All a Man Can Do

by Virginia Kantra

  Denko looked blank. So he didn't know everything. Tess found that reassuring.

  "Simon Ford," she repeated. "The inventor? He bought Angel Island."

  "You mean, he bought a house there."

  "No, he bought the island. The point is, you're our lead story. Well, unless my editor decides to run with the new traffic light out at the high school or the Lutheran ladies' zucchini cook-off. But I think we've got a good chance."

  A corner of his nicely shaped mouth quirked up. "I'm flattered. But, no."

  "What do you have to lose?"

  "My privacy?" he suggested dryly.

  She arched her eyebrows. "What do you have to hide?"

  "Not a thing."

  "Well, then…" She let her voice trail off expectantly.

  He eyed her with a combination of amusement and annoyance. "You're persistent."

  "In my job, you have to be."

  "In my job, too. And I'm not convinced letting it all hang out in the Eden Town Gossip—"

  "Gazette," she snapped, and then scowled. He was just yanking her chain.

  "Gazette," he corrected smoothly. "Anyway, I don't like the idea that anybody in town with fifty cents can read all about my life in the paper."

  "Haven't you ever heard of spin?"

  "I don't need spin."

  "Sure you do." She leaned forward earnestly and just missed smearing her sweater in syrup. Very smooth, DeLucca. "You're a stranger here. People aren't going to feel comfortable talking to you. A piece in the paper is like an introduction. It gets your name and face out there, makes people feel like they know you, shows them you're a regular guy. They're more likely talk to you then."

  "All the people here need to know is that I'm qualified to do my job."

  "And are you?"

  He didn't rise to her bait. "Your search committee thought so."

  She waited. "That's it?"

  "Unless you want to talk to me. Like you said, I'm a stranger here. I could use someone to fill me in on who's who in this town." He sent some subtle masculine signal that brought Noreen scurrying over.

  It figured the new chief would be good in restaurants, Tess thought glumly. Probably he could find parking spaces and kill spiders, too. That didn't mean she had to roll over for him.

  "If it's gossip you're after, you can get that down the street at the barbershop. If it's stories about suspicious behavior, you can get those from Bud Sweet."

  He shrugged and reached for his wallet. "It always helps to have a civilian perspective. And you're a reporter. An observer. That could make you useful."

  "Gee, how nice," she drawled. "If I'd ever wanted to be a police snitch, that would make me feel all warm inside."

  He didn't laugh.

  Fine. She didn't need the approval of some cool-eyed, tight-lipped cop. She didn't want this attraction to him, either.

  She twitched the check from Noreen's hand. "I told you, breakfast is on me." She counted out the money. Too bad Gazette reporters didn't merit expense accounts. After the waitress left, she asked, "So, is that the deal? I be your source, you be my story?"

  Denko slipped his wallet back into his pocket. A difficult maneuver in the tight confines of the booth, but he managed it gracefully.

  "No deal," he said. "I'm interested in developing ties to the community. But my private life stays private."

  Tess felt an instant's sympathy. She sure didn't want anyone digging around in her private graveyard.

  Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the new police chief. What skeletons was Jarek Denko hiding?

  Chapter 2

  The Plaza Apartments' one elevator was out-of-order again. Tess shifted the bag of groceries in her arms to open the fire door, propping it with her hip so her mother could walk through.

  "I wish you'd let me take you out for dinner instead," Tess said.

  Isadora DeLucca smiled shakily. "Oh, cooking's no trouble."

  No trouble for who? Tess wanted to ask, but years of protecting her mother's feelings made her bite her tongue. If her mother needed to cook her a high-fat lunch to make up for all the years when Tess had opened cans to feed herself and her brother, well… Whatever her mother needed was fine with Tess.

  The hallway smelled like cabbage and mold. No one who could afford to live anywhere else paid rent at the Plaza. The paint peeled, the radiators sweated and the toilets overflowed. But the aging building provided a first shot at freedom for the very young, a last stab at independence for the very old.

