“Virginia Kantra never ceases to amaze me. All a Man Can Ask really packs a wallop, combining heart-pounding excitement, heartwarming emotion and heart-stopping sexual tension. Alex is a potent and charming hero, and Faye is a heroine you’ll be rooting for. A fabulously fun and deliciously sexy read. I loved it.”

—USA TODAY bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly

Faye braced herself, expecting Aleksy to grab her….

But he did exactly as he had warned, giving her time to change her mind, giving her a chance to pull away. One hand slid to circle her throat. The other traced her ribs, skimmed her back.

Her pulse went wild under his rough fingers. Keeping his eyes on hers, he lowered his head, blotting out the lake and the night behind her. She felt the slow rise of heat, from him, in her.

And he stopped, a breath from her lips.

“I’m giving you a choice, Detective.” Her mouth curved. “Kiss me or die….”

Dear Reader,

A new year has begun, so why not celebrate with six exciting new titles from Silhouette Intimate Moments? What a Man’s Gotta Do is the newest from Karen Templeton, reuniting the one-time good girl, now a single mom, with the former bad boy who always made her heart pound, even though he never once sent a smile her way. Until now.

Kylie Brant introduces THE TREMAINE TRADITION with Alias Smith and Jones, an exciting novel about two people hiding everything about themselves—except the way they feel about each other. There’s still TROUBLE IN EDEN in Virginia Kantra’s All a Man Can Ask, in which an undercover assignment leads (predictably) to danger and (unpredictably) to love. By now you know that the WINGMEN WARRIORS flash means you’re about to experience top-notch military romance, courtesy of Catherine Mann. Under Siege, a marriage-of-inconvenience tale, won’t disappoint. Who wouldn’t like A Kiss in the Dark from a handsome hero? So run—don’t walk—to pick up the book of the same name by rising star Jenna Mills. Finally, enjoy the winter chill—and the cozy cuddling that drives it away—in Northern Exposure, by Debra Lee Brown, who sends her heroine to Alaska to find love.

And, of course, we’ll be back next month with six more of the best and most exciting romances around, so be sure not to miss a single one.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

All a Man Can Ask
Virginia Kantra

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VIRGINIA KANTRA

credits her enthusiasm for strong heroes and courageous heroines to a childhood spent devouring fairy tales. A three-time Romance Writers of America RITA® Award finalist, she has won numerous writing awards, including the Golden Heart, Maggie Award, Holt Medallion and Romantic Times W.I.S.H. Hero Award.

Virginia is married to her college sweetheart, a musician disguised as the owner of a coffeehouse. They live in Raleigh, North Carolina, with three teenagers, two cats, a dog and various blue-tailed lizards that live under the siding of their home. Her favorite thing to make for dinner? Reservations.

She loves to hear from readers. You can reach her at VirginiaKantra@aol.com or c/o Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

To Michael, with all my heart.

Special thanks to former police officer

and fellow writer Lynda Sandoval Cooper,

to Lieutenant Joseph T. FitzSimmons,

and to artist and friend Kristin Dill.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

He was back.

Faye Harper froze, her paintbrush poised over the wet paper. Heart thumping, she stared through the glass sliding doors toward the lake. The bright blue sky was wide and empty, the water dark and still. Soft greens and deep ochers defined the shore. The only signs of life were the dragonflies dueling in the air and the ducks squabbling around the weathered dock.

And the man in the navy windbreaker trespassing on her patchy strip of lawn.

Faye was almost sure it was the same man she’d spotted yesterday. And the day before. Dark-haired and broad-shouldered, too old to be a student and too neat to be a vagrant. But something about him—the set of his head or the tense line of his back or the coiled energy of that long, wiry body—pushed all her warning buttons and raised the fine hair on the back of her neck.

A blob of ultramarine dripped off her brush and onto the wet paper. Faye hissed and grabbed a sponge to dab at the spreading blot. By the time she lifted the color and looked out her window again, the man was gone.

She inhaled slowly. Good. She’d fled to Eden to rest and to paint. She didn’t need some tall, dark intruder disturbing her shaky peace.

Involuntarily she flexed her right wrist, testing for soreness. The fracture was healed. The cast had been cut off a week ago. But some hurts could not be bandaged over.

Seventeen-year-old Jamal’s frustrated face flashed through her mind. You can’t help me. Can’t nobody help me. The memory tightened her chest.

She drew another deep breath. Jamal was right, she told herself. She had only made things worse. She knew better now.

She narrowed her focus to her painting, tipping the board so the colors flowed down the paper, lightly working water into the still-damp wash to turn the blot into a cloud. When she was almost satisfied, she glanced over at the sky.

And saw that man again, down by the dock.

Misgiving spread through her. She really, really did not want to get involved in confrontations. In explanations. But this was her aunt’s land. This was Faye’s vacation. She couldn’t risk either one being ruined by the actions of a stranger.

What was he up to now?

She snatched her camera off the sofa table. Sidling to the glass doors, she fumbled with the zoom until she had the trespasser in her sights. He was prowling the muddy bank above the bushes with that long-legged stride she was beginning to recognize. She couldn’t see his face. He was turned toward the lake, where a breeze broke the flat surface with shards of gold. She glanced across the water to the luxury homes on the far shore.

And then he pivoted toward the cottage, and she identified the glint of binoculars.

Okay. That was it. The final insult. The last straw.

Maybe Faye hated confrontation, but she wasn’t standing around—literally—while some pervert peeped through her windows.

Her pulse racing, she set down the camera, picked up the phone and dialed 911.

It was a long time before the police came knocking at her door.

Faye hugged her elbows and paced Aunt Eileen’s square living room, her wet-on-wet wash drying, her concentration wrecked. She thought she heard a car approach and went to the door.

Nothing.

But when she looked out her windows again, an officer with short hair and a cowlick was crossing the grass. Even with his outline thickened by whatever it was policemen wore under their clothes, he looked young and strong. Faye was reassured.

But her intruder wasn’t frightened off. He stood with one leg slightly behind the other, his right arm down by his side, and waited for the young officer to come to him. Like a gunslinger, Faye thought.

They talked. Faye saw that, though she couldn’t hear what they said. At one point, her trespasser reached for his hip pocket, and she held her breath. The last three years had made her suspicious of any gesture that could produce a knife or a gun. But he only pulled out—well, it was hard to tell, squinting through the camera lens—but it looked like his wallet. He flipped it at the officer. They talked some more.

And then they started toward the house.

Her stomach sank. Oh, dear. She really didn’t want…

The young officer bypassed the steps that led up to the deck. The two men disappeared along the side of the house. Maybe they would just go away?

Her doorbell rang. No.

Faye brushed her skirt with trembling fingers and went to open the door.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” The young officer loomed on her porch. “Would you mind stepping out for a moment?”

Well, of course she minded. But she summoned her courage and a smile from somewhere and unlocked the screen door. Cautiously she edged out onto the porch. Her gaze slid sideways to her intruder.

