“How are you holding up?” he asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“I’m good,” she said as she buckled her seat belt. “Don’t worry.” She held up her wrist and bent and rotated it for him. “See? Almost completely well. Just a little stiff and twingy.”
“Your bruises are almost gone,” he said quietly.
Her hand went to her throat reflexively. “Really all that I still feel is the cut on my head. I should be able to go back to work soon.” Or maybe not if her department didn’t have any luck with their investigation. That thought depressed her.
Hutch scowled as he drove out of the parking lot. “I wish you weren’t going back at all,” he muttered.
She stared at his profile in surprise. “Why would you say something like that?”
He glanced briefly away from traffic and locked gazes with her. “You want me to lie?”
“No, of course not.”
He turned his attention to merging onto 610. “It’s dangerous,” he said. “It worries me.”
She twisted in her seat as much as the belt would allow and faced him. “I can take care of myself, Hutch. I’m a trained police officer. I can fire my weapon with pinpoint accuracy. I qualified first in my department at the range. I’m trained in self-defense, and I’ve taken numerous classes in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. I’m not just a skirt and a pretty face behind a badge. I’m damn good at my job.”
“All of that training didn’t help you the night that bastard attacked you. Qualifying first with your gun doesn’t help if it gets taken away from you,” he said darkly. “He almost killed you. Hetriedto kill you.”
She took deep breaths and struggled not to let anger get the best of her. She knew he worried about her.
“I didn’t say I was invincible,” she said calmly. “No one is. No one person could have withstood that attack. Sawyer couldn’t have taken it, and he’s a big guy. This guy was bigger. Much bigger. And crazy as a loon.
“A normal person, I would have taken down and made the arrest.”
“But it only takes one not normal person, Reggie,” he said quietly. “He could have raped you. He could have beaten you to death. He could have choked you. Any number of things could have happened to you because he was bigger and stronger. I get that the result would have been the same with anyone else. But you’re not just anyone else to me, baby.”
She gazed steadily at him. “I know all those things, Hutch. I do. I train for the worst. I prepare for the worst. Yes, he could have raped me. I know that. But it didn’t happen. I did what I was supposed to do and it paid off. I’m alive because of my training.”
He paled at her words. “How can you be so calm about this? So matter-of-fact? You talk about being raped like it’s all part of the job. Like him beating the crap out of you was just a hazard of the profession.”
“Itisa hazard of the profession,” she said gently. “It’s not one that occurs with frequency, but it’s always a possibility. I could get shot. I could get beat up. I could get raped. Or run over. There’s a million what-ifs. I knew that going in.”
His fingers were white around the steering wheel, and his jaw was drawn tight. “You knowing it doesn’t make it any easier for me to sit back and worry every time you go to work.”
“What are you saying, Hutch? Are you giving me an ultimatum here?” Worry clutched at her belly, and warning bells were clanging with ferocity in her head.
“No, of course not,” he muttered. “Damn it, I just worry. That’s all I’m saying.”
She reached across the seat and put her hand on his shoulder. “I know you worry, Hutch. I wish there was something I could do to make you stop. All I can promise you is that I’ll be careful and that I’ll do everything in my power to come home to you each and every time.”
“Are you?” he asked. “Going to be coming home to me every time?”
She glanced away. Maybe she’d been precipitous in saying that. “I’m willing to see where things take us,” she said quietly.
“That’s all I can ask, baby.”
He picked up her hand and kissed it then lowered it to his lap, where he kept his fingers laced through hers. They drove the rest of the way in silence, but he kept his hand tight around hers.
CHAPTER 23
Regina and Hutch took the food into the kitchen, and Hutch unwrapped the steaks and set them to marinating. When he started to put the ingredients for the cheesecake into the fridge, her brows went up.
“Not going to fix it?” she asked.
“Later,” he said shortly.
