He nodded shortly, not exactly meeting my eye.
“What?” I said.
“I want to ask you something off the record, but it’s not strictly appropriate. You can refuse to answer and it won’t impact the job offer I’m making you. Because I intend to hire you.”
“Fire away,” I said.
“You may kick me in the shins.”
“Your desk will protect you. Go ahead and ask. I’m not shy, Brody. You must remember that much at least.”
“Is there a boyfriend who’s going to come to town to take you back to the city?”
I scoffed, “Are you asking all the applicants if they’re involved in a long-distance or recently separated hetero-normative sexual relationship that might result in their leaving town unexpectedly? Or just me?”
“Just you. And by your question I know that you know you could sue my ass for asking. I’m proud of this department and what I’ve made of it in my time here, Laura. I’m not going to bring you on and go through integrating you into the team only to have some asshole with a diamond ring show up and take you away.”
“I’ve never seen a diamond ring I couldn’t turn down, Brody. If I had intentions of returning to Charleston for anything other than a weekend with friends sometime, I wouldn’t be applying for a full-time job on the force. I’m a career cop. I want to make a place for myself on this force and stay here, move up in the department. “
“So you want my job,” he said wryly, “all you have to do is sue me for what I asked you.”
“If I want your job, I can wait till you retire, old man,” I said, my voice a little teasing. I saw a spark in his dark eyes, something like mischief. “I’m not gonna sue you, and you know it. You also know that was a crappy thing to ask anybody but especially a woman. You might as well ask if I plan to go nuts if some guy winks at me and decide to quit so I can stay home and have babies and bake pies,” I said. “Did Harold ask you when he hired you? Did he think you were gonna settle down with some little girl who couldn’t handle your dangerous job?”
A shadow crossed his face. I bit my lip, “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry for your loss. You know that.” Shit. Way to joke about that, I thought ruefully. “I’ll watch my mouth,” I offered. “I let my familiarity with you –”
“Laura, for God’s sake, you didn’t overstep anything. I grew up with Damon. I used to pay you a quarter to dig worms and catch crickets when we were going fishing. I’m not going to clutch my pearls and faint because you mentioned my wife. No, Harold didn’t say anything except did I think it was a good idea to leave a pretty little thing like that alone at night if I was working. I told him he was a jackass to suggest it. So this office has a long history of new hires mouthing off to the chief,” he said, but his eyes were far away. I knew I’d upset him more than he was letting on. It was nice of him not to make me feel bad about my slip-up.
“Thanks,” I said, “it won’t happen again.”
“It better happen again. If you’re on the force, you better not tiptoe around any of us. If we’re too delicate to take a little bullshit from our friends, we’re too damn fragile to do this job. Don’t apologize. Do your job, follow the rules, and it’ll work out. You’ll be the first female officer this town’s ever had.”
“You’d be lucky to have me, chief,” I said archly. Then I felt a twinge of embarrassment because that wasn’t how I’d meant for it to sound. I didn’t back down from it though. He’d told me not to apologize, so I wasn’t about to. It would help if I didn’t flub my words like that—it would help if he wasn’t even hotter than he’d been when I left for college twelve years ago.
“Well, now that’s a different topic, and not one I will pursue,” he said. “Because my mother raised me to be a gentleman.”
“So all the crap I heard you talking about with my brother growing up was supposed to be gentlemanly?” I teased.
“No. I have no defense for my behavior as a teenager. But I’m far past that age now and know enough not to say something unwanted when a woman makes a remark that could read as accidentally provocative.”
I wanted so badly to ask what made him think it was an accident. But, one, it was an accident, and two, that was not a path I could afford to travel with him. He was the absolute last man I could flirt with.