Everything about him looked hard—hard face, hard body, hard, dark eyes. She shivered. She knew she made an unimpressive adversary, five-foot-two and twenty-five, with a little girl’s short haircut and an old lady’s flowered skirt.

Officer Cowlick cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I have to ask. Do you know this man?”

She looked away, snapped from the hold of those bold dark eyes by a welcome jolt of outrage. “Is that what he told you?”

“He said that you’d seen each other.”

Faye crossed her arms against her negligible chest. Indignation warmed her voice. “And I suppose if he told you those binoculars were for bird-watching, you’d believe that, too.”

Her trespasser grinned.

The officer frowned. “No, ma’am. But I did check his ID. His driver’s license lists him as Alec—Alex—”

“Aleksy,” the intruder said.

“Denko,” the officer snapped.

She was confused. “I don’t know any Denkos.”

“He does.” Denko’s voice was deep and confident. His eyes were wickedly amused. “Jarek Denko is the chief of police in this town.”

She arched her eyebrows. “And who are you? His long lost cousin?”

He looked at her with a faint, surprised respect. “His brother.”

She didn’t want his respect. She wanted him gone. She appealed to the officer. “I don’t care who his brother is. I want him off my property.”

“Yes, ma’am. What I need to know is, will you be filing a formal complaint? Because—”

“Oh, dear God.” She saw it now, as Denko swiveled to face the officer. A faint bulge at his back, covered by his jacket. “He has a gun.”

The officer pivoted.

“Easy.” Denko stepped back, palms up and wide. “It’s in the belt clip at my back. I’ll let you pat me down, but I don’t want you getting excited and grabbing for the gun.”

He turned around slowly, his hands still in the air. The officer leaned in and slid the gun from its holster before ducking away.

“Just a suggestion,” Denko said over his shoulder. “Next time you might want to do the search before you bring a possible suspect up the complainant’s porch steps.”

The officer flushed dull red. “I’ll have to detain you, sir. Please put your hands behind your back.”

Faye’s heart thumped with alarm.

But Denko only shrugged and held his wrists behind him. The officer snapped on the cuffs and tightened them.

Faye did not want to get involved. She really didn’t. But some residual sense of responsibility forced her to ask, “Don’t you have to, um, read him his rights or something?”

The officer slipped his fingertip out of the cuffs and took another step back. “He’s not under arrest, ma’am.”

“Then, why—”

“Only sworn law enforcement officers can carry concealed in Illinois,” the officer said tightly.

“You’ve been watching too much TV, cream puff,” Denko told her. “You don’t have to Mirandize until you’re going to question somebody. Usually at the station.”

Faye goggled. Cream puff? What was with this guy? He was apprehended, disarmed and in handcuffs and yet somehow he wasn’t subdued at all. A small part of her almost envied him.

The officer with the cowlick frowned. “Hey, are you on the—”

“At the station,” Denko repeated. “I can fill you in there.”

The two men exchanged glances. Faye felt more out of her depth than ever. “Yeah, okay,” the officer said.

“Don’t you need me to make a statement?” Faye asked.

The officer shifted his gaze to her. “We’ll be in touch.”

She watched him steer his prisoner toward the black-and-white cruiser. He’d parked on the side of the porch, under cover of Aunt Eileen’s rhododendrons. Denko stood quietly while the officer opened the car door and put one hand on top of his head to guide him into the back seat.

Faye began to shake. We’ll be in touch.

Apprehension formed a knot in her stomach. She could hardly wait.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Police chief Jarek Denko’s voice was quiet and cold as a night in January. “This is my town. It’s not your personal sandbox that you can come make a mess in when you’re tired of stinking up Chicago.”

Aleksy Denko clamped his jaw. He knew he was out of line, damn it. But he didn’t allow anybody to talk to him that way. Not even his big brother.

“I was on a case,” he said.

Jarek narrowed his eyes. “A case you didn’t choose to explain to my patrol officer. A case you didn’t bother to run by me. Damn it, Alex, you know the rules of jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly acting officially,” Aleksy muttered. “I thought it was better if you didn’t know.”

“Let me get this straight. You kept me in the dark to protect me?”

Jarek sounded as if he couldn’t believe it. Hell, Aleksy didn’t believe it himself. Before his brother gave up the streets to play Andy Griffith in Eden, Jarek Denko—the Ice Man—had been a legend among the homicide cops of Chicago’s Area 3.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Jarek invited quietly.

Aleksy sighed and dropped into the chair facing the chief’s desk. “You know about the shootout on the west side, five, six weeks ago?”

“I read about it in the paper. One officer down, I remember.”

Aleksy remembered, too. He choked off the fresh wave of anger and guilt that rose with the memory. “Yeah, well, what wasn’t in the paper was that it was a joint op. Some scum is running guns from Atlanta through Chicago to Canada. The Toronto police want him. The FBI wants him. The ATF wants him. And we got him. Set up a nice little sting to net the whole operation. Only everybody’s tangoing so hard that somebody missteps. The scum figures it’s a setup and gets away. We’re left with nothing but a couple of mopes who aren’t talking and one dead detective.”

“How do you come into it? Was it your operation?”

“I don’t like it when one of our own goes down. Maybe after the shooting, I pushed a little too hard on the investigation.”

“No ‘maybe’ about it,” Jarek murmured.

Aleksy grinned sharply. “Anyway, some fed got his toes stepped on and pushed back. Next thing I know, my boss is calling me into his office telling me I need an extended vacation.”

“Here in Eden?” Jarek raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly Cancún, little brother.”

“Could be I figured you needed some help planning your wedding.”

A month or so back, Jarek had gotten himself engaged to a local babe. A reporter, Tess DeLucca. Aleksy had had some doubts about the match, but his brother seemed happy, and the wedding was set for September.

Jarek shook his head. “Which still doesn’t explain what you were doing on Eileen Harper’s dock with binoculars and a gun.”

“The detective who was killed…” Aleksy hesitated and then shrugged. He had to give Jarek something, or he wouldn’t get his gun back. “I knew her. Karen Vasquez.”

Jarek straightened behind his big metal desk. “Your partner?”

“Former partner,” Aleksy corrected. “We stopped working together nine months ago. Before your move. Remember?”

“That’s right. She put in for a transfer.”

“Yeah.”

“For personal reasons.”

Aleksy tried not to squirm. “Yeah.”

“How personal, hotshot?”

“Look, we were close. We got closer. Her idea, my mistake. Okay?”

“Not okay, if she couldn’t work with you afterward,” Jarek stated.

“I told you, it was a mistake. Anyway, she got reassigned. Coming from Area 3 she got handed this big case. Gunrunning across the border. She was excited. Called me up to tell me about it.”

“She shouldn’t have done that.”

“She thought I might have an interest.”

