All a Man Can Do

by Virginia Kantra

  Jarek handed her his keys. "You turn on the car, the radio and the police band will come on."

  "Cool," his daughter said.

  A little of the tension released its grip on his neck.

  "Nice meeting you," Tess called.

  Allie glanced over her shoulder. She lifted one hand in a half wave. "Nice to meet you, too," she said.

  Jarek watched her slide across the cruiser's wide front seat and turn the keys in the ignition.

  When he was sure she wasn't going anywhere, he turned and smiled ruefully at Tess. "Well, now you know why I'm not particularly concerned about one lousy editorial in the Eden Town Gossip."

  "Gazette," she corrected automatically, but she smiled back. Something eased inside him. "Yeah, I can see you have more important things on your mind."

  "She's been— It's been a tough year," he said.

  "A lot of adjustments," Tess observed in a sympathetic voice.

  He nodded once. "I thought it would be easier," he confessed. "Allie and me— I didn't see her as much as I should have when she was living with her mother, but we always got along."

  "All the more reason for her to test you now," Tess said.

  Jarek laughed without amusement. "I guess that's natural. She's definitely testing my boundaries."

  "Are you a lot stricter than her mother was?"

  "No," Jarek said slowly. "Linda never backed off discipline. We had our problems, but she was a good mom."

  "Allie must miss her."

  He knew that, damn it. Linda had always been the most important person in their daughter's life. She'd proven it to the court when she'd fought for custody, and she'd demonstrated it over and over again through the years by her determined care of Allie…and her equally fierce criticisms of his own parenting skills.

  Jarek winced. For too many years, he'd been an observer to his daughter's life. Not a participant. And not, God help them both, a father. "I've been trying to do things the way Linda used to. Same rules. Same routines."

  Tess touched his arm with her neat red manicured nails. Her eyes were warm and gold. He imagined those eyes shining up at him from his pillow, those nails scraping down his back, and fought a shiver of completely inappropriate lust.

  "Maybe it's not the rules Allie is testing," Tess suggested. "Maybe it's your love."

  Jarek shook his head to get his thoughts back in order, and she frowned. "It was just an idea."

  Great, Now he'd offended her.

  "No," he said. "Allie's therapist told me that. I've been through that. I tell her I love her."

  "Tell her? Or show her?"

  Guilt sliced at him. Damn it. "I didn't plan on leaving her alone all morning."

  Something flickered behind Tess's gaze and was gone. "I'm sure when you explain that to her she'll feel much better about it."

  He stared at her, frustrated. "What are you? The voice of experience?"

  "The voice of commonsense," Tess snapped. "For heaven's sake, Jarek, she just lost her mother. She wants to make sure she won't lose you, too."

  He stared at her, struck. It was possible. He liked to think in terms of cause and effect. And if Tess, a rebel herself, felt his daughter's insecurity was the cause of her rebellious behavior… Well, it was possible, that's all. Jarek felt like he'd just been handed a hot tip on a cold case.

  He looked through the passenger window to where his daughter slouched on the front seat, her head bobbing in time to the music from the radio. Hope and a cautious excitement uncurled inside him.

  He looked gravely at Tess. "I'll think about it. Thanks."

  She blushed with pleasure. "I could be all wrong. I'm the last person to give you advice. I don't even have kids."

  "No," he acknowledged. "But you were one once. Maybe it helps that you can identify with her."

  Tess looked away. "I don't think so. My mother's still alive."

  Jarek could have kicked himself. "Sure she is. But I hear she wasn't always…there for you when you were growing up."

  "You can hear all kinds of things in this town. Not all of them are true."

  "But you would tell the truth," he said.

  She put her head to one side. "That's very good. Is getting people to expose themselves part of your job?"

  That was it.

  That had to be it.

  Because the other explanation—that he cared about her, that he wanted to know about her, that her past was important to him because she was becoming important to him—well, that would really screw things up.

  He held her gaze. "Part of your job, too, isn't it?"

  She laughed without humor. "Right. My mother is a recovering alcoholic. She always drank, and she drank more after my father bailed on us. Okay? Are you satisfied?"

