by Joan Hohl
“Yeah,” he agreed, grinning. “The Lone Wolfe does keep pretty close tabs on all of us.” His grin gave way to a chuckle. “Makes you feel all warm, and cared for, and protected, and even...henpecked at times.”
“Now, Eric,” Maddy said reprovingly. “Cameron’s only looking out for our best interests.”
“I know, I know. And I appreciate it...even if it does get a bit wearing now and again.” Deciding it was time to change the subject, he referred to the intent of her message. “So, little Jakey’s in love, is he?”
“Well, if he isn’t, Jake is certainly giving a good impression of a man in love,” Maddy replied, amusement evident in her voice. “And Sarah is a lovely woman.”
“Like her, do you?” Eric asked purposely, knowing his mother’s knack for reading a person’s character.
“Very much,” she answered at once, saying much more than she had actually said. “And I believe that you, Royce and even Cameron will like her, too.”
“Whoa, lady, are you speaking about the same female-hating Cameron I know and tolerate?”
“Oh, Eric, really!” Maddy exclaimed with a hint of maternal exasperation. “Must you be so cynical? Cameron does not hate females, and you know it.”
“No? Could’ve fooled me,” Eric said dryly. “And if I’m cynical...well, I’ve earned the right.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to transfer to another department on the force,” she suggested gently.
“Not just yet, Mom,” he said, thinking about the delivery truck that had visited his neighbors on a Sunday night. “But maybe in the foreseeable future,” he went on, thinking about the loving warmth of another, blond and beautiful neighbor.
“I hope so, son.” Maddy’s sigh was soft, but Eric heard it. “Any police work is dangerous, I know, but undercover narcotics is especially—”
“I gotta go, Mom,” Eric interjected, gently but firmly cutting her off.
“I’m sorry,” Maddy murmured. “I do so dislike a nagging female. But I am still a mother.”
“The best,” Eric assured her. “I really have to go now, Mother. But I’ll be up to see you soon.”
“All right,” she said. “Let me know in advance, and I’ll bake a lemon meringue pie.”
“It’s a deal,” Eric said, thinking that if he wasn’t careful he’d have lemon meringue oozing out of his ears. “Take care, Mom. I love you.”
I love you.
The phrase came back to haunt Eric off and on throughout the morning, but not in a familial way. Oh, without doubt, he loved his mother and his three brothers, but the phrase playing hide-and-seek with his mind had, chameleonlike, metaphorically changed into a different shade of love.
Tina. Her name whispered through his mind.
Tina of the honey blond hair and soft brown eyes and enticing sweet lips. Tina of the quick humor and throaty laughter and old-fashioned but nice musical preferences. Tina of the warm body and hot kisses.
Damn, Eric mused, just thinking about her made him feel all hot and bothered, weak and strong, possessive and protective, tender and fierce.
Was that love?
Eric honestly didn’t know, because he had never been in love. He had been in deep like, but he had never before believed himself in love...except with the blue-eyed, raven-haired minx who’d sat at the desk next to his in the fourth grade, and that didn’t count.
So then, Eric quizzed himself while riding the elevator to the apartment lobby to collect his mail, did the warm and wonderful feelings he experienced merely thinking about Tina denote the presence of that elusive, indefinable emotion called love?
Eric reflected on the question on the return trip to his apartment, and came to the conclusion that, in all truth, he simply didn’t know the answer.
Putting speculation aside, he riffled through his mail, which mainly comprised bills and junk. And he kept further introspection at bay while writing out the necessary checks to cover the bills.
But even as he affixed the required postage to the last envelope the question returned to haunt him.
Was he, could he possibly be, in love with Tina?
Probing his emotional feelings was not one of Eric’s usual practices. But unless he did a little psyche-digging, examining the available evidence, as he would have in relation to his police work, how else could he form an intelligent opinion?
Eric shot a glance at his watch; it read 10:28. Okay, he thought, he’d allow himself one hour of contemplation, but then he’d have to get moving, because, since Tina was not working today, he had promised himself the treat of having lunch with her.
Hell, if truth be faced, he had kind of promised himself the treat of having her for lunch, Eric recalled, growing warm all over at the possibility.
There was a clue there, he mused. A bit of evidence for him to examine. Despite the rigorous workout he and Tina had engaged in last night, Eric acknowledged, his passion still ran hot and wild, and his desire for her was unsated.
A frown of concentration creasing his brow, Eric got up and went into his bedroom to collect the suit, dress shirt, tie and shoes he wanted to wear for dinner. While he was arranging the clothes in a garment bag, another clue swam to the surface of his consciousness.
In addition to his strong physical reaction, Eric had to admit that he genuinely liked Tina as a person, despite the unpalatable fact that he still had no definite proof either way concerning her involvement in this drug business.
All of which left him where?
Looping his index finger through the hook and slinging the garment bag over his shoulder, Eric left the bedroom, and then the apartment. Striding along the hallway to the garage elevator, he concluded that, all things considered, if his feelings were a true reflection of his emotional status, he could be in very deep trouble.
Eric felt a sinking sensation unrelated to the swift descent of the elevator. The sensation warred with the anticipatory feelings simmering inside him.