“And what would that be? Aside from letting you know she was moving on to bigger and better things?”

“She said something about my brother finding himself in the middle of things. So when she—” Died. Hell. “Anyway, afterward, I figured that was a lead up here.”

“But why—” Jarek’s eyes narrowed as he answered his own question. “Richard Freer. Liberty Guns and Ammo. His place is opposite the Harper dock.”

Aleksy nodded. “I tried to rent the cottage but the owner had already promised it to her niece.”

The big-eyed pixie in the flowered skirt who had called the cops.

Jarek tapped a pencil against his desk. “Okay. I’ll give you that Dick Freer is a pompous son of a bitch. But as far as I know, he’s legit. And he’s got a lot of pull in this community. Hell, he was on the search committee that hired me.”

“Whoever our gunrunner is, he’s got good cover. Or the feds would have caught him by now.”

“And what makes you think you can succeed where they’ve failed?”

“I have to,” Aleksy said.

Jarek’s gaze sharpened. His voice softened. “It’s not your job. It’s not your case. You need to stay out of it.”

“I can’t.”

“Alex—”

But Aleksy cut him off. He appreciated his brother’s concern, but he didn’t need it. He didn’t want it. Some things were too painful to get into, and way too personal to share. “Are you going to stop me?”

His brother hesitated. “I can’t let my department get mixed up in your personal vendetta.”

“I know that. That’s why I didn’t spill the details to what’s his name. Larsen. I just need you to leave me alone.”

“That’s it?”

“Well…you could give me my gun back.”

Jarek opened a drawer in his desk and hefted Aleksy’s snub-nose Smith and Wesson .38. “You carrying the ‘chief’s special’ now?”

“You always did.”

Jarek peered along the blue steel barrel. “Yeah, but yours is longer than mine.”

“Barrel envy, big brother?”

Jarek’s teeth glinted in a smile. “Yeah. What is yours, three inches?”

Aleksy laughed. “At least mine feels like a real gun instead of a kiddie toy.”

Jarek raised his eyebrows, but he laid the gun flat on his desk without comment.

Aleksy slid it into the clip at his back. Some cops liked an ankle holster off duty, but he’d never been able to stand walking with one. “Thanks.”

“You need a place to stay?”

Aleksy dropped his jacket over the gun to hide it. “No, I’m good. We’re only an hour or so out of Chicago. I can get home occasionally to shower and change. Besides, the fewer people who associate you with me—or me with the police—the better.”

“As long as you understand I expect to be apprised of your activity while you’re in my jurisdiction.”

Aleksy nodded to show he’d received the warning. “Understood.”

“And, Alex…yell for help if you need it.”

Aleksy grinned at his big brother. “Haven’t I always?”

“Not always,” Jarek said. “You let Tommy Dolan whip your butt in fifth grade.”

Aleksy shrugged. “Fine. You want to help?” He did a mental playback of Faye Harper’s wide eyes and unexpected spunk. “Fix things with the cream puff.”

“—can only apologize and hope you’re willing to forget about the matter,” the police chief’s cool, smooth voice said over the telephone line.

Faye’s hand tightened on the receiver. He was talking down to her. A lot of people talked down to her. Too bad for the Denkos she was getting tired of it. “Most women would have difficulty forgetting an armed intruder.”

The police chief coughed. “Actually, unless you previously communicated your desire for him to leave the property—if the yard were fenced, for example, or if signs were posted—he wouldn’t be guilty of criminal trespass. Of course, I understand your—”

“He had a gun,” Faye said.

The line was still for a moment. “A gun he was legally authorized to carry.”

She knew it was futile to argue. But still. “Your officer said only sworn law enforcement officers could carry concealed firearms.”

“Yes,” the chief said, adding very gently, “My brother Alex is a detective with the Chicago PD.”

The fight leaked out of Faye like air from a pricked balloon. What was the point of protesting? What was right was never as important as what was expedient. She should have learned that by now.

But the mocking memory of her trespasser’s hard, dark eyes dared her to say, “And what was a detective from Chicago doing on my dock?”

Another pause. “I can’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

Jarek Denko was silent.

Don’t get involved, Faye told herself. You don’t want to know. She tucked the receiver under her jaw and used her left hand to massage her right wrist. Without the support of the cast, it ached when she used it too long.

“Never mind,” she said. “I won’t press charges or—or whatever it is. I don’t have time, anyway. I’m here to work.”

“Really?” the chief asked politely. Well, now that he had what he wanted—her cooperation—she supposed he felt compelled to be polite. “What kind of work do you do, Miss Harper?”

Once she would have told him with pride that she was a teacher. Now she stammered. “I, um…not work, exactly. I should have said I paint.”

“Lots of pretty scenery up here,” the chief said, still politely.

She made an agreeable noise—it seemed the fastest way to get him to leave her alone—and hoped he wouldn’t start to tell her what views she ought to paint while she was here or about his aunt/sister/cousin who used to model clay/draw her own Christmas cards/do decoupage.

He didn’t. He thanked her again formally and got off the line.

Faye drew a shaky breath and looked around her aunt’s living room, now serving as her temporary studio. Brushes stood in mayonnaise jars. Paint dried in plastic trays. Photographs—a bright sailboat slicing the horizon, a flock of birds above an inlet, a skyscape at midday—spilled across the table. The metallic strip board she’d hauled from her Chicago apartment propped against one wall, her most recent work held in place with small round magnets.

I paint.

Beautiful scenes. Bright scenes. Safe scenes.

She bit her lip, aware of a faint dissatisfaction. Maybe they did lack a little of the energy and edge that characterized her earlier work, but they were pretty. Soothing.

Lame, Jamal would have said, with a shake of his head and his wide, white grin…

The tight control she’d held over her thoughts fissured, and through the gap, bitter self-accusation swept in a flood. Don’t go there, she told herself. Do not. Go there. Don’t.

She picked up one of the trays and headed to the kitchen to rinse out the old paints in the sink. She was scrubbing burnt umber from the palette’s crevice when the doorbell rang.

Her heart began to thump. She turned off the water. She wasn’t expecting visitors. She didn’t know anyone in town, not really, and while she had left a forwarding address at the school, no one in Chicago cared where she’d gone. Mail delivery came around three and her aunt’s cottage was too far off the beaten path to attract many salesmen.

Drying her hands on a paper towel, she went to the door. A man’s tall outline blocked the afternoon sun. She squinted through the screen. Her misgiving swelled.

It was him.

Aleksy Denko.

Chapter 2

Aleksy was used to one of two reactions when he knocked on a woman’s door. Either she stalled him while the man of the house bolted down the fire escape. Or, sooner or later, she invited him in for sex. Some women did both.

Faye Harper didn’t look like she would do either one.

She hung back in the shadow of the house, her arms crossed and her body language shouting “go away.” He didn’t hold it against her. Even with Jarek’s phone call smoothing the way, he probably made her nervous.

