Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [82]
After a few long minutes of the windshield wipers’ monotonous swish slap, swish slap, swish slap, Sean turned on the radio. Ten nonstop minutes of classic rock followed but neither sang along. It was a less than comfortable silence and lasted until Sean pulled into his sister’s driveway and peered up toward the garage.
“Looks like Greer’s not back yet.” He frowned and sat tapping the wheel, as if debating with himself. Finally, he said, “Oh, hell. What’s the difference? I’ll move her car in the morning.”
“Move her car?” Amanda looked behind them toward the end of the drive.
“Yeah, when I leave in the morning.” He got out of the Jeep and opened the back door, took out his duffel bag.
“You’re staying here?” She got out, too, and immediately hunched against the rain.
“Yeah. Come on, it’s really starting to come down now.” He ran ahead to the back of the house and paused at the edge of the walk, then opened the door to the screened porch for her, let her proceed in first.
She brushed against him and made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. As if having a mind of their own, his hands reached for her shoulders and turned her around so that she was in his arms. She smelled of lemons and late summer rain. He kissed her, because he couldn’t not.
He’d expected her to move away, push him away, and when she didn’t, when she raised her arms to wrap them around his neck, he kissed her again, mesmerized by the way she felt in his arms and the way her mouth felt against his. She seemed to melt into him, every bit of her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you there in your shop,” he heard himself say.
“What stopped you?”
“Well, the thought that maybe you were capable of cold-blooded murder . . . I don’t know, that kind of thing has always been a real turnoff for me.”
She smiled in the darkness, and he bent his head to kiss her again, his tongue tracing the outline of her mouth.
“And I saw myself maybe having to slip handcuffs on these pretty wrists and dragging your admirable butt off to my jail. Now, I realize that some men like that whole bondage thing, but to tell you the truth, I’ve put too many women into cuffs to get off on it. And just thinking about you in one of those ugly orange jumpsuits . . .”
“Can’t blame you there.” She shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone who looks good in orange.”
“Well, there you go then.” He leaned back against the doorway and pulled her with him. He was all set to kiss her again, when she asked, “Did you really believe, in your heart, that I’d killed Derek?”
“My heart has no place in a homicide investigation. The only thing that matters is the evidence.” He rested his chin on the top of her head.
“Haven’t you ever been tempted to say the hell with it and let your heart sneak in a comment or two?”
“No.” He looked at her as if she were speaking an unfamiliar language. “No. That’s not why you wear the badge.”
“Why do you wear the badge?”
He looked surprised by the question. “Because it’s the only thing I know how to do.” He took her hand and led her to the door, which he unlocked and opened.
“You got out of school and set out immediately to become a cop?” Amanda dropped her purse onto the counter.
“I joined the army right out of high school and just went from there.” He walked through the downstairs to the front door, where he checked to make sure that the lock was still set. On his way back to the kitchen, he turned on a lamp in the hallway.
“Why the army?”
“I got out of foster care a month before my eighteenth birthday. My foster parents had made it pretty clear they expected me out the door after I graduated from high school. So I enlisted. Two weeks after graduation, I left for basic.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It all worked out for me. It’s been okay. More than okay. I liked the army, liked the structure of it, liked that every man there started out on a level playing field. It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from. The only thing that put you out ahead of the others—or behind them—was your own actions. It was all in your hands. For