New York to Dallas

sparring droid you can beat up?”
    She smiled, a little. “Not quite that much.”
    “Take your hour. Then we’ll talk.”
    She remained silent until he drove through the gates, down the long curve of the drive to the beautiful house with its towers, its turrets, its unique style.
    He’d built this, she thought. This house. This home. Her home now, too—and that was something else that could steal her breath.
    “I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it before. I hadn’t started training with Feeney, hadn’t met Mavis. I didn’t think I needed or wanted anyone to talk to about it. I think now, this time, if I didn’t, I might go a little crazy. I don’t know if I could take going back alone.”
    “You’re not.” As he had at Central, he took her hand in both of his. “And never again alone.” This time with his eyes on hers, he brought her hand to his lips. “Take your hour. Go on, I’ll get your file bags.”
    He knew, she thought, because he’d read about McQueen, that she needed time and understood why. She wasn’t sure what she’d done in her life to earn someone who understood her so well.
    She stepped inside.
    Then again, nothing came free.
    Summerset stood in his stiff, funeral-black suit, his face stern as a headstone—and the fat cat, Galahad, squat at his feet.
    “I find I can still be shocked,” he said. “You’re home nearly on time, and unbloodied.”
    “Day’s not over. You know I thought I saw a dead man walking a couple hours ago. Did you have to go downtown for some eye of newt?”
    He lifted his eyebrows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I prefer doing my shopping uptown.”
    “Must’ve been another corpse.” She strode by him, opted to take the elevator down to the gym.
    Thinking the lieutenant had looked quite impressive in her uniform, standing on Central’s wide steps, Summerset walked over to open the door for Roarke.
    And lifted his eyebrows at the file bags. “I take it any celebratory dinner is on hold.”
    “It is, yes. An old adversary come round again. It’s troubling,” Roarke said as he started upstairs with the cat trotting after him.
     
     
    She ran three miles , hard, selecting an urban setting, so the program simulated the sound of her feet pounding on pavement, the buzz of traffic—street and air.
    She set another program for weights and pumped until her muscles wept. When that wasn’t enough, she showered off the sweat in the bathroom attached to the expansive gym.
    She’d do a couple dozen fast laps in the pool, she decided, and burn off the last of this ugly frustration and sick fear.
    She didn’t bother with a bathing suit, but just grabbed a towel. More than the hour she’d asked for, she noted, but she wasn’t quite there yet.
    When she stepped out into the tropical paradise of the pool area, wound through the trees, the flowers, she saw him sitting at a table. He’d changed into a T-shirt and casual pants. He had a bottle of wine, a couple of glasses—and worked with apparent enjoyment on his PPC.
    Waiting for her, she thought. Wasn’t that a miracle? This amazing man would wait for her, would be there.
    She hadn’t needed the three miles, she realized, or the weights or the laps. All she needed was Roarke.
    “There you are.” He glanced up. “Better?”
    “I took longer than I said. I got caught up.”
    “No matter. I had a bit of work to finish up, and had a swim as well.”
    “Oh. I was thinking you’d take one with me.”
    “Well, I could, but I always enjoy watching you in the water, especially since you like to swim naked.”
    “Pervert.” She walked to him. “Why don’t you come in? Unless watching’s all you’re up for.”
    She let the towel drop.
    “When you put it that way.”
    Rather than diving in as was her habit, she walked down the steps, through the lagoon corner, ordering on the jets and blue lights as she slowly sank in.
    “I was going to burn the rest off with some laps,” she said as Roarke shed his clothes. “But I figure you can do a better job of it. Maybe.”
    “A challenge.” He joined her in the water. “Something else I’m always up for.”
    She tipped her head back, shot her fingers in his hair, gripped it. “Prove it,” she said, and dragged his mouth to hers.
    She wanted hot and hard, like the jets pulsing in the blue water. No tenderness, no gentle caress, but greedy and careless.
    He knew, he always knew. She set her teeth on his shoulder as his hands took,