She raised her gaze to him and blinked. “Hmm?”
“You frowned as if you’d thought of something else that bothered you.”
Her grip around her coffee tightened, and her gut flip-flopped knowing how easily he’d read her. Of course, he had. It was his job to interrogate people and weed out the liars and dodgers.
“I just can’t help wondering what might have been different if I’d not been in Canada. If I’d been around to protect Abby when he started harassing her.”
He lifted one eyebrow and leaned forward, then said softly, “I’ve found what-ifs are a colossal waste of time and energy best spent dealing with things youdohave some power to change.”
She considered this truth and gave him a grudging nod.
Cal finally raised his coffee and drank, then licked a droplet that clung to his lip. The action drew her attention to his mouth, his perfectly shaped lips and the shimmer of moisture left behind. Kissable lips.
What would it be like to kiss Cal Colton?The notion popped into her head before she could block it. A sensation like having the wind knocked from her squeezed her chest, and her pulse rattled through her with an erratic pace.
“I’m in,” Cal said, yanking her attention back to his bright blue eyes. Given the recent track of her thoughts, it took her a staggering heartbeat to realize he was talking about helping her stop Chase Hamilton. Not that he wanted to kiss her.
She scowled, irritated with herself for letting her imagination run amok and even madder that he could have sensed where her mind had wandered. Needing to reestablish an emotional distance, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Who says I want you in?”
He barked a startled laugh. “Excuse me? Isn’t that the point of this meeting? The reason you were just telling me the history of the case?”
She growled her exasperation and averted her gaze. “Yes.”
“Then what’s the problem?” He asked the question tenderly, as if he truly cared and not in a way that said,What’s your problem?
For a moment, she said nothing, but once she felt she had collected her composure, she faced him again. “I have a hard time trusting anyone with this case. I’ve been let down so many times.”
“I get that. I understand your frustration. Given your history, I can see why you crave control.”
She tensed and grunted. “Did you just call me a control freak?”
His expression was guileless. “Not in those words, but…am I wrong?”
She wanted to lash out, tell him he was absolutely wrong. How dare he? But deep down she knew he was right. Because since she was young, she’dhadto take control of things, thanks to her parents’ chaotic lives. She’d called it taking responsibility, providing security, holding their home together by sheer will and constant work. But now, especially when circumstances felt frenetic, the spirit of the scared young girl she’d been would clamor for whatever control she could grab.
He reached across the table and covered her fisted hand. The contact was shocking…and pleasant. “Want to know a secret?”
She snatched her hand back from his, wary of the intimacy it implied. “No. I don’t like keeping secrets.”
His face said he was impressed by her answer, then he gave her that damnable handsome smile. “Actually, it’s not such a big secret. It’s a truth. We in law enforcement get very discouraged when we know in our souls that someone is guilty, but we don’t have the legal evidence to take them off the street. But the rule of law is in place to protect the innocent. It’s just a natural byproduct that sometimes the rule of law and due process protect the guilty in a way that seems unfair.”
The soothing tone of his baritone voice lulled her, mesmerized her. She wanted to lean closer, inhale his crisp, clean scent, fall into the ocean blue of his eyes. Instead, she marshaled her defenses and sat back, folding her arms over her chest. “Don’t go spouting common sense. I know thewhy. I just hate what it’s caused for Abby. Besides my love for my sister, my righteous indignation is what fuels my mission to see Hamilton pay for his heinous behavior. Don’t try to take that from me.”
His grin brightened, and he raised his palm toward her. “You keep your righteous indignation, so long as you rememberIhave to uphold my oath to follow the law.”
She gave a small shrug. “Fine. So how will this work…? You helping me? What does that look like?”
“First, I want to do some research on this guy to get up to speed. You can tell me what you know, and I’ll dig into national databases to see what pops.”
She twisted her mouth in a moue of disappointment. “I meant, what are we going to do to catch him in something wrongnow, so he can be arrested and taken off the streets? If there’d been something in the past with enough heft to put him away, don’t you think I’d have led with that?”
He swirled his coffee mug before taking another sip. “What makes you think he’s doing anything arrest-worthy here in Red Grove?”
She scoffed. “Because he’s here to begin with. Following Abby. And he’s just too shady for me to believe he’s not following another girl while he looks for Abby.”
“Another girl?”
“I’d bet a year’s salary on it.” She bit the inside of her cheek, debating, then she said, “I want to turn the tables on him. I was thinking we could observe him. Follow him. See what he does after work.”
