Love at High Tide (4 page)

“Ocean City has one of the top ten boardwalks in the country.” She’d checked out the town online, to be sure Trina wasn’t dragging her to a place for retirees. Over the years, Darcy’s parents had insisted she join them in far-flung countries every summer, so the Maryland vacation spot was wholly unknown to her. “It’s all about marlin fishing and family fun. From what I saw driving in, they have about a hundred mini-golf courses. I don’t think it is the sort of town that harbors a secret brothel.”

Trina threw her arm out, pushing Darcy into the bushes at the corner of a condo. She trampled through the bed of shin-high impatiens right behind her. “He turned around,” she whispered.

Holy overreaction, Batman. Darcy pushed out of the leafy depths of the hydrangeas and glared at her friend. “Maybe he’s checking to see if he’s being followed.”

Trina held up her fingers one at a time, silently counting to ten. Then she peeked around the corner. “He’s on the move again. Hurry up.”

“I’m no professional investigator, but I think it’ll look suspicious if you dart behind a building every time he turns around.”

“You’re right.” Trina looked her up and down. “Next time, I’ll knock your hat off. That’ll give me a chance to stand in one place and watch him while you pick it up.”

The hydrangea branches scratching her thighs were one thing. Trina accidentally giving her a black eye by enthusiastically whapping at her hat? Very likely. Also, entirely out of the question. “No. No slapping at my head.”

“Don’t you want me to succeed?”

How to answer that? If she believed Trina would actually stick with this career once shorts and sandal season ended, then maybe. Although the thought of Trina doing anything that required carrying a firearm worried her tremendously. “Sure,” she said. “But remember, I won’t always be around. You’ve got to come up with a way to avoid being noticed that doesn’t involve a partner.”

“Good point.”

The sound of the waves, gone once they crossed the dune, was replaced by the constant drone of traffic rushing along the Coastal Highway. The heat also seemed to rise at least five degrees, sun bouncing off the asphalt. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. Ivan’s white trunks made him easy to keep in sight.

“There’s a mobile home park down just a few blocks. That would be a great place for a brothel. Also a skeezy little motel across the street. I bet he’s headed there. Maybe this is an audition. He’s taking that girl for a test run.”

“Honestly Trina, if I believed that for a second, I’d call 911. Prostitution is no joking matter.”

Trina pulled out her cell phone from the pocket of her swim shorts. “I came prepared. If they go into house, we’ll peek in the windows, and call the police.”

“Great. Then we’ll get arrested as Peeping Toms.”

The man didn’t cross the main drag. Instead, he turned into Billy’s Sub Shop. Trina’s face dropped. She tucked the phone back away without a word.

“Looks like he’s just hungry,” Darcy said. “I’d make a joke about how maybe he’s showing her his salami, but you look too upset to appreciate it.”

No longer worried about keeping a safe distance, Darcy followed him in the door. “Their sign says they do soft serve here. At least our adventure won’t be a total loss. I’ll take a chocolate and vanilla twist with sprinkles.”

“We’re not done,” Trina warned. “Patience is important. We’ll do this again.”

Crap. “Really?”

“Unless you can come up with a better explanation for his weird success with the hotties.”

As much as she hated to admit it—even to herself—Darcy didn’t have an answer. The girl’s body language, the way she held herself when talking to Ivan, screamed of discomfort. Verging on fear? It was the sort of thing Darcy had trained for years to be able to notice and classify. Lounging on the beach would have to take a back seat to sticking like glue to Trina during whatever investigatory escapades ensued. To be fair, she was an anthropologist, not a crime fighter. But something about the situation didn’t add up.

Chapter Four

Coop tugged at the bottom of his blue polo shirt. Paired with cargo shorts and deck shoes, it was way more casual than what he usually wore on a first date. But here at the beach, the fact that he’d ironed his shirt set him up as downright fancy. He shifted from foot to foot, anxious for Darcy to arrive. She hadn’t been far from his thoughts all day. It was nice to have something good dominating the front of his mind. There’d been nothing but misery and despair parked there for the past few days.

