She needs a distraction

One of Bluff City’s finest, Tess Camden always follows the rules. That means a romp with the strong and silent new guy on the force would be out of the question. Besides, no matter how deliciously sexy Marc Santino is, she’s his boss. So she’ll stick with her keeping-to-herself routine.

Still, Marc has Tess aching to be all kinds of wrong. And all those reasons they have to stay away don’t seem important…especially if their sexy arrangement remains their secret. Suddenly, their hot affair becomes more than just a distraction. Can they let it turn into something more?

Maybe a bar was exactly what he needed.

And what about Tess?

It didn’t matter if she was pretty. If his body had some different idea of her than his brain did. Because his body was kind of interested in her body. His mind? It found her irritating as hell. Besides, she was practically his superior.

Marc glanced up from locking his door to see Tess leaning against the rail at the top of the staircase. She’d changed. Jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, leather jacket slung over her shoulder. Her hair was still pulled back, but in a looser way than it had been when she’d been in uniform.

There was nothing sexy about it. Nothing. But sexy was the first word that popped into his head anyway.

Trouble. Plain and simple. And he’d never done anything remotely resembling trouble. Was that why it seemed so enticing?

Dear Reader,

Marc and Tess’s story ends my Bluff City series (I mean, probably—you never know!), which is my first series with Mills & Boon Superromance.

I think more than anything I’ve written, the books in this series are about the ways love holds us up when times are tough, and that is one of my favorite themes to explore. I’ll miss Grace and Kyle, Jacob and Leah, Henry and Ellen, and Marc and Tess a little extra for the milestones and firsts that came along with them.

I hope their stories bring you some of the joy and hope they’ve brought me.

If you’re on Twitter, so am I (probably more than I should be). I love to talk to readers: @NicoleTHelm.

Happy reading!

Nicole Helm

nicolehelm.wordpress.com

Falling for the New Guy

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and a dream of becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, a husband and two kids, she gets to pursue that writing dream. She lives in Missouri with her husband (the police officer who, sadly, does not go by Captain Quiet) and two sons (who are also extremely not quiet).

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To my husband. For answering my endless (and somewhat disturbing) questions without batting an eye, and for being the love that gets me through all the rough patches.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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 SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

MARC SANTINO PLACED a box in the corner of the empty apartment along with one other box. Add the two his sister and her boyfriend carried, a bed, a bookshelf and a few folding chairs, and it made up all his worldly possessions. That hadn’t seemed quite so little until he put it into the apartment, tiny as the space was.

“Are you sure about this place?” Leah asked, dropping her box and then skeptically kicking loose baseboards and poking at electrical outlets.

Marc had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her to be careful. She was an electrician—she knew what she was doing.

But what kind of lunatic so casually ran her fingers over outlets?

He didn’t say that, though. He was not going to ruin whatever weird equilibrium he and his not-at-all close little sister had managed over the past few months with his—some might say—paranoid worry. He liked to call it concerned with safety.

“It’s a little rough, but I’ll have plenty of time to clean it up. Besides, the price was right.”

Leah and Jacob shared a look. Marc wasn’t a big fan of when they did that. Unfortunately, the brief time he’d spent visiting in order to facilitate this move to Bluff City, Iowa hadn’t given him any insight into what those shared looks meant.

“Jacob and I could move into the big house,” Leah said, referencing the large house Jacob’s company had restored and used as an office. But Marc knew they were trying to sell it, and living in Leah’s house was more practical for them. Or more private, anyway.

“I want a space of my own. Somewhere small that I don’t have to clean.”

Leah let out a pained sigh. “I don’t think Mom will like this.”

Marc ignored the bitterness that coated his stomach. He’d made strides with Leah over the course of the past few months, but his relationship with their parents, Mom especially, remained complicated.

He didn’t want to analyze it, or to feel that bitter asshole part of himself that, even at thirty-two, was jealous of his sister. A sister whose health problems had been the center of his childhood.

No, his entire life, as evidenced by him being here right now.

“Mom won’t care.” She only cared about Leah. “Besides, by the time she visits I’ll have it looking better.”

Another pained sigh from his sister. “That doesn’t fix what the outside looks like.”

“Mom won’t care,” he repeated, keeping the snap out of his tone by sheer force of will, but she seemed to get it. Instead of arguing further she leaned against Jacob.

“We should go.”

Marc liked Jacob well enough, but since the guy was in love with Leah he always got a little prickly over Marc’s terse way with her when they got on a topic like this. Which was great, as it should be and all that.

But sometimes Marc wanted to give the guy a shove. Which he would never do. He was a cop. He’d dealt with people a lot more annoying than a protective boyfriend, and he always kept his temper in check. Always, even when the guys he worked with lost their cool. Marc kept it under control.

That was him. So he simply nodded. “Thanks for the help.”

“Anytime, you know. Anytime.” Leah offered an awkward wave and a paltry smile and he did his best not to scowl. Until they were gone, and then his mouth did that of its own accord.

Scowled at the closed door. Dingy, a little rust around the doorknob. Leah was right that he couldn’t fix what the whole complex looked like, but he had no doubt he could have his apartment looking decent in a week or two.

His new job at Bluff City Police Department might start tomorrow, but he had no life in Bluff City. All he had was a sister he was childishly resentful over.

So why the hell did you agree to this?

Though his mind poked him with the question on a fairly regular basis, he knew the answer. His parents had asked him to, and he didn’t say no to them. Ever.

Pathetic, Santino.

No doubt. But they wanted to move near Leah. They wanted their little family to be a real close-knit one. And Leah had built a life for herself here. So he’d gotten a new job, moved from his place in Minnesota, and Mom and Dad would be moving as soon as they could.

Because of Leah. The motivation for every Santino family decision. Even when she’d run away. Even when she hadn’t given the family an ounce of her attention, Leah had been the center of Mom and Dad’s wants and needs, and he was nothing.

He glared at his boxes, ready to tackle the task of unpacking. A task that wouldn’t take long at all, but would at least take his mind off all this shit. Dumb shit.

A loud thumping from out in the hall caught his attention before he made any progress unpacking. Followed by muffled cursing. Yeah, the walls weren’t exactly thick, were they?

He walked to the door, wondering if he should get his gun out of its safe first. The peephole was murky and he couldn’t make out much. Still, as run-down as this apartment complex down by the river was, it wasn’t grab-your-gun-before-you-check-out-the-hallway bad.

So he opened the door. And, okay, he strategically placed himself to be ready for whatever situation he might find.

He did not expect a woman standing at the top of the stairs, cradling one arm, leaning against the wall, cursing as though her life depended on it. Cursing really creatively.

“Are you—”

Her head jerked up, hand coming off her arm long enough for him to notice a bloody piece of fabric beneath.

“You’re hurt.” He moved toward her, his initial reaction. Someone was hurt, you moved in to help.

“Yeah, I noticed,” she muttered, staring down at the bloody fabric on her forearm before squeezing her hand over it again.

“Let me help.” She stiffened when he reached toward her, so he did his best to seem unthreatening. “It’s okay. I’m a cop. I can show you my badge if you’d like.”

She snorted and pushed herself away from the wall, very much ignoring and avoiding his outstretched hand. “Yeah, well, I’m a cop, too, buddy. Badge and all. Which means I can help myself.” She walked past him to the door at the end of the hall, then turned around.

“Wait. I know you.”

He was pretty sure he’d remember eyes like that. Which was a weird-ass thing to think, but they weren’t really blue, instead nearly gray. He’d never seen gray eyes before. Paired with the half assessing, half go-screw-yourself expression in them, he was pretty sure he’d remember her.

“New guy. San...San...San Francisco?” She flashed a grin, some of the go-screw-yourself fading.

The corner of his mouth inched upward against his permission. “Santino.”

“Right. Right. Matt Santino.”

“Marc.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, right?” She half smiled at him and he felt like a dumb teenager scrambling to say something. Something that might impress her.

Idiot. If she knew him and was a cop, she had to work at BCPD, which meant no impressing.

“Tess. Tess Camden.” She nodded at his open door, blood starting to drip onto the hallway floor. “You live here?”

“Um, yeah.” He moved toward her again, gesturing at the next blood drop threatening to fall. “Don’t you think you should—”

“Good. That’ll be convenient.”

“Convenient? What do you—”

But she’d opened her door, was stepping inside. “See you tomorrow, San Francisco.” With a wave, she slammed the door shut.

Marc wasn’t sure how long he stood there in shock. Sure, it hadn’t been a seriously painful injury or she’d probably be screaming or going to the hospital or something. But she’d been dripping blood in the hallway, and that wasn’t good. At all.

But it was none of his business, and surely if she was a cop she knew how to take care of herself. Still, the image of that bloody scrap of fabric stayed with him, and he didn’t think he’d shake it until he knew what all that was about.

* * *

TESS WISHED SHE could muster some anger. Frustration. Determination. But all she could feel with her arm stinging under the spray of her morning shower was defeated. Hollow. Sucky.

She stepped out of the shower, shivering against the cold morning, and gingerly dried off before winding the new bandage around her gash and shimmying into underwear.

She really was lucky it hadn’t been worse. The bottle that had shattered when her father had flung it at her could have actually hit her. Or more pieces of flying glass could have caught exposed skin. It could have done enough damage she’d have to call in sick to work.

But it hadn’t.

Damn it, how was he getting the alcohol? He didn’t drive. Had alienated all of his friends. She’d long since stopped bringing him anything that could be remotely used to trade.

Every time she thought she’d gotten him weaned off, every time she thought he was on the path to recovery and forgetting everything...they ended up back here.

On a sigh, she pulled her hair back and began to braid, pulling as tightly as she could. It was a severe look, one she didn’t go for every single day on the job, but she needed to feel severe today.

She needed answers. Why couldn’t she find the answers?

She glanced at the clock and groaned. She was running late, and she didn’t like to be late on a good day, but with her first day training...San...San...oh, whatever the hell his name was, she didn’t want to set a bad example.

She hurried through putting on her uniform. Some days it was a little constricting. The Kevlar, the straight lines, the shiny name tag. But other days it was armor. Today was definitely one of those days. There were rules and order in the world, and she was the woman to enforce them.

