Page 49 of Her Baby, Her Badge

But that might not be in the cards for them. If Grace lost her badge, it was possible she wouldn’t be able to get past it, that a part of her would resent him for his part in making that happen. Dutton got that. He had plenty of resentment for the people who were trying to force her out of office. However, his feelings for Grace and their baby wouldn’t change, whether or not she was a cop.

“Hell,” he muttered under his breath. And he groaned. Why not just admit to himself that he was in love with Grace? Because that could lead to a Texas-size heart crushing, that’s why.

He might have done some pity wallowing about that if he hadn’t heard Grace moving in the bed. Dutton peered into the dark room and wanted to curse again. She wasn’t just moving. She was awake and sitting up, and her gaze went straight to him.

“You said you’d sleep,” she muttered.

“I will. I was just catching up on a few things.”

She sighed and pushed her tousled hair from her face. “You’re working, listening for any kind of break-in and keeping an eye on me. On the floor, no less.”

Guilty on all counts, but he didn’t want to explain that he hadn’t been able to sleep because of thoughts of her. No, she didn’t need to hear that.

Yawning, she got out of bed, causing him to groan. “You should try to go back to sleep.”

“I will. Once the baby stops playing soccer with my kidneys.” Grace headed to the en suite bathroom, but a few minutes later when she came out, she didn’t go back to bed. She came toward him.

And Dutton felt his heart go into overdrive.

The rest of his body followed suit and began to rev up. Dutton hated to disappoint that part of him behind the zipper of his jeans, but he was still adamant that sex wasn’t going to happen. He was still holding out hope that he could coax Grace back to bed so she could get more sleep.

“It’s barely eleven o’clock,” Dutton told her. “You’ve only been asleep three hours.”

Grace nodded, retrieved her phone from the nightstand and continued to make her way toward him. There was nothing remotely sexy about the loose sleep pants and T-shirt she had on, but she managed to make everything look hot.

She sank down beside him, landing with her shoulder pressed against his, and she had a look at his laptop screen. “You’re so much like a cop,” she muttered as she read. “You keep this up, and you’re going to lose some of that bad-boy shine.”

“I haven’tshinedas a bad boy in a long time,” he assured her.

“In this town, that never goes away,” she said, and much of the lightness faded from her voice.

She was no doubt thinking of other things that remained in place, like the gossip about them. And the possibility of losing her badge. Of course, the thing that had to be weighing on her the most was the killer on the loose.

Dutton decided to try for some lightheartedness. “Yeah, gossips still mention the time I got drunk when I was a teenager, climbed on top of the roof at town hall and used red paint to scrawl pretty much every curse word I knew.”

As he hoped, she did smile a little. “My mother took you into custody and made you clean up every syllable. You’re lucky she didn’t arrest you.”

“I am,” he concurred. “She probably wishes she had.” He paused. “As for the other reasons for my bad-boy reputation, some events were greatly exaggerated.”

“Only some. You went through that whole love-’em-and-leave-’em phase with many, many women. And then there are the business deals. All legal,” she quickly added when he opened his mouth. “But some were cutthroat.”

“Some,” he admitted. “And others simply got enough attention to make me look ruthless. Like firing Wilson’s father, for example.” He paused again. “Or breaking Cassie’s heart.”

She looked at him. Not a good idea since they were sitting so close. It put her mouth much too close to his. Not good if he was truly going through with resisting her tonight.

“If the killer turns out to be one of them, this isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s theirs, and none of it is on you.”

He wanted to believe her, but Dutton could still feel the guilt. That must have shown on his face, too, because she leaned in and kissed her. Nothing hot and hungry. This was a kiss meant to heal. And it worked, but just a little.

Of course, it also worked to kick up that heat.

The heat that was always there. Always.

And that led him to do something stupid and he deepened the kiss. Despite the lecture he’d given himself earlier, he probably wouldn’t have done more than just dive into the kiss. He would have pulled Grace into his arms and gone from there.

But her phone rang.

The sound shot through the hall and was so unexpected, Grace let out a soft gasp. “The phone,” she muttered. “Not the security system.”

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