Aleksy snorted with laughter. "And who do they like for Mama Duck?"
Jarek dropped the paint rag into the trash. "Mark DeLucca."
"DeLucca, huh? What is he, like, a cousin?"
"Brother."
Aleksy whistled. "Close family?"
Jarek thought of Tess reaching for her brother's arm and the quick way his hand covered hers on his jacket sleeve. "Very."
"Hell. He do it?"
It was an echo of Jarek's own words. You told me Mark didn't do it.
And Tess's question, taut with hope: Do you believe me?
Jarek rubbed the back of his neck. "If I listen to my lieutenant, I'd say yes. If I went with my gut like you do, I'd have to say no. But I don't theorize ahead of the facts, Aleksy. You know that."
"Guess it's a good thing she decided to blow you off, then."
Yeah. But…
Jarek looked out the window at the bare little yard and empty sidewalk in front of his new house. "I like her," he admitted.
"Hey, I like her, too, bro. That doesn't mean I want to see you mixed up with the suspect in an ongoing investigation."
The truth stung. "Tess isn't a suspect. And she could be useful. She knows this town."
"So, get a guidebook."
"She's loyal."
"Get a dog."
Jarek turned sharply.
"Okay, okay." Aleksy raised both hands in surrender or apology. "That was out of line. But, jeez, Jarek, couldn't you find someone less—" he caught his brother's eye and changed whatever he'd been about to say "—complicated?"
Jarek shrugged. "Maybe I like complicated."
"Right. If she were a nice quiet girl from a good Catholic family you probably wouldn't go for her."
His observation was accurate enough to make Jarek uncomfortable. "I married Linda, didn't I?"
"Yeah, and we all saw what a raging success that turned out to be."
"Not her fault," Jarek said automatically. "My head was in the job."
"Exactly my point. It's not like you to put a woman before a case."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"What the hell are you doing, bro?"
"What the hell business is it of yours?"
"Look." Aleksy stabbed his fingers through his hair, leaving a streak of blue paint behind. "When I moved up to detective, you made sure I knew the score and kept my nose clean. I owe you. Don't screw this up."
Jarek grinned in appreciation. "Thanks, but I'm good."
"You're going to have to be." Aleksy held his brother's gaze a moment and then shrugged. "Okay. Your call. At least the babe will keep you—"
"If you say young, I'll have to hurt you," Jarek warned.
"You can try. Anyway, I was going to say, 'on your toes.' But keep your head down."
"Don't sweat it, hotshot. Like you said, she's not coming."
The doorbell chimed in the hall.
Aleksy raised his eyebrows. "Sure about that?"
Jarek ducked downstairs without answering him.
Chapter 7
It was her. Tess.
Jarek could see her waiting on his front porch, her image unmistakable through the flat security glass on either side of the door, looking like something he'd dreamed up to go with the house. With her smooth dark hair and tight dark jeans, she plainly hadn't come prepared to paint anybody's bedroom.
Though Jarek sure wasn't going to object if she decided to inspect his.
He opened the door, so damn glad to see her he was practically speechless. "Hi."
Her eyes were wide and gold. Her smile was nervous. "Hi."
He gestured to the paper sack she clutched in front of her like a tackle dummy. "What's this?"
"Oh." Collecting herself, she thrust the bag at him. "I brought you a housewarming present."
He took it. Sniffed. The mouthwatering aroma of fresh baked bread escaped from the top of the bag. Pleased by her thoughtfulness, he asked, "You make this yourself?"
Her ivory skin turned a dull red. "No. The bread's from Palermo's, the olive oil's from my pantry and the wine is from the bargain bin at The Hop and Grape."
"Great," he said. "Thanks." He didn't care about the bread. Or the wine. "Why don't you come in and I'll see if I can find a corkscrew?"
Her lips parted. "Well, I—" Her gaze went past him to the stairs. Her face changed. "You didn't tell me the Boy Scout was going to be here."
