She picked up her pen. Both men remained flummoxed. When it became blatantly apparent she wasn’t going to change her mind, Koontz stormed for the door. He slammed it behind him, which Sandra took as his way of getting in the last word. Mike had to open the door back up to pass through it.
At the last minute, Mike turned. The lines were back around his eyes. He looked strained, but he also looked grateful. He said simply, “Thank you.” And then he was gone.
Alone at last in her office, Sandra set down her pen and regarded her closed door. She didn’t know if she had just done the right thing. Koontz hated her. Maybe it would have been best to remove him from Mike’s life. It probably would have made things easier for her.
Except that Mike would have been hurt, and she couldn’t bear to do that to him.
Maybe she was older and wiser after all. Maybe she could grasp the spirit of compromise.
Of course, she thought ruefully, she was still spending the night alone.
“Wait up.” Mike caught up with Koontz just inside the parking garage. Rusty was walking fast and looking ready to spit nails.
“Buzz off, Rawlins.”
“Like hell.”
“Don’t you got a hot date tonight?”
“Not if you stand me up.”
Koontz came to a screeching halt. “Oh, no,” he said, “don’t you treat me like that. I’m not your pity date, Rawlins, the third wheel to fill in if Sandy’s got other plans. I’m your partner. You’re either in or out.”
“I said yes, Koontz. You’re the one who got mad.”
“You hesitated!”
“I’m human.”
Koontz scowled, still not looking mollified. Mike finally lost his temper.
“What do you want from me? You’ve been on my case since the minute Sandra walked through those doors. So you don’t like me getting involved with her. So you don’t like her. You don’t have to. It’s
my
life.”
“Oh, so now you’re getting all uppity. Your personal life is your personal life and I suppose mine is mine, too.”
“Of course.”
“Then what the hell were you doing calling me a racist!”
“Talking to you about your job!”
“Well, there you go. Sandy’s part of the job now, too.”
Koontz started walking again. Mike swore and caught his partner’s arm. He said forcibly, “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Destroy us. Eight years, Koontz. Eight years. We’ve been a good team.”
Rusty finally looked undecided. His feelings remained hurt, however. He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m not a racist,” he growled.
Mike didn’t say anything.
Rusty bowed his head. “Dammit, I don’t know what I am. I hate this PC world! Hate it!”
“I’m no expert at this stuff, either,” Mike said quietly.
“After what you went through with your uncle—I don’t know. Maybe you need to talk to someone about that. Get a better perspective on things.”
“You mean like a shrink?” Koontz sounded as if he was strangling.
“Yeah! Maybe. Hell, I don’t know.”
“You,” Koontz said, “have been spending too much time around women.”
Mike shrugged, Koontz scowled harder. “I hate Sandy.”
“No kidding, Rusty. And for the record, she hates you, too.”
Rusty blinked, obviously taken aback by this blunt disclosure. Then his lips twitched. For some reason, the news that the animosity was mutual amused him. That Sandy disliked someone was probably the first thing about Sandy that Koontz could understand.
“She’s got a mouth on her, Rawlins,” Rusty said after a moment.
“It reminds me of someone else I know.”
“Yeah, but she always wants the last word. How do you put it up with that?”
“Pretty much the same way I put up with you.”
“Sandy and I really do go at it,” Rusty acknowledged.
“Maybe it is kind of fun, goading each other on.” Rusty looked at Mike abruptly. “Kind of sucks to be you, though, doesn’t it.”
“Yeah,” Mike said softly. “It kind of sucks to be me.”
Rusty finally looked chagrined. He gazed off into the distance. He shook his head. “Why didn’t she just let us split up?” he said finally. “It’s gotta make her life easier. You go your way, I go mine. She can have you all to herself. I mean, what’s she trying to prove?”
“Maybe she’s not trying to prove anything. Maybe she means exactly what she said—we make a good team. She respects that.”
“God, these neophyte chiefs of police. You’d think we had nothing better to do than break them in.”
“You’d think.”
Koontz said more hesitantly, “I always figured she did nothing but bad-mouth me behind my back.”
“Rusty, I don’t need her to think for me any more than I need you to think for me. Got it?”
