He stood for a moment on her small, covered front porch, looking around to make certain everything seemed normal—no suspicious cars, no suspicious people—before going down the steps and down the short sidewalk to his car. This was a good area, so a clunker car would be a jarring note. No one was out and about yet, though some of the other town houses had lights on inside, indicating more early risers.

Once he was in his car, he removed the lid from the cup of coffee, dumped in both packs of sugar and one of the packs of creamer, then used the little plastic stick to stir it all together. He lifted the cup to take his first swallow. Then the coffee hit his taste buds and he spewed the coffee back into the cup, shuddering. Holy hell, what was that shit?

Something flavored, and not a good flavor, either. What was it with women, messing with coffee? What was wrong with coffee that tasted like coffee? Who needed maple-strawberry-peanut-whatever? Even worse: not only was the flavor weird, but it also tasted weak. The woman had great legs, but she didn’t know how to make decent coffee.

In a strange way, that made him like her more. If she’d made great coffee, she would have been too perfect. This was better. God knows he wasn’t perfect, so the fact that her coffee sucked put them more on the same level.

But he seriously needed a cup of coffee, and no way was he swallowing so much as a sip of that poison. There was an open-all-night service station/convenience store just down the road, though, that would have coffee—maybe not the freshest in the world, but he was used to old, bitter coffee; that was why he used both sugar and creamer, to make it drinkable. Too bad sugar and creamer couldn’t do anything to disguise the awful flavor of Jaclyn’s brew; if they actually started seeing each other on a regular basis, he’d have to take over the coffeemaking, because he couldn’t drink that swill even to be polite.

When he got to the convenience store, a guy dressed like a construction worker was putting gas in a dusty Ford pickup. A ten-year-old black subcompact was parked off to the side; probably the clerk’s ride. As Eric pulled into a parking slot, the construction worker finished fueling and stood for a moment waiting for his credit card payment slip from the pump. He tore it off, carefully folded it, and put it in his wallet, then got in the truck and drove away.

Going inside, Eric nodded to the clerk, a skinny guy with a receding chin who had been watching through the window as the construction worker gassed up, and went straight to the coffee counter at the back of the store, where the motor oil, gas additives, and windshield washing liquid were shelved. The clerk looked faintly alarmed, and edged back behind the checkout counter.

Eric caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny surface of the coffee machines, and grimaced. No wonder the clerk looked a little worried. Not only did he need a shave, but he hadn’t even dragged his fingers through his hair before leaving Jaclyn’s. He hadn’t tucked his shirttail in—after all, he was going home to shower and change clothes, so he hadn’t seen the need—but he’d pulled on his jacket to cover his weapon. All in all, he looked as if he’d just had a mug shot taken.

He pulled a tall cup from the stack and dumped in two sugars and one creamer, then filled the cup to the brim. As he was fitting a black lid on the cup he heard a vehicle with a loud muffler pull up to the store. The engine didn’t cut off.

Shit. What were the odds? What were the fucking odds?

Instinctively he ducked down, hiding himself from whoever came through the door. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the driver was having trouble getting the car started, maybe the battery was low, so he didn’t want to take the chance of cutting off the engine and not being able to get it started again.

He heard the chime over the door as it opened, and momentarily the sound of the running motor was even louder. It was nothing, he thought. Even an idiot would notice the car parked practically in front of the door, and realize someone else was in here with the clerk. And only a cop would hear a car left running outside and immediately think Quick getaway. His Spidey sense had short-circuited after a hot night of sex, that was all. Traffic outside was picking up as dawn came closer, not a good time for a robbery, any fool knew that.

It was noth—

Crash!

Something was knocked over, the harsh sound exploding in the small building along with yells and swearing, then a hoarse voice yelling, “Gimme the money, motherfucker, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!”

Fuck. It was something.

Damn it, he knew it, he’d known it as soon as the car pulled up outside. His weapon was in his hand, and he didn’t remember drawing it. It was just there, because instinctively he’d known that car meant trouble. Just as instinctively, he’d noticed the clerk’s position, and could tell the robber was between him and the clerk. He could fire, but if he missed he was likely to kill the clerk.

And if he discharged his weapon, there’d be forms to fill out for the next month, even if he didn’t hit the fucking robber, and if he did hit him he’d be relegated to desk duty while an internal investigation took place.

