CHAPTER FOURTEEN

On the way back to Billboard’s house, O’Shea pondered everything she’d learned about Zoe. The previous owner’s granddaughter had told them that the cat was approximately three years old, but had no exact birth date. Apparently as a kitten, Zoe had just walked in through her grandmother’s front door one day, and settled onto the couch like she belonged.

The grandmother had never imagined having a cat before, but she immediately fell in love with Zoe, and hadn’t begun to contemplate rehoming her. She’d sworn that Zoe had found her purposely, and that the two of them were meant to be.

The granddaughter couldn’t say for sure if the subsequent stories she’d been told were true, but a number of times when her grandmother had lost consciousness due to a history of arrhythmia, the older woman had sworn that after she passed out, the cat had pushed the life-line alert button that hung around her grandmother’s neck, saving her life.

The granddaughter must have bought into some of the woo-woo stuff, because she believed it was her fault Zoe ran away. As she’d carried Zoe to her car, saying out loud that a new home would have to be found for her, the cat had squirmed from her arms, jumped down, and disappeared.

“ I don’t know if it’s possible that Zoya understood what I said, but we never saw her again, which was odd. She’d always been very friendly to me and my husband .”

“What are you thinking about so hard over there?” Billboard asked after they’d traveled a few miles. “I can almost see your brain smoking.”

O’Shea chewed on her lower lip. “I… I know it sounds stupid, but do you think Zoe waited for me to come along? I mean, she’d been missing for two months. Why did she go without a home for so long? She’s amazingly friendly. Why didn’t she find a new person to take her in?”

“Maybe she did,” Billboard said reasonably. “She could have tried out a home or two, and…the potential owners had other animals she didn’t get along with, or something of the sort.”

“I guess that makes sense.” O’Shea agreed, but she couldn’t help feeling like it was some kind of…kismet. Especially since she’d picked out a name that was so close to Zoe’s old one. It was almost as if their subconscious’s had linked…

Nah. Too far-fetched.

O’Shea stopped her fancifulness, turned around and threaded her fingers through the mesh on the front of the carrier. Zoe began purring and pushing into O’Shea’s touch immediately. “No matter how it happened, sweetie,” she cooed to the cat. “telepathy or not, you have a forever home with me…as soon as we find one.”

Right. If she really was going to remain in Boston, she couldn’t keep mooching off Billboard. She needed to start the hunt for a place of her own.

“There’s no hurry,” Billboard rushed to tell her. “You should at least wait until you hear from the Police Commissioners Office before you make plans. And it’s no hardship, having you stay with me. As you’ve seen, I have plenty of room at my place, and my mother clearly adores you.”

O’Shea had noted the easy acceptance she’d received from Celia Seingold. And it felt…good. But strange. O’Shea had always avoided anything to do with mothers, since her experience with her own had never proven to be anything but negative. Still, there was part of her that had always craved the love and acceptance of a matriarch, and… Could this be the one?

O’Shea just hoped she wasn’t putting too many expectations on her new relationship with Celia, especially since their association might not last long. If Billboard couldn’t come to grips with spilling all the things he was clearly bottling up inside him, their tenure together could be short.

She wasn’t being negative, just realistic. It was, after all, the condition Billboard had made; that if things didn’t progress toward a good, trusting mental connection, there’d be nothing more on the table.

Which blew O’Shea’s mind.

It really amazed her that Billboard was so blind. Didn’t he realize they already had a bond? Despite everything he believed to the contrary, he’d already demonstrated that he cared. It’s one of the reasons she’d taken a chance to come north. He’d treated her so well back in Louisiana; in tune with the case they’d cracked to protect Brigid and Billy, while also making sure her ass was covered as the old-boys-network was unraveled. She couldn’t remember anybody other than her brother treating her with such care before.

And here, when she’d needed his help with Zoe, he’d stepped up immediately. Without question, he’d brought them both into his home. He also hadn’t balked that she’d been breakfasting with his mother, and that said a lot. A man didn’t just let you into his family’s bosom, without some serious vetting.