An electric blue Mini Cooper stopped at the front of the resort. Darcy got out and handed her keys to the valet. She looked—well, not
better
in clothes than on the beach, but damn good. As she walked around the car, he got an eyeful of long legs strapped on top of wedges that showed off her polished toes. Super sexy. Having grown up with five sisters, he knew enough to identify her outfit as a peasant dress, with a full skirt that swished around her knees. The orange top slid off one shoulder. Coop would give just about anything to take a nibble of that exposed skin. Probably smarter to wait until they’d shared a drink to try to sneak in a kiss, though.

“You look beautiful.”

“You clean up pretty well, yourself.” Darcy tugged self-consciously at her skirt. “It feels odd to have met you half-naked.”

“I’ll take you any way I can get you.” Coop put his hand in the small of her back and ushered her through the cool lobby, and right back outside to the deck. People packed every inch of it. A DJ spun tunes from a raised platform in the corner. It was loud, festive chaos. “What would you like to drink?”

“Will you think less of me if I order something completely frou frou, like a piña colada?”

“A girly drink for a gorgeous girl. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Uh huh. I see that smirk. Remember, I’m on vacation. I get to indulge in as many slushy drinks and salty chips as my heart desires.”

“Good to know you’ve set up some rules for your vacation.”

She shuddered. “Don’t talk to me about rules. I had a weird afternoon.”

“I can’t wait to hear. Weird afternoons make for interesting cocktail conversation. Wait here for a minute.” Coop parked her at the white, carved railing, then pushed his way through the crowd at the bar. Everyone in town came to Fager’s at least once during their vacation to watch the sunset. This being a Saturday, the line was seven deep, and the floor around the square bar shimmered with a sticky layer of spilled drinks. He ordered her drink, and a local beer for himself. And while he waited, he just watched Darcy.

Instead of staring at the view of the bay, she had her back to the railing. What captured her attention seemed to be the raucous, laughing crowd. Girls with crocheted tops that barely covered their bikinis squealing in tight circles. Guys with peeling noses and sand-spiked hair chugging shots. Older couples looking bemused and halfway to sloshed in matching Ocean City tees. He pegged them as escapees from a family reunion. The anthropologist in her was showing. Avid interest brightened her eyes and tilted the edges of her mouth up into a pre-smile. He couldn’t wait to sidle up to her and say something, anything that would morph it into a full-fledged beam directed at him.

“Let’s put a little distance between us and this crowd.” He pointed with his beer at the long pier leading to an oversized gazebo floating in the bay. They wandered slowly down the weathered boards, past ornate, Victorian-style lamp posts. The raucous din faded until all they could hear was the driving bass from the speakers. “Want to tell me about your weird afternoon?”

“Hmm.” Darcy turned in a slow circle, making her skirt flare out. “In a nutshell, I participated in a sting to take down a prostitution ring.”

“Really?” If she’d said her afternoon was spent harvesting corn on Mars, Coop wouldn’t have been more surprised. Instinct almost froze him in his tracks, demanded he lose the drinks and insist on a full run-down. But interrogation sucked the sexy out of a date. He had to force himself to keep walking. “Were you successful?”

“Not in the least. The sting was a flop. Even worse, I failed to convince my friend there’s no possible way that a secret, underground brothel is operating right down the street.”

Coop unbunched the muscles that adrenaline had locked up tight. “Can I assume you’re not actually an undercover agent, recklessly spilling secrets?”

“No. Well, if I was, I probably couldn’t tell you. But the brain trust behind this particular idea is my friend. Trina wants to become a private investigator. She dragged me with her to buy a gun, and then we trailed after some poor guy who probably has no darker secret than a perverted fixation on women half his age.”

Okay—so nothing official going down tonight. No cops or agents about to break up his date with walkie-talkies and hours of questions. Coop slugged back a significant portion of his beer in relief. “You weren’t overstating the weirdness of your afternoon.”

“I definitely earned this drink. And some conversation that doesn’t revolve around criminals.” She sat on the red bench that encircled the edge of the gazebo and crossed her legs. “Tell me, Coop, what are you escaping from on your vacation?”

