Nowhere Safe by Nancy Bush Read Free Book Online

after battling some unexpected road construction, she’d actually chewed into thirty minutes of her lunch hour. Not that the department was a stickler for a punch card on its detectives, but it had been less than a year since September had been promoted to detective and taken a job with the Laurelton PD and she didn’t feel comfortable abusing the unwritten rules too much. She’d already used up her weekly allowance by meeting with Gretchen and that didn’t even count the information she’d revealed that she probably shouldn’t have.
    Jake opened the door, completely naked. He had her cell phone to his ear and was carrying on a bogus conversation. “. . . yes, she’s here now. No, sorry, she’s going to be busy for a while.” A pause. “She’s looking for the Johnson file,” he said as September cried, “Jake!” and reached forward, ripping the phone from his hand, just to make sure he really wasn’t talking to someone.
    He was laughing as she said dryly, “I think I see the Johnson file.” She checked the phone, then clicked off, relieved he was just joking around.
    “Really? Where?” he asked innocently.
    She pushed him through the door, shutting it behind them. “Good thing we don’t have close neighbors.”
    “You’re late. You gave me time to get the sandwiches and think up something fun for us to do.”
    “Uh-huh. And me being an invalid.”
    “Okay, we can just have lunch.” He was grinning like a fool and she let her gaze slide over his muscled chest and lean torso.
    “How fast are you?”
    He’d been turning toward the kitchen, but now he glanced back, giving her a penetrating look. “Fast,” he said.
    “I only have about ten minutes and I’ll have to take the sandwich to go.”
    “You sure?”
    She tested her shoulder, feeling the pain but sick of being a slave to it. “Yessirree.”
    “Giddyup,” he said, and with that he hurried her along to the bedroom as fast as he could, helped her out of her clothes, and then made good on his boast about speed.
     
     
    “What are you smiling at?” Wes drawled as he stared across the squad room at September. He was leaning back in his chair, a grin playing on his lips also.
    “What?” she asked.
    “I don’t think it’s something in that file.”
    September glanced down at the pages of the Ballonni file, knowing she hadn’t retained a word of what she’d just read. Her mind was full of images of Jake’s body in rhythmic motion with hers. She could feel his body shake with silent laughter as she whispered, “Ride ’em, cowboy,” before the mood changed and the only sounds were the rustle of the sheets and her own soft moans and his deeper growls of pleasure.
    She slapped the cover shut and said, “The Johnson file.”
    It was Wes’s turn to ask, “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    She and Jake had only had a few minutes of actual talking time and even that was rushed. But he had managed to tell her that Colin and Neela were on the “baby train,” and she’d looked at Jake and wondered what he thought about that. Their own relationship was so new that they were a long way even from marriage; babies were another world.
    Not that she believed love, marriage, and babies had to come in that order. A case in point, her sister July, who’d recently let September know that she’d gone to a clinic, picked out her baby daddy’s sperm, and now was pregnant. No one else in the family knew yet, so September hadn’t told Jake, either. That news would all be self-evident soon anyway.
    She’d left Jake at his house with a promise to come home early, take care of her stiff and tender shoulder, and rest. He wasn’t planning to return to the office as he was going to spend the afternoon shifting furniture around in preparation for her belongings.
    Were they moving too fast? Yes . . . maybe . . . no . . . probably. But she also knew that she was sick of living alone and wanted to give it a try. If their relationship failed, which she sincerely