Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) (28 page)

It was his tone that confirmed her suspicions. “Ah ha,” Celina said. “I knew there was something going on between them.”

“Trust me, there is
nothing
going on between Coop and Lana.”

“But there was once, wasn’t there?”

When he looked away, Celina sat forward. “What happened? Tell me.”

“I can’t. I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“Did he sleep with her?”

“Oh, hell no.” He affected a false shiver and made a disgusted noise like he’d drunk sour milk. “That’s sick.”

If it wasn’t sex, than what was it? Celina grabbed the arms of his chair. “Then what?”

He shook his head
no
, kept his eyes on the screens. “I’ll self-destruct if I say anything.”

“Why does he lie about her?”

Bobby’s gaze shifted to her. “What kind of lie?”

“He told me she benches something like two hundred and twenty pounds. That she’s a black belt in karate.”

His eyes shifted away. “Those aren’t lies.”

“I saw her today.” Or maybe it was yesterday or the day before. Celina was losing track of time. “She’s Dolly Parton on a power trip.”

“Dolly Parton on steroids, maybe.”

“You’ve personally been at the gym and seen her bench press that much weight.”

“Me? No,” Dyer said. “But I have it documented.”

“Documented for what?”

He looked around the room. “I’ve already said too much.”

“Why would you be documenting what Lana does?” Celina said it to herself more than to him.

A thought dawned. “You’re keeping a file on her for Cooper.” She stared at the DEA field officer-turned-techie. Saw his face flush. “Sounds like blackmail.”

“No. Not anymore at least. I was keeping a file on her, but Cooper told me to destroy it when she went to the FBI, only I didn’t because it was too risky. She could come back and Coop’s problems could start over with her.”

Problems? Now Celina was totally enthralled. In a flash of memory, she saw Lana eyeing Dupé.
Wants to snag the boss
.

“She wanted to sleep with Cooper,” Celina said as the idea came to her. “When she was DEA. He was married to Melinda already. He wouldn’t sleep with her. Pissed her off, didn’t it?”

Bobby was humming under his breath now, something that sounded like the soundtrack to
Jaws
.

“She tried to get Cooper in trouble,” Celina continued, as the thoughts kept morphing. “What did she do? Claim sexual harassment?”

His tune picked up tempo. “I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know nothing.”

“She hit him with a sexual harassment charge.”

The humming stopped. Bobby let out a long-suffering sigh. “She threatened him with it because he wouldn’t play her game, but she never followed through once she found out I had a file on her. The only one being harassed was Coop and she knew I could prove it.”

“Why didn’t Cooper take the file and give it to someone higher up? Get Lana fired?”

“He said she’d move on and eventually she did. He was satisfied with that.”

“And now she’s after Dupé.”

“You noticed that too, huh?”

Celina nodded her head. “Someone should bring this to light. Warn the director.”

He was humming again and shaking his head. “Not me. I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know nothing.”

“She has access to a lot of sensitive information, and Dupé trusts her. She could ruin him.”

“Coop says Dupé’s smart enough to figure it out on his own and he doesn’t want that passed out in the light for everyone to know about. As far as Cooper’s concerned, the file no longer exists.”

That’s crap
, but now she understood Cooper’s intense dislike of Lana. His comments about her. “Did he really punch her when you were in the hospital?”

“Punch her?” Bobby’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Cooper would never punch a woman. Not even Lana...” his voice trailed off and he smiled. “But I bet he sure fantasized about it. I certainly have.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

When Cooper woke
,
gray light and the smell of strong coffee filled his bedroom. His digital clock read 6:47. Damn, he’d slept all night. Why hadn’t the alarm went off at two am like he’d set it for? He reached out and checked the switch, found it in the off position.

“I turned it off,” a soft voice said from the corner. “You needed the sleep.”

He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up on one elbow. Celina was backlit from the window, her features dark, but he could see her outline clearly as she sat crossed-legged on his credenza, holding a coffee mug with her left hand. Her gun was next to her, as was a second mug, and the two-way radio Dyer had given her.

He ran a hand over his face. His voice rough from sleep. “I had second shift.”

“I took it, sent Bobby home, put Thomas and Nelson on outside duty. You didn’t miss anything but a rangy-looking fox crossing the driveway around three-thirty.”

She’d refused his bed and taken his couch so he could sleep in comfort. Turned off his alarm and taken his watch. He was supposed to be taking care of her, keeping her safe, and instead she was taking care of him.

God, he could hug her. But what the hell was she thinking?

He wished she were closer so he could see her face, but he stayed still, holding himself in a forced comfortableness, thankful for the sheet that still covered his morning hard-on. Wondering what she might do if he pulled her into bed and took her clothes off. “How long have you been watching me sleep?” His voice was still rough sounding, but he knew it was from the sudden image of Celina warm and naked under him.

“Awhile.” She unfolded her legs and let her feet swing. “I didn’t want Freddy to get you.”

“Freddy?”

“Krueger.” At his blank look, she smiled. “
Nightmare on Elm Street
.”

“Right.” He sat up, pulling the sheet with him. Leaned back against his pillows and put one arm behind his head to prop it up, still trying to look comfortable.

Celina stopped swinging her feet, set her mug down, and slid off his credenza. She picked up her gun and shoved it into the backside of her waistband. Her hair was loose around her face and she was wearing one of his white t-shirts
sans
bra.

His heart did a skip as he stared at the points growing out of his shirt when she turned to pick up the coffee mug, and, then,
thank you, Jesus
, she walked over to the bed. She smelled good, like she’d just stepped out of his shower, and she was definitely wearing his shirt. “We survived the night,” she said. “No one got hurt.”

