My new release, Evaporate, is FREE through Wednesday, June 15! Enjoy!



EXCERPT:

Inside the elevator, he couldn’t escape the scent of her. He wondered briefly if it was her soap, shampoo, or perfume. Whatever it was, it reminded him of summertime, warm, copper-colored skin and juicy bites of watermelon. He shifted his weight to his other foot, allowing him to inch closer with subtlety.
He wondered if he was being too obvious. Should he step away and pretend to not be so interested? He assured himself that he wasn’t being too bold. He wasn’t burying his nose in her hair, after all. She probably didn’t even know he was standing so close.
She glanced up at the digital display over the doors, watching them descend to the ground level.
“It’s probably the coconut lime body wash. I have an extra bottle under my sink if you’d like one for yourself.”
Busted.
He hesitated for a moment, considering the ramifications for denying his ridiculous behaviors. Finally, he chose to go with, “Nah. It probably wouldn’t smell so good on me.”
He was rewarded with the twitch of the corner of her mouth. Nice.
“Judging by your expert response, I have to assume that I’m not the first to appreciate how spectacular you smell.” He nodded in the direction of his car when they stepped from the building into the parking lot.
“Not the first, no. But I usually have a metal protective device between me and the creeper in the back seat who’s attempting to inhale my very being.”
He reached to open the passenger door for her and then froze. “Would you prefer to drive?”
“It’s your car,” she reminded him.
“Yes. And I can be equally creepy in any of its five very comfortable seats. But I thought you might feel more comfortable behind the wheel.”
She met his eyes for a moment. “I’m not a control freak,” she argued.
He refused to look away, not even to gift himself with a glance at her mouth. The mouth he now longed to devour.
When she found herself tempted to take the keys that he held out to her, she shrugged and opened the passenger door herself. It was all but an admission.
As he steered out of the parking lot, he reminded himself to focus on the road rather than to admire her slender frame and stunning features. “So tell me about the ballet,” he prodded.
In his periphery, he saw her head swivel in his direction. “What do you want to know?”
“It seems a bit of a leap to move from the ballet to law enforcement.”
“A leap? Really?”
He grinned out the windshield, not daring to take his eyes off the road to study her. “Too much?”
“Too cute,” she corrected. “And it’s not as big of a leap as you might think.”
He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “I fail to see how dancing compares to risking life and limb to protect and serve the people of Westchester.”
She actually snorted. “Tell that to my feet.”
“Your feet?”
“I assure you that risking life and limb is no more difficult than the extremes I forced upon my body as a professional dancer. My feet bear permanent scars.”
“Is that why you gave it up?”
She shrugged in a transparent effort to minimize her response. “I gave it up to come home after my parents were killed.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she continued. “They were shot during a robbery.”
“And their deaths lead you to a career in law enforcement,” he guessed.
“More or less.”
“It isn’t just your face that is exotic, Detective. You are extraordinary.”
“You have no idea,” she muttered.
He eyed her curiously for a moment before returning his attention to the road. “I noticed it when I saw T.J. respond to you.”
Did she visibly cringe? She appeared to cringe.
“Sure, he made his best effort to treat you with outward disrespect, but beneath that garbage, he seemed to appreciate where you were coming from.”
“Seriously?” she laughed.
“He’s not a bad kid.”
“I know who and what he is.”
“He’s just defensive and reactive,” Nate argued. “You can’t blame him given his home life and the choices of his mother.”
“I hold him responsible for his own choices only. He can’t keep crying about his mother when he’s choosing to be a thug. He had a crappy childhood. He can’t expect a fairy friggin’ godmother to show up and wave a wand. Life isn’t butterflies and happy endings.”
Nate shrugged in concession. “I’ll give you that T.J. can be a bonehead sometimes. But he’s not the one who made the swatting call.”
“On that we can agree.”
“Is the investigation still open?”
“Not much to investigate. One of over one-hundred kids and five staff members in that pod alone could have made that call, to say nothing of the other seven hundred kids or fifty-five staff members who could have wandered into the pod from elsewhere in the building. With the cameras only being located in the main hall, we’ve got almost nothing.”
Nate sensed that the chemistry between them had fizzled a bit, but he wasn’t prepared to entirely give up. He hadn’t been on an actual date in nearly a year, and single attractive women who weren’t mothers of his students didn’t cross his path often in Westchester.
He turned right onto the side-street that housed the police station. He was running out of time. She was already unstrapping her seatbelt.
“Thanks for the ride. And for waiting for me.”
He came to a stop and watched her reach for the door handle. “You don’t have a lunch,” he observed.
She paused and then met his eyes with amusement. “I thought I’d stop and grab something, Mom.”
He reached into the backseat and then thrust a brown sack lunch into her lap. “Here, take mine.”
“I’m not going to take your lunch.”
“I insist. It’s the least I can do.”
“The least you can do? You waited for me and then drove out of your way to drop me off. I think that I owe you.”
“No. I pissed you off. Take my lunch.”
She made a move to climb out of the car. “I’m not pissed off, Nate.”
“Then take my lunch.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” she informed him frankly. But she clutched the edges of the paper bag in her hand as she climbed out of the car.
“You can make me dinner Friday night. Then we’ll be even.”
She leaned down into the open doorway to stare him down. “You picked an argument over a sack lunch so that you could coerce me into making you dinner?”
He grinned with an expression that he hoped resembled boyish charm. “I thought you might appreciate a bold move.”
“Bold would have been asking me out while I changed that tire and then driving off to leave me stranded.”
He clucked his tongue. “Not very romantic.”
“I’m not looking for romance, MathMan.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Listen—”
“I’ll bring the wine. I’ll be at your place at 7.”
“I haven’t said ‘yes.’”
“You haven’t said, ‘no.’” He shifted his car into gear and watched her expectantly. When she said nothing, he grinned again. “Do you prefer red or white?”
She rolled her eyes as she shut the car door and leaned down by the open window. “I don’t date,” she finally replied, and the lie sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.
“Good, so you’re available. See you Friday.” He pulled an illegal u-turn and gave his horn a cheeky toot as she pulled open the door to the station. When she was no longer in sight, he wondered if she was chuckling in amusement over his tactics or shooting him the finger.