Between Limestone Ruins

Chapter Ten

The new girl continued to impress him, and yet still made Walker inexplicably irritated. She had gotten up close and personal with the half decomposed remains on the site. She had started drawing patterns quicker than Walker could even start to digest the information to figure out a pattern. But Walker still felt the need to push her. As if pushing her buttons and slinging icy barbs at her would make her turn tail and run. She should be more scared.

Walker had no reason to care if she stayed or quit. He figured it was his protectiveness of this case; he needed Hannah to know it was important. He didn't want a partner that would walk out when the going got tough, so he'd make it tough right off the bat.

Walker knew deep down that was bullshit. Hannah was clearly just-as, if not more, emotionally invested in this case as Walker. Plus, she was right, there was no one better for the job, provided she was as good as she said she was. But, until she proved she was indeed as good as she said she was, Walker wasn't going to let her off a leash. Figuratively. Walker subconsciously shuddered. 

Imagine if it meant it literally, his inner voice whispered seductively. That girl was far too pretty and her smart mouth created all sorts of thoughts in Walker's head. He once again shook it free of tantric thoughts spurred by the blonde profiler.

She told him to shut up? He could shut up. He was sure the bubbly little blonde would break and have something to exclaim. Or maybe even more big girl words.

That's why Walker was surprised when her breathing got louder and slower. Her head had drifted against the window and her eyes were closed. She had looked tired all day, and she had answered his call at 2AM. 

Hannah had to have been up all night researching as well. Walker took a minute to imagine her somewhere in Ottawa, curled up on a couch pouring over news articles on his case. Even that was a sexy picture, which just made Walker angrier. 

Even so, he found himself unable to look away from her long, dark lashes splayed across her freckled cheeks and soft face, both of which made her look even younger than she did awake. It was almost... calming?

Vulnerable. She looked Vulnerable.

Hannah had two faces she projected while awake. 

Half the time she radiated a sharp, intellectual intensity she had probably learned from being talked down to by men through her education and career. Walker saw it every day in law enforcement; smart and strong women being babied or having their accomplishments negated. Was that what Walker was doing? No. She needed to be the strongest she could be for this case; that much Walker knew. He was pushing her because he had to push her. 

Any woman can be as successful as a man in any profession, if given equal opportunity to succeed, that Walker was confident in. He knew Hannah had a young face and was young for her field, but she had an air of badass boss that she used whenever she felt Walker had disrespected her. It wasn't her gender that enraged him, hell, his closest friend was ex-special forces Nora, and she could beat him up. Probably.

The other half the time Hannah showed such innocent curiosity, probably a deep-rooted personality trait. She craved knowledge in any form she could grasp it but had yet to learn that 'curiosity killed the cat'. This Hannah silently radiated reckless optimism and it scared the shit out of Walker as much as it drew him to her.

Walker had made these assessments when he first saw her in the elevator and confirmed them less than an hour later in his office. 

His new teammate intrigued him, as much as she irritated him, and goddammit if he wasn't at least a little attracted to her, despite her being completely oblivious to how she looked or how others looked at her. Even at a serial killer crime scene she had turned heads, and instead of noticing she just dove into her work and the remains.