Task Force Bride. Julie Miller

barely even blinked at the dangerous torture he inflicted.

      He popped his fingers open and released her. She inhaled a calm, deep breath and smiled. “You see? You know you can’t hurt me, that I’m the only one who’ll always be here for you.” She left the room to pour herself a drink. “Now. What are you going to do about Hope Lockhart?”

      Chapter Four

      The whole elevator smelled of vanilla, reminding Pike of the decadent sugar cookies his grandma Martha baked for Christmas every year.

      Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked down at the toffee-haired woman standing at his shoulder, resolutely watching each number light up as they rode from the garage level up to the third floor of Fourth Precinct headquarters. She’d tamed her hair back into a loose ponytail, but a handful of curls escaped to frame her weary eyes. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

      It was maybe the fifth or sixth effort he’d made at starting a conversation with Hope Lockhart since driving her to the station for an interview with Detectives Montgomery and Fensom. “Get her downtown. Let’s talk to her while the memories are fresh.”

      If he hadn’t scared the memories right out of her.

      In the truck he’d gotten nothing more than a couple of nods and some wild-eyed glances back at the dog caged securely in the seat behind them. Maybe now, with Hans secured in his kennel downstairs, he hoped the skittish woman might relax a bit and they could share some normal, friendly conversation like the kind they’d started at her shop.

      Well, he got conversation. But there wasn’t much normal or friendly about a woman talking to a pair of steel doors instead of to him.

      “I know. But I want to help. Too many people I know have been hurt by that man. I barely knew LaDonna, but it feels like I’ve lost another friend. She splurged on mochas every Friday, and she had this big smile. Tonight she looked like she was sleeping. Until the M.E. closed that zipper...” Pike watched the ripple of movement down her creamy throat as Hope swallowed. “She was in a bag. Like...like she was being discarded.”

      “You shouldn’t have agreed to confirm her ID.” Sure, the quick confirmation helped speed the investigation along, but very few people got to look at dead bodies outside of a funeral home. So how did he reassure her? How did he stop feeling so guilty about everything she’d been through tonight? “It’s a good thing, actually—the bag, I mean. It protects the evidence as much as it honors the victim’s dignity and keeps others from seeing what can sometimes be a pretty disturbing sight.”

      He almost startled when she suddenly tipped her head and looked up at him. Even her glasses couldn’t diminish the impact of her gaze locking onto his. Her eyes were as warm with concern as they were cool in color. “Have you seen a lot of that? Disturbing things?”

      Pike dropped his arms and reached out, feeling the need to offer some kind of comfort. But he wisely curled his fingers into a fist and kept it at his side. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her into silence again.

      “More than I want to.” Yeah. There was a lot of pretty to discover about this woman if a man took the time to look. Maybe he was doing a little too much looking. Taking a cue from the champ, he turned and focused his gaze on the elevator panel. “But you learn to turn off your emotions and you just deal with the facts.”

      “How do you do that? Turn off your emotions, I mean.” She was staring straight ahead again, too. “Maybe I live inside my head too much. But sometimes, I can’t stop thinking about things. I wish I could just do. And not overthink the consequences or second-guess myself.”

      “What do you want to do?” He couldn’t help himself. The woman was too much of an enigma to ignore.

      She shook her head, stirring the curls down her back. She wasn’t going to answer.

      “Come on, now. You’ve just said as many words to me as you’ve said in the entire twelve months I’ve known you.” He nudged his shoulder against hers. “Are you going to stop talking to me now?”

      Her eyes darted up to his at the teasing request. And was that a smile? Victory. “You’re awfully patient with me, Officer Taylor.”

      “Pike.”

      “More persistent than most men I know. Why do you keep trying?”

      He liked a challenge? He was a sucker for a complex mystery like this woman? He just plain couldn’t stand the irritation of having someone not like him or his dog? “I am determined that you’re going to look at me and not think I’m the evil villain in the fairy tale of your life.”

      “The fairy tale?” The smile disappeared and she fixated on the K-9 Corps patch sewn onto the sleeve of his uniform. “Oh. My shop. Believe me, my life isn’t a fairy tale, Offic...Pike.” And then her gaze crept back to his. “There’s no Prince Charming. There’s no fairy godmother. I just try to make the magic happen for others.”

      “Why aren’t you making it happen for yourself, Hope?” And then he did the dumbest thing he’d done all night long. He tunneled his fingers beneath the silky knot of her ponytail, stroked his thumb along the line of her jaw to her chin and tilted his face down toward hers. “Why don’t you have the fairy tale?”