  Even on a reporter's salary, Tess could afford better now. Mark thought she was crazy for not buying into one of the snazzy new condos going up by the lake or even moving to a newer, nicer apartment. But Tess told herself this apartment was fine. Mark was back. Her mother was on the wagon. Her life was fine. And if anything happened to make it not fine again, at least she wouldn't be forced out of her home.

  Tess had lived at the Plaza ten years, longer than any other resident except ninety-four-year-old Mrs. McMurty on the second floor. Against the advice of her doctors and the pleas of her son, Mrs. McMurty swore she would leave the Plaza only to go to her grave.

  On her bad days, Tess imagined she'd escape the same way. Feetfirst and alone, having died of old age.

  She unlocked her door.

  "I don't know why you don't get yourself a cat," Isadora said as the door opened on Tess's apartment. "You used to love animals."

  She still loved animals. But sometime during her twenties, Tess had decided she didn't have the energy left to tackle the care of a house plant, let alone a pet.

  "I don't have time for a cat," she muttered, cramming the groceries onto the narrow ledge that passed for a counter.

  "You should make time." Isadora puttered around the galley kitchen. She waved a spatula at her daughter. "Love is all you need, you know!"

  "Mom." Tess started unloading bags. What on earth was she going to do with an entire bunch of celery? She didn't need celery in her life. She didn't need love, either. Love meant dealing with someone else she was bound either to support or disappoint, and she really, really didn't want that.

  She dumped the celery on an empty refrigerator shelf and turned back to her mother. "That was a catchy song. But it's not a very practical philosophy."

  "Little Teresa." Isadora smiled in fond disappointment at her only daughter. "Always so practical."

  Like she had a choice? Tess had been eight or nine when she figured out that somebody in the DeLucca family had to get the laundry done and the kids to school and dinner on the table. But she didn't want to remind her mother of that. Isadora had been doing so well lately.

  The phone shrilled. Her mother stood in the way, poking into a cabinet. Tess sprinted down the hall to pick up in the living room.

  "Tess DeLucca," she said breathlessly. Oh, great. She sounded like a phone sex girl.

  "This is Butler in News Affairs."

  News Affairs. The Chicago Police Department. She had been after them to return her calls for two days.

  "Officer Butler." She forced warmth into her voice. "I really appreciate you taking the time to—"

  "Sergeant."

  "What?"

  "It's Sergeant Butler, ma'am."

  "Oh. Excuse me. Sergeant." Deliberately, Tess relaxed her grip on the receiver. "Anyway, my newspaper is doing a profile on former detective Jarek Denko, and I was hoping your department could give me some background information."

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. "What kind of information?" her caller asked cautiously.

  "Well, anything. Everything. Maybe we could start with his employment history, and then—"

  "Personnel can give you his rank and dates of employment."

  She was hoping for an expose, not a resume. Denko was hiding something. Had to be. And it was up to Tess to strip the luster from the police chiefs shiny gold star. "I have those, thanks. I was hoping for something more substantial? Commendations, complaints…"

  "Let me see."

 
Another pause, while Tess's mother drifted into the living room. "Don't you have any garlic powder?"

  Tess covered the mouthpiece of the receiver. "You didn't tell me you needed garlic powder."

  "Well, no, dear, I just assumed you had some."

  "I don't cook, Mom. Why would I have garlic powder?"

  "You still there?" Sergeant Butler asked.

  Tess turned her back on the kitchen and grabbed for a pad and pen. "Yeah, I'm here."

  "Okay. Well, Detective Denko received an Award of Valor as a patrol officer."

  She tapped her pen against the blank page. "Thanks. Yes, I found that on your Web site. And that was fifteen years ago. Can't you give me something a little more current?"

  Like, Chief Check-Out-Those-Biceps Denko beat his ex-wife. Or was on the take. Something, anything, to make the man less of a saint, and this story more than a board member's bio in a corporate newsletter.

  "You want current, talk to Denko," Butler said. "I don't have anything for you. You understand."

  Oh, she understood all right. She understood no cop in Chicago was going to rat on one of their own to a reporter from Eden.

  She could let it go.

  Or she could go digging for the truth and deliver more dirt than a home and garden feature on Big Boy Tomatoes.

