Badge of Honor Read online

  "I know," she said wearily. "And that's what I hate."

  She heard him let out a long breath and glanced at him. He wore an odd expression, almost wistful. "That's one of the things I admire most about you. You've never lost that righteous anger at injustice, at unfairness. After all you've seen and been through, you can still find the energy to go out and fight one more day."

  She was gratified by the admiration he expressed but not sure about the rest. "You make me sound like a naive idealist."

  He shook his head. "You're something more rare, more precious, Kit. A realist, someone who knows it's probably hopeless but goes out and fights the battle anyway, someone who believes the little victories may not seem like much, but when you add a bunch of them together, you find you've made a difference."

  "That's the point, isn't it? It's what you've done at Trinity West, made a difference."

  "Trinity West I can deal with," he muttered.

  She eyed him, wondering if that was one of those comments better left unexplored. But she didn't want him to slip back into that tense silence, either, even though the ride was almost over. She pondered and decided she'd rather risk it than let it go and forever wonder what he'd meant. She took a breath, then took the plunge.

  "So what is it you can't deal with?"

  She saw his hands tighten on the wheel. "Sorry. My turn. I didn't mean to say that out loud."

  The thought occurred to her that Miguel never wasted words, never said anything he didn't mean. If those words had slipped out, it was because he had wanted them to. Maybe not consciously, but on some level. Perhaps he wanted her to question him.

  "Didn't you?" she asked quietly.

  He gave her a startled glance that turned thoughtful, then almost rueful before he turned his eyes to the road.

  "Maybe I did," he admitted.

  "So what is it you can't deal with?"

  His mouth twisted as he let out an ironic sigh. Then, looking much like she felt, balanced on an edge and about to plunge over, he said simply, "You."

  With one word, he took her breath away. She fought the surge of emotions that wanted to well inside her—shock, amazement, fear. And, she realized, one thing more powerful than any of those—joy. She fought that hardest of all, telling herself he couldn't mean what it sounded like, that it was wishful thinking on her part.

  While she was struggling with that, he surprised her by continuing past Marina Heights and heading toward the coast. But she couldn't spare much attention. She didn't want this conversation to come to a halt, didn't want to be left hanging because they'd arrived at her house, where he'd picked her up for the trip this morning.

  "What do you mean?" she asked finally, careful to keep her voice even, trying desperately to hide any sign of her reaction.

  "If I have to explain," Miguel said as he turned onto Pacific Coast Highway

  , "then I must be way out of line."

  Kit's heart began to hammer in her chest. She said nothing, could think of no words, as he pulled into the parking lot of the coastal state park south of Marina del Mar. Miraculously, on this Saturday afternoon, he found a spot to one side, overlooking the water, and parked. He shifted in his seat and turned to look at her.

  She could see this wasn't coming easily to him. The ever calm Miguel de los Reyes had one hand curled into a fist on his long-muscled thigh. He'd worn jeans today, and Kit had decided the moment she'd seen him this morning that they should only be sold to men who could wear them and look like this.

  It took him a moment to speak. "Is it really just me, Kit? Is it just one way?"

  "Miguel," she said on a harsh breath.

  "It can't be, can it? Not when you can say my name—"he looked away and his voice dropped "—like that."

  Oh, God. Kit realized she was trembling, tried to stop it, then gave up.

  "No," she whispered. "It's not one way."

  He let out a long breath, and his head lolled against the door frame, as if he'd been relieved of some great burden. "I didn't think it could be. Not us."

  Something in the way he said it made her ask, "Us?"

  His head came upright again. "We're too wary, aren't we? We wouldn't be even talking about this if the signals weren't going both ways. We'd be talking like a couple of old friends with a common goal."

  He was right, she realized. With so much stacked against them, obstacles, past pain and sorrow, with two battered hearts locked away, it would have taken some pretty strong mutual signals to get them this far. She thought of the courage it had taken for him to be the first to open the door.

