after you."

There she went, exaggerating again. "n.o.body's drooling," he heard himself snap.

d.a.m.n it, Cavanaugh was doing it to him again, making him lose his cool, his control. How did she manage to do that when he usually could keep such tight rein on what was happening inside of him? And why did he have to be partnered with her in the first place?

He realized that she still hadn't answered his question to his satisfaction. "Why did you kiss me?"

His profile was rigid. It was the kind of profile, she caught herself thinking, that could have easily been chiseled in rock. No soft edges, no curves, just planes and angles. A born tough guy. "Just the facts, ma'am,' right?"

"What?"

"Joe Friday. Dragnet," she said.

She could see that the names of the program and its chief character meant nothing to Hawk. The man needed color in his life. Broad strokes. She had a feeling his life was done in fine-point pencil.

He sure didn't kiss that way, a small voice from the inside of her ebbed delirium whispered.

Teri made the only a.s.sumption she could. "I take it you weren't raised on police dramas the way I was."

A great many of the programs had come via cable channels that featured old series from bygone eras. She could remember watching them, sitting on the floor in front of her father's chair. Once in a while, when police work allowed, he was even in the chair, explaining things to her. Her desire to be a police detective had come just as much from those programs as it had from wanting to emulate her father, to give her something in common with him.

No, he thought, he wasn't raised on watching police dramas, he lived police dramas. He'd lost count the number of times the police had come knocking on his parents' door. A good many times they'd been arrested. He'd watched it all from the closet where his mother made him hide so that social services wouldn't come to take him away. The way they had the day his parents were murdered.

He shook his mind free of the memories and shot Teri a look. "You're changing the subject, Cavanaugh. Again."

"No, I'm embellis.h.i.+ng on the subject," she corrected. "Otherwise, everyone talks like you."

At least then, people would get to the point once in a while. "Not a bad thing."

Now they were on a topic near and dear to her heart. With only two thirds of her mental firing pins in order, she warmed up to the subject. "It is for communication. Nuances are what tell us things about people."

"Maybe I don't want people knowing anything about me."

"Sorry, Hawk. This is the Internet age. If you can't get information about someone one way, you can get it another. In the end, there is no mystery." He had a very odd look on his face. "Except maybe for what you're thinking about right now."

Finally, they'd reached her housing development. He'd begun to feel as if it was an endless journey and he was stuck making it with her droning on in his ear. Hawk spared her a look as he drove through the entrance. "You're better off not knowing what I'm thinking now."

She was suddenly beginning to feel very, very tired. That, she a.s.sumed, was undoubtedly the effects of the medication she'd been injected with. She had to admit she liked the high she'd had just moments ago. Liked, too, the sensation that had permeated her body when she'd kissed him.

Liked it a lot.

Liked it better than matching wits with him.

Okay, it was time to stop yanking his chain. "I kissed you to say thank you. It really is as simple as that," Teri told him.

Stirring him up was not a way to say thank you, he thought. "A handshake would have done." And left him a great deal less unsettled, he added silently.

She smiled. It hit him right between the eyes. "Not this time."

"Say thank you for what?"

He didn't even realize what he'd done, did he? That was so typical of him. When it came to complexity, it only involved him. The rest of the world he seemed to view in terms of black and white. She wondered which side he placed her on.

"You stayed with me at the hospital, when I knew you would have rather hit the street again." Because she'd asked him to, he had stayed even while the emergency room physician had removed the bullet fragment from her side and had st.i.tched her up. She'd held his hand throughout the whole ordeal, and at times she could feel the probing scalpel, feel the needle despite the injections she'd been given to mute the pain. Hawk had never once given any indication that she'd channeled the pain and squeezed his hand far too hard.

Hawk dismissed her grat.i.tude as unnecessary. "You had a vise lock on my hand. I figured if I made any sudden moves, you would have ripped out my shoulder."

"Not hardly."

