Shattered Vows. Maggie Price

Maybe the fact he had yet to sign them wouldn’t be such a constant irritant if he could explain why the hell that was.

      His breath cloudy on the freezing air, he hunched his shoulders beneath his insulated uniform jacket and took the steps up to the porch two at a time.

      He bypassed ringing the doorbell and slid his key into the lock. When he’d called earlier, Tory had told him she’d likely be in the garage checking her surveillance equipment and for him to use his key to get in.

      He strode down the hallway, its dark oak floor scattered with colorful rugs. Veering right, he moved through a living room that resembled a comfortable, cluttered English study. He and Patience had picked out the leather furniture, the thick wooden tables, the brass accessories, the artwork. Sweeping his gaze around the room, Bran determined that Tory hadn’t changed a picture or moved a chair.

      He was glad of that, he conceded. Although he’d clung to his grief, it had faded under the demands of everyday living and the passage of time. Memories of Patience now brought more pleasure than pain and he found comfort in having a visual reminder of the wife he’d planned to grow old with.

      His spit-shined black uniform boots sounded like gunshots against the kitchen’s ceramic-tiled floor. As he neared the door leading to the garage, the air began to pulsate with music. Or with what Tory termed music. To him, the stuff she blasted out of speakers was nothing but unintelligible noise that slammed the eardrums.

      Blowing out a breath, he tossed his hat and leather gloves on the nearest counter. He pulled open the door to the garage, wincing against the blast of head-pumping rock and roll.

      When his gaze landed on Tory, he froze midstep. His last cognizant thought before the blood totally drained from his brain was that he had never seen a more erotic sight than the leggy blonde leaning under the open hood of her car, her jeans-clad hips performing a bump and grind to the pulsing beat.

      When the music swirled into a crescendo and her bottom did a quick, snappy twitch, his mouth went dry. His gut clenched. And instantly he was swept back into the erotic dreams that had plagued him over the past week.

      Dammit, he wanted to touch her so badly that the ache in his body spread all the way to his fingers. Fingers that wanted to shove into that long blond hair so he could tug her head back and feed on the mouth that had taken him to heaven more times than he could count. Yet he held himself back. He’d had good, sound reasons for walking out on their marriage. Too bad those logical reasons couldn’t stop him from wanting the woman worse than he wanted to breathe.

      At first, Tory thought it was the hot, pulsating sound-track that had shifted her nerve endings into vibrate mode as she attacked the corrosion on her car’s battery cables with a wire brush. Seconds later, a flash of awareness hit her. With her instincts blaring the warning she was no longer alone, she jerked her head up hard enough to thud against the hood of her car.

      “Easy!”

      She heard the shout at the same time she whirled, the wire brush raised like a weapon. Her heartbeat faltered when she saw Bran. She’d known he was coming by. But for the past week she’d schooled her thoughts toward the possibility of Heath or one of his pals showing up. Going into defense mode with the wire brush had been knee-jerk reflex.

      She swallowed hard. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

      Bran cuffed one hand behind an ear. “What?”

      Turning, she leaned across the span of the car’s engine toward the portable CD player propped on the fender. When she flipped the switch, silence dropped on the garage like a stone.

      “I didn’t hear you come in,” she repeated.

      “Go figure.” Unzipping his insulated jacket, he hooked a brow at the wire brush she still held defensively. “You planning on making a run at me with that thing?”

      In his sharp-pressed uniform, he looked much the same as he had on the night he’d stepped into her life, hauling Danny home from a shadily-run poker game. Whipcord-lean and ramrod-straight, chiseled jaw and thick, sandy hair, Bran McCall had quite literally made her mouth water. Now, without warning, a lot of complex sensations surged up out of the past, washing over her in waves.

      “You’re a good guy, so you’re safe,” she said, pleased that her voice sounded cool and calm. “But this wire brush would do a wicked job on some bad guy’s face.”

      “True.”

      Hoping to jettison her jangling nerves, she turned back to the battery and tackled a small spot of corrosion still left on one terminal. Maybe the sight of Bran in his uniform wouldn’t have had such an effect on her if she hadn’t spent the past week trying to rid her mind of maddening thoughts of how it felt to lie beneath him again, to look up into his face while his body molded against hers, to feel his sure, firm weight while the musky scent of his cologne filled her lungs.

      When he stepped beside her and stuck his head under the hood, her belly tightened. Blood warmed. The slouchy red sweater she’d pulled on that morning was suddenly doing too good a job at keeping her body heat contained.

      “Did your battery give out?” he asked. “Or are you just making sure it doesn’t?”

      “Making sure.” He smelled wonderful, like soap and something musky and male that hinted of sleep and sex. While a rivulet of sweat trickled between her breasts, she continued scrubbing, even though the corrosion was gone. “I’m working a case involving nighttime surveillance at the downtown library learning center. The guy I’m watching is a slime. Last night when I left there, my battery barely kicked in.”

      She was babbling, but couldn’t make herself shut up. “It’s supposed to get even colder tonight. Didn’t want to risk the battery giving out. Decided to do some maintenance.”

      “Good idea.”

      When he leaned in for a closer look at the engine, the knots in her stomach tightened.

      He gave a hose a testing squeeze. “This feels a little hard. You might want to replace it.”

      “I’ll put it on my to-do list.” She slanted a look at his profile. Hero-perfect with a hint of rugged. Why did just looking at him cause those damned chemical signals to zip through her? Flash red alerts?

      A second later he had the oil dipstick out. “Oil’s a little low.”

      “I planned to check it.”

      Nodding, he replaced the dipstick, then leaned in farther. “How about your power-steering fluid?”

      “You know, I really don’t need….” Her voice caught when she turned her head and found they were eye-to-eye and mouth-to-mouth. Her throat tightened when his warm breath skated across her face. If either of them moved in, their mouths would touch. The heat coiling inside her belly streaked up into her cheeks.

      She knew that heat had turned to a flush when his Viking-blue eyes darkened. A second later something sharp and reckless slid into those eyes and his gaze dropped to her mouth. The ache in her belly turned into a throb.

      “You really don’t need what, Tory?”

      “I….” Oh, God. She didn’t need to be thinking about her soon-to-be ex touching her in places that had frozen over during their months apart.

      She jerked back. “I don’t need help with my car.”

      “Yeah, what the hell was I thinking?”

      Watching him, she could feel his withdrawal even before he stepped back.

      His mouth thinned. “You’ve always made it clear just how little you need me.” His voice was now about ten degrees colder than the air in the garage.

      “Look, I wasn’t trying to make a statement. I just…. Dammit, I don’t need help checking the fluid levels in my car.”

      “Or anything else.” He loomed over her, tall and unfathomable, staring at her with those hot blue eyes.

      She