Sudden Engagement. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ Mac urged him forward, out of the shadows. “Let me introduce you to the lead investigator on the case. Detective…”

      “Ginny Rafferty.”

      Mac and the second man down the ladder looked at Brett, surprised by the recognition. But he had eyes only for the petite woman standing in the muted light of the lantern and flashlights.

      Angelic wisps of white-gold hair, damp with rain, curled and clung to her jawline. Dark blue eyes, wide and clear as a cobalt pane in a stained-glass window, studied him without expression. She was a pint-size package of beautiful woman that didn’t even reach his shoulders.

      He remembered her.

      Proper and preachy and stubborn enough to get under his skin like an itch he couldn’t reach, Ginny Rafferty unsnapped the front of her jacket and fisted her hands on her slim hips, exposing the holster and badge clipped to her belt. Her proud, wary stance dared him to question her authority.

      Oh yeah. He definitely remembered her.

      His smile broadened a notch. “We’ve met.”

      “Yes. We shared guard duty of your cousin Mitch’s wife before they were married. My boss called in all his favors to protect her from the man who assaulted her.” She let the front of her jacket slide back into place, but her tiny body retained its stern posture. “As I recall, you cheat at Scrabble.”

      “Being a bad speller doesn’t make me a cheater.”

      “No, but doing anything necessary to ensure a victory does make you annoying.”

      She walked past him, directing the beam of her flashlight into the hidden corners of the room. Mac laughed at the clear brush-off. “Yep, big brother. She knows you, all right.”

      She put on a pair of plastic gloves and knelt beside a dust-filled footprint. She measured it with her hand and made a notation in her notepad. “Anybody been down here today but the two of you?”

      Mac, too, slipped into his professional mode. “The two men who found the body. The preliminary scan team. We’ve taken photos. Marked samples. It’s slow going, though. This place is falling down around us and won’t withstand a lot of traffic.”

      Ginny stood and flashed her light onto Brett. “So why don’t we clear the crime scene before we disturb any more evidence.”

      “Brett knows the building inside and out. He can tell us where it’s safe, and where it isn’t. Besides, he knows more history about this neighborhood than city hall. I thought he’d be a good source of information. And, he can tell us about the construction of this wall.”

      Her blue eyes flashed with the same intensity as the powerful beam. “Nice defense, Mr. Taylor. I suppose you can stay.”

      Brett couldn’t resist the challenge thrown up by her all-too-serious concession. “You missed me, didn’t you?”

      But she didn’t rise to the taunt. Instead, she flashed her light past him to the second detective. “That’s my partner, Merle Banning.”

      The trim, six-foot package of suspicion eyeballed him before shaking his hand. “Mr. Taylor.”

      “Everybody calls me Brett.”

      “I’ll remember that, Mr. Taylor.”

      He wondered what he had said or done to earn the younger man’s disapproval. This guy didn’t look too far past the rookie stage. Maybe he was working on his tough-guy routine. He had the master champ to learn from in his partner. Brett backed off a step. “You do that.”

      “Is the body still here?” Ginny asked. Apparently, what passed for pleasantries had ended.

      Mac swung his light around to the hole in the wall. “In there.”

      Ginny nodded, taking charge of the scene. Brett noted that his brother and her partner responded to her commands without hesitation. “Merle, you get Mac’s report. Then see if you can track down the two gentlemen who found the body. I want their statements ASAP.”

      “Right.”

      A split second passed before Brett understood that the others were leaving. And Ginny was heading toward the corpse. An instinct to protect, a need to shield shot through him. His property, his emotional territory had already been violated by the gruesome scene behind that wall. No one else should have to see it. Especially not a lady. With a lineman’s quick agility, he moved his big frame and blocked the opening. “Wait a minute. You can’t go in there.”

      Ginny stopped at the broad expanse of red-and-white flannel. Damn the man! Couldn’t he put his flirting on hold for two minutes?

      “Mr. Taylor, let me pass.” She looked up to add a practiced glare to the authoritative pitch of her voice. She gripped her toes inside her shoes to conquer the urge to take a step back. The teasing light that danced with perpetual humor in his eyes had disappeared behind a mask, cold and clear like the sapphire gems they resembled. He was sending her a silent message, telling her, warning…oh hell. She didn’t understand the silent message.

      She never could read men. Not on a personal level, at any rate. And this smooth-talking con artist, with the old-fashioned chivalric edge she’d discovered the last time their paths had crossed, really perplexed her.

      So she did what she had always done when she felt at a disadvantage. She buried her emotions, sucked in a deep breath and pretended she had everything under control.

      “Mr. Taylor,” she repeated, glossing over the husky catch in her voice, “I am a detective, first-grade, KCPD, assigned to the Special Investigations Unit. I’m here to look into a possible homicide. Right now, you’re obstructing justice. I can have you arrested.”

      “Then do it.” A hard chill had seeped into his chest-deep bass voice. “I’m trying to spare you a nightmare tonight, Detective.”

      He propped his hands at the waistband of his jeans, an inherently masculine pose that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and the imposing girth of his biceps and forearms.

      He was such a big man. But then, next to her, most of them were. She’d fought the good fight her entire adult life. At five-three, she’d barely made the cut to enter law enforcement. But her determination had made the difference.

      Too pretty, too petite to be taken seriously in a man’s world, she was used to having to prove herself. She trained harder, worked longer, studied more carefully than most of her male counterparts. She’d earned her badge, earned her rank and earned some respect.

      But all that meant nothing each time she came up against a Wyatt Earp wannabe like Brett Taylor. A man who imagined himself to be a larger-than-life folktale hero, who still believed it was his mission to protect the little woman from the big bad world.

      Acutely aware that he made up two of her, Ginny pocketed her flashlight and pulled out the one symbol of authority that most men did respect.

      Her badge.

      She jabbed it right at his chin, forcing him to turn his face to the side. “Move it, Taylor.”

      He swept his gaze from the badge down to her upturned face. Considering the amount of time СКАЧАТЬ