After all these years of unencumbered, uncomplicated, uninvolved bliss, why had he gone and fallen for a suspect, of all females?
* * *
The question popped into Tina’s mind later that morning. She was stripping the sheets from her bed, dreamily reliving the delightful education in erotic play she had experienced there, when the idea struck.
Was she in love?
Giving a sharp shake of her head, as if to dislodge the ludicrous thought, she gathered the bedding and carried the bundle into the laundry room.
But the seemingly simple question was not so easily banished. Throughout the day, at odd, unexpected moments, it wormed its insidious way to the forefront of her consciousness, insisting she recognize its presence.
In love?
It was suddenly there while Tina was vacuuming the bedroom carpet.
In love?
It whispered through her mind while she was cleaning the bathroom.
In love?
It danced into her thoughts while she shoved the sofa back into place in the living room.
Love!
It finally ambushed her when she paused in her flurry of housework, clanging like a bell inside her mind as she stood irresolute in the kitchen, trying to decide whether she wanted soup or a sandwich for lunch.
Tina knew when she was beaten. Surrendering to the nagging persistence of her consciousness, she considered the euphoria-dousing question of love.
How could she be in love? Tina demanded of herself, dropping like a stone onto a chair. She hardly knew him.
Tina squirmed in the chair, suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that she had willingly made love with, slept with, a man she knew almost nothing about.
She didn’t even know what Eric did for a living, Tina reminded herself. All he had said was that he was on vacation leave; Eric had never specified from what type of employment he was on vacation. For all she knew, he could be anything from a corporate CEO to a cat burglar. Tina frowned, made even more uncomfortable by her last thought.
Did
cat burglars take vacation leave? Tina wondered vaguely, the distracted thought indicative of her growing sense of unease with the subject matter.
Recognizing the mental ploy for what it was—an attempt to dodge the issue at hand—Tina determined that at the first opportunity she would question Eric directly about his employment. Then she sternly told herself to get it together and get to the point.
The point, of course, being: Was she in love?
Tina sighed, but forged ahead with the self-examination. She had been in love once, and what she was feeling now in no way resembled the feelings she had had for Glen Reber...at least not the feelings she had experienced after the intimacies of their wedding night.
Tina shuddered in remembrance.
Although it was true that there were similarities between the only two men she had ever been intimate with, Tina felt positive that those similarities were few and strictly superficial. Both men were physically attractive, even though, to her eyes, Eric was definitely the handsomer of the two. And they both possessed a certain charm and style.
But that was where the similarities ended. Tina knew from experience that Glen was shallow, unfaithful and often, deliberately cruel. Instinct, intuition, something, made her certain that Eric possessed the opposite qualities, that he was deep, abiding and gentle.
And Eric was one magnificent lover, the inner voice of satisfaction whispered.
Of course, again, Tina acknowledged the irrefutable fact that her only basis of comparison was her former husband. But, she thought, it sure didn’t take the intellect of a rocket scientist to arrive at a judgment concerning the differences between the two men in that regard.
While engaged in the intimacy of lovemaking, Glen Reber had proved to be selfish, demanding, ungiving and, when thwarted in any of his desires, sadistically inclined.
In sharp contrast, while making love, Eric had displayed a fiery passion, generating intense erotic excitement, while at the same time conveying a gentle caring, a tender concern and a genuine desire to give pleasure, as well as to receive it.
On reflection, Tina reversed her original assessment; in actual fact, there were no comparisons between the two men. To her regret, she knew that Glen’s charming persona was a sham, a mask he donned and discarded at will, to suit his purposes at any given moment.
On the other hand, Tina felt positive, to the very depths of her soul, that Eric’s charm, humor and caring style were not in the least surface facades, but were instead integral facets of his true personality.
And she trusted him implicitly.
Tina’s sudden realization of the extent of the trust she felt for Eric gave her the answer to her own question.
She was in love with Eric Wolfe.
But having the answer did not automatically ease the weight on Tina’s mind. She didn’t want to be in love—with Eric or any other man. She had allowed herself to be swept away once before by that emotional whirlwind. The aftereffects of disillusionment and pain were devastating, and not worth the transitory thrill of the brief, giddy ride.
So...what to do? Tina asked herself, frowning at the package of luncheon meat she held in her hand, and wondering when she had left her chair to walk to the fridge.
Heaving a despairing sigh, Tina shoved the package back into the fridge; she wasn’t hungry for a sandwich. Come to that, she mused, returning to the chair, after gnawing on her unpalatable emotional state, she wasn’t hungry, period.
What to do? The new question replaced the old in Tina’s mind, goading her into contemplation of her situation, and the options available to her.
She could stop seeing Eric, nip their tenuous relationship in the bud before it had sufficient time to blossom into something infinitely more serious, thus avoiding the possibility of being hurt again, more deeply than before.
Tina pondered the consideration for a moment, then shook her head. What would distancing herself from Eric prove? She would still love him, and the separation would very likely hurt as much as it eventually would if Eric turned out to be as false and insincere as Glen had been.
