All a Man Can Ask

by Virginia Kantra

  His dark, wary eyes flicked to the man behind her. “I don’t know, Miz Harper, I—”

  But she tugged him through the door, using her slight weight and a stream of conversation to nudge him toward the living room. Aleksy moved silently out of their way.

  “Why, you’re sweating,” Faye said. “What did you do, walk from Chicago?”

  Jamal adjusted his grip on his book bag. His hands shook slightly. “I took the train to, what is it, Eden. Walked from there.”

  “That must be five miles. No wonder you look hot.”

  “He looks high,” Aleksy said.

  Faye’s heart clutched. He did. Oh, he did.

  “Sit here,” she told Jamal, practically pushing him onto the couch. “I’ll get you a soda. Aleksy, could I speak with you in the kitchen?”

  He stalked behind her. “What?” he demanded as she closed the kitchen door.

  “I don’t want you saying things like that in front of Jamal.”

  “Like what? Like, he’s high? Take a good look, sweetheart. Shaky hands, rapid breathing, the sweats…”

  “It’s the visit. He’s nervous.”

  “It’s the drugs. He’s belligerent, too.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Is that any wonder, with the way you’re treating him?”

  Aleksy paced the short length of the kitchen. “What about the dilated pupils?”

  She’d noticed Jamal’s eyes, too. She sighed. “All right, I know he may be using. But—”

  “No ‘maybe’ about it.”

  “Just give me a chance to talk to him.”

  Aleksy thrust his hands in his pockets. “You’ll have to talk to Family Services, too.”

  “I am not reporting that child to the Department of Family Services!”

  “Not him.” Aleksy’s voice was suddenly serious. Quiet. “The stepfather. If the parents kicked the kid out, they could be guilty of neglect.”

  “But…he’s seventeen.”

  “Statute covers children up to eighteen years old. As a school employee, you’re obliged to report suspected cases of neglect. Or the court could find you guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.”

  She pressed her fingers to her eyeballs. “Oh, God.”

  Hard and sure, his arms came around her. She stiffened and then let herself lean on him, absorbing the thud of his heart and his unexpected comfort.

  “Call the department,” he urged. “Let them sort it out. They have the resources to help a kid like that. You don’t need to get involved.”

  “That’s what I told myself when I came here. Crawled here,” she corrected wryly, “to lick my wounds. Don’t get involved. Don’t get hurt.”

  Aleksy’s arms tightened around her. “It’s good advice.”

  She shook her head against his shoulder. “It didn’t work with you.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “Aren’t you?”

  Color moved across his cheekbones under his faint tan. “I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t want anybody else hurting you, either.”

  “Jamal needs my help.”

  His arms fell away. “He needs detox. And family counseling.”

  She tried not to mind the loss of his embrace. “And do you really think he’s going to get either one if he leaves here?”

  “He can’t stay. He’s a speed freak, for God’s sake. He could have hallucinations. He could turn violent.”

  She was shaken. But she refused to be discouraged. “He’s not that far gone.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t seen him in weeks.”

  She bit her lip. “I guess we’ll have to see how he does and deal with any behavioral problems as they arise.”

  “Damn it, Faye, I’ve got better things to do with my time than baby-sit the ‘behavioral problems’ of a seventeen-year-old junkie.”

  Familiar guilt stirred, and unfamiliar temper.

  She spoke carefully. “I’m sorry if Jamal’s presence hampers your investigation.”

  “It’s not only the case.” Aleksy took another frustrated circuit of the room. “You have to admit having him here complicates things.”

  Oh, yes, that was temper hissing under her skin. It forced her to turn and face him. To face what she was to him. And what she wanted to be.

  “What things?” Faye asked.

  He turned and looked at her. “Things. Us.”

  “You mean sex,” she said flatly. “You mean it might be difficult for two unattached adults to have sex with a sick child staying in the same small house.”

  Hell.

