In the Line of Duty (First Responders 2)

He looked at her steadily. “You don’t have to be so patronizing. I know how to file an insurance claim.”

She schooled her features. Ten minutes. Surely in ten minutes she could be out of here, right? “Of course you do,” she placated, but treated him to the same tone he’d dished out when she’d arrived. She’d do her job, but she wasn’t above getting in a dig or two while she was at it. There was nothing that said she had to like Jake Symonds.

“Did they take money?”

“Last night’s take is gone from my office. I always close off the registers at closing time so I know what’s there. I hadn’t done up the deposit, but the register tapes will tell me what I need to know.”

She jotted everything down and kept her eyes focused on her writing. “Anything else?”

“A couple cases of booze inventory from the back room. I’d have to do a count to be sure, but I’m pretty aware of what I’ve got in there.”

She looked up. Jake was completely straight with her now, no teasing smile, no cockiness. She tried to remember that this was his business, his livelihood. So what if she didn’t particularly like him? He still hadn’t asked to be burglarized. Though the flimsy back door was very nearly an invitation.

“I’d appreciate that,” she said, a little warmer than she’d first been. “And the make and partial plate?”

He gave her the information and she wrote it down.

“Thanks,” she said, and tucked her book away. “We’ll probably find the vehicle, but I wouldn’t be so sure about your stuff. It’ll probably be long gone.”

“There’s a bootlegger or two around,” Jake replied. “Easy place to u

nload a few cases of rum or vodka.”

“Got it.”

“Thanks for coming out, Givens.”

She nodded, a strange warmth sliding through her. There was no tone in his voice. It was simple gratitude. She hadn’t known he was capable of that.

Her stomach growled again, even louder in the closed space of the back of the pub.

Jake laughed. “Breakfast time.”

“I’d better get going then.” She moved out of the closed space by the back door and into the main part of the pub again. She could breathe easier out here. It had gotten a little close in the back with Jake. He was that kind of guy—a little larger than life when all was said and done, with an aura about him that seemed to suck up all the available oxygen in the room.

She remembered other details from that summer too. Like how Jake had seemed to be everywhere she went, even when he wasn’t in trouble. And she’d never seen him with the same girl twice.

“Hang on a few minutes,” he suggested, and she turned around. Jake went behind the bar and into the kitchen, peering at her through the cook’s window. “Let me make you breakfast. Least I can do for tying you up at shift’s end.”

For a few stunned moments, she was utterly silent. Jake was already opening and shutting the fridge and moving about the kitchen, slamming things around. “Jake, really,” she replied. “If we’re done here, I should go get the paperwork started on this.”

“And you’ll still be hungry, and then you’ll be so tired that you’ll go home to bed without eating.”

“So?” She shifted her weight. “My eating habits are none of your concern.”

He flashed a smile as he stopped at the window. “You can’t focus if you don’t fuel up. And since you’re the investigating officer here… I expect the job to be done right, after all.”

Now he was being irritating again. It wasn’t like she needed any overture of friendship from him to inspire her to do her job.

He disappeared from the window and she took two steps towards the door.

Then the smell hit her. He was frying bacon.

The hollow in her stomach sent up a hurrah and she closed her eyes, dithering. She did have to eat. And the bacon smelled heavenly.

But it meant eating with Jake Symonds.

She turned back and found him watching her through the window again. “How do you like your eggs and what do you want on your toast?” he asked.