The Woman He Knows Read online

  He was betting on the latter. Heat settled low in his gut as he watched her set up the tables. Silverware dropped messily on to the tabletop and she spent too much time straightening each piece.

  He replayed the memory of her anger. The fire in her gaze. The hard grip of her fingers when she’d grabbed his arm.

  If Darcy was trying to hide who she really was, she’d made a strategic mistake.

  She might try to go back to the woman she’d been a half hour ago, but it was too late. Just like it was too late for the too-big white shirt she wore with the slightly baggy black pants.

  He vividly remembered her curvy, toned body from the time he’d seen her out jogging a couple of weeks ago.

  If she accentuated her beauty, it might bring more tips. But maybe she didn’t want to use her attractiveness to make money. That was completely understandable. Honorable.

  But he wondered. She was hiding something else behind that controlled, deliberately bland exterior.

  He wanted to know what it was.

  She walked past his table without looking at him and disappeared into the kitchen. Patrick waited for a moment, but she didn’t reappear, so he tried to focus on the laptop. Nathan had arranged his list of suppliers in a spreadsheet, but it was just a bunch of names to Patrick.

  He identified at least one liquor wholesaler. But did Nathan use the same people for all his alcohol? Or did he order beer from one, wine from another?

  Impatient with a job he didn’t want to do, he shoved the computer away. Work was piling up back in Detroit, and it was making him antsy. Yeah, he was on a leave of absence. But the perps he was trying to catch didn’t let up. Other agents were picking up the slack, but Patrick knew all the details of his cases. It was taking the other agents too long to get up to speed.

  He needed to be back there.

  Darcy emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of oil cruets and began setting them on each table. She’d just positioned the first one when a piercing scream came from the back of the restaurant.

  Her tray crashed to the floor and she ran for the kitchen. By the time Patrick shoved through the door, she was half supporting, half carrying one of the cooks toward the dishwashing sink. He held one arm stiffly, and it was bright red. Burned, it looked like.

  He leaped to help her. Wrapping his arm around the guy’s waist, he yelled at the nearest cook, “You. Turn on the cold water.”

  Darcy glanced at him. Nodded once. Then she called, “Not that hard, Luis,” as water gushed out of the faucet. “That’s good.”

  Aside from the injured man’s sobs, the kitchen was silent.

  Patrick supported the man’s weight, while Darcy lifted his arm into the water.

  “Ay! Dios Mío” the guy sobbed.

  “¿Qué paso, Javier?” Darcy asked as she held his arm beneath the cooling stream.

  “Drenaje de la pasta...deslizo,” he said, his teeth chattering.

  Darcy looked at Patrick. “You speak Spanish?”

  “Not much.”

  “He said he was draining the pasta and he slipped.”

  “Scalded.”

  “Yeah.” Their eyes met for a moment. She was doing the same thing he was—running down the treatment. Figuring the next step.

  “Keep your arm in the water, Javier,” she said soothingly. “We need to cool it down.”

  Javier’s skin was blistering already. Her eyes met Patrick’s again. “Second-degree burn,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.” He looked for his brother. “Marco. Call an ambulance.”

  “Francisco, get some towels,” Darcy called.

  “Phyllis, Carol, get back in the dining room and finish the setup,” Patrick said.

  Everyone began moving. Marco had already dialed 911 and was speaking into the phone.

  “Luis, get me some scissors,” Darcy said.

  One of the cooks handed her a pair with orange handles. She glanced at Patrick. “Can you hold his arm, too, for a moment?”

  “Yeah. Get that sleeve off.”

  She picked up the white cotton of Javier’s shirt and snipped. Holding the material away from his skin, she cut around the arm hole and tossed the short sleeve away. It landed on the edge of a trash bin, half in and half out.

  The redness extended from Javier’s forearm almost to his shoulder. The blisters were worsening.

  “Francisco,” Darcy called. “Where are those towels? Luis, get me a cardboard box.”