  "No," he said gently. "I'm sorry."

  Some of the defiance left her face. "Don't be. We did all right. She went on the wagon seven years ago, and this time she hasn't fallen off."

  "I admire her for doing what she had to to straighten up. And I admire you for holding things together. That can't have been easy. You were just a kid."

  "Kids are resilient," Tess said.

  She shifted uncomfortably.

  If this had been a real interview, that would be Jarek's clue to go for the jugular. If they had a real relationship, it would be his cue to take her in his arms.

  But her brother was watching from the damn boat. His daughter was waiting in the car. And Tess didn't give any sign of wanting anything from him.

  We are not seeing each other.

  "Are we still talking about you?" Jarek asked. "Or are we back to Allie?"

  Tess's smile flickered. "Maybe both. And Allie will be fine. Allie has you to take care of her."

  She did. He would. He was grateful to Tess for helping him see that.

  But he wondered. Who had ever taken care of Tess?

  Orange sparks leaped from the fire under the blackened cauldron and danced over St. Raphael's parking lot before floating into the night.

  Isadora DeLucca, her eyes as shiny as a child's, grabbed Tess's arm. "Look! Look!"

  Tess nodded, intent on finding them seats along the long, paper-covered tables. Most of the crowd had surged through the food line while she was still talking to six-year-old Kevin Lindquist's family. All the places left were either on the cold outskirts by the chain link fence or dangerously close to the fire.

  "Yeah, Mom. It's pretty."

  "No, over there." Isadora pointed. "Isn't that your brother?"

  Tess squinted along her mother's finger to the group staked out at the far end of the table. Tim Brown was there, his arm around his pretty blond wife, Heather. George and Marcia Tompkins of Tompkins Hardware sat across from them, George red-faced and argumentative while Marcia ate her way stolidly through the contents of her plate. Mark slouched at the very end with a red-haired woman beside him.

  Tess searched for her name. Julie? Judy? She did something in hospital administration, anyway. The redhead leaned forward to address the entire table, her expression amused and her gestures animated. Mark looked bored.

  Danger, thought Tess. Isadora started toward them. Tess trailed behind, balancing two plates heaped with steaming whitefish and potatoes in front of her.

  "—can't believe that in this day and age any woman would let her husband dictate whether or not she could go back to school," Judy/Julie was saying with an arch look at Heather.

  George Tompkins harrumphed. "Well, it's her husband that pays. Pays for the classes and pays at home."

  "Excuse me," Tess murmured and wedged her mother's plate next to Marcia Tompkins.

  "Hi, Tess," Tim said with a wide smile. "Isadora. Great turnout tonight."

  Under the cover of general greetings, Heather ventured timidly, "I really was thinking about part-time work. Elizabeth at the Silver Thimble said she could use some help."

  "You ought to give Tim a hand, then, at the bar," George said.

  Marcia helped herself to her husband's coleslaw.
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  "There's a solution," the redhead said approvingly.

  "That would at least get you out of the house a few days a week."

  Tim Brown squeezed his young wife's shoulders. "It would make my job a lot more pleasant to have Heather around, let me tell you. But we decided when we got married that she would take care of things at home and I would take care of her."

  Judy—it was Judy, Tess had caught her name in the flurry of hellos—gave a little laugh. "Well, thank goodness there are some men who find a woman who can take care of herself attractive."

  She sent Mark a "You and me, stud" glance through her lashes.

  Mark looked blank.

  "Huh," Tess said. She wiggled in beside her brother. "The only reason you date self-sufficient women is because you figure they'll make fewer demands on you."

  Mark tipped back his chair. "Yeah?" he asked, equally softly. "Is that why you hooked up with the chief?"

  Tess choked on her boiled potatoes. After a moment, Mark handed her his beer. Coughing, sputtering, she shook her head. Her brother was looking around the table for something else to give her when someone put a plastic cup of water in her hand.

  Gratefully Tess gulped. The coughing came under control. Mopping her streaming eyes, she turned to thank her savior.

  Jarek.