“Criminals.” It slipped out before his brain caught up with his mouth. Damn. He really was off his game.

Darcy halted with her glass right at her lips. “Oh. I guess I should ask if you’re on the lam?”

Funny. And more than a little ballsy. He liked a healthy dose of spunk in a woman. Someone who could keep pace with him. “Come on. If you won’t cop to being an undercover agent, do you really think I’m going to admit to being an escaped prisoner?”

“Touché.” She finished her sip, staring at him as though expecting to read something in his face. Good luck with that. “However, if you don’t want me to dump this drink over your head and run away screaming, you should probably explain yourself.”

“I’m not a fan of drinks that taste like melted ice cream, but I certainly don’t want you to waste yours.”

“Thoughtful. It is pretty yummy.” She popped the cherry in her mouth and twirled the stem. The sight of those red lips pursed around the stem sent a double pulse of blood racing south of his waistband.

Coop didn’t know why he was stalling. A perfectly ordinary question deserved a truthful response. “I’m a cop.”

“Really?” She looked him up and down. Coop wondered if Darcy was trying to picture him in his rookie uniform. Luckily, those days were long past. “A cop who gets to spend the day hanging out on the beach? Do you issue citations to people who don’t reapply their sunscreen every two hours?”

“Well, I
was
a cop,” he clarified. One semester of Spanish in high school had tanked his GPA, mostly due to trouble keeping future pluperfect and other tenses straight. But right now, he wished he could remember whatever fancy verb tense covered sort-of-not-really-maybe. “I’m on a break right now.”

“I thought only tenured professors at stuffy colleges got to take sabbaticals. Were you injured in the line of duty?” She ran a quick hand up and down his arm. “Are you recovering?”

“Not injured.”
Stop being such a pansy
,
Hudson
. Spit it out. Not wanting to talk about the total U-turn his life just took didn’t make it any less real. Like genital warts. Ignoring wouldn’t make them go away. “But you could say I’m recovering. My family certainly treats me like an invalid. An emotional one, anyway.”

“You’ve piqued my curiosity. Don’t leave me teetering on the edge.”

Again, his mind slid straight to sex. How he’d like to see how long he could keep her on the edge of orgasm. But that was leaping about ten steps ahead. They hadn’t even kissed yet. And after he told her his pathetic story, Darcy might not even be interested in swapping spit with him.

He took a bracing gulp of beer. “I was a detective in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Maryland State Police. Stationed up just north of Baltimore. We’re a tight unit, and it was a good job. My partner, Doug, taught me the ropes of being a detective. It’s a whole different ball of wax than being attached to a police barracks. You’ve always got to think one step ahead of the criminals.”

“A mental shell game, almost.” Darcy set her drink down on the bench and crossed her legs. One side of the skirt fell away, exposing almost as much thigh as he’d seen on the beach earlier. Looked somehow sexier slipping between the folds of that skirt, though.

Coop ripped his eyes away. If he kept getting distracted by Darcy’s wowza factor, he’d never finish the story. “Yeah. But with guns, running and a whole lot of paperwork. We were in the Homicide Unit, but got pulled over to help out Gang Enforcement for a week. Bunch of the guys did a bachelor party cookout. Ended up with food poisoning. Seasoned criminals can’t touch us, but a batch of salmonella-tainted lettuce wiped out half the squadron.”

“Do you have a cast iron stomach?” She patted his abs in a move that turned into a brief caress. Coop took it as a promising sign. Too bad he couldn’t rip off his shirt for some skin on skin action. Despite the cotton barrier, her touch set off a sizzle straight through to his spine.

“Nope—had a shift. Someone’s gotta keep the mean streets safe. We joked about how lucky we were at the time.” Coop walked to the opposite edge of the gazebo and gripped the railing, relishing the bite of rough wood into his palms. The sun-dappled water was too beautiful a backdrop for this memory. He closed his eyes. “We were wrong.”

“What happened?”

