Nikki was inside. He could see her shadowy form in the entry hall. Judge Murphy’s clerk had called him to tell him the judge had given permission for her to stay in the house temporarily.
“Damn it Nikki, open the door.” He leaned on the bell, the muscles in his shoulders bunched into tight knots. He wasn’t leaving until she talked to him.
He had his fist raised to pound on the solid oak when she opened the door. The sight of her hit him like a fist in the gut.
He thought he’d remembered how beautiful she was.
He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
He ran his gaze up and down her body, taking in changes.
She was thinner, her blond hair longer and a few shades darker. Her blue eyes were shadowed by fatigue. Had she been ill? The possibility bothered him, but from her scowl he figured this wasn’t a good time to ask personal questions, no matter how much he wanted answers.
He’d never stopped wondering. Where the hell had she been for the past year? And who had she been with?
Fury like he’d never felt before threatened to engulf him. Born of jealousy, his anger teetered on the edge, ready to spill over whenever he let himself think of the possibility of her with another man.
He hated the weakness he felt because of her.
Feet apart, she held the door with a stiff arm like a shield. “What do you want?”
Same rich, sexy voice. The sound of it after all this time made him want to grab her and kiss her until she made that little wanting noise that drove him nuts. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her.
“I heard you were back.”
Silent, she eyed him suspiciously, making him feel like a stranger who had shown up at her door to sell her something.
“What do you want?” she repeated stubbornly, not giving an inch.
You, he was tempted to say, remembering the short time they’d been lovers. Her voice, telling him things in the dark, had set him on fire. He wanted to push his way into the entry, kick the door shut and pin her up against the wall where he could feel the length of her body against him.
Joe cleared his throat, fighting his arousal. He didn’t want to have this conversation on the porch with the door between them.
“May I come in?”
The look on her face changed from anger to disbelief. “What makes you think you’d ever be welcome in this house again?”
“I didn’t ask for a welcome.”
“Tell me what you came to say,” she spat the words at him.
“Have you heard from your father?” He looked her in the eye, trying to focus on what he had come for and ignore the urge to grab her.
“My father is dead.” She looked at him as if he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
“Are you sure?” He wasn’t.
For a moment her expression of disdain faltered. “Yes.”
She stared at him steadily with those gorgeous blue eyes. She didn’t blink or fidget. Either she was telling him what she believed, or she had learned to lie in the past year.
“Would you tell me if you had heard from him?”
“No.” Nikki closed the front door in his face and he heard the dead bolt slide home with a snap.
Joe stood on the porch and watched her through the window as she retreated toward the back of the house. The dark interior swallowed her up.
He turned and headed back to his car. No goodbye, no threats of what she would do if he came back. He frowned at her easy dismissal of him, as if he were just another door-to-door salesman.
Galtero, he thought as he rubbed the back of his neck, you were a fool a year ago and you haven’t learned squat.
He had lost his shield with the San Diego Police Department for a month because he had slept with her while he had been working her father’s case. He felt lucky he hadn’t been permanently busted down to traffic control.
His job on the force meant more to him than anything.
But just now, if she’d invited him, he might have risked it all again and followed her upstairs to her bed without a second thought.
Hell, they never would have made it up the stairs.
History had proved where Nikki Walker was concerned, he had no self-control, and that made her dangerous to his career and his self-respect.
That fact scared the hell out of him. No matter how tempted he might be, he couldn’t give in.
He couldn’t survive a repeat of last year’s disaster.
Shaking, Nikki made it up the back stairs to her room and sank into the Queen Anne chair. Her infant son, Michael, slept in the playpen wedged between her bed and the wall. She listened to her baby’s soft breathing and struggled to calm down.
For a year she’d told herself that Joe Galtero meant nothing to her anymore. The two minutes he had been on her front porch had made a liar out of her.
When he ran his gaze over her she’d remembered the feel of his hands on her as if they’d just made love.
Rubbing her damp palms on her slacks, she vowed she wouldn’t do a thing about the attraction. If she hadn’t been desperate she never would have returned to this house.
She hadn’t come back out of choice. All her money was tied up in her father’s company, and the IRS had frozen all assets when her father and his partner disappeared. Tomorrow she would go to see the family’s attorney. She needed to try and separate her finances from her father’s bankrupt company.
She had to rebuild her life so she could take care of her baby. For her own survival, that life couldn’t include Joe.
Nikki tipped her head back against the silk upholstery and wearily closed her eyes. She knew how vulnerable the little pig in the straw house must have felt when the big bad wolf showed up at his front door.
“Sir?”
Annoyed, Joe looked up from files on M. Raymond Walker to see a rookie cop standing beside his desk. He looked excited about something. Joe couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this kid looked.
“Yeah?”
“My partner and I just worked a home invasion. On the way back to the station he remembered you had an open case involving a member of the victim’s family.”
Joe went still. He knew the answer before he asked the question. “Name?”
“Walker, sir. Brick mansion in Mission Hills.”
“When?” He stood up. He’d been on Nikki’s front porch two hours ago.
“Around six. We were the first ones there,” he said, pride evident in his voice.
Joe nodded, his heart beating painfully hard in his chest.
“Was she injured?” He’d find the bastards who’d broken in and kill them with his bare hands if they’d hurt her.
The rookie took a step back from Joe’s desk and shot him a nervous look. “Not badly. She refused medical treatment.”
Joe grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and started for the door when the cop’s next words halted him in his tracks.
“She was more worried about her kid than herself. Claimed she didn’t know why they’d broken in.”
Kid? What kid? His gut tight, he turned and faced the young cop. He had to take a few deep breaths before he could talk.