She searched his gaze. “Information?”
You, he almost said.I wanted to see you.
But the admission made him deeply uneasy. Hell, the thought made him deeply uneasy.
So he took the cookie and left, the big, bad police chief running from the quirky writer with the pierced nose and too-perceptive eyes.
Four
THE FOLLOWINGMONDAY,Jack borrowed a bucket and supplies from the fire station and hunkered down in the parking lot to wash the department SUV. The sun beat down, heating the hood, leaving water spots on the paint.
“Hell of a way to spend your day off,” Hank observed.
Jack hosed the vehicle’s roof. “You’re one to talk.”
“A man your age should have better things to do.”
An image surfaced of Lauren Patterson, holding out that cookie like Eve with the fucking apple. And that tiny stud in her nose, winking, irresistible... She tempted him on more than one level.
He’d like to do her. Hell, he just liked her, her expressive face, her crazy earring, her dark, intelligent eyes.
Tension shivered through him, rippling through his muscles, like he was a sleeper waking to arousal. She made him remember how it felt to be alive.
He ran the dripping sponge over the windshield, dissolving the bloom of salt. He finally had his life under control again. He had himself under control. All the time.Take a breath, go for a run, hit the heavy bag instead of the bottle. He wasn’t looking to lose it all again over a woman.
No more emotional highs and lows. No games. No lies.
Hank was still watching him, waiting for a response.
“Take care of your gear and it’ll take care of you,” Jack said evenly.
“Couldn’t find another sucker for the job, huh?”
He dropped his sponge into the bucket of sudsy water. “You volunteering?”
“Hell, no. I’m fifty-eight, boy. I’m too old, too mean, and too tired to volunteer for anything.”
A smile tugged Jack’s mouth. “That why you turned down the chief’s job?”
“Pretty much.” Hank’s face creased in a grin. “Plus I didn’t want to spend my remaining years kissing the town council’s ass.”
“So you became a reserve officer instead.”
“Said I was old. Didn’t say I was smart.” Hank watched Jack pick up the hose, playing water over the hood. “You know, you could have gone to the Soap and Suds.”
The Soap and Suds Car Wash and Beer Barn was half an hour away on the other side of the bridge. Off island. Out of Jack’s jurisdiction. Too far away if the officer on duty—it was Luke today—suddenly needed backup. Not to mention the public relations fail of taking a police vehicle to a drive-through liquor store.
Jack picked up the sponge again. “You didn’t come out here to critique my car-washing technique.”
Hank grunted in acknowledgment. “Heard that low-life scumbag asshole Tillett’s still in town,” he said after a pause.
And there it was. The real reason Hank was out here in this heat instead of inside reading the paper. Travis Tillett, Jane’s ex.
“I ran him through the database,” Jack said. “Vehicle registration checks out. No outstanding warrants.”
“He doesn’t belong here.”
Neither did Jack, according to half the island’s old-timers. He smiled thinly. “If that was enough to lock him up, I’d have to arrest the entire tourist population.”
