Page 65 of Beyond the Badge: Crew

She frowned. “That means nothing.”

“Maybe to you.”

With a roll of her eyes, she stepped back. When she swept a hand toward the interior of the house, he smashed his lips together to stop his grin.

After shutting the door, she turned to face him. “Do you always make house-calls to your task force members? This is becoming a habit. At least you didn’t let yourself in this time.”

“I was about to when you finally answered the door.”

“If you ever get the urge to let yourself in again… just don’t.”

“Just think of me as your landlord.”

“You can simply crown yourself as my landlord like that? First of all, you’re not. Second, there are laws about landlords barging in without permission or an appointment. But again, you’re not my landlord. Do I need to speak to Fletch to see if he’s okay with you being the keeper of his house?”

“Do I need to tell him you have that big, hairy monster living here?”

Her mouth gaped open and her brown eyes went wide. “You told me it was okay.”

“Yeah.Iokayed it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you such an asshole?”

He shrugged. “It comes naturally.”

“No shit.” She spun on her bare heel and strode toward the kitchen.

“Where you going?”

“To get coffee, if you must know. Since someone rudely woke me up.”

He quickly followed. “You have some made? It looks like you just rolled out of bed.”

He flared his nostrils and sniffed the air.

There it was. The scent of black gold.

“Ididjust roll out of bed. But these new-fangled coffeemakers have this crazy feature called a timer. You’d know that if you weren’t still brewing your coffee in a percolator over an open fire.”

“I’m not a cowboy.”

She slammed to a stop, spun, raked her gaze over him from head to toe and said, “No, you’re not.” She continued on into the kitchen, heading straight to the coffeemaker.

“Know a lot of cowboys?”

“I’ve seen enough westerns.” She grabbed a mug from the cabinet over the coffeemaker and, of course, didn’t offer him one.

“I’ll take a cup.”

She set the mug down and closed the cabinet, still not grabbing him one. And she calledhiman asshole…

“Speaking of cups…” she started.

He interrupted her by pushing past her to pull a mug from the cabinet. He poured some for himself as she headed to the fridge. With her mug only three-quarters full of coffee, she filled the rest with vanilla-flavored creamer.

“Jesus,” he murmured against the rim of his as he watched her also dump three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into it next.

She glanced up from stirring that mixture that could no longer be called coffee. “You said your name was Crew. Now you’re my Lord and landlord, too?”

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