Under the Lights (11 page)

People were already digging in their pockets for the money, which Kelly took as a good sign. They'd almost decided against the tank because it was so much work, but it was probably going to rake in some cash.

“All we need is our first volunteer,” her dad announced.

Simon Ward's voice rose over the rest. “I'll write a check for a thousand dollars to the football fund right now if Kelly McDonnell does a half-hour shift in the dunk tank.”

Everybody quieted, staring at her, but she shook her head. Simon had had a hair across his ass where she was concerned since she'd had his precious Escalade towed during a blizzard. He had more money than most everybody else in town, so apparently he thought winter parking bans didn't apply to him. And now he thought he would humiliate her in front of the town, but he was going to be disappointed. She couldn't very well ask some random person in the crowd to hold her gun.

“I'm in uniform.” As far as she was concerned, that put an end to the subject.

“Come on, Officer McDonnell!” one of the kids yelled. “Do it for Coach!”

“I'm in uniform,” she said again, this time more slowly, and she patted her holstered weapon for good measure.

“I'll hold your weapon,” the chief said, having come up behind her. “And your belt.”

The gathering crowd cheered, which masked the curses Kelly muttered under her breath. If she climbed into that tank, the line to dunk her would probably wrap around the park. And every person in that line would cough up money to see her get wet, which meant even more money into the Eagles' fund.

She spotted Hunter Cass in the crowd and remembered the night he'd opened up to her on the bridge. If letting Simon Ward think he'd gotten the better of her put a thousand dollars of his money into the team's pocket and kept Hunter and the rest of the boys dreaming of their futures instead of giving up, she'd take it.

When she unbuckled her belt, the cheering reached an earsplitting decibel and she knew she'd guessed right about people wanting to see her get dunked. After handing her weapon and belt to the chief, she unbuttoned her short-sleeve uniform shirt and yanked it free of her pants. Once she'd removed her vest so she was in the plain T-shirt she wore under it, she sat on the steps to the tank and took her boots off.

After sweeping everybody with a stern, warning glare that made them laugh, she made a show of slowly climbing the stairs, as if she were going to the gallows. Silence fell
on the crowd and then, as she reached the top step and turned, she heard Simon Ward's voice again.

“I'll add fifty dollars for every dunking of Officer McDonnell by a player from the first championship team, up to five hundred dollars!”

Kelly's eyes met Chase's, and her stomach sank when she saw the slow grin that lit up his face. She was going down, multiple times, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

C
hase wasn't accustomed to being booed by anybody, never mind by the entire town of Stewart Mills.
So much for being a hero,
he thought as he missed the dunk tank's smaller-than-it-looked target for the second time.

Kelly laughed at him.

“Hey, I played football, not baseball, and I was a running back,” he shouted over his shoulder to his audience. “Catching the ball was my job. Throwing it was Sam's.”

“Then get out of the way and let Leavitt try,” somebody yelled back.

Like hell he would. Not after he'd shoved and even thrown a few elbows getting to the front of the line. “I was just getting warmed up.”

“Last ball, Sanders,” Kelly called to him from the tank's platform, her voice taunting.

If he missed his next throw, he'd never live it down. Trying to block out the noise around him, he focused on Kelly's face for a moment. Her lips were tilted up in amusement, and he couldn't miss the challenge in her eyes.

She was going down.

Chase went through an exaggerated pitcher's windup because it made the little kids laugh, and then released the ball.

It hit the center of the target, and he had just enough time to watch her eyes get big before the platform released and she was in the tank. She came up sputtering and everybody cheered.

“That's fifty dollars in the Eagles fund, everybody,” Jen yelled. “Sam Leavitt, you're up!”

Sam went two for three and by the time Alex had gone—getting only one hit—Chase could see that Kelly was shivering. When Deck stepped up, the crowd cheered so loudly Chase thought the water in the tank might have rippled. Not only was Deck a member of the championship team, but he'd also stayed in Stewart Mills and was obviously a hometown favorite.

Maybe it was from playing ball with his boys, but Deck had a great arm and put Kelly in the water with all three throws. Philly dunked her once, and then it was Coach's turn.

“Dad, really?”

Coach grinned and Chase joined most of Stewart Mills in cheering him on as he dunked his daughter three times in a row.

Even though there were probably a lot of citizens who'd like the opportunity to dunk one of their police officers, they
were after the bounty Simon Ward offered, so Chase found himself up again.

As nice as the day had been, he knew the water in the tank—which had been filled with and was being replenished by the hose—was freezing, and Kelly's lips were chattering now. The taunting challenge he'd seen on her face the first time he'd faced her had been replaced by determination, and he knew she wouldn't quit.

