Loving Again(2)
“My favorite is a Margherita.”
“Thought that was a cocktail,” he said.
“Mozzarella, basil and tomato.” She caught yet another of his amused expressions. “But you knew that, didn’t you?” Before disappearing up the steps she added, “And help yourself to a beer. I think there’s still a six-pack left in the refrigerator.”
• • •
Sam wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he stopped by her house. Not sure exactly what he wanted to happen. At least that’s what he told himself. His excuse for going to her house was to say good-bye, to give her a small gift, to see if it would be okay if he visited her in Seattle. But if he forced himself to think about it for more than two seconds, he would have to admit he wanted more. He just didn’t know how much more she was willing to give him the night before she left.
The first time he’d seen her it was like he’d been hit by lightening. Stuck his finger in a socket. Been Tasered. Something that jolting. But he’d kept his distance. At the beginning, it was because she was with someone else, even if she said he was not exactly a serious boyfriend. Later it was because things got complicated. Assuming that’s what you call having the woman you want arrested for murdering her son-of-a-bitch, cheating, low-life, not-exactly-serious-boyfriend.
And Sam was part of the organization that had done the arresting. No matter how much he helped her, he was still a police detective and she had been seriously unimpressed by the officers of the Portland Police Bureau. For the arrest, for ignoring what she’d found proving her boyfriend Tom Webster had been involved in drug dealing with a couple of dirty cops; for refusing to look further to find Webster’s real killer; for almost killing her by failing to send her to the hospital after she was badly beaten. Hell, for all he knew, she hated the bureau and everyone in it for merely existing.
He’d never believed that she’d killed Webster. Not once in the times he’d talked with her, including the night of the murder, had there been any indication she was capable of that. And if that hadn’t convinced him, what he’d seen a couple weeks after Webster’s death would have. She’d been beaten and terrified in her home by hooded bad guys looking for something they said Webster owed them. No one could have been as convincing in her innocence as she was without actually being innocent. Not in his experience. She was a gifted artist, not a talented actress.
She was innocent and in danger that night. He’d risked his career by taking her from the scene to get medical attention when the responding officers hadn’t moved fast enough. He’d been put on administrative leave for interfering with procedure. But it was worth it. She’d had a pneumothorax — a collapsed lung — and much more delay could have been fatal. The up side was being on leave meant he’d had the time to help her defense attorney.
He succeeded. He found the evidence that identified the real killer, another of Webster’s girlfriends who’d set up Amanda as the perp. After the charges had been dismissed, the police took a second look at the case. Following up on information Amanda had found, they arrested a handful of minor dealers and thugs and the cops who’d siphoned drugs off from their busts to sell through Webster’s club, maybe even at the restaurant he ran in a building Amanda owned. Some of the bad guys were already in prison. The rest were awaiting trial.
Now, instead of being part of an organization that had her under arrest, he was her savior, a role he didn’t like any better. The one he was interested in was quite a bit more intimate.
In the three years since his divorce, joint custody of two sons and a job that sucked up huge amounts of time had made any sort of social life difficult. Then he met Amanda and knew he’d do whatever it took to overcome those obstacles if she was interested.