Not me, I worked mornings. She needed me for the rush hours and that’s when I worked for her. I’d never been late for Indy.

I got off the couch, put the phone in its receiver and walked across the room, passed Eddie, to the bedroom. I nabbed my slut shoes and sat on the side of the bed.

“Your Mom okay?” I looked to the side and Eddie was leaning in the doorway.

I bent double and started to slip on my shoes.

“Yeah. Trixie’s there and Ada’s coming over.” The next thing I knew, Eddie was crouched in front of me and he took my shoes away.

My head jerked up.

“Hey!”

“I want you to get back into bed,” he said, straightening out of his crouch.

“What? ” I screeched, half flipped out, half angry, jumping off the bed, which placed me standing less than a foot away from him.

“Get back into bed,” he repeated.

“I can’t get back into bed. I have to get to work.” I began to slide away but he twisted his torso and tossed the shoes in the direction from whence they came. After he’d done that, he came back around and his arm came out, blocking me.

Then he said, “I carried you from the station to the truck, from the truck to bed and took off your skirt and shoes, and you slept like the dead the whole time. Work can wait. You need some rest.”

I couldn’t think about Eddie carrying me around or taking off my clothes or how any of that made my bel y feel, so I didn’t think about it and focused on the current drama.

“Work can’t wait. I need the money,” I told him.

“How much did you give him?” Eddie asked.

I stared at him.

“Who?”

“Your Dad. How much did you give him?”

“Your Dad. How much did you give him?”

My blood pressure skyrocketed.

“That’s none of your business,” I snapped.

He took the mini-step forward which had me moving back. The backs of my legs hit the bed and I had nowhere to go but down and he was inches away.

“Move back,” I said.

“I asked how much you gave him,” Eddie repeated.

“Move back!”

“How much?”

“Five hundred dol ars, okay?”

I gave in. I had to, he was leaning into me and I had nowhere to go and I real y needed room to move.

“I’l give you five hundred dol ars to get back into bed.” My mouth dropped open and I didn’t say a word. There were no words to say.

“I’m absolutely serious. You get in bed and I’l give you five hundred dol ars. I’l go back to work. You rest, eat whatever’s in my fridge, watch TV, I don’t give a f**k. But you’re not going to work today. You’re not doing anything today.”

I could not believe my ears, mainly because it was unbelievable.

“I’m not taking your money and I’m not resting, I have things to do.”

“What things?”

“Things! Al right? Now back off.”

I put my hands to his chest and gave a shove.

He didn’t move.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

I put my hands to my h*ps and glared at him.

“I have to go home.”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t anything, just stared down at me with a set look.

I closed my eyes and took a mental breath.

“Do you know what I do for a living?” he asked.

I opened my eyes again so I could blink in confusion.

“Yeah. You’re a cop,” I answered.

“I’m a detective.”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Jet, my job is to put two and two together and make four.”

“And?” I asked, not knowing what he was on about and thinking this was a strange turn in the conversation.

His eyes got warm, his hand came up and he tucked some hair behind my ear. When he was done doing that, his hand curled around the side of my neck.

“I just made four,” he said quietly.

I couldn’t get caught up in Eddie, his warm, dark eyes, his quiet voice or the fact that he’d just figured me out. I’d think about it later. My life was in turmoil, I needed to focus and I couldn’t focus around Eddie. It was impossible.

“Eddie, I need to get home,” I told him in a voice that said I meant it.

He looked at me for a beat. Then his thumb came away from my neck and stroked my cheek and he said, “I’l take you home.”

He walked across the room, grabbed my shoes and brought them to me. I sat back down on the bed and silently brought them to me. I sat back down on the bed and silently put them on. I snagged my purse from the floor. Eddie walked me out the backdoor, helped me into his truck and took me home.

Chapter Five

I Couldn’t Buy a Break

(Even if I had the money)

I saw the wrecker hooking up to my car when Eddie drove into the parking lot at my apartment building. Eddie saw it too.

I jumped down from the truck, wincing as my stil angry feet protested and looked at the wrecker. Eddie walked around to my side of the truck, his eyes on the wrecker.

Smithie’s friend was doing the tow, looking like he was wearing the same pair of filthy blue coveral s as yesterday.

He saw me and gave a smal wave. I waved back.

“You know him?” Eddie asked.

“That’s my car. I’m having slight car problems.” Eddie’s eyes moved to me. “Slight car problems require a jump. Serious car problems require a tow,” he said.

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to argue about it. I’d probably lose mainly because he was right and I was trying not to think about what serious car problems would mean.

I walked to the building and turned to stop at the front door. “Thanks for bringing me home,” I said to Eddie, making it clear that the front door was as far as he was going to go.

He looked at the doors, then at me, then his mouth turned up a little at the corners and he shook his head.

“Just Jet, my ass,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothin’.”

I heard him. I wasn’t going to argue about that either. It wasn’t as if I got held at knifepoint and was in bar brawls every day but I wasn’t going to point that out. Not a lot of girls would go out of their way to defend how boring they real y were, especial y not to guys like Eddie. Anyway, I’d gone that route and I didn’t win that battle either.

He took his wal et out of his back pocket and held a card out to me, putting the wal et back in his pocket.