“It’s okay,” he said with an easy grin. He could do charming. Karen used to say it was his best interview technique, though he liked to think he had a nice line in subtly threatening, too. “I’m not selling anything.”

Faye Harper didn’t smile as he’d hoped and half expected. But she did take a half step closer to the screen. “That’s good. Because I’m not buying. Anything.”

This time his grin was for real. Score one for the cream puff. And she looked cute, with her short blond hair and her small pale face, scowling at him through the screen. Cute wasn’t his type, but he could understand the appeal.

“Well, now that we know where we stand, do you mind if I come in?”

She hesitated. “Will this take long?”

Not if she gave him what he wanted.

“I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” he promised.

She unlocked the screen—he could have told her that was useless, any punk with a razor would cut through that flimsy barrier in seconds—and stepped aside to admit him. She smelled like spring flowers and line-dried sheets. He sniffed in appreciation.

She sniffed, too. “Can I see your ID?”

He gave her credit for asking and showed her his driver’s license.

She studied it gravely and then asked, “Don’t you have a badge?”

He winced. “A star,” he said. “We call them stars. Security guards have badges.”

The corners of her mouth dented, like she was amused, but she only said, “May I see it?”

He handed her the leather holder that held his detective’s star with its black metallic band and raised white letters. He saw her surprise as its weight registered.

She turned it in her hand. “Why didn’t you show this to the other officer this morning?”

She might be nervous, but she sure wasn’t dumb.

“I didn’t want to blow my cover,” he said. “I’m working a case.”

And if his lieutenant heard that one, he’d bust Aleksy’s butt down to traffic patrol.

Faye tipped her head to one side. “Then why tell me now?”

He tried for a little sincerity. “Because I need your help.”

“No.”

Okay. Screw sincerity. Back to charm. “Maybe help is too strong a word,” he said, leaning forward to take his star and her hand with it. “Cooperation.”

She withdrew her hand, leaving the leather holder behind. “You’ll have to recruit someone else. I’m not cooperating. Well, I’m not pressing charges, but that’s as much as I can do. I can’t afford to get involved. I’m here to rest and recover.”

He looked her over. She looked good to him. “Been sick?”

She had very fine skin. She flushed. “Not really.” But he noticed her left hand moved to cover her right wrist. Interesting.

“I’m on vacation,” she said.

Not cooperating. And not divulging much, either.

“Faye—can I call you Faye?—what do you do?”

She moved her shoulders uncomfortably. “I teach.”

That fit. He could see her in a kindergarten classroom, surrounded by adoring five-year-olds. She wasn’t much more than a kid herself, with her wide brown eyes and her short, messy hair. Under that ridiculous skirt she wore, her narrow feet were bare. Unbelievably he got turned on looking at her feet.

Poor timing.

Remember Karen.

Do the job.

He switched his gaze back to her face. “A teacher, huh? Where do you teach?”

“Lincoln High School.”

Lincoln? He almost whistled. The high school was adjacent to one of the most notorious projects in Chicago. Enrollment was high, graduation rates low, teacher burnout and turnover at epidemic rates. No wonder cream puff needed rest-and-recovery.

“What do you teach?” he asked, not just making conversation anymore.

“Art,” she said flatly.

They must eat her alive.

He wouldn’t mind a nibble himself.

But neither realization changed what he had to do.

Aleksy kept his voice low and his eyes level, inviting her trust. Implying a bond he was pretty sure she’d resist. “Well, then, I don’t need to talk to you about doing your public duty. Teachers, cops, social workers…we’re all on the same team.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been made painfully clear recently that I am not a team player.”

He grinned. “Funny, my lieutenant says the same thing about me.”

But Faye wasn’t laughing.

“Look, I don’t want to bother you,” Aleksy said. “I just need your permission to hang around for a few days.”

“A few days,” she repeated.

“Yeah.” Or a couple of weeks or however long it took to nail Karen’s murderer.

“Why?”

“I’ve got to keep an eye on some things and your place is convenient.”

“What kind of things?”

The hippie skirt and big lost eyes were deceptive. Under that flyaway blond hair, Faye Harper was sharp and stubborn. But when Aleksy was on a case, he was steel. He rubbed his jaw, pretending to consider. “I’m thinking the less I tell you about that, the less likely you are to be involved. You know?”

She frowned at having her own words turned back on her. “You promise I won’t be involved?”

Aleksy smiled, satisfied he had her. “You won’t even know I’m here,” he promised.

He lied, Faye thought three days later as she readied her paper for painting.

She couldn’t glance out her window or take out her trash without spotting Aleksy Denko ambling toward her woods or fishing from her dock. Even when he wasn’t there, the possibility that he might appear hurried her heartbeat and diffused her focus.

She pulled a half sheet from the soaking tray, holding it by one corner to drain the excess water.

It wasn’t that she was looking for him, she assured herself, giving the paper a gentle shake. Well, it wasn’t only that she was looking for him. Tall, dark and in-your-face was tough to miss.

She placed the sheet on the drying board and smoothed it from the center to remove air pockets, taking comfort in the familiar gestures and the flat blank page. Her painting might be lacking these days, but her preparation was faultless.

Clackety clackety clackety clackety clack.

Faye started, nearly tearing a corner of the wet paper. What on earth—?

The racket continued outside her windows, close to the house. Metal on metal, clackety clack. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she edged to the sliding doors and peered out.

Aleksy Denko, stripped to the waist, paraded across her strip of lawn, trundling her aunt’s old push mower in front of him. The rusty blades made a terrible sound.

But it wasn’t terror that dried Faye’s mouth and quickened her pulse. It was the sight of all that gleaming, hot male flesh five yards away outside her window.

Close enough—her breath stuck in her chest—to touch.

He passed her. The lovely long lines of his back disappeared into the damp waistband of his jeans. She could see his buttocks flex. He leaned over the mower, head bent, shoulders taut, putting his back into the job the way he would work a woman.

He reached the end of the row and turned, revealing his sweaty, abstracted face and his deep, powerful chest with its shadow of hair. Not a boy. Not just a man. All man.

My goodness. Teaching high school hadn’t prepared her for this.

His complete unawareness of her was both seductive and infuriating. He was a man mowing the lawn. Her lawn. And both the normalcy and the familiarity of the act pushed all her buttons.

It was intimate.

Unexpected.

Intolerable.

Ignoring the paper drying on the table, Faye rattled open the door and stepped out on the deck. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Aleksy stopped. He looked up, his dark gaze colliding with hers. Something—desire? anticipation? dread?—fluttered in Faye’s stomach.

He dragged his forearm over his sweaty face. “I’m mowing your grass.”

“I can see that. I want to know why.”

His full lips quirked in a smile. “Because it needs cutting?”

He was right. The lawn was disgracefully overgrown. And she’d meant to get around to it. Eventually.

“It’s not your responsibility,” she said, keeping her gaze on his face. Avoiding that hot, powerful chest.