  "It's ironic, isn't it?" he asked. "We both swore never to care about anyone again, but—"

  "But neither one of us is capable of getting involved with anyone we don't care about," she finished when he faltered. "I've been trying to deny it. Hide it. Think of all the reasons it was impossible. Tell myself you would never—"

  She broke off as the belated realization struck her that he had, in essence, said that he did, indeed, want her. That he had admitted he'd been wrestling as she had been. And then he took her breath away again, as if he'd read her mind.

  "Oh, I do, lady," he said with wry emphasis. "I've spent more nights lately lying awake considering the merits of cold showers than I care to think about."

  Kit blushed furiously.

  "I kept telling myself it wasn't what it was," he said. "That all I was feeling was … I mean, you're my friend, Anna's best friend—"

  He stopped when her gaze shot to his face. She felt the color in her cheeks drain away.

  "Don't," he said. "I didn't mean that … that way. I don't feel like… This is not…"

  He stopped, clearly angry with himself and the fact that his usual articulateness was failing him.

  "I'm not neurotic about this," he finally blurted. "I don't think this is a betrayal of her or something. But I loved her, and in a way I always will."

  "So will I," Kit said gently.

  "But she's been dead a long time now. Even her folks told me I'd been alone too long."

  "They did?" Kit asked, startled.

  He nodded. "They told me it was time to move on, that Anna would hate it if I never let myself care for anybody again." He grimaced. "As it turned out, I didn't let myself at all. It just happened. I was busy telling myself it couldn't, then turned around and there it was."

  "It?" she asked, thinking that for all his honesty, he was sure using a lot of unspecific pronouns.

  "I never intended this." His expression turned rueful, and he shook his head. "I found myself using this Robards thing as a reason to be with you, and at the same time a…"

  "Buffer?" she suggested, recalling her thoughts.

  "Exactly. A way to convince myself it was only business." He sat up straight, turning to face the windshield, staring at the Pacific, beautifully blue on this sunny day. "But in there today, I kept thinking about the risks you take just by being a cop—hell, just being alive—and how I'd feel if something happened to you."

  "Nothing's going to happen—"

  "Stop it," he snapped, and his hands went to the steering wheel, clenching it until his knuckles were white. "That's what Anna said. 'Nothing will ever happen to me, you'll be stuck with me until we're both old and gray,' she used to say."

  Kit felt moisture begin to well in her eyes and blinked rapidly. The last thing she wanted to do was cry. She watched as Miguel stared at his hands, then loosened them from the wheel.

  "I didn't want this." He ground the words out. "I didn't want to ever care enough to get hurt like that again. And then I thought about it happening to you, and I realized it was too late, that I already did."

  It was a raw, painful, amazing admission, and it shook Kit to the core. As much as she sometimes wished for this, she had never really thought about this aspect. She'd been too caught up in the impossibilities of their respective positions and too busy trying to convince herself it couldn't happen because of that to think about what it would mean on a personal
level if it did happen. And as impossible as it seemed, it apparently had. The moment he'd admitted he felt it, too, her walls of self-protection had crumbled, and the feelings she'd been trying to keep barricaded behind them rushed out. At this moment, all the reasons this couldn't be didn't matter. What mattered was this man, his pain and his courage.

  When she spoke, she chose her words very carefully, sensing what might depend on them.

  "After Bobby was killed, I wanted to quit. To give up everything. To run and hide some safe place where the worst thing a cop had to do was direct traffic. But when Anna died, I realized that civilian life was just as cruel, that there were no safe places, not really. Life is a risk, Miguel. Living it is the biggest risk of all."

  There was a long, silent moment when he did nothing but stare at the ocean. Then, softly, he said, "You're so much braver than I am, Kit. You faced reality. You went out and tried again, which is more than I ever had the guts to do. I hid from it."