  No neon sign hung over the door of the Joint on Belmont Street, only a black-and-white ad for Old Style: Bottles And Cans. The bar's patrons—cops and police groupies—didn't need more. Either you knew what waited beyond the heavy wood door, or you didn't belong.

  Jarek belonged. One week away didn't change that.

  Responding to a tip, a middle of the night phone call, he'd left his king-size bed and tidy three-bedroom house to drive an hour and twenty minutes south to Chicago. When he opened the bar door, the warmth and the smells, the smoke and the noise, swirled to greet him. He breathed them all in, let them wrap him like a favorite old sweater.

  The place was full. The four-to-midnight shift had ended two hours ago. Four-to-fours, they called it, because most cops didn't roll home until four in the morning. His ex-wife had hated that part of the job. Had hated most parts of his job, actually.

  Jarek scanned the room. His brother Aleksy—Alex—was sitting in a booth by the pay phone with a beer in front of him and three off-duty detectives beside him. Catching Jarek's eye, he raised his beer in silent salute before tipping the neck of the bottle toward the bar.

  Jarek looked where his brother pointed. And there, perched on a bar stool like any badge bunny, sat Teresa DeLucca in black leather pants and a midriff-skimming top that raised the temperature in the crowded, narrow bar another twenty degrees. She was talking with his former partner, Steve Nowicki, a good detective with the biggest mouth in Area 3. And Stevie, who looked like he couldn't believe his luck, was pouring out his heart and practically drooling down her cleavage.

  Hell. Jarek ordered a beer and considered his options.

  Aleksy slid out from the booth and sauntered over, still in his street suit. His dark hair was ruffled and his eyes were wicked.

  "It took her fifteen minutes to zero in on Nowicki," his brother informed him, "and he's been bending her ear for over an hour. Who the hell is she?"

  Jarek accepted his beer with a word of thanks to Pat behind the bar. "Teresa DeLucca. She's a reporter for the local paper."

  Aleksy raised his eyebrows. "No kidding. You actually have news in Mayberry?"

  A reluctant smile tugged Jarek's mouth. "Brother, in Eden, I am the news."

  "So, her interest in you is purely professional?"

  Jarek took a careful sip of his beer, pushing away an inconvenient memory of Tess's soft lower lip and candid eyes. He had a department to run and a daughter to raise. A relationship with any woman would be a distraction. A preoccupation with some puzzle of a reporter would be a disaster.

  "Absolutely," he said.

  "And your interest in her? You get to put her in handcuffs yet?"

  Jarek narrowed his eyes in warning.

  Aleksy backed off, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Just asking, big brother. Something got you out of bed in the middle of the night."

  "You did," Jarek reminded him. "You called me."

  "Yeah, and as soon as you heard this babe was here asking questions, you hotfooted it down. I told you I could handle things for you. In fact," Aleksy waggled his eyebrows, "I'd be more than happy to handle her."

  Jarek's burst of male territorial instinct surprised him. If he wasn't careful, he was going to find himself marking trees and pawing at the ground. "Holster it, hotshot," he ordered briefly. "She's too old for you."

  "Are you kidding? She can't be a day over twenty-five."

  "Thirty." He'd run her driver's license. "And you date nineteen-year-olds."

  Aleksy shrugged. "Only when they ask me nicely."

  Jarek smiled faintly, his attention still fixed on Nowicki and Tess at the other end of the bar.

  Aleksy's dark eyes danced with mischief. "Anyway, isn't she a little old for you, too? I thought you were totally involved with a nine-year-old these days."

  "Ten," Jarek corrected him absently. "Allie's ten. And I'm not getting involved with the woman."

  "Really? What are you going to do with her? Arrest her?"

  Jarek's jaw set. "Like you said, she's over twenty-one. She has a right to drink in a public bar."

  "She's still invading your space, bro."

  "My turf," Jarek said, setting down his beer. "My rules."

  Quietly he moved along the bar. Under the drifts of conversation, the bursts of laughter, his former partner's voice carried plainly.

