Jack Rossi angled his body, shifting his attention to the woman behind the counter. His smile softened, making his strong features even more attractive. “I don’t only come for the coffee, Jane.”
Oh.Oh. Lauren glanced from his hard, dark face to Jane. The baker dropped her gaze, setting two large to-go cups in a cardboard tray on the counter. Right. If he didn’t want donuts... and he didn’t come for the coffee... Lauren snuck a quick look at his left hand. No wedding band. He must be after whatever else the pretty blond baker had to offer.
Her lungs deflated. So did her ego.
Which was stupid. Her lack of a love life had never bothered her before. She didn’t date blue-collar cops with Italian-sounding last names. She didn’t date, period. None of the grad students did. They hung out. They hooked up. They devoted themselves to their research, their course work, their clinical training. Occasionally she brought someone home to crash on her couch or in her bed until he found his feet again.
It was just that since the whole hostage thing, she’d lost even that casual companionship. Her romantic prospects had dwindled to marriage proposals from online weirdos and tired come-ons from seedy sales guys in hotel bars.
Which still wouldn’t be a problem. She wasn’t her mother, for God’s sake, always needing the reassurance of another human being.
It was just that her defenses were low, her confidence shaken, her energy depleted. Was it any wonder she wanted to borrow someone else’s for a while?
Don’t overthink it, her publicist, Meg, had urged.Everything will be fine. You’ll be fine. Just move on.
It was good advice. Lauren sighed. If only she could figure out how.
***
IT WAS Abeautiful day. Too bad his job was to ruin it for somebody.
Jack sat in his SUV blazoned with the shield of the Dare Island Police Department, running the AC and the driver’s license and registration of the seventeen-year-old who’d just blown through a stop sign on her way to the beach.
The ID checked out. The BMW belonged to her daddy. Jack could have let her off with a warning. He might have, too—he’d been young and dumb once—if so many other kids without cars didn’t walk this road.
And if she hadn’t tried so hard to flirt her way out of a ticket.
The law existed to protect everybody. The sooner Miss Teenage BMW learned the consequences of her actions, the better. He wasn’t compromising his principles or public safety for some spoiled rich kid from out of town.
A face slid into his memory, that writer, Lauren No Last Name, her sharp, dark eyes with heavy black eyeliner, the winking nose stud, the silver wire that curled like a—snake? vine?—around her ear.I think compromise is always a good idea. Especially if it gets you what you want.
She reminded him of the college girls he used to watch walking down the street, always on their way somewhere, class or the library or some fucking foreign film festival. Smart girls, quirky girls who went to Bryn Mawr, who read poetry and smoked pot, who knew things a guy like him would never know.
After eleven months, Jack recognized most of the island’s residents. Lauren No Last Name wasn’t from around here any more than he was. Still, she looked familiar. Something about the shape of those eyes or the tilt of her jaw. His body tightened. She interested him, and not just as a member of law enforcement keeping tabs on his beat.
He shook his head, disgusted with the direction of his thoughts. Obviously, his dick hadn’t learned the lessons of the past year.
He didn’t do interesting women anymore.
Two
DAREISLAND’S ENTIREpolice force—three officers, if Jack counted himself, which he damn well did, since he worked more hours than anybody—were rarely all together in the same place at the same time. Only in the case of fires, natural disasters, and Thursday morning staff meetings.
On this particular Thursday morning, Jack walked into the police station to find Luke Fletcher, his new hire, on the phone. Hank, the part-time reserve officer, occupied the other desk.
Henry Lee Clark was gray-haired, rangy, and raw-boned, his face as deeply grooved as a tractor tire. His feet were propped on the desk, his collar unbuttoned against the heat. A thirty-year veteran of the county sheriff’s department, he’d been the town’s first choice to become the new police chief. Lucky for Jack, he’d turned the job down.
He was also Jane’s father.
Lowering his newspaper, he regarded Jack over the top of his reading glasses. “You’ve been to Jane’s.”
Luke covered the mouthpiece of the phone and grinned. “Great detective work, Hank. How’d you guess?”
Jack set the cardboard tray on the corner of Hank’s desk, the logo cups a dead giveaway. “I bought coffee.”
“You should have brought donuts,” Hank said.
Jack thought of that girl, Lauren Somebody, with her dark, aware eyes and three-cornered smile.I guess you don’t worry about stereotypes, huh?
