In Too Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

she closed her mouth with a
snap and forced her lips to peel back into a smile. “Thank you.
That’s very kind.”
    “ All settled then—and you’ll both
come for breakfast with Ben and Shaye for a family meeting.” Glenna
rubbed Piper’s arm. “I’d best be off. Bill—?” Bill turned from
where he was trying to slip out the back door. “Be a dear and close
up for Ryan tonight, will you?” She blew him a kiss. “West can take
Piper home. My poor baby’s ready to drop.”
    “ Righto.” Bill gusted out a sigh
and trudged back through the kitchen. “I’ll nip into the pub and
turf out the hardcore hangers-on.”
    Few could resist a direct request
from Glenna. Except Piper, who had finally learned how after being
away from her mother for so many years.
    She whipped the towel off her
shoulder. “I’ll wipe these counters down.”
    “ Don’t be too long, you’re looking
decidedly peaky.” With a toodle-oo wave, Glenna swept out the way
she’d come—leaving her and West alone.
    Piper’s heart tapped out a little
two-step routine.
    West leaned against the stainless
steel counter. “I’ll finish up here and take you home. My bike’s
around the back.”
    A vision flashed into her mind of
sitting precariously balanced on a mountain bike’s handlebars while
West pedaled madly behind. The bemused disbelief vanished when she
remembered the old motorbike he’d slaved over as a teenager. “You
still have the Suzuki 250?”
    She put some distance between them
by crossing the kitchen to slot the roasting pan back in its place
under a countertop.
    “ No, I sold the Suzuki years ago.
Got a BMW now.”
    “ Really?”
    “ An R100-GS.”
    “ Oh…nice.” This conversation was
so awkward-high-school that she expected to begin her next sentence
with the word “like” and giggle uncontrollably.
    Why was she acting like a
dumbstruck teen when men dominated her everyday working
environment? Some of them hot men—and men in uniform . Yet,
for all the jokes her friends made about handcuffs and batons, none
of her fellow cops got under her skin with one sardonic glance like
West had. “Look, give me directions to your place and I’ll make my
own way.”
    He raised both eyebrows but didn’t
shift from his casual stance. “It’s almost eleven, and as Glenna
said, ‘You’re looking peaky.’ I’ll take you home on my
bike.”
    Sitting behind West, snuggled up
against his back with her arms around his waist? Not going to
happen. She ignored the lurch in her stomach and slowly dried her
hands on the kitchen towel before draping it over a
rail.
    Piper untied her apron and tossed
it into the hamper. “I’m a cop who’s used to long hours and hard
physical work whether I’m peaky or not. I’ll walk. Just give me the
directions. Please.”
    “ Your call.” His tone mild, West
rattled off a series of lefts and rights.
    “ And where’s the spare key? I
don’t want to get Ben out of bed to answer the door.”
    “ It won’t be locked. You’re not in
the city anymore, Piper.”
    “ Right.”
    His lips curled into a half smile.
“I’ll probably beat you back anyway, but if not, my office is on
the top floor, and the linen cupboard is in the hallway. Make
yourself at home.”
    The beer she’d drunk earlier
curdled at the thought.

Chapter 3
    “ You’re off
your game, boy.” Bill leaned in the doorway.
    West looked up from behind his
office desk, straightened, and slid the desk drawer shut. “All
locked up?”
    “ Tighter than the Virgin
Mary.”
    For the first time that evening,
he really looked at his dad. Purple shadows bruised the crinkled
skin under his eyes, and everything about him sagged, including the
two woolen jerseys he wore, even though the temperature inside the
pub was warm enough to be comfortable in only a shirt. “You look
like hell. Did you stop to eat tonight?”
    “ That girl of yours bullied me
into a sandwich. Didn’t want anything else.”
    West sat forward with a