If Tempest hadn’t been frightened before, she sure as hell was starting to worry now. Almost enough to pack up her stuff and sleep at her family’s ostentatious place on Park Avenue, but not quite. “Don’t you think this murdering prostitute chick was a little excessive in wrecking the apartment? She broke every statue I ever made.”
“Don’t forget we’re dealing with a criminal mind. Studies show a high percentage of these people are mentally unbalanced in one way or another.” He whistled to Eloise, who came bounding over, pink tongue lolling out one side of her mouth. “All the more reason to let me go with you tonight.”
“You haven’t seen Eloise in action.” She couldn’t let Wes start thinking he needed to look out for her. She hadn’t even managed to free herself from her family business yet, so she definitely couldn’t afford to get mixed up with anybody who might start having expectations of her. “She might look sweet and friendly, but she’s as kick-ass as any police dog when it comes to watching my back. I couldn’t ask for better protection.”
“Unless the killer shoots her.” Wes pulled Eloise’s leash down from a hook by the front door like he’d been living there all his life. “I’m not trying to scare you, Tempest, but you owe it to yourself and your dog to be careful until I catch this person.”
She willed herself to nod her head. He was right, and she knew it.
Tempest just hadn’t figured out how to reconcile her need for independence with her desire to stay alive. The choice might not have been so difficult except that she wanted to stand on her own two feet and Wes Shaw looked like a man well-versed in sweeping women right off them.
4
WES STUMBLED over his own feet the next morning, bleary-eyed and fuzzyheaded after too little sleep. Blindly he fought his way through the maze of gym equipment that accounted for the sum total of his living room furnishings. Despite his best efforts, he stubbed his toe on a dumbbell and unleashed a string of curses that brought his St. Bernard, Kong, running from the bedroom with a woof.
“All clear,” Wes shouted to the dog whose protective instincts would have made Miss Independent Boucher break out in hives.
She’d practically hyperventilated the night before when Wes suggested he spend the night at her place for safety reasons. Suddenly, she’d developed all sorts of plans for beefing up the security around her apartment, insisting she’d be fine without his help. He’d tried to convince her to go back to her family’s place where she apparently stayed during the week, but she’d been stubborn on that count, too.
Damned independent woman. Thinking of her there alone had cost him plenty of shut-eye.
He’d stayed up half the night thinking about her, after checking and re-checking every lock in her apartment. Her door had shown no visible signs of tampering, but the only way into the third floor space had been through the front entrance or the door to the fire escape, which had a dead bolt whose lock was collecting dust. Wes had talked to her superintendent along with the old woman who lived a few doors down and had been home during the break-in. Neither of them had heard or seen anything unusual.
After forcing himself to leave her building, he’d gone back to the precinct to go over his case file on the murder and enter an incident report about Tempest’s intruder. But late-night brainstorming with Vanessa hadn’t helped them figure out the connections between their murder investigation and Tempest or MatingGame.
At least they’d eliminated Tempest as a murder suspect since she had an ironclad alibi for the victim’s time of death. A lady photographer caught her date with a local coffee shop owner on film for a tabloid column, and Wes ended up with the distinct displeasure of confirming with the guy that he and Tempest had taken in a movie together that night. Too bad no amount of the man’s assurances that they were just friends did a damn thing to improve Wes’s mood. Obviously, he shouldn’t care who she dated, but it irritated him to picture her with the artsy-fartsy coffee shop guy who managed to weave Kafka references into conversation on two separate occasions.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Wes now discovered he’d lost his taste for coffee.
Reaching into the refrigerator for a bottle of some bogus energy drink, he chugged a few swigs and started thinking through his day. First and foremost was making a phone call to authorities in Mexico for some more information on Tempest’s father. Not that he didn’t trust foreign cops—he just didn’t trust any cop outside his own precinct.
A suspicious nature came with the badge. And Wes had all the more reason to be careful with Tempest since his instincts couldn’t be trusted where she was concerned. He planned to check her out ten ways to Sunday so the next time he showed up on her doorstep, he wouldn’t have to hold himself back from the attraction that had gnawed at him ever since he’d first walked into her apartment.
Because the next time she leaned and stretched or wriggled those oh-so-fine curves of hers in his direction, he had every intention of showing her how appreciative he could be.
TEMPEST DIDN’T APPRECIATE the stomach-clenching fear her intruder had instilled in her.
She might have given in to her worries and spent the weekend at the Boucher family home if it hadn’t been for Eloise. Her dog had slept by her all night, ready to keep away any returning criminals or stray bogeymen who threatened her safe haven. Too bad her faithful canine wasn’t as effective at keeping away men who threatened her peace of mind.
This morning, Tempest had been awake since dawn, cleaning and organizing the studio until she’d achieved some semblance of its former order. Now she reviewed the summary of her missed Days episode online while she told herself she wasn’t listening for Wes’s footsteps in the hallway.
She’d read the same line three times about the latest character to come back from the dead—normally a topic she loved—when Eloise ran to the door and barked.
Tempest peered through the peephole in time to spy a familiar figure striding down the hall. Obviously, her dog was even better attuned to the new man in their lives than Tempest. By the time Wes rapped on the door, she was already opening it.
“Did you even check to make sure it was me?” Wes frowned at her, his vintage suit replaced by faded jeans and a blue T-shirt underneath a long tweed wool coat.
In a word—yum. The more fitted clothes were put to good use on a man as ruthlessly toned as Wes Shaw.
“Eloise told me it was you.” She opened the door wider, her gaze flicking south as he walked past her into the apartment.
So she noticed he had a great butt, okay? That didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it. Slamming the door shut behind him, she braced herself for another round of temptation. She’d already decided today would be all about clearing her name with Wes and helping him find out what was going on with MatingGame.
“She told you?” He leaned down to pet her pooch’s ears before tossing a folder on the boxes of debris she’d stacked by the front door. “Lucky for you, I own a dog, too, or I might think you were losing your mind.”
“You have a dog?” She shouldn’t ask him about it, didn’t need any reason to like this guy any more than she already did, but curiosity got the better of her.
“Kong. She’s been with me since—For about two years.”
She sensed more to that story, but it didn’t look like he’d be sharing any more of it since he backed closer to her computer.
“Kong’s a girl?”
“Trust me, it fits. She’s not a girlie girl.” He bent over her keyboard and scanned a few lines about her soap opera before moving his hand to the escape key. “You