Loe raamatut: «Maternal Instinct»

How could she have done something so stupid, so humiliating, so…undignified?

Nell stood under the shower, letting the hot water beat over her head. How could she face him again? How could she work with a man she’d let…

She moaned aloud at the fresh realization of exactly what she’d let him do. Never mind what she’d done.

She could only pray he was embarrassed, too, but what were the odds of that? Hugh McLean had a reputation with women. Nell knew painfully well that she wasn’t even close to being a looker. But she was a woman, one more notch in his belt.

She flushed hot and cold. Her behavior had been so alien for the woman she’d become. It was as if too many beers had thrown her back to the wild teenager she’d been sixteen years ago, before she learned her lesson the hard way.

Would Hugh keep his word and not tell anyone? Nell didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

As she got out of the shower, dried and dressed, Nell’s thoughts raced in vicious circles. Then, in the kitchen, she discovered a note from Kim, saying that she was going out with her boyfriend.

Great. Wonderful. Her sixteen-year-old daughter was spending the day with her too-ardent boyfriend. What Nell wouldn’t give for year-round school.

Dear Reader,

As the parent of teenage girls, I all too frequently fuss about what they could do that would upset me the most. A teenage pregnancy, of course, is right up there on the list. In a mildly malicious mood one day, I pondered instead what I might do that would shock and upset them the most. I didn’t have to think long. If their unmarried mom had sex with a guy she wasn’t even dating and got pregnant, they would be horrified.

It was easy to click into story mode. What if my fictional mom has reason to worry that her sixteen-year-old daughter might get pregnant? And what if she herself gets pregnant and can’t bring herself to tell her daughter? Hey—this girl will never listen to Mom’s moralizing again! Of course, I had to think of a good reason my heroine would be so careless…. But I won’t give that away.

I love multigenerational stories, as you’ve probably noticed by now, so this one plays on a common theme—we often repeat the mistakes of our parents. We are what we were raised to be—unless we overcome our childhood lessons, which is a challenge worthy of a novel!

I’ve become fond of the McLean brothers, and perhaps of Hugh the most. I could hardly wait to introduce him to his match—a woman who might be pregnant with his child, but isn’t all that anxious to marry him.

Enjoy!

Janice Kay Johnson

Maternal Instinct
Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Maternal Instinct

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

SHOULDERS BACK, head high, braced for the worst, Hugh McLean waited for the dreaded assignment.

Damn Riley, he thought bitterly. His partner was on leave with back pain doctors told him might keep him flat in bed for months. Had he hurt himself tackling a bad guy? In a crash during a car chase? Hell, no. He’d tripped over his kid’s plastic blocks and tumbled down the stairs in his own house.

A bulldog in his fifties with a gray crewcut, Police Captain Fisher looked up from Hugh’s open personnel file. “You know Granstrom? She’s been partnered with Wensson. He’s moving to Scottsdale, Arizona—can you believe it?—because of his wife’s allergies.” His dry tone suggested wifey should have kept blowing her nose. “I’m putting you with Granstrom for now.”

Hugh groaned and his shoulders slumped. “Not Granstrom! Anybody but Granstrom.”

Behind the desk, his captain gazed at him coldly, without favor. “What’s wrong with her?”

She was a damn woman, that was what. Hugh liked women; they were even okay on the police force. He’d worked with ones who didn’t think like a woman, and he got along just fine with them. Nell Granstrom was not one of those.

“Our styles clash,” he said from between clenched teeth.

Captain Fisher grunted. “Funny, she doesn’t like you any better.”

That jolted. “What?”

“She’s not enthusiastic. I can’t help either of you.” He slapped Hugh’s file closed. “You’re the only two at loose ends right now. I’m not going to break up established partnerships to accommodate your personality clash.”

Desperate, Hugh lied, “It’s not that. I swear. We just work differently.”

“Yeah, yeah. Your styles.” The captain’s gaze was unsympathetic. “Here’s my advice—mesh ’em.” He looked over Hugh’s shoulder. “Ah. Here’s your new partner now.”

Hugh didn’t turn when the door with the glass inset opened. He knew well enough what Nell Granstrom looked like, all five foot ten of her. She had a model’s build: leggy, skinny, fine-boned despite her height, and a face memorable principally for warm brown eyes and a rosebud mouth. Her hair…hell, he didn’t know what color it was. He almost turned around to remind himself.