He leaned on the mower handle. “So what? It makes your life easier. It makes my job easier, too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s good cover. I’m less conspicuous mowing your grass than lurking around your house.”

Her eyes flickered over his bare, broad shoulders, still winter pale, and his deep, muscled chest. He had a line of black hair, startling against his fair skin, that ran down his stomach and disappeared into… She jerked her focus back up.

“Not to me,” she said crossly. “You’re bothering me.”

“Am I?” His tone was amused. Satisfied. Dangerous.

Her face burned. “The noise,” she clarified. “The noise bothers me.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry. “You want me to stop?”

Leaning against the rail above him, Faye caught the mingled scents of cut grass and hot male. She had another funny tummy flutter. “Well…”

“It’s going to look bad if I quit now.”

Faye surveyed the partially mown yard. He was right. “Well, I guess you could finish.”

“Good.” He grinned at her. “I hate to leave anything half-finished.”

Her pulse pounded. That sounded like a warning. Or a dare.

Possibility expanded in her like orange pigment spreading on wet paper. Three months ago, she might have taken up his challenge. Three months ago, she had a naive faith in herself and an inflated sense of her own ability to deal with things.

Faye stepped back from the deck rail, instinctively hugging her right arm against her chest. She couldn’t deal with things anymore. She certainly couldn’t handle whatever this hot, half-naked man was offering.

“I’ll let you get back to it, then,” she said, and reached behind her back to fumble with the sliding door.

His gaze sharpened. His smile faded. “Faye—”

“I have work to do.” She turned tail and bolted like the coward she was.

It wasn’t just cowardice, she told herself. She needed to get that sheet taped down before it dried or her morning’s work would be wasted.

The pretty landscapes on the wall mocked her. Flat water. Empty sky. Her work was wasted anyway.

She pushed the thought away.

She cut the lengths of paper tape —clackety clackety, from the corner of her eye, she could see Aleksy, pushing, sweating—and pressed them to the edges of the drying sheet to stretch it —clackety clack as he passed the cottage again—and pinned the corners with thumb-tacks.

Silence.

Faye straightened. Her back ached. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Was he gone?

Pressing a hand to the small of her back, she walked to the doors. The sun beat down on the green, empty strip of grass.

Gone.

She was…relieved. Of course she was relieved. She refused to identify the sinking in her chest as disappointment. She turned back to her empty living room, but with all the quiet and time and space to create in she couldn’t bring herself to pick up a paintbrush. Maybe she would go down to the lake and take photographs?

Yes. She nodded to herself. That would ease this odd restlessness. She stuffed her feet into sandals, grabbed her camera from the narrow table behind the sofa and went out the sliding doors.

Aleksy sluiced water over his arms. Standing waist deep in the cold lake might help cure his sexual frustration, but it didn’t do a thing to relieve his itchy mood. After three days of surveillance, he had exactly nothing on Freer. No unexplained absences, no unknown visitors, no unauthorized stores of munitions in the gun dealer’s boathouse.

Aleksy needed some action. Now.

A break in the case. A roll in the hay. Anything to kill the mind-numbing boredom and make this exile in Pleasantville feel like something besides a colossal waste of his time. Mowing pretty Faye Harper’s lawn didn’t count.

He thought of the tiny blonde’s bare, arched feet, her wide, intrigued eyes and grinned. Now there was a woman who could provide a man with a little diversion.

Yeah, if he was dumb enough to let himself be distracted. Which Aleksy was not. Not yet. Not without some encouragement, anyway.

He dunked his head. And when he raised it dripping from the water, felt that unmistakable tingle at the back of his neck. His life preserver. The cop’s sixth sense. The awareness that someone, somewhere, was watching him.

Hell.

His sweat-soaked jeans were on the rocky bank behind him. His gun was out of reach, under his folded shirt. He’d better hope some vacationing tourist had stumbled on him skinny-dipping or he was in big trouble here.

He ran his hands over his face, like he needed to wipe the water from his eyes. He turned slowly, squinting through his fingers to scan the sloping bank.

The rocks were empty. His clothes were undisturbed. But a flash of pale blue—someone’s shirt, he guessed—drew his attention up the bank. There in the bushes, a camera in her hands and pure confusion on her face, stood little Faye Harper.

Aleksy grinned. The day was looking up.

He lowered his hands. “Like what you see?”

Her fair skin made her an easy mark. She blushed bright red. “I didn’t know you were here.”

He believed her. But he couldn’t resist teasing her. He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I didn’t!”

He smiled.

She lifted her chin and some of the cream puff air fell away. “I don’t think this arrangement is working. Frankly, Mr. Denko, you’re intruding on my privacy.”

He felt a moment’s regret. But she couldn’t get rid of him that easily. Not until he had proof one way or the other of Freer’s complicity in Karen’s death. “I’d go easy with the accusations, sweetheart. At least I’m not taking your picture in the buff.”

“I was not taking your picture.”

He gestured. “So, what’s with the camera?”

She looked down at the camera in her hands as if she’d never seen one before. He stifled another grin.

“Oh. I’m taking backup shots of landscapes.” Her voice gained confidence as she spoke. “To prompt my memory when I’m in the studio.”

That was actually kind of interesting. Which just went to prove he’d been standing in the water too long.

“Yeah, well, you better turn your back,” he said. “Or I’m going to give you something else to remember.”

Her face set in cool, disapproving lines. He could almost see how Miss Pixie might have kept order in a classroom.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m going into town now.”

“Running away?”

“Running errands.”

“That could be good,” he decided. After five days of bug bites and boredom, he was ready for a new angle. Karen’s lead only took him as far as the town. Maybe all this time, he’d been barking up the wrong tree. Staking out the wrong dock. “I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“It would be good cover,” he said.

“I don’t want you to come.”

So she was running away. Aleksy tried to find that encouraging. Maybe he got to her the way she, improbably, got to him.

He observed her stiff face and the way she held her right arm braced across her chest. Or maybe she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“Just into town,” he said. “You can let me out at—what is it?—Harbor Street.”

Faye shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve let you stay, but I won’t be involved in—in whatever it is you’re doing. You’ll have to drive yourself to town.”

The unnaturally red-haired woman behind the counter at Weiglund’s Camera—Greta, her name tag read—beamed at Faye as she popped her film into an envelope.

“You sure do take a lot of pictures for a single gal. Have you heard from your aunt Eileen yet?”

Faye blinked at the woman’s intrusive interest. Friendly interest, she told herself. It couldn’t hurt her. No one in Eden thought she’d done anything wrong. “I had a postcard from Galway. She thinks she’s found the parish where her grandmother was born.”

“Isn’t that exciting,” Greta Weiglund said, sealing the envelope and tossing it into a box behind her. “And do you like it at the cottage?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Not your first visit?”

“I— No. I used to come when I was a little girl.”

