You Only Love Once

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“You’re late,” he said, unhappy with the simile. A Chihuahua? He should be something more manly, like a German shepherd at least.

And Kelli was one hundred percent groomed white poodle, pink bow and all.

She smiled. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?”

It took David a full second to realize she was referring to her lateness, not to his mental comparison.

She shifted her weight so that she could slip his notepad out from under her curved bottom. “This yours?”

David snatched it away, telling himself the paper couldn’t possibly be warm after so brief a contact.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked again.

David crossed his arms, tempted to ignore her. After her dumping maneuvers yesterday after they kicked off work, he’d spent the entire night at his father’s place glowering…and watching Pop glower, too. Not a fun way to pass the time. “It’s about the Degenerate case.”

Her eyes lit up. “You mean the D.C. Executioner case now, don’t you?”

“You know?”

“Of course I know. Don’t you watch the news, McCoy?”

He wanted to tell her that no, he got enough of real life on the job, but he didn’t think it would reflect well on him. So instead he said nothing, because to imply that he usually did watch the news, but had missed it now, might hint at a break in his routine. Which might then lead to her assumption that she was the cause for this disruption. He wouldn’t in a million years let her think that. No matter how on the mark the assumption would be.

Instead, he grinned. “I, um, had other things to do last night.”

The light extinguished. “The news came through this morning.”

David shrugged. “Same difference.”

Kelli sat back in her seat and sighed. “Please, do spare me the details.”

He leaned in a little closer, eyeing the clean stretch of flesh just below her ear. “Oh, I don’t know. I was hoping you and I could, um, go over them blow-by-blow. Say tonight? Over dinner?”

He never saw her fist coming, but he had no doubt that’s what hit him in the arm. “Ow,” he said, rubbing the sore spot.

“Come on to me again on the job and you’ll be hurting a lot worse than that, McCoy. Now stop your whining. They’re about to start.”

And start they did. But David only listened with half an ear about the formation of a special task force headed up by homicide in cooperation with the Sex Crimes unit. They were looking for a few good men and women to go undercover. SC already had three detectives working undercover at three different sex shops across the city that the earlier victims may have frequented. They needed another.

David couldn’t care less. His academy test scores had all basically come up with “does not play well with others.” It was exactly the reason he’d been through three partners in less than seven years. Even if he had a mind to apply for a position on the task force—and he didn’t—they’d probably laugh him out of the interview.

Still, it wasn’t his lack of interest in the goings-on that worried him. Rather, his intense interest in the woman next to him.

Why had she dodged his attempts to get her alone last night? One minute he’d been shooting the breeze with a couple of other officers back here at the station, the next he’d turned around to find her gone.

He’d thought about showing up at her place unannounced with a six-pack. And probably would have had she been anyone else. But for some reason the thought of her shutting the door in his face had chased him out to Pops’s instead.

Was it his imagination, or had the sex between them the other night been as good as he remembered? And if that was the case, why was it that Kelli looked like she’d rather be anyplace else on earth than sitting next to him?

Unless…

Oh, God, he couldn’t even bear to think that he’d somehow fallen short of the mark performance-wise. Missed the three-pointer. Left her swinging in the proverbial wind.

He shifted and covertly eyed her. Naw. It wasn’t even remotely possible that lady-killer David McCoy had left a woman sexually unsatisfied. Hell, he had a black book full of names to prove differently. An endless list of women just begging for a phone call from him.

He crossed his arms. It wasn’t possible.

He slanted her another glance. Was it?

“That’s it. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask the detectives here. We should be getting a suspect sketch out to all units before the end of first shift.” A pause. “And officers, I won’t kid you. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, what the suspect’s capable of and how far he intends to go. The female officer who signs on will be faced with a very dangerous situation. We want you to take that into consideration before tendering your name.”

David practically sprang from his chair. “Thank God, that’s over. You ready?”

Kelli grimaced. “I’ve got…something to do first. Meet me out at the car?”

He shrugged. “No prob.”

Women. Probably had to go powder her nose or something. Lord forbid she should look less than her best to apprehend a shoplifter.

KELLI DISCREETLY wiped her sweaty palms down the length of her slacks when she finally left the briefing room. Her chances of winning the grand prize in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes were probably better than getting on that task force. She’d only been on the job in D.C. for two days. What did it matter that she had three years of solid experience in New York? Or that she’d gone undercover twice there as a prostitute to arrest potential johns?

Still, she’d had to submit her name for consideration, no matter what the outcome. Chasing down men who preyed on women was exactly what she’d always been driven to do. If she couldn’t find closure in her mother’s case, she could make damn sure no other young girl had to face what she had. She would offer them closure. A chance to see the offender punished for what he’d done to a loved one. An opportunity to go on with life knowing that there was some justice in the world.

She had to do it. No matter how dangerous the road she had to take to get there.

