Duty won out, and she only got half-drunk, which took some work in the single hour she'd allowed herself. She'd avoided Sam, sitting as far away from him as possible on the wild and noisy ride downtown, then making sure she was at the opposite end of the table from him during the stint at the club.

He'd made it easy for her, and kept his distance.

Even when Mavis had insisted everybody dance with everybody else, they'd bypassed each other. But neither that nor the burn of bad brew had improved her mood.

And the mood hadn't been lost on Roarke. He waited until they were home, alone, as the rest of the party had remained downtown. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"Got a lot on my mind."

"You often do, but it doesn't encourage you to drink with the express purpose of getting piss-faced."

"I'm not piss-faced. I stopped halfway." But her balance wasn't quite what it had been, and she stumbled on the bottom step going upstairs. "Mostly halfway. What's the matter, you've seen me half- drunk before."

"Not when you have work yet, and not when you're upset." He took her arm to steady her. "Back off. I don't need more people poking at my fucking psyche."

He recognized the combative tone in her voice. He didn't mind a fight. He'd get to the bottom of things quicker that way. "Since you're my wife, I believe I have a legal right to poke at your psyche, among other things."

"Don't say my wife in that smug-ass tone. You know I hate that."

"I do, yes, and I so enjoy it. What went on between you and Sam before we left?" "Get outta my face. I got work."

"I'm not in your face as yet. What went on?" he repeated, spacing each word carefully just before he pushed her up against the wall.

"And now, Lieutenant, I'm in your face."

"We had a quickie on the bedroom floor. So what?"

"Fast sex doesn't usually make a man look so unhappy. And I happen to know it doesn't make you vile-tempered. But we can check that theory if you like." He hooked a hand in the waistband of her trousers, yanked, and popped the button.

She pivoted, but her reflexes were off. The elbow jab missed, and she ended up flat against the wall again. "I don't want to be touched right now. I don't want anyone's hands on me. Do you get it?"

He framed her face with them. "What happened?"

"He did some sort of mojo with the headache." She spat it out. "And while he was in there, he got a look at me. When I was a kid. He saw." "Ah, Eve." He drew her in, kept drawing her in even when she struggled.

"Get off me. Damn it. Damn you."

"I'll get them a hotel room. I'll get them out tonight."

"It doesn't matter if you get them a room on the fucking moon. He knows." Somehow she'd stopped pushing him away and was holding on. "It doesn't matter that he didn't do it on purpose. It doesn't matter that he's sorry." Feeling more sick than drunk now, she dropped her head on Roarke's shoulder. "He knows, and nothing changes that."

"Why does it shame you? You were a child. An innocent child. How many innocents have you stood for?" He eased her face up so their eyes met. "And how many more before you're done? Yet there's still a part of you that steps back from yourself, and those who would feel for the child you were."

"It's my private business."

"Do you worry he won't honor that?"

"No." She let out a weary sigh. "No. He gave his word. Guy like that saws his tongue off with a rusty knife before he breaks his word. But he knows, and when he looks at me-"

"He'll see his daughter's friend. An amazing woman. He'll see what you too often forget to see when you look in the mirror. Courage."

She eased away now. "Lot of people making noises about how brave I am today."

"Well then, why don't you be brave enough to tell me the rest of it.

You already had trouble on your mind when you walked in the door this evening." "Yeah, I did. We need to talk, but I have to go throw up first."

"As long as we have our priorities straight. Come on then." He slipped an arm around her. "I'll hold your head."

She sicked up the worst of the booze, downed, without much protest, the mixture Roarke pushed on her when she was finished.

She took a blistering shower, dressed in loose pants and a muscle shirt, and felt human again by the time they regrouped in her office.

She added one final cure, black coffee, then filled him in on her visit to Dockport.

"You're thinking by Dallas dude, she means me."

"It's a strong possibility, one I passed by Mira on the way home. She agrees with me. I'm the only woman who had a part in taking her down, and that makes me her competition. No, more like her opposition. She comes back to my turf, kills here, and shows me she's back and ready to rumble. But she takes you out, she beats me. Whatever happens in the battles before or after, she wins the war."

"A reasonable theory, and an interesting one." He swirled brandy.

Unlike the rest of the group, he hadn't touched a drink at the D and D. "I wonder how she expects to get through my security, to get close enough to me to cause me any harm."

"Roarke-"

He smiled, leaned in as she had. "Eve."

"Cut it out. Look, I know you've got ace security, the best money can buy. I know your instincts are better yet. But she's smart, she's thorough, and she's very, very good at what she does."

"So are you. Which," he continued, "would add another edge for her.

How to kill me when I'm so completely, even intimately protected."

"You'll add to your security," she said briskly. "We'll work out the logistics of that, get some input from Feeney. I'll put cops on you, mix some in with your people at your midtown office. I'll need to know your schedule, down to the last detail so I can have men planted wherever you have meetings set up. If you're going out of the city, using any transpo, it needs to be scanned and swept first- coming and going."

He sat back, sipped his brandy. "We both know I'm not going around with cops on my heels." "You'd prefer protective custody and me keeping you locked in this house?"

He angled his head. "You know my lawyers will tear any attempt at that into tiny shreds, so let's save both of us the time and trouble."

"You hard-headed son of a bitch. I'll chew your lawyers up and spit them back out on your thousand-dollar shoes."

"You can try."

She sprang to her feet. "I pick up that 'link, I'm getting authorization to lock you up, at a location I see fit, and slap a goddamn bracelet on your wrist until I'm sure your ass is safe."

He got to his feet as well. "Then I pick up the 'link, make my call, and have a restraining order trumping your bloody authorization before it's printed. I won't be caged, Eve, not by you or anyone. And I won't hide or run, so put your considerable temper and energies into tracking your woman, and I'll see to my own ass very well."

"It's not just your ass anymore. It belongs to me, too. Goddamn it, I love you."

"And I love you right back." As his temper ebbed, he laid his hands on her shoulders. "Eve, I'll have a care. I promise you." She shrugged his hands off, paced away. "I knew you wouldn't do it my way."

"Do you think I'd be where I am if every time there's a threat I bolt into some safe house? I face what comes at me. I deal with it. I deal with it a bit different than I once did."

"I know. I know you're more savvy about security than anyone, but will you let Feeney look things over?" "I've no problem with that." "I'm asking for you to give me your schedule, where you'll be, when and with who. I won't throw cops at you." She turned back now.

"You'd make them and ditch them anyway. But I'd feel better if I knew."

"I'll copy you."

"Okay. I'm going to have to go to Dallas." She said it very fast, as if the words might burn her tongue. "I'm going to need to talk to the stepfather. I'm not sure when I can manage it, but within the next two days. She'll be moving in on someone else before much longer.

He could be a target, too. You know, Texas, cowboys. Maybe that's the sheep angle, too. They've got sheep in Texas, I think. I-"

He'd come to her while she'd rambled, and cut her off by gently taking her arms. "I'll go with you. You won't do this without me." "I don't think I could." She relaxed deliberately, muscle by muscle. "I'm okay. I've got work."

CHAPTER 9