In Close Quarters

Chapter 2

TJ blessed his reflexes, catching Karin instinctively as she hurled her petite curves at him, firing questions faster than he was able to empty the magazine in his Glock. What was she talking about? Who was she talking about? Then he knew.

Reese. Jade.

The flight.

Madre de Dios, what had happened?

His helmet landed at his feet as panic swamped him. Lifting Karin by her arms, he scooped her back into the apartment, releasing her as he scanned the entertainment unit that spanned the wall opposite him—but if there was a television behind one of the whitewashed doors, it was off now. He spun back around, straining for the sound of late-breaking news on the radio.

Nada.

All he heard were the muted notes of a jazz instrumental.

Frustrated, he turned back to Karin, wrapping his hands around her arms as he pulled her close again. This time, he was not sure if he was steadying her or himself. “¿Cariño? What has happened? Was there something on the news?”

Karin stared up at him, obviously stunned, her huge blue eyes growing even larger. “You mean you haven’t heard anything? But I thought…” She shook her head. “Why else would you be…” She shook it again, then pulled away from him to rub her temples as she sighed. “TJ, what are you doing here?”

The panic fled as quickly as it had come.

Reese and Jade were fine.

He stared at Karin as she folded her arms across the shirt of her Navy uniform. The panic in her eyes had ebbed as well—only to be replaced by determination. She was waiting for an answer.

Unfortunately he did not have one to give.

Not at this moment, anyway. And not when it was all he could do to simply stand here in the middle of this room, with his arms dropped to his sides—with them not locked about her, squeezing her for all she was worth. For all he was worth.

Six months.

It had been six months since her ship had pulled away from that concrete pier. Six months since he had last feasted his gaze on this tiny golden fireball of perfection standing before him. Six months, six days and ten and a half hours, if he had been counting. Not that he had.

Sí, so he had.

Unable to stop himself, he reached out and tipped the heart-shaped curve of her chin, clenching his fingers as she jerked away. He swallowed his hiss of disappointment before it could escape and firmly tucked his hands into his jacket pockets to keep from touching her again.

He had told himself he was not going to do it.

He was not supposed to touch her.

But then, he was not supposed to be standing this close to her, either. He was close enough to smell the whisper of vanilla that always clung to her. Close enough for those mesmerizing dimples to swallow him whole, the ones that were so deep, even her current frown failed to contain them. Close enough to trace the bottom curve of her full, pink lips.

No, he was definitely not supposed to be this close.

He had to move. Pronto.

Before he drowned in the blue ocean of her eyes—and told his good sense to go straight to hell. Or worse, ripped his fingers from his pockets and dug them into those golden curls.

Those short curls.

He stared hard. “You cut your hair.”

Her hands were halfway up her neck before she stiffened. She pulled them down and folded them across her chest as her chin kicked up. Not much. Perhaps a fraction of an inch.

It was enough.

It told him more than her silence. Even more than the ice now frosting her gaze. She had cut her curls to spite him.

Dios help him, he was pleased.

Her chin hitched another notch. “Like it?”

“I do not.”

But he did. It accentuated her eyes, made them appear larger, bluer.

Her maddening dimples deepened. “Too bad. I do.” With that, she twirled smoothly about, her white skirt revealing a most enticing length of calf as she slipped away. When she rounded the breakfast counter, he assumed she was simply putting her usual distance between them—until she reached the stove. The shrill whistle and steam shooting from the copper teapot finally pierced his stupor. As she flicked off the burner, he turned back to the apartment, this time really looking.

He had known this woman had money. After all, she drove a Jaguar. And there was the Cartier on her wrist. But not even that—nor even the chunk of gray marble some might call a sculpture in the lobby—could have prepared him for this.

And the fact that it was so very…white.

Everywhere.

From the gauze draped across the tops of the towering windows down to the carpet, the entire room was white. The leather couch was white, the pair of overstuffed chairs flanking it were white, the lamps were white. Even the wall unit, the dining-room table and the chairs beyond were some sort of colorless wood washed with…well, white.

Suddenly he was twenty-four again, reaching for the brass knocker on those enormous double doors. They yawned open. And then she was standing there, looking down her perfect nose at him. He could not help it—he glanced down at his jacket, then his T-shirt, jeans and boots, half-afraid his mere presence had rubbed off, leaving a great dark stain in the middle of this virgin room. Thankfully, he had not.

Yet.

He turned back to the kitchen, to Karin, and was once again confronted with white. This time, though, it was her.

She arched her brows. “Well? Are you going to tell me or not?”

He blinked.

She sighed. “What you’re doing here? I’ve figured out by now they weren’t involved in the accident.”

The accident? What— Ah, the freeway.

