New Year's Bang by Kimberly Dean Page B

both.
    But this . Here she was on a frigid winter
night being accused of driving while under the influence.
Snowflakes pelted her in the face and she wiped away the trails of
moisture that started down her cheeks. Indignantly, she shoved her
hands into the pockets of her KIWU jacket and lifted one foot.
“See? I didn’t even get a whiff of the eggnog tonight.”
    Her greedy little station manager had scarfed the
last of the batch.
    “Other foot,” Troy said unemotionally.
    Snow scrunched as she changed feet. She could not
believe he was doing this. Talk about crossing the line!
    “Mind if I multi-task?” she asked. “It’s cold out
here.”
    Still standing on one foot, she closed her eyes.
Holding her arms out to her sides, she crisply touched her index
finger to her nose. Then, just to prove her point, she made a show
of it. Right finger, touch. Left finger, touch. Both at the same
time, touch.
    “Can I go now?” she asked, coming back to a normal
stance.
    She refused to look at him. If she did, there was a
strong possibility she’d cry. And for someone who never cried,
doing it now would be the absolute worst. So, of course, she felt
her throat thickening.
    She was wet, cold and tired. Her holidays had sucked.
She’d even burned the sugar cookies she’d tried to bake. Worst of
all, though, the man she fantasized about had it in for her.
    “Lita,” he said again, this time more quietly.
    More gently.
    It almost pushed her over the edge. Sniffling, she
lifted her chin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand
lift toward her. It was too much.
    “Fine. I’ll walk a straight line.” She jerked away
from his touch and swiftly put one foot in front of the other. The
snow was coming down more heavily now and his oh-so-important
center line was getting harder to see. Still, she followed it down
the deserted road like a high wire circus professional. She even
pivoted without falling off. “There. Is that what you want?”
    It wasn’t even close.
    Troy let his gaze run up Lita’s form to her face. If
it got stuck on her close-fitting jeans for an extra second or two,
he couldn’t help it. When he looked into her big brown eyes,
though, his concern returned.
    Something was wrong.
    She had been driving strangely and he hadn’t
even mentioned her speed. He’d sat through an extra cycle of the
streetlights at the Sycamore and Main intersection when he’d seen
her coming. It had just taken her forever to get there. She’d been
moving at an absolute crawl – until she’d gunned it. It was
behavior he’d seen before. Drivers left the bars knowing they were
intoxicated. They just drove extra slow in an effort to be
“careful”.
    She didn’t appear to be impaired, though. For some
reason, that troubled him even more.
    The snow began to fall in big, fluffy flakes and he
turned up the furred collar of his police jacket. “And back,” he
ordered, nodding at the now nearly invisible line.
    He needed time to figure out what was going on.
    Because it was more than just her driving…
    Surreptitiously, he glanced back at his cruiser. A
transistor radio sat on the passenger seat. Admittedly, it wasn’t
department issue, but on slow nights he listened to her show. And,
for the past two weeks, she hadn’t been herself. Not that her smoky
voice didn’t still give him a hard-on every time he heard it. Her
spirit just wasn’t there.
    And her spirit was half the attraction.
    “You are not going to make me do a breath
test,” she said as she came to a stop in front of him.
    She blinked rapidly as if the snow was bothering her.
Her voice was huskier than normal, though, and his gaze
involuntarily shifted to her lips. When he saw them tremble, the
bottom of his stomach fell out.
    She was on the verge of crying.
    He planted his hands on his hips to keep himself from
reaching for her. She didn’t cry unless things were bad – and he
didn’t handle it well when she got this upset. “Lita, are you
okay?”
    She