“Captain,” said Granstrom, voice expressionless.

“I won’t ask for ‘I do’ from either of you.” Captain Fisher’s grin was sharklike. “Let’s consider this a shotgun wedding. You’ve got each other to have and to hold from this day forward, until Riley gets his ass out of bed. You got problems with each other,” he finished briskly, “I don’t want to hear them.”

A rap vibrated the glass hard enough to bring even Hugh’s head around. “Captain!” Framed in the doorway, the normally imperturbable Lieutenant Nyland looked shaken. “We’ve got reports of shooting at the Joplin Building. The woman on the phone says a gunman is mowing everybody down.”

The captain was on his feet. “Confirmation?”

“Multiple 911 calls from offices on the floors below.”

“Units on the way?”

The lieutenant nodded. “Sir.”

“Call out the SWAT team.” The captain brushed by Hugh and opened his locker. “Gentlemen—and ladies—let’s get suited up and moving.”

Hugh was able to avoid looking at Nell Granstrom as he raced toward the locker rooms. “I’ll drive,” he snapped over his shoulder. Start as you mean to go on.

Both wore black jackets over bulletproof vests when they met at his squad car, she on the passenger side, he on the driver’s. She’d apparently chosen not to argue. Over the car roof, their eyes met for a fleeting second of mutual antipathy and disbelief before both leaped into the car.

Her hair was not quite blond, not quite brown.

Behind the wheel, Hugh joined a caravan of emergency vehicles tearing out of the parking garage, all flashing lights and sounding sirens.

Under his breath, he muttered an obscenity. “We’ll probably find out some jackass let off firecrackers.” Nonetheless, his hands were tight enough on the wheel for his knuckles to show white. If this was a legitimate call, it would give his mother nightmares.

Beside him, Nell Granstrom said in an odd voice, “I hear the dispatcher claims the woman was…‘mewling in fear.’ Her words. She was under her desk, whispering. Dispatch could hear bang, bang and yells.”

He shot her a disquieted glance. “Where’d you get this?”

Her shoulders moved. “Another dispatcher in the women’s locker room.”

Hugh swore again and forced his attention back to the road. Adrenaline surged, taking him to that hyper state any cop knew well. “Do we know how many shooters?” he asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head. She was looking tense, craning her neck to see ahead where a cordon was already being set up. Hugh wondered if she was scared. He hadn’t heard rumors about her cracking under pressure, but any time a guy had to hook up with a new partner, he wondered. Especially when that new partner was a woman who liked to understand the psychology of the scumbags she arrested, who had sympathy because of their tough beginnings.

She and Connor would get along fine, he thought. His brother had abandoned police work for graduate school at the University of Washington in psychology. Having finished his master’s degree a year ago, Connor McLean now counseled kids, specializing in those who’d been sexually abused.

Hugh figured people more interested in the complex inner life of victims or perps than in justice probably belonged out of uniform. Connor had been a good cop, but he’d always had worrisome leanings. The way he’d met his wife had toppled him right over. It was just as well he was off the force.

The convoy had slowed to a crawl, using the middle lane to bypass the blocked civilian traffic that clogged the streets. Downtown had turned into a circus of honking horns, yelling commuters, blaring sirens and flashing lights.

One of the officers on the scene waved Hugh to a place inside the cordon. He and Granstrom got out and crouched behind the back bumper, weapons drawn. They weren’t alone. Forty cops or more, all heavily armed, were ready to go in.

If some idiot had set off firecrackers, he was going to be damn sorry.

The Joplin Building housed The Greater Northwest Insurance Company, Windermere Real Estate and a title company. Greater Northwest took up the top four floors of the stylish six-story building erected in the twenties and remodeled for new tenants just a few years back. Hugh couldn’t hear any gunfire over the sirens and shouted voices out here. Sunlight glinted off windows. The July morning was already hot, and he was sweating in the vest.

Becoming impatient, tension building to an unbearable pitch, he rose to a bent-over position. “I’ll go find out the word,” he said, relieved to have an excuse to leave his new partner.

She nodded, her frowning gaze trained on the Joplin Building. Irrationally, he was annoyed that she didn’t seem to like to look at him any more than he did at her.