She shrugged into her coat and opened the outer door, admitting that maybe her chances at the assignment were better than she thought. Even she was surprised to find the task force already had her personnel file. Written there in black and white for the entire world to see was her career goal: become a full-fledged homicide detective before she reached thirty. She cringed. Sure, that was her goal. But what had she been thinking when she wrote that little tidbit down for her supervisors to see? She might as well have written that when she was ten she’d wanted to be president of the United States.

“Smooth move, Hatfield,” she muttered to herself as she put on her hat.

She wasn’t surprised to find David glowering in the squad car, tapping the face of his watch like a taskmaster. Kelli climbed into the passenger’s side, inclined to tell him that she had enough on her hands with one father, she didn’t need another. But that might lead to her revealing who her father was, and she wasn’t quite up to dealing with that can of worms right now.

“Took you long enough,” he said, backing out. “What did you do, eat some bad Chinese or something last night?”

Kelli stared at him, her mouth agape. Of course he would think she’d needed to make a pit stop at the bathroom. She wouldn’t be surprised if he thought she’d needed to powder her nose, or whatever men thought women did nowadays. Lord forbid she’d have any interest in joining the task force. And far be it from her to fill him in. It would only make it worse when she found out she hadn’t made it.

She snapped her mouth shut. “Yeah, something like that.” She switched on the radio and picked up the handset. “Dispatch, this is Five-Two, heading out.” She settled back into her seat. “Look, David, you and I really need to have that talk I mentioned yesterday.”

“About what?”

His blank expression told her he truly didn’t have a clue. “About the little stunt you pulled yesterday morning.”

He didn’t look enlightened.

“When you sent me out for donuts while you, by your lonesome, went out and saved the world.”

“Oh, that,” he said, grinning. “I didn’t save the world, Kelli. Just kept a guy who needed some sleep from mucking up his life any more than he already had.”

“Did it ever cross your mind to consult with me first? To work out a plan together, then have Sutherland approve it?”

He appeared to think her question through, then shook his head. “Nope.”

She pointed her finger in his direction. “That’s exactly the reason we need to talk. Just what did you think you were doing climbing that fire escape without backup? Without anyone knowing just what you were doing? Then barging through that open window like…like some uniformed supercop there to save the day?”

He arched a brow. “Uniformed supercop?”

Kelli bit her tongue. She’d picked up the description from one of the many news reports the night before.

“Look, Hatfield, you and I could argue about this all day…and all night,” a decidedly suggestive twinkle entered his eyes, “but when all is said and done, there was no time to plan. SWAT had a shot and Sutherland was about to give the order for them to take it. I had to act, and I had to act fast.” He stopped at a red light. “Okay, I admit, sending you to get donuts was a pretty rotten thing to do—”

“Downright crappy.”

He grinned. “Yeah. But, hell, I was still shocked to find you were on the force, much less my partner, and I needed some time to adjust before going out and playing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you know?”

His explanation made Kelli more agitated. Only because it made a twisted sort of sense. What was the world coming to when she understood the inner workings of a mind like David’s?

Worse yet, what was with her desire to keep looking at the way the material of his slacks clung to his hunky, well-defined thighs?

“Just don’t do it again, McCoy, or else you won’t have to worry about Sutherland taking a piece out of your behind. I’ll be the one with that honor.”

He flashed that devil-may-care grin at her again, making her want to smack her forehead against the dash in exasperation. “Sounds fun.”

She mumbled a series of unflattering remarks under her breath.

David’s grin vanished. “That was just a joke. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll let you take the lead on the next call that comes in, okay? Whatever it is—bank robbery, car chase, shoplifter. You name it, I’ll stand back and let you handle it any way you want to. You’ll be completely, totally, in charge.”

Naughty images that had nothing to do with police work slid through her mind. Finally, she managed to say, “I don’t want to be the leader, McCoy. I just want to be your partner.” She uncrossed her arms and smiled. “But you’ve got a deal.”

Just then, the radio crackled. The dispatcher named a code and a location. “All officers in the vicinity, please respond.”

Kelli rolled her eyes. A domestic dispute. It figured. The one call she was going to get to control and it would probably be settling an argument over who left the cap off the toothpaste.

“Aren’t you going to call it in, Hatfield? We’re only two blocks away,” David said, then laughed so hard he had to slow down the car.

Kelli glared at him. “I was thinking about letting another patrol get it.” Then she sighed and picked up the handset. “Dispatch, this is Five-Two. We’ve got it. ETA five minutes.”

4

BOY, SHE’S EVEN more beautiful all worked up. David slipped his nightstick into his weapons belt, then closed his car door. On the other side, Kelli did the same, the high color on her cheeks reflecting how she felt. And he knew it was in response to him. He inwardly grinned. She might act like being around him didn’t affect her one way or another, but her sparkling green eyes told him differently. He’d be the first to admit that having her pissed at him wouldn’t be his first choice in responses, but hey, he’d take it over her pretended indifference any day.

They stood on the curb looking at the four-story, low-rent walk-up. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at him. Windows were closed against the December cold. A man in his thirties was leading a bicycle from the door and carrying it down the ten or so cement steps.