As she looked down at him and held out the mug, Cooper willed himself not to reach for her. To accept the coffee instead.

“I don’t make coffee too often.” She sat on the edge of the bed, one knee bent and touching his hip through the sheet. “But I know you like it strong so I doubled the amount the instructions listed.”

Cooper sipped the coffee with her staring at him, her eyes big and soft in her face, waiting for his reaction. “Thanks,” he managed.

Staring at her over the rim of the coffee mug, he waited. He wanted her so bad, his teeth were on edge, but he refused to make the first move. Her invitation was clear. Bringing him coffee, sitting on the bed braless, wearing his shirt. But still, he would wait. She’d been through an emotional few days. She was looking for comfort. Comfort he wanted more than anything to provide, so long as he wasn’t misleading her like he had in Des Moines. Her crush on him would melt away after this was over and he knew that. He didn’t want her to look back at this moment and think he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability in any way.

But damn, the way things were going this moment, this sweet moment with her sitting here like one of his fantasies come true, with her hair freshly washed and her voice soft and free of fear, might be the last one he had like this with her. Their future, both professional and personal, loomed infinitely dark, like a black hole in front of them.

Celina drew up her knees, hugging them, her bare feet resting on the bed. “Melinda called last night after you went to sleep.”

Cooper gripped the mug tighter, his lower region softening at the name of his ex-wife. So much for taking advantage of the moment. He glanced at the nightstand and saw his cell phone wasn’t there.

“I took the phone when I turned off your alarm. I didn’t want anyone to wake you.” She smoothed her hair with her left hand, pulled it over her shoulder. “Today’s your day with Owen.”

“Owen doesn’t come until Saturday.”

“Cooper, it is Saturday.”

Damn, she was right. He set down the mug. “I’ll call Melinda and explain the situation. Owen will understand.”

“Owen will
not
understand.” Her eyes were fierce. “Besides, I’m going to the L.A. office today. There’s going to be a press conference. I spoke with Dupé, and he agreed I should be there. They’re going to give out more details about what Emilio’s done and expand the manhunt to include Valquis. I want to be sure Emilio sees me on national television. That he knows I’m not cowering or hiding from him. It may just be the trick to flush him out once and for all.”

Cooper shifted so he was fully sitting up. He draped his arms over his knees. “I’ll take you to L.A.”

Her gaze dropped to his lips, rose to his eyes again. “Melinda said Owen’s guitar lesson is at ten and then he’s planning on you taking him to lunch. He’s counting on you to spend the day with him, Cooper. You can’t let him down.”

How many times had Cooper heard those words from Melinda? “What else did Melinda say?”

Celina hugged herself tighter and looked away. “Nothing, really.”

Her body language told him different.

An angry tension spread through his veins as he thought about Melinda and her razorblade tongue. He’d been cut too many times not to have a healthy distaste for it. Feeling incredibly protective, he reached out and touched the ends of Celina’s hair. Its sleek weight felt like satin to his fingers. “It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. I can imagine what she probably said.”

“She saw the news about Londano. I explained that I was here because you felt responsible for me and were trying to protect me. I told her there was nothing going on between us.”

Right?
Her unspoken question hung between them, her eyes searching his again for a reaction.

His heart skipped and then settled into a hard thumping. He rubbed her hair between his fingers, watched her lips part. She’d taken on Lana, Forester, and now Melinda, all in an effort to keep him out of trouble, even after the way he’d squashed her hopes of having a relationship. Even after he threw her inexperience in her face constantly by calling her
kid
and
rookie
. “You always manage to surprise me, Celina. In a good way.”

She titled her head, smiled. “You better hold off on the praise. I’m pretty sure Melinda didn’t believe me. She was pretty angry I was here. That I answered your phone and refused to wake you up to talk to her.”

Cooper couldn’t help but smile back. “Melinda has issues. They’re with me. Don’t take it personally.”

“She’s still in love with you.”

A small chuckle escaped his throat. He so didn’t want to talk about Melinda. “She’s not in love with me, but she’s still trying to make me into the man she thought she married. She wants me to be a good dad to Owen. Unfortunately, her idea and mine on that subject are different. Just like when we were married, she emphasizes quantity over quality.”

Celina nodded. “Sometimes women use anger to cover up fear. She’s no doubt scared something will happen to you. That you won’t be around for her and Owen.”

“You’re very perceptive for someone so…”

Cooper stopped himself before he said it, but Celina finished the sentence for him. “Young?”

He grimaced. She smirked. “My mother and father had a strong bond, still do, so I never watched my parents go through divorce, thank goodness. But my best friend in middle school went through it. It was ugly. Her dad ran off with her mother’s best friend. Tami spent a lot of time at my house. Her mother was very angry and it made Tami angry too, but what I realized was that my friend was mostly just scared. So was her mom. Their futures were uncertain for a while. To this day, Tami has trouble putting trust in anyone. Her dad ran away with her godmother. Talk about issues.”

“So you took care of Tami,” Cooper said, giving her hair a gentle tug. “And you took care of that old security guard’s blood pressure, and Annie Richardson’s kids.”
And now you’re trying to take care of me and Owen
. He sighed. “You’re a nice person.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“Don’t jeopardize yourself trying to make things right for me.”

“Thomas can take me to L.A. I’ll be safe at FBI headquarters. You need to be here with Owen.”

He did need to be there with Owen. He also needed to keep Celina safe.

And away from Thomas.

“No. I don’t like it,” he told her.

She studied him for a moment, a grin lifting one corner of her mouth. She let go of her legs, shifting so the one closest to him folded under her butt, enabling her to lean toward him. Close enough to kiss. “What
do
you like, Agent Harris? Besides logical women in short skirts?”