love-struck barista and her new boyfriend were off—and so was the rap music.
In blessed silence, I took off my pinstriped suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of my blouse, tied on my Village Blend apron, and began restocking. I cleaned the tables next, swept the floor, and emptied the garbage cans.
I’d just finished counting the register drawer when I heard the bell over our front door ring. I cursed myself for not locking up after those last two customers wandered out. Looking up, however, I saw it wasn’t a customer. The man walking in was my boyfriend.
FOUR
THE tall, broad-shouldered police detective entered my coffeehouse like he always did, with the commanding authority of a seasoned New York cop. In one sober sweep, he scanned the room to take note of his surroundings, then his arctic-blue gaze came to rest on me and, ever so slightly, his expression melted.
“Hi, Clare.”
“Hi, Mike.”
In a city that hardened everyone—from little old church ladies to pretty-in-pink sorority girls—cops were the hardest cases of all. Mike Quinn was no exception. A square-jawed New York native, he had a long, powerful physique, short, sandy-brown hair, a dry sense of humor, and a load of street smarts from his years working a uniformed beat.
Like your typical poker-faced soldier of law enforcement, Mike didn’t give much away, but I’d been serving him double-tall lattes for well over a year now, and I knew how to read him.
Today, for instance, had been a hard one for him. The shadows under his eyes told me he was coming in here with the weight of a long shift on his shoulders. And the tension in his rugged face told me he hadn’t accomplished what he’d set out to.
“You closed?” Mike asked, his expression still stiff as he swept the empty room once more.
“Depends,” I teased.
“On what?”
“On what you’re here for.”
Mike strode across the wood-plank floor. He took his time stripping off his overcoat, a nicely tailored cinnamon-colored garment, which he’d finally exchanged for that battered old trench he wore in warmer weather. Then off came the beige sport coat, revealing a white dress shirt, slightly wrinkled by the leather straps of his shoulder holster. The butt of his service .45 peeked out from beneath his left arm—a turn-on for me; shameful, but a turn-on nonetheless.
He dumped his coats on one of the high chairs at the espresso bar and sat down. Then he glanced back up, right into my openly admiring eyes.
Since his wife had left him for a younger Wall Street whiz, Mike had been working out a lot more. His upper body was looking more muscular these days, and other parts of him were presumably tighter. This was pure speculation on my part, since (to my growing frustration) our first month of dating had remained chaste.
Oh, sure, there’d been kissing and touching (okay, plenty of kissing and touching), but although he was legally separated, Mike made it clear that he didn’t want us to rush the stages of our fledgling relationship. There were five of these little suckers, according to Mike, and we’d only progressed from stage one to two. What would catapult us to three? I didn’t have a clue.
I figured Mike was gun-shy—understandable, given the lying, cheating, and bipolar nightmares his wife had put him through (like the time she’d left a note informing Mike that she’d pulled the kids out of school and used his nearly maxed-out credit cards to fly them to Florida’s Disney World for a few days—a passive-aggressive reaction to a morning argument).
One thing I was sure of with Mike and me: sexual chemistry wasn’t an issue. Since we’d first met, he and I had flirted openly with each other. He’d been a loyal friend to me during some bad patches, always sticking his neck out to help. In return, I’d tried to be a good listener as he unloaded the problems of his perpetually rocky marriage. Because he was married, however, we’d never pushed for more. But now that he was separated, his wife was living with another man, and we were finally dating, I saw no reason to veil my attraction.
And, clearly, neither did he.
The moment Mike realized I’d been admiring his physique, his sandy eyebrows arched, and he turned the tables, taking his own good time looking me up and down.
Super, I thought, remembering my wretched state.
At the start of the evening, my French-twisted hair had been semi-neat at best. Now I could feel stray strands slipping all over my head.