by Marie Force
He never took his eyes off his daughter. “It sure is. Come give your old man a hug.”
Pained that he’d had to ask and embarrassed by Celia’s effusiveness, Sam got up and did her best to work around the chair. With her lips close to his ear, she whispered, “Thank you.”
“For?”
Sam pulled back to smile at him. “Love you.”
“When you’re not being mean to me, I love you, too.”
Two hours later, Sam was laboring her way through the report of the day’s activities on her laptop when Celia knocked on the door.
“Sorry to interrupt your work, but I thought you might enjoy some warm apple pie. It’s so darned cold out.”
Sam moaned. “Tell me it’s fat free, calorie free and can’t find an ass with a roadmap.”
Chuckling, Celia handed her the plate. “All of the above. I swear.”
“If the nursing gig doesn’t pan out, you might consider a life of crime. You’re a convincing liar.”
“You’ve made your father very proud tonight, Sam. He’s always proud of you, but he wanted this promotion for you. More, I think, than you wanted it for yourself.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Sam used a finger to swirl a dollop of whipped cream off the pie and pop it into her mouth. “Sometimes I feel so selfish where he’s concerned.”
Celia lowered herself to the edge of Sam’s bed. “How do mean? You’re here for him every day, despite a demanding, time-consuming job.”
“It would’ve been better…for him anyway…if the shot had been fatal. I can’t imagine how he stands living the way he does, confined to four small rooms and wherever he can go in the van the union bought him. But I wasn’t ready to lose him, Celia. Not then and not now. I thank God every day that bullet didn’t kill him. As much as I hate the way he has to live now, I’m so grateful he’s still here.”
“In his own way, he’s accepted it and come to terms.”
“I wish you could’ve known him.” Sam sighed. “Before.”
“I did,” Celia said with a smile, her pretty face blazing with color and her green eyes dancing with mirth.
“You’ve never told me that! Neither of you ever did!”
“I met him at the Giant, about two years before he was wounded. I helped him pick some tomatoes in the produce aisle, he asked me out for coffee and that was the start of a lovely friendship.”
Sam slipped into detective mode as she narrowed her eyes. “Just friends?”
Laughing, Celia said, “I’ll never tell.”
“You dirty dogs! How did you slide this by me? By everyone?”
“You weren’t looking,” Celia said, her expression smug. “Why do you think I asked to be assigned to his case?”
“You love him,” Sam said, incredulous.
“Very much. In fact, we’ve been talking about maybe…getting married.”
Sam’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? You said he’s been down lately, worried about something. Is this it?”
“It’s one of several things. He’s been terribly upset about what happened to you in the Johnson case and fretting over your safety as well as the promotion he thinks you’ve been due for some time now.”
“I wish he wouldn’t spend so much time worrying about me.”
“Sam,” she said with a smile. “You’re his life. His heart. He loves your sisters and their children very much, but you…”
“I know. I’ve always known that.”
“And you’ve always struggled to live up to it.”
Startled, Sam stared at her. “Been doing a lot more than nursing around here, haven’t you?”
“I hope I haven’t overstepped.”
“Of course you haven’t. You’re already family, Celia. I don’t know what we would’ve done without you the last two years.”
“So you wouldn’t mind too much if I married him?”
Sam put down the plate and reached for the older woman’s hand. “If you make him happy and can bring some joy to whatever time he has left, the only thing I can do is thank you for that.”
“Thank you,” Celia said, her eyes bright with emotion. “It matters to him, to both of us, that you’d approve.”
“I guess I need to get busy looking for another place to keep my clothes.”
“Why?”
“You crazy kids won’t want me underfoot.”
“He wants you to stay. We both do. There’s no reason for you to move out. I’ll take one of the other bedrooms up here. We’ll work it out. I’m here most of the time anyway. I don’t expect much will change.”
“This’ll change everything for him, Celia. It’ll give him a reason to keep fighting.”
“Perhaps. I’ll consider myself blessed for whatever time we get.”
“Did he bully you into telling me?”
“He was afraid it would upset you, so I offered.”
“You can tell him that not only am I fine with it, I’m thrilled for him. For both of you.”
“That means a lot, Sam. I’m tired of hiding it. He’s the most remarkable man I’ve ever known and the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Ditto,” Sam said with a smile as Celia got up to leave. “Thanks for the pie.”
“My pleasure. Don’t work too hard.”
When she was alone, Sam had to resist the urge to call her sisters to share the huge scoop that had just fallen into her lap. “Not my news to tell,” she muttered, deciding that maturity wasn’t much fun at all.
While Celia’s news had surprised her, Sam realized it shouldn’t have. With hindsight, she could see there was something special between her father and his devoted nurse. Their banter, the carefree caresses Celia showered him with even though he couldn’t feel them, the genuine affection.
Comforted by Celia’s disclosures, Sam finished the pie and turned back to her report. She ran through it twice more before she sent it off to Freddie, who always checked them for her before she passed them up the food chain. If he wondered about the random mistakes, odd phrasings or twisted wording, he never said. Rather, he corrected the errors and returned the reports to her without comment.
