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“Lieutenant McCord,” a reporter shouted, “are you trying to tell us that Michael Valente should never have been a suspect in Logan Manning’s murder?”
Sam giggled at Mack’s quick, incisive response. Instead of answering, Mack looked at his audience and said with amused disgust, “Does anyone have an intelligent question?”
“Exactly what was Michael Valente’s involvement in Manning’s murder?” another reporter yelled.
“Does anyone here know the definition of ‘intelligent’?” Mack countered. “Last question,” he warned.
“Lieutenant McCord,” a woman’s voice called, “would you care to speculate on the current relationship between Michael Valente and Leigh Manning?”
Mack’s grin was lazy, baffled, and mocking. “Can you think of any reason on earth why I would care to do that?”
With that, he moved away from the microphones and strode off through the crowd, his broad shoulders clearing a path through the crush of reporters, photographers, and onlookers.
Sam pressed the rewind button again while she contemplated this recent proof that Mack did not suffer fools lightly. Her smile faded a little as she wondered if he was perhaps equally intolerant and unforgiving of a subordinate—namely, her—who’d knowingly circumvented his wishes tonight by telling Shrader and Womack the details of the Trumanti-Valente issue.
She was still wondering uneasily about that when the buzzer at her apartment door rang. It had to be Mack, she thought as she raced through the living room. Her doorman would have stopped anyone without a badge and insisted on phoning her first before letting someone up to Sam’s apartment.
Forgetting that she was wearing a robe, she glanced out the peephole while she unlocked her apartment door; then she yanked it open.
Mack was standing there, his right hand braced high against the doorframe, his expression as enigmatic as his opening remark. “Don’t you normally check to see who’s standing out here before you open your door?”
“I knew it was you,” Sam explained.
“Good, because I’d hate to think you open your door to just anyone wearing—” His gaze dipped to the expanse of smooth bare skin above her satin lapels. “—that.”
Sam self-consciously pulled the lapels closer over her breasts and tightened the belt. “It’s a robe,” she explained foolishly and defensively. Then she smiled at her own absurdity and stepped back. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, certain that he would say yes.
“No,” he said.
Sam looked at him in surprise. “Then why are you here?”
He took his hand down from the doorframe, and she saw her cell phone in his palm. “I came to return this,” he said evenly. “And also to make sure you were doing all right after—what happened tonight.”
Sam wasn’t certain whether he was referring to what happened to Jane Sebring or to his attitude toward her after she told Shrader and Womack about Trumanti. She studied him in silence, wondering why all her expertise on males never worked when Mack was involved. The Manning case was over, therefore, they could begin, but evidently Mack wanted to rethink the matter—or else he wanted to nurse a grudge for what she’d done. Or else he was simply exhausted from an incredibly long, stressful day. Whatever the case, she gave him the only answer she felt was appropriate: “I’m fine,” she assured him, taking her cell phone from his outstretched hand, but she gave conversation one last try. “I saw your interview and the mayor’s statement,” she said softly, smiling. “It looks like you’ve won your battle with city hall already.”
He nodded, his gaze shifting momentarily to the hair spilling over her shoulder; then he stepped back away from the door. “That’s the way it looks,” he agreed.
Mentally, Sam decided to let the unpredictable male in her hall walk away and the hell with being in love with him, so she was understandably startled when she heard herself say, “Are you angry with me for telling Shrader and Womack about what Trumanti did?”
“I was,” he admitted, “earlier.”
That did it. Sam never lost her temper—except with him. Folding her arms over her chest, she leaned against the doorframe. “Then it’s just as well we never got started, Mack, because there’s something about me you don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“I have a brain,” she informed him. “Every morning when I wake up, it wakes up, too, and starts working. I don’t know why, but it just does. Since you had not specifically ordered me never to tell Shrader and Womack about Trumanti, my brain decided tonight—rightly or wrongly—that it was the correct thing to do. I’m sorry,” she said, feeling suddenly sick and eager to retreat to her apartment. “I really am. Thanks for coming by and returning this—” She waggled the cell phone in her hand, smiled to show him that she wasn’t upset; then she stepped back into the apartment and started to close the door.
He stopped it with his hand. “Now let me ask you a question. In fact, I have two questions to ask you. First, by any chance, are you upset because I’m not coming in?”
“No,” Sam lied emphatically.
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“Good,” he retorted. “Because I am trying my damndest to live up to the spirit of the bargain I made with you yesterday. I gave you until the Manning case was over to decide if you wanted to be with me, but I never imagined it would be over so soon. And while I’m on the subject, I think that after what happened between us last night, your remark just now that ‘it’s just as well we never got started’ was either heartlessly flippant or else it was a final decision. Which was it?” he demanded shortly.
Sam felt an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh hysterically because she could not seem to maintain a grasp on what was happening.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Sam.”
“In that case,” she replied, “I would have to pick ‘heartlessly flippant.’?”
His jaw relaxed a little. “Don’t do it again,” he warned.
“Don’t give me orders, Lieutenant,” she shot back smoothly. “Not on personal matters. You said you had two questions; what was your second question?”
“Are you naked under that robe?”
Sam blinked at him, more disconcerted and more amused than ever. “Yes. And what possible difference does that make?”
He shook his head and backed up a step. “I can’t believe you can ask me that. Last night, I barely managed to keep things under control when I had several imperative reasons to stop. Now I have none of those reasons except that we had a bargain, and I intend to keep it. Take your time deciding about us, Sam, and when you’ve made up your mind, then you can invite me in.”
“Is that all?” Sam asked dryly, “or do you have any other orders to give me?”
“One,” he said. “The next time you invite me in when you’re wearing a robe, you’d better be damned sure you want me to stay.” His gaze dipped to her lips, dropped to the shallow cleft above the crossed lapels of her robe; then he lifted his smoldering gaze to hers and shook his head. “I’m going home now, while I’m still fit to drive.”
