Chapter Six #2
“I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not,” she said firmly.
She’d obviously come straight downstairs when she heard her father cry out, and was dressed in pretty pink and white striped pajamas, the flannelette kind.
Her hair hung long and was tousled from sleep, with one side of her bangs sticking out at an odd angle.
She didn’t look dangerous, not at all like the tough cop she usually presented to the world.
She looked very young and na?ve, her eyes wide and unguarded.
In that moment, he felt something tighten in his chest. It was a feeling he couldn’t put his finger on, but it made him want to demand that she stay here, where she could look after the needs of her father, where it was safe.
And not come out into the frozen wilderness with him, where danger might lurk.
Which was ridiculous. She was a cop; it was her job to protect other people.
She wasn’t the one who needed protection.
Why then did he suddenly, desperately, not want to get her involved in this any more than she already was?
He still had one leg halfway into his jeans, and now he had to hop around to keep his balance.
“Shit.” He managed to sit on the bed before he fell, finally being able to pull up his pants.
“No, you can’t,” he said, avoiding looking directly at her as he grabbed his phone from the bed and sweater and thermal top from where they lay on top of his duffel bag.
All the rest of his clothes—beanie, gloves, shoes and jacket—were in the mudroom.
He needed to get them on and get out of here as quickly as possible.
Away from here so she couldn’t follow him.
Maybe he could call an Uber. He wasn’t game enough to ask if he could use her car; he already knew the answer to that one.
“Stop right there.” Her small palm landed squarely in the middle of his bare chest, and he pulled up short.
He was much bigger than she was, taller and stronger.
He could’ve pushed past her if he’d wanted to.
But that one little touch had him pinned to the spot.
Her hand on his skin was warm, and a trickle of awareness ran through him as he glanced down to look at her fine-boned fingers as they curved around his pec.
“Who was that on the phone?” she demanded, dragging his focus back to her face.
He stared down into her deep-brown eyes, trying to ignore the feeling of her skin on his. “My brother.” He could see no harm in telling her who it was. It would make no difference whether she came with him. She wasn’t coming, and that was final.
“Okay.” She digested that news thoughtfully, and he wondered what she made of it.
As a cop, she would probably know better than most that families could hide many secrets, and so maybe she wasn’t as surprised as she should be to hear his brother was involved.
“And how do you even plan on getting to your father without a car?”
“I was going to call an Uber.”
Aurora snorted, the sound loud in the quiet house.
“Go right ahead.” Her fingertips flexed against his chest as she pushed a little harder.
“Go on.” She pointed to the phone he now held in his hand.
“I guarantee that if you actually get one to come out here this early in the morning, it will be at least an hour before it arrives. Do you really want to wait that long?”
“What?” Jiro glanced at his phone, tempted to open the Uber app. She could be bluffing.
“This isn’t New York or LA. You’re in a small Swedish northern town. So you see, you need my car, which means you need me.”
“Aurora.” Karl’s plaintive cry echoed down the hallway.
She said something in Swedish, which she assumed meant she would be there in a minute, but she didn’t take her gaze away from Jiro’s face.
“What if they see your uniform and… do something bad to Papa?” He couldn’t bring himself to say kill him. But then he had no idea what would be waiting for them where the little red pin sat amongst the forest on the map.
“I won’t wear my uniform if that’s what you want. I’ll go undercover.”
Shit, he couldn’t believe he was actually even thinking about this. Not only was he taking along a police officer against Taro’s strict instructions, but he was also putting a person he was fast coming to like in possible danger.
“I will find this place much quicker than you could,” she added.
Which was true. Even if he asked Google Maps to take him to where the pin dropped on his phone, he could easily get lost. And he was unaccustomed to driving in these snowy conditions in the dark.
She’d told him last night she hadn’t been born in Lule?, but had moved here a year ago to complete her six months field placement and then had been offered a permanent position.
So her knowledge wouldn’t be exhaustive, but she was a native Swede and would definitely have a better grasp on the countryside than he did.