“You still called me a racist.”
“You backed out on me. We had a job to do, and you weren’t there.”
Koontz studied the ground. Slowly he nodded. “Maybe—maybe I should think about that. Ah, hell. I hate this stuff. Buy you a beer?”
“Two beers. Imports.”
“Then you’re going to go to her place, aren’t you?”
“If I’m lucky.”
“I’m so much more fun, Rawlins.”
“Yeah, but she’s got better legs.”
Koontz finally looked at him. “Tell me honestly. Do you love her?”
“Yeah, Rusty. I think I do.”
Chapter 11
M
ike left the Code Blue a little after ten, later than he would have liked. He and Rusty had consumed six beers in the end, plus two orders of macho nachos. Then they’d booed the Red Sox who managed to lose it in the ninth inning. Then they’d slapped each other on the back—hard.
Male-bonding rituals. They worked.
By the time Mike slipped out the front door, he was feeling better about things. Quite a few cops hung out at the Code Blue and by morning, word would spread that Rawlins and Koontz had not only solved the cop-shooter case, but they had also patched things up. Life at work would improve for both Mike and Sandy.
In Sandra’s case, Koontz would probably lighten up a little. And, if a sarcastic, hard-to-impress cop’s cop like Koontz started to go easier on her, others would, too.
All in all, not a bad night’s work.
Now Mike wanted to show his appreciation to his divinely intelligent ex-wife. In his beer-hazed state, he de cided to go all out. Buy her a dozen roses. Yeah, and more peach lingerie.
Of course, florists weren’t open at ten o’clock. It was the damnedest thing. He ended up in a cab going to a gas station minimart that sold single pink rosebuds for a buck. The cabdriver assured Mike that a rose was a rose, who cared where it came from, so Mike bought six. In the back of the cab, he managed to fashion them into a single bouquet. The driver was very impressed.
Arriving at Sandra’s home in the upper west side, Mike saw that lights were blazing. Sandra was awake; he was in luck. He threw a wad of money at the cabdriver—who continued to be more and more impressed by Mike—and jogged up to the front door.
Sandra answered after his first knock. She was wearing that icy-blue silk robe he loved so much. Her eyes widened appreciatively at the sight of half a dozen slightly mangled roses.
“For me?”
“Yep.” The word came out funny. Mike pursed his lips. He ought to be able to sound clearer than that. Now his ex-wife was smiling at him.
“Had a few beers, did we?”
“Mmm, maybe.”
“Uh-huh.” She let him in. He followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where she retrieved a vase for the flowers. Damn she looked good in that robe. He wondered if she was wearing anything beneath it.
“I take it things are better between you and Rusty?”
“Mmm, yep. You’re very pretty, you know.”
“Yes, I bet I am.” Sandra arranged the roses in a vase.
“I wanted to buy you ’nother peach teddy. You know the stores around here close at seven? How’s a person supposed to get anything done?”
“It’s very difficult.”
He moved closer. She was still smiling and her eyes held a warm, welcoming glow. It made his heart beat harder in his chest.
“Can I take off your clothes?” he asked politely.
“Possibly.”
“Can I take off my clothes?”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“We’ll both be naked then.”
“Whatever will we do?”
He drew out one of the roses from the vase. “I have a few ideas.”
Mike led Sandra back to her bedroom. He untied her silk robe and discovered she wore absolutely nothing beneath it. Then he took off his own clothes, already hard and hungry.
But it was the nice thing about being an easygoing Cajun. He knew how to wait. And it was the nice thing about making love to Sandy. He knew exactly where to touch, with his hands, his lips, and the petals of a rose.
The first time he brought her to climax, he lay beside her and savored the sight of her closed eyes and flushed skin. Her naked legs were intertwined with his, her long limbs golden by candlelight. He loved the way she turned herself over to him, her body supple and pliant. He loved the taste of her, the feel of her. The way she gripped his head and held him closer. It made him hungry all over again.
So he started back at the top, kissing her neck, nuzzling her ear. Working down to her high, firm breasts, where her nipples were turgid and rosy from his attention. Her hips began to writhe, leading him on with her rhythm. Man, she was sexy.
