CHAPTER 12
Zoe
A date?! A date. Had he really said that? I knew he didn’t mean it literally. Right? But my mind still spun with possibilities hours later.
Needless to say, the thought of going on a date with him was, well, the best thing to happen to me in months, no, let’s be honest, years. And definitely the best thing to happen to me in the last twenty-four hours.
Back in the bakery, when he took his top off, I almost thanked my bloody finger for orchestrating the situation. Ordinarily, we had a “no shirt no shoes no service” policy at Zoe’s, but for a body like that, I made an exception. Bandaging me up with his own shirt? How lucky that I had totally disregarded health code and failed to buy a first aid kit. Yet again, my outlaw ways were a boon.
But there was the matter of his late wife. When he talked about her, he still spoke of her with emotion, but with the acceptance of loss, not the hurt of grief. He hadn’t given details, of course — and lest you doubt me, I had given my offer of an open ear in complete sincerity. I wanted to be of aid to him in the manner which he had been to me.
The way he spoke about her, his wife, made her passing seem recent though. And I didn’t want to jump into the sack with a man who wasn’t ready for a relationship. I’d already been hurt enough by guys who weren’t serious about dating me. If I’d been so broken up over my shitty ex-lover, who was unattractive, small-dicked and an all-around bad person, what would happen if Dylan stepped on my heart? It would crunch like the glass of my shop window beneath his boot.
Anxious to distract myself from tumultuous thoughts of Dylan, I spent the next few hours doing finishing touches on the bakery, brushing up exploded bags of flour, reorganizing the kitchen to suit my newfound lack of all real equipment. So on and so forth.
My hand hurt, but not too badly — I bet it would’ve hurt even less if Dylan had thought to kiss it better. In any case, I was able to accomplish plenty. Things were, dare I say, kind of back to normal, though the threat of the robbery still wafted. No, I scolded my roaming thoughts. If you become scared of daily life, then the burglars have already won.
I texted Mina, pleading for a ride to the station. I had managed to apply online for a temporary driver’s license during my lunch break with Dylan’s help. He’d done most of the research for me and I just needed to pick up the paperwork from the station. I half wondered if he flexed a few rules for me so that I could get a new license quickly, but I didn’t want to ask and seem ungrateful for all he had done. He’d left after that saying that he could have my car released back to me after he filed the paperwork.
A walk to the station would take me thirty minutes, and I was sore from a full day of cleaning. Mina replied at once, eagerly agreeing to drive. Whether it was because she was worried about my emotional fragility, or because she wanted me to spend some more one-on-one time with Dylan, I couldn’t tell.
No, I’m sorry, that was a bald-faced lie. I knew Mina, and I knew with every ounce of my being that she’d mostly agreed to drive so that I could, in her mind, bump uglies with Officer Robertson. I loved her, but her brain worked in predictable ways.
At six on the dot, like an overzealous chauffeur, she swung around out front in her beaten-up Ford, whose fender was hanging by a thread. She beeped the horn, and I met her out front with a wave, quickly sliding into the car, butt scraping across the worn-down fabric seat.
“Hey,” I said while adjusting my scarf. “Thanks so much for the ride, I really appreciate it.”
Silence. That couldn’t be right. There was never, not ever, silence in Mina’s presence. I turned to her, honestly riddled with worry, and asked, “What’s up? Something wrong?”
Still in park, Mina took her hands off the wheel, and used them to gesticulate. “What’s wrong? You’re on a first-name basis with the hottest guy in the entire state. How did you fail to mention that to me?”
I laughed, relieved to find that this was the cause of the mute greeting.
“Actually,” I replied, “I only met him yesterday. I didn’t have a window of time, between the arrest, impoundment and robbery, to tell you.”
“Okay, the robbery I know about. But arrest? Impoundment? The fuck did I miss? Was I like, blacked out for seventy-two hours or something? I mean, it’s happened before.” Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to keep up.
“Nope, this all unfolded in a day. Just a day. A really long fucking day.” And that was putting it mildly.
“Tell me everything. Literally everything. I wanna feel like I’m there with you. Spill!”
I acquiesced, and for the next twenty minutes, explained exactly what had happened from the moment I left my shop yesterday — the cake order, the arrest, the flirting, the station, the impounding, the drive, the call, the burglary, the arrival on scene. God, that alone was a mouthful. I focused in on the parts she’d like. Dylan carrying me into bed, Dylan binding my finger. Listen, I know my audience.
