Believing Again (19 page)

She grabbed her leather case and said, “I’m ready to get this done, Sam. Are you?”

“You’re sure you want to start this now? We could get some of the paperwork done on the other cases and you could go home at a decent hour for a change.”

“No, I’d rather get this going. You know how I feel about going home.”

“Yeah, your knack for pulling men out of kitchens where they’ve been shot seems to have freaked you out this time. Not so much when it was me who was bleeding all over the floor.”

“Not funny, Sam.” She finished loading up her leather case and zipped it up. Without looking at him she asked, “How’d you and Amanda do it? How’d you go back in her kitchen after you’d been shot there?”

He didn’t respond right away and when she looked up to see why, she saw him staring into the distance, behind her, with a curious look on his face.

“Sam? You hear what I asked?” she said.

“I heard. But you have someone waiting to talk to you,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the hall.

“Who … ?” Once she turned she didn’t have to finish the question. Jake was standing behind her. Dressed in the jeans and cable knit sweater he always wore to the free clinic, he looked unsure of his reception and maybe a bit pale. But he still looked like the man who figured in her nightly dreams even though she had successfully blocked him out of her thoughts during the day. Mostly.

The only thing not included in her dreams was the stark white bandage over the stitches in his head and the slight limp as he walked towards her that indicated the wound in his thigh still bothered him.

“Doctor Abrams. What a surprise.” She hated the squeak in her voice and fussed some more with the things on her desk until she felt like she had it under better control. “You look like you’re doing okay.”

“I am. Thanks to you. That’s why I’m here, to thank you. I didn’t get the chance to do that properly either before they hauled me off to the hospital or when you dropped in for your very brief visit. I kept hoping you’d come back so I could do the polite thing but you never did. So, here I am.”

“You didn’t have to come all the way here to say that. You could have called. Or not even that.” She had no idea why her insides felt like they were twisted into a knot. Like her tongue was. “You could have … you know … not said anything. I was only doing my job.”

“Yeah, I know. Still, I wanted to tell you myself that I appreciate how well you do it.” He took his hands out of his jeans pockets and put one out to her. She ignored it. “Is there any chance I can … we can … ” He took a deep breath and she realized he was as nervous as she was. “Is there someplace where we could talk privately for a few minutes?”

Danny glanced over at Sam who’d been watching them with a sympathetic expression on his face. Problem was, she didn’t know if he was sympathetic to her plight or Jake’s obvious discomfort. “No, not really. It’s not a good time. Sam and I have a new case we need to get to work on. A ton of interviews. You probably read about it. That gang killing in southeast Portland. Lots of people around, not too many who’ve been very forthcoming about sharing information with us. We need to go back and try to get them to talk before … ” Realizing she was running on, she stopped.

Sam interceded. “There’s an empty interview room down the hall, Doc. You know where it is. It’s the one we used when I talked to you. I’ll wait for you, Danny. We’re not in that big a hurry.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Jake said and gestured to her to follow him.

Well
, she thought.
That answers that question. Sam’s sticking with his own kind. He’ll pay for this.

She slammed her leather folder onto her desk and stalked down the hall, after Jake. Thanks to his damn long legs, he got to the room before she did, opening the door for her. He half-smiled and held his arm out, as if to say, “After you.”

Storming into the room, she went almost to the opposite wall, making sure the table was between them before she faced him. “Well, Doctor Abrams, what can we do for you?”

“For starters, you can call me Jake again.” He walked around the table, eliminating the only barrier between them.

“Okay, then,
Jake
, what can we do for you?”

He took a few more steps closer to her. “It’s not your organization I want to talk to. It’s you, personally.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jake, what the fuck do you want?”

Damn him. Getting her to lose it was apparently one of the things he was after because he grinned and looked relaxed for the first time since he got there. “I want you to listen to me grovel while I apologize for being such a fucking idiot.”

Another step brought him almost directly in front of her. She backed up to keep distance between them.

“Then I want you to accept my apology even though you still might think I was an interfering asshole.”