She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, pushing her feet into boots. She’d save lacing them up for when she got to the station.

She caught the glimpse of her trainee at the top of the stairs. “Hey, San Francisco?”

He didn’t reappear right away, but after a few seconds his head popped back around the corner. “Marc,” he said in that same low, measured voice he’d used last night when he’d wanted to help her.

“Sure. Listen. I’ll give you a ride.”

His dark brows furrowed together. “I’m not—”

“Obviously you didn’t get the memo,” she said, approaching the stairs and him with a smile. “I’m your FTO.”

“You’re my...you’re my field training officer?”

“In the flesh.” She could get all bent out of shape at his shock. If she were a dude he wouldn’t be all fumbling and surprised. But if she got irritated by every sexist jerk, she would have left police work a long time ago.

“That’s why me living here is convenient.”

He followed her down the stairs and she kept her eyes straight ahead, voice neutral. “Indeed. The beauty of a small town. Only so many places to live off a police officer’s salary. There’s another guy on the top floor, but he’s a school resource officer. Don’t see much of him.”

He didn’t say anything to that and they walked out into the chill of an early March morning. She’d forgotten her coat, but she’d just deal today. She wasn’t about to seem as though she didn’t have it together for the new guy.

She pointed to her patrol car. “I’m sure they explained it to you, but to refresh, two weeks in, you’ll get your own take-home car, but right now, you’re watching me. I’ll be with you for the whole three months, one with each shift. Last two weeks we’ll do a shadow with me in plainclothes and you handling all the calls.”

“Sounds good.”

She glanced at him then. He was a big guy. Tall and broad. The uniform with vest underneath made him look even broader than he had last night in the hallway. He had a neutral expression on his face, but he had that chiseled jaw, a sort of impassive, serious resting face.

She was always jealous of guys like that, who could look intimidating without even trying. No one laughed at them when they told them to get out of a car and spread ’em.

Of course, she’d been doing this for ten years now. She’d learned how to wield herself in a way that kept most people from messing with her simply on the grounds of her being female.

But it’d be nice to not have to work so hard. Mr. Football Player Shoulders and Ruggedly Handsome—

Whoa, whoa, whoa. None of that. She didn’t cross lines like that. Never had. Never would. Besides, from their encounter last night, he seemed like the compulsive-helper type. I’m-a-cop-and-I’m-here-to-help type.

In other words, so not her type. She wasn’t interested in anyone’s help. Especially someone whose uniform was so freakishly unwrinkled it looked as if nuns had slaved over pressing it all night.

“Man, where’d you take your uniforms?” she asked, opening her driver’s side door.

“Take?”

“Yeah, what dry cleaner? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one so crisp.” She slipped behind the wheel and he did the same in the passenger seat. Filling up that entire side in such a way she felt cramped.

“Well, it’s new.”

“But you had to press it, right? It comes all creased in the package.” She looked at him, got tricked into looking him in the eye. Kind of a really light brown. Like amber or something. Mesmerizing.

You are not serious right now, brain.

He looked away. Thank God. “I did it myself.”

“You? You?”

“It’s a lot cheaper than getting it dry-cleaned.”

“Well, yeah, but jeez. What’d you do? Intern at a dry cleaner? That’s unholy.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched the grungier side of town get a shade more sparkling as they drove up and away from the river, toward the police station.

She concentrated on the road and he was silent. This was only her third time field training someone, but the other two guys had been different. Talkative, easygoing. Even if she’d wished Granger’d shut up most of the time, silence was weird. She wished for Granger’s grandstanding BS in the face of heavy, awkward silence.

“So, um, what brings you to Bluff City?” She flicked a glance at him to gauge his reaction. Nothing on his face changed, but as she moved her gaze back to the road she noticed his hand had clenched around his knee.

Hmm.

“Family,” he said at length. He didn’t say it in a way that made it sound positive. Well, that she understood.

“You grow up around here?”

“No.”

That was it.

Man, it was going to be a long three months.

* * *

AFTER NINE YEARS of being on the road, three months of field training was frustrating. Marc understood why it was necessary. Different laws, procedures, protocol.

But sitting shotgun in a patrol car that smelled like...hell if he knew. Something feminine and flowery. All shoved into an uncomfortable seat he couldn’t recline because of the cage in the back. Being pelted with questions by Chatty McGee FTO lady.

He would prefer clawing his way out and jumping from the still-moving vehicle.

Was everyone at BCPD going to be so damn chatty? At his old department there’d been a group of guys who were chummy, but they’d let him be. He was respected. Maybe a little feared, but he preferred that kind of distance to Tess’s cheery interrogation.

“Soooo.” She drummed her fingers against the steering wheel, eyes on the road. She’d driven them around their zone, talked about landmarks and the like. Things he’d already known because he’d memorized the Bluff City map. Because he wasn’t some rookie who didn’t know how to handle himself.

“We don’t have to talk, you know.”

She frowned over at him. “We’re going to be sharing a lot of space here. You want to sit in silence for three months?”

“Silence is better than...”

“Than?”

He shifted uncomfortably. This woman put him at some serious unease. Small talk was not something he’d ever excelled at. He preferred quiet. Assess a situation, a person before weighing in.

He preferred being careful and not making people damn uncomfortable. Tess did not have the same beliefs, it seemed.

So, turnabout was fair play, right? “Okay, you want to chat? What happened to your arm last night?” Because he didn’t give a crap about her taste in music or her favorite restaurant, but he was kind of desperate to know what the hell happened to her arm.

As he’d predicted, she closed right up. Gaze hard on the street. Fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “It was nothing.”

“Sure, everyone goes home at night crashing into things, cursing, bleeding onto the hallway floor.”

Her mouth quirked at the corner. “Well, I thought so.” She glanced at him again. “So, Mr. Stiffy has a sense of humor?” She closed her eyes, cheeks blotching pink. “Oh, that sounded...not how I meant.”

Only then did he get what she was embarrassed about. Only then did he feel a matching embarrassing heat flood his face.

This was turning out to be a hell of a first day.

“Anyway. I was visiting my dad. Glass broke. Caught me in the arm.”

He wondered if she had any clue what a shit liar she was. First of all, the story was too vague. Second, the tenseness in her shoulders meant she wasn’t comfortable with the subject. As did the way she restlessly pushed the car into Reverse.

“Let’s go grab some lunch, huh?”

He didn’t verbally respond, just gave her a nod. He wondered if his chatty FTO was in trouble, and if it would affect him.

Unfortunately, he was all out of patience with other people’s lives affecting his, and he had a bad feeling about Tess Camden.

CHAPTER TWO

“CAMDEN. FRANKS WANTS to see you.” The radio crackled and then shut off.

Tess glanced at Marc, who was, of course, still staring out the window. She’d switched tactics from trying to be friends with the guy to focusing on work. Third day in, he still barely said a word and barely seemed to listen.

He did catch on quick, though, which was kind of a pain in the ass.

Tess grabbed the radio and muttered into the speaker, “En route.” To Marc she said, “Should only take a few. You can poke around the station. Check out the gym or something.”

He nodded.

She really hated that nod. His silence. His stoic blankness. She hated that it made her wonder. No personality? Woman hater? Deep dark secrets?

She had enough on her plate without trying to figure out Mr. Stiffy. Yeah, she’d said that back on the first day. Jeez. Maybe she needed to practice some of this guy’s stoicism.

And quick, if Franks wanted to see her.

She pulled into the station lot, rolling her shoulders to rid herself of the heavy rock of dread knotted between them. Franks rarely called someone into his office for anything positive, and she really hadn’t done anything to garner positive lately.

“You know where everything is?”

Another nod, no other verbal response. Seriously, who was this guy? Some kind of monk? Only allowed a certain number of words a day?

She didn’t have time to think about it. She had to do the dead-man-walking trek to Franks’s office.

The door was open, but she knocked anyway. She’d never been taken to task before, but she knew. She just knew.

“Yes?” Captain barked.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Camden. Yes. Come in. Close the door.”

Nope. Not good. But she did it, because, as with a lot of things, what choice did she have?

“We’ve had a few rumblings after last week.”

“Last week, sir?”

“You disappeared fifteen minutes before your shift was over. And you’re behind two reports from last week, as well.”

Tess tried to swallow the mortification so it didn’t show on her face. “I’ll have the reports turned in tonight before I leave.”

“Good. Good.” Captain Franks ran a hand over his balding head, looking moderately uncomfortable which was rare. “I know your father is...sick.”

But because she declined to say exactly what kind of sick, there was skepticism. She hated this treading-water feeling that was creeping up on her. Dad was getting worse and her life was starting to suffer. But the water kept lapping at her mouth, and she couldn’t find a way to swim toward the shore.

“It’s been a rough month. I’ll get it under control, Captain. I just...we don’t have anyone else.” She didn’t entertain tears, or her voice breaking, though both battled for prominence. Luckily she had a lot of practice fighting those things into submission.

“I know, Camden. You’re an excellent officer, but we’re also seeing our crime rates rise with the Dee’s Factory closing, and I need to know my men are on top of things.”

“I am. I am.”

“No more disappearing then. No matter how close to the end of your shift. No more late reports. I don’t want to have to write you up, but I can’t let things slide just because...”

Because she was a woman. Because her whole life was spinning plates on poles and she was so damn tired of spinning. But what other choice did she have? “Absolutely.”

“Have the reports in tonight.”

She nodded. The reports were both nearly done, but she’d had to leave them unfinished last night when Dad had called, not making any sense, minutes from getting himself arrested or worse.

“If things get really bad, you can always consider taking a leave of absence, but you can’t slack off when you’re here.”

“I understand. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s good to hear, Camden. How’s our new officer?”

“Good. Quiet, but seems to know what’s what.”

“Good.” Franks nodded to the door. “I have every confidence you’ll train him right.”

Tess nodded back and headed for the door. For some reason, Captain’s confidence only made her feel worse. The man had given her more praise in a dressing-down than her father had in years, and yet she was risking this to keep her father out of trouble.

He doesn’t mean it.