Then there was the fact that he’d taken today off, something he never did. He’d also insisted on paying for half of Zoe’s new accoutrements before accompanying them to the vet. And now…

Right. Now what?

“What’s on the agenda for the rest of the day?” she asked curiously, not having thought about it.

“I don’t have any plans,” he returned easily. “What would you like to do?”

Something on her wish-list popped out of her mouth. “Can we go to your office?” she asked excitedly. “I mean, I know it’s your day off, and it’s the last thing you probably want to do, but I’d like to see where you work. Maybe even hear what’s on SOS’s upcoming docket.”

“Why?” he asked curiously, then his face took on a speculative, almost knowing cast. “You’re interested in asking Del for a job, aren’t you?”

He didn’t seem upset about it, so O’Shea decided to spill her thoughts, which at best, were jumbled.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Frustrated, she blew a strand of hair off her face. “I’d rather go with what I do best, which is policing,” she told him. “But if I get turned down by the-powers-that-be, I’ll need to find something else if I want to stay in Boston.”

“And do you?” he probed. “Want to stay here?”

“Well, there are things… There’s Brigid, for instance,” she postured. “I miss her a lot.” O’Shea drew out her explanation. “And I’ve always wanted to get to know Mizzay better. And now I have Zoe. I can relocate her to my home down south, but she seems like a northern climate kind of cat.”

Her thought process fizzled.

“And?” Billboard prompted, impatiently tapping his fingers in a staccato pattern on the steering wheel.

O’Shea got it. Now the man was just being cheeky. He could just ask if he was part of the staying local equation.

There was no need to play coy, because, duh, she’d already made that perfectly clear. But still, she dove in.

“ And I’m waiting for a certain someone to extract his head from his ass, and decide there’s something special between us.” Her frustration boiled over. “Can’t you feel it, Billboard? It’s not just the physical draw. It’s…more.” It amazed her that he couldn’t see it, but maybe he’d never thought of a woman as both a friend and a lover before. “Our connection is exciting, titillating even, but at the same time it’s as comfortable as an old bathrobe.”

He snorted, but didn’t agree or disagree.

Good . Because it was true. She could talk to him all day, and never tire of it. She loved picking his brains, seeing how he interacted with his teammates, his mother. O’Shea was beginning to appreciate every bit of Billboard’s personality.

On the other hand, did she want to kiss the stuffing out of him? Climb his big body like a rock wall? Impale herself on his…?

Uh, hell yes , but the former is what she should concentrate on right now. She needed to get the ball rolling from the right direction.

She cleared her throat. “I want to know stuff about you. Mundane stuff. Do you have the same curiosity about me?”

“I do,” he admitted without hesitation.

“Then ask,” she stated pointedly.

“Okay, old bathrobe, old friend,” he conceded with a bit of sass. “Let’s talk.”

Now they were getting somewhere.

“How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?” he began, but didn’t stop there. “What’s your favorite food? How many boyfriends have you had? And when did you know you wanted to be a cop?”

Whew. That was a lot, but she’d told him to open the door. It was pure luck that he hadn’t hit on the one question that was her trigger: her name.

O’Shea answered. “I was kind of old when I learned to ride a bike. Six, actually. Neither of my parents were…what you’d call good examples of adulting. They weren’t interested in buying us kid’s bikes, teaching us how to ride, or showing us much of anything. Eventually it was up to Cedric to make things happen.”

Billboard waited patiently, but his jaw tightened. She’d mentioned previously that she didn’t have the close relationship with her parents that he had with his mom, but this was the first time she’d told him that her mother and father were useless. He’d probably chew on that for a while before coming to some conclusion he’d share.

O’Shea continued. “Cedric couldn’t have been more than eight that summer day when he found two bikes on the curb. The discarded items were clearly there waiting for trash pick-up, but he spied a teenager in the yard playing basketball, and being the polite kid he was, he asked the teenager if they were there for the taking. The teen, who’d clearly long since outgrown both bikes, not only agreed, but he helped my brother fix them up, getting them safely operative again.