He hadn’t gone two steps before orders came down the line that SWAT team members were moving in, and other officers were to play backup. Dispatch said the woman on the phone thought the gunman had left or killed himself. She hadn’t heard shots for the past four or five minutes. She’d been advised to stay under the desk and keep quiet.

Going back to crouch again behind his car, Hugh said tersely, “We get the side door to the north. Let’s move.”

Two teams of ten cleared the first two floors, checking empty offices, evacuating the silent, dark, locked rooms where terrified secretaries and computer entry clerks huddled. They were sent scuttling down the halls and out the exit doors to run sobbing for the police cordon.

The two teams formed again at the north and south staircases that led up to the third floor, where The Greater Northwest Insurance Office’s reception area was. Hugh led one group, which moved silently up the north staircase, pausing at the steel door painted with a large numeral three.

At his nod, Granstrom yanked it open and he went in, weapon at the ready. The long hallway was eerily silent. Four doors down, a body lay sprawled halfway out. It was a woman in a white blouse soaked with blood, her eyes wide and staring.

Nobody said a word, but Hugh felt the wave of shock. His father had died like this, some crazy opening fire and taking out a bunch of people at the bank. Hugh remembered his mother’s grief and impotent anger at a failed police investigation better than he did his father. Yellowed newspaper articles collected in a scrapbook had been his childhood bible.

Thou shalt be a cop, and do it better than it has been done.

He gave his head an irritated shake. He was on the job, no place for emotion.

Granstrom covered him when he went into the first office. Empty.

The second one, she went into first. He heard a whispered imprecation as he followed. He couldn’t even blame her. The man behind the desk had taken multiple shots to the face. The result was hideous.

In the next office he heard a sound. “Police. Come out,” he said in a taut voice.

A sob was muffled. Silence built, thick enough to make air hard to breathe. Terror did that.

Hugh and his new partner exchanged a glance.

“We’re police officers,” Granstrom said, her voice soft. “You’re safe now.”

Still silence. Then the door to a metal cabinet quivered, inched open. A woman, face soaked with tears, stared wild-eyed from a fetal position inside.

Nell Granstrom gently drew her out and ushered her from the office. A backup team led her away.

The next hour had a nightmarish quality. They found body after body, all shot. Weapons had been discarded as the ammunition was spent. An AK-47 lay in the hall, an M-2 carbine converted into a full automatic weapon was just outside the elevator on the fourth floor. The smell of death was sickening, the wounded, keening in agony, more upsetting than the dead. Each grisly new sight overlaid the last. His mind took snapshots he knew he’d never be able to discard: the way the blood beaded and pooled on the oatmeal-colored berber carpet, the look of a man shot in the face, the whimpering primal terror of a young woman being helped outside, the blank, shell-shocked expressions on the faces of his fellow cops. And the sounds…God, the sounds. The screams, the bubbly breaths torturously dragged into a ruined chest, the tiny rustles or whimpers that gave away survivors.

Hugh had seen terrible deaths on Highway 101. The worst was a whole family—mother, father and two kids—killed by a drunk driver who hit their little foreign car head-on. But the drunk hadn’t killed them one at a time, looking into their eyes, soaking in their fear. He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.

Someone here had meant to hurt as many people as possible. He hadn’t cared about the widows he made, the kids who would grow up without a mother or father.

Hugh and Nell did their job grimly, silently, not stopping long enough to react or think, because they might not have been able to go on. He kept expecting to see a dead face he knew. What if some of the cops had family or friends who worked here?

On the fifth floor, they found no injured and only two bodies, the first just outside the elevators with a single small caliber hole in his temple. A Beretta lay near the middle-aged man in a business suit. In one of the first offices another worker was dead, sprawled over his desk as if he’d been standing behind it. This one had been killed by a handgun as well. Had the shooter been running out of ammunition? Hugh wondered. He’d expended a firestorm to get this far. Where was he?

A rustling sound brought Hugh whirling to face a partition. Damn it, he was getting careless. He jerked his head, and Granstrom silently circled the room to where the movable partition met the wall.

Standing behind a metal filing cabinet, Hugh said, “Police! Come out.”

“Is—is he gone?” The man’s voice cracked.

“Please come out where I can see you.”

After a long pause, a disheveled man in the ubiquitous white shirt and tie edged around the partition. Sweat dripped down his face and his gaze darted around the room. He flinched at the sight of his colleague.