No wonder she had been frightened. He shook his head. “No, they were not. It came through on the scanner when it happened. I dropped Reese and Jade off an hour and a half ago by way of another route. From the way you threw yourself into my arms, I thought you had heard something about the plane.”

She flushed.

Not much.

Just the tips of her ears.

Most odd. He had always thought her so cool, so collected, so in control. But with her curls off her ears, he now knew she was not. Fascinating. He wondered if she knew. He caught the panic flitting through those deep-blue eyes as he stared, and knew.

She did.

She turned away quickly and headed back to the kitchen. This time he labeled her action for what it was.

Retreat.

He masked his smile as she turned back, the high counter once again firmly between them.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He shook his head. “I did not.”

“Well? Are you going to? Or did you just drop by for dinner, unannounced?”

“Would you dine with me if I had?”

“No.”

He glanced down at the counter, at the empty yogurt container with the spoon still inside, at the orange rind piled beside the remote control, and tsked. “You could use a good meal, no?”

She did not answer. Nor did she need to, for her narrow gaze spoke for her. She finally severed that frosty glare and scooped up the rind and carton before she turned her back on him to head for the trash compactor. He waited until she had opened the steel drawer and dumped them inside.

“You called Reese today.”

The drawer slammed shut.

She continued to stand with her back to him for a moment, then slowly turned around. “Yes, I did. I called Reese.”

He shrugged. “You got me.”

“I don’t want you.”

If she thought it took one of her neurosurgical colleagues to figure this out, she was mistaken. “This I know. But me you have. Why did you call?”

“You know, I don’t believe it’s any of your business.”

If it involved what he thought it did, it was very much his business. It was also his case. But there was no way he could tell her this. At least, not until he was certain.

He sighed. “Cariño—”

She held up a hand. “You can stop right there, Agent Vásquez. First of all, I told you months ago, my name is Karin, just Karin. Not carino—or however you keep pronouncing it. Second of all, my phone call had nothing to do with you or your agency. I just told you—I called to talk to Reese, not you. As you damn well know, Reese is married to my best friend. I needed to discuss something with him. Something personal. If your boss is so straitlaced you guys can’t even receive a brief personal call on the job, I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to Reese when they return.”

“Are you finished?”

Pink washed the tops of her ears. “Yes.”

“Good. Now, I am aware of the fact that you called to speak to Reese and not to me.” Painfully aware. “But you also left a message. A message that said…” He made a show of searching the pockets of his leather jacket for the yellow slip Joaquín had handed him before he had torn out of the office. “Here it is.” He did not need to read the words, but did so, anyway. “Dr. Karin Scott called. It’s business.”

“I know—personal business.” She raked her fingers through her curls. “How many times do we have to go through this?”

“Until you tell the truth.”

She stiffened. “Just where the hell do you get off showing up at my apartment, giving me the third degree about a personal call and accusing me—”

The rest of her words were severed as he rounded the counter and reached out to touch the tip of her ear. It was tinged with pink for the third time that night.

She swallowed.

Evidently he had made his point.

Several moments passed before she honored it. “Okay, I’ve been busted. What are you going to do about it? Cuff me and drag me down to the nearest station?”

Oh, he would like to.

But if he ever got a set of cuffs on this woman, jail was the last place he would be taking her. He slipped his finger down, tracing the outer curve of her ear until he reached the tiny lobe. He dipped his finger beneath her jaw, reining in his thudding heart as her eyes widened. What he would have given for the flaring in these dark pupils to have been caused by passion. For him.

But it was not passion, nor even desire.

It was fear.

He forced his attention back to the reason he was here. Why had she called Reese? He tipped up her chin. “Are you in trouble?”

She tried to look away, but he refused to let her. He moved his head until he had again captured her stormy gaze.

“Cariño, you must tell me. I can help.”

She closed her eyes.

The action pained him more than he cared to admit.

Reese, she trusted. Him, she did not.

“Please.” His voice was low, hoarse, but he did not care.

“Don’t. You can’t help. No one can, not even Reese.” She sighed and finally opened her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called him. Dr. Manning was right.”

He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “This thing which troubles you, this Dr. Manning knows it?”

“God, no. At least, not yet.” Again the pink found her ears. Though for some reason, he felt the cause was not the same. But before he could question her, she stepped back. “Oh, hell, you’re already here. And I don’t think you’re going to give up.” There was a wealth of hope in those rising brows. “Are you?”

He shook his head firmly. Not when she was this upset.

She sighed again. “I thought not. Well, you’d better have a seat, then. It’s a long story.” She tilted her head toward the teapot sitting on the stove. “I’d offer you some, but…” Her gaze swept his clothes. “You don’t look the tea type. Coffee?”

