“While I’m thrilled you’ve changed your life,” he said, muscling his way in with ease. “I’m a little confused.”
“You’re confused?” This entire evening had been a bad night mare. The break-in. Calling Sam-why had she called him? And then him finding her in her little pathetic huddle in the tub. She was stronger than that. “I have no idea what’s happening to me,” she said, feeling baffled.
“You need rest.”
“No.” She said what was really bothering her. “Sam, I don’t want to die and not have really lived.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“We all die. I enrolled in college. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“Okay. College is good.”
“I don’t intend to back off when it comes to your suspect.”
“Angie-”
“I don’t,” she repeated firmly.
“Yeah.” He moved in closer, let out a sigh and gently slid his arms around her for a hug that was shockingly welcome. “I already knew that.”
When she set her head on his shoulder, he sighed again. “I’m sleeping on your couch.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
“I’ll turn on all the lights. No biggee.”
“I’m staying,” he said, and this time he put his finger on her lips. “Don’t argue with me.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “I imagine not many would dare.”
“You would.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself. So…you’re sleeping here.” When she spoke, her lips slid over his fingers.
Electrified, they both shivered.
“Yeah,” he said. “On-”
“The couch,” she finished for him. “You’ve mentioned.”
“Just do me a favor. Don’t come out in the morning in your towel. I’m going to do my damnedest to act like the professional I am.”
Chapter 8
They cleaned up the apartment a little. Then Sam spent a long night on the couch, staring at Angie’s living room ceiling, wondering what she was doing in her bed, wondering what she was wearing, how she looked… It was so damn juvenile.
Determined to think of some thing else, anything else, he flipped over…and fell off the couch. He spent some time swearing, before climbing back up and trying again. Tossing restlessly, he finally napped.
He rose at dawn. He crept down the hall and stared at Angie’s closed door, his hand on the handle before he got a grip on himself and turned away.
In the kitchen, he grabbed a pad and pencil, then stared at them, wondering what to say.
That he needed to get out before he saw her rumpled and sexy from sleep? That he didn’t know how long he could resist the temptation, no matter how good his intentions?
He finally settled on one brief line, telling her to call if she needed him, and that he’d be in touch. Then he left, without looking back.
Luke was waiting for Sam in his office, halfway through a chocolate doughnut and a large cup of black coffee. “Tried calling your place this morning,” he said.
“Didn’t hear the phone.” Sam dug into the box of dough nuts and grabbed the spare cup of coffee.
Luke waited until he’d gulped a substantial sip of the really terrible but powerfully caffeinated brew. “Hard to hear the phone when you’re wrapped around a woman.”
In the middle of a swallow, Sam choked.
Luke set down his doughnut to smack Sam on the back. “Didn’t mean to nearly kill you.”
“I wasn’t wrapped around a woman,” he managed when he could get air down his burned windpipe. “I was at Angie’s.”
Luke lifted a brow.
“She was scared.” Sam stared down at the jelly doughnut in his hand and scowled. “So I stayed, damn it.”
“Then why are you still so uptight?”
“I slept on the couch.”
“Ah.” Luke, damn him, grinned at that. “What was wrong with her bed?”
“It’s not like that between us.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not.”
“Fool yourself if you want to, buddy, but you can’t fool me.”
Sam pointed to the door. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Sure.” Luke tossed him a file. “The calls made to Angie’s cell? All from a payphone across the street from her work.”
Sam stared at him as that sank in. “Or across from the book store.”
“Or the book store,” Luke agreed with a nod. “Tied into our case then, you’re thinking?”
“Oh, yeah. God knows, she’s made herself visible enough. She’s told people she recognized a suspect, that she’s hoping to see him again. And with her place being trashed last night…”
“She wasn’t hurt?”
“No.” He swore softly and shoved his fingers through his hair. “Nothing was stolen either. So were they searching for some thing or…?”
“Trying to scare her.”
They’d been finishing each other’s sentences for years. Hell, no one else could. Not their families, not their lovers-
But Angie could.
Not anxious to follow up that thought, Sam headed toward the door. “Let’s go visit our John again.”
“Right behind you.”
John was a tall, wiry, spectacled twenty-year-old with a sweet smile that faded fast when Sam and Luke flashed their badges.
“Dude…I paid my tickets.”
“This isn’t about your tickets,” Luke said. “A little birdie told us you knew some thing about getting new IDs.”
John’s expression went blank.
Sam rolled his eyes. “And I suppose you don’t recognize this guy.” He showed him the composite drawing of their suspect.
“Never seen him.”
“Okay, let’s try this,” Sam said. “Where were you last night at approximately ten o’clock?”
John paled. “Here. Right here.”
“Wrong,” Sam said. “
“Okay, I was on my way here.”
“Got a witness?”
Now he went a little green. “Do I need an attorney?”
“You tell us,” Luke said. But he smiled easily. “Tell you what, John. Just answer a few questions and we’ll go away. Fair enough?”
“Uh…” John divided an uneasy glance between the two men standing before him, one smiling nicely, one still as