“God!” he whispered. “I heard the shot….”

“Did you see the shooter?” Granstrom asked.

He shook his head. A sob wracked his body. “I hid. God help me, I hid. I should have tried to do something.”

“Unless you were armed, there wasn’t anything you could do,” Granstrom said quietly. “Hiding was smart. Now, sir, I’m going to ask you to exit the building. Officers in the hall will take you down.”

After one last shocked look at the corpse, he stumbled out docilely.

Granstrom rejoined Hugh, her face set. “Sixth floor, here we come.”

He grunted. “I can hardly wait.”

Thou shalt do it better, but he hadn’t. None of them had, or history wouldn’t have replayed itself.

NELL SWAYED, almost falling out of the booth onto the tavern floor. Her new partner saved her, his grip drawing her back to his side.

He was a good guy, she thought woozily. A really good guy. Today they’d gone through hell together. Or was it yesterday? She couldn’t remember. Just like she couldn’t remember why she’d hated him yesterday. Or was it the day before?

Didn’t matter. She laid her cheek against his arm. She’d been wrong. Hugh McLean was the best man ever. She nodded solemnly and tipped slowly forward toward the tabletop.

“Whoa,” he said, setting her upright again.

Best man ever. She could tell he felt the same. Why else would he keep putting his arm around her? Maybe they’d stay partners forever. A vague image of them chasing a bad guy, both of them toddling along with walkers, struck her as hilariously funny. She told him, and pretty soon he was laughing, too. Both of them howled until they were crying and lying in the corner of the booth, with her half atop him.

Their drinking mates, Officers Redding and Gardner, gazed at them in bleary approval.

“Don’t know wha’ was so funny,” one of them remarked. “But it musht have been real good.”

The other nodded solemnly.

Nell and Hugh laughed harder.

“I think I want to go home,” she tried to say, but it came out all slurred.

Up close, his blue eyes were brilliant. Maybe a little bloodshot, she thought critically, but then they’d both been awake for…almost a whole twenty-four hours. She thought. She was trying very hard not to remember why.

Some part of her knew she was going to be very sorry tomorrow that she’d had so many beers. But right now she didn’t care. So what if she got sick, Nell thought defiantly. It was better than…Well, than something. She didn’t let herself think what.

“Me, too,” he agreed. “But whosh gonna drive ush home?”

Her forehead furrowed in thought. “We could go get in the car,” she suggested.

“Okay.” He didn’t move, and she continued to lie comfortably on him. “You feel good.”

She thought about that, too, and nodded. “I feel good. You’re right. But howz…how do you know?”

“You feel good here—” he squeezed her butt “—and here—” his other hand cupped her breast. “Thash how.”

“Oh.” She listened to his heartbeat. “You feel good, too. Right here.” She laid a hand on his chest. She used to not like him, but he’d always had a good chest, broad and well-muscled and, she knew now, hot to the touch.

“Lesh go to the car.” He heaved them both upright. “Good night, good morning, good day,” he told Redding and Gardner. Enunciating clearly, he added, “We’re going home.”

“Don’t drive drunk,” Redding said, which set them to laughing so hard Gardner was banging his forehead on the table.

They wove their way among tables of cops, some coming on shift and drinking coffee, staring incredulously at the others. The parking lot was dark, but paler light tinted the skyline. Dawn. Last dawn, she’d been heading into the station to find out who her new partner would be. By 8:30 a.m., he and she had been in the squad car, lights on, heading to…

A barrage of images flickered behind her eyelids. Pools and splatters of blood. Body bags. Faces contorted in agony. A faceless…

No! She stopped dead and said carefully, “Maybe I need another beer.”

“We’re going to the car,” Hugh reminded her.

“Oh.” They were, weren’t they? That’s why they were standing in the middle of the parking lot. “Where’s the car?” she asked.

He frowned and turned in a slow circle. “Don’t know.”

“I have a car,” Nell said. She did remember that much. They’d returned to the station and left separately, in their own vehicles, they and a dozen others agreeing to meet at the Green Lantern after their debriefing to drown their hideous day.

“Where?” Hugh asked.

She thought. “Don’t know. Let’s jush…just look.”

They found his in the alley, next to the Dumpster. He produced keys from his pocket and unlocked the Explorer, boosting her into the passenger side. His hands lingered on her bottom, a pleasant sensation.

