For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper Page A

his fingers as he’d tucked her into his blanket. Remembered her husky laughter in the dark as he’d told her stories of his dating mishaps. Remembered the perfume she wore, which he still couldn’t place.
    He turned his head, wincing as the muscles in his neck protested the awkward angle he’d slept in. Zoey had pulled the blanket up over her nose. Her eyelashes trembled as she slept, the blanket slowly rising and falling with each breath she took. She seemed smaller in sleep, more delicate, more feminine.
    Or maybe he was just projecting what he wanted to see. He’d been surprised—pleasantly surprised—by her sense of humor last night. He would’ve thought the organic, co-op-food type would be humorless in her strict convictions. Except she wasn’t strict in her convictions, either, was she? Not if she ate red licorice and craved Culver’s ButterBurgers. He shook his head. She was more complicated than he’d first thought.
    More familiar.
    His eyes narrowed. He was getting too close to her. It was becoming harder to be objective, to see her as a witness to a crime, nothing more. Bottom line, he couldn’t afford to trust her, even if a primitive, mindless part of him was telling him just the opposite. Trusting the wrong person at this point could get him killed.
    He glanced to the small house across the street. It was silent and dark, the occupants, if there were any, still abed. Dante stretched and yawned. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the adrenaline crash must’ve caught up with him. It didn’t matter anyway. He was pretty sure that his unconscious cop brain would’ve waked him up if anyone had shown last night. No one had.
    They were at a dead end.
    He could question the occupants of the house, and the neighbors, too, see if they had any information about sari-clad little old lady kidnappers, but essentially his game was done. He had orders to come in this morning. He glanced again at Zoey, sleeping so innocently. She wasn’t going to like him leaving the chase.
    Dante frowned on that thought and got out of the car, bracing himself against the god-awful cold. Shit, this was not going to be fun. He chose the alley running behind the houses and jogged over to relieve himself.
    Five minutes later when he got back in the car, Zoey was just beginning to wake up.
    “Oh, my God, it’s cold!” she moaned and pulled the blanket all the way over her face.
    Dante grinned. “I’m turning on the engine now. We should have heat in another minute.”
    “I want a hot bath,” came her muffled voice from beneath the blanket, “and hot slippers and a hot robe and hot coffee and hot oatmeal.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Oatmeal?”
    “Oatmeal is very nutritious.”
    “Not to mention soggy.”
    “Not with lots of brown sugar and cream—”
    “Still sounds soggy.”
    “And raisins.”
    “Raisins in oatmeal are disgusting,” he informed her kindly.
    “Oh, yeah? Well, what do you eat in the morning?”
    “Toast, usually.”
    “Bo-oring,” she intoned from under the blanket.
    “I wouldn’t mind eggs today, though,” he mused.
    “Bet you like bacon and eggs and hash browns, with the eggs over easy so they’re all runny and you can dip the bacon in them.”
    “Well, yeah.”
    Her snort puffed up the blanket over her face.
    He grinned. “But I usually have just toast and coffee instead. Hard to run off bacon, eggs, and hash browns.”
    “Oh, my God, you run.”
    “So?”
    “That’s what’s disgusting. Getting up early and going running, making the rest of us feel guilty.”
    He peeled back a corner of the blanket to look into clear blue eyes. “I can’t see you feeling guilty.”
    She just blinked sleepy, sexy eyes at him for a minute, and he realized his body was responding.
    Then her eyes widened. “I don’t suppose there’s a potty anywhere nearby?”
    He released the blanket edge and sat back. “Nope.”
    “Damn.” She was still a moment. Then, in a burst of speed, she threw off