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“You’re a lot early.” He glanced at his watch. “Two hours to be exact.”
“The drive didn’t take as long as I thought it would.” She strode forward, eyes level on his, hand extended.
Rising, he rounded his desk. “I’m Nick Ryan.”
She wasn’t what he’d expected the ex-detective to look like. He’d expected hard eyes that were tired from too many years of seeing too much. This woman was anything but hard. She was young and slender and way too…soft to be a cop.
“Frank said to tell you hello,” she said.
Frowning, Nick extended his hand, wondering if Frank was back in Chicago having a good laugh. But the moment her fingers closed around his, Nick’s concentration wavered. The force of her grip surprised him. It was a little too quick. A little too firm. He hadn’t expected to feel calluses on her palm. A weight lifter, too. How on earth could he have mistaken her for a solicitor? Soft or not, this woman had “cop” written all over her.
“I brought my résumé,” she said.
“Frank faxed me a copy.”
Belatedly, he remembered he was still grasping her hand, and released it. Even though she wasn’t standing particularly close, he caught a whiff of her scent, some exotic spice tempered with the essence of clean hair and female. How could a woman with calluses on her palms and a cop’s eyes smell so good?
Realizing he was staring, Nick gave himself a mental shake and looked at Hector, who had yet to close his mouth—or take his eyes off her. “This is Deputy Price.”
Erin extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure, Deputy.”
“Ma’am.” Hector jumped to his feet, wiped his palms on his uniform slacks and stuck out his hand.
Nick was still struggling with the fact that Detective Erin McNeal wasn’t the hardened, cynical cop he’d expected, but a woman who smelled like heaven and looked like she’d just stepped off the set of some high-drama police TV show.
She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense. Her hair was too red to be brown, too brown to be truly red and struggling valiantly to break free of that bun. Her mouth was a tad full and too wide for his taste. He’d never cared for freckles, either. But she was attractive in an earthy, girl-next-door sort of way—the kind of girl who’d played with slingshots instead of dolls.
She studied Nick. “Frank tells me you two are old friends.”
He frowned, not liking the way she’d used the word old. Just because he felt a lot older than his thirty-eight years didn’t mean it was fact. “We go back a few years,” he said.
All too aware that his deputy wasn’t the only one having a difficult time keeping his eyes off her, Nick cleared his throat. “Frank and I partnered up for a couple of years in Chicago.”
“He speaks well of you,” she said.
“Only when he needs a favor.”
Her gaze sharpened, and he knew she was wondering if he’d just slighted her. Perceptive, too, he thought, and felt a glimmer of hope that she wouldn’t take this job, after all.
“I’m really early,” she said. “If you’re in the middle of something, I don’t mind waiting.”
Great, he’d been staring again. He was acting like a pimply-faced teenager who’d just come face-to-face with his favorite centerfold. Erin McNeal was a cop—and a bad one at that. He’d worked with plenty of female cops back in Chicago. This one shouldn’t be any different.
Noticing that Hector’s eyes still hadn’t settled back in their sockets, Nick motioned toward his office. “We can talk in here, Ms. McNeal.”
She started for the door with long, confident strides. He followed, refusing to let his eyes peruse what he instinctively knew was a nice derriere. He didn’t want to know that she was built just the way he liked. He’d just as soon not like anything at all about this woman.
Once in his office, he slid behind his desk, then watched her take the chair opposite him. Her jacket gaped slightly when she crossed her legs, and he caught a glimpse of lace and the swell of her breasts beneath her blouse. Determined to keep his mind on the interview, he forced his gaze to the file in front of him. “Your credentials are impressive,” he said. “Frank gave you a favorable recommendation.”
“Frank was a good commander.”
“It’s probably no handicap that he’s also your uncle.” Nick looked down at the file, wondering if she realized Frank had told him about the shooting. “You scored high on your detective’s exam. You transferred out of tactical to become a detective after only two years. Says here ‘because you like to think.’ Your solve rate is high. Your marksmanship is outstanding.” He raised his eyes to hers. “Those are some pretty remarkable achievements considering there are over thirteen thousand sworn officers on the force.”