By the time I was done, Mina was near ecstatic.
“That,” she said when I was finished, “is the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I would say you are the luckiest lady, but I think I will just limit myself to saying that you know how to turn a lemon into lemonade!”
“You mean the robbery?” I questioned sarcastically. “Unless you find cooking tools sexy—”
“No! The lifting you in his arms, and tucking you in, and holding you while you cried. He’s so… so sensitive.” She paused to take a breath and throw a dramatic hand across her forehead. Nice touch. “Are you gonna date him?”
I sighed and leaned my head against the passenger window. It seemed like so simplistic a query for such an oversized problem. There was no way to answer it correctly for an outsider, so I settled on, “He hasn’t asked me out.”
“Correction, he hasn’t asked you out yet.”
“Well, the word date was mentioned, but, before you go picking out your dress for the wedding, he said it in context of finding who committed the robbery.”
“So, the conversation had moved onto the word date.”
“Okay, fair. But even if he did… you’re gonna hang me out to dry over this, but I’m just not sure. With all the bakery stuff going on, and him dealing with things,” I stayed carefully away from too much detail on that front, “I don’t think I could stand another disappointment. I just feel like I’d have a breakdown.”
“Girl,” she heaved. “I don’t think any part of that man, and I do mean part, is going to be a disappointment.”
I giggled with that one, but added, “Plus, we’re going to be in heavy communication and seeing each other frequently now that he’s the cop on my case, probably all the way up until my court date. Who even knows when that would be. What if things go wrong and we’re stuck together?”
“I think you mean handcuffed together,” she cried gleefully. “So hot.”
There was going to be no convincing her, I could see that much, when it came to men, Mina was a dog with a bone. Luckily, we had rolled into the station, so I was off the hook for any more questioning.
“Thanks,” I said, hopping out of the truck. “I’ll text you later.”
“Oh no you don’t,” she rejoined. “Get a ride home from Hunky McCop.”
“Nice nickname.”
“There’s an X-rated version of the nickname, wanna hear it?”
I shook my head, saying, “Uh, hard pass.”
“Okay, some other time,” she allowed. “Now go have oodles of unspeakably sexy fun!”
I grinned, and waved goodbye. She sped off into the night, full headlights blazing, and I strode directly to the front of the station. It seemed strange that I was only here yesterday when so much had happened since. Or maybe it was just that every moment not spent with Dylan felt a little less real than the ones spent with him.
Oh God. Was I turning into a lovesick teenager? Had I been spending too much time around Kelly? Ugh. The thought filled me with dread.
You are strong, I reminded myself. And it’s just a little crush. The heart pounding wildly in my chest belied my forcibly laid-back vibe.
I twisted the doorknob, and entered, finding the place much the same as I’d left it, only with fewer lights on. New York, the city that never sleeps, always has a stray LED on for a stranger in the night. Fallow Springs, conversely, totally missed the purpose of bulbs, and essentially turned them off whenever the sun went down. I imagine candles did a big business in these parts.
“Dylan? Officer Robertson?” I called out, biting my lip and looking around for signs of life. It appeared that everyone had turned in for the night, no surprise. Or… was that a surprise? Wasn’t he supposed to interview me when other people were around, like fellow cops? Perhaps this was just a one-cop job. I could think of a couple things Dylan could do for me that only required one man.
“Coming!” he replied from another room, perhaps twenty feet away.
“No rush,” I hollered back. “Take your time.”
Shortly thereafter, he appeared on the left-hand side of the entrance area, jogging with a stack of files under his arm.
“You got another shirt,” I noted dryly.
“Yeah, sorry to disappoint you,” he replied with a quick smirk.
“Where’s everyone else?” I queried.
“Gone home.”
So he had stayed behind just to help me. This was totally above board. I instantly regretted my assumptions of only moments ago, even if I had rather hoped for them to be true. Now, his kindness overwhelmed me. Surely he had better things to do than stick around and help me with my relatively small potatoes robbery case.
All I could say was, “Thank you.”
He shrugged, waving off the gratitude. “My pleasure. Seriously.” He inclined his chin, as if to underscore the point.
“Please tell me they’re paying you overtime for this,” I begged.
Dylan rolled his eyes. “Gentlemen don’t accept money for favors.”
“Do they accept any other kind of… ah, payment?” I inquired in what I hoped was a seductive way.
I got the immediate reward of watching his face turn bright red, which contrasted nicely with the color of his hair.
