“Don’t you dare go feeling sorry for me because, Donovan McCabe, I sure as hell don’t need a pity party and now you want to tell me what you’re doing on my front stoop?”
Her gaze met his and she braced herself for the Oh, you poor thing look but instead Donovan bent his head and kissed her. She started to protest but her lips were busy and suddenly her tongue was too and then her arms got into the act and then her insides melted into goo which had acid beat all to hell and back. This was all wrong on every level except one...Donovan McCabe felt so darn good when she was feeling crappy as hell.

How many times had Dara struck and no one had been there? But here and now on this beautiful spring morning, there was Donovan McCabe. She breathed, a sense of peace she’d never known before in her whole life filling her up like a glass long empty. She leaned into him and took one more kiss, just a little with a tiny nibble of his bottom lip to chase away the lingering chill of Dara, then Bebe stepped back. Every cell in her body...except the two rational cells still functioning in her brain... insisted she was the most stupid woman on planet earth for not staying locked in his arms.

“What was that all about?” The question was as much for her as him because she didn’t know what to think about the effect he had on her.

“You look like a woman who needed a hug and the kiss part just snuck in.” His voice was steady but there was unsure spark in his eyes that said he didn’t just go around kissing every woman who may have the need. But she didn’t need him to be nice and she wished like hell he hadn’t seen Dara. It was Bebe’s private life, the part she kept tucked away as best she could even from Brie, Priss and Charlotte. A crappy childhood did not transfer into a crappy life. “Are you playing me, McCabe? Softening me up so I’ll help you nail Cleveland? Well, I won’t and I can handle Dara.”

“How about I look the other way and you just shoot her.”

Bebe broke into a laugh and today she didn’t think she’d be laughing about anything. “I’ll lend you my gun,” he continued, looking perfectly serious. “Or at least blast the bitch verbally. I’ve seen you in action, you’re a hellcat when riled. Why not now?”

If he hadn’t offered his gun she would have told Donovan to butt out but he did offer and he’d kissed her when she needed it and she wasn’t in the habit of needing much. A new meaning of good cop, bad cop. “A conditioned response from when I was a kid. Dara’s favorite game was to threaten to leave me in the marsh if I didn’t do what she said. Scared the hell out of me and you never did say way you’re here.” Why the hell was she telling McCabe all this? Fallout from a dynamite kiss.

“When my mother tells me to stand up straight and get a haircut I still do it.” A gentle smile that comes from thinking of good stuff softened his face. “Except my mom’s nothing like yours, though I do remember threats of military school.” He leaned against the side of the apartment looking as if the place belonged to him. He was that kind of guy, one who fit in anywhere, probably even military school. Bebe felt as if she fit in nowhere and she’d lived in Savannah all her life. He said, “I’m here because I didn’t want to air our problems in front of the whole station. We need to talk about how we’re going to handle Ray Cleveland.”

This was better. Arguing over work was a piece of cake, reminiscing about a screwed up childhood was a piece of shit. “I said I’m not helping you with Cleveland, McCabe and I haven’t changed my mind so there’s no need for kisses that curl my toes.” Well damn. She was on a roll till the toes part. When Donovan was around she had to learn to think before she opened her big mouth...which could lead to more kissing and then tongues. What in the almighty hell was she going to do with Donovan McCabe!