Her gaze never left his. “I like being a cop.”
Despite his resistance to her, the answer scored a point with him. Nick had a pretty good idea how many hurdles this woman had had to leap to reach detective status. He knew plenty of men who couldn’t match half her skills. He knew plenty of others who would do their utmost to hold her back just because she was the wrong sex. Yet she’d prevailed. Nick admired tenacity almost as much as he admired guts. He wondered if she was gutsy enough to bring up the subject neither of them wanted to discuss.
“We don’t get much action here in Logan Falls,” he said. “A few juvenile delinquents. Domestic disputes. The Brass Rail Saloon got robbed last Friday, but that sort of thing is pretty unusual. Think you can handle that kind of excitement?”
“If I can handle the South Side of Chicago, I’m sure I can handle anything that happens in Logan Falls.”
He’d asked the question lightly, but she’d taken it as a personal challenge. An ego to boot, he thought. He studied the file, irritated with her for not being what he’d expected, annoyed with Frank for not warning him how good she was to look at—and downright ticked off at himself for noticing.
“I see you’ve had a couple personnel problems,” he said.
“They were relatively minor—”
“It’s my responsibility to ask you about them.” He flipped to the next page. “You’ve been written up for insubordination.”
Eyeing him warily, she shifted in her chair. “I didn’t like an assignment, and I let my lieutenant know about it.”
“What was it about?”
“Cases involving unpopular victims that were shoved aside in lieu of the more affluent ones. Prostitutes mostly, because nobody cared about them. I didn’t think that was fair.”
Nick nodded noncommittally, not liking it that he agreed with her. He didn’t miss big-city police work, or the politics that went along with it. “Any problems with your shoulder?” He could tell by the way her eyes widened that he’d caught her off guard. “Frank told me about the shooting,” he clarified.
“I have a little arthritis,” she replied. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Did you pass the physical?”
She nodded. “I’m left-handed, so the injury didn’t affect my marksmanship. I lost some strength in my right hand.”
On the surface, her answer seemed adequate. To the point. Acceptable. Just the way she’d planned, Nick thought. But he was observant enough to notice the other signs that weren’t quite as apparent. He didn’t miss her white-knuckled grip on her purse. The slight tremor in her hand. The tight clench of her jaw. All signs of stress; all signs that the shooting had affected her much more profoundly than she was letting on. Just like a cop, he thought, and inwardly groaned. He knew intimately the signs of personal baggage—he was an expert on the subject, after all—and bet his bottom dollar the woman across from him had a truckload sitting on those rigid shoulders.
“Frank said you were lucky to get out of that warehouse alive,” he said.
She looked as though she wanted to argue for a moment, but didn’t. “I was very lucky.”
Her partner, Danny Perrine, hadn’t been as lucky. The thought sent a flare of irritation through Nick. He wondered if she was going to come clean with the entire story, or if he was going to have to squeeze it out of her one question at a time.
“Did you spend any time with the department shrink afterward?” he asked casually.
Her gaze snapped to his. He could tell from her expression she knew it wasn’t a casual question. Though she tried to shutter her reaction, Nick saw the flash of emotion in the depths of her gaze.
“I saw Dr. Ferguson for a couple of months. It’s department regulation for any cop involved in a shooting. She gave me a clean bill of health.”
“So if the shrink gave you a clean bill of health, why did Frank fire you?”
“Frank didn’t fire me. I resigned.”
“On paper maybe. It’s obvious you were on your way out. Only you knew a resignation would look better than a termination on your résumé, didn’t you?” Nick didn’t look up, but rather felt the rise of tension. He let the silence work for a moment, then met her gaze. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t ask you about the shooting, did you?”
Erin stared at him, her expression guarded. “Of course not.”
“I have your complete file,” he pointed out. “I was wondering if you wanted to give me your take on what happened.”
“Frank said—”
“Why don’t you stop wondering how much of this Frank has already told me, and just lay it out?”
For the first time, her composure wavered. She blinked, then looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. Quickly, she relaxed them. “He had no right to give you my entire file. Some of it’s confidential.”
