“It’s Ms…Jill Harper,” she supplied bravely. “And you are?”
“Officer Whit Tanner, and I suggest, Ms. Harper, that in the future you keep a closer eye on your child. I found him three blocks away. Anything could have happened to him.”
“Three…!”
Whit saw the woman’s face blanch as white as the robe she was wearing, a robe he’d been trying not to notice was becoming more and more transparent with each drop of rain. Though her curves were lovely, despite her petite frame, he didn’t want to be picking her up from the pavement.
“Don’t faint on me, lady.” He shoved open the patrol car door and jumped out, ready to assist.
“I-I’m okay,” she replied unsteadily. “This has all been such a scare, that’s all.” She drew a deep breath, her small, but intriguing, breasts rising beneath her raindamp robe. The delicate outline of her nipples puckered visibly against the silky wet fabric, and Whit swallowed a groan.
What a night! He’d rather haul in a half dozen unruly drunks than pull neighborhood duty like this. It was too hard on a man’s body. “Look,” he said around a suddenly dry throat, “I’d better get you and small-fry here into the house. It’s raining out.in case you hadn’t noticed.”
And Whit wasn’t sure she had.
He’d meant to give her what for on the facts of rearing a minor—at least from a police point of view—but her own fear of what could have happened tonight was no doubt worse than any stern lecture from him.
Behind him Brody attempted to clamber out of the car, his short legs tangling in the department-issued blanket Whit had wrapped him in earlier. The boy looked tired and sleepy, a little worse for wear from his night’s escapade, and his mother flashed around Whit like a streaking bullet to reach him. He’d felt the zing from one or two before in his career, and this brush past him was no less charged.
Whit took one lingering moment to admire her pert derriere as she bent to pick up her child, then he remembered his civic duty, as well as his male manners. “Here, allow me.”
He scooped up Brody in his arms and headed for the house with its front door standing open, light pouring out invitingly into the dark night. He didn’t want to think of the woman who lived there, the small sprite of femininity who moved through the rooms, taking care of her son…and whatever else it was she did there.
She’d called herself Ms.—and there was no ring on her finger. To Whit that added up to single, but that didn’t mean she was available. And he had no business being curious.
“What about Wolf?” Brody asked, his soft breath muffled into Whit’s collar. “I gotta find him.”
He carried Brody up the three front steps to the porch. His mother was right behind. Whit could smell her sweet fragrance, and he could feel the heat of her. “Not tonight, pardner. That’s my job. And I promise to do my job if you do yours and go to sleep and don’t give your mom any more trouble, got that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Brody was fading fast, quickly becoming a sleeping weight in his arms.
“I can take him now,” Jill said, opening the screen door and holding out her arms for the boy.
“I’m sure you can, but I’ve already got him. Just point me to his bedroom.”
Jill didn’t need the big cop parading through her house, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Before she could answer, he’d waltzed past her and stood in the middle of the living room, looking around for a bedroom.
“In there.” Jill pointed down the hall to Brody’s room, then clasped her arms around herself.
For the first time she realized just how wet she was. Her thin robe was sticking to her petite figure in dangerous places, and she only hoped the man in the blue uniform hadn’t noticed. Her red-gold hair was damp, frizzing about her face, and her feet squeaked in her wet pink house shoes.
She had about as much sex appeal as soggy lettuce, while he, on the other hand, had more than should be allowable at this time of night. That was it—it was late—her defenses were down.
If she had her wits about her she’d probably have never noticed the man’s seemlier attributes, those gorgeously broad shoulders, his dark curly hair, damp from the rain, that strong, square chin he kept raised to regulation macho, tough-guy height. So…she’d allow him that one flaw.
On him, it looked good.
So did the uniform, she thought as he came out from the bedroom. She could bounce a quarter off the snug fit of the shirt molded so conformingly across his hard chest. Her gaze trailed down the length of him, then slowly back up—until she met with the small smile hovering at the edges of his hard mouth.
He basked for a moment in her easy perusal—and that, she thought, was his second flaw. He could have been a gentleman about it and pretended not to notice.
Finally he glanced away, centering his attention instead on the front door. “Is this how Brody got out tonight?” he asked, pacing over to it. “Did you forget to set the dead bolt before you went to bed?”
Jill wasn’t sure she liked the man’s tone. In fact, she was certain she didn’t. “I didn’t forget to set it,” she said. “The lock is broken.”
She’d meant to replace it, but there’d been so many things to do to make this small place livable for herself and Brody. Now, it seemed, she’d let one of the most important ones slide.
Jill felt the weight of her errant responsibility settle onto her shoulders like a stone. “Brody’s never done anything like this before,” she tried to explain. “I don’t know why he didn’t come and wake me if his dog needed to go out.”
But Jill was afraid she did know. Ever since her divorce a year ago Brody’s young life had been turned upside down. One minute he was a little boy, the next he tried to be a grown-up four-year-old, the man around the house. His efforts had touched Jill’s heart, but this time those efforts had been far from touching. They’d been foolhardy.
She wasn’t sure her explanation bought her leniency with the officer. He was frowning. “I’d suggest you have a talk with your son,” he said. “And—” he snapped the nonfunctioning dead bolt “—get this lock fixed.”
His tone had all the ring of an order.
“I’ll have a talk with Brody. Tomorrow,” she said. “Little boys don’t always think of consequences, of what might happen,” she added, meeting his dark-eyed gaze.
She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been a little boy himself—or had he been born in that uniform, possessing all the answers in life?
“Do you have children?” she couldn’t help but ask.
Her question seemed to surprise him momentarily, but finally he answered. “No—I don’t have children.”
She wondered if that held true for a wife, as well.
Somehow she had the feeling he was unattached—and that he liked it that way.
Too bad, she thought. She’d seen the surprising gentleness he’d shown with Brody, and she suspected he’d make a good father.
He turned to leave. “I’ll see what I can do about finding Wolf.”
It had stopped raining, and the hint of a moon was trying to peek out from behind a bank of clouds. Jill could just glimpse it over the tops of the trees. “I appreciate what you did tonight, but I wouldn’t think finding lost dogs would exactly be in the line of duty.”
He turned back to her. “I promised a little boy,” he said softly.
Jill