  Her breath caught for an entirely different reason. The firelight played on his harsh features, heightening the contrast of his strong nose and deep set eyes with the surprisingly tender curve of his mouth.

  "You all right?" he asked quietly.

  She managed to nod.

  "I thought you were going to, like, die," Allie piped up cheerfully from behind him.

  "Hey, the fish wasn't that bad," Tess said. Which was pretty lame, but it won her a smile from the girl. Tess fought the glow of satisfaction that gave her.

  Isadora leaned over her plate. "Teresa, aren't you going to introduce us to your new…friend?"

  Judy smoothed her hair and flashed her teeth. "Please."

  Barracuda, Tess thought.

  "You bet," she said. "Mom, Marcia, Judy, this is Allie Denko. Oh, and her father, Jarek," she added.

  Jarek's eyes gleamed at her introduction, but he kept his face straight as he exchanged greetings around the table.

  "Jarek Denko," Judy mused. "Now, why is that name familiar?"

  "Jarek is our new chief of police," Tim Brown said.

  "Really? Will your wife be joining us, Chief Denko?" Isadora asked.

  Tess groaned silently.

  "I'm not married," Jarek said.

  "My mom died a year ago," Allie said.

  Instead of looking sorrowful, Isadora looked briefly delighted. "Oh, you poor thing."

  This was awful. Humiliating. Tess stood. "Cherry cobbler for dessert. Anybody want some?"

  "I do," Marcia Tompkins said, her mouth full.

  "I'll take a piece," said Tim.

  Tess counted around the table. One, two, three, four… Judy from the hospital was watching her weight and protested the very idea of dessert. Five, six.

  "You'll need a hand with that," Jarek said.

  "Unless I balance plates on my head, I'll need more than one," Tess muttered.

  He smiled at her with calm eyes, and her tangled nerves smoothed away. A tiny, warm pulse started low in her body. After her brother's brooding and her mother's fussing, Jarek's steadiness was like a port in a storm.

  Jarek looked down at his daughter. "Want to come with us?"

  And he already provided safe harbor and an emotional anchor for a ten-year-old. Tess didn't want to compete or interfere with that.

  "Oh, no," Isadora said. "Come sit with me, sweetie, and tell me all about your school."

  "Mom," Tess warned. Allie had enough adjustments in her life. She didn't need some stranger playing Grandma on her first visit home to her father.

  Jarek waited for his daughter's response.

  Allie chewed her thumbnail while she sized up the situation. Her cool, gray gaze—so like Jarek's—rested on Tess. Tess felt her heart beat faster, as if more were at stake here than dessert.

  This was stupid. She was not asking some ten-year-old's permission to sneak off to the dessert table and make out under the cherry cobbler.

  "Why don't the two of you go?" she suggested.

  Allie stopped biting her nail. "No, you go with Dad," she decided. "But I want some cobbler, please."

  Jarek nodded. "You got it."

  Isadora beamed. Mark raised an eyebrow. Tess sighed. She was going to have some serious explaining to do later.

  Her cheeks were hot, as if she'd sat too long by the fire. She threaded her way through the crowded parking lot, conscious of Jarek's presence behind her, warm and steadying as a hand on her back. There was a big knot of people around the Lindquist family, and a bottleneck by the dessert table.

  Tess got in line. Under the beer and onions, she could smell the coffee and the fire and, closer, more elusive, the scent of Jarek's bay rum. Homey smells. Comfort smells.

  Half the town, it seemed, had turned out to support the Lindquists. Kids raced between the pulled out chairs and hung from the chain link fence like monkeys. Mothers lingered at the tables, their minds on their gossip, their eyes on their children. The Knights of Columbus dads patrolled the perimeter, collecting paper plates, stopping to smoke or to chat with their neighbors. Father Joe leaned down to say something to Mary Lindquist, Kevin's mother, and she smiled up at him with tears in her eyes.

  "Nice town," Jarek said quietly.

  "Yes," said Tess. And felt, for maybe the first time in her life, part of it all.

  He took her hand. His was warm and strong. Just for a moment, she let herself imagine that they were a unit, like the young parents exchanging smiles over the head of their sleeping infant or that old couple over there holding hands across the table. An unfamiliar yearning filled her heart.

