Brazen Virtue

around, shattering the cup in the sink. “Dammit! Just stop trying to tuck me in and pat me on the head. I’m not a child. I’ve been taking care of myself for years and doing a hell of a good job of it. I don’t want you to fix my coffee or anything else.”

    “All right.” She wanted a fight. Fine. He was more than ready for one himself. “Just what the hell do you want?”
    “I want you to back off, back way off. I want you to stop watching me as though I were going to fall on my face every time I take a step.”
    “That’d be easy if you’d watch where you were going.”
    “I know what I’m doing and I don’t need you or anyone else standing around waiting to catch me. I’m a capable, reasonably intelligent woman.”
    “Maybe you are, when you’re not wearing blinders. You’re looking straight ahead, Grace, but you don’t know what the hell’s happening on either side or behind you. Nobody’s backing off, especially me, until this thing’s over.”
    “Then stop making me feel guilty for doing the only thing I can do.”
    “What do you want me to do, stop worrying about you, stop caring what happens to you? Do you think I can turn my feelings off and on like a faucet?”
    “You’re a cop,” she shot back. “You’re supposed to be objective. You’re supposed to want him no matter what.”
    “I want him.” She saw his expression cool again. It was that look which made her realize how far he’d go when pushed.
    “Then you know what I’m doing could drop him in your lap. Think about it for a minute, Ed. Maybe some woman is alive tonight because he’s tuned in to me.”
    He believed it, but the problem was he couldn’t get around her. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier for me if I didn’t love you.”
    “Then love me enough to understand.”

    He wanted to be reasonable. He wanted to pull back and be the logical, mild-tempered man he knew himself to be. But he wasn’t reasonable. If it wasn’t over soon he might never be that same man again. Tired suddenly, he pressed his fingers to his eyes. Six square blocks and a vague sketch. It had to be enough. He’d end it. He’d find a way to end it or by the following night he’d find a way to put Grace on a plane to New York. He dropped his hands.
    “You’re boiling your coffee.”
    Biting off an oath, she turned and switched off the flame. She grabbed for the handle, missed, and burned the tips of three fingers. “Don’t,” she said instantly when Ed stepped forward. “I burned myself, I’ll fix it.” Glaring at him, she stuck her hand under cold water from the tap. “See? I can take care of it. I don’t need you to kiss it and make it better.”
    With a furious turn of her wrist, she shut off the tap, then stood staring at her dripping fingers. “I’m sorry. Oh Christ, I’m sorry. I hate myself when I’m ugly.”
    “You going to kick at me if I ask you to sit down?”
    Shaking her head, she walked to the table. “I guess I was on edge in the first place, then when I came down and heard you talking to Ben it set me off.” She picked up a dishcloth and began to twist it. “I don’t know how to handle your feelings and my own. As far as I know, no one’s ever felt about me the way you do.”
    “Good.”
    That brought a halfhearted laugh and made it easier for her to look at him. “It’s only fair to take that a step further and tell you I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”
    He waited a beat. “But?”
    “If I were plotting this out, I could figure how to work it. The thing is, I want to tell you how I feel, but I’m afraid it’ll just make things harder for both of us.”
    “Give it a shot.”

    “I’m scared.” She shut her eyes but didn’t object when his hand reached for hers. “I’m so scared. When I was upstairs on that damn phone, I wanted to hang up and say screw it. But I couldn’t. I’m not even sure anymore that what I’m doing’s right. I don’t even have that, but I have to go on with it. It’s worse, a lot worse because you’re pulling me the other way and I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “You want my support, you want me to tell you what you’re doing is the right thing. I don’t know if I can.”
    “Then just don’t tell me it’s the wrong thing, because if you do enough times, I’ll believe you.”
    He studied their joined hands. Hers were small, even delicate, the nails short and unpainted. There was a chunk of gold and diamonds on her pinky.