  Aleksy glared at her with equal parts anger and admiration. She made an unlikely warrior, this pixie art teacher armed with nothing more formidable than big brown eyes and good intentions. But she’d stabbed him that time. “I’m just pointing out that you already have a lot to deal with right now.”

  She raised her chin. “Then I’ll deal with it. Excuse me.” She brushed by him on her way to the refrigerator. “I promised Jamal I’d get him a Coke.”

  Aleksy’s jaw set. If he couldn’t scare Faye, then by God he would intimidate the kid.

  He tailed her to the living room and propped against the mantel, crossing his arms against his chest and looking mean.

  Faye ignored his badass routine. Crossing the room, she touched the boy gently on the shoulder. “Jamal? I’ve got your soda.”

  He twitched. “Huh? Oh. Thanks.”

  His hands were locked between his knees—to stop their trembling, Aleksy judged. The kid freed one to accept the glass. He took two sips and set it aside.

  His dark, dilated gaze fixed on Faye with painful hope. He didn’t look at Aleksy at all. “You sure it’s okay? Me coming here like this?”

  She sat on the couch beside him, stilling his hands between both her own. “I’m glad you came,” she said firmly. “But we need to talk about whether you can stay.”

  “I got no place else to go,” the boy said. “I told you. Ron threw me out.”

  “Your mother have anything to say about that?” Aleksy asked from his post by the fireplace.

  One shoulder jerked. “She pretty much says what Ron tells her to.”

  It happened. It happened all the time. Aleksy tried not to care. “Did you know if a teacher suspects a student is being neglected or abused, she has a legal obligation to report her suspicions to the authorities?”

  Faye stirred against the cushions of the couch. “This isn’t the time—”

  “So?” said the kid.

  Aleksy hardened his voice and his heart. “So, do you want Miss Harper to report your parents? Or would you prefer she got in trouble with the law?”

  Faye stood, her slim form almost vibrating with fury. “Okay, that’s enough. Why don’t you go do your job or something?”

  “I am doing my job,” Aleksy said doggedly. “I’m protecting you.” He turned back on the teen. “Well? Is that what you want?”

  Faye’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I said—”

  “No!” The word burst from the boy. He lurched to his feet. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t want— Ron didn’t really throw me out. I just said that so you’d have to take me in.”

  Score one for the big, bad detective. Except that the kid’s confession didn’t make Aleksy feel any better. And it didn’t seem to have any effect on Faye at all.

  “All right,” she soothed. “All right.”

  She put her slim arm around the boy’s big shoulders and urged him to sit. It should have looked funny, the tiny blond woman trying to mother the hyped-up, overgrown punk, but a hard, hot lump in Aleksy’s throat stopped him from laughing.

  “Do they know where you are?” Faye asked softly.

  “No.” The kid’s shoulders hunched. “We did have a fight. I didn’t make that part up. Ron was yelling and stuff. Well, you know how he is.”

  Faye’s hand crept to massage her wrist and Aleksy’s gut clenched.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”r />
  “So I got out before he did something I would have had to—” The boy’s gaze slid to Aleksy. “Anyway, I got out.”

  Aleksy uncrossed his arms. “Is there someone you can stay with until your stepfather cools down?”

  Faye’s face took on a confused, indignant look, like a cab passenger discovering his driver spoke only Farsi. “Me,” she insisted. “He can stay with me.”

  “Somebody else.” Aleksy spoke over her head to the boy. “A school friend. Family member, maybe.”

  “I could have crashed at my home crib,” the boy said with a gleam. “But I didn’t want to hang out with associates who are known to the police.”

  And score one for the punk.

  “You need to call and let your mother know where you are,” Faye said. “If she agrees, you can stay here, at least for the night.”

  Aleksy didn’t have to listen in the kitchen to know the phone call to Jamal’s parents did not go well.

  When Faye and the boy returned to the living room, she was stiff and unnaturally calm and he was jumpy.

  Although the kid’s agitation was probably caused more by drugs than by any conversation with his parents, Aleksy thought cynically.

