Never Say Never Again Read online

  6

  BRONTE HEAVED THE HEAVY grocery bags up onto the kitchen counter, then leaned against the edge. What had she been thinking? Reaching into the nearest bag, she pulled out a fresh loaf of crusty sourdough bread and a can of coffee, neither of which she had ever bought before. Another fishing expedition yielded a five-pound bag of potatoes, three packages of different types of pasta and enough meat to choke a politician.

  She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to wander the aisles of the local mom-and-pop store when she’d finally called it a day at the office. A store she never spent more than five minutes in before as a rule. But an hour and five stuffed bags later—the delivery boy should be there any minute with the other three bags—here she was with more food than she could ever eat herself.

  Opening a bag of corn chips, she crunched down on the rare indulgence, then followed the first with another before resuming her task.

  Oh, it wasn’t that she didn’t know how to cook. Her mother had taught her and her two older sisters as soon as they were tall enough to reach the counter on a step stool. Lord knew she’d cooked enough while growing up in Prospect to last her a lifetime. She simply chose not to cook. Aside from it being too much of a hassle, her efforts always produced more food than any one person could ever consume. And if there was one thing she hated more than cooking, it was tossing perfectly good food away.

  Fifteen minutes later, after the delivery boy had made an appearance, and she had ceased marveling at her bounty, she had every last item put away—the exception the dwindling bag of chips—then collapsed into a chair to stare at the box holding the new coffeemaker. She told herself she’d bought it because it was cute. It was one of those miniature models she’d come across in hotel rooms. And it was green.

  She tried yanking open the top of the box. Failing that, she took a steak knife from the utensil drawer and poked at the tape, after much cursing and fanfare finally producing the little gem from its packing.

  “Fine. Good. You’re getting excited over a coffeemaker.” Still, she found herself smiling. “You’re losing it, O’Brien.”

  Truth be told, she’d lost it long before now. And while she was being honest with herself, she might as well admit that the only reason she’d bought the stupid coffee machine was in the hopes that a certain coffee lover would be stopping by.

  But she wasn’t up for honesty right now. No. She’d bought the damn thing because Kelli liked coffee and always groaned about having to drink tea when she came over.

  Yes. That answer she could deal with.

  Setting the new appliance up first next to the television, then on the other side of the counter nearer the refrigerator, she sighed with satisfaction then gathered the packing material. She opened the back door for access to the large garbage bin on the back porch and started to stuff the box inside.

  “Did you buy that for me?”

  Bronte nearly shrieked as she spun around to face Connor McCoy, nearly knocking the half-full bin over in the process. He easily caught it and set it upright.

  Just seeing him made last night’s memory of being stretched across her bed, him lying across her, surge back with vivid, stomach-tickling clarity. She quietly cleared her throat. “Jesus, Connor, I’m beginning to think you’re dead set on giving me a heart attack.”

  His half smile made it all too easy to forgive him. And all too difficult to dismiss the nervous energy collecting between her thighs. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Picking up the Styrofoam packing materials that had fallen to the porch, she lifted the lid of the bin and stuffed them inside. “Keep asking follow-up questions like that and I’m going to start wondering just who exactly is the U.S. attorney and who the marshal.” She propped her hands on her hips. “And no, I didn’t buy the coffee machine for you.”

  Somehow it wasn’t as easy to lie to him as it had been to lie to herself.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked a little too abruptly. He’d not only startled the daylights out of her, her mind raced with the question of just how long exactly he’d been outside her back door and just how much he’d seen. Did he watch her read the back of the pasta package for the various recipes listed there? See her demolish half the bag of corn chips? Observe her spend five full minutes rearranging the items in her refrigerator for fear that she wouldn’t find them otherwise? Or, worse yet, had he seen her caressing the damn coffeemaker as though it were a priceless knickknack then take forever and a day placing it just so on her counter?

  “I wasn’t spying on you, Bronte,” he said quietly, as though reading her mind.

  “Oh?”

  “I just got here. I was just about to knock on the door when you opened it.”

  She looked around the tiny, enclosed area. No shifting curtains from neighboring houses. No telltale lights. Everything was quiet and no one seemed to notice the appearance of a strange man on her back doorstep.

  The sound of paper crinkling caught her attention. Connor held up a white take-out bag. “I brought food.”

  Food she had, Bronte thought wryly, suppressing a laugh at the irony of the situation. She’d stocked up so she might have something to fix if he happened by again. And he’d brought food.

  She crossed her arms as though suggesting the contents would decide whether or not she’d let him in. “What is it?”

  His dark brows budged upward on his forehead. “Italian.”

  “Italian what?”

  His soft chuckle made her smile as he dropped the bag down to his side. “A little bit of everything. There’s ravioli, lasagna, fettuccini, garlic breadsticks—”

  “You just said the magic word.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him into the kitchen, closing the door after him.

  But where it had been dim and shadowy on the back porch, it was bright and revealing in the kitchen. She turned to face him, seeing him clearly for the first time since she’d opened the door, and she couldn’t keep herself from gasping. “For God’s sake, what happened to you?”