Just as quickly as he’d drawn his weapon, he shoved it back into his holster, grabbed a can of motor oil from the shelf in front of him, raised it, and whipped it toward the robber’s head with every ounce of strength in his throwing arm. The guy wore a black hooded sweatshirt, with the hood pulled up over his head—had to be hot as hell—but even with the hood to cushion the impact, the can hit his head with a sound like a cantaloupe being dropped on the floor. The robber went down as if he’d been pole-axed—or, in this case, motor-oiled.

Eric drew his weapon again and bolted for the door, hitting it with his shoulder and skidding to a stop beside the getaway car, his weapon leveled through the open window at the driver, who turned out to be a girl wearing a tiny green halter and a pair of Daisy Dukes. “Police!” he barked, identifying himself. “Turn off the engine and put your hands behind your head.”

She stared at the impressive barrel of his service weapon, aimed right at her. Her lower lip began quivering, her face screwed up, and she began bawling. “He made me!” she squalled.

“Yeah, right,” Eric muttered. His damn coffee was getting cold, he needed a shower, it was obvious he hadn’t been home, which was going to give everyone something to talk about, and here he was, stuck with Bonnie and Clyde. He took a quick glance over his shoulder; he could see the clerk had come out from behind the counter and was talking on the phone. The robber was still down for the count.

“I said turn off the engine!”

Still sniveling, she did.

“Okay, now get out of the car. We’re going inside with your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” She got out of the car, and all the time he was cuffing her she kept babbling about how she didn’t even know the guy, he’d gotten in her car at a red light, he’d held a gun on her and made her drive here, she hadn’t known what he was doing—

“And that’s why you didn’t just drive off when he came inside?” Eric asked drily as he ushered her inside where he could keep an eye on her. The clerk jerked around, evidently not as reassured as he should have been by the girl being cuffed, his eyes widening at the sight of the weapon in Eric’s hand. “Police,” Eric said, briefly flashing his badge. Hell, why couldn’t the moron put three and three together, and come up with “cop”?

The guy on the ground was moaning, beginning to stir. He’d have a headache from hell, probably a concussion, but Eric used his extra set of cuffs to secure him anyway. He could already hear sirens; good response time, he thought. But then, Hopewell wasn’t Atlanta, and the night shift didn’t have a whole lot to occupy its time.

Less than thirty seconds later two squad cars slid into the parking lot, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Eric stared down at his two prisoners and the freaked-out clerk, and heaved a sigh. All he’d wanted was a damn cup of coffee.


Chapter Five

JACLYN DETERMINEDLY DID NOT THINK ABOUT ERIC Wilder as she finished getting ready—not much, anyway. Completely dismissing him was impossible, partly because she had pink beard burns on her breasts and a similar tender spot on her jaw. She soothed the irritated places with aloe gel, carefully covered the place on her jaw with concealer, and wondered why physical intimacy with a man was such a contact sport that a woman almost needed a helmet and protective padding. And he hadn’t even been rough. In fact, he’d been remarkably tender, considering the hungry way they’d gone at each other. Still, she should at least have bitten him or something, just to even the score.

Except she’d never been a biter. Or a screamer. Or much of anything, really. She was just an ordinary woman, cautious by nature, without an ounce of drama queen in her. Her dad was enough of a drama queen, thank you very much, plus her job brought her in daily contact with enough drama to keep Broadway stocked with characters for ten years. That was maybe the biggest part of her job: keeping her head when everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and everyone else was having hysterical fits. An events planner had to be an expert at finding alternatives, making things work, and doing what had to be done.

“Caution” was practically her middle name. For goodness sake, before she bought her first car ten years ago, she’d researched resale values and repair rates for six months before taking the plunge—and it had taken Madelyn twice that long, a couple of years ago, to convince her that driving matching Jaguars would be a great business statement. She’d been right, of course; in the Buckhead area, status symbols mattered, and the Jaguars said that Premier was the events planning firm to hire if you wanted to make a splash. They’d bought the Jaguars used, and Jaclyn had approached the venture with her fingers crossed and her checkbook wincing. Two years later she had to admit that Madelyn had been right, overall, but both of their temperamental cars had seen time in repair shops.