Color drained from her face. She took an unsteady step away. He grabbed her arm to catch her, noting the jump of muscles beneath his grasp.
“Am I under arrest?”
Chapter Two
“You’re in pain,” Officer Donovan replied in a deep voice that managed to sound authoritative even when mildly exasperated. He removed his hat and used it to gesture at her foot before adding, “The car seems like the best place to put you while I try to do something about it.”
Apparently confident of her compliance, he turned, placed his hat in the trunk, and retrieved something from one of the well-ordered side compartments. Roxy watched the play of muscles under his rain-dampened uniform. Sure, he could bust her seven ways from Sunday, but she couldn’t help admiring the easy grace in his tall, athletic frame.
When he turned to her, he had a first aid kit in his hand and an expression that gave nothing away. She wondered if he had to practice his stoic face or if it came naturally. Natural, she decided, when he nudged her toward the backseat. Cool, contained Officer Donovan wasted no words or movements.
Just before she reached the door, she turned and made a last-ditch effort to avoid returning to the confines of the cruiser. “I’m fine.”
Not true. Her heel ached, and the trace of citrus in his soap or aftershave reminded her she hadn’t had a bite to eat since the dried apricots she’d called breakfast hours ago. But she’d rather crawl the rest of the way to Bluelick than voluntarily get in the police car. Authorities tended to pigeonhole her right away as a stray. Someone who had been damn near everywhere but belonged nowhere. They also tended to meet that status with a lot of displeasure and suspicion. So far, she’d picked up plenty of both from this particular representative of Bluelick’s finest.
“We’ll see.” He crowded her until he had her trapped between the vehicle and his body. “Sit.”
Then somehow, without even touching her, he succeeded in making it happen. She stumbled and landed on her ass in the backseat. The impact dislodged the knot from her hair. She raised her hands to brush it away from her face, and her bracelets tinkled down her arm in a musical cascade.
A trio of ugly, faded-to-purple bruises adorning her wrist reminded her of a couple important truths. Namely, a woman in her position couldn’t afford to let her guard down, and she wasn’t always the best judge of character. As casually as possible, she lowered her arms. The bracelets tumbled down, hiding the bruises. She risked a glance at Officer Donovan. His body completely filled her view, blocking the door and creating a big, insurmountable barrier. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the car. Pressure built in her lungs, and her pulse skittered. They were out here alone. He had all the power. Anything could happen, and no one would miss her.
“Relax,” he said, as if sensing her rising paranoia. He didn’t offer any additional words of reassurance, simply crouched in front of her, head bent, and concentrated on working her boot off. She stared at the top of his head and then bit her lip to keep from groaning when he pulled the boot over her raw heel.
“I am relaxed.” Lie. “Why would I be tense?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t glance up. His short, damp hair stood on end in places and looked as soft as sable. “Why would you?”
Because she’d been caught hitchhiking? Because everything she owned in the world was currently in the trunk of a police car? Because, technically, she’d resorted to the five-finger discount to retrieve Gibson from a pawnshop owned by one of the most notorious loan sharks in Nashville before boarding a bus to Kentucky? Instead of voicing any self-incriminating responses, she said, “You could be some kind of deviant cop who picks up stranded women, shoves them into your trunk, and nobody hears from them again. I read the news. It happens.” Even as she put the irrational thought into words, she fought an impulse to run her fingers over the close-cropped hair at his temple and find out if it felt as velvety as it looked.
“My trunk is currently full of your sh—stuff, so consider yourself safe, but for someone who puts her trust in the hands of strangers by hitchhiking, you have a very dark view of human natu—Jesus, Roxy.”
The last bit drew her attention to her foot, currently cradled in his hand. Her size seven look positively dainty in comparison. Dainty and fragile. The impression unsettled her enough to lift her foot out of his hold, and that’s when she realized the cause of his outburst. Blood darkened the heel of her sock.
The scarred leather motorcycle boots she’d bought yesterday from Music City Pawn & Loan probably hadn’t been the smartest use of fifty bucks. Forty-five plus tax to be exact, but she hadn’t hung around for her change because the purchase had been a diversion—a way to distract the clerk while she’d liberated Gibson and hauled ass. She should have chosen something cheaper, but the tough black boots had spoken to her. They’d said, “We take no shit.” She definitely needed to take less shit, so she’d bought the darn things. At the time, she couldn’t have guessed she’d end up wearing them to hike the final leg of her journey to Bluelick. “It looks worse than it is.”
Eyes as gray and turbulent as Kentucky storm clouds commandeered hers. “We’ll see.”
That’s all the warning she got before he tugged her sock off. She sucked in a breath and willed herself to keep still.
He scanned her face. “Okay?”
“Yes.” She held out her hand for the sock and tried to pretend she didn’t want to curl up into a ball and whimper.
He placed the sock in her open palm, and their fingers touched for an instant. The pain in her heel subsided as the small contact set off a flurry of