Tess closed the door behind her and forced stiff legs down the hall. Once she turned the corner, she leaned her forehead against the wall, her eyes squeezing shut.

She had to find some answers, or she had to let whatever happened to Dad...happen.

You can’t do that. Not when he’s the way he is because of you.

She hated that voice in her head. Because it was lies. Irrational lies. Mom had left because, well, who knew? But no matter how obnoxious a kid Tess had been, neither she nor her father had deserved being deserted.

It wasn’t Tess’s fault.

Why couldn’t you be a good little girl, Tessie? Why’d she have to leave because of you?

She hated that voice, too. Dad drunk and weeping. Shoveling all the blame on her shoulders. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t. But the guilt, no matter how irrational, plagued her. She’d been seven when he’d first said that to her, and she’d done everything she could to make it not true.

Twenty-some years later, it was still true in her father’s eyes, and even when she was able to remind herself it was all crap, the fact of the matter was, Dad had no one else. So what could she do?

She let out a long breath. Just like always, she was the only one who could find an answer, fix things. And, just like always, she would. She had since she was that seven-year-old girl. She pushed away from the wall, straightened and then cringed when she saw Santino standing a few feet away.

“Bad meeting?” he asked, sounding almost sympathetic.

San Francisco really had some timing, didn’t he? “No. It was fine. I’ve got some reports to finish up real quick. Is it asking too much if we stick around for a few minutes? Thirty, tops. You can order some dinner, on me. Use the gym. Walk around.”

He shrugged, which she couldn’t read. Was he put out? Okay with it? She sighed. “I’m finishing up reports. You want to see how we do it?”

“Sure.”

Want to say more than one word? Have emotions of any kind? Small talk like we’re colleagues? Oh, she was cranky and she knew it, but seriously, the guy could give a little, couldn’t he?

She marched to the computer room and plopped on a chair. She brought the computer to life and went through the report, how they did them, when they were due. Every last boring detail as she transcribed the rest of the events from her two incidents into the system.

“Any questions, San Francisco?”

“I’m not answering to that anymore.”

“Why not? It’s a hell of a lot better than some of the other nicknames I could come up with.”

“California is a hellhole.”

She snorted. “Do you have a secret sense of humor in there?”

“Nope.”

“I think you’re lying.” She sent her reports to the printer. Maybe the guy was just shy. Even after three days. She’d have to work on him some more.

“Camden.”

Tess looked back at Berkley and Granger standing in the doorway. “What’s up, guys?”

“We wanted to meet the new guy. Had to thank him since we’re not the rookies anymore.”

“He’s still got a bunch more experience under his belt than you two dipshits.” She nodded to Marc. “Santino. This is Berkley. Granger. They’re full of shit. Don’t believe anything they say. Ever.”

“Aw, come on. We’re not that bad.”

She smiled at Berkley. Even though they made her feel old. Kids ten years her junior were wearing badges now. She felt motherly toward them. Might as well start walking with a cane.

“Franks rip you a new one?”

“Nah, he loves me.” She tried to smile, but with Marc looking at her so seriously and her phone buzzing—which was pretty much only ever Dad on a bender or someone calling about Dad on a bender—she mostly felt sick.

What she needed was to be around people. Not go back to her place and be alone, because when she was alone, all the guilt twisted until she couldn’t stop herself. She’d help Dad and screw herself in the process.

“Shit.” Granger grumbled about reverse sexism but it was mostly just a buzz in Tess’s head.

She needed a distraction. She needed to not be alone. Which was usually when she organized a department outing. That’s exactly what she needed. Dipshits complaining about her preferential treatment and making her feel old. Much better than dealing with Dad.

“Hey, you guys busy tonight?”

“Never too busy for you, sweetheart.”

“Screw off, Granger. We’re having a get-to-know-the-new-guy get-together at Good Wolf. See who else can go, huh? Meet up at eight.”

“Sure.”

She turned to Marc, determined not to care that he was scowling and obviously not happy that she’d created some fictional get-to-know-him event. The department had to be a family, and she needed a distraction so she didn’t screw up work with Dad again. Lucky for Marc, he was her new distraction.

* * *

THERE WERE A LOT of ways Marc could play this and not have to go. A lot of ways, and yet every time he thought of one, he inevitably thought about the look on Tess’s face when he’d found her after her meeting with the captain.

Lost.

It was uncomfortable, the urge to help that surged through him. It had always been uncomfortable, and that’s why he’d gone into police work. You could help without being too involved. The badge, the uniform, it all got to be a barrier.

You didn’t have to get wrapped up in someone else’s problems and lose sight of everything else in the process. You got to fix what you could fix under the law and move on. Not be constantly stewing in things you had no control over.

That barrier was kind of there with this, but not enough for his liking. It all felt too personal. Going for drinks with a bunch of people he didn’t know. All because he couldn’t say no to a woman who was his FTO and, as far as he could tell, a bit of a mess.

She did command a certain amount of respect around the station though. Even with the asshole “sweetheart” comment, people seemed to look at her and see fellow officer first, female second.

There weren’t a lot of guys who had felt that way at his last department. Still, respect or not, he didn’t want to go hang out at a bar with a bunch of people he didn’t know. Even if they were going to be his colleagues. Bars, laughter, people. He hadn’t done much of that. He’d always been so focused on doing what needed to be done, what was expected of him.

What might garner him some love and attention.

Yeah, well, even if he had moved here at his parents’ directive, it didn’t mean he was that same young kid desperate for their attention.

He scrubbed a hand over his face before shrugging into his jacket. This was his new life. Fresh start. No one knew him here. He didn’t have to be all closed off and stoic. Didn’t have to toe the line. Mom and Dad were a whole state away and that wasn’t changing for months.

And it wouldn’t matter when they got here. They’d be so wrapped up in Leah and her boyfriend, the fucking amazing Jacob, what Marc did wouldn’t matter.

Never had. Wasn’t going to change.

Christ. Maybe a bar was exactly what he needed.

And what about Tess?

He yanked his door open. It didn’t matter if she was pretty. If his body had some different idea of her than his brain did. Because his body was kind of interested in her body. His mind? It found her irritating as hell. Besides, she was practically his superior.

Three days. He’d been at work three days, with a two-day break in between, and he was already screwed up. That was impressive, even for him.

“Thought you’d chicken out.”

He glanced up from locking his door to see Tess leaning against the rail at the top of the staircase. She’d changed. Jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, leather jacket slung over her shoulder. Her hair was still pulled back, but in a looser way than it had been when she’d been in uniform.

There was nothing sexy about it. Nothing. But sexy was the first word that popped into his head anyway. Something about her heavy top lip, the look in her eyes, the sly smile on her face. As if she was queen of the world and she knew it.

Trouble. Plain and simple. He’d never done anything remotely resembling trouble. Was that why it seemed so enticing?

“Not exactly my first choice of evening activities.”

“Really? What would be?” She started walking down the stairs and he followed.

His gaze strayed to her ass, the jeans she wore perfectly molded to—nope.

“Let me guess. Something that requires silence? Meditation? Building creepy serial-killer shrines.”

“I’m not creepy.”

“You’re not exactly Mr. Warm and Friendly.”

“Quiet doesn’t equal serial killer.”

“But it can.”

“I’m a cop.”

“It doesn’t make us perfect.”

“Why am I doing this?”

She stopped at an old, junky sedan, jamming her key into the door. “I don’t know. Why are you doing this?”

“You seemed...” It was probably too direct to admit the truth, but he wasn’t very good at white lies. He could keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t lie well when faced with a direct question. “Like you needed it.”

That queen-of-the-world expression disappeared, replaced by confusion. A hard-edged, brows-together confusion he didn’t want to mess with. “What do you care what I need?”

“I don’t. Or shouldn’t.”

“Superhero complex.” She shook her head as if that was a bad thing. “You gonna ride with me or what?”

“Need a sober driver or something?”

“I don’t get drunk.”

“Ever?”

“Nope. Besides, we have an early morning.”

“So why are we doing this?” His shoulders were already tense from all this back-and-forth. How was he getting pulled into this verbal sparring? He never did that.

“You need to understand, I don’t know how your old department was, but here we’re a family. We have to trust each other. We don’t have to all be best friends, but we need to know that if someone gets in a jam, someone else is going to be there backing us up. Being the quiet guy in the corner isn’t going to fly.”

He understood that, to an extent. In his rookie days he hadn’t gone out and partied like most of the guys he’d gone to the academy with. He didn’t step out of line. Not one drinking-and-driving incident, hell, not even a speeding or parking violation. Even if he’d gotten one, he would have paid it rather than flash his badge.

He believed in right and wrong. Because doing the right thing would be noticed and rewarded.

Joke’s on you.

But he’d been friendlier then. Smiled more. Hoping for some kind of belonging that had never materialized. No one liked a guy who wouldn’t bend the loosest of rules.

“Getting in or what, Captain Quiet?”

“Captain Quiet?”

“It’s my superhero name for you.”

“I’m not answering to that, either.” But he got into her glorified rust bucket. Why? A million reasons that didn’t make sense. At least not without some deep introspection he wasn’t in the mood for.

“That one suits you, though. You’d probably even look good in a pair of superhero tights.”

He frowned over at her as she pulled out of the parking lot. Was she...flirting?

He didn’t have much time to ponder. The Good Wolf, an old, dilapidated place on the riverfront, was a short drive from their apartment complex. It was brick on the outside, showing its age, a vintage neon sign buzzing Open in the big window.

Inside it was dark and smoky, but not as dingy as he’d expected. Tess waved to a couple other guys and suddenly he was being introduced, maneuvered into a seat, beer placed in front of him.

Social hour. He was so damn rusty with this he felt like an awkward teenager again. But Tess didn’t let him stay that way for long. She prodded him into a long, drawn-out conversation about the old Superman movies.

Then she foisted him off on a middle-aged guy who turned out to be all right once they found some common ground talking cars. Still, Marc found himself watching Tess even as he chatted and drank.

She was an odd figure. A leader of sorts, but more like a mother. Which was a weird thing, because half the guys were her age or older. Weirder still because he didn’t think most of the guys staring at her ass thought of her as a mother hen.

