Rickie rolled his eyes.
The woman turned to Nick and smiled. “Thanks, Mr.—?”
“Ryder. But call me Nick.”
“I’m Nadine Morris…Nick,” she said, letting her eyes drift over his body. She held on to his name, flirting with him. She was pretty, but she wore too much makeup. Why women had to slather on that goop was beyond him. No ring. Divorced, no doubt.
“I’m just filling in for Charlie. Doing what he’d do.”
“Well, you certainly fill out his uniform.”
“I do my best,” he said neutrally. Even if he was attracted to the woman, he couldn’t take her up on the offer in her eyes. She’d want more than a brief affair—she had a kid, after all—and he was leaving for the Coast as soon as he could.
She kept smiling at him until her son dragged her toward the elevator.
Nick stayed outside for a minute, delaying his encounter with the fumes from the ground-floor hair salon. Why the EPA didn’t set restrictions on hair spray like they did auto emissions, he’d never know.
He glanced up at the art deco facade of the Palm View Apartments—one of Phoenix’s few old-fashioned downtown apartment buildings. Most had been torn down and rebuilt as office buildings or gone condo. The sun seemed too hot for early March, and he felt sweat slide along his torso inside the wool jacket, making his bullet scars itch. He rolled his shoulder as best he could in the tight jacket. Almost a year and he still hadn’t gotten back full mobility.
Sunlight glinting off passing cars made Nick blink. The cloying sweetness of citrus in bloom came to him on the light breeze. Nice, but he preferred the subtle tang of desert plants. Even better, the crisp salt scent of the ocean. Soon.
Three more days and he’d be back on Lake Pleasant in his boat, his private heaven, listening to the slap of the water and the coo of mourning doves. Then, once he’d paid off his ex-wife’s IRS debt with some chef work and maybe some bigger-paying security jobs, he’d escape to the blue freedom of the Pacific.
He was about to head inside when a cab pulled into the curved driveway and jerked to a halt twenty feet from where he stood. The driver exited and came around to let out his passenger, but before he reached the door, it flew open as if spring-loaded and a woman practically leaped out.
She wore a tight black dress, a red hat with a brim as big as a platter, and jeweled sunglasses that practically covered her face. She rushed to the trunk, with remarkable speed considering the stiletto heels she wore. She pushed open the trunk, blocking Nick’s view of the action, but when the cabby got there, there was a brief tug-of-war, which the cabby seemed to win, because the woman stepped away from the trunk while he removed the rest of her bags.
Stubborn woman. Nick wanted to laugh. Then something familiar about the slow curves of her body stopped him dead. He looked more closely at her face. Heart-shaped mouth. Dark, wavy hair. And a body that could stop action anywhere there were men. Like the Backstreet. Nick watched her pay the cabby, strangely unable to breathe. It couldn’t be….
But it was. Unmistakably Miranda. His hands still held the memory of caressing that body, its give and resistance. He could still taste that sweet mouth, could still hear his name on her lips. That night she’d worn a dress the red of her bizarre hat.
She glanced up at him. His heart stopped. She wants me, he thought, then cleared his head. She wants the doorman, you dolt. He snorted, realizing he’d have to schlepp her bags like a pimple-faced bellhop. How the mighty are fallen. Suddenly he wished Charlie had gotten another pal to cover for him.
MIRANDA CHASE FROWNED as the cabdriver practically hip-checked her away from her bags. She had no choice but to let him take over. It was part of his job, but she hated people doing things for her she could do for herself. She’d add a huge tip to his fare for his trouble.
She watched as he unloaded the dry-ice totes that held the sample blossoms from the new breed of Taos chili—the secret ingredient she needed to perfect her rejuvenation cream—and a decoction of lily of the valley and lemongrass in jojoba oil that, combined with grapefruit-seed extract, would offer the natural preservative and emulsifier that she needed so Chase Beauty could mass-produce her revolutionary cosmetics.
That was why she’d come home early from her trip—not even her assistant Lilly knew she was back. She’d intended to go on some botanical-search hikes, but she was too eager to test the decoction her lab had created and finalize the formula for her last product.
She paid the disgruntled taxi driver, then glanced at Charlie, but decided she’d scoot inside without his assistance. There were plenty of elderly residents he should be helping, but he always insisted on carrying her bags all the way to her top-floor apartment.
She pushed the handle-release button on her large wheeled suitcase, but it didn’t open. She jiggled the handle and twisted the button, but nothing moved. She could feel Charlie heading her way. “I’ve got it,” she called to him, continuing to struggle.
But she didn’t have it, and soon a tall shadow blocked the sun and a man’s hand touched her bag. “Allow me,” said a voice too low and gruff to be Charlie’s.
A chill of recognition slid like an ice cube down Miranda’s back, and she looked up into a face she remembered from the hottest night of her life. Nick. In a doorman’s uniform, of all things. He didn’t look at her, just adjusted the handle so it clicked sharply into place.
What the heck was Nick doing here? She felt herself turn red. Her hat shaded her face and she wore sunglasses, so maybe he wouldn’t recognize her after all this time. She kept looking down to avoid his gaze.
“Hello, Miranda.” He recognized her, all right, and the huskiness of his voice told her he remembered all of that long, amazing night they’d spent together. Miranda cringed inside.
“Hi.” She dragged her eyes up to meet his. Her tongue felt thick in her suddenly dry mouth. “Nick, right?”
“You remembered,” he said wryly.
As if she could forget. It had been Nick, oh, Nick all night long. She remembered everything about him. His face, wide cheekbones, dark brows, sleepy-looking eyes, and a sensuous smile that lifted higher on one side than the other so that he looked wise—and wise-assed. She’d know Nick anywhere—even under that goofy cap. “It’s been a while,” she said.
“Yeah. A while.” Nick pushed the cap off his head and banged it against his thigh, obviously as uncomfortable as she was. “So, how are you?”
“Fine.” He seemed too close, so she stepped back. “Just f—” Her heel slipped off the curb, but she caught herself before she tilted over. “Just fine.” She smiled, trying not to look nonplussed. “How are you? I…I read in the paper about the…um…incident.”
He shrugged. “Occupational hazard. No big deal.” And none of your business, his eyes said, tightening at the edges. “Protect and serve, that’s what we do.” He pushed back his hair—longer than when she’d last seen him and too shaggy for a cop, but still a rich chestnut that begged to be touched. He resituated the cap in a way that made the silly thing look sexy.
“I was glad it turned out okay,” she said.
Nearly a year ago and not long after their night together, Nick had been shot, once in the heart, she remembered, during a drug bust gone wrong—the wounds so severe he’d hovered near death for days. Each morning during that time, she’d opened the newspaper with shaking fingers, her eyes wild for the headline that would declare his condition, praying he still lived. When she read he’d been upgraded to “stable” and regained consciousness, she’d been so relieved she’d cried—as if he’d been a member of her family or something.
“Yep. Good as new,” Nick said. He rotated his shoulder to prove it, but stiffness in the movement and the