Page 30 of Tough Justice

Tori slipped it off the hanger and put it on. The mirror affixed to the inside of the closet door confirmed it. “Frumpy with a capital F.” No man would give her a second look in this awful shirt. “It’s perfect.”

Her cell phone blared from the top of the bureau. She put the call on speaker then set the phone back on the bureau while she searched for shoes. “Hi, Wil.” The second she said his name, she clapped a hand over her eyes. She’d completely forgotten about their dinner plans.

“I’m leaving now,” he said. “Should be at your place in twenty minutes.”

“You’re going to kill me.” She grimaced at the mirror. “I’m going on one of those DEA warrants tonight up in Loveland. Can I take a raincheck?”

A moment of silence, then, “You’re going on a warrant? Seriously?” Oh, boy. She never should have mentioned it. On the other end of the phone, there was no mistaking Wil’s grumbling censure. “This is exactly what I was worried about—that you’d get roped into something that could land you in hot water. You really need to rethink this, Tor.”

“I’m going. This is probably the last time.”

“The last time? When was the first time?”

Whoops. “Uh, a few days ago.”

“You should have told me.”

“It was last minute. It wasn’t planned or anything. Besides, I actually saved a little girl who’d just gone into anaphylactic shock. I can totally understand the excitement of being a paramedic.” Helping people in the ER was more of a controlled environment. Saving people in the field had really gotten her juices flowing in ways she’d never imagined.

“Okay, okay,” Wil relented. “And hey, we never got around to talking about how it went with Leslie Batista yesterday. Did that DEA agent get anything useful?”

“Well, he got a warrant, so I guess so.” She frowned, sticking her finger through a hole at the hem of the shirt. Rumbling from a powerful engine came from outside. “Can’t be,” she mumbled, going to the window.

“Can’t be what?” Wil asked.

Deck’s black SUV sat in her driveway. He was an hour early. Crap. She shoved her feet into a pair of rubber-soled shoes. “Wil, I’m sorry. I really have to go.”

“I’ll catch up with you next shift. Just be careful, and if the bullets start flying…duck.”

“Oh, you’re hilarious.”

After ending the call, she speed-walked to the bathroom and grabbed the first brush she could get her hands on. Once brushed, she quickly tied her hair up in its usual ponytail. One more mirror-check and—

Groaning at the ridiculousness of her vanity, she plucked the cap off a stick of black eyeliner and did her eyes. A swipe of mascara and she was ready.

Ready for what? A prom date?

Tori reached for the box of tissues to wipe off her makeup when the doorbell rang. “Oh, forget it.”

She hustled down the stairs and unlocked the door, opening it. Deck stood there, holding two large paper cups of coffee from her favorite café down the street. Thor sat beside him, his tail swishing back and forth.

No fair. Why did men always look so good with no makeup at all and hair still wet from a shower? A bead of water trickled down his temple—or was it sweat? Either way, the man looked good.

Hissing and a deep growling meow came from the bushes separating hers and her neighbor’s driveways. Thor’s head swiveled, and he took off for the bushes. To her surprise, Deck didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that a war was about to begin.

“Uh-oh. That’s the neighbor’s cat.” Tori rushed past Deck, warning over her shoulder, “You should call Thor back. For a cat, Tigger’s meaner than a junkyard dog.”

“He’ll be fine. Trust me.”

There it was again. The trust thing. But Deck didn’t know Tigger. Tori did. She still bore a scar on her ankle from where Tigger had gotten in a savage little bite the same day she’d moved in. Some welcome wagon that had been.

An orange paw swiped through a break in the bushes. She expected Thor to start barking, as most dogs did when confronted by the neighborhood’s feline general. To her amazement, Thor lay down in front of the spot where Tigger was hiding and made the oddest sound she’d ever heard a dog make. He was cooing like an owl.

Thor craned his neck toward the hedgerow, his lips forming a perfect O as he softly cooed at the cat. Tigger stopped hissing. An orange, striped face appeared, then Tori’s jaw dropped as Tigger strutted to Thor with his tail in the air and—

No way. Tigger touched noses with Thor’s nose. No biting. No hissing. No clawing.

“Told you to trust me,” Deck said smugly from behind her. “Thor has many talents. Sniffing out drugs. Climbing ladders. Making friends with cats. He’s a cat-whispering dog. I’m told they’re rare.”