“I thought I remembered that,” Greta said with satisfaction. “Of course, you stayed with your auntie, then. Don’t you find it lonely now?”

Dear heaven. “No. Are my other pictures ready?”

“Let me just check. I heard the police were out there the other day. A trespasser, was it?”

Faye fumbled with her wallet. Living in Chicago, she’d grown used to fending off muggers, purse snatchers and panhandlers. But she was defenseless against Eden’s small town grapevine. “It wasn’t anything. A—a misunderstanding.”

Greta twinkled knowingly. “A young man, I heard. Are you seeing each other?”

Faye had a mental flash of Aleksy half-naked in the lake, the damp hair curling on his chest, his dusky nipples puckered with cold. Seeing each other?

“I— That is—”

I didn’t want to blow my cover, he’d told her. I’m working a case.

Faye bit her lip. “I guess you could say we see each other occasionally.”

Greta Weiglund nodded encouragement. “Isn’t that nice?”

It was awful.

Faye did not want to get involved. On her way back to the car, past the Rose Farms Café and Tompkins Hardware, she rehearsed to herself all the other things she could have said to deflect gossip.

I’m not sure who you’re talking about.

We’re just friends.

That’s Raoul. He does the yard work.

“Faye!”

A man’s voice. Calling her name. She froze. But it was only Richard Freer smiling at her from the gleaming glass entrance of his sporting goods store, as well-groomed and ruggedly handsome as a race car driver hawking motor oil.

Eileen Harper didn’t like him. “Cuckoos,” she called him and the other wealthy residents who bought up land across the lake to build newer, grander houses. But he was the closest thing to a neighbor Faye had. They seldom spoke, but he always waved when he saw her.

He strolled forward onto the sidewalk. “I know Eden’s not the big city, but I didn’t know you were so hard up for entertainment here that you’d started talking to yourself.”

She forced a smile. “Hi, Richard. Sorry. I was distracted.”

“I could see that.” He looked her over with the confident air of a man used to paying for—and getting—what he wanted. Faye caught herself stiffening and ordered her muscles to relax. He didn’t mean anything by it. And she’d given up taking stands over things she couldn’t control.

“I haven’t seen you on the lake,” he said. “What are you doing with yourself?”

She wondered if she should try out her yard boy explanation on him. No. “Nothing much.”

His gaze focused on the bag she carried. “Still taking pictures?”

They were neighbors, of sorts. He’d seen her out with her camera, and she’d explained about her painting.

“A few.”

“Heard you had some trouble at your place the other day.” He shifted closer and lowered his voice. “You know, a woman alone should always have protection at hand.”

He couldn’t mean… Condoms?

“No, ma’am, you don’t want to be caught unprepared if a situation arises suddenly where you need it.”

Faye goggled.

“A gun,” Richard said firmly. “A nice, light ladies’ handgun, that’s what you need.”

“Oh.” Faye’s breath escaped on a shaky laugh. “I don’t think—”

“You’ve got to take care of yourself. A couple of vagrants have been spotted at the lake. I’ve seen one myself, hanging around your aunt’s cottage.”

Her relief died. “Well, actually—”

“Hi, sweetheart.” Aleksy’s warm, rough voice broke into her explanation. His warm, heavy arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

And before she could get her mind or her tongue working, before she could react or protest or prepare, he bent his dark head and kissed her full on the mouth.

Chapter 3

He tasted like coffee.

He needed a shave.

And he had absolutely no business putting his tongue anywhere near her lips.

Faye registered all this in the brief, confused moments when Aleksy’s hard arm squeezed her shoulders and his mouth crushed hers. Wild heat bloomed in her chest and in her face. Indignation, she told herself. Had to be.

And then Aleksy released her and turned his careless, all-guys-together grin on Richard Freer.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Alex.”

“Dick Freer.”

They shook in a ritual less complicated but no less appraising than the high fives and hand signals of Lincoln High’s homeboys.

“Are you in town long?” Richard asked.

“As long as Faye will have me,” Aleksy said. And don’t you forget it, she thought, her lips still tingling from his kiss. “You?”

“I’m lucky enough to live here.” Richard straightened proudly against the plate-glass entrance. “This is my shop.”

“Guess you don’t get to travel a lot, then.”

Richard pulled in his jaw, creating an important-looking double chin. “Oh, I get around. Trade shows. Gun shows.”

Aleksy nodded. “Ever get down to Chicago?”

“Not often. Most of my business is selling shotguns and rifles to local sportsmen. And self-defense, of course.”

“What kind of self-defense are we talking about?”

“Whatever makes a man feel free and his family safe. Are you interested in guns, Alex?”

Faye wriggled out from under Aleksy’s arm. He was too close. This was too weird. And she wasn’t crazy about Dick Freer’s aggressive salesmanship, either.

Aleksy let her slide from under his elbow and then caught her fingers in his. “I could be,” he said.

Richard’s smile broadened. “Are you a gun owner?”

“Well, no. Not yet.”

Faye frowned. He was lying. Why was he lying? “We really need to go now.” Aleksy gave her a sharp look. She bit her lip. “Dear.”

He shrugged. “Okay, babe. Nice talking with you,” he said to Richard Freer.

“Come back and see me,” the dealer invited.

“Count on it,” Aleksy said.

Faye breathed a sigh of relief as they started down the sidewalk toward the tiny municipal parking lot. She caught a glimpse of their reflections in the window of the Silver Thimble—short, blond and flustered, barely keeping pace with tall, dark and annoyed—and was amazed that she’d stood up to him. But everything was all right now. In another minute she’d be in her car and going home. Alone.

“Do you mind telling me what the hell you were running away from back there?”

Indignation rendered her almost speechless. Almost. “Excuse me?”

“I wanted to talk with that guy.”

She dug in her canvas bag for her keys. “Why?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Exactly.” Her keys jangled in the bottom of the bag. “I don’t want to know. I can’t afford to get mixed up in whatever it is you’re doing.” Her hand closed on her keys but Aleksy was in her way, leaning against her door, arms folded indolently over his chest in this sort of macho slouch. Her pulse speeded up.

“I don’t want you kissing me, either,” she said.

“Fine.”

She searched his eyes. “I mean it.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re not my type.”

She raised her chin. “Really.”

“Yeah.” He grinned crookedly. “So you can relax.”

“I am relaxed. Or I will be, as soon as you leave.”

He jerked his head toward the broken line of cars. “I’m parked here.”

She looked. He drove a TransAm: low-slung, high-geared, dark and dangerous looking. Unsafe at any speed, she thought, and shivered.

“Then you won’t need a ride,” she said.

He uncrossed his arms. “Careful, cream puff. You might hurt my feelings.”

“I’m not worried. I’m not your type, remember?”

“No, but you are tasty.”

Three months ago she would have known how to answer him. She was still searching for a response when he pushed off from her car and strolled over to his.

