The Strong Silent Type by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

looking at her. Interesting. “So you do notice things sometimes.”
    “I’m a detective. I’m supposed to notice things.”
    “You don’t notice the women drooling after you.”
    There she went, exaggerating again. “Nobody’s drooling,” he heard himself snap.
    Damn it, Cavanaugh was doing it to him again, making him lose his cool, his control. How did she manage to do that when he usually could keep such tight rein on what was happening inside of him? And why did he have to be partnered with her in the first place?
    He realized that she still hadn’t answered his question to his satisfaction. “Why did you kiss me?”
    His profile was rigid. It was the kind of profile, she caught herself thinking, that could have easily been chiseled in rock. No soft edges, no curves, just planes and angles. A born tough guy. “Just the facts, ma’am,’ right?”
    “What?”
    “Joe Friday. Dragnet, ” she said.
    She could see that the names of the program and its chief character meant nothing to Hawk. The man needed color in his life. Broad strokes. She had a feeling his life was done in fine-point pencil.
    He sure didn’t kiss that way, a small voice from the inside of her ebbed delirium whispered.
    Teri made the only assumption she could. “I takeit you weren’t raised on police dramas the way I was.”
    A great many of the programs had come via cable channels that featured old series from bygone eras. She could remember watching them, sitting on the floor in front of her father’s chair. Once in a while, when police work allowed, he was even in the chair, explaining things to her. Her desire to be a police detective had come just as much from those programs as it had from wanting to emulate her father, to give her something in common with him.
    No, he thought, he wasn’t raised on watching police dramas, he lived police dramas. He’d lost count the number of times the police had come knocking on his parents’ door. A good many times they’d been arrested. He’d watched it all from the closet where his mother made him hide so that social services wouldn’t come to take him away. The way they had the day his parents were murdered.
    He shook his mind free of the memories and shot Teri a look. “You’re changing the subject, Cavanaugh. Again.”
    “No, I’m embellishing on the subject,” she corrected. “Otherwise, everyone talks like you.”
    At least then, people would get to the point once in a while. “Not a bad thing.”
    Now they were on a topic near and dear to her heart. With only two thirds of her mental firing pins in order, she warmed up to the subject. “It is forcommunication. Nuances are what tell us things about people.”
    “Maybe I don’t want people knowing anything about me.”
    “Sorry, Hawk. This is the Internet age. If you can’t get information about someone one way, you can get it another. In the end, there is no mystery.” He had a very odd look on his face. “Except maybe for what you’re thinking about right now.”
    Finally, they’d reached her housing development. He’d begun to feel as if it was an endless journey and he was stuck making it with her droning on in his ear. Hawk spared her a look as he drove through the entrance. “You’re better off not knowing what I’m thinking now.”
    She was suddenly beginning to feel very, very tired. That, she assumed, was undoubtedly the effects of the medication she’d been injected with. She had to admit she liked the high she’d had just moments ago. Liked, too, the sensation that had permeated her body when she’d kissed him.
    Liked it a lot.
    Liked it better than matching wits with him.
    Okay, it was time to stop yanking his chain. “I kissed you to say thank you. It really is as simple as that,” Teri told him.
    Stirring him up was not a way to say thank you, he thought. “A handshake would have done.” And left him a great deal less unsettled, he added silently.
    She smiled. It hit him right between the eyes.