  “What’s up?” he asked Faye.

  The corners of her pretty mouth tightened. “He can stay tonight. They’ll pick him up at Union Station tomorrow.”

  Good, Aleksy wanted to say.

  But since his was the minority opinion, he kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t a patient man by nature, like his brother Jarek. But his job had taught him that sometimes you had to play the waiting game to win. By tomorrow, the kid would be gone. That was victory enough for now.

  Faye summoned a smile for her temporary guest. He was a good-looking kid with a broad, handsome face, but right now he looked sweaty. Twitchy. Uncomfortable.

  “Do you want to go wash up?” she asked.

  He almost jumped at her offer. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be good.”

  “Bathroom’s down the hall and to the right,” she instructed.

  “Thanks.” He scooped his book bag from the couch and hustled for the door.

  Something—his eagerness, maybe, or the way he clutched that bag—tripped Aleksy’s internal alarm system.

  “Hang on.”

  The kid froze, face averted, shoulders braced.

  Aleksy strolled across the room, ready to grab him if he tried to bolt. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Nothing.” He eased the strap from his shoulder. “Clothes.”

  “Just clothes?”

  “No, man, not just clothes. I got toothpaste and stuff.”

  In a quick move, Aleksy grasped the bag’s dangling strap. “Mind if I have a look?”

  His tone was mild, but his grip was steel.

  “Why?” Faye asked.

  The kid already knew. It was all there in his eyes—the knowledge and the fear, the calculation and the desperate hope. But short of wrestling Aleksy for the bag, there was nothing he could do.

  With a resigned shrug, he dropped the bag to the floor. “Be my guest.”

  It didn’t take Aleksy long to find what he was looking for.

  He held up the blank prescription bottle half filled with red-and-yellow capsules. “What’s this? Cold medicine?”

  Faye made a soft, distressed sound.

  The kid flinched and dropped his gaze. Maybe he still cared what somebody thought of him.

  “What if I said no? What if I said I never saw those before?”

  What if?

  If the kid got charged with possession a second time, he’d be looking at a hell of a lot more than probation and a fine. Not to mention that Faye would probably never forgive the cop who busted him.

  Aleksy stood and pocketed the drugs. “Then I’d have to ask if that book bag was in your possession all day.”

  It was an out, and the kid, strung out and shaking, was still smart enough to take it.

  “I maybe could have left it on the bench at the station. Like, when I went to buy my ticket?”

  “I don’t have any way of proving you didn’t,” Aleksy said. “And since I’m not on duty and this isn’t my jurisdiction, I’m inclined to believe you.”

  He walked past the boy to the open bathroom door. Lifting the seat, he emptied the bottle of pills into the toilet and flushed.

  “You handled that very well,” Faye said as she scraped off their dinner plates into the garbage.

  Aleksy fought the surge of satisfaction her approval gave him. “Yeah, unless he has another stash we don’t know about.”

  Her expression clouded. “Do you really think—”

  “No,” he said, already regretting his flip remark. Just because he was uncomfortable playing Officer Sensitivity was no reason to worry her. “I don’t. But if I catch the kid so much as looking through your medicine cabinet for vitamins, I’m going to bust his butt.”

  She smiled but gave a significant nod toward the door. “Keep your voice down.”

  Aleksy stretched plastic wrap over a small bowl of leftover chili. “The kid’s crashed in front of the TV. He’s not listening to us.”

  “He must be exhausted.” Faye turned from the sink. “You don’t need to save that.”

  Aleksy tightened the plastic. “It’s good chili.”

  Not to mention that he appreciated that with her new painting and two able-bodied men in the house—well, one able-bodied man and a teenage junkie—she had taken the time to prepare and serve the meal. Despite her Goldilocks looks and artsy job, Faye was capable and kind.

  Mary Denko had approved, Aleksy remembered. She’s a nice girl, his mother had whispered as she hugged him good-bye in the hall of Jarek’s new house.

