Page 4 of Tangled
Cooper’s hand tightened around hers and his jaw ticked, but he nodded.
“Did you leave anything in the bar?” she asked. He shook his head. “Okay, ready?”
“More than,” he muttered. Then, moving in front of her, he pulled her the last few feet to freedom as he also reached around and tugged her hair tie out. Her curls sprang free as they stepped into the crisp night air and, with a laugh, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and tucked her to his side.
Leaning close to her ear as they walked, he spoke. “Sorry about the presumption,” he said, handing her the tie. “I thought it would hide your face better. Now smile,” he added.
Despite what they’d witnessed less than ten minutes ago, or maybe because of it, she laughed. The night had descended into the absurd and gallows humor had long been her go-to. Again, Cooper tugged her closer, and she stumbled into him. His hand slid under her cropped sweater and settled on her belly, the heat of it seeping through the thin camisole she wore underneath.
The shock that went through her body at his touch drew another laugh from her—this one more rueful, though. She worked in disaster zones around the world—sometimes natural disasters, sometimes man-made, but always brutal. She’d seen villages wiped out from disease or warlords. She’d seen women and children brutalized in the cruelest of ways. She’d seen cities destroyed by earthquakes and bombs. Sex, for her, had always been about connection, a reminder of her humanity in conditions that were almost never humane.
But even in those situations, when adrenaline ran hot and emotions churned, she’dneverfelt anything like the shock that had gone through her when Cooper’s large hand spread across her belly.
And the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. Cooper wasn’t a man she could pursue—wasn’t a man shewouldpursue. She didn’t even know his name, nor did she want to. In fact, the less she knew about him the better. Her hunt for the blond man in the bar and his boss wasn’t over, not by a long shot, and she refused to bring anyone else into the mess. She couldn’t afford tohave that kind of weakness. Nor, more importantly, did she want him anywhere near the danger she expected to find herself in. Not that she was intentionally looking for it. But having grown up in South Central LA, then worked in the places she’d worked, she knew when it was brewing.
“The cops,” Cooper said. Damn, even his voice sent a wave of goose bumps across her skin.
She cleared her throat and shifted away from him. The bar was a block behind them, and they didn’t need to keep up the farce quite so realistically. “Is your car at Roxy’s?” she asked as she dug a burner phone from her purse.
He shook his head. “My flight from Paris was delayed six hours. By the time I got here, it was too late to drive home. I’m staying at that hotel”—he pointed to one of the nicer chains in the area—“and I walked.”
Not the nicest place to go for a walk. Especially not at night. But she understood his decision. She’d sat on enough long-haul flights that fresh air was never anything she took for granted.
The call connected, and without conscious thought, she continued toward his hotel as she talked.
“911 dispatch, what’s your emergency?” a man asked.
Infusing her voice with fear and hesitation, she answered. “I was at Roxy’s, you know the burger joint by the airport?” She didn’t wait for the man to respond. “And my…my boyfriend and I, well, we kind of sneaked into the back…and, and we saw a man get shot.”
“Are you somewhere safe, ma’am?”
“Yes, my boyfriend and I booked it out of there.”
“But you believe there’s an active shooter at Roxy’s?” the man clarified. She could hear his rapid typing in the background.
“I, I don’t know. We saw one person in the back, like I said.”
“I’m sending cars now. Can you stay on the line until they arrive?”
Now was the tricky part. Not for her, but because Cooper didn’t seem to miss much.
“I can’t,” she said, then hung up. Then, as discreetly as possible, she removed the battery from the burner and slid both parts back into her purse.
“Are you an undercover agent of some sort?” Cooper asked.
She should say yes, but she found herself not wanting to lie. She had no intention of revealing everything, but she didn’t want to lie.
She shook her head.
“But you were tracking those men.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “How did you know?”
They walked a few steps in silence before he answered. “When they came in, your eyes, they sort of zeroed in on them. And your body went, I don’t know how to describe it, because it wasn’t like you were fidgety before, but you went still. Like the energy around you quieted with a focus.”
Wow. She was damn good at reading people, but he might have her beat.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I noticed who you were looking at and while I don’t have any training, I have a lot of exposure to spotting people who might be trouble.”
