“No. I already told you I’m not going to turn this over to you. This is my parish and my investigation.”
“I don’t play the sidekick.”
I didn’t mind that Ambrose’s irritating side was back. It told me he was recovering from his lapse in control. I couldn’t stop watching him as he took a slow, deep breath and let it out.
“You’ve probably been told I always shoot first and don’t care who I hit.”
I had, but I chose not to say anything. I’d known he was volatile, and I understood why. I couldn’t say he didn’t frighten me, but he also made me horny as hell. He might think it was his job to protect me—and everyone else—but I wanted to help him, to heal him.
Wow. Who the hell did I think I was?
“That’s not true, not in the way everyone thinks. If you show up at my cabin, I’ll sure as hell fire a warning shot to send you away, but it’s not uncontrolled. It’s deliberate. I don’t aim for the person. The truth is, I’d be happy to never make another kill.”
He’d seemed so casual about it when he’d killed one of LePlatt’s men.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “Remember what happened after we brought down LePlatt? It messed me the fuck up. That was the first time I’d killed in years.”
I stared, unable to believe he was opening up to me like this. My gut told me he’d never talked about this, at least not with anyone but Dax.
“I’m dangerous and probably really messed up in the head, but I don’t usually lose it like this. I only shoot when I really mean to. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
I was crossing the room before I even realized it. He looked away as I approached and stared down at Hope, who was lying on her side at his feet, totally relaxed. He really did have a way with that dog.
I laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not afraid of you.” That wasn’t exactly true, but most of my fear came from the fact that I wanted him so badly. I didn’t understand the intensity with which I was drawn to him, a man I should want nothing to do with. Asking for his help with Carlotti was bad enough, but thinking about… more was far worse. “You didn’t hurt me, and I know how easily you could have. I’m man enough to admit that you had the advantage over me.”
He shook his head. “Dax is going to fucking kill me.”
“Then let’s fix the floor.”
He looked up at me then. “What?”
“I want to help you fix the floor.”
“You know how to do that?”
I frowned at him. “I thought you were all self-sufficient, living out in the bayou by yourself.”
He grinned. “I’m self-sufficient as fuck, but if my cabin gets a bullet hole, I just patch it and don’t worry what it looks like. Dax is”—he gestured around the immaculate house—“a little particular about this place.”
No shit. “I bought a fixer-upper when I moved. It had the original hardwood, but the floors were beat all to hell. I learned how to fix them up.”
“Policing the good people of Albertine Parish hasn’t taken up all your time?”
I laughed. “No, not until recently. I needed something to do. I didn’t have any friends here, and I don’t hunt or fish, so the house was the perfect project.”
Ambrose stared at me. “You don’t hunt or fish?”
“I grew up in the city.”
“We’ve got to do something about that.”
I didn’t think this was the time to tell him that if I’d wanted to take up those sports, I could easily have done so. Plenty of people in my new town had offered to get me started. Though, for Ambrose, I might try fishing at least. I didn’t think hunting would ever appeal to me.
“How do we do it?” he asked. “Can you really make the floor look like it used to?”
I stared down at the bullet hole. “I can’t be sure we can cover it up one hundred percent, but we can do a decent job.”
“Decent enough Dax won’t know?”
“Maybe.” I doubted it. What was I doing anyway? This man had held me at gunpoint, threatened me, and shot a hole in the floor, but there I was willing to go to any lengths to help him fix his mistake.
Maybe I really had lost my mind when I’d left Baltimore. All my friends back there said I had. They understood why I wanted to resign my position, but they thought moving to the wilds of Louisiana was crazy. It probably was.
Luckily, since Dax had done the renovation himself, there were extra pieces of flooring and tons of tools in his shed. Ambrose helped me find everything I needed. He was silent while I worked, which suited me fine, and surprisingly, he took direction very well when I asked for help.