Might be time to bring him into the loop, she thought. Dyslexia had cast its long net over every corner of her life, and until its diagnosis in sixth grade, she had believed herself to be as stupid as she was made to feel by teachers who had no idea what to do with her and parents who had been frustrated by her less-than-stellar performance in school.
Giving it a name had helped somewhat, but the daily struggles that went along with it were exhausting at times.
With the report finished, she finally allowed her thoughts to drift to Nick. As if floodgates had opened, she was overwhelmed by emotions and yearnings she had managed to resist all day. She had a list of questions she wanted to run by him, so she had every reason to take out the card he had given her. The call was about the case, right? There was nothing wrong with reaching out to him in a strictly official capacity. If she was also dying to tell him about her promotion and her father’s pending marriage, what did that matter?
She flipped the card back and forth between her fingers for several minutes until her stomach twisted with the start of the dreaded pain. Thinking of the case and only the case, she dialed his cell number.
He sounded groggy when he answered.
“Oh God, did I wake you?”
“No, no.” A huge yawn made a liar out of him. “I was hoping you’d call.”
Deciding to keep it strictly business, she said, “I have some questions. About the case.”
“Oh.”
She winced at the disappointment reverberating from that single syllable. “You sound…I don’t know…kind of lousy.”
“It’s been a lousy day, except for the very beginning when I was with you.”
Without saying much of anything he had managed to say it all. And she knew she couldn’t tell him what she needed to tell him over the phone. “You’re at home?”
“Uh huh.”
/> “Do you mind if I come by? Just for a minute?”
“Are you at home?”
“At the moment.”
“You’re just going to ‘drop by’ all the way over here in Arlington? And only for a minute?”
“I need to talk to you, Nick. I need… Oh hell, I don’t even know what I need.”
“Come. I’ll be waiting. And babe? You don’t ever, ever have to ask first. Got me?”
She melted into a sloppy, messy puddle of need and want and desire. “Yeah,” she managed to say. “I’ll be there. Soon.” Her heart doing back flips, Sam reached for her weapon, badge and cuffs. She released her hair to brush out the kinks and primped for a few more minutes before she headed downstairs to tell her dad she was going into work for a while. Celia told her he was already asleep.
“He was especially tired tonight.” She held Sam’s coat for her. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Always.” Impulsively, she turned to kiss Celia’s cheek on her way to the front door. “See you.”
He’d turned on the outside light for her. A simple thing, but it evoked such a powerful sense of homecoming that Sam sat there for several minutes reminding herself of why she was there—and why she wasn’t. “It can’t be about you,” she whispered. “Not now. This is about finding justice for John O’Connor. Nothing more.”
But when Nick came to the door looking so…well…lost was the best word she could think of, nothing else mattered but him.
“Nick.” Closing the door behind her, she let her coat drop to the floor and reached for him.
They stood there, arms wrapped around each other, comfort seeping through to warm the chill she had brought in with her.
Raising her hands to his face, she looked up at him. “What is it?”
Shrugging, he said, “Everything.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ve gone from having every minute of every day programmed to not knowing what the hell to do with myself, which gives me way too much time to think.”
Even after what she had learned that day about John O’Connor, she was still able to feel Nick’s pain over the loss of his friend and boss. Used to his unflappable, polished demeanor, seeing him disheveled in a ratty Harvard T-shirt and old sweats was jarring. Sometime in the course of that long day, the shock apparently wore off and gritty grief set in.
“I’m glad you’re here.” He shifted to press her against the closed door. “I’ve been worried about you. That stuff in the paper…”
“We’re handling it.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being unsafe.” The light caress of his hand on her cheek caused her heart to lurch. He leaned in, bringing with him the scent of spice and soap.
“Nick, wait—”
His lips came down hard and insistent on hers, sucking the breath from her lungs and the starch from her spine. If he hadn’t been holding her up with the weight of his body, she might have slid to the floor. Somehow he maneuvered them so her legs were hooked over his hips, his hands were full of her breasts and his tongue was tangled up with hers—all in the scope of thirty seconds.
Having forgotten everything she’d vowed in the car the moment she saw his grief-stricken face, Sam wove her fingers through his damp, silky hair and pressed hard against his straining erection. Then they were moving, falling. She yelped against his lips and clung to him as he lowered them to the sofa.
Tearing at clothes, desperate for skin, for contact, for relief, they wrestled through layers until there was nothing left between them but raging desire.
“You’re just like I remembered.” His tongue darted in circles around her nipple, and his hands seemed to be everywhere at once. “Tall and curvy and strong…soft in all the right places.” Nick gazed with reverence at breasts that had always seemed too big to her, but he appeared to like what he saw.
Need zipped through her, leaving her desperate and panting. “Nick…” She tugged at him to align them for what she wanted more than the next breath. “Now.”