  Darcy took Javier’s arm again to hold beneath the cold water. As she leaned toward the shivering man, she pressed against Patrick’s side. One of her breasts flattened against him, and she snaked an arm under his to get a better grip on Javier.

  He tensed at the contact. Ordered his body to ignore her softness. Wondered at her lack of reaction.

  It was an intensely intimate position, but she gave no indication that she realized how closely they were twined. Instead, she rocked Javier’s arm back and forth beneath the faucet, rubbing her breast against Patrick in the process.

  He knew she was aware of him. He’d seen her eyes dilate when they touched. But right now, he could have been a mannequin.

  Who the hell was Darcy Gordon?

  She leaned closer to Javier, and Patrick closed his eyes as her body molded to his. “Does it feel any better?” she asked softly.

  Hell, yes.

  “Sí,” Javier said, his voice shaking. “A little.”

  Patrick opened his eyes to find Javier gray-faced and sweating. Against him, Darcy’s muscles were quivering with the effort of holding Javier’s arm extended.

  “We need to lay him down,” Patrick said.

  Darcy glanced at Javier’s face and nodded. “Yeah.”

  The scent of simmering tomato sauce drifted over Patrick, as well as the smell of meat burning on the grill. The back door stood open, and cool air shivered over his wet arm.

  The smell of Javier’s fear hung in the kitchen like a dark cloud.

  Darcy smelled like citrus and summer flowers.

  “Someone shut the back door!” he shouted.

  Marco was on the phone, still talking to the 911 dispatcher. Javier began to crumple, snapping Patrick’s attention back to him. Darcy staggered but stayed upright, kept his arm in the water.

  “On three,” Patrick said. “One, two...”

  They moved perfectly in unison as they laid Javier on the wet floor. “I need towels, damn it!” she called. “And where’s that box?”

  Luis shoved a cardboard box with a picture of a cow at her, and Francisco crouched beside her with a stack of towels.

  Patrick took Javier’s arm with one hand and lifted the cook’s legs with the other. Darcy fumbled the box beneath his calves. As Patrick held his arm steady, Darcy snatched towels off the stack and covered him. Patrick caught her eye and nodded at the water on the floor. “I’ll lift.”

  As he raised the beefy cook inches off the floor, Darcy shoved towels beneath him. When they had him covered, except for his arm, Patrick said, “Plastic wrap.”

  “I’m on it.”

  She dashed for the box of wrap on the next counter and tore off a sheet. Then she squatted next to him and wrapped the plastic around Javier’s lower arm. As if they were reading each other’s mind, she switched to support the cook’s arm as Patrick wrapped the plastic around the upper part. When he’d finished, together they laid Javier’s arm across his chest.

  Still squatting next to him, Darcy called, “How long on the ambulance, Marco?”

  He closed his cell phone. “I hear them now. Meet them at the door.”

  The whine of an ambulance siren drew closer, then stopped. Patrick ran to the front of the restaurant to wait for the EMTs. “Back here,” he said as an older man and a young woman burst through the
front door with a gurney and what looked like a huge tackle box.

  As they lowered the gurney next to Javier and studied his plastic-wrapped arm, the older guy nodded approvingly. “Nice job. Who did this?”

  “We did,” he and Darcy said together. She gave him a half smile and bumped his hip with hers.

  His gaze held hers and he smiled back. Nodded. A team.

  Darcy turned to the paramedics. “It’s a scald. We cooled it down with cold water first. Elevated his legs because he was getting shocky.”

  “Good work.” The EMT nodded at his partner. “Get an IV going while I check his vitals, then we’ll get him to the hospital.”

  Darcy looked at Marco. “You going to call his wife?”

  “Yeah.” Marco grabbed a list from the wall and punched a number into his cell phone. “Hola, Marisol,” he began in a soothing voice.

  Patrick heard a woman wail through the phone as Marco held it away from his ear. Then Marco spoke again. Closed his phone.

  “She’s on her way to the hospital.”