“The half hour is almost up,” Jen announced. “Make your throws count, Chase.”

He'd been considering deliberately missing, to give her a break, but now the pressure was on again. The first throw was a dead-center hit, and the cheering drowned out the sound of the splash as Kelly hit the water.

The second throw was a somewhat legitimate miss. He might have pulled it sideways just a bit when a shudder wracked Kelly's spine. With a sigh, he took the third ball from Gretchen and looked her in the eye.

Despite the fact that she was freezing, she gave him a slight, shaky smile and arched her eyebrow. She wanted that fifty dollars for the Eagles fund, and what the hell was he waiting for? Still, he hesitated. Under the bravado, she was miserable and he didn't want to add to it.

“Get it over with so she can get out of there,” Jen muttered at his side.

Good point. He showboated for a moment, giving the crowd a performance that would hopefully keep interest in the tank high and the five-dollar bills flowing. Then he went through his comedic windup routine and let the ball fly.

She went down like a rock and actually stayed under long enough that he and Coach each took a step forward before
she surfaced. After waving to the crowd, who gave her a healthy round of applause, Kelly climbed out of the tank and ducked behind it.

Chase knew her mom had a towel, but he didn't think it would do much to dry her off, never mind warm her up. As Coach and Jen worked the crowd and found a new volunteer to take a dunking, Chase made his way around the contraption and found Mrs. McDonnell squeezing the water from her daughter's scalp and ponytail with a towel while Kelly grabbed bunches of her T-shirt in her hand, trying to wring the water out of it.

“That water was freaking cold,” Kelly was saying.

“We probably should have filled it days ago and let the sun warm it,” Mrs. McDonnell said. “But every time water splashes out, we have to add more from the hose, anyway.”

“You okay?”

Both women looked up at him and Kelly nodded. “Thanks to Simon Ward hating me, we raised a lot more than we anticipated. The spaghetti dinner might actually put us over the top.”

Even with her bottom lip trembling with cold, her smile was so proud and triumphant, he had to smile back. “I hope so.”

“Good job, Kelly.” The chief joined them, still holding the miscellaneous pieces of cop stuff that couldn't get wet. “I'm going to hang around for the duration, so you can end your shift early. Go home and change. Get warm.”

“Thanks, Chief.” She grimaced as she shoved her feet into her boots, and then she took her belongings from her boss. “That sounds like a great idea.”

“They're trying to get your husband in the tank,” the chief told Mrs. McDonnell.

“What?” She handed Kelly the towel. “Absolutely not. Honey, I need to go keep an eye on your father before he gets pneumonia. You go home and get warm and I'll talk to you later.”

Mrs. McDonnell and the chief—who Chase thought had gone to school together—walked around the dunk tank, leaving Kelly and Chase alone.

“If it's any consolation,” he said, “I feel bad about dunking you.”

“Don't.” She buckled on her belt and secured her weapon, though she skipped the button-down shirt and vest. “Every splash was fifty dollars in the fund.”

“Still, you're freezing.”

“Not for long. I'm going to do exactly what they said and go home to change.”

“I'll walk with you.”

She stopped dabbing at her face with the towel to look at him. “That's not necessary.”

“You're shaking and you've spent a good chunk of the last half hour under water. I'll end up so worried about you, I'll just follow you anyway.” She didn't look convinced. “Just to the door, and I'll carry the vest. It's the least I can do.”

“Just to the door,” she said finally, holding the vest out to him.

They walked away from the dunk tank, the angle keeping them mostly out of sight of the crowd. The streets were mostly empty since the dunking booth was probably the most exciting thing to happen in town for a long time, and Chase noticed it was cooling off pretty quickly. Kelly had to be freezing.

“So why was Simon Ward willing to cough up a pretty
substantial amount of money to see you get dunked?” he asked.

“I had his Escalade towed during an emergency parking ban during my first blizzard with the Stewart Mills PD.” She laughed, and then told him the story. Even the chief had been surprised she had the nerve to do it, but she wasn't going to pick and choose which laws she upheld based on how nice a vehicle the offender drove.

All too soon, they were at the door. She lived over an insurance office, so there was a door at the street level to unlock. After the third time her frozen fingers fumbled the keys, he took them from her and unlocked it. He knew there was probably another door at the top of the stairs, but he didn't push. If she wanted his help, she'd let him know.

“Thanks for walking me home,” she said, reaching for the vest.

He let her take it. “You okay to get up the stairs?”

“Yeah.” She looked up at him. “You know how to make hot cocoa?”

“Who doesn't? You put a mug of water in the microwave and then dump the envelope in it.”

Her laugh was shaky because of the shivering. “I have the gourmet kind with mini marshmallows. You want some?”

“That sounds great.”

