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She certainly hadn’t forgotten about the stitches on her forehead, but they had announced themselves with the movement. She needed more pain meds. Needed to get up, too, she realized when she checked the time. Sweet heaven. It was nearly eight in the morning, well past her normal hour for starting her day.
Cursing under her breath, she threw back the covers, hurrying to the bathroom, and nearly came to a full stop as she remembered Rafe was in the house. In fact, he was in the guest room directly across the hall from her. Or rather that’s where he was supposed to have slept anyway. It was likely he was already up and working on the investigation.
Since she’d showered the night before, Bree threw on her clothes. Wearing a uniform made that easy, and she had a line of them in her closet. She yanked on her boots and holster and then did her minimal grooming.
Today though, she paused to really see herself in the mirror.
Definitely not a beauty queen like Tessa. No makeup, and there were times, like now, when it looked as if she’d taken a go at cutting her own hair.
What the heck had Rafe seen in her?
And he must have seen, and felt, something to give her that scorcher of a kiss. Of course, she’d delivered an equally hot kiss to him, too. That didn’t make it right. No. In fact, it’d been wrong because the timing was awful for such things. The trick now would be not to let it interfere with working together.
She tamped down her thoughts and headed for the hall while she glanced at her messages. But there weren’t any. She sighed because that meant one of her deputies had purposely held them back, probably with the hopes that she’d get some sleep. Well, the sleep had been accomplished, but now she had to play catch up.
Bree glanced in the open door of the guestroom. No Rafe. The bed was already made, and there were no sounds of a bath or shower coming from the ensuite. However, there was the wonderful scent of coffee permeating the house, and she followed it down the stairs and to the kitchen.
There was coffee, all right. Rafe was sipping some while pouring over something on his phone. Reports, no doubt, that his team had been sending him.
“Morning,” he said. He stood, went to her, and took hold of her shoulders while he studied her forehead. “There’s Tylenol on the table,” he let her know. “I figured you’d need something, and you can take it on an empty stomach.”
“Thanks,” she muttered.
Since she did indeed need it, Bree took two right away, washing them down with the cup of coffee Rafe had poured for her. Obviously, he recalled that she took it black because he hadn’t added anything to it.
Bree thanked him again and opened her laptop that she kept on the counter. She immediately fired off a group email to all the day shift and reserve deputies, asking them for updates. By now, there should be info pouring in from the CSIs, the bomb squad, the hospital where Patricia was being held, andeven SAPD since they were the primary investigators of Gavin’s death.
“How long have you been up?” she asked, and she made the mistake of looking at him. Really looking.
Crap.
Bree hated that she felt the punch of heat at just seeing him. Thosedrown in megreen eyes that had likely coaxed plenty of women to bed. The rumpled dark brown hair that made her itch to run her fingers through it. And the face. Definitely not pretty. But rugged and hot. So. Very. Hot.
Again, the timing for this sucked.
Rafe stared at her as she was staring at him, and he seemed to develop mind-reading skills. Either that or she was showing the lust on her face. She glanced away just so she’d stand a chance of cooling down her body.
“I’ve been up about two hours. I tried not to make any noise so you could sleep in, though I figure you won’t thank me for that,” he added, flashing her a smile.
A real, actual smile.
She’d forgotten just how much more amazing it could make his face that was already too amazing as it was.
“No, I won’t thank you,” she muttered. “We have way too much to do today for me to be sleeping in.”
And apparently, her deputies had been waiting for her to acknowledge she was awake because the emails came flooding in.
“Both Alice and Carson are doing well,” she relayed to him. “They’ll still be on quarters for today and maybe tomorrow, but they’re on the mend.”
She went to the next report. “Teddy Sanchez from the bomb squad says the explosive device wasn’t complicated. Bottom line—plenty of people could have constructed it with just info they got off the Internet.”
Rafe made a sound to let her know he’d anticipated that. “Sanchez has sent the remains of the device to the lab, so we still might get something.” He put two pieces of bread into the toaster.
Mightwas the best they could hope for on that, so she moved on to the next report from Millie. “Patricia is being weaned off sedation today, but her doctor is refusing to let anyone other than medical staff near her.”
For a second, Bree contemplated asking Rafe if his boss would have any pull in that particular area, but she immediately nixed the idea. Best to stick to the letter of the law. If Patricia was eventually deemed fit to stand trial, then the charges and the evidence had to be clean.
Of course, the “cleanest” part of that would be multiple eyewitness accounts to her attempting to gun down a cop. That could potentially land the woman in jail for decades. But Bree took no pleasure in that since she believed all the way down to the soles of her boots that Patricia had been manipulated into firing those shots.
