DeeJay didn’t care for men. It was one thing to have a fling with one, another to work with one. In a single instant she’d seen the resistance in Cade Bankston’s eyes when he’d heard they were to be partnered, and that had been all she’d needed. He was a macho meathead who couldn’t accept that women were as capable as men. Like that pinheaded CO who had turned her life into a living hell because he didn’t think a woman was qualified to command an MP unit. That freaking martinet had wanted every i dotted, and it damn well better be dotted clearly enough. But he wasn’t the only one. There’d been the CO in Afghanistan who’d warned her that if she filed a rape charge her career was over. And the series of them who had been infuriated when she insisted on investigating the rapes of other soldiers. There’d also been too many men working for her who didn’t get why they should take orders from her. And then there’d been the guy who had forced her out.
They hadn’t all been bad, but enough of them had that DeeJay had a real burn on for men. A guy got one chance with her. Bankston had torched his.
Still, she had to work with him. She wasn’t ready to nuke any bridges on this job. There was a killer to catch, although she still didn’t understand what lamebrain had come up with the idea that they had to pretend to be married. Wouldn’t it have been enough that they were working together on a travel story?
She looked down at the thin gold band on her ring finger, courtesy of an evidence locker somewhere, and wished she could fling it out the window.
She glanced occasionally at Bankston, taking in his square jaw and chiseled face from the side. His hair was a light brown, a little wavy, and he had a pair of aquamarine eyes that she would have admired in any other setting. He probably believed he set women’s hearts aflutter, and maybe he did. For a guy who must be pushing toward forty, he took good care of himself.
All she knew about him, though, was that he had a lot of experience and had been with the criminal investigation unit for most of that time. She’d heard that he’d once been a beat cop in a major metro area, but she didn’t have any idea which one. It wasn’t a whole lot to go on.
She did know, however, that he didn’t want to be working with her, and she didn’t want him any closer than the job required. When they’d received the news that they were pairing up for this, she’d seen it clear as anything in his eyes. If he’d been a mule, he’d have dug in his heels and brayed. She had to give him some credit for taking an order he didn’t like, but she wouldn’t give him any more than that.
Nor did she feel as if she needed to prove herself to him. She’d proved herself countless times in a much tougher organization, and she’d learned the hard way that conciliatory women were considered weak, and tough ones were called bitches. She preferred being a bitch. At least no one tried to take advantage of her that way.
Stifling a sigh, she wished this drive would come to an end. Looking out the window, with the mountains still purple in the distance, had begun to bore her. She wasn’t used to sitting still for so long.
She glanced again at Cade and decided that maybe she should back off him a little. She’d made her position clear repeatedly over the past few days, but they still had to work together. The question was how much she needed to back off. Except for their disagreement about who would drive, he’d done his share of backing off. And she’d let him drive only because he’d made the logical argument that he knew this country and these roads. It had been clear at that point that he wasn’t insisting because he thought the man should always drive.
Okay, give him back a point, but after that expression when they’d been told they were working together, he still had a lot of points to earn.
“I guess that you don’t know much about the sheriff we’re working with, unless someone gave you a dossier,” he said, disturbing the endless silence between them, a silence filled with the humming of the car engine and tires on the road.