“See you at home,” he called. The TransAm started with a testosterone-spewing roar.

Faye yanked on her car door. “Not if I see you first,” she muttered.

Which wasn’t at all the kind of I’m-in-charge-class comeback she was looking for, but she was out of practice.

Faye stepped back and surveyed her morning’s effort. She had hoped maybe this time she had something special: a moody blend of light and dark, a study in atmosphere. Her photos spread sharp and bright across the table. Her open sketchbook captured the creamy hull and coral sky reflected in the shifting surface of the lake at dawn. But when she looked at her painting, she saw only a flattened boat on overworked water. Murky. Muddy. Muddled.

Crud.

It wouldn’t even make good sofa art.

Let your work express your feelings, she used to lecture her students. The gnawing dissatisfaction of the past few months developed new teeth. Maybe her feelings were the problem. Maybe instead of letting herself be stalled by her painting and stumped by Detective You-Don’t-Want-to-Know Denko and just generally frustrated, she should pick up the phone and check on Jamal.

Faye winced and rubbed her wrist. She’d been holding a brush too long.

Or maybe she’d simply had it with this particular piece of work.

She needed…inspiration. She stretched once to get the kinks out, slapped shut her sketchbook and shoved it into her bag. She would take a walk down by the lake and clear her head.

“You know, for an artist, you don’t seem to spend a lot of time painting,” Aleksy said.

Below him on the bank, knee deep in the green brush, Faye Harper froze like Bambi’s mother about to get shot. Her head turned slowly.

And then she spotted him, propped against a tree trunk with his fishing pole and field pack. Her wide brown eyes narrowed in annoyance. “For a detective, you don’t seem to spend a lot of time investigating.”

Ouch. Bambi’s mom was packing heat.

Despite his frustration, Aleksy grinned. “I hit a snag.”

She picked her way over roots and rocks toward him. “Fish not biting?”

“I didn’t expect them to. No self-respecting striper’s going to feed in the middle of the day.”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

“Surveillance,” he said briefly.

“What are you looking for?”

He shook his head. “You don’t—”

“—want to know,” she finished for him. “Thank you. Is it safe for me to sit down next to you?”

His grin broadened. “Be my guest.”

Her skirt billowed and collapsed around her. She wore sandals on her narrow feet and a scoop-necked T-shirt that revealed the slight upper slope of her chest. Her face was pink and moist and she smelled like heat and spring flowers.

Tasty, he thought.

But not on the menu. He wasn’t on vacation, whatever his lieutenant said. And a cream puff art teacher with baby-fine skin didn’t fit into his plans or his future.

“Did you want something?” he asked.

“Yes. No.” She rested her arms on her knees and her neckline gaped, revealing the white line of her bra. Oh, man. He had definitely been sleeping in his car too long, if a glimpse of ladies’ underwear made him hard.

“I hit a snag, too,” she said.

“What kind of snag?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Probably not. He didn’t know squat about painting. But her automatic dismissal rankled.

“Try me,” he said, surprising them both.

He didn’t do intimacy. No way was he discussing art with a woman he wasn’t even trying to talk into bed.

“I’m not—I seem to be putting in a lot of effort without a lot of result,” Faye said.

Well, hey, okay. “I can relate there.”

She turned her head and looked at him. “Have you found…whatever it is you’re looking for yet?”

“Nope.”

“But you’re going to keep looking,” she guessed.

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Because he owed it to Karen. He owed it to himself.

“That’s my job,” he said.

“Shouldn’t you have help? I don’t know, but—a partner or something?”

His former partner was dead. Murdered. His current partner, Kenny Stivak, thought he ought to let the big boys handle the case. And Aleksy’s boss told him if he didn’t back off, he’d be busted down to directing Sunday traffic in the St. Wenceslaus parking lot.

“I don’t need help,” he said.

She sniffed. “That’s what my students say. Usually the ones who are most in danger of quitting. Or failing.”

“Well, I’m not going to quit and I can’t afford to fail, so you can save the lecture. Teacher.”

She flushed. She really had the damnedest skin, as fine and delicate as one of the teacups in his mother’s china cabinet. “I haven’t actually decided whether I’ll return to teaching next year.”

Now there was a surprise. “At Lincoln?”

She took a deep breath. “At all.”

Against his will, he felt the drag of interest. It wasn’t just that she was cute and he was bored. Faye Harper had…something, he decided. Smarts, maybe. Or guts.

Which made her comment about leaving teaching puzzling.

“How come?” he asked, figuring she’d say something about teacher burnout or the lousy pay or the school board cutting arts funding again.

“The principal and I didn’t see eye to eye on my handling of a student.”

“Parents?” Sometimes it helped in juvenile cases to get a kid’s family involved. Although, at Lincoln, where families struggled simply to survive, lots of parents no longer had the energy to care.

“The mother wouldn’t speak with me. The stepfather was more…forceful in his opinions.”

“He disagreed with you.”

Faye stared out over the water. “He broke my wrist.”

Aleksy was startled into bobbling his line. He made a grab for the pole. She was a tiny thing. No threat to anyone. What kind of man would raise a hand to her? Anger burned his gut. “You press charges?”

“No. It was an accident,” she explained. “He was trying to make me leave the apartment, and I—fell—down the stairs.”

“He pushed you, you mean. That’s aggravated assault.”

“It was an accident. At least…” Her left hand moved unconsciously to cover the wrist on her knee. The gesture made sense now. “The principal advised me it would be better to treat the incident as an accident.”

“Better for who?”

“For Jamal. My student.”

Aleksy was disgusted. “The one who caused the problem in the first place.”

She shook her head. “No. No, Jamal was never a problem. He was an excellent student.”

“Then, why—”

“He was an excellent student,” she repeated. “Talented in math. Brilliant in art. I pulled every string I had to get him accepted as a scholarship student at the Art Institute school.”

“So, what was the trouble?”

“Jamal’s parents—his stepfather—wanted him to go to a regular college and get a degree in business.”

Aleksy shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

“Yes. It sounded reasonable to everyone,” Faye said bleakly. “And heaven help Jamal if what was reasonable in this case wasn’t right for him.”

“So, what did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

It mattered, he thought. To her, if to no one else. Even if she hadn’t confessed she might ditch her job, he could see for himself the stress that haunted her eyes and compressed her mouth.

“Come on. What did you do?”

She stood, close enough that her skirt brushed his arm. His body reacted to her warmth and the scent that fell from her skirt. He hardly had to move his hand and he’d be touching her smooth calf, her warm thigh. He grinned a little at his own fantasy. He could reach right under all that flowery material and—

“I learned I had no business butting in where I wasn’t welcome,” Faye said.

Aleksy’s grin sharpened. She might feel down, but she definitely wasn’t out. “With that kind of attitude, you’d make a lousy cop.”

Her eyes met his, direct and sad, and his amusement cut off like a spigot.

