How to Seduce a Cavanaugh. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ is...?” she asked him patiently.

      He seemed deliberately to wait several minutes before saying, “Quail Hill.”

      Kelly whistled, impressed. For the most part, the citizens of Aurora were middle-class and upper middle-class. But Quail Hill was where the beautiful people with deep pockets lived.

      After reaching the first floor, the elevator came to a stop and opened its doors. The moment they stepped out, Kane resumed his quickened pace, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like the idea of being coupled with her. He was putting distance between them as quickly as he possibly could. She was welcome to keep up—if she could.

      Too bad, Durant, but I don’t like this any better than you do, she thought, once again lengthening her stride.

      “Well, if I was a thief, that’s where I’d go to pull off a heist,” she said, addressing Kane’s back. “The really filthy rich part of town.”

      Kane merely grunted in response as he came to a stop before a dark sedan. He hit the release button on his key, opening all four doors simultaneously.

      Kelly looked at his vehicle in surprise. He seemed to take it for granted that she was just going to let him take over every little aspect of their partnership.

      “That’s it?” she questioned. “No discussion about which car we’re using and who’s driving?”

      Rather than answer her, Kane opened the driver’s side door and got in behind the steering wheel.

      “I guess not,” Kelly concluded, answering her own question.

      Opening the passenger side, she slid in. The moment she inserted the metal tongue into the slot of her seat belt, Kane took off. Kelly felt the jolt. The sedan was instantly hugging the road, doing the speed limit—and just beyond.

      Kelly gave it to the count of ten in her head, allowing her new partner to gather his thoughts together before he said something.

      Anything.

      When there was only silence riding along in the car with them, Kelly decided that the man she’d been assigned to was comfortable with this level of silence.

      She, however, was not.

      “You know, you’re going to have to talk to me sometime,” Kelly pointed out patiently. There was no point in raising her voice or losing her temper. That wasn’t the way to go with this man.

      Kane continued looking straight ahead as he drove onto one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

      “Why?” His voice was steely, his interest in the conversation barely engaged.

      Exasperation hovered around the edges of her voice, but Kelly managed to keep it in check.

      “Because that’s what partners do. They talk. They share and somewhere in between the small talk and the theory spinning, they solve crimes.”

      “If you say so,” Kane responded in quite possibly the most disinterested, distant voice she had ever heard. “But it’s cliché.”

      She wasn’t trying to be original, just to make a point. There was nothing wrong with using a cliché if it applied to the situation—and this, in her opinion, did.

      “I’ve got another one for you,” she told Kane, her stubborn streak rearing its head. “Ever hear the old saying, ‘Two heads are better than one’?”

      “You planning on growing another head, Cavanaugh?” he asked.

      If he meant to get her annoyed with that, he was going to be disappointed, she thought.

      “Was that a joke, Durant? Could it be that you actually have a sense of humor buried beneath that muscle-bound, hulking exterior?” she asked, feigning shock as she splayed her hand across her chest.

      He merely slanted a dismissive look her way before returning his gaze to the road.

      Taking a deep breath, Kelly decided she had nothing to lose by taking this new partner of hers to task about his attitude when it came to her. “Look, Durant, I don’t know what your problem is—”

      He pointed up to the rearview mirror. “Mirror’s right there,” he said, his meaning clear.

      Kelly dug in. “Subtle. Wrong, but subtle. I’m not your problem, Durant,” she told him. “I’m not the one who’s had six partners bail on her since joining the force.”

      “Five,” he corrected, looking, in her estimation, completely unfazed.

      “I’m not convinced that it was getting shot that made that partner of yours to decide to take a different career path, but if it makes you happy to believe that, fine,” she said. “The count is back down to five.”

      It was obvious that she was deliberately humoring him, the way an indulgent parent humored a child. He didn’t like it.

      “What would make me happy,” he told her, feeling his jaw clench as he spoke, “is if you said goodbye.”

      Okay, maybe it was time to take this head-on, Kelly thought. Sidestepping and humoring this man weren’t getting her anywhere.

      “What is it that you think you’ve got against me?” she asked. “You hardly know me.”

      “And I’d like to keep it that way,” Kane told her in no uncertain terms. “Having a partner—any partner—just gets in my way,” Kane said in a no-nonsense voice. “I don’t have time to watch your back.”

      Rather than get angry—or throw her hands up and just give up—Kelly tried another approach. It was obvious the man was keeping something buried. Something that had caused him to become soured on life as well as the world.

      She aimed to find out what that was.

      “And you don’t have time to have your own back watched?” Kelly asked.

      He laughed shortly. There was absolutely no humor in the sound. “No offense, but if I were in trouble, knowing you were out there with a gun wouldn’t exactly reinforce my feeling of well-being,” he told her.

      Kelly stared at his rigid profile. It looked as if his whole body was clenched, not just his jaw. Did the man even know how to relax? Or was he just perpetually angry at the world?

      Why?

      She had nothing to lose by asking. Heaven knew she wasn’t sacrificing any rapport she might have built up with Durant. There certainly wasn’t any to be had.

      “Were you always like this?” she asked. “Or did something happen to turn you into this distrusting outsider?”

      That was the deal breaker. If she didn’t put in for a transfer, then he would—the moment they got back to the precinct, Kane promised himself. “And just about the very last thing I need or want is a partner who fancies herself a shrink.”

      “Not a shrink,” Kelly contradicted. “An observer. Someone to talk to when things СКАЧАТЬ