He nodded. “Gracias.”

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Black.”

A ghost of a smile curved her lips, dipping her dimples as her gaze traveled his dark length again, this time leisurely. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

She was teasing him. Karin Scott was teasing him. The realization ricocheted off his brain and headed straight for his heart, snapping a grin back up his throat before he could prevent it. Jade, she teased. Reese, as well. She had even teased Reese’s mother within minutes of meeting her—this he knew, for he had been there. But Karin had never, ever, teased him.

Until now.

He sobered.

She was upset indeed if she could not remember she disliked him. But at least she would trust him. For now, he would settle for this.

Relief washed through him as he stepped around the counter to give her room to work. On the ride to her apartment, he had not been certain he could convince her to confide in him. If she had refused, there was naught he could do to force her.

Even with his suspicions.

He would have been left with little option but to call Reese once his plane had landed and ask him to phone Karin back—from his belated honeymoon. Not his first choice.

TJ crossed the carpet and stared at the couch and matching chairs. Though they appeared comfortable enough, he was reluctant to sit. They were so white. Admittedly he was not one for decorating. But even he could see the room needed color—any color. Desperately.

And what was that odor?

It was faint, so faint he could not quite place it. In fact, he had not even noticed it until Karin had taken her whisper of vanilla back into the kitchen with her. He glanced across the room as a grating whir cut through the air.

Beans?

She did not cook, but she ground her own coffee beans?

TJ bit back a low whistle. He turned to face the wall unit and stared at the whitewashed doors as the minutes dragged by. What secrets did those doors conceal? Her music collection? The final notes of the jazz instrumental that had been playing when he arrived had long since died out. What else would he find in there? Beethoven, Mozart, Bach? Or would she surprise him with salsa?

Doubtful.

Whatever lay behind those doors, he would wager it was white. The Beetles’ White album most likely.

“TJ?”

He spun about, wincing as he nearly upset the twin mugs of coffee in her hands. At least the mugs were yellow.

Pale yellow, but it was a start.

She held one out and nodded to the chairs. “Have a seat.”

He accepted the mug and took the couch, instead, in the hope that she would join him.

She did not.

He squelched his disappointment as she lowered herself into the chair next to him, then settled himself as far back as he dared and took a sip from his mug. He glanced up as the distinct flavor of vanilla swirled over his tongue, taking the edge off the familiar bite of coffee.

“Do you like it?”

He nodded.

“Good.” She slid a coaster across the table.

He stared at the white disk a moment, then rested the mug on his thigh. At least if he spilled it there, the stain would not show. He waited until she had taken a few sips of her own before prompting her. “Reese? You were to tell me why you wished to speak to him?”

Setting her cup down, she sighed as she retrieved a square of paper from the pocket below the row of ribbons on her uniform shirt. She unfolded the sheet and passed it to him.

He took it and read the short, typed sentence.

Class twos are walking.

Dios mío, he was right.

Somehow he managed to do naught but lift a brow as he glanced up. “Nothing to do with me—or my agency?”

She stiffened. “Not necessarily.”

He shook his head. “Cariño, since when does the theft of class-two prescription narcotics not involve the Drug Enforcement Administration?”

“When it’s a joke.”

He flipped the note over, taking care not to contaminate it with further prints. It was blank. Someone had gone to the trouble of concealing his or her identity. If this was a joke, he was not laughing. He stared at the slender fingers knotted in her lap. Nor was she.

He placed the sheet on the table. “This note, who sent it?”

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a joke.”

No, it was not.

Unfortunately he would also wager this sparse message was connected to the thickening files on his desk—and the autopsy reports Joaquín had dumped there. But why had this woman been singled out for involvement, and why anonymously? He glanced at the sheet. “You received this how?”

“It was in my in-box.” She retrieved her mug. “You don’t know this, but I’m not attached to the ship anymore. Not as of this morning, anyway. I was accepted into the Navy’s anesthesiology program. Only, when I checked into the main hospital this morning, I learned my residency starts two weeks from today, not today.” She paused to draw another sip from her coffee.

He waited patiently.

This much he knew from their mutual friends. But he was not about to confess he had been attuned to Jade’s every word at dinner this past evening, waiting for the woman to mention what her friend was up to. Thankfully Jade had done so without his asking. But she had failed to reveal enough to satisfy his constant thirst for information about this lady.

Of course no one could satisfy this need but Karin herself.

Until now, however, she had volunteered naught.

It did not help to know precisely why she had refused to date him in the months before her ship departed. Nor did the knowledge that he had only himself and his shameful reputation to blame. A reputation he freely admitted to cultivating in the past. But it was in the past. Surely six years of abstinence was enough to have earned even the most devout of monks his absolution?