Jarek turned as Aleksy sauntered across the tiny foyer, his face sharp and his eyes skeptical. Swell. And here Jarek thought Tess's brother was going to be the problem.
"Aleksy." It was a command. "Come say 'hi' to Tess."
"You bet. Hi, Tess. How's the family?"
Tess stiffened. "Just fine. What have you told him?" she asked Jarek.
He sighed. "We discussed the case. Very generally."
Her eyes betrayed her hurt. Her lips firmed. "Well, generally, I don't stick around while someone disses my brother. Enjoy the wine." She started to back out.
"Watch yourself." Jarek caught her elbow before she tumbled down the steps. "Aleksy, go into the kitchen and find the corkscrew. And see if you can locate your manners while you're in there."
Aleksy hefted the bag with the bottle and went.
Jarek tugged Tess gently forward. "Can we try this again? Hi, Tess. Nice of you to stop by. Can I offer you some wine?"
She tossed her dark hair. "Is your brother planning on adding anything to my drink?"
"I'll watch him," Jarek promised.
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Tess muttered. But she let him lead her into the living room.
She sat on the edge of his wide leather couch and looked around appraisingly. The room was fully furnished with his parents' comfortable castoffs and some overstuffed favorites from his bachelor apartment.
"Wow. You look moved in," Tess said. "I was expecting boxes."
Jarek shrugged. "I've been here two weeks."
Her gaze traveled over the framed family photos along one wall. "Is that your family?"
He glanced over his shoulder at Allie's school portrait and a snapshot taken in front of the Grand Canyon when he was twelve. His pop had his arm around his mom. His little sister Nora was mugging for the camera. Nothing he could see should have put that deep suspicion in her voice. "Some of them. Why?"
Her thumb fretted the nail polish on her index finger. "I'm just saying I've been in my apartment for ten years and I don't have all my pictures hung up yet."
Okay. He already knew she wasn't a nester. He couldn't seem to bring himself to care. "Did you come over to point out how we're different? Or to give me a hand with Allie's bedroom?"
She shifted awkwardly against the fat leather cushions. "Neither one, actually. I came to give you this." She dug in her over-the-shoulder bag and handed him a few folded sheets of paper.
"What is this?" he asked quietly, not opening them.
"A copy of your profile for the Gazette."
He frowned. "I agreed to help you with the motorist safety piece instead."
"That was last week. This week I'm introducing Eden's new police chief to the town."
He hated to rain on her parade. "Tess—"
"Read it," she urged. "It's good."
"I'm sure it's well-written," he said carefully. "But it's not news. I thought you understood that."
"Let me worry about what's news. You can concentrate on what's good PR for your department."
"Right now I want to concentrate on this case."
"Well, a little spin won't hurt you or the case. In fact, it could help."
"And what's this help going to cost him?" Aleksy asked from behind them.
Jarek twisted around to see Aleksy standing in the living room doorway with the bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of glasses in the other.
"Can it," Jarek said briefly.
His brother hunched one shoulder. "Hey, don't get mad at me. I found your corkscrew."
"But not your manners."
She looked indignant. Worse, she looked hurt.
Jarek wanted to reassure her. But his memory was very good. And what he remembered at that moment was Tess standing in the aisle of Tompkins Hardware saying, If you really want to thank me; you can stop hassling my brother.
"My God, you do," Tess said slowly. "That's exactly what you think."
"I haven't formed an opinion one way or the other," Jarek said evenly, doing his best to be fair.
Wrong answer.
Tess stood. Her eyes simmered. "Well, this has been fun. We must do it again sometime." She stalked to the door, and even Aleksy was smart enough to get out of her way. "Like when hell freezes over," she said, and left.
The door shook in its frame behind her.
Aleksy propped one shoulder against the doorway. "So, you're good with this one, huh?"
Jarek rubbed the back of his neck. "Shut up," he said.
Ungrateful, suspicious, cold-blooded pig.
Tess yanked the toilet's shutoff valve and smacked her head against the bottom of the sink. Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked fiercely.
