Busted (Promise Harbor Wedding)(37)

“Penis,” Gauthier guessed.

Baffled, she stared at the drawing. “Where do you get that?”

“Isn’t that like some ink-blot thing where everything is supposed to look like some kind of phallic symbol?”

“Freud focused on phallic symbols. Rorschach created the ink-blot tests,” Jackson corrected. He perched on the edge of Hayley’s desk.

Gauthier shrugged. “Still looks like a penis.” Head down, the other cop wandered away.

“Rorschach and Copernicus,” Hayley mused. “Impressive.”

“No, what’s impressive is how sneaky you were this morning.” He thankfully lowered his voice. “It won’t happen again.”

She gave up on feigning interest in the sketch. “That implies it will happen again. Sleeping over, never mind the sex, wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“It is now.”

The stubborn tilt of his chin set off alarm bells in her head. She leaned back in her seat, putting some space between them. Too bad the space wasn’t enough to make her forget how good he looked, or how good he smelled. If he’d set out to make her want to get as close to him as she could, he’d certainly succeeded.

Just like he’d also succeeded in getting under her skin, exactly what she hadn’t wanted to happen. Telling herself it wouldn’t go beyond that was the only way she could meet his eyes.

“I’m heading over to see your grandfather.”

Grateful for the change in subject, she forced a smile. “He’ll like that.” The reminder prompted her to let Jackson know Gramps thought they were actually dating. “He doesn’t know that we’re not…” She glanced at Jackson, quickly losing her train of thought. It was his fault for sitting there, looking good enough to eat, that easy confidence nearly as sexy as the seriousness in his eyes.

“Not…what?”

She blew out a breath. “He thinks we’re dating.”

“And?”

“And you can’t tell him we’re not.” Once Jackson left town, she could find a way to break the news that wouldn’t lead to Gramps sneaking out to track Jackson down.

“Why would I do that?”

Was he trying to drive her crazy? “Because we’re not actually dating.” How could he keep Freud, Rorschach and Copernicus straight and not follow what she was saying?

“So,” he mused a little too loudly. “I was just a one-night stand?”

She jumped up and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Keep your voice down.” They’d drawn enough attention already.

Jackson covered her hand with his, planting a feathery kiss on her palm.

She tugged her hand back. “Could you behave yourself for more than thirty seconds?”

Jackson caught the waist of her pants and tugged her forward. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with me not behaving myself last night.” The whispered statement made her shiver.

“Time to go.” She nudged him off her desk, steering him toward the exit. They both knew he had more upper body strength than she possessed in her entire five-foot-eight frame, but he kept moving.

“Say hi to Gramps for me.”

“Sure.” He snagged her wrist at the last second, pulling her in. He slanted his mouth across hers, blowing any sense of decency right out of the park by deepening the kiss until she didn’t know where her lips started and his ended. “I’ll see you later.”

Jackson walked away, and she turned back to her desk, not looking to see if anyone had taken notice.

“I need some help, please.”

She paused, glancing at a woman in designer shorts and a halter top that had probably cost more than Hayley’s last check. The oversize beach bag and expensive camera slung over the redhead’s shoulder marked her as a tourist.

The woman tapped a hand on the desk, ignoring the just-a-minute finger the officer on the phone held up. “I need to talk to someone about a robbery.”

Hayley crossed to the woman at the desk. “I think I can help. I’m Detective Stone.” She held out a hand.

The redhead dismissed her with a sound of disgust. “I’m looking for a real cop. Not some rookie puck bunny.”

Heat flooded Hayley’s cheeks, but she forced aside the unexpected awkwardness of a tourist—an unimpressed one at that—recognizing and labeling her because of Jackson. This was her turf. “I work in the robbery division,” she began.

“Looks to me like you were working him over. Or maybe it was the other way around.” The redhead smirked. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait and talk to a real cop.”

Real cop? She’d worried that being seen with Jackson would affect her reputation with the people of Promise Harbor. It had taken a lot of hard work and years to overcome a past that some, especially since Jackson had rolled back into town, were still quick to recall.

But coming from a tourist?

She wasn’t sure if that made things better or so much worse. It shouldn’t bother her what the woman thought, she knew that, but with everything piling up in her personal life—the comments about her wilder days, the renovations, her puck-bunny association with Jackson—she suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of losing the respect she’d fought so hard to earn.

If a tourist could walk through the door and make assumptions about how well she did her job based on her relationship with Jackson, so could everyone else in town.

“And if it’s all the same to you,” Hayley returned, her voice cool, “you can talk to me or you can have a seat and wait a couple hours for my partner to come back.”

The redhead wasn’t happy, but she followed Hayley to a room where they could talk. Hayley listened attentively, quickly ruling out any connection between the woman’s stolen purse and the other robberies.

And the whole time she couldn’t let go of one thought—when Jackson left town, would she still be the Hayley people knew they could depend on or would she just be known as Jackson’s latest conquest?





Jackson walked down the hall in the palliative care unit, past the room with the leather couches, only to backtrack at the sound of cursing, loud and familiar. He found Coach propped on the edge of a center cushion, his gaze trained on a flat-screen television playing a recording of the NHL draft. Matt had mentioned setting it up for his grandfather.

“Can you believe this kid went in the third round? Gonna be a pain in their ass, I guarantee.” The old man didn’t look at him right away.

Jackson laughed. “Isn’t that what you said when I got picked up?”

He shrugged. “I’m wrong once or twice a decade.”

He joined Coach on the couch and they sat through thirty minutes of the draft, chatting about players and stats and what drugs some of the general managers must have been sniffing to make some of the player trades they had.

“I need some fresh air, Jack.”

Jackson grinned at the nickname. Coach was the only one he let get away with calling him that. Jack was his father, and once he’d hit twelve he’d craved an identity outside of Jack Jr.

Fresh air turned out to be pushing a wheelchair so Coach could bum a cigarette outside. Coach waved him off, guessing Jackson was going to be stupid enough to comment on him smoking. “They’re already killing me so what’s the point of giving them up now?”

Somehow Jackson knew Coach wasn’t sharing that particular outlook with Hayley. He couldn’t imagine her taking that well. He smiled at the memory of her gasping through one of Coach’s cigarettes. The old man would likely freak out over that as much as Hayley would if she spotted her grandfather sneaking around outside.

“How are the renovations going?”

“They’re coming along.” He hadn’t been at the house long enough to get anything done yet today. Talking to Hayley after she slipped out of the bed without waking him had come first. By the time he dragged on some clothes and got his car towed to a garage to replace a faulty spark plug, he’d been downright annoyed that she’d skipped out on him.

Coach stabbed out the cigarette after only a couple drags. “I didn’t realize you knew so much about carpentry.”

He nodded. “I picked up a few things from helping my dad with stuff around the house growing up, and I helped a friend build his house.” And then another friend’s house. He’d helped build half a dozen of them over the course of five off-seasons. “Hayley didn’t realize that either.”

Coach nodded. “That granddaughter of mine is something else, isn’t she?”

“Yes, sir.” Something else didn’t quite cover it though. Neither did determined, fiery, loyal and sexy as f*cking hell.

“I know my diagnosis has been hard on her. Good to know she’ll have you to help her through the rough times.”