  He slowly rubbed his long fingers against his stubbled chin. “How do you mean?”

  “It’s just…what I meant to say is…oh, I’m just going to come out and say it. You look awful, Connor.”

  His grimace was all too telling as she placed the take-out bag on the table. “Gee, thanks, O’Brien.”

  She waved him away. “You know what I mean.” She eyed him more closely. “You haven’t been home yet, have you?”

  His silence said what he apparently could not.

  “I see.” She caught sight of the dog biscuits on the counter. The biscuits Kell had asked her to pick up for Kojak. “And have you been in contact with your family?”

  He shifted from foot to foot. “Do you mind if I…go clean up a bit before we eat?”

  She sucked in her lips, then shook her head. “No. Go ahead. I’ll get everything set up while you’re gone.”

  BRONTE WAS RIGHT. He did look awful. Though the words he’d have chosen would have been cruder. He looked like shit. Crap. Hell. All three rolled up into one untidy package.

  Splashing cold water on his face, Connor now understood why people had begun looking at him as though they had something to fear from him. Those he passed on the streets; Pryka’s neighbors; the restaurant staff where he’d picked up tonight’s food. All had appeared wary of him at best, fearful at worst.

  Hesitant to use one of the peach-colored towels folded on a shelf, he instead shook his hands in the sink, then used them to comb back his hair. Not that there was much there to comb, but the act of doing it made him feel somewhat more presentable. What he could really use was a long, hot shower, a straight razor, and a clean change of clothes.

  And while he was at it, he’d like the real murderer of Melissa Rollins to step forward and give him back his life.

  Moments later, he stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Bronte set the table. She hadn’t noticed him yet and he took the opportunity to appreciate her.

  She was something t
o look at, Bronte O’Brien. Tall, slender, almost model-like, though there was something more lively than graceful about her. Her short red bangs bounced as she moved, calling attention to her animated green eyes, her pinched nose and her mismatched lips. He had never met a woman whose upper lip was fuller than her lower and it was there his gaze was drawn to again and again.

  “You’re staring again, Connor McCoy.”

  He realized she had caught on to his quiet perusal and now stood looking at him with almost playful reproach. Today she wore red, black and white plaid trousers and a short-sleeved black turtleneck. More casual than what she’d worn the day before, though he suspected that there was a severe blazer hanging nearby somewhere. He lowered his gaze to her bare feet and fought the urge to smile. Professional to the end when at work, he guessed the shoes were the first things to go the instant she walked through the front door of her town house.

  A desire to see her shuck the remainder of her professional attire ignited his groin.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, I guess I am staring. Again.”

  “That’s bad etiquette, you know.”

  “I know.”

  She laughed. “That’s one thing I like about you, McCoy. There’s no lying in you. Pull up a chair.”

  Connor did as she asked, craning his neck to follow her movements. She liked something about him? And she’d indicated that was but one thing. What were the others?

  He moved to crane his neck the other way when she reached over his shoulder and placed his silverware next to his plate. She smelled good. He nearly groaned when her breast rubbed against the back of his head. He fought the urge to lean back against her chest, burrow into the space between those small mounds of flesh, and stay until his world was set back right on its axis.

  “Wine?”

  He blinked. “Wine? I didn’t bring any.”

  She smiled as she sat down adjacent to him. “I meant do you want any?”

  “No. No, thanks.”

  She handed him a beer instead and he grinned at her. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He watched as she poured herself a small amount of red wine into a crystal wineglass.

  They both reached for the lasagna she’d placed on a plate.

  “Pardon me,” she said.

  “You, first,” he said at the same time.

  She smiled. “Tell you what, why don’t I serve us both?”

  Connor shifted on his chair, watching as she served first him, then herself. He wasn’t used to anyone doing things for him. He was accustomed to doing for himself. In fact, while growing up often had been the time he’d served his four younger brothers only to find he’d forgotten to put something on his own plate. On one occasion, he recalled trying to hide his misjudgment, only to have Jake slide him his plate on the sly. He’d pushed it firmly back, but the action had gained him the attention of the others and they’d all chipped in, giving him portions from their plates until his was heaping full.

  Well, all excerpt Marc. Marc had held out until last and, once he’d gotten a gander at how much he had on his plate, he’d pulled his own plate back.

  “What are you smiling about?” Bronte asked.

  Connor reached for the breadsticks and automatically put one on the side of her plate. “Nothing.”

  She rolled her eyes as she stuck a half a ravioli into her mouth and chewed. “Typical male response. Tell me, is it something you all are born with, or is it a learned behavior?”

  He shrugged. “It just means that whatever we were thinking about isn’t of the sharing variety.”

  “Oh.” He watched pink tinge her cheeks. “Now that’s a response I can live with.”

  His eyes widened as she reached for the fettuccini. He honestly didn’t know where she was going to put all the food she was piling on top of her plate, but he was having a good time watching her try.

  “So,” she said, taking a sip of wine, then licking the moisture from her upper lip. “How’d it go today?”