He settled between her thighs, brushing his cheek against her belly, inhaling the warm, musky fragrance of her body. Then he had the rosebud trailing down her thighs, taking his cues from the sharp inhalations of her breath. A little here, a little there. Sliding the silky petals a little closer.
Suddenly Mike found himself flat on his back, his hands pinned over his head and his ex-wife rising up like an avenging goddess.
“My turn,” she whispered, and took the rose from his fingertips.
Mike discovered Sandra had learned a thing or two from him. Soon his hips were the ones writhing and arching, aching for her touch. Until finally she was there, settling above him, sliding down. Moving slow and sure, while his hands gripped her hips and urged her to move faster. Much, much faster.
And then…her whimper, her small scream, the signal he’d been waiting for. He rolled his ex-wife onto her back. He drove into her hard. He let the pressure build. He roared as it burst, and then he was drifting down, down, down into Sandra’s waiting arms, content and satiated and thinking that this time he’d make things work. Somehow, this time he’d get it right.
An hour later, Mike rolled over to discover Sandra wide-awake beside him. She was propped up against the pillows, absently stroking his back and looking at nothing in particular. He yawned, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and peered at her groggily.
“Can’t sleep?”
She shrugged. “I keep waiting for the phone to ring. It’s made me anxious.”
“Vee?”
She nodded as he sat up. The clock read a little after eleven-thirty. It was getting late for a case he and Koontz had promised would break in time for the five-o’clock news.
“No more information?” he asked.
Sandra shook her head. “I talked to Lieutenant Hopkins shortly before leaving. The command center is still inundated with calls. It seems like a waste of manpower at this point, except we can’t very well say we have a positive ID on the picture and are merely waiting for the suspect to appear. That would scare Toby Watkins away from his house permanently.”
“But the fact that he hasn’t gone home yet…”
Sandra looked miserable. “Yes, the fact he hasn’t gone home yet. You and Koontz said he had no other family and friends. That he was basically a shy kid. Mike, what if something has happened to him? He’s only thirteen.”
Mike took her into his arms. He settled her comfortably against his bare chest, slowly brushing back her hair from her temples. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe he’s hiding out in some warehouse for a while. Maybe he saw Koontz and me at the school and got spooked. He’s close to his family, though. Sooner or later he’s bound to show up.”
“He’s under so much pressure. His picture is in the paper, he’s probably heard we have a lead. He must be feeling like his whole world is falling apart. And who can he turn to? Who does he have to trust?”
“Sandra, you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
Mike tipped up her head gently. “Acting as if this kid is solely your responsibility. No, don’t argue with me. You care, Sandy, and that’s a good thing. I’ve been thinking lately that that’s a great thing. Maybe we’re all getting too hard these days. But at the same time, if you accept everything as your responsibility, you’re gonna burn out. Be ing a cop is sobering,
ma chère.
We all suffer heartbreak. And you gotta learn to let go. Bottom line is that you’re not Vee, you didn’t make his decisions, and you’ve done the best you could.”
She sighed unhappily. “I don’t feel like I’ve done the best I could.”
“That’s because you’re a perfectionist.”
She finally nodded, rubbing her cheek against the smoothness of his shoulder. Then she wrapped her arm around his waist and settled more deeply against him. He replied by wrapping one of her silky chestnut curls around his palm. The red, shimmering highlights always fascinated him.
“So you and Koontz are fine again?” she murmured.
“I think so.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what it was about?”
“No.”
She angled her head up. “Why not?”
“Because it’s between Koontz and me, and partners are like a married couple. What goes on between them, should stay between them.”
“You don’t talk about us to Koontz?”
“Never.”
“Really?” She sounded genuinely surprised. He smiled crookedly.
“We’re guys, Sandra. Just because we’ve been together eight years doesn’t mean we talk about anything personal.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now that I should’ve seen coming.”
She settled against him again. He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I’ve been thinking about us, you know.”
He felt her tense slightly. “Yes?”
“It seems to me that we’ve always attributed our problems to our differences—different backgrounds, different families, different personalities. But I’ve been wondering lately if many of our fights aren’t because we’re so different, but because we’re so much alike.”