He sighed deeply, causing her palm to rasp against the hairs on his chest. “You can’t let anyone else know.
You can’t even tell Viskten,” he said at last. Jiro knew it was a big ask.
She was a rookie cop, so her first instinct would be to report to her supervisor, to call in the people she could trust, people who would have her back.
Aurora screwed up her nose, clearly hoping to do just that. He watched as various emotions flickered across her face before she finally came to a conclusion.
“All right then. We’ll do it your way. But M?rten won’t be pleased.” The last part was said almost under her breath.
“Aurora.” Her father’s call was louder this time, less plaintive and more demanding. He must be fully awake now and wondering what was going on.
Her hand was still plastered to the middle of his chest.
“Are you going to let me past?”
“What?” She was looking up into his face, dark eyes unfocused, her mind obviously racing with the details of what to do next.
But it was as if she realized for the first time he was standing there half naked and she had her hand pressed against his bare chest as she stared up into his face.
She pulled back quickly. “Oh, yes. Sorry.” A red flush spread up her neck as she turned away.
It was cute. “Sorry,” she mumbled again, but he wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.
He hadn’t minded her holding him back with her hand; in fact, he’d quite liked the sensation.
Had quite liked her taking charge, not afraid of him, not flinching away from him.
But there was no time to analyze any of this. They had to get going.
“I need five minutes to sort out my father,” she said.
Oh, shit, of course she did. His mind was screaming that they needed to get going now, but she couldn’t very well leave her disabled father in bed alone.
“I can help,” he said.
She looked at him with a critical eye as she wavered.
“Normally, I would ask Millie to come and help, but it’s so early.
She’s my next-door neighbor,” she added as an afterthought.
“But Fader hates it when I ask her to come in. He hates accepting help from anyone. She’s the most caring, most compassionate person I know, but Karl has taken it upon himself to dislike her intensely.
Probably because she’s seen him at his worst, weak and incapacitated, and he can’t get over that. ”
Jiro didn’t really care about the intricacies of her father’s character flaws right now; all he wanted to do was get moving.
“Right.” Aurora seemed to have come to a decision.
“I’ll get him up and dressed if you could prepare breakfast for him.
I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.” She continued to give him directions as to what to prepare for the morning meal as she ducked into her father’s room and he hurried down the hallway.
Impatience roiled in his stomach; the last thing he needed to do right now was prepare a breakfast. But he couldn’t do this without Aurora.
And she couldn’t do this without caring for her father first.
He busied himself in the kitchen, hurriedly dragging out two slices of the dark rye bread Aurora had said he liked for breakfast and then finding the cheese and cold cuts in the fridge.
Aurora’s complicated coffee maker was beyond him at the moment, but he found one of the old-fashioned percolators in a cupboard and set that up on the stove instead.
The sound of conversation drifted down the hallway, and even though he couldn’t understand what was being said, it was clear that Karl was not happy with being forced out of bed this early in the morning.
Three minutes later, the old man was still grumbling as Aurora pushed him in his wheelchair into the kitchen.
Karl said something to Aurora, a clear whining edge to his voice, and she answered him in English for Jiro’s sake in an exasperated tone that suggested she was only barely controlling her frustration.
“I know it’s early for breakfast, but you can keep it in the fridge for later if you don’t want to eat now.
It’s either that, or I ask Millie to come in. ”
The look of distaste that flashed across Karl’s haggard face said it all.
It also gave him an insight into the man’s true nature.
He’d caught flashes of it last night, especially in the way he treated Aurora.
While he’d been perfectly amiable when he spoke to Jiro, his tone changed when he talked to Aurora.
Most of what he said to her was in Swedish, which of course he didn’t understand, but he got the gist of the old man’s intent from his body language.
Karl had a temper, and it seemed he was perpetually unhappy with her.
With everything she did and everything she said.
Jiro had watched Aurora bite her tongue on more than one occasion and plaster on a friendly smile for his benefit.