But she stepped in. Cut a guy off when he’d hit his limit, separated one of the young guys from a clearly uninterested woman. Every time Marc thought he escaped her notice, she pushed him into conversations about cars with one guy, baseball with another.

She was everywhere, subtly maneuvering people away from what they shouldn’t do and toward what they should. It was all kind of mesmerizing.

“She doesn’t fuck cops.”

Marc jerked his head toward one of the guys from earlier who was leaning against the table next to him. Granger. He’d been the first one she’d had to cut off, and he wasn’t falling-over drunk but definitely impaired.

Marc kept his tone bland even though the out-of-nowhere comment pissed him off. For a lot of reasons. “Excuse me?”

“You’re staring awful hard at our Camden.” Granger gestured to where Tess was laughing with two older guys, covertly handing off their not-empty drinks to a waitress. “The thing is, every single guy in the department, and probably some of the not-so-single ones, have tried and failed. She doesn’t fuck other cops.”

“Not why I was watching her, pal.”

“Chill, man.” He held up his hands. “Not trying to warn you off, just giving some information. We’re all friends here.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Granger slapped the table. “Keep it in mind.”

Marc rolled his shoulders. The kid, and he was just a kid, was right. Friends. He needed to make friends. Sure, not lifelong buddies, and certainly not anything involving fucking, but it wouldn’t kill him to remove the stick from his ass.

He was free. Until Mom and Dad moved, but even then. He’d already done his duty by moving here. Leah was back in their lives. Why was he still trying so hard? He didn’t matter. Never would.

It was long past time he started living for himself.

CHAPTER THREE

TESS WAS IN TROUBLE. Of two very different kinds. Sadly, they both involved drunk men she felt responsible for.

The first she was going to ignore. She had to. She had to be up early and couldn’t risk another bottle-throwing incident on a work night. At some point, once in a while, she had to put herself first.

The second bit of trouble, well, she was 100 percent responsible for the second, and kind of enjoying it. Typically, she didn’t like drunk men, but she’d also been around enough to know everyone handled their liquor differently.

Some got belligerent, like many of the drunk drivers she dealt with on the job. Some got violent. Hello, dear old Dad. Some, well, some just got goofy. Buttoned-up, strong silent type Marc Santino got goofy.

It made her grin, and feel oddly light. Both things her father’s drunkenness never made her feel. Everything about Marc’s normally tense, ramrod straight posture had relaxed. He was smiling, head bobbing along with whatever Stumpf was telling him.

He did shake off an offer for another beer, which was more than half the guys in their little group would ever do. Which was why she tended to spearhead these little gatherings and moderate some of the looser cannons.

Most were making noise about leaving, so she made sure none of the worse-for-wear guys were planning on getting behind the wheel, then she approached trouble. Hot trouble, which was nothing to smile about at all.

But she couldn’t help herself. “You ready to get going, San Francisco?”

“You know, Mother Hen, which is my new nickname for you, I have never even been to California.” He didn’t slur, but his words, his demeanor, were all loose. So different from usual.

“I thought you said it was a hellhole.”

“Seems like it would be, anyway. Can’t even pay their own damn bills.”

“Yes, Grandpa. Now let’s get you up and out.”

“I can walk.” He got to his feet. No weaving or tripping, but there was a difference in his gait. Not that measured, stiff walk he usually had. This walk was a lot more wiggly.

But he followed her, and even though he was definitely inebriated, he watched her as she made sure the rest of the guys were out the door, too, and she got the weirdest feeling he was silently judging her for it.

Well, let him. He’d obviously come from a department where having each other’s backs was not important. That was not how BCPD worked. Period.

Her phone buzzed and she closed her eyes for a second before slipping into her car. Maybe when they got home she’d call Dad and try to talk him down, but she wasn’t giving in and going over there, and she certainly wasn’t talking to him with Marc in the car next to her.

“So, what were you and Stumpf talking about?”

“Aliens,” he said, deadpan.

“You were not.”

“Oh, yes. He was trying to convince me he’s seen a UFO. To which I said N-O.”

Tess laughed and shook her head. “I hate to encourage drinking, but you’re a lot funnier with a few under your belt.”

“Maybe that’s been my problem all along.”

Her first instinct was to poke and prod and figure out what problem he thought he had. She liked to fix problems. But something about the way he looked grim and stiff again made her clamp her mouth shut as she pulled into their apartment complex parking lot.

Her phone buzzed. Again. She didn’t bother to look this time. Just clicked the ignore button through her pocket.

She should have turned off the phone. Sure, it wouldn’t stop Dad from calling, but it would stop her from the stab of guilt after each ring.

“Seriously, what’s the constant calling about?” Marc asked, gesturing at her pocket as he walked leisurely toward the door.

When she laughed, he squinted at her and his hand missed the handle of the complex door. “What’re you laughing at?”

“Aboot.”

“Huh?”

She giggled again. “Your Minnesota shows when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk! I’ve never been drunk in my life.” He stepped inside and then promptly tripped over the mat, barely catching himself on the wall.

“Never?” She offered Marc her shoulder and he grumbled something before using her as a bit of a steady crutch on their way up the stairs.

“Not once. Didn’t even touch a drop until I was twenty-one. I am a perfect citizen through and through.”

“You really are a superhero.”

“The world loves superheroes. They have women and families falling all over them telling them how great they are. Well, when their parents aren’t dead. Still, I am no superhero.”

Oh, don’t have hidden hurts. Please don’t have hidden hurts. She was such a sucker for hurts of any kind. She wanted to soothe. Then there was the whole fact Marc was all muscle. Yummy, chiseled muscle leaning against her.

That leaning was enough to bring a little sanity into the equation. She couldn’t juggle someone else who needed to lean on her. Dad took all her be-someone-else’s-rock strength.

So she gave Marc a nudge so he leaned, with an ungraceful thud, against his door.

He squinted down at her, and even with the squint and the slightly glazed-over eyes, the color had impact. He had impact, and she did not have the time or energy to be impacted.

But there were certain parts of her body not getting that memo.

“Sleep it off, buddy. You don’t want me storming your gates in the morning, because it won’t be late and I won’t be nice.”

His gaze dropped. A quick, odd, up-and-down once-over. The kind she usually got in a guy’s face for, but because he was drunk and that was kind of her fault, she let it go.

Totally had nothing to do with the fact she liked it from him. You are one sick puppy, Camden.

“Drink some water. Take some aspirin and get some sleep, Captain Quiet.”

“Night, Mother Hen.”

She gave him a mock salute and then walked to her apartment and slipped inside. She pulled out her phone. Twelve missed calls. Six voice mails. All from Dad.

It took a lot of willpower. A lot of thinking about her meeting with Franks earlier today to delete the messages unheard. She knew what they’d be. The first would be sweet, ending in crying. Increasingly belligerent with each message.

She got enough of him calling her a bitch to her face—she didn’t have to deal with it via message. Not tonight.

Are you sure you want to delete all messages?

She stared at the little pop-up, not sure for how long, then clicked yes with more force than necessary. He would not get her in trouble again. Police work was the only thing she could count on in this life, and no amount of crappy guilt or biological duty was going to make her screw that up.

* * *

MARC STARED AT the coffeepot slowly spitting out dark liquid. Scowling was probably a better word. Glowering.

He felt like utter shit. Head pounding, dizzy, queasy. All from a few too many beers and one weird cocktail Stumpf had talked him into. How did all those people who’d rolled their eyes at his two-beer limit over the years enjoy this?

The pounding at the door made him wince, then growl. Then groan because, damn it, that all hurt.

The pounding started again. Moving gingerly, Marc walked to the door and jerked it open. “Do. You. Mind?”

Tess’s sunny smile only served to irritate him further. “Morning, sunshine.” She was in her uniform, like he was, and her hair was back in that tight work braid. Which reminded him of how loose it had been last night, how tight her jeans had—

“I’m just waiting for coffee,” he grumbled, turning away from her. “No thanks to you, I feel like I’m going to die.”

“Hey, I didn’t force-feed you any of those beers. Didn’t buy you any, either.”

“It was whatever concoction Stumpf convinced me to drink. I’m sure of it. But I wouldn’t have been there to drink it if not for you.” He poured his coffee into a travel mug before flipping off the coffeemaker and unplugging it.

“Sorry our welcome was so unwelcome.”

He turned to face her and found her looking around his living room. “Sparse. Stark. Why am I not surprised?”

“Am I going to come home some day when we’re not in each other’s pockets to find you’ve mother henned your way into sneaking throw pillows on my couch and frilly curtains in the window?”

She laughed, a full-bodied, sexy laugh.

This attraction thing was getting really annoying.

“If you ever see my apartment, you’ll know why that’s laughable. Now, can we get going, or what?”

“I’m not late.”

“We will be if you keep chitchatting.”

“I’m never late.”

“Never late. Never drunk. Boy Scout Captain Quiet to the rescue.”

“You’re irritating in the morning.”

“You’re hungover.”

“You were irritating yesterday morning.” She would be irritating every morning. What with the cheery demeanor, smug grin and smelling-like-flowers shit.

And he talked too much around her, under the influence or not. That needed to stop. So he waved her out of his apartment, grabbing his utility belt, going into his closet and unlocking his gun safe.

Tess, of course, watched instead of shooing out like he’d asked her to.

“Man, I know a lot of cops who own a lot of guns and I’ve never seen anyone keep them locked away like you do. Code and key?”

“Safety.”

She shook her head, finally taking that stupid flower smell with her as she stepped into the hallway. “I’m pretty well versed in gun safety. That, my friend, is what we call gun paranoia.”

“Well, you and my sister can share your penchant for unlocked firearms sometime. I will remain staunchly prosafety.”

“You have a sister, huh?” She side-eyed him as they walked down the stairs.

Talked. Too. Damn. Much. Why did she have that effect on him? No one had ever had that effect on him. Top-heavy mouth, queen-of-the-world attitude, really amazing ass or no. He was a bastion of silence. She was screwing that all up and it had only been about a week.

She slid into the patrol car and he placed his travel mug in the console before attaching his gun belt and sliding into the passenger seat.