She would not cry. Just because her toilet leaked and Jarek Denko was a dyed-in-the-wool traitor rat fink was no reason to cry.
She was a grown woman. She was responsible for her own plumbing. She was responsible for her own feelings. Maybe she hadn't had a lot of experience with—she squinted at the package from the hardware store—with floating-cup ballcocks, but she had plenty dealing with unreliable, two-faced men. Any pain she felt was her own darn fault, for thinking Jarek was any different.
She flushed the basin and dropped a towel into the tank to soak up the remaining water. He should have been— maybe grateful was too strong a word, but she sure hadn't done a hatchet job on the man. It wasn't easy conveying why this cool-eyed, tough-minded homicide cop from Chicago belonged in sleepy Eden. But she had. He did. He had the sense of place and love of family to become a part of this community. He had the grit and integrity to protect it. Tess had drawn on his partner's stories and her own observations to write about both sides of Jarek Denko.
And in return she'd hoped, she'd expected…
You can't honestly think I'd write a puff piece for you because I want some kind of favor, she had told him.
His cool reply burned in her memory. I haven't formed an opinion one way or the other.
Tess grabbed the old water inlet pipe and twisted. The hell with him and his opinions.
The pipe came off in her hand, water dribbled on the floor, and she looked around frantically for the directions.
Twenty minutes later when her intercom buzzed, she was fed up enough to cry. She was sure she'd positioned the new unit in the tank correctly. The flapper chain was connected, the overflow tube was hooked up…and water still gurgled into the toilet in a noisy stream.
The buzzer nagged her again.
Tess tripped over a plastic utility bucket on her way out of the bathroom and mashed down the intercom button. "What?"
"It's 'who.' Denko."
Heat swept her chest, her face. She pressed her forehead against the cool plaster wall.
"Tess? Can I come up?"
Yeah, sure. That's all she needed to make this evening perfect. A visit from the Ice Man.
She buzzed him up without answering and padded barefoot to the door to let him in. She would not dash to change her clothes. She wasn't even going to brush her hair. She hadn't asked for company. Especially not his.
Taking a deep breath, she yanked open the door. Jarek was standing back a few feet, so that if she'd bothered to look through her peephole she could have seen him. It was a nice gesture. A cop's move. He looked great, calm and dry and solid in faded jeans and a navy-blue sweater.
Tess clutched the edge of the door, suddenly conscious of her old gym shorts and tangled hair. Irritation raised her chin.
"I have a wrench," she said, "and I'm not afraid to use it."
"I can see that," Jarek agreed, laughter sparking in his eyes.
"What do you want?"
Down the hall, a hinge creaked as old Mr. Nelson kept an eye on the comings and goings in the hall.
Jarek rubbed his jaw. "That was a nice piece you wrote for the paper."
She struggled to hide her pleasure at his compliment. "I know."
"I wanted to tell you."
"Thank you."
He lowered his gaze a moment. "And I wanted to apologize."
"Okay." Oh, God, was he looking at her undershirt? Was it wet? She crossed her arms over her wildly beating heart. "Make it good."
Jarek looked up again, and he was definitely smiling. "I apologize."
Her elderly neighbor shuffled into the hall in his even more ancient bathrobe. "You all right, Teresa?"
She cleared her throat and called, "I'm fine, Mr. Nelson, thanks. Harry Nelson," she explained to Jarek. "Used to be a security guard at the paper mill."
He nodded in acknowledgment. "Look, do we have to talk out here? I could do without an audience."
Tess sniffed. "I thought you didn't care about public opinion." But she opened the door wider and stepped back.
Maybe not far enough. His hard, curved shoulder brushed her arms as he came in, and she caught a whiff of his aftershave. Bay rum. It should have struck her as old-fashioned, but he just smelled clean and nice.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around the dingy hall to her living room, strewn with newspapers and decorated in Early American Garage Sale. She waited for him to make some crack.
"Got a problem?" he asked.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You've got a bucket out. Tools. I thought maybe you were having a problem with your water."