“You don’t think he’s going to let you waltz in and dazzle me with your test scores and solve rate when we both know you’ve had some serious problems in the last six months, do you?”
“Frank knows I’m a good cop.”
“He also knows you’re wobbly on your feet. You were involved in a shooting. There are repercussions to that sort of thing whether we like to admit it or not. Frank didn’t expect me to walk in blind. Not after what happened to Danny Perrine.”
She flinched. “I’m not wobbly. I made a mistake—”
“A very serious one that nearly cost a man his life.”
“I’m fully aware—”
Nick’s throat squeezed out a short, incredulous laugh designed to let her know just how he felt about cops and mistakes. “Just because you’re aware, Ms. McNeal, doesn’t mean it’s going to go away or that it won’t happen again.”
“I screwed up,” she said. “I went back to work too soon after…Danny. But I’m better now—”
“Ah, I’ll feel a hell of lot better going through a door with you, knowing you’re all better.”
Her eyes heated. “I can do without the sarcasm.”
Ignoring her anger, maybe even enjoying it a little, Nick continued, “This isn’t personal, McNeal. I’m just trying to decide if you’re still suitable for police work.”
“Why don’t you give me the chance to prove it?”
“Because I’m afraid you’ll freeze up when I need you. I can do without a bullet in my back.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, nostrils flaring slightly. “I’m solid.”
“If that was the case you’d still be in Chicago.”
“Frank’s assessment of me was incorrect.”
Nick leaned forward. “You mean he lied? Why would he do that?”
“I’m his niece. He’s overprotective. He thinks I ought to be home baking cookies, for Pete’s sake.”
“Maybe you should have considered administrative work when he offered it.”
“I’m a police officer. I don’t want to sit behind a desk.”
“You’d rather play Rambo, and freeze up on your partner.”
“That’s not how any of this happened.”
Nick knew he was being hard on her, but he figured since this was his town he had every right to put her on the hot seat.
“I know what happened in that warehouse,” he said. “I know about Danny Perrine. You froze up, McNeal. Were you going to bother mentioning that to me?”
She stared at him, her jaw tight, her eyes shooting fire and ice.
“So before you come in here trying to dazzle me with your assorted bragging points, why don’t you explain to me why I ought to hire you?”
Erin wanted so badly to tell him to go to hell she could taste it. Of course, she didn’t. Six months ago she would have laughed in his face. Today, shaken, uncertain and a little desperate, she could do nothing more than stare at him and wonder how the interview had gone from bad to downright catastrophic in less than ten minutes.
He knows, she thought. He knows I can’t hack it anymore. The familiar pain cut her and went deep. Doubt and guilt slashed her, and she felt the blood well like a fresh wound. She looked down at where she held her purse with a death grip. Forcing her hands to relax, refusing to let this man reduce her to a bumbling rookie, she looked up and met his gaze levelly.
“I think we both know this isn’t working,” she said.
Lowering his head, Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s an understatement,” he growled.
Disappointment burned, but she raised her chin in spite of it and rose. “I won’t waste any more of your time, Chief Ryan.”
“We’re not finished yet.”
“Yes, we are.” She slung her purse over her shoulder.
He rose. “Look, I told Frank—”
“Don’t do me any favors, Chief. Just because my uncle is your friend doesn’t mean you have to feel obligated to hire me. I don’t need your charity.” She didn’t need this job, either, she assured herself. There were other opportunities. She just needed to find the right one. She sure as hell didn’t need a jerk like Nick Ryan humiliating her at every turn.
For the first time he looked chagrined. “Don’t make this personal—”
“Don’t sweat it, Chief. I’m used to being underestimated. Besides, my skin’s a lot thicker than it looks.” She offered a crisp smile, hating that she had to bite her lower lip to keep it from quivering. “I’ve got some other prospects lined up, anyway.”
“Do you?”
“Corporate security. That sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I prefer working in a larger town, anyway.”
“Sure you do.”
She was going to have to figure something out, considering she hadn’t made her car payment last month. Maybe security work wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.