“Cedric had already learned to ride on a friend’s bike, but when he proudly brought the two blue ones’ home, he patiently set about teaching me.”

O’Shea sighed at the happy memory. “I earned a few bumps and bruises to start, but before I knew it, I was cruising the neighborhood on the old thing. Believe it or not,” she chuckled, “with a little TLC, I had that bike until I was fifteen. That’s when I got a job at the local grocery store as a bagger. I rode that bike to my job every afternoon until I’d earned enough to buy myself a new one. My Trek was the very first thing I ever bought with my own money, and it felt really good.”

Times had been hard, but between her and Cedric they’d managed—having each other—to enjoy fairly normal teen years. As long as they ignored their parents, and O’Shea was able to stay clear of her grandmother, things were good. When she couldn’t avoid the woman…

Before O’Shea went down that mental rabbit hole, she answered the next of Billboard’s questions.

“My favorite food is easy. Anything étouffée,” she told him with enthusiasm, pushing thoughts of Karen from her brain. “It can be chicken, or shrimp…any kind of seafood, really, as long as it’s really blackened and hot as hell.”

Billboard snorted. “I’ll reserve judgement. I’ve never had it.”

O’Shea’s eyes widened. “You haven’t?” She immediately spied a grocery store off to their right. “Stop! There. I need to buy ingredients.”

Billboard laughed, but complied, pulling over to make a U-turn. “Seriously? I didn’t mean you had to cook it for me tonight.”

“Why wait?” she replied heartily. “You’re how old? Thirty-two? Thirty-three?”

“Thirty-four,” he answered.

She shook her head and made tsking noises. “Thirty-four, and you’ve never had étouffée. It’s a crime.”

Billboard turned the Bronco around and pulled into the store’s lot where he parked.

“I’ll only be a minute,” she informed him as she opened her door, “and to answer your other two questions, three, and sixteen.”

O’Shea got out before Billboard could wrap his head around that info.

When she returned to the car not ten minutes later, having purchased everything for her blackened shrimp dish, Billboard started in immediately upon pulling back into traffic.

“You’ve only had three boyfriends?” he asked. “And you’re…how old?”

They hadn’t previously discussed any of this stuff, and O’Shea settled back to share. “I’m twenty-eight, and I have very discerning tastes.”

He groaned. “You’re just a baby.”

“A baby who had the responsibility of adulting since she could walk,” O’Shea reminded him. “Sometimes it feels like I never had a childhood.”

“Something we’ll have to remedy,” he responded cryptically. “but first, were those boyfriends anything serious?” he posed.

Was the man jealous? If he was, he wouldn’t be for long.

“Nope,” she gave over. “The one in middle school was to get kissing out of the way. The guy in high school was to get fucking out of the way, and the boyfriend in college, I soon learned, had no intentions of learning where a woman’s clit is located. That asshole lasted all of two weeks, and that was one week too long.”

Billboard almost choked on that information, but recovered nicely.

“Okay then.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, didn’t know where that was going, but I’m…relieved, I guess? Now, you mentioned your less-than-stellar parents. Can we talk about them?” He raised a brow.

“Nope. Not yet,” O’Shea stated determinedly. “That stuff’s at the bottom of my sharing list. But I promise we’ll get to my tough stuff when you’re ready to parcel out your hidden-down-deep garbage pile.”

“So, a few years from now, then?” Billboard attempted to quip.

O’Shea didn’t let up. “Uh, not even close. I’ll be long gone if I haven’t managed to pry the lid off your shit-jar before that.”

“Great,” he huffed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

His entire body, however, had gone rigid, even though the banter appeared outwardly to be lighthearted.

“Fine.” O’Shea pretended not to notice his discomfort. “Now it’s time for me to throw you a few softball questions.”

“Okay,” he agreed warily.

He’d said his father had died when he was young, but that might be part of Billboard’s trigger, so O’Shea avoided that.

“I know you’re an only child, and you’ve talked about your grandmother who passed, but do you have any other extended family? Cousins? Aunts and Uncles?”

His shoulders relaxed, and his lips quirked up.