Just had to get through today and then he got a break from her. Then four more days until he’d at least have his own car, even if she was there. He hated this two-week watch thing BCPD did. He wanted to be behind the wheel. In charge. Maybe then he would feel as though he had some control, because today, with headache pounding and mentioning Leah, all he felt like was a helpless...amoeba.

“So, what’s she like?”

“Who?”

“Your sister. I always wanted one, and I can’t picture you doing a lot of playing with a sister. Although, in fairness, I can’t picture you as a kid.”

“Leah and I didn’t do a lot of playing.”

“Big age difference?”

“No.”

“You’re too macho and manly to have played with girls?”

“No.” He squeezed the coffee cup and lifted it to his lips. He wouldn’t engage. Not on this. He was not elaborating on his pathetic family situation.

She picked up the radio, seeming to have given up on him explaining. “Ten forty-one,” she said into the speaker.

Now they were officially at work, which meant he was officially not thinking about her mouth in any way aside from official officer-to-officer...mouth things.

He focused on the window. He drank his coffee and kept his mouth otherwise firmly shut. She whistled, off tune, to some terrible ’80s power ballad in between answering some minor calls.

Luckily his headache subsided, the sloshing in his stomach abated. He felt almost human by lunchtime.

Just as they were about to take lunch, a call came through the radio. “Domestic disturbance at the Meadowview apartment complex on East Main. Front yard. One of the participants is armed.”

Her whole demeanor changed. Granted, so far all the day shift calls they’d run together had been easy, nonthreatening. A fender bender. Blown-out tire blocking the road. Disturbances with weapons were a lot more serious, so it made some sense, but there was something about her expression that made him wonder.

She clutched the radio. “En route.” She flicked a glance at him then back at the road as she turned around. “When we get there, I’m going to need you to field this one,” she said, a kind of steely, grave note where usually nothing but ease lilted.

“Not that I’m complaining, because I have been a cop for almost as long as you.” He shifted, trying to get a read on her expression. “But why the sudden change of heart about my week of just watching?”

She flipped on the siren, eyes and mouth grim. “Because it’s my father’s apartment complex.”

Marc didn’t have a clue what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. Since she didn’t seem surprised and was having him handle it, it meant she thought her father was involved, and since she didn’t seem panicked, he had to guess her father was the one armed.

Yeah, really didn’t know what to say about that, so he just watched the road and tried to figure out how he was supposed to handle the armed father of his FTO.

CHAPTER FOUR

TESS TRIED TO keep her limbs steady and her expression strong and impenetrable as she pulled onto the street in front of her father’s place. A crowd had gathered in the tiny parking lot, and Tess’s stomach turned.

This was bad. Like high school when Dad had been locked up for three days bad and she’d been so sure that was it. She was on her own. Forever.

“I’ll handle it.”

Odd that Marc’s calm assertion was a touch comforting. She couldn’t remember anything ever being handled for her. Ever.

Which also made it uncomfortable. But there wasn’t enough time to analyze her feelings here. Not enough time to do much of anything except lean over and lay a hand on Marc’s arm before he could get all the way out of the car.

He waited, eyes resting on her face. Serious and unreadable, the exact expression she was trying to affect and probably failing at.

“If...if possible, see if you can talk everyone out of filing charges.”

He paused, then gave a curt nod and was gone, disappearing into the crowd.

Tess tried to breathe through the panic swirling in her gut. This was her dad and she was letting some guy she barely knew take care of it. Some guy she’d practically had to browbeat into introducing himself to the department.

How could she do that?

Because right now, she wasn’t Thomas Camden’s daughter, she was a police officer. The fact she had no doubt it was her father out there, drunk and armed and so damn out of control, meant her objectivity was skewed and she had to be strong enough to keep herself out of the equation.

Why can’t you help me, Tessie?

Tess had to squeeze her eyes shut against her father’s imploring voice. He did that so well, sounding like someone in desperate need of help, a help he refused to see he had to give himself.

But the way he pleaded, desperate and sad, always pulled against reason, coiled around her heart until her brain shut off.

Sometimes she thought she was as bad as he was. Sometimes she was certain of it.

She watched the clock, counted seconds, did everything to keep herself from pushing out there. She would not be able to go out there and handle things the way they needed to be handled, because no amount of armor would make her not that man’s daughter.

She was bound to him, to this, and if there were any way out she would have found it by now.

The finality, the heavy, depressing realization was too much. She had to get out of the car. She had to act. Because if she didn’t, she’d cry, on the job, and that was worse than losing her objectivity.

The crowd had dispersed somewhat, and Marc was standing in between her weaving father and a skinny young man who had drug user and/or dealer written all over him.

Tess’s stomach sank farther. Dad had only gotten into drugs once, and it had been bad. Lately things had been bad. But how would she have missed that? She would’ve picked up the signs, the signals.

“I can search you if you’d like,” Marc said equitably to the jumpy guy while Dad stood, arms crossed over his chest, face mottled red.

“He attacked me!”

“Witnesses say you started—”

The moron started swearing, but one hard look from Marc and he was swearing his way across the yard and to the door on the corner of the building.

“That little punk stole from me. I want what’s mine,” Dad demanded.

“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day, Mr. Camden. He may have started it, but witnesses weren’t singing your praises, either. You did have a deadly weapon.”

“It’s a butter knife.” Dad stumbled toward Marc. “I want it back, you thief!”

“Dad.”

Her father jerked, bobbled as he turned to face her. He scrunched his face up at her uniform. “I thought I told you not to come here like that, Tessie.”

“I’ve told you not to have cause for any of us to come here.” She took his arm, forcing herself to look at Marc in the most professional way she could muster. “No charges?”

He merely shook his head.

“Then I’ll get him inside. Be back in five.” Tess forced herself to act like a police officer, not like a daughter. She was in uniform, and she would make sure he got inside and didn’t have anything in his apartment and then...they’d go right back to work.

No tears. No guilt. No pain. This just was what it was.

Marc didn’t say anything, he just looked at her. With that hooded, unreadable expression. Then his gaze dropped to her arm and she knew he was putting two and two together. He wasn’t the strong silent type because he didn’t know what to say—it was because he sat back and watched and understood uncomfortable truths.

Her father was the source of the gash on her arm last week. A purposeful, violent outburst. And here Tess was helping the man who’d physically attacked her—a whole lot more than once. She refused to let the quiver of self-disgust into her voice. “I’ll be back in five.”

He nodded, then handed her the butter knife, handle first. It took a few seconds for her brain to engage enough to take it, but when she did, he headed for the patrol car without a word. Tess swallowed down the tears and led her father back to his apartment.

“Why can’t you fix this, Tessie? Why can’t you make it all right?”

She wished she had a clue.

* * *

MARC HADN’T KNOWN what to say the rest of the day, and one thing the incident with her father had done was shut up Ms. Chatty Pants.

He wished he could feel glad about that, but there was an uncomfortable weight in his gut. The weight of knowing Tess was every bit the mess he’d expected, and instead of being able to judge her for it, he felt sorry for her.

Her own father was not only a total ass, he’d hurt her. After witnessing the violence in the man this afternoon, Marc had no doubt the broken-glass excuse was bullshit. Tess’s father had hurt her on purpose.

It made him sick, and he didn’t know what to do about that. He’d seen a lot of crappy things in his career, worse than a lousy father, worse even than an abusive one, but what little he knew about Tess and seeing the way she’d carefully helped her father back into his apartment—yeah, it really made him nauseous.

She pulled her patrol car up to the apartment complex and Marc still didn’t know what to say. What he was supposed to do.

Maybe nothing. If he’d been the one in her place he’d want nothing except for her to pretend it had never happened. She hadn’t said anything since aside from the basics that had to be said to get their job done for the day.

She stepped out of the car and he followed suit, stomach tightening uncomfortably in the face of a situation he had no idea what to do with. He tried to avoid that feeling at all costs. It had been such a damn constant growing up, he’d found all the ways to distance it from himself.

But none of his self-preservation instincts kicked in. He felt drawn to the feeling inside, into figuring out some way...some way to help.

This is not the kind of thing you fix.

He knew way too much about those things.

They reached the top of the stairs and Tess slowed her pace as she pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Well, it was an interesting day.” She didn’t meet his gaze, which was unusual for her. This closed-off, shifty way of standing, looking. Discomfort.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out oddly hoarse as he stood by his door.

“Thanks.” She finally met his gaze and the way she oozed embarrassment and pain had him stepping toward her. For what? He had no idea.

“Anyway, good night.” She gave a little nod, looking at the floor, but the slumped posture and the defeat in her spine made him act against every sensible thought in his head.

“Tess.” He didn’t reach out to her, but that’s what he wanted to do. Why the hell did he want to do that?

“The fact of the matter is I’m going to have a good cry, and if you don’t want me to do that all over your shoulder, you better get in your apartment ASAP.” She tried to smile, but it wobbled and the tears were already shimmering in her eyes.

Yes, he should get inside the safety of his apartment. He wanted nothing to do with a crying woman who was his coworker and kind of flinging her life all over his. Her this-precinct-is-a-family edicts and this stuff with her father and making him talk when he normally wouldn’t and...everything.

But he didn’t move to his door. Instead he reached out and touched her shoulder, because there was only so much visceral pain he could see in someone else without trying to help.

Not at all smoothly, he pulled her into a hug. He figured it’d be awkward. In the grand scheme of things, he’d never found hugging people anything but awkward.

But she leaned into his shoulder, resting her head there, her fists trapped between his chest and her collarbone. Her breath hitching occasionally.

He wasn’t sure anyone had ever cried on his shoulder before. In particularly tragic situations he dealt with at work, he’d occasionally offer a hand, a shoulder pat, something solid to hold them up.

But never like this.

“A pity hug from you. I am pathetic.” But she didn’t pull away—she sniffled into his shoulder, and it was such a strange sensation. Holding and comforting someone he barely knew. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this for someone he did know.

“How long has he been like that?”

She stiffened. A question she didn’t want to answer, and inevitably the question that got her to pull herself together and step away.

