The Man Behind the Badge. Sharon Archer
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here but we’ll hang around to make sure there are no flare-ups when the car’s pulled off the tree trunk.’
‘Thanks.’
Tom moved away and began snapping photographs from different angles. Inside the car, he took several pieces of the broken whisky bottle, making sure he got a clear shot of the label.
From a vantage point to one side, he made a quick sketch of the scene, placing the cars. On a walk along the road with his torch, he identified the skid marks—Andy’s coming onto the main road from the lane; Kayla’s where she’d braked and swerved to avoid him.
He could see quite clearly how the incident had unfolded. The tyre tracks told the story. Thick black rubber lines on the sealed road segued into gouges in the gravel verge before spiralling back onto the tarmac again. Just traversing the two vastly different road surfaces in a straight line was enough to bring many motorists to disaster. It was nothing short of a miracle that her little car hadn’t rolled with the massive forces it had been under.
By concentrating on his job, he could prevent himself from thinking about how close Kayla had been to injury or death. He laid out the measuring tape then jotted in distances on his sketch. With everything he needed for his report, he glanced over the road as he wound the tape up.
The paramedics were wheeling Andy to the back of the ambulance. Kayla was turned away from him, bent double as she wiped a towel down one leg.
Tom inhaled deeply then let the air out through his pursed lips in a silent whistle. The unimpeded view of her shapely bottom in the soft draping material of her trousers was very fine. Very fine indeed.
He wrenched his gaze away, looked down at the equipment in his hands. He wanted to talk to her…sensibly. Which was going to be a tough assignment if he couldn’t rein in his physical response.
He gathered his thoughts. They’d made a connection here tonight and he wanted to build on that, not give her any chance, any excuse, to draw back. He’d seen a different side to her as she’d dealt with Andy. Brave, resourceful, competent—and he liked it. A lot.
Holding fast to those thoughts, he refused to succumb to further masculine appreciation of the view as he crossed the road.
‘Kayla.’
She straightened abruptly—staggered slightly.
‘Oh…no.’ Her words were a small, useless protest as she slowly pitched forward.
Tom took the last two steps to her side, catching her to his chest. ‘Steady, I’ve got you.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘D-don’t know what happened…Must have…stood too quickly.’
She didn’t resist as he stepped her over to a small tree stump and lowered her to sit. He bent over her and pushed her head between her knees, acutely conscious of the soft, warm skin of her neck beneath his fingers. After a minute, she struggled against his pressure.
‘I’m all right. Thank you, Sergeant.’ Her voice sounded strangled.
‘Tom.’
‘Anything. Whatever.’ He felt her convulsive shudder as she turned her head towards him, her eyes closed. ‘Please. All I can smell is the vomit on my knee.’
‘Oh. Sorry, I forgot.’ He released her, his grip supporting her as she sat up straight. Silky strands of hair teased the back of his hand. She took a quick breath and swallowed audibly. ‘Just sit a minute.’
He kept a hand on her nape as he called to the paramedic who had just backed out of the back of the ambulance and was closing the doors. ‘Gaz? Can you take Kayla back with you for a once-over?’
‘Sure, no problem.’
Beneath his palm, he could feel the delicate shifting of muscle as Kayla shook her head.
‘That’s not necessary, Sergeant. I—’
He looked back at her. ‘I think it is, Kayla. You were a hair’s breadth from being involved in a nasty accident tonight. And the name is Tom.’ If she called him Sergeant one more time tonight, he’d plant a kiss right on that luscious mouth and completely ruin her opinion of him.
‘But I need my car.’ She looked mutinous, her silver eyes glowing with irritation.
‘And I’ll see that you get it,’ he said as he stood. ‘For now, I’m impounding it.’
Her mouth opened.
He bent, slipping one arm around her shoulders, the other under her knees and scooped her up. Her mouth snapped shut on a small squeak as she grabbed at his shoulder to steady herself. He smiled grimly. His hands were on Kayla and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Torture. He looked down on the curve of lashes on her cheek, the gentle swell of her breasts…the fist in her lap. He’d take no bets on where she’d like to plant it.
He was a masochist.
‘Open your front passenger door for me, Gaz.’
‘Sure thing, Tom.’ Gary grinned as he opened the door wide.
Tom shovelled his armful of warm woman onto the seat, wondering if his reluctance to let her go was obvious to anyone other than him.
God, he had to get out of here before he made an idiot of himself. He stepped back quickly and cleared the congestion from his throat.
‘Buckle up, Doc,’ he said as he shut the door.
Kayla’s narrow-eyed glare should have sizzled his skin. At least her anger had brought some colour to her pallid cheeks. A little hectic but colour just the same.
Tom pivoted and strode over to where Jack Campbell was rolling up the hose. The bonnet of the car had been wrenched open and the engine was now well doused with fire-retardant foam.
‘Kayla okay?’ asked Jack.
‘She says so.’ Tom avoided his friend’s shrewd eyes. ‘I’ve sent her back with the ambos for a check over.’
‘And she was okay with that?’
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t she be?’ Tom set his jaw and ignored the laughter he could see in Jack’s face. ‘I’ll get one of your guys to drive her car back to the hospital when we go, if that’s okay?’
‘Sure. Might as well be me. I want to roust Liz out. She should have been home a couple of hours ago.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘Yeah.’ Jack chuckled.
Kayla sucked another deep breath into her oxygen-deprived lungs. Her diaphragm had frozen from the moment the sergeant had lifted her. Making a conscious effort to ease her tension, she uncurled the fists in her lap. Her short practical nails had dug into the soft tissue, leaving small red dints in her palm.
Even with his disturbing presence gone, she could still feel his touch. Hard enough when it had just been his hand on her nape, strong fingers clasped gently on her neck, the rasp of his calloused skin while he’d been holding her head down. Being clasped to his chest, surrounded by his warmth and strength…the awareness of her female softness against the hardness of his muscular frame had overwhelmed her.
The honest, earthy scent of him, a smell that owed more to a hard day’s work than scientists testing essences in a laboratory, seemed to call to her in a way that was disturbing, primitive. She’d always liked men to be well groomed, wearing a subtle, musky aftershave. Yet no one she’d dated had ever affected her as profoundly as this man in his snug jeans and a simple black T-shirt.
Thank goodness he didn’t realise he was responsible for her light-headed state. Or at least partially responsible. If she’d eaten a proper meal before leaving Melbourne, if she hadn’t straightened from her bent position so quickly. If he hadn’t crept up on her, spoken her name so unexpectedly. Panic had made her head jerk upright, had flooded her system with an explosion of contrary stimuli. Instead of doing