  Connor’s chewing slowed, the linguine in his mouth suddenly wet plaster. He needed the help of his beer to swallow it down. “Fine.”

  He found her question and his answer strange. Odd in that it seemed to indicate that everything was fine. That today had gone just like any other normal workday.

  But, of course, it hadn’t. Because there was nothing normal about his life right now. Even sitting here in Bronte’s kitchen eating Italian wasn’t normal. But in the swirling chaos that was currently his life, Bronte’s kitchen was the only place he felt…calm.

  “And your day?” Connor found himself asking, cringing at the continued normal sound of the conversation.

  “Not so fine.”

  He looked at her.

  “That co-worker I told you about? Well, he finally got what he wanted. The Pryka/Robbins case is now officially his.”

  He nodded, as if what she’d said was expected.

  He couldn’t help noticing the way her fork began dragging across her plate and how she took tiny, distracted bites of food rather than the heaping forkfuls she had just moments before. “I, um, did come across something interesting, though.”

  He met her gaze, reading in it an ambiguous something he wasn’t sure he liked.

  She shook her head slightly. “But I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

  Connor helped himself to more ravioli, though the last thing on his mind right now was more food.

  “So,” Bronte said, “tell me something about the mighty McCoys that I don’t already know.”

  He raised his brows. “Pardon me?”

  Her smile took him aback. “You know, something other than Kelli has already told me.”

  “No, I meant the ‘mighty’ part.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. I mean, every one of you is in law enforcement in one branch or another, right?”

  At least until a couple days ago, he thought silently. “Just about,” he said.

  “Including your father?”

  “Including my father.”

  “Why?”

  He lifted his gaze from his plate to look at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Why? Why did you choose to get into law enforcement?”

  He slowly shrugged, not sure if he understood the question. What did she mean by “why”? He just had, that’s all. He couldn’t remember a time when he wanted to be anything other than a police officer. But during his first year in the academy, his class was visited by a recruiter for the justice department. More specifically, the U.S. Marshal’s Service. He’d been impressed. And by then, the rift between him and Pops had grown so wide, he was yearning for a chance to make his own way in some other branch of law enforcement. Something that didn’t have anything to do with Sean McCoy. So he’d surprised everyone by taking a job as a prison guard at night, taking college courses in the morning, and keeping after his younger, still-teenaged brothers during the rest of his day.

  “You don’t choose law enforcement,” he said quietly. “Law enforcement chooses you.”

  “Have you ever come close to being burnt out?”

  “No.”

  “It must get tiring sometimes, dealing with what amounts to the dregs of society day in, day out.”

  He wondered what she was getting at. “You could just as easily be talking about yourself, you know.”

  She appeared startled. “Yes. I guess I could.” Her smile loosened the tension he’d begun to feel.

  He asked, “Have you ever come close to burning out?”

  She took a deep breath, then let it out, drawing his gaze to her breasts beneath the clinging fabric of her top. “No. I never have.” She broke apart a piece of garlic bread. “It’s funny, but I’ve never really noticed the similarities between what we do. But when all is said and done, we’re both about putting people behind bars and keeping them there, aren’t we? We just come at it from different directions.”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “It’s just that my job to
ok a lot less schooling.”

  “Ha ha.” His gaze glued to her lips as she chewed a healthy portion of bread. “Did you ever consider pursuing a law degree?”

  His laugh was immediate and thorough.

  “No, I’m serious. You were good.” She waved her bread-stick at him. “Top of the class, if I remember correctly.”

  He realized she was serious. He fell silent.

  “I also remember being incredibly pissed that you just seemed to breeze in and out of class, missing at least a third of the lectures, while I had to sit there every minute of every day, and you still beat my best score.”

  “It wasn’t an option,” he said point blank.

  “What wasn’t? Your getting the top score? Or pursuing a law degree?”

  “Both.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My family…well, an advanced degree wasn’t in the cards for any of us, if you get my drift. There just wasn’t the money.”

  “With your grades, you could have landed a scholarship.”

  “You don’t understand. I had to work to help support the boys.”

  Her brows drew together. “The boys? You make it sound as if they were your children.”

  “That’s because in a way they were.”

  Her expression grew very still. “Your dad?”

  He shrugged with one shoulder, more irritated than nonchalant. “He wasn’t around much.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  He wondered if she would ask about his mother and tensed at the possibility. He sincerely hoped she wouldn’t. Then again, it was quite plausible that she already knew his mother had passed away from Kelli.

  “How did your mom die?”

  Connor’s throat threatened to choke him completely. That was the one question he wasn’t prepared for. Would never be prepared for.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

  “Sure…that’s fine.”

  For long minutes, Connor heard only the sound of forks against plates, quiet swallows, and the thud-thud of his heart in his chest.

  He’d never talked about what had happened with his mother with anyone. He hadn’t come close now, but he’d found himself wanting to tell her something, even if it was that he didn’t want to discuss it. Which was telling in and of itself. Very telling. Usually he was silent where the topic of his mother was concerned. And the change in routine scared the hell out of him. What did it mean that he might want to share things with Bronte that he hadn’t even shared with his own brothers?