Because the impulse to touch her face, wipe away the tears there, was shockingly strong, he shoved his hands into his pockets. There was something all wrong about this whole exchange, and it wasn’t her crying or pulling away. It was him. His reaction to it. The wanting to understand and fix wasn’t unique; he felt that a lot.

But he never felt compelled to act. Never acted against the voice in his head telling him to put up a barrier or step away. He had learned his lesson from childhood, damn it.

“Look, um, thanks. Really.” She wiped her face with her palms, let out a shaky breath as she looked around. “Can’t say I’ve ever broken down in a hallway before.”

“Where do you usually do your breaking down?”

“Alone.”

Christ.

“But those big broad football shoulders are good for crying on.” She ran her fingertips down his chest, and this was a completely inappropriate time to think of anything sexual, but he could not force himself to be appropriate.

She pulled her hand away and the way she looked at him, he had to wonder if she felt it, too. The little zing of heat and inappropriate attraction.

She took a full step back, eyebrows drawing together. “Anyway. Hopefully you won’t be put in that position again. It isn’t...normal.”

“It isn’t?”

The vulnerable bafflement on her face immediately changed, blanked. “Enjoy your day off tomorrow, Marc. You earned it.”

“I only did my job.”

She cocked her head. “You did a little more than that, Captain Quiet.”

Before he could argue with the obnoxious moniker again, she stepped inside her apartment and shut the door.

He found himself here far too often, wanting to understand more, with a door shut in his face. When he should feel nothing but relief, he felt the exact opposite.

CHAPTER FIVE

TESS SCOOTED FARTHER down into the cooling bathwater. It was her day off and she didn’t want to face it. So much so, she’d taken a bath, something she almost never did. Infrequently enough she didn’t even have bubbles. She’d squirted some shower gel in there and now she was lounging in tepid, bubbleless water.

It seemed terribly appropriate.

At least she didn’t have to face Marc. Small mercies. Her embarrassment wasn’t likely to fade anytime soon, but maybe she could get a better handle on it with a day in between sitting in a car with him for eight hours.

Eight long hours knowing he’d seen through her so easily. All the bravado, all the work she’d done to create this persona, and it’d only taken her father threatening someone with a butter knife and her asking Marc to keep people from pressing charges.

Marc saw her for what she was. A scared little girl with daddy issues so wide no submarine could cross.

She thought about the way she’d cried all over his shoulder then commented on the broadness of said shoulders. It was so out of character. At the very least when she flirted with a guy she didn’t do it in the middle of a good cry.

And she did not flirt with cops. Attraction didn’t matter. She’d seen enough to know if she got together with one cop, all the hard work she’d put into building her reputation would be for nothing. It was rare these days someone rolled their eyes at her simply for her gender.

She wasn’t undoing all that work for an impressive chest. Except she’d already done it with tears and Dad.

It was an impressive chest. What was the harm in a little fantasy when he wasn’t here, and she was in the bath, and—

Nope. Whole lotta harm. Because she had to share a damn patrol car with the guy for weeks upon unending weeks, and she did not need actual fantasies in her head.

Which was enough impetus to get her out of the bathtub. The only problem was—now what? She should go see Dad, check his place for signs of drugs, figure out what was going on.

She should. She should. What else might he do if she didn’t?

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

She was over the crying and the hurting. So she’d do the only thing that ever helped that—run her ass off.

She pulled on her running gear and slipped her apartment key in her shoe. She purposefully left her phone on the kitchen counter, strapped her MP3 player to her arm and stepped into the hallway.

There was Marc.

Well, hell.

She mustered her best I-did-not-wipe-snot-on-your-shirt-last-night smile.

“Morning.”

“Um, morning.” He cleared his throat, looking around the hallway at everything but her. “I was, um, going for a run.”

She could see that. Despite the cool March temperatures, he was in shorts. Showing off legs. Long, muscular, powerful, strong legs. A whole lotta adjectives for legs.

She had to stop looking at his legs. “I was, too.” Run till her brain exploded. Hopefully her libido, as well. But not in the fun way.

“Ah.” He nodded, looking at some point behind her on the wall.

“Yeah.” She scratched her head, pointed awkwardly at the stairs. “Um, after you.”

He gave one of those little Marc nods. She could not think of anyone else who could pull off that terse, distanced demeanor and still be something of a marshmallow on the inside.

Marc Santino had hugged her while she’d cried last night even after she’d given him a total out. No getting around that marshmallow move. Which was not something she had a lot of experience with. Which meant she should be wary, not interested.

“I should...get to it.”

Tess nodded. Not interested. Not interested. Not interested. Her eyeballs weren’t getting the message, because they were homed in on his butt as he walked down the stairs in front of her. Granted, in the loose athletic shorts she couldn’t get a good butt vantage point, but she’d seen it plenty in his uniform pants.

And had apparently unwittingly committed to brain space that it seemed very tight and firm and—yikes.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you know any good...running routes?” He was so stiff and uncomfortable, not making any eye contact.

Tess gave up. “Pretending last night didn’t happen is way more awkward than acknowledging it.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” he muttered.

“Well, maybe it’s just as awkward, but you’re being too weird. I can’t take it.”

“How am I being weird?”

“You’re staring at a light fixture.”

His frown deepened and he purposefully moved his gaze to her. And, zowie, she needed to stop dwelling in Attraction Land. But his eyes were all light brown and mesmerizing and...

Briefly, his gaze dropped, not to the floor, but more like boobs, floor, then quickly back to her face. Wait. Had he just checked her out?

Oh, they were in some trouble.

Focus on the running thing. Now. “I usually run down the waterfront then up the bluff. There’s a path, pretty secluded without being creepy and a nice view.”

“That’s got to be at least four miles.”

“Run until your legs fall off.” She forced a sassy smirk. “Surely you can handle it?” Because there was no doubt about Marc being in fantastic shape. His T-shirt was loose enough in the stomach area, but around those arms? And the shoulders, perfect for snot crying?

Yeah, she had ample view of his shapes.

She seriously, seriously needed to cool the heck off. “You’re welcome to follow along if you want. Unless four miles is too many for you.”

Again he did the little boob-floor-back-to-face look, and if she wasn’t totally warped, she could swear his cheeks were a pinch pink. As if he was blushing.

Anyone else, she might adjust her sports bra right there and give him something to really blush about. But no cops. Especially not ones with marshmallow centers.

“All right,” he finally said, gesturing toward the door. “After you.”

She forced a sunny smile and sauntered out the door. No, she wasn’t sauntering. She was walking. Like a normal human being.

Swaying those hips like you want him to stare at your ass.

Okay, that, too. She kicked her leg out behind her, pulled her toes up to her butt. “Do you stretch beforehand?”

When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him still standing in the doorway. Until the door smacked him because he hadn’t been paying attention. You will not bend over and touch your toes. You. Will. Not.

But, oh, it was tempting. A hell of a lot more fun than trying to run her conflicted thoughts about Dad away.

But also way more dangerous. She wasn’t into danger. She was into finding a way to build some kind of stability in her life.

Ha. Ha.

Marc stood to her side, where she couldn’t really watch him stretch. Which was probably by design.

They stretched in silence, and it was hard work to maintain the silence. Just like she couldn’t stand his weird awkwardness, she was no good with his distancing silence.

She was no good with all of it. Maybe you’re just no good.

“Ready?” she asked, eager to run that asshole voice in her head to the ground.

* * *

TESS’S PONYTAIL BOUNCED. She bounced. Every spandex-clad inch of her. This was some circle of hell. Run with the hot woman in spandex who is your FTO and also going through emotional shit you want nothing to do with. Circle five? Had to be higher than that.

Once he’d tried to get ahead of her, but she’d taken it as a challenge and never let him pass.

So he had to run behind her on the narrow path and try to focus on trees and shit. They’d run down the waterfront and up the bluff, and Marc slowed as a familiar house came into view.

“Don’t tell me you’re running out of steam.”

He looked at the big fancy house along the bluff. He’d only been here once, and it had been a weird visit. Christmastime. Mom harassing Leah and him stepping in. One of those rare moments with Leah when he couldn’t hold on to his usual detachment. “That’s where my sister works.”

“Oh, yeah?” She stopped her running, bending to one side and then the other. Spandex. Ass. Breasts. Spandex. Fucking damn it.

“Are you going to stop by and say hi?” she asked, completely unfazed that he was dying.

Saying hi to Leah was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. Scratch that, the last thing he wanted to do was keep jogging with an erection because Tess’s ass in those spandex running pants was not fair.

Life was not fair.

“Yeah, um...” How did he phrase this so he made it clear that even if he did go say hi to Leah, he didn’t want Tess tagging along? Doing it alone was bad enough—adding this woman to the mix had disaster written all over it.

“I’ll go up to the top of the street, turn around. If you’re not done by then, I’m sure you’ll catch up or I’ll just see you later.”

“Yeah. Great.”

She bent backward, fingertips splayed across her back, then bent farther, giving him an ample look down her shirt.

Abruptly, he turned toward MC Restoration’s office. He wouldn’t go to the big house—not all sweaty and...other things he was denying.

He’d knock on Leah’s little workshop door, hope to God she wasn’t there, and be on his merry way. Far away from the sight of Tess in spandex.

He refused to look back at Tess as he strode through the backyard of MC. He was focused on his destination. On safety. He knocked, held his breath and hoped no one answered.

“Marc?” Leah’s eyes were wide as she opened the door. “Hey, is everything o—”

“Yeah, yeah, good. I was just out...running.” He gestured toward the ring of sweat around his shirt collar. “Passed by and thought I should say hi, I guess.”

Leah blinked at him, but then she smiled.

Which was conflicting. A part of him felt as though he should be making bigger strides in the big brother department. Trying to figure out some relationship they could have or maneuver that wouldn’t be all heavy with what came before.

But Leah had spent too long as the driving factor of his life. Spending days on end in hospital waiting rooms, scrimping so Mom and Dad could pay off her medical bills, listening to bickering and arguments, trying to tread the waters of his parents’ separation.

Then, when they got back together, doing everything in his power to be whatever they needed.

