Which meant… “You’re not a stripper?”
“No ma’am.”
“Okay, this is just a misunderstanding. I can explain—"
A door opened behind Hot Cop and the man who was staying in the King Suite stuck his head out. His glasses were askew on the bridge of his nose and his gray hair looked like he’d been in a wrestling match.
Oh my gosh. He must have been having sex. It shouldn’t surprise Liv, that’s what couples did when they went away to romantic B&Bs and hotels. She was just so out of practice, that even her romance writer mind had taken a minute to put two and two together.
“Is everything okay out here?” Crooked Glasses asked.
“Everything’s fine. You can go back in your room.” Hot Cop assured Mr. Nosy before turning his attention back to Liv. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station.”
Liv wanted to protest, she wanted to tell him there’d been a big mistake. Well, two big mistakes. One, she hadn’t stolen her grandad’s car and two, Hot Cop wasn’t a stripper. But from the look in his very serious stare, she knew she was going to have to do that at the station.
“Fine,” she sighed and started to close the door so she could get dressed.
Hot Cop reached out his hand, holding it open and then stepped inside.
“What are you doing? I have to put pants on.”
His tone left no room for argument as he stated firmly, “Where you go, I go.”
As soon as the authoritative instruction left his mouth, Liv’s entire body lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Explosions of tingles erupted from her head to her toes.
Stop it, she reprimanded herself. This was not the time to finally be attracted to someone.
Of course, it would be her luck that the first man in over a decade to cause her nether region to flutter was someone she thought was a stripper only to turn out to be a cop who thought she was a criminal.
Actually, now that she thought about it, this was a pretty epic meet-cute.
* * *
Grady wasn’t sure what the deal was with this stunning woman, but every instinct he had was telling him that the gorgeous, blue-eyed beauty standing in front of him was not a criminal.
Over his ten-year-plus career he’d gotten fairly adept at reading people. This woman had an innocence about her that, if she could fake, she deserved all the Oscars for. Still, he wasn’t about to let her go into her room and close the door. If he did that, she could easily climb out the window. He didn’t think he was getting played, but he couldn’t take any chances.
Grady shut the door behind him and turned, giving the woman who he’d bet his pension had never committed a serious crime in her life, some privacy.
“Honestly, this is a huge misunderstanding. That car is my grandad’s, but he has Alzheimer’s and gets confused. Anna, his nurse, called me when I was on the way here and told me that when she got home today the police were leaving. She hadn’t left him alone, she left him with my mom, which is basically the same thing.” He heard her stop and inhale a deep breath. “But, anyway, he must have just gotten confused and reported the car stolen. It’s not stolen, I swear.”
Grady was half listening to the woman but most of his energy was being used to get himself under control. When the door had opened, he’d been struck speechless. His brain had gone out to lunch. He’d forgotten where he was and what he was doing. As a law enforcement officer that was a serious hazard.
It had never happened to him before. And he’d come face to face with several People’s Most Beautiful winners on private jobs. Sometimes the Hollywood elite would hire off duty LAPD for personal security. He’d never come close to being starstruck, no matter how beautiful or sexy someone he was protecting was. When he was on the job, he was on the job.
But when that door opened, his brain short circuited. He was met with crystal clear, ocean blue eyes, long chestnut brown hair flowing over petite shoulders that framed a heart shaped face highlighted with ruby red lips. One look and he was hypnotized, mesmerized.
It wasn’t until she spoke that he managed to break free of her spell. He wasn’t even sure what she’d said, but the sound of her voice acted as a rubber band snapping him out of his lovestruck condition.
“Okay, here.”
Grady turned around and saw that she was holding something out to him. He took the items and discovered it was her driver’s license and some sort of business card.
“I’m Olive St. Claire, my grandfather is Arthur St. Claire. The car is registered in his name, but I have power of attorney and am legally authorized to drive it.” She pointed to the card. “That is my information, and Anna Hernandez’s. She is his nurse. If you call her, I’m sure she can clear everything up.”
He looked back at her and although she had put on a pair of jeans and shoes, he could clearly see that she was not wearing a bra beneath her oversized Northwestern University T-shirt. The outline of her puckered nipples was still clearly visible. It was…distracting.
“You might want to grab a sweatshirt. The station is usually around sixty degrees.” He was exaggerating, but only slightly.