“Good. You can make it while I take a hot shower.”

“At your service, ma'am.” He took the vest back and, after making sure the first door locked behind them, followed her up the stairs. He unlocked that one for her, too, and followed her inside.

Her apartment was nice, with cream paint and hardwood floors. The furniture was beige leather and looked
comfortable, with a lot of darker colors added with pillows and lampshades and stuff. It wasn't a placeholder apartment like he'd seen from some of his friends in the past. This was her home and it suited her. It was definitely neater than anything he'd ever achieved, which he'd expected, but it still managed to be cozy and welcoming.

“Nice place.”

“Thanks. Mugs are in the cabinet over the coffeemaker, and the box of hot cocoa is on the shelf above them. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Of course she'd have all of her hot beverage supplies grouped together. He wanted to check to see if her boxed foods were grouped by primary ingredient or frequent usage and whether the magazines on the table were spread out in alphabetical order, but he didn't. Even when he heard the shower kick on, he focused on the task at hand and resisted the urge to poke around her place.

He listened for the water to shut off and managed to time it so he was just setting the mugs on the table when the bathroom door opened. If he'd made them too soon, all her mini marshmallows would have melted before she was done with her shower. He looked up and couldn't hold back the chuckle.

“That's not going to work, Kelly.”

—

K
elly sighed and looked down at herself. “You can't be serious.”

She'd gone to great pains to make herself as unattractive as possible after her shower. The sweatpants were faded and baggy from her police academy days, and the matching sweatshirt she'd worn to paint her apartment when she
moved in. Her bulky, white athletic socks were bunched around her ankles, and she'd pulled her wet hair into a messy knot at the back of her head. She wouldn't even get a mug shot taken in the outfit.

He stared at her for what seemed like forever and then shook his head. “I'm trying to imagine what you could do to be less attractive to me and I'm coming up with nothing.”

“I have a T-shirt that's worse than this sweatshirt, but it's so thin now, I'm not sure it's decent anymore.” She sat and took a sip of her hot cocoa before the mini marshmallows could melt, savoring the warmth that spread through her. “That would probably defeat the purpose.”

“Wouldn't matter,” he said. “It's you that's attractive, not the clothes. Which is good, when you think about it, since ideally the clothes come off at some point.”

She laughed. “That's very true.”

They drank their hot chocolate, making small talk about the street fair. She confessed she didn't even like pistachio bars, which made him feign outrage, and he confessed he felt bad about being the first to dunk her after she'd let his small legal infractions go. Then she mentioned the upcoming spaghetti dinner.

“Why Wednesday night?” he asked.

“Everybody knows Wednesday night is spaghetti night.”

“Everybody meaning O'Rourke's.”

She shrugged. “Wednesday is spaghetti night. We don't question it.”

“Okay, then.”

Kelly found herself taking smaller sips of her hot cocoa to drag out having Chase in her apartment. Even though she'd been trying to scare him off, she had to admit it was
nice to be so comfortable with a man. Ratty sweats, bad hair and he was still looking at her across the table like she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

It was surprisingly heady stuff and, instead of killing the mood, she'd only managed to make him seem sexier to her.

Maybe she was looking at the problem of sex with Chase all wrong. She was afraid being Coach's daughter and a female police officer required that she live up to to a higher standing, which meant sleeping with Chase could harm her reputation. Instead, maybe it meant she could have a little fling and people would just pretend it wasn't happening.

Somehow she thought it was the former, though. Nothing brought out those New England Puritan roots like a single woman having sex just for fun.

“You are
really
thinking hard about something,” Chase said.

“Yup.” She swirled the remaining cocoa in her mug, trying to mix in the sludge that had settled at the bottom.

“Okay,” he said after a few seconds. “I actually wanted to know
what
you were thinking. Not making it a question was my idea of being sneaky about it.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You're such a goof. But, to answer your sneaky non-question, I was thinking the same thing I've been thinking about since you drove back into town.”

“Something along the lines of
why the hell did we put a stop sign there?
”

“No. We put a stop sign there because we want people to stop at that intersection.” She set the mug down. “I had a crush on you in high school, but we're different now. Very, very different. I can't even begin to understand why, but I'm still attracted to you.”

“I'm right here for the taking and, luckily, I don't need much in the way of flattery.”

“But it's a bad idea.”

“Maybe, but it's a
great
bad idea.” When he stood up and started around the table toward her, she knew they were as good as in bed, because she was out of the will to resist him. “We've both had a rough go of it. What's so bad about having a little fun together?”

“It's hard enough to get respect around here without sleeping with one of the prodigal golden boys.”

“I wasn't planning on hanging a banner on the parade float.”

“You seem to have forgotten how Stewart Mills works.”