Force of Attraction by D. D. Ayres Page A

something with them even he would eat. Laptop in his cruiser. Recipes at his fingertips.
    He finished unpacking bread, milk, and coffee. Onions. BBQ sauce. “Okay, now we’re talking.”
    *   *   *
    â€œWe need a cover story.”
    They were sitting on the steps of Cole’s barracks watching twilight slide into night in the sky overhead. Hugo lay stretched out beside her while Izzy had deigned to join them, but only at the far opposite end of the porch. At least no one was barking or growling, not even she and Scott.
    Cole stretched out her legs, letting her boots make gullies in the gravel walkway. She was full of barbecued chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, and, surprisingly, roasted beets. “How elaborate will it have to be?”
    â€œThe best lies are those that stay close to the truth.”
    Scott pulled free another beer bottle from the six-pack he had fetched from the barracks he shared with five other male handlers and offered it to Cole.
    She shook her head. One was enough. “Could we be brother and sister?”
    Scott choked on his beer. “The way I look at you could get me arrested for incest in twenty-five states.”
    He said it lightly but Cole found it hard to smile.
    â€œHow about this? We’re exes who recently got back together after you blew us up by screwing around. I’m giving you another chance but I’m not betting on this being a permanent arrangement because I don’t trust you.”
    Scott took a long pull on his beer. “Is that what you think? That I’m just doing this because I don’t like being the bad guy?”
    Cole gazed at him for several seconds. “I think you don’t know what you want. I don’t think you ever have.” She waved a hand around. “If this task force assignment is your way of trying to make something up to me then know that it doesn’t make up for a thing.”
    He reached out and touched his little finger to hers. “What do you want?”
    Cole looked down at their touching fingers, wondering how such a tiny thing could set off such huge seismic quakes in her middle. She shifted her finger away.
    â€œI want to do something important. I want to prove I didn’t make a mistake in choosing a career in law enforcement.” She lifted her gaze to the night sky. “I want to prove I’m good enough.”
    Scott heard an echo of her words in his chest. To do something important. To prove he was good enough. That had been the be-all, end-all of his entire life. And still he’d managed to screw up everything that mattered.
    Cole shook her head at some internal thought. “I wasn’t the perfect daughter with As because I wanted to be. I just knew it would have killed my parents if I’d become a rebel after they divorced. Becca and I had to show them we were okay, that they didn’t ruin us.”
    Scott pulled up a knee and rested his elbow on it, letting the beer bottle dangle from the hook of two fingers. Unlike his own, he’d always thought she had the perfect childhood. After all, even though they were divorced, her parents had presented a united front to him. They didn’t like him.
    â€œYou never told me how the divorce affected you before.”
    She glanced at him, for once without her guard up. “We didn’t do much real talking the years we were together.”
    He couldn’t argue with that. Too hot to cool down. Plus, to allow her to open up would have meant she would have expected the same from him. He hadn’t wanted her to see him as he really was, not when she gazed at him like he was Superman, the Socrates of law enforcement, and the Sexiest Man Alive all rolled into one. How could he have been so blind?
    â€œSo circumstances prevented you from being…?”
    She smiled. “Who knows? Goth, maybe, or I might have gotten a nose ring and tattoos—”
    â€œTattoos? You hate