With vivid detail, the scene unfurled in his mind like a movie. Time hadn’t managed to mute any of his recollections of that day. Coop could still feel the tug on his shoes from the asphalt, sticky from the July heat. Smell the rancid bite from the Dumpsters at the front of the alley. Hear the laughing cuss words being thrown back and forth as the teenagers taunted each other.

“Strung-out gang bangers were using Tasers on each other. For fun. We tried to break it up. That’s when they dropped the Tasers and pulled out guns. They took down Doug with three bullets to the chest.”

A quiet beat went by, broken only by the lapping of the bay against the pier. Then she asked softly, “Were you hurt?”

“Messed up my knee. I got Doug out of there. So he didn’t have to die in an alley. Raced him to the hospital, and his wife got to kiss him goodbye. But what ate at me was that his death didn’t matter. He lost his life trying to keep some scumbags from jerking each other around. Hell, that wasn’t even worth a torn hangnail.”

“It must’ve been hard. Did you get a new partner?”

He spun around to face her. “No. Once I got out of the hospital, I applied to the Secret Service.”

Again, she took a beat before replying, as though absorbing his words. “Why?”

That, apparently, was the five gajillion-dollar question. His parents, his sisters, his friends, his captain—everyone asked. Their bemused curiosity surprised him. It was just a step up the ladder, not a complete career change. He hadn’t applied to become a tiger trainer at the circus. “Because if I’m going to die in the line of duty, like Doug did, I want it to matter.”

Moss-colored eyes welled with unshed tears, hovering on the brink. “Oh, Coop.”

“Filled out a thirty-four-page application, took the drug test, the physical, the polygraph, the interviews—and waited. I’d worked with them on a couple of the president’s visits to Camp David, so the clearance process was expedited. Took five months instead of six.”

Now that he’d gotten into the story, it felt good to keep going. Like he’d snaked a clog out of his soul. “Once they accepted me, I spent ten weeks in Georgia at the Criminal Investigator Training Program. Then it was back to D.C. for seventeen weeks of the Special Agent Training Course.”

Darcy dabbed at her eyes. “Wow. I thought researching my dissertation took a long time. This was hard core.”

He though back to the blood blisters all over his legs from the rubber bullets. The aching muscles, bruised ribs, the burn in his throat from learning to identify the smell of mustard gas. The day the instructor told them they were meat shields for their protectee. Learning to intentionally step into the path of a bullet. Hard core was a walk in the park compared to Special Agent training. It demanded everything from you, physically and mentally, pushed you to the breaking point, then demanded ten percent more. But complaining about it would just make him look weak.

“Yeah, but at least I got to shower every day. You’re the one who was stuck in the desert without running water for months, right? Everybody’s got issues.”

Darcy set down her drink and gripped the edge of the bench. The move pushed the loose neckline of her dress even lower. Low enough that he guessed she’d left her bra at home. It revealed the shadowy, enticing valley between her breasts. That was enough to jack him up out of the depths of his pity party. No matter how shitty his life was right now, hanging out at sunset with a sexy, smart woman ranked high on the life-is-good scale.

“So, should I be saluting you, Special Agent Hudson? Are you here to celebrate getting your badge?”

Coop felt like she’d just cut his emotional bungee cord with that question. Back he plummeted into the dark place he’d wallowed for the past few days. “Not by a long shot. They released me from training two days before graduation. My knee, the one I hurt trying to cover Doug, is never going to be a hundred percent. Even though I’m at ninety-eight percent. The docs cleared me for duty. But that’s not good enough for the Secret Service.”

Since he didn’t want to see the mixture of pity and embarrassment guaranteed to wash across her face, he turned back to the bay. The setting sun spread pink and purple streaks across the sky. A dull, gray pall hung over the water. The bulbous head of a jellyfish broke the surface.

Darcy’s arms encircled his waist. Coop jerked in surprise, then relaxed into the loose embrace. An empathetic hug had not been on his list of expected reactions. In fact, he’d kind of expected her to walk away from his worthless, sorry ass. Instead, she pressed her chest into his back, cheek pillowed on his shoulder. It soothed him like aloe on a bad sunburn. Not registering any judgment from her soothed him even more.