Inside, he pushed the automatic lock. “Can’t drive,” he said, after gazing in apparent perplexity at the ignition and dashboard.

“No,” she agreed.

“Got a blanket in back.” He looked delighted at the recollection. “We could sleep.”

She was getting sleepy. Very sleepy. Only, every time her eyelids closed, she saw…She widened her eyes. “Maybe,” Nell said doubtfully.

“Or cuddle.”

Cuddling sounded nice. “You feel good,” she told him.

He hoisted her between the seats. Her hips got stuck, and while he was pushing his thumbs exerted delicious pressure between her legs. She almost pretended to stay stuck.

He fell on her when he followed. Crushed on the seat, his weight on her, Nell contentedly wrapped her arms around him. After a while, his mouth moved on her cheek. “Feel good,” he murmured.

“Mm-hm,” she agreed.

Somehow his lips found hers. Normally she didn’t like the taste of beer on a man, but now she tasted of beer, too, so it was all right. This was a good kiss, slow, sweet, exploratory. She was able to close her eyes and think about the sensations his lips and tongue created in her instead of seeing those images she prayed she could forget.

The tinted windows of his Explorer created a dark, private world, a bubble enclosing just the two of them.

The kiss heated, and she tugged his shirt free from his pants and reveled in the sleek contours of his back. Muscles danced under her hands. She liked provoking a reaction. When she moved her hands around to his chest it was even better.

He had unbuttoned her shirt, she discovered with approval. He was making pleased sounds at the sight of her bra, a tiny scrap of lace that helped her feel feminine even in the unbecoming uniform styled and cut for men. She worked at unbuttoning his shirt while he suckled her breasts.

Nell was beginning to feel somewhat less fuzzy. A new urgency replaced the lazy abdication of responsibility. But when her hips pressed up against his, there was a clanking sound and she cried, “Ouch!” when something sharp-edged dug into her thigh.

“Damn,” he muttered, and pulled back. He looked down at her, his face taut in the faint streetlight coming through the windshield. “We have to take off our belts.”

Both wore the thick regulation leather belt that held an array of equipment: holster and handgun, pepper spray, flashlight, handcuff case, baton, radio and extra magazines.

He unbuckled, then said hopefully, “We could just take off our pants.”

In answer, she reached for his zipper. He groaned as her fingers grazed him as she slowly worked it down.

A cautious voice in her head tried to say, Wait! Nell refused to listen. Hugh was a good guy. They felt so close right now. She wanted to be closer yet. Her body was intensely alive, and she needed that to form a shield against the grisly images of death she couldn’t will away.

This was the right thing to do.

His mouth sought hers again even as he eased her trousers off. Through half-closed eyelids she saw the two of them tangled, her legs long and pale, Hugh with his pants half-down, his dark hair tousled, his every breath a rasp.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world when he parted her legs and entered her. She banged a knee against the door; he made another rough sound and readjusted their positions so that she half sat and he knelt between her legs. She looked down at where they met and realized that he was deep inside her, part of her. The past twenty-four hours were erased in the glorious flood of sensations as Hugh moved slowly, leaving her bereft, then filling her. She gripped his shoulders and rode him as he thrust harder, more desperately. Tension built and spiraled until Nell pleaded with him in a high, needy voice.

“Let go, sweetheart.” He gripped her hips and drove into her. “Let go.”

She went still in wonder as pure pleasure poured from her belly through every vein in her body. “Oh-h,” she breathed.

“Yes!” With guttural triumph in his voice, he thrust hard and fast one last time, jerked and groaned, then collapsed on top of her.

Nell wiped inexplicable tears on his bare shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered, and didn’t know if he heard her.

HUGH AWAKENED to an aching body and head. His mouth was dirt dry and it took him a moment to work it closed. He opened his eyes, squinted against the brilliance, and, stabbed by pain, squeezed them shut again.

Damn, his neck hurt. It was bent at a weird angle, his head wedged into a corner. Where the hell had he fallen asleep? Or had he been unconscious?

An explosion. Maybe there’d been an explosion and a ceiling had fallen on him. That would explain the weight holding him down and the headache he felt waiting to erupt the second he moved the tiniest bit. He wasn’t on the bomb squad, not being suicidal by nature, but if some crazy had set one…

In a sickening wave, he remembered what the crazy had done. He lurched, his head fractured into a million atoms of pain, and somebody else gasped and shoved an elbow into his gut.