“I made a very bad teacher,” she said. “Excuse me.”

He watched as she scrambled down the bank and back toward the cottage. Her pale legs flashed along the water’s edge.

He was losing his objectivity, damn it. She was just a convenience. And he was a cop. It was time he started thinking like one.

In his experience, only the very innocent and the very guilty ran from questioning. He wondered if anyone could be as innocent as Faye Harper seemed.

Or what she had to hide.

She was running away. Again. And it was beginning to tick her off.

Faye’s sandals slipped on shale and stone. She didn’t used to be such a loser.

She could have kept her mouth shut. She grabbed at a sapling for balance. Instead she’d let herself be lured by Aleksy’s hot dark eyes and easy grin. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by the promise of his understanding. She’d opened her big fat mouth and fallen in, and it wasn’t even his fault. Her hand came away sticky and smelling of tar.

Sure it was.

He was a detective. He probably knew all kinds of ways to get people—to get women—to talk to him. And she had. All it had taken were a few quick questions and a brief show of indignation, and she was right back where she didn’t want to be, revisiting a topic she’d promised herself was over and done with.

With relief, she saw her aunt’s cottage up ahead. Its weathered gray shingles and shabby trim shone in the sun. Ducks dozed in the shadow of the dock. All quiet. Peaceful. And hers, at least for the next few months.

Only now its peace had been disturbed. By Alex Denko.

She could have excused him for polluting the atmosphere with high level pheromones.

She couldn’t blame him for listening when she’d been willing to talk. Faye frowned. Anxious to talk.

But she could not forgive him for forcing her to see that, deep down, she still cared desperately about her job. About Jamal. And she must not care. Her health and her sanity depended on it.

She climbed the steps to the deck, one hand already digging in her bag for her keys. Sunglasses, sketchbook, wallet… There they were. She pulled them out and froze with the keys clutched in her hand.

The door was already open.

Not all the way, which explained why she hadn’t noticed it before. But there was a two-inch crack between the sliding panel and the aluminum frame, where she was sure—almost sure—she had pulled the door shut and locked it behind her.

Which meant… Which meant… Oh, dear. Her stomach hollowed.

Heart pounding, she took a deep breath, as if she could force oxygen to her brain to get it working. This wasn’t Chicago, she reminded herself. She wasn’t going to be assaulted in her aunt Eileen’s living room by some twitchy kid or strung out junkie desperate enough to follow her home.

But her door was undeniably open.

She peered through the dark glass at the shadowed interior. And there was no way she was going inside alone.

Slowly, she backed down the steps. When she felt the soft ground under her feet, she turned and started to run.

She didn’t have far to go.

The noise of her panicked passage must have traveled ahead of her. Faye was barely under the cover of trees when she saw Aleksy Denko prowling through the brush like a K-9 dog on high alert, head high, face grim. Despite the pole he still carried, no one in their right mind would mistake him for a casual middle-of-the-week fisherman.

She almost sank with relief. She waved instead.

He strode toward her and caught her elbows in both hands, steadying and supporting her. “You all right?”

“Yes. I’m—” spooked “—fine.”

His expression didn’t change. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I got back to the cottage and—” She swallowed. Was she overreacting? “Well, the door was open.”

“Did you lock it? When you left?”

“I think so.”

“Did you go inside?”

She felt like an idiot. “No.”

“Smart girl. Stay here.” He dropped her arms and loped away.

“Hey!” she yelled weakly. “Shouldn’t you call your brother?”

He ignored her. Or maybe he didn’t hear. Or maybe he figured he was saving her embarrassment, not calling in Officer Cowlick when there was nothing wrong except she was a neurotic nuisance who hadn’t latched her door properly.

But she had. She was almost sure of it.

Aleksy reached the tree line. Beyond him she could see a patch of sunlit grass and her aunt’s gray cottage. He slid out of his pack, laid down his fishing pole and pulled his gun from the small of his back.

Her breath caught in her chest. Oh, dear God.

She hurried forward. At the edge of the trees, she stopped. Stay here, he had ordered, and she didn’t have any better ideas.

It was like watching a movie, she thought. Aleksy disappeared along the side of the house, moving fast and low. Faye waited, her stomach churning, until she saw him come round the opposite corner.

He sort of flowed up the steps to the wooden deck and flattened himself against the wall, out of sight of anyone who might still be inside. He knocked on the weathered shingles.

“Police!”

No response. At least, none that Faye could hear.

He repeated the knock. “Police!”

He shoved the door back along its track and vanished inside. Faye waited with her heart in her throat and her hands pressed to her mouth. A minute crawled by. Two minutes.

Aleksy strolled out onto the deck. “You want to come tell me if you think anything’s missing?” he called.

She started to breathe again. She could do that, she thought, crossing the grass. Unless the thief had rifled through her aunt’s drawers…

She looked up into Aleksy’s expressionless face. “Is it bad?”

He jerked his head toward the open door. “See for yourself.”

She stepped over the aluminum threshold, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the change in light. She frowned in confusion.

Not bad at all. In fact—

“You still got your TV and VCR.” Aleksy’s voice behind her made her jump. “So your intruder wasn’t interested in fencing electronics. You might want to check your bedroom for jewelry.”

She hurried down the short, dark hallway, very aware of him stalking her. Her room looked the way she had left it, the comforter pulled up carelessly over the bright print sheets, her bottles and lotions arranged haphazardly on the dresser, her underwear spilling out of a drawer…

She flushed and scooped a pair of panties off the floor. “Sorry it’s such a mess.”

Aleksy propped his shoulder against the door. “Was it a mess when you left this morning?”

“Yes,” she confessed.

He smiled. “Anything missing?”

“I—” She did a quick survey of her dressertop, jerked open the drawer that held her jewelry. She stared at the tangle of silver chains and colored stones and dangly earrings, all of it pretty and none of it very valuable. “I don’t think so.”

“Too bad.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d feel better if you got ripped off.”

She stiffened with outrage and embarrassment. “I’m sorry if you feel I wasted your time.”

His mouth compressed. “You didn’t waste my time, cream puff. You definitely had an intruder. I looked at your frame. The door was forced. But if you didn’t get robbed, we have to assume whoever broke in was looking for something.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “Like me. Maybe somebody was checking for ID.”

She did not want to be involved. “Why would someone do that?”

“Could be somebody around here isn’t comfortable with strangers. Could be they made me as a cop.”

“That would explain why you were on my deck with your gun drawn shouting, ‘Police,’” she said dryly.

Chagrin drew his brows together. “Yeah, well, let’s hope they missed that. Your bad guys were probably off the premises by then.”

“I still don’t understand why they would search my cottage if they were looking for you.”

“They might have hoped to find my star or my gun. But I’m carrying those. Or they could’ve been after some sign that I’m really living here with you.”

“But you’re not,” she protested.

His eyes met hers, dark and direct. “Then we’ve got a problem, don’t we?”

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