Heat washed her face. "Oh. Yes." But she wasn't ready to throw the towel in yet. Unless it would stop the leak. "I'm working on it," she said.
He nodded. "Want me to have a look?"
She liked that he offered. She liked that he asked, instead of just taking over. And what harm could it do? Let Chief Never-Let-'Em-See-You-Sweat Denko get his hands wet and dirty for a change.
She shrugged. "You can if you want."
He wasn't a big man. But her tiny bathroom seemed even smaller with two adults maneuvering inside. Distracted by their close quarters, it wasn't until he had the top off the tank and his sweater pushed back to the elbows that she told him, "I already replaced the float cup. But the water won't stop running."
He had great forearms.
"That's because you've got mineral deposits on the valve seat," he said.
How did he know?
She retreated to the doorway and watched as he detached, scoured and replaced things. Under the navy sweater, the long muscles of his back bunched and stretched as he reached to turn her water back on.
Water gurgled, ran…and stopped. No drip. No leak, Tess thought with relief. But the silence that bubbled up to replace it was nearly as noticeable.
"That should do it," Jarek said, and washed his hands at her sink.
"You didn't tell me you used to be a plumber."
He sent her a slow, sideways grin that scrambled her breath. "You have no idea the things I can do."
Oh, boy. The tiny bathroom felt humid and close. She could smell her soap on his skin.
In a panic, she backed into the hall. "So, what else did you do today?"
His hard face lightened with amusement. "We had one funeral procession, four driving with suspended licenses, and one criminal trespass. Didn't need the SWAT team at all."
Why did he have to be able to laugh at himself? It made him too likable. And much too attractive.
Tess retreated to the living room and barricaded herself behind the couch. "No progress on the Carolyn Logan case?"
Jarek strolled after her. "That's the third thing I came to tell you. The results on the trace evidence came i
n. None of the carpet fibers recovered from the Logan vehicle match your brother's Jeep."
Hope tightened her throat. "Does that prove Mark didn't do it?"
"It doesn't prove he did do it," Jarek answered carefully.
He was honest.
That was something.
It wasn't enough.
She arched her eyebrows. "Disappointed at losing your favorite suspect?"
"Not really. And your brother isn't my lead suspect."
"Just Sweet's."
Jarek's mouth compressed. "Is Lieutenant Sweet still giving you a hard time?"
"No," she said fairly. "At least, Mark says he didn't stop by the marina today."
"And you? Is he bothering you?"
"He always bothers me," Tess said without thinking, sweeping up an armload of newspapers.
"Why?"
"Oh." Damn. She was rattled. Jarek's closeness, his questions, his concern, rattled her. "It doesn't matter."
"It might."
She was increasingly afraid that he was right. But she didn't want to go there, even in her own mind. Her columns championed small town truths. But some lies, surely, were better left buried?
She stuffed the papers under an end table and turned to face him. "Why don't you accept I just don't like cops?"
His lids dropped, half hiding the brilliance of his eyes. "Why don't you give me a chance to change your mind?"
She saw the kiss coming. He gave her time to evade it, if she wanted to.
She didn't want to.
His lips were warm and firm. His tongue was bold and persuasive. His hands as they moved around her were confident—not clumsy, not greedy—and his chest was hot and solid. He still smelled like bay rum, but now the scent mingled with the faint heat raised by his working and the trace of her soap on his skin. Her muscles clutched inside.
Wow, could he kiss. Even after their kiss at the bar, his finesse came as a surprise. She was still subconsciously braced for search-and-seizure technique.
She slid her own palms up the rough knit of his sweater and touched the warm, smooth back of his neck. He inhaled sharply, and it was as if he took all of her oxygen, because she got dizzy then. She had the sense of being sucked into something she wasn't ready for, something big and fast and dark and dangerous, but it was hard to think of that, of all the reasons why she really did not, should not, must not want him, when his mouth was so hot on hers, and his body was warm and solid against her, and his hands were sure and a little rough.
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