Getting restless, Tina deserted the chair to pace in a circle around the table. Another, less wrenching alternative would be to continue seeing Eric, but only contingent upon the understanding that their relationship reverted to one of platonic friendship.
Fat chance!
Tina grimaced at the immediate and derisive inner response, but was forced to accept the validity of it. All Eric had to do was look at her and she became all warm and squishy inside. All he had to do was smile at her and her resistance dissolved.
Well, so much for options, Tina thought, figuratively throwing up her hands in surrender. Besides, she didn’t want to stop seeing him, being with him, sleeping with him. Simply because she not only loved Eric, she liked him.
Even though Eric had not mentioned one word about either loving or liking her.
Tina soothed the sting of that painful truth with the rationale that men in general were always hesitant about revealing the depths of their emotions. It appeared to be a built-in species thing.
Feeling exhausted by her spate of introspection, Tina decided a shot of caffeine was in order. She had scooped the grounds into the basket and was in the process of running cold water into the glass pot when the doorbell rang.
Tina glanced at the dining room archway, then back at the pot, determining to ignore the summons. The bell rang again. Thinking it might be the mailman with something she had to sign for, she turned off the water, set the pot aside and took off at a trot for the door.
It wasn’t the mailman.
“Hungry?” Eric asked, brandishing a brightly patterned red-and-white cardboard bucket with one hand and a matching paper bag with the other.
“Yes,” Tina answered, her appetite restored by the sight of him. She raised her eyebrows as she stepped back to let him enter. “What have you brought?”
“Chicken wings, hot and spicy,” he said, giving her a lascivious grin, along with the bucket. “And mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits.” He held the bag aloft.
Tina’s mouth watered and she groaned. “All low-cal, low-fat stuff,” she observed wryly.
“Aw, c’mon, live it up,” Eric said, handing the bag to her and shucking off his jacket.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she muttered, sweeping a glance over his lean body. “You don’t have to worry about every morsel you put in your mouth.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve got the solution to your problem.” He grinned again, more suggestively than before. “We can work it off with vigorous exercise this afternoon.” His expression left no doubt about the type of exercise he had in mind. “And if that doesn’t ease your cal and fat worries, you can have broiled fish and a salad for dinner.”
“I planned to, anyway,” Tina retorted, excitement flaring inside her as she led the way into the kitchen. “And it’s a good thing, too,” she said, prying the lid from the bucket and sniffing appreciatively at the spicy aroma wafting from inside. “This smells wonderful, like an automatic ten pounds to the hips.”
As it turned out, the food was tasty.
The afternoon exercise was delicious.
Although Tina still didn’t know what Eric did for a living, she did know he was well versed in the art of lovemaking.
She soothed her conscience and excused her lapse by assuring herself that a good opportunity really hadn’t presented itself; Eric had kept her rather distracted.
Nine
The opportunity was at hand.
Eric was replete, from the afternoon’s endeavors and from the enormous seafood dinner he had consumed. Relaxed, he lounged back in his chair and smiled at her over his coffee cup.
Tina seized the moment. “How much longer will you be on vacation?” she asked, casually lifting her own cup to her lips to blow on the steaming liquid.
“This week...officially,” Eric replied, readily enough. “But I could extend it another two weeks—” he smiled with obvious sensuality �
�—if I wanted to.”
“You have four weeks’ vacation a year!” Tina exclaimed, grateful for the opening he had given her. “What are you, the president of a bank or something?”
“Not hardly,” Eric drawled. “I work for the city.”
“Philadelphia?”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded.
“You must have some position.” Tina couldn’t imagine him in the role of a clerk, pushing papers behind some license-applications counter. “Appointed?”
“Naw, nothing so exalted.” Eric laughed. “I’m just a city employee, with the option of using my accrued vacation time all at once.”
Very likely because of his lean, muscular physique, Tina immediately thought of the waste management department, the hauling and lifting required in trash disposal.
No wonder he could eat like a racehorse and show not an inch of excess flesh, she mused. If, indeed, he was employed in the area of waste management.
Tina opened her mouth to ask point-blank, but Eric beat her into speech.
“More coffee?”
“Er...no, thank you.” Tina shifted mental gears. “I’m stuffed to the gills.”
“You ate the flounder’s gills?” Eric opened his eyes wide in feigned horror.
“No, you idiot,” Tina said, laughing. “The broiled flounder I ordered came sans gills.”
“I didn’t notice.” He grinned at her. “But I am relieved to hear it.”
“Of course you didn’t notice,” she gibed. “You were too busy inhaling two dozen steamed clams, a one-pound lobster tail, a baked potato, literally swimming in butter and sour cream, and a Caesar salad that looked large enough to feed a family of four.”
“Only if they were on a strict diet,” Eric protested in an injured tone.
Tina was helpless against the offended expression he pulled, and the laughter teasing her quivering lips. The question of his work went right out of her head. She didn’t notice its departure, because she was too caught up in the sheer joy she experienced just being with him.
When Eric flashed his wicked grin, Tina’s amusement escaped. They exited the restaurant laughing together, her cares forgotten, for tonight, at least.