At first, he had thought it possible.

Until the engagement party.

Though he himself had never truly expected to find forgiveness for his sins, he had been astonished at the depth of his own reaction—to hers. The shock, the horror. These he had anticipated, had even prepared himself for. But not the other.

The disappointment. In him.

Logically he should have realized this would happen. And perhaps, in some way, he had. But until that moment she had turned to him and asked him of his past, he had not truly understood how deeply another’s pain could cut. More deeply than he had ever thought possible.

When he had recovered, she was gone.

She had caught a ride north, back across the border with another agent. And the pain had begun anew. But this ache was different. For it was a product of the waiting. His heart already snared, there was naught left for him to do but bide his time. Patience was his only recourse. Two months he had waited, the ache growing stronger with each passing day, with each meeting he and Karin shared as they helped to plan their mutual friends’ wedding. But through none of them had he noticed a difference. Not so much as a fissure in her resolve.

Until two weeks before her ship deployed.

On the eve of his marriage, Reese had spoken to her. He would have been furious with his friend except the next day Karin had finally accepted his invitation for dinner, right there at the wedding. Right there in the church. But then, hours later, following their sole dance at the reception, she had rescinded. No argument, no explanation—nada. She simply said she had changed her mind and would not be changing it back. Ever.

Why?

“TJ?”

Startled, he glanced up, then drew another sip from his own to cover as he forced his attention back to the hospital, back to the note—where it should have remained all along. “Anyway, when I checked into the hospital, I was given the option of taking two weeks’ leave. I was considering it when I picked up the stack of paperwork already waiting for me in my in-box.” She nodded toward the note. “That was inside the stack. I made up my mind to take the leave when I read it.”

“Why?”

She glanced up, startled. “Why what?”

“Why would you need the time? I know you, Cariño. You are not one to conceal something such as this. There is more.”

“Excuse me? You don’t know the first thing about me.”

She was wrong. But now was not the time to upset her further by arguing. He simply inclined his head—and let her read the motion how she would.

She slumped back in her chair. “This is all so frustrating. I never should have chickened out. I should have marched into Dr. Manning’s office and shown him the note as soon as I read it.”

Dr. Manning again.

Though he knew full well who this man was, he was not supposed to. “Dr. Manning?”

“The head of anesthesiology.”

“And why did you not show him the note?”

“Because I wasn’t looking forward to kissing my career goodbye so soon into starting it.”

Now he was confused. Unwilling to juggle the mug a moment longer, he set it on the table next to the note and leaned toward her. “I do not understand. Why would your career be over? You know as well as I this cannot affect you, because you are not involved.” He was certain of this. Stealing surgical opiates was not in her nature.

Her lips curved—briefly. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Agent Vásquez, but I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that. Actually—” a slight, but unmistakable wince “—it’s a lot more complicated.”

He waited as she reached for her mug, suppressing a wince of his own as she took a sip. At best, it was lukewarm by now. His was. She drained the rest, anyway.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of three strikes you’re out?”

“Sí.”

“Well, I don’t know about the DEA, but in the Navy you only get two—and I’ve already got one.”

Again, he waited.

Finally he was rewarded with a shrug.

“About a year ago I was asked out by one of the lieutenants at the hospital. I admit, I was leery. He wasn’t a doctor, so I wasn’t sure he’d understand that my schedule as the USS Baddager’s doctor came first. But he assured me he did, so I accepted.”

TJ retrieved his mug, if only to give himself something to hold as he prompted her about dating another man. “What happened?”

“You know, I’m still not really sure. We went out a few times, and while he seemed nice enough, it just didn’t click. At least, not for me. Anyway, I decided to break it off. I invited him over for dinner, thinking it would be better to tell him in private.” She frowned. “In retrospect, it wasn’t a bright idea.”

“Why is this?”

“Let’s just say, he didn’t take it well.” Something new and dark entered her eyes and caused his blood to run cold. She masked it quickly, but he had already seen it.

“Cariño, tell me this man did not—”

She shook her head sharply. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then what? What did this man do?”

“He didn’t do anything. It was more of a suggestion. Hell, at first I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t.” She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath before focusing her stare somewhere past his left shoulder. “He suggested a trade of sorts. My…favors…in exchange for his help in securing a slot for myself in the next class of anesthesiology residents.”

“And when you told him no?”

Her gaze snapped to his.

TJ refused to dignify her surprise over his certainty with a comment.

“He left,” she replied.

Gracias a Dios. He eased out the breath he had not known he had been holding. “I still do not understand. His offer, how could this mark your record? Especially since he left once you refused.”