Most of that wasn’t Leah’s fault. Her health had been beyond her control, though her rebellious streak had landed her in the hospital more than necessary after her heart transplant. Which had also been the source of Mom and Dad’s discontent and...

This, this was why he didn’t seek out Leah. Even if she was the most wonderful person in the world, she made him think about things he’d much rather not think about.

“You sure everything is okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. I was kind of trying to avoid a weird situation.”

“Weirder than this?”

“Ha. Maybe. I don’t know.” This was pretty weird, after all. He didn’t know much about how to start conversations with Leah. Conversations that wouldn’t irritate him or make him feel like crap, anyway.

“Well, come on in.” Leah moved out of the doorway and into her little shed of a work area. It was a mess. Tools and light fixtures and wires everywhere. Not much room to move around, either.

“What exactly were you avoiding?” she asked, picking up a few wires and studying them.

“Just avoiding someone, and there your place was. So I said I needed to come say hi to you.”

“Wow, you must have really wanted to avoid them. They trying to sell you something?”

“Oh, no, we live in the same apartment complex and were going for a run at the same time and she’s nice, really, I just...it was...I’m not good with small talk.”

Leah put the wires down, eyebrows raised. “She?”

Shit. “Well, yes. I work with her, actually. She’s my field training officer.” He didn’t like the way Leah was looking at him, all considering, and he really didn’t like the way he was fidgeting and the way his face was getting hot.

“What does field training officer mean?”

“Basically she’s observing while I learn the ropes of a new department.” Marc backed toward the door. Hopefully Tess would be out of sight by now and he could slip out and—

“Ah.”

He scowled. “What does that ah mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Good.”

But then Leah grinned. “Must be a Santino trait.”

“What?”

“Lusting after the boss.”

“She’s not my boss.” Shit. “And I’m not lusting. Also, please don’t ever use that word in my presence again.”

Leah chuckled. “Fair enough.” She studied him for a second before returning to a workbench scattered with tools and debris and a bunch of things he wouldn’t even begin to know how to make sense of. “You can hide out here as long as you want.”

“Thanks.”

“And, you know, that’s an open invitation sort of thing. Not just for hiding out, either.”

“Thanks.” Even though he didn’t feel thankful. He felt guilty. Guilty for not being the kind of brother he should be. Guilty for moving here but not making any overtures toward Leah.

Guilty because even knowing he should make an effort—he didn’t want to. His hand grasped the doorknob. “I should head back.”

Leah’s smile was small, not much of a smile at all, really. “Sure thing.”

“I’ll, uh, see you soon.”

“Sure.” She focused on her wires and, well, he was a dick. Plain and simple.

“Um, you know, I work all weekend, but maybe we could go out to lunch...or something sometime next week.”

She stopped fiddling with her wires, surprise written all over her face as she looked at him. “Well, sure.”

“Great. I’ll call you.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “That’s a brush-off in dating code, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in sibling code.”

“I will call you.”

“Yeah, you’re a stand-up kind of guy, Officer Santino. That field training lady doesn’t stand a chance.”

He scowled. “Not happening.”

She made a considering noise and stood, crossing over to him before hesitating. “I was going to go for a hug but...not my forte.”

“Yeah, not mine, either.” Though hadn’t he done an admirable impression of it last night? With a woman not related to him. A woman he barely knew.

A woman who was an adult and basically still abused by her father.

“We should try,” he said, his voice uncomfortably rough. His family had its issues, deep uncomfortable ones, but they certainly didn’t physically or purposefully hurt each other.

“Really? Because—”

It was awkward, and ridiculous, but it felt necessary. He reached around Leah and gave her an uncomfortable one-armed squeeze. “There.”

“Please. I’m begging you. Never again.”

“No promises.”

She groaned. “Ah, so this is the brother torture everyone else complains about.”

Thirty years, and she was just now experiencing some stupid little thing normal brothers and sisters did all the time. It wasn’t anything near as bad as Tess’s father’s treatment of her, but he felt guilty all the same. As if he’d failed.

“Don’t get all...whatever. You can’t exactly torture the little sister when she spends all her time in the hospital or running away. It is what it is.”

“No, I know.” But Leah had been healthy for a lot of years now, and she’d been talking to the family regularly for the past year and a half. He had been the one to not make any overtures.

Changing that filled him with dread, but ignoring the fact it was his duty wasn’t an option. “I should get back, but I will call you about lunch next week.”

“All right, but if there’s hugging involved, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“Noted.” Marc turned the knob. He’d save the dread and discomfort for later. For right now. Right now he was just doing the right thing, and that was all that mattered.

He stepped outside, grimacing when he saw Tess’s form jogging up on the path. Not quite long enough.

“That her?”

“Yeah.”

Leah laughed and gave him a shove. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

“I’m not—”

But Leah shut the door before he could argue. He wasn’t going to go get Tess. He wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

CHAPTER SIX

TESS WAS SURPRISED to see Marc trudging across the expansive yard he’d disappeared toward. He hadn’t been subtle about wanting to get rid of her.

She had a hard time blaming him for that. Where she’d spent years upon years successfully keeping friends and coworkers firmly in the dark about what a mess she was, she’d known Marc a week and he knew. He’d seen.

That was extraordinarily difficult to deal with, because someone knowing what a mess she was made it seem more true. Less something she could muscle her way through. He didn’t believe that tough shell she donned every day.

She just wished the seer of her weaknesses wasn’t so hot. Or so sweet, in a weirdly uncomfortable, gruff way.

Shit balls.

Marc fell into step kind of half next to her, half behind her. It was only then she realized she’d purposefully slowed her pace as she’d come close to the giant old house. Because she’d wanted...

It was best if she didn’t think too hard about what she wanted.

“Hey.”

“Said all your hellos?”

“Yeah, she’s working. Didn’t want to take up too much of her time.”

“What exactly is that place? I’m not familiar with it.”

“Restoration company. They fix up old houses for people. She’s an electrician.”

“I do love a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field.”

Marc puffed out a chuckle. “Yeah, you two’d probably get along.”

It wasn’t an invitation to meet his family— obviously he didn’t want that—but it made her wonder. Marc already knew so much about her life, and all she knew was he was from Minnesota and had a sister. Electrician for a restoration company sister.

“Do your parents live back in Minnesota?”

“Yes.”

“Did you move here to be closer to your sister?”

He was quiet for a while. So much so, she had to glance back to make sure he was still behind her.

His expression was grim and something she couldn’t read. Maybe as if the superhero let everyone down.

“You could say that.”

Which was such a strange answer, purposefully vague and a little cryptic. Marc definitely had some issues of his own. People weren’t so tight-lipped about their lives if they weren’t hiding something.

Tess would know.

Was it a bad something, like a parental monkey on his back, or was it innocuous? Embarrassing, but not like hers. Not painful and potentially life damaging.

It would be best not to know.

“You said you didn’t have a sister, but any brothers?”

Before yesterday she might have considered that question making progress. He so rarely asked her for more information than she willingly gave. But yesterday had changed things, because today he was asking not out of curiosity or the desire to get to know her better, but because he wondered about her relationship with her father. If there was someone to step in and save the day.

“Nope. Just me.” In more ways than one.

She shouldn’t give him any more than that, should be as terse and tight-lipped as he always was, but there was a too-big part of her that wanted him to understand, or see, or something. This thing with her father, as pathetic as it was, wasn’t something she chose.

“Mom left when I was little, so it’s always been just Dad and me.”

She wouldn’t say more than that, because it was all that needed to be said. Maybe he would understand, and maybe he wouldn’t. But she’d given him enough information to know this wasn’t pathetic. They really were all each other had, and she was the responsible party.

Whether she wanted to be or not.

Marc didn’t say anything, so she focused on running. Hard. So her muscles would be nothing but jelly and hopefully her brain would follow suit.

When they reached the apartment complex, Tess was breathing hard enough talking would be difficult, and she was gratified Marc was in about the same shape.

“Christ, how often do you do that?” He huffed.

Tess grinned, bending to the side to stretch before her Jell-O muscles got tight. “Couple times a week. Depending.” On Dad. A few months ago it had been once a week tops. This month? Three to four times per week.

Things were bad.

You need to help him. Fix this. You cannot ignore him. You’re all he has. This is your responsibility.

But she didn’t want it anymore. For once in her life she wanted to make a decision not based on her father’s fragile mental state.

Forgetting the rest of her usual stretches, she pushed inside the building. She felt too raw to have Marc’s scrutinizing eyes around.

“No wonder you’re in such great shape,” he muttered, and she had a feeling she was not meant to hear that, as she was inside when he’d uttered it. Which managed to cheer her a little. Pathetic, yes, but, hey, she deserved a little pathetic.

She glanced back at Marc following her, and though he tried to hide it, he’d very obviously been staring at her ass.

Pathetic isn’t all you deserve.

No. No, no, no cops. Not some arbitrary edict. It was necessary for career survival. So Marc could stare at her ass and be nice and hot and whatever. Her reputation was way more important than some guy.

Regardless of the size of that guy’s shoulders. Or thighs. Or biceps. Mmm. Biceps. Get a grip, Camden.

She reached the top of the stairs, probably only a few feet from her tired legs giving out completely. “Well, thanks for the company. I needed it.” She looked at her door, dreading facing the phone on the other side. Dreading the weakness inside her that would grow, fester, until she’d give up and go over there. Until she’d lose at convincing herself she couldn’t help him.

“I’m buying a chair,” Marc said out of nowhere. “Maybe a table. You...”

She turned to stare at him. “I?”

“If you’re looking for something to do.” He shrugged those big yummy shoulders she really needed to distance herself from. “I could use some help. I’ve never picked out furniture before.”

Tess’s throat got tight, but she swallowed through it. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a marshmallow?”

“No,” he said, so seriously, so disgustedly, she had to laugh despite the warmth of gratitude clogging behind her eyes as tears.

“Well, you are, and I appreciate it. I’ll even buy you lunch.”

“Look, to be clear...”

Tess had a feeling she knew where this was going, and if she were noble she might have saved him the discomfort, but a mess of a girl needed a little something to make her feel a pinch in charge of her life. “Clear about?”