Something inside of her wanted to kiss him again. Even as the last effects of the painkiller were fading. But because there was no medication to blame it on, she banked the urge down.

It took her a moment to realize that the car had stopped moving.

"We're here," Hawk told her when she made no move to unbuckle her belt and open the door. Why wasn't she getting out? Was she weak? He knew she should have stayed in the hospital overnight for observation. The woman didn't have the sense of a three-minute-old b.u.t.terfly.

She took a breath, bracing herself, hoping she wouldn't embarra.s.s herself when she tried to get out. "Yeah, we are."

He needed to get back. He was primary on this investigation and that meant not letting the lead fall into a subordinate's hands.

But he never liked leaving anything half done. That included shepherding a wounded partner home. "You want me to come inside with you?"

She was embarra.s.sing herself and she hadn't even taken a step out of the car yet. She didn't like appearing like a weakling. "No, I'll be all right." She looked at him significantly. "You've done enough penance for one day."

"I wouldn't exactly call it penance," he muttered, then allowed a slight smile to take possession of his mouth when she looked at him in abject surprise. "But close."

He watched her begin to unbuckle her seat belt, then saw the way she winced. Her wound had to be hurting her like h.e.l.l. The painkiller must be wearing off by now.

"That's going to be tender for a while," he told her. Moving her hands out of the way, Hawk un-buckled her seat belt for her.

As his hands brushed against hers, her eyes met his. "What would you know about tender?"

It was a loaded question and she knew it, but maybe because, for a fleeting second, she'd come face-to-face with her own mortality, she was feeling a little more reckless today than was her norm.

"I've caught a couple of bullets," he answered.

She knew about that, that he'd caught one to the shoulder in his rookie year and another just above his heart a couple of years ago. In both cases, he'd been lucky. Nothing vital had been injured.

But that wasn't what she meant. "I wasn't talking about body pain."

The late-afternoon March sun filled the interior of the Crown Victoria, making it warmer than the temperature right outside the windows. Sunbeams got tangled in her hair.

Hawk looked at her for a long moment. Something tightened in the middle of his gut, fueled by the sharp urge that kept insistently reappearing each time he banked it down.

He pushed it away again.

They were partners and while he didn't exactly relish their partners.h.i.+p, he had to admit Cavanaugh was a good cop-good at her job and honest. That counted for a lot. He didn't really like having to work with anyone, but he supposed she was better than most.

Kissing her, making the first move himself this time, would place everything they had so far into severe jeopardy.

"Guess I don't know anything at all about it," he finally said.

Yeah, he did, but she'd let him have the lie if it made him feel better. This was something she wasn't up to exploring right now. Not when her brain felt like warm Swiss cheese.

"Didn't think so."

Turning away from him, she started to get out.

He had a feeling if he let her out of the car on her own, she was going to fall flat on her face. Stifling a sigh, Hawk opened the door on his side, got out and rounded the hood. By the time she'd swung out her legs, he was there, waiting to take her arm.

"I'm not an invalid, Hawk."

If she meant to make him back away, she was going to have to do better than that. He held on to her arm, ch.o.r.eographing her steps to the house. "You pushed me out of the way and got shot yourself, then refused to stay overnight in the hospital, signing out against the doctor's orders. I think the I word we're looking for here is idiot, not invalid."

She was beginning to get a handle on him. He became gruffer whenever he did a good deed and seemed to be approaching decent human behavior. She held on to him a little more than she was happy about, trying to placate her self-disgust by reminding herself that she was still pumped full of medication, even if she didn't feel it in a good way anymore.

"Good thing you didn't become a doctor. Your bedside manner is really lousy."

He brought her to the door, trusting that she would rather go inside on her own power. Besides, he had no desire to run into any of the other Cavanaughs and be detained for questioning. Relating what happened was up to her. He disengaged himself from her. "Then I'd better get going."

But as he turned to walk away, she called after him. "Hawk?"

"What?" Impatience hummed around the single word.