  Patrick’s hands shook as the adrenaline rush faded. He glanced at Darcy. She was shaking, too.

  He had taken extensive first aid classes as part of his training. Practiced every imaginable scenario, over and over. He had muscle memory of the things that needed to be done in an emergency.

  Darcy had more than muscle memory. She’d treated burn victims before. Often.

  The way they’d worked together, like two people with one brain, had been spooky. He’d never connected like that with any of his partners or fellow agents.

  Not with his family, either, for that matter.

  Darcy still hadn’t looked at him. Now, as the EMTs wheeled Javier out of the kitchen, she put her hand on the man’s shoulder and said something in Spanish. Javier nodded and closed his eyes. Moments later, they were gone.

  There was a beat of silence. Then Patrick said, “What the hell happened?”

  Marco shoved his phone into his pocket. “Apparently, someone jostled him from behind while he was dumping boiling water into the sink. It splashed up on his arm.”

  Luis’s face was as white as the jacket he wore. “It was me, boss. But it was an accident, I swear. The floor was slippery. I tripped and fell into him.”

  Patrick opened his mouth, but Darcy put her hand on the stricken man’s arm. “It’s okay, Luis. We know it was an accident. And Javier is going to be fine.”

  “I never heard nobody scream like that,” he said, wiping his hands down the black-and-white herringbone slacks all the cooks wore.

  “Come sit down.” She guided him out of the kitchen and into the dining room. As the door swung closed, Patrick heard her say, “I’ll get you a soda. What do you want?”

  There was silence for a moment, then Marco said, “Francisco, clean that grease off the floor so no one else gets hurt. Then we need to get busy. We open in fifteen.”

  Patrick wiped up the water that had spilled while they were treating Javier’s arm, then put the wet towels into the laundry bin. When he was finished, he pushed through the door into the dining room.

  Luis sat at a table, sipping cola. The waitresses huddled around him, talking and peppering him with questions. Darcy was finishing the setup.

  “You okay, Luis?” he asked.

  The cook nodded and pushed the remainder of his drink away. “I’m good. I need to get back there. It’s going to be a lot of work without Javier.” He stood up and hurried into the kitchen.

  Patrick watched as Darcy lit the candles on each table. Her hand shook, making the flame on the match jump as she extended it toward the glass jar.

  He walked up behind her. “You were impressive in there,” he said.

  “Back at you.” She moved to the next table, lit another candle. The flame on that one quivered, too.

  “You knew what you were doing.”

  She shrugged as she wiped her hands on her apron, then picked at a loose thread on the pocket. She didn’t meet his eyes. “Basic first aid.”

  “A lot more than basic. You took charge. Got everyone else moving.” He edged closer, intrigued by the longing and fear in her expression. “You’ve done that before.” He stepped closer. “What were you before you were a waitress, Darcy?”

  At that she looked at him. “Unemployed.” Her back was rigid, her mouth a thin line. She held his gaze until he glanced away. Then she pushed past him and went into the kitchen.

  When he sat down at the table, staring at the computer screen without really seeing it, Phyllis raised her eyebrows. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He couldn’t remember the last time someone had made him look away first.

  “You think that was good? You should have seen her when Francisco nearly cut his finger off last year. All the cooks were standing there, watching the blood spurt. Marco was turning green. Nathan had a towel over Cisco’s hand, and it was soaked with blood after about ten seconds. Darcy grabbed the belt out of Francisco’s pants and tied a tourniquet around his arm. Then she did the same thing you guys did to Javier—made Francisco lie down, put his legs up, got someone to call an ambulance.”

  “She’s good,” Patrick said. “It looks like she stays calm when everything’s going to hell.”

  “Most controlled person I ever met.” Phyllis positioned a rolled set of cutlery at each place. “She’s scary sometimes.”

  “Glad we have someone who keeps her head in a crisis.” It had been instructive to see her in action.

  Clearly, Darcy Gordon had hidden depths.

  “You watch her.”