  "No," she said emphatically. "It wasn't bravery. I just had no place to hide. Oh, my work kept me occupied, but it wasn't consuming. It wasn't anything like trying to save Trinity West. If I'd had that to deal with, I would have welcomed it. Welcomed the chance to bury myself in it so deeply that I couldn't be found. And I'm not sure I'd have ever come out."

  He looked at her, his gray eyes soft with wonder and something more, something warm that conversely made her shiver.

  "You're young to be so wise."

  She grimaced. "Who was it who said it's easier to be wise for someone else than for yourself?"

  He smiled, and she felt pleased at that small victory. She sensed some of the tension leaving him, and hers eased a little.

  "I'm not sure either of us is particularly wise to be thinking about this," he said.

  "It is," Kit agreed, "one of the larger cans of worms I've ever seen."

  "I'd hate to lose your friendship," he said.

  She was touched that, of all the problems they faced, that was of first importance to him. "That's mutual," she said softly.

  "I've been hiding behind my work for a long time," he said. "You're the only woman who's ever made me want to change that."

  "Thank you," she said, so moved by the depth of the compliment she couldn't think of any more to say.

  He tapped a finger on the steering wheel. "So now what?" She sighed. "We're both too old to go blundering into this blindly without even talking about it, like a couple of kids, pretending we don't know the consequences."

  "So I guess we have two choices. We walk away from this and go on as before, or we…"

  "Keep our eyes open and jump into the fire?"

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, and she thought she saw a shudder sweep through him. "It is that, isn't it? Pure fire."

  His words, the simple admission he felt it as she did, hot and intense and urgent, caused a rush of reaction in Kit unlike anything she'd ever felt. She closed her eyes, as if that could hold it back. It was futile. Sensation burst within her, hot and cold at the same time, careening around until it pooled low and deep and filled her with a hollow ache. This was a hunger that was new to her, a hunger she'd never known herself capable of.

  Until Miguel de los Reyes had kissed her and changed her world.

  She heard him move and opened her eyes. He'd turned toward her and was looking at her with an intensity that told her what was showing in her face—no doubt every feeling that had just flooded her.

  He reached for her. She moved instantly, instinctively, sparing a fraction of a second to be grateful his car had a bench seat. And then she was in his arms, and they were strong and tight around her, but they were nothing compared to the feel of his mouth on hers, hungry, tasting, probing as if she was the last meal of a dying man.

  Or the first of a man come back to life.

  It was her last coherent thought as pure fire enveloped her. She gripped his shoulders, not to hold him off but to pull herself closer. When he probed past her lips she met him welcomingly, eagerly. And when he shuddered as their tongues brushed, she rejoiced. She reveled in the low groan of pleasure she dragged from him and barely recognized the faint whimper she heard as her own. She tasted him as deeply as he tasted her, moved against him in the same instant he slid one arm around her to hold her more tightly. Her breasts pressed against the solid wall of his chest while her nipples tightened and rose, and she helplessly moved against him to ease the ache.

  She heard him make a sound that was half groan, half gasp. And then, without realizing quite how it had happened, she was stretched out on the seat with his heavy, welcome weight atop her. He cupped her face, moved her head slightly so he could deepen the kiss until she felt nothing but him, until he was her only anchor in a world threatening to rapidly spin away.

  She reached for him, felt the heavy, dark silk of his hair sliding over her fingers. She traced the strong, uncompromising line of his jaw, then the high, aristocratic cheekbones. As she did, her fingers brushed his ear, and she felt him shiver. She did it again, lightly, following the curve. He moved sharply, almost convulsively, grasping her shoulders as if to hang on while he pressed himself into her.

  She felt the rigid proof of everything he'd confessed to digging into her belly. He was hot and hard and hungry, and she exulted in knowing it was for her. All the warnings she'd been chanting for days were charred to ash by his heat and the fire he set in her.

  His hand slipped down to cup her breast, and she lifted herself to him, longing for that touch. She'd been so cold inside for so long, and she hadn't realized it until he'd given her his heat. She whispered a silent prayer that it was the same for him, that this heat was melting the ice that had encased his heart. And then she couldn't think at all as his thumb rubbed over the taut peak of her breast and she cried out as fire shot through her again.