This time when he advanced toward her and she backed up, she found herself against the wall.

“After that, you can forgive me and tell me you’ll give me — give us — another chance.”

Now close enough that she could feel his breath on her face, he brought his mouth close to her ear. He didn’t touch her, but only whispered, “Last, you can let me hold you and tell you I love you and will do anything to make it up to you for being a jerk.”

Her breathing was ragged as she slid sideways, scraping against the wall, escaping what she was sure would be his next move, kissing her.

“Jake, this isn’t the time or the place for this. We’re not alone.”

He looked around the empty room, a puzzled frown on his face. “There’s no one here but us, Danny.”

“Not in the room there isn’t. But that’s one-way glass over there and I’m willing to bet half the precinct is behind it watching us.” She looked over at the window and raised her voice slightly. “And, although I have my doubts, there might be one among them with the intelligence to figure out how to flip the switch that lets them hear us, too, although they’d probably have to call IT for help figuring it out.”

Another grin split his face. “Sam sent us into this room on purpose, didn’t he?”

“Yes, I imagine a scene like this is what he was hoping for.” She smiled for the first time since he’d cornered her.

“That’s better, you’re smiling,” he said softly as he backed up a step, giving her room to breathe. “Okay, if you don’t want to put on a show for your colleagues, what time are you off tonight? Let me come pick you up and buy you a drink or, better yet, dinner. That’ll give me lots of time to grovel.”

“I’m not sure when I’ll be finished those interviews. It might be late. And dinner’s probably not a good idea. Besides, it’s Friday. Aren’t you expected at your parents’ house?”

“Nothing takes precedence over apologizing to you. Please, let me at least buy you a drink.” He was pleading now.

“How about I call you when I get home? We can talk then.”

“Not what I hoped for but … You promise you’ll call?”

“I promise.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead in a gentle kiss, which almost undid her resolve not to touch him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, hold him close, kiss him like she really meant it. She’d missed him so much.

However, she still wasn’t convinced he could accept who she was at work, who she needed to be so she didn’t lose herself in the relationship he wanted. And that was a deal breaker. Until she knew, she had to stay away from him.

He touched her face with the back of his hand. “I’ll talk to you tonight, baby.” And he left the room.

She waited a few seconds before saying, “If I see anyone in the hall when I come out of this room, and that especially means you, Richardson, your ass is grass and I’m a lawn mower. Got it?”

The hall was empty when she walked out. But from the studied way everyone avoided looking at her when she went back to her desk, she’d been wrong. Half the precinct hadn’t been watching. The whole damn lot of them had been.

Danny stood across the street from her target for at least ten minutes, trying to decide if she should hit it or not. What finally decided her was the sudden onslaught of cold rain sweeping across the street, soaking through her clothes in seconds. She pulled the hood on her raincoat up over her head, which did nothing other than add a bit more water to what was already dripping down her neck.

She either had to get back to the streetcar and head for home or cross the street and take shelter there. And if the chicken was brave enough to cross the road, how could she not? Dodging the traffic that was always heavy on Northwest 23rd on a Friday night, she got to the other side, ran up to the target’s door, and knocked.

There was no answer.

After a second knock that wasn’t any more successful at getting a response than the first one was, she was about to leave when she heard someone talking inside, moving toward the door. From pauses between the sentences, she thought she was hearing one side of a phone conversation. As the person came closer to the door it was obvious that she was correct.

“I can’t. No, probably not at all. Look, I gotta go. Someone’s knocking at the … ” The door opened. Jake stopped talking. He stared at her for what seemed like the longest time. Then he said, “I’ll call you later, Mom,” punched a button, and jammed the phone in his jeans pocket.

“Thank God. I’d about given up on you. I was sure I’d blown it going to the precinct. Embarrassing you. I thought I’d never see you again.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m such an idiot. I don’t know why I should expect you to ever forgive me. Everything I do gives me one more thing to apologize for.”

