LITMIR.BIZ

      Probably in defense of her gleaming little car, Jennifer Jo Logan—JJ, Quint reminded himself—had parked at the farthest end of the lot from the station, six or eight spaces from the next nearest vehicle. Though she was half a foot shorter than him, she matched his strides without complaint. He was long out of the habit of slowing down to accommodate anyone with shorter legs—Don’t think of Linny—but now he made a conscious effort to shorten his steps.

      Which gave him an opportunity to study JJ.

      From a purely professional viewpoint.

      She would have to stand on tiptoe to pass five foot six, and she was slender, curvy, soft, but she had an assured don’t-mess-with-me air about her. Her hair fell to her shoulders, nothing special, brown with a few reddish streaks, and her eyes were hazel, again nothing special.

      And somehow, in spite of all that nothing special, she was pretty. Not beautiful, not the sort who would stop guys in their tracks, not like—

      His jaw tightened, and he forced the thought to its conclusion: not like Linny. Linny had been gorgeous, with silky black hair that fell straight and sleek to her waist, skin so pale it might have never seen the sun, delicate and fragile and breathtaking.

      JJ Logan wasn’t any of that. But neither was any other woman in the world.

      Quint was comfortable with silence—had made himself become comfortable—but not so much her. It wasn’t more than a minute before she spoke. “How long have you been a cop?”

      “A while.”

      “You a local boy?”

      “Yeah.”

      “You like patrol?”

      He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, realized she wasn’t looking and grunted instead.

      An annoyed tone came into her voice. “Is your chief good, bad or indifferent?”

      As if any cop who cared about his job would honestly answer that question from a stranger. Sam was damned good—Quint wouldn’t have a job if he wasn’t—but if the truth was one of the other two answers, no way he’d admit it. “Good.”

      He thought he heard a sigh from her in response, but when she didn’t respond, he turned his attention to the police station ahead of them. The building was three stories, constructed of huge blocks of sandstone, with broad concrete steps leading to the double doors. More than a hundred years old, its purpose wasn’t just function; it provided beauty and solidity, elegance and grace—a quote from the city’s tourism brochure. It had been built to last, and it gave him a sense of…

      He wasn’t sure how to identify the feeling. He’d spent sixteen months learning to ignore feelings, and it was hard, once a habit formed, to give it up again. Satisfaction wasn’t quite the right label. Neither was comfort. Security, maybe. It had stood there strong and whole his entire life, and it would still be there, strong and whole, long after he died. Unchanging. Constant.

      They stepped onto the curb, walking between flower beds planted with hardy petunias, when JJ broke her silence. “Just for the record, I’m armed.”

      He stopped. So did she. He wasn’t surprised. Most cops he knew didn’t go anywhere without some form of weapon. His surprise was that he hadn’t thought to ask her. Now he faced her, his gaze focused tightly as it moved down, then back up her body. Almost immediately, he spotted the slight bulge beneath her jacket on the left side indicating something holstered there, but he didn’t assume it was the only weapon.

      Her white shirt was fitted, hugging her breasts and stomach, and couldn’t have concealed a thing. Her jeans, faded soft blue and showing signs of long-term wear, were snug over her hips and clung to her muscular thighs and calves, all the way down to the brown leather boots peeking out from beneath the hems.

      Nothing special, he reminded himself.

      “What is it?” he asked with a nod toward her caramel-colored suede jacket.

      She pulled back the left side to reveal the black-and-yellow Taser holstered grip forward on her waistband. An easy position to draw from for a right-handed person. No doubt she normally wore her pistol on the right. No chance for a mix-up unless a person was an idiot.

      “Is that all?”

      A smile crinkled her eyes. “Where could I hide anything else?” Then a nod toward the Challenger. “My weapon’s locked in the car.”

      Confirming what he suspected: JJ Logan was in Cedar Creek on a job—the reason Sam had sent him out to retrieve her in the first place. Sam liked to know what was going on in his town. Quint…he didn’t care that much anymore.

      “Should I leave the Taser in the car?”

      Quint shook his head. “Everyone inside is armed, too. You’re not a threat.”

      She gave him a look halfway between hurt and insulted. “Don’t be so sure of that. You don’t even know me yet.” Smiling, she began moving again, reaching the bottom step before he gave himself a mental shake and followed.

      He knew one thing: he didn’t want to know her. His life was steady. Predictable. Not happy, but the normal that had been forced on him. He didn’t need any upsets to his routine. He was going to deliver JJ Logan to Sam’s office, go back to his vehicle, forget he’d met her and get back to work. Back to the solitude he preferred.

      Maybe not actually preferred, but had chosen. Or had it chosen him?

      You can’t change the world, someone had told him, but you can change the way you react to it. And he had changed the only way he knew how. No reactions whatsoever. If he didn’t lose control, then he didn’t have to struggle to regain it.

      JJ reached the double doors before he did, opened one and stepped back so he could enter first. It didn’t bother him. In Cedar Creek, courtesies like that weren’t assigned by gender. Whoever was there first did the honors, and sooner or later the honoree would do it for someone else.

      She stopped a few feet inside the door to look. He was in and out of here five or six times a day. He rarely noticed the furnishings anymore, but JJ certainly did. The lobby was marbled, high-ceilinged, chandeliered and grandly staired. Behind the gleaming wooden counter, though, the ceiling had been dropped to a regular height with ugly acoustic tiles, and so much furniture had been crammed in that there was little breathing room.

      Quint used to have his own office. Now, in the event he needed a desk, he used one of the two unclaimed ones against the back wall. One had two uneven legs, and the other was so scarred on top that it was impossible to write legibly without borrowing a solid surface from elsewhere.

      The chief’s secretary, Cheryl, looked up and over the top of her glasses. “Sam’s in his office.”

      Quint acknowledged her with a nod, seeing that everyone else was looking at them, too: Daniel Harper and Ben Little Bear, two of the detectives who’d once answered to him; Morwenna Armstrong, dispatcher and coqueen of local gossip along with Lois Gideon, their first female and first turquoise-haired officer; and three other patrol officers checking in for something or other. Quint knew they were

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