“Anybody ever tell you that mouth of yours is awfully big?” he fired back.
“What, do you think it’s unbecoming to a lady?”
He pondered this, shook his head. “Unexpected, unnerving… but never unbecoming.”
I grinned. “Good.” And just to prove his point, I added, “I like your mouth too.”
He cleared his throat, and said awkwardly, “My mouth has some information on the case, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I also have your temporary license here from the DMV, which I need you to sign before you go.”
Argh. As much as my libido wanted me to flirt more, my bank account needed me to get to the bottom of this case.
So I replied, “What’s the news?”
“No real news, but I have rounded up a few guys from around town, the types that might’ve pulled this shit. There wasn’t much to go on, so I just struck out blindly. Got ‘em here not long ago, they’ve been in holding cells since. The judge owed me a favour, so I managed to get her to sign off on the arrest warrants this afternoon.”
“You managed this in just a few hours, really?” That seemed impossible, unless he’d dedicated the whole day to working just my case. Oh man, had he dedicated the whole day to working just my case?! On top of comforting me in the morning? And now doing interviews, overtime, for free? I couldn’t decide if I felt guilty for taking up his time, or hopelessly attracted to his zeal for the force and maybe for me.
“I work fast,” he said by way of explanation, dragging me out of my narcissistic thought spiral.
“Oh, got it,” I replied, not entirely believing him. “So, what now?”
“Now, we have the men do a lineup, and you tell me if any look familiar. From what my partner — Tom, you met him during the, er, arrest — and I can tell, whoever did it must have been casing your place for at least a few days, long enough to look up the value of what you had and figure out what was worth stealing. So you may have seen their face before.”
“No women suspects?” I asked.
“Um, not to stereotype,” he edged, “but women are usually better criminals than this, like they get in and get out without unnecessarily breaking windows and tipping over random furniture.”
I nodded, that made sense.
“Any other questions?” he inquired.
“Nope. Lead the way, Officer.”
He pivoted on his heel and marched me through a series of intricate doorways. We zagged one way, then another, like rodents running through a winding maze. Finally, just when I was beginning to wonder how seriously I’d misjudged the size of the building, Dylan came to a standstill in front of a small, wooden door.
“This is where the magic happens,” he laughed.
The tips of my ears burned as I tried to figure out just how much of the sentence was a joke.
He cracked open the door, revealing a single room. Maybe room was too generous a term. For what I now viewed was tiny, no bigger than a wheelchair-accessible stall. There were no chairs, no design elements. Its single major feature was a one-way glass pane into another room. Through the pane, I saw the classic white wall with height markers and shuddering old lights, recognizable from celebrity mugshots.
Dylan walked into the small room and beckoned me to follow. I took two steps forward, fully entering the room, and touched the pane’s cold surface, intrigued.
“So, this is the viewing room,” he explained, as though giving a tour to a group of elementary school students.
“Very neat.”
A long beat passed, as I waited for him to elaborate. At last, he said, “Guess I’ll go get our boys. Wait here.”
The room was so diminutive that, to get back to the door, Dylan had to squeeze around back of me. As he shuffled past, he lost his footing — he was a big man in a small room — and stumbled.
“Shit, sorry,” he muttered as he gripped my hips to steady himself. In the process of righting his balance, his body brushed against me. I ached with a sudden, frantic need for him to touch me once more.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I returned, slightly out of breath. “Don’t apologize.”
He managed to worm his way out, saying, “I’ll be back.” Dylan disappeared into the hallway, and out of my sight.
His absence allowed me to rake my hands through my hair and fan my face. Our encounter had only been a moment, but feeling him graze my body was the most turned on I’d been in months. And, maybe I was imagining things, but from what my sensitive ass could tell, his, er, endowment, was pretty generous.
“Focus,” I whispered angrily to myself. If I kept on this train of thought, I would be too distracted to be of any use for the lineup.
But can you blame me? To ignore a man like that was a feat beyond the pale. I wouldn’t even attempt to pretend I was worthy of the task.
And thus, I let my mind backslide into thoughts of him staying put right behind me, hands on my waist, pulling me back to him, grinding his hard cock up against my wetness, bending me over until my face touched the cold glass. The imaginary warmth of his dick and the frost of the glass were equally tangible on my skin.
