In Death 28 - Promises in Death

time?
    He smiled, so both knowledge and pleasure spread over a face, she thought foolishly, must make the gods weep with joy over their work.
    He rose, moved to her—all long and lean—to take her face in his hands. Just a flutter of those clever fingers over her skin before his mouth found hers and made a better morning brilliant.
    “Coffee?” he asked.
    “Yeah. Thanks.” She was a veteran cop, a homicide boss, a tough bitch by her own definition. And her knees were jelly. “I think we should take a few days.” He programmed the AutoChef for coffee and—if she knew her man—for the breakfast he intended her to eat. “I mean maybe in July. Like for our anniversary. If you can work it in between world domination and planetary acquisitions.”
    “Funny you should bring it up.” He set her coffee on the table, then two plates. It seemed bacon and eggs was on the menu this morning. On the sofa Galahad twitched and opened his eyes.
    Roarke merely pointed a finger, said, firmly, “No.” And the cat flopped the pudge of himself over. “I was thinking a few weeks.”
    “What? Us? Away? Weeks? I can’t—”
    “Yes, yes, crime would overtake the city in July 2060, raze it to smoldering ash if Lieutenant Dallas wasn’t here to serve and protect.” Ireland wove misty magic through his voice as he picked up the inert cat and set him on the floor to make room on the couch for Eve.
    “Maybe,” she muttered. “Besides, I don’t see how you can take off for weeks when you’ve got ninety percent of the businesses in the known universe to run.”
    “It’s no more than fifty.” He picked up his coffee again, waiting for her to join him. “In any case, what would be the point of having all that, and you, darling Eve, if I can’t have time with you, away from your work and mine?”
    “I could probably take a week.”
    “I was thinking four.”
    “ Four? Four weeks? That’s a month.”
    His eyes laughed over the rim of his cup. “Is it now? I believe you’re right.”
    “I can’t take a month off. A month is like . . . a month.”
    “As opposed to what? A chicken?”
    “Ha. Look, maybe I could stretch it to ten days, but—”
    “Three weeks.”
    Her forehead furrowed.
    “We had to cancel plans for a quick weekend away twice this year. Once for your work, once for mine. Three weeks.”
    “I couldn’t take more than two, even—”
    “Two and a half. We split the difference.” He handed her a fork.
    She frowned at it. “You were always going for the two and a half.”
    He took her hand, kissed it. “Don’t let your eggs get cold.”
    She’d squeezed confessions out of stone killers, browbeaten information out of slimy weasels, but she would never come out a hundred percent on top with Roarke in a negotiation. “Where would we go during this famous two and a half weeks?”
    “Where would you like to go?”
    Now she smiled. Who needed a hundred percent? “I’ll think about it.”
    She ate, dressed, happy that she’d left herself enough time to take her time. As she strapped on her weapon harness, she considered indulging in one more cup of coffee before she headed downtown to Cop Central.
    Her communicator signaled. She drew it out of her pocket, and seeing “Dispatch” on the readout, went straight to full cop mode.
    He watched it happen. It always fascinated him how those whiskey-colored eyes could go from easy, even laughing, to flat and empty. She stood straight now, her tall, lanky body braced, long legs spread, boots planted. Her face, all those delightful angles of it, showed no expression. The generous mouth that had been curved moments before, set.
    “Dallas.”
    Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. See the officers, 525 West Twenty-third Street. Basement of residential apartment building. Possible homicide, female.
    “Acknowledged. On my way. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia. I’ll meet her on scene.”
    “Well, you had breakfast first,” Roarke commented when she pocketed the communicator. He traced a finger, lightly, down the shallow dent in her chin.
    “Yeah. I won’t be getting that last cup of coffee. Then again, the female on West Twenty-third won’t be getting any either.”
    Traffic clogged the streets. Spring, Eve thought, as she bullied her way through it, time for daffodils and fresh tourists. She carved her way over to Seventh, where she caught a break for a solid ten blocks. With her windows down she let the city-scented air blow over her and send her