Liam’s stomach took the Hula-Hoop route down to his kneecaps.
Carmen Desoto.
One of Isabella’s most trusted CIs. The only woman who had ever smashed Liam’s composure. Even worse, she’d done it with one simple action, something she’d never repeated and he’d never forgotten, not even now, years later.
Something Liam had never stopped wanting, despite knowing he couldn’t have it, and that made Carmen so much more than messy. Christ, she was her own personal hurricane, wrapped up in a sexy, sharp-tongued package.
And, as of right now, she was Liam’s only lead.
2
Carmen Desoto had woken up exhausted, and shit had only gone downhill from there. Now, ten hours after her shift at the Marlene Davenport Memorial Clinic had started and two minutes after it had ended, she needed a good meal, a hot bath, and a solid night of blissfully undisturbed shuteye. But since her pantry held more cobwebs than condiments, a bathtub was a luxury she’d never been able to afford—let alone deserve—and her shift at the night clinic started in a few hours, she’d have to settle for the granola bar she’d swiped from the staff lounge, a lukewarm shower, and a catnap.
Which was fine by her, really. So she was running on little more than mediocre coffee and sheer fucking determination, and yeah, she smelled like anti-microbial hand wash and probably a couple other things she didn’t want to think too hard on. Big deal. She had endured way worse, and wasn’t that exactly why she’d scratched her way out of the shittiest part of North Point to become a nurse in the first place?
At least she had a pantry, a shower, and a bed. The people she’d help treat tonight, off the books and under the radar, got by on far less. If Carmen had to suffer some hunger pangs and sleepless nights in order to help them, she damn well would.
Even if doing so could get her in a truckload of fucking trouble.
“Hey, Carmen. Are you on your way out?” Her boss’s voice startled her back to reality, but she landed on her feet in less than a blink. From the bulky muscles beneath his scrubs and matching full-sleeve tattoos to the reddish-gold beard framing his friendly smile, Connor Bradshaw was pretty much the screaming opposite of what Carmen had expected a seasoned trauma nurse to look like. But Connor—who insisted that everyone who worked for him at the clinic call him by his first name even though he ran the place with his wife—had more nursing chops than most. Decorated service as an Air Force flight medic. Seasoned experience as a trauma nurse. Co-director of Remington’s largest and busiest health clinic.
Guy who would fire her in a red-hot instant if he knew where she was headed tonight, and yeah, it was time to get gone before he could ask too many questions.
“Yep.” Carmen tried on a smile even though it was an ungainly fit, adjusting her bag over one scrubs-clad shoulder. “Have a good night.”
“Hang on,” he said, shooting a glance at the darkened windows lining the front of the clinic. “I’ll walk you out.”
Her heart clapped out a warning, but she kept it far from her face. “Oh, that’s okay. I got a good parking spot. I’m not even a block away.” She didn’t add that she’d come up in the thorniest part of the city, or that she’d learned how to brazen her way down a night-darkened street before she’d even turned sixteen.
Not that any of that would’ve changed Connor’s mind. “That makes me walking you a piece of cake. And since I had a huge piece of cake after lunch today, I could use the extra steps. Gotta practice what I preach if I’m going to run a wellness clinic.”
“You have, like, five percent body fat,” Carmen said, unable to curb her laugh. Although she’d never seen them firsthand—because, hi, Connor was not only her boss, but also happily married to her other boss—she’d still bet that he had the sort of abs you could do your damn laundry on.
“See? It’s working already.” Waggling his brows, Connor led the way to the clinic’s front door, tossing a “be right back” over his shoulder to the triage nurse closing down the front desk for the evening. He wasn’t going to let Carmen off the hook, and, to be fair, the buddy system wasn’t a brainless idea. Still, if Connor went all chit-chat and asked her what she was doing tonight, she’d have to lie through her teeth.
Rather than chance it, she kept her mouth firmly shut. Yeah, the silence was pretty awkward, and yeah again, part of her hated throwing off prickly vibes when Connor had never been anything but nice to her in the whole six months she’d worked at the clinic. But having her guard up wasn’t just a precaution. It was necessary.
And wasn’t that just a fucking life lesson, right there?
Luckily for her, Connor was terminally laid back. He rolled with the lack of conversation the whole way, stopping a handful of steps from her beat-to-hell Hyundai before wishing her a goodnight.
“’Night,” she said back, scooting into the driver’s seat and praying the car would do its thing without fuss. By a tiny miracle, it did, and one seatbelt and two seconds later, Carmen was in business. She took a minute to check her cell phone before getting on the road, and huh, that was weird. Three missed calls.
She looked at the screen more closely. The number was local, although she didn’t recognize it, and there were no voicemails, only hang ups. It was probably one of those annoying telemarketers wanting to extend the car warranty she didn’t even have. But since another thing she didn’t have was time to waste, she tossed her phone back into her bag and put her car in Drive. If she played things just right, she’d be able to squeak in a nap and a shower before she had to head into North Point for the night.
The thought pushed her to hurry, navigating the familiar path from the clinic to her shoebox of an apartment. Despite its lack of both size and style, it wasn’t by far the worst place she’d ever lived, and anyway, ninety percent of the time that she was there, she was asleep. The building might be older than dirt itself, with meager appliances that were likely original artifacts and carpet that had passed retro at least twice, but she had a roof over her head that (probably) wouldn’t leak and a snug, comfy bed all to herself.
“Oh, bed,” Carmen murmured, the thought unleashing an involuntary smile over her face as she climbed out of the rickety elevator. But the sight of the man leaning against her doorframe killed her joy and vaulted her heart halfway up her windpipe.
Dark auburn hair swept up off his face. Eyes the most unusual shade of hazel, so unique they practically defied description. Lean, strong muscles—brachioradialis, biceps brachii, sweet mother of deltoids—flexing beneath his gray T-shirt as he pushed himself fully upright, then flexing again as those arms crossed over his chest and he frowned, and yep. Nothing had changed since the last time she’d seen Detective Liam Hollister.
He was still hot enough to bake her cookies, and he was still wildly unhappy to see her.
“What are you doing here?” Carmen heard the words post-launch, felt the barbs hidden in the syllables. She hadn’t intended them, really, but there they were anyway, tiny little roadblocks meant to keep him at arm’s length.
After all, once someone knew your weaknesses, you had to be extra vigilant around them. And Liam Hollister wasn’t just aware of Carmen’s soft spots, the vulnerable places that could be pushed like a bruise, causing pain.