“I have two aunts and two uncles on my mother’s side. As well as seven cousins,” he gave over with a huge grin. “They all live in Vermont, and are a lively bunch. I visit when I can, and they come to see me, but we don’t get together nearly enough.”

O’Shea immediately placed a road-trip to Vermont on her wish-list.

That smile of Billboard’s told her he not only enjoyed his relatives’ company, but that he felt joyful and comfortable around them, which was something she wanted for the often-taciturn man. Selfishly, however, she also wanted to see if Billboard’s cousins were all like him; larger than life, and had any insight into his problems.

Continuing her questioning, she wondered about Billboard’s propensity to travel. “Do you like to go places? Drive? Fly? Take a train or a bus?”

He wrinkled his nose. “No trains or busses,” he revealed. “But I love to drive, and flying is good because it gets you where you’re going, quickly.”

She knew he was a helicopter pilot, so… duh .

“Best trip you’ve ever taken?” she asked.

“That’s easy. For my Mom’s sixtieth birthday two years ago, I took her to Greece.”

“Wow.” O’Shea couldn’t imagine. “The farthest I’ve ever been is Canada. I’d like to go to Europe someday.”

“Maybe we…?” Billboard started and stopped, obviously thinking twice over what he’d been about to offer.

O’Shea let him off the hook. “That’s okay. You’re right. We might not be together long enough to do any vacations.” She went on immediately to dispel his discomfort. “Least favorite household chore?”

That got him back into a chuckling mood. “Laundry. Period. I don’t like washing it, drying it, or folding it.”

“Hmm…”

Since his hands were on the wheel and his armpit was accessible, she leaned in and sniffed. His pheromones went up her nose. “You smell okay to me,” she rasped.

Understatement . She could bury her face in his underarm all day.

She sat back up, reluctantly. “Does that mean your mother does your clothes for you?”

The tops of his ears turned red. “Uh, no. I, umm, have a service that comes and gets it. Then they deliver it back to me all clean and neat.”

“Even your underwear?” O’Shea blurted out, horrified. She wouldn’t want anyone messing with her unmentionables. She had a thing for sexy bras and thongs, and the last thing she’s need was a bunch of people touching her special stuff.

“Underwear, too,” he admitted.

“Geeze. Who knew.” She turned to him with wide eyes. “You do have a washer and dryer, though, don’t you? Because I have to do my own laundry, even though it’s not my favorite, either.”

“Yeah. I have those.”

She let out a breath. “Good. Then cancel your service for as long as I’m here, and we’ll consider my launderette duties as part of my rent.”

“You don’t have to,” he countered gruffly.

“Well, I want to.” She folded her arms over her chest and dared him to argue.

Smartly, he backed down. “Okay. But I don’t want to hear from you about how I left things inside-out, or how something is stained beyond saving. I don’t care. I’m not in love with any of my clothes. Got it?”

“Got it,” she agreed. She had noticed that he wore jeans, jeans, and jeans. And that he owned exactly three t-shirt colors: black, white, and gray. Not that she’d complain about that. It gave her a good look at the extensive ink on his arms, and a peek at a tat on his chest that just breached the neckline. “Would you, um…consider doing a little shopping while I’m here? For some things to wear that are, perhaps, a little more adventurous?”

She could easily see him in a tight Henley, deep brown to match his eyes. And if she could get him into a pair of khaki’s…

“Are you trying to upgrade my wardrobe, O’Shea?” he asked amusedly.

“Are you saying it doesn’t need help?” she countered.

“Fine,” he gave in easily. “It’ll save me from arguing with Mizzay. The woman’s been at me to amend my non-existent ‘style’ ever since I started working for SOS.”

“I knew I liked her,” O’Shea beamed as Billboard pulled into his driveway.

It had been a very productive ride, as far as she was concerned, and she hoped Billboard felt the same.

Were they one step closer to more of those heart-stopping kisses?

Time would tell, so it was no good over-thinking it.

O’Shea opened her door. “Let’s drop Zoe off so we can get to your office.”