“It’s not...it’s not a date. That’s not what I’m... Friends. We should be friends. Not dating...things.”

“God, you’re cute.”

“Tess.”

“No worries. I don’t date cops, even if I want to. So you’re safe no matter how much you’re nice to me.” Though she couldn’t resist one little flirt. “Or how many lusty vibes crop up.”

“I’m really starting to hate that word,” he grumbled. “Noon. I’ll meet you at my truck.”

Tess nodded and did her best not to saunter to her apartment door, not to swing her hips or bounce her steps, no matter how tired her legs were, but she could feel his eyes on her, so it was hard.

Well, welcome to life. Hard.

* * *

“PIVOT.”

Tess started giggling, which was not pivoting so they could get the damn couch up the stairs. A couch she’d somehow talked him into. He didn’t plan on having company. It was just him. Why would he need a couch? A chair would have sufficed.

“Why are you laughing?” Marc grumbled, the bulk of the weight of the couch resting on his shoulder. Though he’d never admit it to anyone, that run this morning had kicked his ass—physically and emotionally and whatever feeling was ignoring your hot neighbor/coworker’s hotness.

Something akin to wanting to crawl out of one’s skin. Or sex. Sex would be good.

He gritted his teeth and Tess got a better grip on the couch. “I take it from the grumpiness you never watched Friends. You know, Ross yelling at everyone to pivot in the stairwell?”

“No, I’ve never seen it.”

“How is that even possible? I’m not sure I can trust someone who’s never seen Friends.”

“I’m not big on TV.”

“Strike two, Santino. Next up you’ll tell me you don’t like dessert and I’ll be forced to hate you forever.”

“Depends on the dessert.” Which was not sexual innuendo. And it didn’t sound like it, either. Not to her. Not to him. Nope.

“Okay, so what’s your favorite?” They got the couch around the stairwell turn.

Sexual innuendo? Oh, no, dessert. “Cannoli.”

They reached the top and Tess dropped her end. “Ooh, Santino. Cannoli. Italian. Is your family in the mafia? The Minnesota mafia. And you’re a dirty cop!”

“No. Apparently you watch too much TV.”

“No fun.”

No, he wasn’t. But she was. He’d pity invited her on this shopping outing, one he’d mostly been dreading since picking out crap and spending money were two of his least favorite things, and she’d made it fun. He’d laughed.

He was so inherently screwed.

He unlocked his door, twin urges surging through him. One was the one he should listen to. The one to tell her she’d helped, and now she could leave, because he really wasn’t sure how much longer he could pretend he wasn’t dying.

The other was to ignore that urge. Let her come in. Comment on his apartment again. Infiltrate on some crazy chance they both knew they couldn’t let happen.

“Thinking awfully hard there for a door opening.”

“Just thinking about how I was swindled,” he lied, poorly. Ill-advisedly.

Tess laughed, picking up her end of the couch again. “Oh, my God, you did not just say swindled. Are you living on the prairie?”

“It’s a legitimate word,” Marc grumbled. He didn’t need her help to get it in the apartment, but he didn’t say anything. Except, “I could make my own damn chair for half the amount of this stupid couch you talked me into.”

Tess snorted. “Sure, Ron Swanson.”

“Huh?”

“You, sir, need an education. Friends, Parks and Rec, The Office.”

“I prefer reading, thanks.”

“Strike three. You’re out,” she puffed out as they maneuvered the couch into the apartment. They dropped it in the general area in front of the TV. “Besides, if you prefer to read, why do you have a TV?”

“Sports.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Oh, be a little less stereotypical.”

“My e-reader is full of romances.”

Her eyes got comically wide. “Really?”

“No. I actually prefer nonfiction. Biographies and stuff like that, but that’s probably stereotypical.”

She collapsed onto the couch, throwing her arm dramatically over her forehead. “Oh, and here I got all excited you had some secret poetic side to you.” She peered out from under her arm. “You know, I should hate you for not paying the delivery fee and making me help.”

“I should hate you for talking me into a couch when I only needed a chair.”

She stretched her long legs out. She was wearing loose jeans with random rips across the thigh and knee—which actually looked like use, not some attempt at fashion. All he knew was, on more than one occasion it had given him a glimpse of skin.

On more than one occasion, he’d had to tell himself to stop staring so damn much.

“You can’t stretch out on a chair,” she was saying, folding her arms behind her head. “You can’t nap or curl up with a fascinating biography of...” She looked at him pointedly, as if he was supposed to supply an answer.

“Lyndon Johnson.”

“Ugh. Worst president ever.”

“I think worst is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“I watched this show once that gave evidence to how he was behind the JFK assassination. It seemed pretty legit.”

“Please tell me you are not serious right now.”

“Okay, this right here is another reason I should hate you—I’m lying on your couch debating about history. That is the last thing I ever want to be doing on a guy’s couch.”

“And what’s the first thing?” Danger. Accident ahead. Like a flashing sign, only he couldn’t backtrack and take back those words, so he had to stand in uncomfortable...uncomfortableness.

“Hmm.” Her smile went sly, reminding him of that first night he’d met her in the hallway. Despite bleeding and being pissed, she’d smiled as if she had the world in the palm of her hand.

She could smile like that even though it was so obvious she didn’t. He couldn’t understand that. He was having a hard time resisting it, too.

“Pizza?”

She pushed herself into a sitting position, and glanced at the door. “I never say no to pizza.”

“You can go, if that’s what you want.”

Her eyes moved from the door to him, all sly smiles and confidence gone. Just gray eyes wide and something he was having trouble resisting, too. Like what paltry help he offered mattered, meant something.

He helped a lot of people, but it never felt as though it...resonated. People moved on, people kept focusing on other people. Having someone see the effort he was making was...why did that make him feel ridiculously good?

That probably made him a dick, because helping was supposed to be something you did without the hope of thanks or retribution, but he couldn’t deny he was desperate for a little thanks, a little gratitude.

Christ. Pathetic to the extreme. At least that was another reason not to like her. Chatty and made him consider uncomfortable truths about himself. Too bad he couldn’t get that message through all the ways he did like her. He swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, to get out of Pathetic Land, but she beat him to it.

“I know, I should get out of your hair.”

“No, I wasn’t saying it because...” Jeez, now he really sounded pathetic. “You were looking at the door. You are welcome to stay, but I don’t want you to feel obligated. I have eaten many a meal on my own. It’s not half-bad.”

“I just...” She looked down at her hands, pressed her palms together before looking back at the door. “I need to stay away from my phone. If I can do that for a little while longer.”

Marc felt as though he’d done an admirable job keeping his mouth shut—he was damn good at it, after all—but the trepidation in her voice, in her movements made him realize keeping quiet went against everything he stood for.

He didn’t let people get hurt if he could help it. While Tess was an adult and her father was her business, even if he did hurt her, Marc couldn’t stand by silently if she was afraid.

“Does he harass you?”

She went completely still, presumably because he’d broken the silent agreement not to discuss what had actually happened and what it meant.

“It’s not like that,” she said lamely. She got off the couch, pushing her hair back and linking her hands behind her head before letting them fall at her sides. “He calls and asks for help. I need...” She shook her head. “He’s an alcoholic, Marc. He’s sick. I’m all he has. It’s sometimes a bit much and I need a break.”

“You...” Part of him was desperate to keep his mouth shut, to keep out of this, to help in only the most peripheral ways possible, but it wasn’t a big enough part of him to keep his mouth shut. “I know it’s none of my business, but him having a fight with that scrawny guy at his apartment complex? It may not just be alcohol.”

Her shoulders slumped and she turned away from him. “I know. That’s new. Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Marc. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I have things under control.” Her head bobbed as if she was nodding to herself. Then a sound escaped her mouth—not really a laugh, not a sob. He wasn’t sure what the noise was.

“God, what a joke. I don’t have a damn thing under control anymore. I’m not even fooling myself.” She sniffled. “I’m not doing this again in front of you. I’m going home. Look, I’m sorry. I need to get out of here.” She moved for the door, but he was—thankfully—faster and got there first. Blocking it.

What the hell are you doing?

He had no idea. He only knew he couldn’t let her leave. “Tess.”

Even though she’d sniffled, she wasn’t crying. Yet. Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Marc, let me go, okay? I’ll handle everything. I always do. I...have to.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes, hands shaking.

The little voice in his head kept repeating the same question over and over—What the hell are you doing? Only it didn’t seem to change the fact he was doing it. He reached for her shoulders, fingers curling around them. Even though her body trembled, she felt so damn strong under his hands he just wished he had answers.

He could only do his best, which would never be good enough, but maybe it could be something. “Surely there’s someone who can help—”

“I don’t have anyone who can help us,” she choked out, dropping her hands from her eyes, a mix of determination and defeat. How did she do that?

A few tears had escaped her eyes, and he hated the feeling in his gut—helplessness. As though there wasn’t a thing he could do to fix this.

A very familiar feeling. One he couldn’t seem to shake no matter where he went, and yet the words that came out of his mouth didn’t seem to understand that. “I can help.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.” How long had he been trying to help only to fail? But...she made him feel as if this could be different. “Honestly, my choice method of help would be arresting the kind of asshole that would hurt his daughter.” Without permission from the rational side of his brain, his hands moved from her shoulders down to her arm, where she’d held a cloth over a cut that first night he’d met her.

“I can’t—”

“So, I can’t fix anything. But I can help. You need to be away from your phone. I’m right next door. Well, almost. I don’t have much of a life, considering I just moved here. The point is, if you need someone to distract you, I can do that.” Which sounded... “I didn’t mean...”

She smiled, which was nice to see. “Why don’t you order the pizza, Captain Quiet? That’ll be enough distracting...for now.” Then her expression went soft, and there was that fleeting feeling he’d been chasing for most of his life, the feeling that he’d helped, that he’d done something.

Tess rose to her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thanks,” she said.

He swallowed, because a kiss on the cheek—a friendly thank-you kiss on the cheek—was not something to get all worked up over. But that’s exactly what he was. Worked up. Tied up. Ridiculously pleased that someone had recognized his effort.

Also, screwed. Very, very screwed.

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