Raintree Read online

  “The uniform who made a pass. Did he touch you?”

  She sighed. “No. He just leered at my belly button and asked me what I was doing after my shift was over.”

  “Get his name?”

  Her eyes widened, and then she shook her head. “Oh no, Raintree. We’re not going there.”

  “Not going where?”

  “You know damn well where we’re not going.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  She leaned back against her own desk, which was much neater than his. Of course, she hadn’t been there long enough to mess it up. “Okay, fine. If we’re going to be…whatever, and I’m not sure yet that we are or we aren’t, but if we are, there will be boundaries.”

  “Boundaries,” Gideon repeated, half-sitting on his own desk.

  “I want to be your partner, and I think I can be. I understand and accept what you can do, and I can contribute. I can be a good partner for you, Raintree, but some things are going to have to be separate. There can be no chasing after crude men who make passes at me, no staking your claim like we’re cavemen and you’re marking your territory, no sex on the desk or stolen kisses by the water cooler. When I’m in your bed, if I’m ever in your bed again, things can be different. But here in this office, I have to be your partner and nothing else. Can we do that?” she asked, as if she wasn’t quite sure.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “It would be easier if you worked with someone else.”

  She squirmed a little, though he was sure the thought must have crossed her mind at some point that day. “I don’t want to work with anyone else. I want to work homicide, and I know I can learn a lot from you. Maybe we should just write this morning off as a mistake and forget the whole thing.”

  Forget. Literally? A flash of anger rose up in Gideon, hot and electric. The lights overhead flickered but didn’t go out. “Go ahead and forget. I don’t know that I can.”

  Hope swallowed hard. Did she think he wouldn’t see that response? he wondered.

  “We’re almost done here. We can go to the motel and I’ll pick up the Challenger, and then I’ll go home and—”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” Her eyebrows lifted slightly.

  “I can’t be sure you’re safe there.”

  “See?” She pointed a finger at him. “This is exactly the kind of macho posturing I was trying to avoid. Would you have treated Leon this way?”

  “I never fucked Leon.”

  Her face went red and then pale, and she pushed away from her desk and stalked out of the office. He wanted to chase her, catch her and drag her back in to the office to finish this, but others were watching. And he had to admit, it was a momentarily and insanely tempting thought, to have a partner who knew what he could do and wasn’t frightened by it. Someone he could count on to help with the investigation, even if they had to work it backward and upside down and inside out to get the bad guy.

  So much for his determination to scare her off.

  He did follow her, but at a distance. He stayed well behind Hope until they were in the parking lot, and then he easily caught up with her.

  “If you’re here to apologize…” she began tightly.

  “I’m not,” he said honestly.

  She glanced at him, surprised and angry.

  “I’m not apologizing for what happened, and I’m not apologizing for telling the truth just now. You’re not one of the guys, Hope, and you’ll never be the same kind of partner Leon was.” She stopped short when he opened the passenger door for her and waited for her to get into the car.

  Eventually she climbed into the passenger seat, still angry, but a little less so.

  Gideon got into the driver’s seat but didn’t crank the engine. “You can’t go home tonight because, like it or not, you’re in the circle. If Tabby can’t get to me, she might try to get to you. Your mother and your sister would be right there in the cross fire.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose,” she said tightly. “I’d still like to go by the apartment and pick up a few things.”

  “Sure,” he said, pulling out of the parking lot and heading toward The Silver Chalice. The Challenger could wait; he wasn’t about to let Hope out of his sight.

  As they turned off Red Cross Street, he said, “No sex on the desk, huh? Bummer.”

  Sunny Malory Stanton was the perfect daughter for Rainbow Malory. Her hair was a dark blond, like their father’s, but other than that, she was Rainbow made over. Big smile, bigger heart. Comfy sandals, long skirt, dangling earrings. No bra.

  Sunny smiled when Hope and Gideon walked through the door. She didn’t even notice that her little sister’s attire was totally out of character.

  If Sunny showed up wearing a suit, Hope would certainly notice.

  Her mother and sister were rearranging the display of new jewelry. They were having fun, chatting away about the grandchildren, who had been left at home with their father. It would do Rainbow a world of good to spend some time with her eldest daughter.

  Now to explain away spending the next few days at Gideon’s beach house. Hope had been trying to come up with a good explanation since leaving the station, though she knew her mother would require no explanation at all. She would just figure that her youngest daughter had finally decided to embrace the old free love concept, and since Rainbow already liked Gideon…

  No explanation was called for. Rainbow Malory looked Hope up and down, quickly took in Gideon’s casual attire, and whispered, “Undercover?” as if there were a dozen people around to hear.

  When Gideon opened his mouth, probably to say, “No,” Hope stepped in front of him and said, “Yes,” loudly enough to cover his answer. “I just need to pack a few things, and then we have to go.” She didn’t like to think that her family might be in danger simply because she was near, so the faster she got out of there, the better off they all would be.

  She hated leaving Gideon alone with her family, but she couldn’t very well ask him to come upstairs and help her pack. So she left him perusing the merchandise while she ran to the apartment above, intent on packing as quickly as she could.

  Not that she could possibly be quick enough, of course. She gathered clothes, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, makeup. All the things she would need to make herself at home in Gideon’s house.

  Hope walked downstairs to find the three of them with their heads together, laughing as if someone had an old baby picture of her naked and was showing it off. Laughing as if Sunny had just told one of her embarrassing “Remember when?” stories about her little sister.

  “We can go now,” Hope said, her voice almost harsh.

  They all three turned to look at her, and she got the feeling they knew something she didn’t. She’d felt that way all her life, as if she were living on the outside looking in, as if she were missing out on some universal truth that was hidden from her and no one else.

  “Yeah, okay,” Gideon said, walking toward her, his eyes raking over her hungrily.

  She was twenty-nine years old. She’d been involved with men before. Romantically, sexually, emotionally. And none of them had ever looked at her this way. None of them had ever looked into her with eyes that made her knees wobble.

  None of them had been Gideon Raintree.

  “I’m cooking Saturday night,” Sunny called. “If y’all are finished with your undercover thingie, come by after the shop closes. I make a mean peach cobbler.”

  They said goodbye and left the shop just as three tourists—mother and daughters, judging by their similar round faces—entered, drawn there by a colorful display of wrapped stones in the window.

  Hope tossed her bag into the back seat of Gideon’s Mustang. She couldn’t help but remember driving him home last night. He’d been so out of it that she’d been sure he would be in bed for days. She’d been certain he needed to be in the hospital. And here he was, looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  “Are they safe there?” she asked befor