He swore and opened his eyes. A wild woman was staring up at him. Her eyes were big and brown and bloodshot, her face was puffy, her lips as dry as his mouth, and her dishwater blond hair was a snarled mess.

“Oh, my God!” she said in stricken tones.

His head clunked back against the car door and he shut his eyes.

Nell Granstrom. Naked. Lying on top of him. They hadn’t…Had they? God help him, images wormed their way through the shattering pain behind his eyes. He saw her uniformed ass sticking up between the seats, his hands on it. Him falling on her. Slow hungry kisses. Him on his knees like a horny teenager at a drive-in movie, squeezing her buttocks, slamming into her. And the single best orgasm of his entire life. He did remember that.

She was apparently frozen in the same frantic effort to remember. Or maybe horror held her paralyzed. He didn’t know. Just that all of a sudden she was scrambling to get off him, and to hell with which body parts she damaged on her way.

“I’ve got to get dressed,” she said in a high frenzied voice. “Where’s my bra? Oh, God. Where’s my bra?”

A faint memory of tossing it tickled at him. “Try behind the seat.” His voice sounded thick. Tongues needed to be lubricated to do their job.

She rose above him, and something stirred in him as he took in her long slender body and high, pale breasts. Unfortunately, she saw him looking, and she recoiled as if he were a monster.

“What are you…Oh!” Hands shaking, she put on the bra, tugged on a shirt, realized it was his and threw it in his face.

By the time he wrestled free, she was buttoning up her own, hiding the nest of dark blond curls at the juncture of her thighs.

“Get dressed!” she hissed. “You look…you look like hell!”

He reached out and fingered a mat in her hair. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

She swatted away his hand. He caught one more forbidden glimpse as she arched to pull on her trousers and panties in one go. “Oh,” she groaned. “I’m going to be sick.”

That galvanized him. “Not in here, you’re not.”

She got open the door of the Explorer and half fell out into the alley. As he slowly, painfully pulled on his own clothes, he heard her retching. His stomach lurched in sympathy, and he gritted his teeth against a wave of nausea.

Wiping her mouth, she reappeared in the open door. The captain wouldn’t have recognized his cool, disciplined officer in this unkempt woman with a half-buttoned, wrinkled shirt, tangled hair and red-rimmed eyes. “I’m going to find my car.” She swallowed. “If—if I left anything…”

“Get in,” he said. He climbed between the seats to get behind the wheel.

She was still standing there staring.

“Get in,” he repeated, wincing at the sight of himself in the rearview mirror. “You don’t want anybody to see you. I’ll pull up right next to your car.”

Pride made her neck long, but after a reluctant moment, she did climb in and close the door.

Hugh found the keys wedged in the crack between the center console and the seat. His head was going to fall off. He knew it was. But he’d rescue her from possible humiliation first, like the gentleman he preferred to think he was.

Turning to look over his shoulder was undiluted agony, but he managed to back up, get turned around and cruise slowly into the tavern parking lot proper. “What do you drive?”

“It’s right there.” She indicated a cherry-red Subaru wagon.

He got up close, his Explorer blocking any sight of her from the tavern or the sidewalk. Not that there was any traffic at…

“Oh, hell,” he growled.

“What?”

“It’s noon.”

She half rose to look over the seat at his dashboard clock. “Aren’t we supposed to be back on duty at three?”

“That’s my memory.”

The word that came out of her mouth was fitting, if not a nice one for a lady to say.

“Go home and shower,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

She cast him a look of disbelief.

“Or not,” he conceded.

Nell Granstrom opened the door again, climbed out, then stopped. “This never happened.”

He had to turn his head to look at her. “What?”

“It never happened. Last night.” Her eyes met his square, but red washed her cheeks. “This morning. You and me. I—I don’t usually drink.”

He wasn’t much of a drinker, either, or his head wouldn’t be detonating this morning.

“Do I have your word?” she asked fiercely. “You’ll never tell a soul? You’ll never refer to it again? You’ll forget it ever happened?”

The forgetting part Hugh wasn’t so sure about. The rest…

“I will never say a word.” He sketched a cross in the air. “On my honor.”

She sagged, bit her lip. “Thank you.”

“After what we saw…maybe we needed it. Since neither of us is married…”