Serving Up Trouble

death. “Okay.”

“You’re a student at P.C.C., right?”

John nodded.

“That’s good, really good,” Luke said. “So…why do you live so far from campus?”

“Money,” John said. “My parents own this building. They let me stay here rent free as long as I’m going to school.”

“And last night you were…where?” Sam raised one brow while he waited, not exactly the same picture of patience as Luke.

“I…can’t say.”

“John, John, John…” Luke tsked. “That’s not good.”

“Want to go to jail, John?” Sam asked.

“No.” The kid put his forehead to the doorjamb and closed his eyes. “I was with…”

“Just spit it out.”

“Jeremy.”

“Jeremy,” Sam repeated care fully.

“My…boy friend.” John squeezed his eyes tighter. “You’re not going to, like, make me tell anyone else, right? My parents don’t know yet.”

“We’ll need a place to reach Jeremy,” Sam said. “If you’re telling the truth, it won’t go further.”

John lifted his head. “I’m telling the truth. I wish my roommate had been with us to verify everything, but he’s out of town. So what’s this about anyway?”

“Roommate?” Sam asked, getting very interested. “What roommate?”

“John? He’s out of town, but due back tomorrow.”

“You’re both named John?” Sam asked, looking at Luke. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”

Remarkably, Angie woke with a tentative surge in her sunken spirits. Lying in bed, studying the dance of early-morning sunlight playing across her ceiling, she decided she wouldn’t let the break-in keep her down.

In fact, she’d do with it just as she’d done with the holdup. Use it to feed her strength and newfound determination.

And she would see this through. Obviously, she’d gotten to someone, and she didn’t care. She wouldn’t be frightened away from seeing justice served, not if she could help.

And then there was what had come after the break-in. The kiss. The amazing, brain-cell-destroying, bone- melting kiss.

And the way Sam had touched her…oh, boy. There was going to be some trouble resisting him, that was certain. Especially since he cared for her. No one could have looked at her as he had and not cared deeply. But it wasn’t going to work, because he’d never let her in, not really. And she couldn’t settle for less.

Was Sam still asleep on her couch? Lord, she hoped so. She wanted a chance to stare at all the long, lean, tough masculinity without him knowing. She wanted to drink in her fill.

And then walk away.

That part would be hard, but she was a grown up. She could do it. Tiptoeing into the living room, she was breath less already, and she hadn’t even gotten a look at him yet.

She hoped he slept in the nude.

At that thought, she had to laugh at herself. Then sighed in disappointment at the empty couch.

She saw the note and sighed again.

Call if you need me. I’ll be in touch.

Sam

Hmm, sounded like a promise. Too bad he was a man who didn’t make them.

Josephine was waiting in the kitchen when Angie finally arrived. “You look pretty good for a woman whose apartment was broken into last night.”

“How did you hear about last night?”

“The hunk called for you.”

Angie set down her purse, picked up her apron and pre tended her heart hadn’t picked up speed. “Hunk?”

“Oh yeah.” Josephine waved a wooden spoon. “Tell me everything, starting from the be ginning.”

“Sam called here for me?”

“You got another hunk sniffing around I don’t know about?”

Angie leaned back against the refrigerator and tried to decide how she felt about Sam leaving before she woke, and then calling her. “He is pretty hunky, isn’t he.”

“He wanted to make sure you got here okay, so call him back.”

“Yes, I will. But it’s not going to be like that between us.”

“Of course it is. He looks at you.” Josephine fanned herself. “I mean really looks at you.”

“Only because, for the most part, I drive him insane.”

“For the most part?” Josephine looked very curious. “And what do you do when you’re not driving him insane?”

Kiss him until I can’t remember my name. “Oh, stop looking at me like that.”

“Well, someone has to.” Josephine came close, cupped Angie’s face in her big hands. “Honestly, honey, I thought you were stronger than that. But the truth is, you still don’t believe in yourself.”

“I do believe in myself. So much that I want more for myself this time around. I want respect, Josephine. Affection.” She sighed. “Love.”

“So?” Josephine lifted her hands. “Go get it.”

If only it was that simple. But with Sam, it wouldn’t be. He’d been through too much, seen too much. He’d made up his mind not to open his heart, and though she could almost understand why, after all he’d been through, she also knew nothing she could do or say would change anything. “He doesn’t have it to give. We’re just… friends.”

“Friends don’t keep stopping by for coffee and then stare at you when you’re not staring at him.”

“He comes here because I keep seeing his suspect. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It is.” Angie peered out the window and studied the alley, as she did every morning, wondering if she would see the guy yet again. Wondering if Ellie or George had seen him since she’d gone over there and asked them to keep their eyes open. “So stop match making.”

“Over my dead body,” Josephine muttered beneath her breath when Angie went into the dining room to take orders. “Over my dead body.”

Other than the fact that Angie found herself craving a man who wasn’t good for her, and oh yeah, someone was out there trying to scare her, things were perfect.

She was, after all, alive, right? Right. In light of that, she impulsively ate pastrami instead of lean turkey for lunch. She had high-fat barbecue potato chips to go with it.

And then she drove to the library to see if the latest mystery had come in.

Lie. She wanted to see the woman who’d deserted her son. Sam’s mother.

Behind the reference desk sat a woman nose deep in a stack of books. She had long, dark hair streaked with gray, which was pulled back by clips that didn’t stop it from falling over her shoulder.

As Angie came closer, the woman looked up with sharp, light brown eyes and an easy smile.

Both stopped Angie in her tracks. She knew those eyes, that smile. “You’re Sam’s mother.”

The woman opened her mouth, then slowly closed it again. Her expression went from helpful to un welcoming in two seconds flat. “Who are you?”

“Angie Rivers. You…he looks like you.”

Her mouth tightened. “Sam is young and ridiculously handsome. We look nothing alike.”

Angie sat in the chair in front of the desk. “Oh, but you’re wrong. I knew right away. It’s in the eyes. There’s no mistaking it.”

“I…see.” Sam’s mother set down her pencil. “What do you want?”

There was no way to ease into this conversation. “I guess I want to know why you don’t talk to him. Why you don’t call him.”