Shit. I shook my head, realizing it was time to concentrate, because Dylan had begun leading the men into the room opposite mine, the one that was visible through the pane. There were three of them, scrunched in shoulder to shoulder, all white forty- or fifty-somethings with bad facial hair. I couldn’t hear through the glass, but Dylan’s stern finger wagging implied that he was warning them to not move a muscle.
Moments later, he reappeared in the viewing room, flanking my left-hand side.
“Tight fit, eh?” he said with a smile, referencing our close quarters.
“I dunno,” I replied with a breezy shrug. “Could be tighter.”
I didn’t have to turn to know he was running his eyes over my body. If I’d had any less self-control, I would’ve already made my move. As it was, I struggled mightily to tamp down my erotic inclinations.
“All right,” he said, interrupting my naughty thoughts. “Let’s begin.”
He raised a fist to the glass, and tapped on it, I suppose indicating that the men should stand up straight. I wasn’t sure, because I was busy thinking about the way the hairs on his arm had glanced off the surface of my shoulder.
Oh God. Was I losing my mind? Is this what insanity looked like? It seemed like a terribly real possibility. Or maybe I was just regressing to puberty, where every man’s gentlest touch made me weak in the knees and wet in the panties?
“Take a look at suspect one,” Dylan urged.
I snapped to the present and remember why I was here instead of on my couch rewatching The Philadelphia Story. Dylan was indicating to a man with a handlebar mustache and a bandana, a rather on the nose interpretation of a biker. “Look familiar?”
Right, I had a job to do. Literally. It was a job only I could do. I shook my head ‘no’.
“Okay,” he continued. “No problem. How about two?” A dude with a bald head and eyelid tattoos licked his lips. Gross.
I shook my head again.
With the third and last man, who was short, had a large birthmark on his cheek and looked like he hadn’t had a shower in a couple of weeks, the anger and frustration was creeping into my responses. I knew Dylan could sense it too, because before I could reply with a head shake, he cut off the routine.
I failed to recognize any of the men in question and could give only a small shake of my head in reply to Dylan’s very earnest, hopeful finger points. I grew frustrated with myself, mad that I couldn’t be of any real assistance and was thus rendered powerless. I thought participating in the case would make me feel tangibly useful, but instead, I felt like a failure, a small victim who could be trod over. My stomach churned at the awful notion.
“That’s all right,” he said. “If you don’t recognize any of these men, you don’t.”
“Thanks,” I replied, grateful for the intervention. I didn’t want him to hear me weakened by the entire rigmarole, not when only minutes beforehand, I’d been flirting, a woman on top of the world.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. Dylan stepped out of our room and into the other, where I guess he told all the guys that they were free to go. I wasn’t clear on how lineups worked, so I’m was speculating.
He turned off the lights in the lineup room, and immediately I was aware of how dim my own space was. He disappeared with the men and I heard steps leading away.
I stood there by myself unsure of what to do next. My mind flicked back to moments earlier when I was alone with Dylan. I wondered if I would be able to get him alone again anytime soon.
Dylan opened the door to the viewing room upon his return, walked in and shut it behind him.
We found ourselves immersed in a room of unexpected darkness.
“Zoe?” he asked, fumbling in the dark.
“I’m here,” I replied, reaching out my hand. I was aiming for his shoulder, but because of the failing light and my miscalculation of his height, my groping fingers landed firmly on his lips.
I was about to profoundly apologize for the error when I realized that Dylan had taken my fingers and closed his lips around them. He was kissing my fingers, a little wetly. Before I could make heads or tails of this shocking turn of events, he let my hand loose.
Had he just done that? It had lasted a millisecond too little for me to affirm whether it was real or just something that had passed in my oversexed imagination. How do you tell the difference between a kiss on the fingers and a very clumsy extrication?
“S-sorry,” I stammered, pulling my wet fingers back.
“Like you said before,” he replied. “Don’t apologize.”
“Okay.” My mouth had become too dry for any more words.
He switched tones, becoming more serious.
“But for real,” he said, “I’ll get to the bottom of this for you. I’ll cross state lines, chase suspects on foot, take every liberty an officer of the law can, and then some. Zoe, I swear I’ll do right by you.”
“Of course you will,” I said quietly. And, much to my own shock, I began to lean in to Dylan. That wasn’t a far gap to cross in the cramped space. Our faces moved closer, until we were almost touching. His breath was on my skin, my lips parted in response. I felt I could sense the heat from his body. We were going to kiss. Everything leading up to this point was going to be worth it.
And that’s when Tom opened the door.