  "—was always the calm, collected one," Nowicki was saying, leaning forward earnestly to look down Tess's top. "Like a computer, you know, storing up all these names, pictures, little connecting things you'd think wouldn't matter to anybody and then—click, click, click!—the picture comes up and he's put it all together, who, why, how, the whole puzzle." Nowicki took a long pull on his bottle. "Working with somebody like that makes it a pleasure just to show up in the morning."

  "You must miss him," Tess observed.

  "Hell, yeah, we all miss him. He was a terrific guy. A great detective. We miss him a lot."

  "You can stop the commercial, Nowicki," Jarek said. "I don't think Miss DeLucca's buying."

  His partner turned, genuine pleasure lighting his broad face. "Ice Man! We were just talking about you."

  "I guessed," Jarek said. He looked past Nowicki to Tess on her bar stool, her casual posture a pose, her eyes a challenge. His libido flared. Annoyed with himself, he spoke coolly. "Hello, Tess."

  Nowicki's head went back and forth. "You two know each other?"

  "We've met," Tess murmured. "How's it going, Ice Man?"

  She didn't miss a trick, Jarek thought, torn between admiration and annoyance.

  He spoke without moving his gaze from hers. "Would you give us a minute, Steve?"

  Nowicki laughed, four beers past discretion. "Don't be a spoilsport, Jare. We were getting somewhere here."

  "Someone was getting something," Jarek said. He jerked his head slightly, an unmistakable signal to his partner to get lost.

  Nowicki sighed. "Okay, okay. I'm gone."

  Jarek stepped back to let him pass and then slid onto his abandoned stool. "This is a hell of a place to be at two o'clock in the morning," he said quietly.

  Tess arched her eyebrows. "You're here."

  "We're not talking about me."

  "No," Tess agreed. "That was the problem."

  "It doesn't have to be your problem."

  "It's my story. And you're still holding out on me."

  "So what?"

  "So, it's a challenge." She flipped her dark hair over her shoulders and shot him a look that dried his mouth. "I've never been able to resist a challenge."

  He sipped his beer, which bought him some time and lubricated his tongue enough so he could talk again. He didn't need any more challenges. He had all
he could handle sleeping tucked up in his old bedroom under the eaves of his parents' house. A ten-year-old challenge with his eyes and her mother's scowl.

  Teresa DeLucca was playing with fire. He had to find a way to prove to her that she could get burnt. "You're wasting your time, Tess."

  "No, I'm not. Your partner's not like you. He answers my questions."

  "Honey, at two o'clock in the morning, the bearded lady could walk into this bar and Nowicki would answer her questions. Most cops are easy when they're coming off shift. Of course, it didn't hurt any that you're wearing those pants."

  She stiffened defensively. "So, they worked. I got what I wanted."

  "You were lucky. You could have gotten something you didn't want."

  "Like what?"

  Jarek drew a short, sharp breath. He could do this, he told himself. He would prove to both of them that he was scorch proof.

  "Like this," he said, and leaned forward, and covered her mouth with his.

  He surprised her, and Tess prided herself that very few men could do that anymore.

  His mouth on hers was warm and sure. She recoiled slightly—from shock and the faint taste of beer—and then let herself be persuaded, let her mouth be taken, by his. He was disarmingly direct. Devastatingly thorough. Competent, she thought almost resentfully, before her brain shut down. He angled his head and used his tongue, and she shivered and melted and sagged on her bar stool, seduced by the nearness of his firm, warm chest and that hot, bold mouth moving on hers.

  Oh, boy.

  He raised his head. Maybe he had surprised himself, too, because his eyes, that she remembered as gray and cool as midwinter ice, were dark and hot.

  She blinked.

  He eased back. "Didn't your mother ever warn you not to come on to strange men in bars?"

  Indignation warred with…oh God, was that disappointment?

  She cleared her throat. "Obviously you've never met my mother." She picked up her drink, pleased when the ice cubes did not rattle. She was still shaking inside from his kiss. It was just her bad luck Chief Law-and-Order Denko could kiss as well as he did everything else. "Anyway, you kissed me."

  He shrugged, not denying it. "That may have been a miscalculation."