  He froze. “She’s working for me. For my brothers, anyway. Of course I watch her. I watch all of you.”

  “Not like that, honey.” Phyllis grinned. “You got good taste. But don’t waste your time. Darcy shuts everyone down.”

  “Who’s everyone?” He frowned as a little zing of jealousy buzzed through him.

  The waitress shrugged. “You name it—customers, the UPS guy, Jesse the bartender. The beat cop for this neighborhood. Even the garbage collectors. She’ll laugh and joke with them, but if they put a move on her, bam. That’s it. Of course, they keep coming back for more. Guys can’t resist that mystery thing.”

  Patrick stared toward the kitchen. Darcy hadn’t emerged yet. Was she going to avoid him because he’d asked her where she learned her skills?

  He turned back to Phyllis. “I’m not interested in Darcy that way. I’m only here for a few more weeks.”

  The woman patted his arm. “You keep telling yourself that, hon. Maybe you’ll convince yourself it’s true.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DARCY STOOD NEXT to the pizza counter, trying to suck air into her frozen lungs. She hadn’t thought about what Patrick would see when she hurried to help Javier. She’d just reacted.

  Now he would wonder. How had she known what to do? Reacted so quickly. Taken charge so easily.

  She’d be a puzzle to him. And cops were good at solving puzzles.

  She couldn’t give him any more clues. She’d stick to her first-aid-class story. She had taken one of those. So what if it was in Girl Scouts when she was fourteen? A lifetime ago. Long before the day her whole life became a lie.

  She grabbed a towel from the stack near the sink and blotted some of the water from her pants. When they dried, they’d be hopelessly wrinkled.

  She had bigger problems than wrinkled pants. Patrick was an FBI agent. Once his questions started, he’d be relentless.

  She had to stay off his radar for the rest of the night.

  Instead of exiting the kitchen through the door into the dining room, she headed into the bar. A few of the regulars were there, watching the White Sox on television.

  She forced a smile. “Why are you losers watching the Sox when ther
e’s a Cubs game on?”

  “Who wants to watch a bunch of scrubs when there’s a real baseball team playing?” one of the guys retorted.

  “Anyone who appreciates the nuances of the game,” she shot back.

  As the guys hooted and booed, she waved and headed for the back room of the dining area. Where Patrick wasn’t.

  He was at the podium, and she felt him turn toward her. The hair on the back of her neck lifted. He was wondering about her. She didn’t have to see his face to know that.

  Behind her, she heard Jesse duck out of the bar. “Hey, Darce,” he said.

  She turned and smiled, relieved for the distraction. “Hey, Jesse. What do you need?”

  His eyes lingered on her mouth, but she ignored it. She and Jesse had had a come-to-Jesus meeting a couple of months ago. He knew she wasn’t interested.

  “I heard about what happened with Javier. Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, poor guy. It’s a bad burn, but I think he’ll be fine.”

  His gaze lingered on her and he stood a little too close. “I heard how you handled it. But I don’t see your cape. You know, the Superwoman one.”

  She edged away and struggled to smile. Jesse was teasing. Trying to loosen things up. It was better than hitting on her, but she didn’t have the energy to deal with him right now. “It’s in the wash,” she said. “Got all wet saving Javier.”

  “No spare?” His strained smile told her he was reaching, too.

  “You kidding?” She slid to the waitress station and reached for the basket of rolled silverware. “They only issue one per superhero.”

  “Jesse.” Patrick stepped between her and the bartender. “Time to get back to work.”

  He stood close enough to block her view of Jesse. Close enough for the fine blue stripes on his dress shirt to look larger than they were. The crisp shirt was snug on his wide shoulders and tapered down to his waist. His body heat washed over her, and she swayed toward him, inhaling his subtle, spicy scent.

  For a long moment, no one moved. Then she stepped away, far enough to see Jesse’s gaze shift from Patrick to her and back. Finally Jesse shrugged. “Sure, boss. Got a lot to do anyway.”