“Condom,” he said through gritted teeth. “Wait a sec.”
She stopped him from getting up. “I’m on the pill. We get tested—”
“So do we.” He slid one arm under her shoulders while his other hand cupped her bottom and tilted her into position to receive him.
Overwhelmed by desire, Sam let her legs fall open to take him in.
He held her gaze as he entered her with one swift stroke.
She cried out as an orgasm ripped through her with more force and fury than anything she’d ever experienced.
He froze. “Oh, God, did I hurt you?”
“No, no! Don’t stop. Please.”
Watching him, feeling him, there were no recriminations. There wasn’t room for thoughts of anything but him as he began to move, slowly at first and then faster as his closely held control seemed to desert him. She remembered that from the last time, how he’d let go with her, in a way she suspected he didn’t often allow himself.
With his arms wrapped tight around her, he pounded into her, the smack of flesh meeting flesh the only thing she could hear over the roar of her own heartbeat.
Sam met each thrust with equal ardor, and when he sucked hard on her nipple, she cried out with another climax that took him tumbling over with her.
“Jesus,” he whispered when he’d recovered the ability. “Jesus Christ. I didn’t even offer you something to drink.”
She laughed and tightened the hold she had on him, letting one hand slide languidly through soft hair still damp from an earlier shower. “What kind of host does that make you?”
“A crappy one, I guess,” he said, turning them over in a smooth move.
Stretched out on top of him, still joined with him, Sam breathed in his warm, masculine scent and reveled in the comfort of strong arms wrapped tight around her. It was almost disturbing to accept that she had never experienced anything even remotely close to this, except during the one night she spent with him so many years ago. How foolish she had been then to assume that what she’d shared with him would show up again with someone else. She was wise enough now, old enough, jaded enough, to know better.
But even as the woman continued to vibrate with aftershocks and tingle with the desire for more, the cop resurfaced with disgust and dismay. “This was a very bad idea,” she muttered into his chest.
He curled a lock of her hair around his finger. “Depends on your perspective. From my point of view, it was the best idea I’ve had in six years.”
Sam studied him. “It must be the politician in you.”
Eyebrows knitting with confusion, he said, “What must?”
“The way you always seem to have the right words.”
He framed her face with his big hands. “I’m not feeding you lines, Sam.”
His sweet sincerity made her heart ache with something she refused to acknowledge. “I know.” The emotions were so overwhelming and new to her, she did the first thing that came to mind. She tried to escape.
His arms clamped around her like a vise. “Not yet.” He brushed his lips over hers in a gesture so tender it all but stopped her heart. Her eyes flooded with tears that she desperately tried to blink back. “What?”
She shook her head.
“Sam.”
Letting her eyes drift up to meet his, she said, “I like this. I know I shouldn’t because of everything…but I like it.”
“Sex on the sofa?”
“This.” She had to look away. It was just too much. “You. Me. Us.”
“So do I.” He kissed her softly. “So does this mean we’re together now?”
A stab of fear went through her. She just wasn’t ready for the magnitude of what this had the potential to be. “Why does it need a label? Why can’t it just be what it is?”
Once again, the flash of pain she saw on his face bothered her more than it should have. “And what is it exactly, Sam? I want far more from you than just a sex buddy.”
“That might be all I can give you
right now.”
He sighed. “I suppose I’ll take whatever I can get.” When his lips coasted up her neck, he made her shiver. “We could move this somewhere more comfortable. There’s a big soft bed in the other room.”
Her stomach ached as reality stepped in to remind her of why she’d needed to see him. “There’re things we need to talk about. Stuff about the case.”
“We’ll get to it. Can I just have a few more minutes of this first?”
Because he seemed to need it so much, she said, “Okay.”
Chapter 20
The bed, as advertised, was big and soft. How he managed to coax her into it was something she planned to think about later when she reclaimed her sanity. It would be so easy, so very easy indeed, to curl into him and sleep the sleep of the dead. But the grinding sensation in her gut was an ever-present reminder of the conversation she needed to have with him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as his talented hand worked to ease the tension in her neck.
“Nothing, why?”
“I had you on the way to relaxed, and now you’re all tight again.”
“We need to talk.”
“So you’ve said. I’m listening.”
“I can’t do cop work naked.”
Laughing, he said, “Is that in the manual?”
“If it isn’t, it should be.”
Sitting up, he reached for the pile of their clothes he had deposited on the foot of the bed, found the T-shirt he’d been wearing when she arrived, and helped her into it. “Better?”
Engulfed in the shirt that carried his sexy, male scent, she was riveted by his muscular chest. “Um, except you’re still naked.”
“I’m not the cop.” He reached for her hand, brought it to his lips. “Talk to me, Sam.”
The dull ache sharpened in a matter of seconds.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, alarmed. “You just went totally pale.”
“It’s nothing.” She tried and failed to take a deep breath. “Just this deal with my stomach.”
“What deal?”
“It gives me some grief from time to time. It’s nothing.”