Surely he could see she was shivering. And couldn’t he hear her teeth chattering? Why was he standing there staring at her? When he didn’t say anything more, she asked, “Can I come in? It’s really wet out here.”

He seemed to see for the first time how drenched she was. “Holy hell, I can’t even do this right. I’m sorry. Of course you can come in.” She took a step into the entry hall — and was swept into his arms where he held her, rocking her gently, murmuring endearments. She heard him say “sorry” at least three times and “forgive me” four.

“Jake, I’m dripping all over you and your wood floors,” she protested, pulling away from him.

“Fuck the wood floors. You came here because I said I needed to grovel. So let me.” He held her by the shoulders and started talking. “I’m sorry, Danny. I was wrong, dead wrong. You were right. I overreacted. The only excuse I have is that seeing him … her … with a weapon pointed at you triggered something I thought I’d put in the past.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ve been working with my shrink again. For the first few sessions I kept insisting I was right to tackle you. But he’s convinced me it was my PTSD back again. Can you ever forgive me?”

When she said nothing, he looked beseechingly in her eyes. “Please don’t tell me you’re here to say it’s all over. Tell me you’ve forgiven me. That you’ll give me — give us — another chance.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m here for a little of that. A little of ‘I’m sorry, too.’ I talked to the Bureau’s expert on PTSD. He agreed that you probably had a flashback or something like that and it brought an automatic response, like the one you’d have had in Iraq. I should have known what it was. I should have been more understanding. It’s not as if I haven’t seen PTSD before.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for but if you want, my people can talk to your people and tell us what we should do. What do you think?” His blue eyes lit up with humor as he hugged her again.

“I don’t think we need the middle men. I think we can just talk to each other, figure this out between us.” She shivered. Even with his body heat she was chilled to the bone from the cold rain.

“I like your plan. But before we talk, you need some dry clothes. You can borrow some of mine. They’ll be too big but it’ll be better than … ”

She looked up at him. “I think what you meant to say was, ‘let me get you out of those wet clothes,’ didn’t you?”

“Is that what I meant?” He grinned. “See, when you’re not around for a while, I can’t even remember how to get you naked. How about a soak in the spa tub? That should warm you up.”

“Yes, please. That’s what I need. And a martini. Any chance for that?”

“Coming up. But first things first. Let’s get your wet coat and gloves off.”

She kicked off her soaked shoes and yanked at the leather gloves she was wearing, now so wet they clung to her hands as if the leather was her skin. “Damn, I can’t get them off.”

“Here, let me.” He took her left hand and rolled the bottom of the glove up over her palm. Gently he tugged the glove off her thumb and kissed the pad at the base. Next he moved to her index finger and did the same thing.

One finger at a time, he peeled the wet leather gloves off her hands, kissing the base of each finger when it was freed, never once saying a word. By the time he was finished with his slow strip of both hands, although she was still fully clothed, she felt more naked and exposed than she had ever felt. And she could see from the dark storm in his eyes that he felt the same.

Still without saying anything he went behind her and slipped her raincoat from her shoulders, sliding it down her back slowly, brushing the base of her neck with feathery kisses. Then he led her to the Jacuzzi and, while the water was running to fill the tub, began to carefully remove her turtleneck sweater and wool pants until she was standing in front of him clad only in her pale yellow lace bra and panties.

Finally he spoke. “Would you take it to mean I only love you for your body if I told you I missed seeing you like this?” he asked.

She laughed. “No, not if you forgive me for saying I really missed this.” And she pressed herself against him, her arms around his neck, and took ownership of his mouth with a deep, passionate kiss that made her toes curl and sucked the breath from her lungs. The kiss was so hot she almost forgot she was chilled to the bone.

By the time they had each regained the ability to stand without holding on to the other, the tub was full. She shed her underwear and, taking his hand, stepped in and sank back into the warm water. It wasn’t until she heard his sharp intake of breath that she realized her breasts were above the water line, her nipples still contracted into hard points from the cold and their kiss.