  She arched her hips, loving the feel of him against her, full and erect. She wanted to feel more, wanted to be rid of the barriers between them, wanted to touch him, to caress the rigid length of him. She wanted to feel him sliding into her, filling her, filling that empty place, wanted it as desperately as if she knew only he could end that hollow ache.

  She moved her hands down his back, encountered the shocking heat of bare skin and realized his shirt had pulled free of his jeans. She tugged at it, wanting nothing more than to feel that skin, to stroke the sleek smoothness of it. The cloth came free and she moved quickly, urgently.

  At the first sliding caress of her hands over his back, he arched into her and gave a low, guttural sound. She took the sound into her mouth as if it was tangible, some sweet, palpable evidence that he was as lost in this as she was, that she hadn't been crazy to think of this all this time, that he'd been right, the signals had been mutual.

  When her stroking fingers reached a circular ridge of raised tissue and she realized it was a scar from when he'd been shot, she wanted to hold him closer, to treasure the fact that he'd survived, that he was alive and in her arms.

  Miguel went suddenly still. And he broke off the kiss, as if her touching the scar reminded him of everything they'd both put out of their heads in these mindless moments.

  Slowly he sat up, his normal grace hampered by the confines of the car. Kit smothered the whimper that rose to her lips, knowing it would come out sounding pathetically bereft. He shifted his long legs restlessly, as if he couldn't find the right place for them. It had been so long for her that it took her a moment to realize why he was uncomfortable. The moment she did, a shaft of heat arrowed through her anew as she remembered how fully aroused he'd been.

  "I'm too old—and too tall—for this," he muttered, staring at the bright orange sun as it began its journey to the horizon.

  Glad his first words hadn't been regrets or some reference to how crazy this was, Kit made an effort to match his wry humor. "Not to mention it's still light out, and we're in a very public place."

  He cringed, and she hoped it was exaggerated for effect. "Don't remind me."

&
nbsp; "Maybe we should go somewhere else," she said. "We could stop at the market and I could fix dinner or something."

  He looked at her. "If we go to your place right now," he said slowly, "there's every chance we'll skip dinner and go straight to the or something."

  Kit's heart leaped in her chest. She took a deep breath before saying softly, "I know."

  "Do you also know how insane this is?"

  "Yes. I also know how rare this is."

  His jaw tightened before he said, "So do I. Why do you think it's so damned hard to walk away, even though every ounce of common sense I have is screaming at me to do just that?"

  "Are you going to? Walk away?"

  "Maybe I should be asking you that."

  "My common sense is screaming, too. I'll bet there isn't a reason you've thought of for why this is insane that I haven't thought of, too. More, probably, given that some people will think I'm trying to sleep my way up the ranks, while you—"

  "While my reputation is enhanced in some quarters? I know that, Kit. I hate it, but I know it's true. Just like I know historically it's the woman who pays the higher price."

  They sat looking at each other, all the reasons they both knew hanging tacitly between them. But what filled the small space of his car was the memory of the kiss, the heat of it, the sweetness of it, like the joy of coming home at last after a long, painful trip over a lonely sea.

  "Do we risk it?" Miguel asked quietly. "Is it worth it, Kit? To you?"

  He said it as if his answer to the question was a given, and that made a little thrill shoot through her. For a long moment she looked at him, realizing how different this was. She'd loved Bobby, but he'd been barely more than a boy when they'd gotten engaged. Miguel was a man, a man who knew the cost of caring for someone, a man with the wisdom to know this was not something they could easily toss aside if it didn't work. Miguel de los Reyes would never be swept away by his own wants. He would always be aware there were someone else's feelings and emotions to consider. He was one of the strongest men Kit had ever known, and it was that strength that let him be gentle when it was called for, gentle and caring the way only a truly strong man can be.