Private S.W.A.T. Takeover

“It’s Holden.” But she was already skating ahead with her dogs, crouching slightly and holding on as the two bigger dogs pulled her down the path. Little Bruiser jogged along behind. In less than a minute she was out of sight beyond the trees and shadows.

Holden tipped his face to the moon, cursing his dumb luck and dumber idea for coming here in the first place. So he’d said his piece to Liza Parrish—gotten that much frustration out of his system. Instead of speeding the process, he’d probably terrorized the woman into being even more afraid of sharing everything she knew with the police.

He took a few moments to stretch before resuming his run. A few moments to realize that her scent clung to his shirt, citrusy and fresh, with a tinge of antiseptic thrown in. Feminine. Clean. It only intensified his improper fascination with the woman.

He gave himself a mocking thumbs-up. “Way to get her out of your head, Kincaid.”

He’d better make that appointment with the department shrink because he didn’t feel like getting drunk and when he was off his clear-headed game like this, he had no business getting laid.

Looking around the maze of shadows and moonlight, Holden forced himself to think like a cop. Things had quieted down in the neighborhood now that Liza and her pack had passed through. But the exercise path was still deserted. It was still nearly midnight. Even if she wasn’t a murder witness, this wasn’t the safest route for a lone woman to take.

Holden inhaled a deep breath and turned around. Keeping his distance so she didn’t know he was following, he jogged after Liza and her dogs, keeping a watchful eye out. That’s all his family needed—to have something freaky happen to the eccentric, albeit finely built, redhead who could identify his father’s killer.

Chapter Three

“Bruiser, you mooch—get your nose off the counter. Brownies aren’t for dogs.” Without pausing to let Liza remove his leash, her furry soul mate had trotted straight into the kitchen to inspect the pan she’d left out on the counter to cool. Liza locked the door behind her and sat on the Hide-a-bench in the front hallway to remove her skates. “Besides, they’re mine.”

Chocolate was a good antidote for a stressful day, and she’d been craving the sweet stuff more than usual lately. If she thought Bruiser’s short legs could handle it, she’d add another mile to their nightly run to make up for the indulgence. As it was, she’d better watch how many “antidotes” she baked after dinner or the stress would start to show on her hips.

But she’d start watching tomorrow. After the week she’d been having—too little sleep, too much work, therapy sessions that left her agitated, embarrassed and more uncertain than ever that she could recall anything useful about John Kincaid’s murder, plus two run-ins with John’s overbuilt, in-her-face and under-her-skin son—she deserved a double-sized brownie tonight.

Liza lifted the top of the bench seat and dropped her inline skates, helmet and pads into the storage compartment inside. She finger-combed her hair back into its wispy layers and whistled for the dogs. Bruiser and Cruiser showed up right away to let her unhook their leashes and reward them with a treat. “I’m feeding myself first, Yukon, if you don’t come when I call you.” She whistled again. “Here, boy. Yukon, come.”

He barely acknowledged her from his spot on the couch.

“Fine. We’re eating without you.” She padded to the kitchen in her stockinged feet, shedding her jacket and hanging it over the back of a kitchen chair as she went. Then she opened a cabinet and reached for a plate to serve herself a brownie. “Ouch.”

Drawing her arm back for a closer inspection, Liza cradled her elbow and slowly twisted it from side to side. How could she have missed hurting herself? She must have jarred her funny bone pretty good in her tumble with Kincaid. Though she’d like to credit the endorphins released during that final mile of her run for masking the injury, she had a feeling her preoccupation with Officer Kincaid was the real culprit that had kept her from feeling any pain until now.

How embarrassing, crashing into a man she wasn’t even supposed to meet. Pressing her body against his from chest to toe. Noticing things.

Even in those few short moments they were tangled together on the pavement, she’d noticed he was A) incredibly warm, despite the temperature’s drop into the 30s; B) built like an Olympic swimmer—long and solid and packed with muscle, hinting that he probably enjoyed sports and working out as much as she did; and C) he had the most beautiful eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man. Light brown, long and framing piercing blue eyes.

“Stop it.” Liza chomped a bit of brownie that was too big for her mouth, determined to take note of every sweet, chewy detail of her snack rather than wasting another moment thinking about Holden Kincaid. “He’s just a man,” she muttered around the mouthful.

A man who happened to bear a discomfiting resemblance to the murder victim who haunted her dreams.