Her features tightened. “I’m tired of playing it safe. I’m in this all the way. Either you’re in it with me, or I’ll find someone who is.”
He wanted to shake some sense into her. Her sister was dead. The kind of people Tina Galen associated with were the scum of the earth. He didn’t want anything to happen to Kate.
“I’m going,” she repeated, and his temper cranked again. Good thing he’d never laid a hand on a woman and never would, or Kate Gallagher’s sweet little ass would be in danger.
She shifted, gently touched his arm. “I can help you, Hawk. Let me do this.Please. I should have been there when Chrissy needed me, but I wasn’t. I need to do this for my sister. And I need to do it for myself.”
He heard the guilt in her voice and his anger deflated. He knew a lot about guilt. He wore a tat on his calf with the names of the three men in his unit who had died while he had lived.
The low rumble of the engine muffled his sigh of defeat. “All right, I’ll take you. But you do what I say, all right? No questions asked, no arguments. Understood?”
She gave him a blinding white smile that hit him like a punch in the gut. “I’ll do whatever you say. I promise.” She made a cross over her heart.
She looked so cute Jase shoved the Yukon into Park, leaned across the seat, cupped her nape and pulled her in for a quick, hard kiss.
“Behave yourself, Kate Gallagher,” he said, his voice a little husky. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Kate opened the door and slid out of the SUV without looking back. In seconds she’d disappeared through the glass doors into the lobby.
I must be out of my mind, Jase thought, somewhere in the rational part of his brain. He didn’t take women into seedy sections of the city, particularly not beautiful, sexy women.
But the lust-filled part of his brain that was keeping him hard after that brief-but-incredibly hot kiss was selfishly glad he’d be seeing her again tonight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kate stepped out of the elevator and made her way down the corridor to her apartment. Her face felt warm and her insides still quivered. One kiss? It was impossible.
She walked into the living room, closed the door firmly and blew out a shaky breath. She didn’t trust herself when it came to Hawk Maddox. She had never been this physically attracted to a man before.
Kate sighed as she headed for her home office. If she could turn back time, she would stay as far away from Maximum Security as she could get. She didn’t need a man in her life. After Andrew, she didn’t want the complication. Particularly not a man who drew her the way Jason Maddox did.
That attraction had been the cause of her first mistake—seducing him at the Sagebrush Saloon. It had seemed so safe at the time. A one-time hookup with a hot-bodied guy who made her stomach flutter with a single kiss. And those amazing blue eyes. She shook her head. Why not? Other women did that kind of thing.
Now she was working with him, exposed to all that hot masculinity on a daily basis till they found Chrissy’s killer.
Another sigh slipped out as she sat down at her computer to do a little more research. She could handle it. She was a grown woman. Besides, she really had no choice.
As the screen lit up, her cell phone rang. Kate dug it out of her purse, checked but didn’t recognize the number. “Kathryn Gallagher.”
“Katie...sweetheart, it’s your father.”
Her stomach instantly knotted. She could see him in her mind, a tall, slender man with silver threads in his dark hair.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said.
Her fingers tightened around the phone. She hadn’t seen her father since her parents’ divorce. They’d spoken a few times while the police searched for Chrissy, but her sister had left a note so there was no doubt she had run away. He had called again when her mother got sick. She had heard from him only twice since her mom had died.
“Hello, Dad.”
“I should have called you when I first heard the news, but I... I just couldn’t.”
His words and the regret in his voice surprised her. Maybe he actually did care about his daughter, at least a little.
“What do you want, Dad?”
“I know you and Chrissy weren’t close, but she was still your sister. I want to know if you’re okay.”
Her eyes burned. A lump formed in her throat. “No, Dad, I’m not okay. Chrissy’s dead. She was murdered, and the police have no idea who killed her. So no, I’m not okay.”
