“Assigning it to whom? Delancy?”
He sighed. “There are some decent investigators in the department. Probably goes without saying that Bran can’t work this.”
Tess nodded.
“We need the sheriff to get behind changing the culture in the department. To say, ‘This isn’t acceptable.’” His shrug didn’t express a lot of hope.
“So...why does this mean we don’t have to sneak around anymore?” Tess asked. “If that’s what you’re suggesting by showing up when anyone can see you?”
“It got me thinking. Why should we have to?” he countered. “Everybody knows I’m determined to protect you. If that led to a personal relationship, whose business is that but ours?”
“And if a defense attorney tries to imply we’re in collusion?”
“We tell the truth. We say the same thing we have from the beginning. We had never met before that day. Never even set eyes on each other, as far as I know. We might not have exchanged a word again unless we met going in or out of the courthouse for Andrew Hayes’s trial, if the defendant and his friends hadn’t decided to try to pressure you into retracting your statement.”
Nice to be reminded he wouldn’t have bothered to call her had she not needed a protector.
But...was that true? Tess didn’t know. She couldn’t forget the way his gaze had burned into hers as they’d looked at each other across Antonio’s body. The huskiness in his voice, the gentle quality, when he’d talked to her.
Her chest continued to ache, though, as if she’d strained something, while he talked about the calls he’d made that day to Lieutenant MacLachlan and Detective Easley at CCPD.
“For what good it did. ‘We’ll look into this.’ What kind of bullshit answer is that?”
“What did you think they’d say?” she had to ask.
A nerve twitched beneath his eye, his jaw muscles tightened. Then he gusted out a sigh. “Exactly what they said. What I’d have said in the same situation.”
Tess managed a small smile. “Don’t you hate having to admit that?”
“Oh, yeah.” He laughed, a rusty sound. “I’m like a doctor who has cancer and is suddenly a patient. He knows what should be done but has to put his treatment in someone else’s hands.”
“And hates every minute of it?”
He grunted his agreement then drained his can of beer, his throat working as he swallowed.
Tess couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away. Why should a throat be sexy? But his was.
“I’m sorry I bought the house,” Zach said suddenly. “If I was still in the apartment, I’d ask you if I could just move in. I’d be here to protect you and we’d limit the number of targets the perps have.”
A constriction around her rib cage threatened her ability to take a breath. She wanted nothing more than to live with him, to come home to him every evening...but not if he was here to stand as her bodyguard.
Only once had she fallen for a guy enough to let him move in with her. It hadn’t lasted quite a year. The takeaway for her had been that the deterioration of a relationship was magnified if you lived together—and the hole left after the split was devastating.
And yet she’d have had no hesitation at all in saying yes, if she believed Zach loved her.
He watched her with increased wariness as she sat silent. “I take it that would have been a resounding no,” he said wryly.
“No,” she said. “I mean, not necessarily. I mean...”
He cocked a dark eyebrow.
“I might have said yes,” she finished softly, feeling the heat in her cheeks. “But you do own a house, so...?”
“You’re right that I’m afraid to leave it completely empty, but we can’t leave your house completely empty, either.” He scowled at her as if it was her fault. “And I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“You’ve been leaving your house empty a lot at night.” Seeing that his interest in pizza had waned, Tess closed the box, thought about standing and putting it in the refrigerator, and decided it could wait.
“I have. I want them to target us here.”