Page 8 of Protect My Heart

“Thank you for your help. I’ll be in contact.” Jim crouched to look Luis in the eye and offered his hand. “Your mom has my card, so if you remember anything else about what you saw last night, no matter how small, you call me. Okay?”

It seemed like hours before Luis reached out and slid his little fingers into Jim’s, and with a solemn expression, nodded.

With that, Jim placed his hand on Doc’s lower back and escorted her out of the apartment.

“That went well,” she said as they descended the stairs.

“Thanks to you.”

She stopped and turned to him. “Really?”

“Oh come on. He crawled into your lap. I could barely get him to step out from behind his grandma.”

“Luis is a sweet boy. It helps that I speak Spanish.”

Jim nodded. “Four years of high school Spanish and all I remember is how to order a beer and ask for the bathroom.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled. “I’m Boricua. Well, my mother is.”

Jim halted. “What’s that?”

“It’s what Puerto Rican people call themselves. It stems from the word Borinquén. It’s what the indigenous people called the island before colonization. Anyway, my mother came here from Puerto Rico as a teenager.”

Learned something new. He started walking again.

Her posture changed.

He didn’t think it was the cold.

“My father’s family is from Ireland.”

Now, he had questions. “Garcia isn’t an Irish name.”

“When my parents divorced, I took her name.” Doc’s eyes darted around. She fidgeted with her gloves then shoved them in her pockets.

She flashed a smile. Obviously fake, but it lit her whole face. She didn’t want to talk about her family. He got it. His was a big, loud, mess of personalities, and he loved them to death, even with all the matchmaking. But he didn’t want to talk about them either. Her relief stirred up a whole bunch of questions in his cop-brain. He saw some Googling of a sexy psychologist in his future.

Chapter 4

Crap. Now came the inquisition. She braced herself for the onslaught of questions that always happened. Why would you do that? He must be a jerk for you to change your name.

“I’m Irish, too.” The intense pull of his brows warred with the levity of his smile. “Well, half anyway. My mother is Irish and my father’s Swedish.”

She blinked. No questions? A cop. He was bound to have tons. She blinked again and her gaze dropped to his mouth.

Oh my gosh! He has dimples. She was such a sucker for dimples. Her hand rose to his cheek and her fingertip ran along the crease. The indentation smoothed away and her eyes rose to find his dark gaze studying her.

She jerked her hand back. “I, uh...I’m sorry. That was inappropriate, it’s just... you have...”

His stare stayed fixed on her. “Yes?”

“It’s just… well, dimples intrigue me.” Heat flooded her cheeks.

The term fetishistic disorder flashed in her mind. Hey, don’t mind me. I have a dimple fetish. She wanted to slap her forehead but clenched her hand into a fist and shoved it back into her pocket, a safer place for it.

“Really?” His lip twitched and his stare changed. Still intense, but now his eyes were alight with laughter.

Double crap! He looked so sexy right now. She wanted to touch more than his dimples.