  The thought filled him with vague panic. He didn’t do nice girls.

  He thought of Faye, hot and half-naked, straining under him on the dock whispering Kiss me or die, Detective, and almost fumbled the bowl.

  He’d certainly “done” this one.

  “There’s not enough there for a meal,” Faye said.

  “Breakfast?” he suggested.

  She laughed and he felt better.

  As soon as this case was over, he was going back to his old life in Chicago. Back to chili for breakfast and Chinese for dinner and beer at the end of his shift.

  Funny, how quickly his satisfaction faded.

  “Anyway, I’m glad Jamal had a good appetite,” Faye said as she plunged plates into the soapy water.

  Aleksy closed the refrigerator door. “It takes them that way sometimes.”

  “What?”

  “The crash.” He hated to disillusion her, but it was better she be prepared. “He’ll feel tired. His sleep will be disturbed and he’ll either sleep a lot or not at all. Physical movements may speed up or slow down. Amphetamines are pretty unpredictable. He’ll be irritable, depressed, anxious…and that will probably start him using again.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I did a couple years on vice.”

  She shook her head. “I appreciate you have experience with drug users. But how can you predict what Jamal will do? You don’t know him.”

  “Sweetheart, the kid is a junkie.”

  She whirled on him with wet hands and fiery eyes. “You’re doing it again!”

  He stared at her, baffled and aggrieved. Why was she so mad? He was trying to help. “Doing what?”

  “Reducing him to a label. Do you realize you have not once, since he got here, referred to Jamal by name? It’s always ‘the kid.’ ‘The junkie.’” Her chin lifted. “Just the way you typed me as ‘the cream puff.’”

  Code Zero. Officer safety at risk, use caution.

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  At least, he was pretty sure he didn’t. Not to her face.

  “Right. Now it’s ‘sweetheart.’” She poked him in the center of his chest with one soapy finger. “That’s what you said last night. ‘Take me inside, sweetheart.’”

  “Hey.” He was stung. And s
urprisingly hurt. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

  “Why would I complain? You’re very good at what you do.”

  “Gee, thanks. But I didn’t do it by myself.”

  “No,” she acknowledged. “At first I thought you didn’t use my name because it saved you the trouble of remembering who was under you. No embarrassing slipups in the dark if you can call us all ‘sweetheart.’”

  He started to get angry. “Now, just a—”

  “But I think it runs deeper than that. I think you label people so you won’t have to deal with them. We’re all nice, neat little boxes to you. No messy individual bundles.”

  “What the hell happened to ‘You handled that very well’?”

  She removed her finger from his chest. “Well, I—”

  “Seems to me if I did have the kid—Jamal,” he corrected, “in some kind of box, I would have just charged him with possession.”

  Faye looked shaken.

  Aleksy was glad. He was shaken himself.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You damn well should be.”

  She glared. “Unless you did it to finesse me into bed.”

  “Maybe I did.” The admission made him furious with both of them. Why should he have to separate out his motives for doing her a good turn? Wasn’t it enough to help her? Wasn’t it enough to want her? “It didn’t work, did it?”

  She backed against the sink and crossed her arms under her breasts. “We’ll never know. I’m certainly not sneaking past a seventeen-year-old boy sleeping on my couch to have sex in the guest room.”

  He frowned. Did she mean if circumstances were different, she would have sex with him?

  “We could do it in your room,” he offered.

  “No, we could not. I won’t be pushed into a repeat of last night.”

  “I’m not trying to push you. If I was, we wouldn’t be standing here arguing. I’d do this,” he said, and crushed her mouth under his.

  He didn’t give her time, this time, to resist or argue. He took with familiarity and confidence. His tongue thrust. His mouth demanded.

  He was sleek and hard and hot, and Faye’s brain shut down, simply surrendering to the onslaught of sensation.

  When at last he lifted his head, she was trembling with shock. Outrage, she told herself, but her body gave her the lie. Everything inside her yearned and flowed for him.