  "Enjoying yourself?" a male voice asked.

  Tess started guiltily.

  But it was only Dick Freer, from the gun shop, and he was speaking to Jarek, not to her.

  "Yeah, thanks. Good turnout," Jarek said, echoing. Tim Brown.

  Freer adjusted the color of his L. L. Bean field coat. "Guess you felt you had to put in an appearance. But I've got to tell you, Denko, when we hired you, I never expected you'd put public relations over public safety."

  Tess blinked at the insult. And then burned.

  "No?" Jarek asked in a cool voice. Ice Man, she thought. "What did you expect?"

  "I thought a big Chicago detective would put some time into solving crime. Don't you care that Sherry Biddleman was followed home the other night?"

  "My department is pursuing its investigation," Jarek said evenly.

  Freer jerked his chin toward the table where Allie Denko waited next to Isadora DeLucca. Mark tipped back his chair, watching them with blank, black eyes. "And what are you doing, chief? Having a nice dinner with the prime suspect?"

  Tess bristled.

  A muscle jumped in Jarek's jaw, but he didn't move. "Consider it surveillance," he said. "And let me know when you'd like me to come by the gun shop and tell you how to do your job."

  Freer growled something and moved away through the crowd.

  Tess's breath hissed through her teeth. "That jackass."

  Jarek glanced down at her, his eyes unreadable behind half-lowered lids. "Don't worry about it. I told you, the investigation isn't focused solely on your brother."

  "Forget Mark. How dare he talk to you that way?"

  Jarek frowned. "What?"

  Her throat was thick with rage and shame. She swallowed hard. "It's all the fault of that damn editorial."

  "Wait a minute. You're upset because Dick Freer doesn't think I should take a night off?"

  "Of course I'm upset."

  Tess remembered the near-reverence in Steve Nowicki's tone when he spoke of his ex-partner. She recalled Jarek's calm authority as he took command of the botched-up crime scene, and his fier
ce protectiveness in Carolyn Logan's hospital room, and his fatigue the night he'd dropped by her apartment. To go from that to this…

  "He accused you of not doing your job," she said indignantly.

  "Tess, it's okay," Jarek said, his voice gentle. "I've dealt with guys like Freer before. Police wannabes, mostly. You get used to them in my line of work."

  She bit her lip, frustrated by his continued imperturbability. He didn't need her defense. He didn't need her for much of anything.

  Except for sex.

  The thought caused a queer pang at her heart.

  Although even when he'd had her unzipped on her kitchen counter, Tess thought unhappily, Jarek had managed to keep his own needs under tight wraps. It was possible, she supposed, that his amazing restraint was another indicator of his selflessness and self control.

  Or maybe she should get a clue. Maybe she just didn't tempt him that much.

  Someone pushed in the dessert line, and Jarek was nudged closer. Or did he move on his own? Tess was very conscious of his knee bumping her thigh, her shoulder brushing his chest.

  "Of course, Freer did have a point," Jarek murmured, his mouth close to her ear. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck stood at attention.

  Tess took a deep breath and turned. Mistake. She was a half step away from his broad, solid chest, inches away from his strong, stubbled jaw. He radiated a magnetism, a heat, that made her long to lean into him. "What?"

  "One of the first lessons you learn as a rookie is depersonalization. Freer was really implying that my attraction to you might cloud my judgment."

  Tess's heart hammered in her chest. "So?"

  Jarek held her gaze, his gray eyes rueful. "So, maybe he was right."

  Chapter 12

  Leftover cherry cobbler was no substitute for love, Tess decided.

  She ate standing at the kitchen counter, while the cat watched unblinkingly from the corner. A living, breathing, calorie-consuming cliché, she thought in disgust. She ought to get a lover. She ought to get a life.

  But her would-be lover was halfway across town tucking his ten-year-old daughter in bed for the night.

  Her life included a brother who just happened to be a suspect in an ongoing police investigation.

  And even if Tess were willing to overlook her loyalty to Mark, it appeared that Jarek could not.