That did it. Sam never lost her temper-except with him. Folding her arms over her chest, she leaned against the doorframe. "Then it's just as well we never got started, Mack, because there's something about me you don't know."

"What's that?"

"I have a brain," she informed him. "Every morning when I wake up, it wakes up, too, and starts working. I don't know why, but it just does. Since you had not specifically ordered me never to tell Shrader and Womack about Trumanti, my brain decided tonight-rightly or wrongly-that it was the correct thing to do.

I'm sorry," she said, feeling suddenly sick and eager to retreat to her apartment.

"I really am. Thanks for coming by and returning this-" She waggled the cell phone in her hand, smiled to show him that she wasn't upset; then she stepped back into the apartment and started to close the door.

He stopped it with his hand. "Now let me ask you a question. In fact, I have two questions to ask you. First, by any chance, are you upset because I'm not coming in?"

"No," Sam lied emphatically.

"Good," he retorted. "Because I am trying my d.a.m.ndest to live up to the spirit of the bargain I made with you yesterday. I gave you until the Manning case was over to decide if you wanted to be with me, but I never imagined it would be over so soon. And while I'm on the subject, I think that after what happened between us last night, your remark just now that 'it's just as well we never got started' was either heartlessly flippant or else it was a final decision. Which was it?" he demanded shortly.

Sam felt an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh hysterically because she could not seem to maintain a grasp on what was happening.

"I'm waiting for an answer, Sam."

"In that case," she replied, "I would have to pick 'heartlessly flippant.' "

His jaw relaxed a little. "Don't do it again," he warned.

"Don't give me orders, Lieutenant," she shot back smoothly. "Not on personal matters. You said you had two questions; what was your second question?"

"Are you naked under that robe?"

Sam blinked at him, more disconcerted and more amused than ever. "Yes.

And what possible difference does that make?"

He shook his head and backed up a step. "I can't believe you can ask me that.

Last night, I barely managed to keep things under control when I had several imperative reasons to stop. Now I have none of those reasons except that we had a bargain, and I intend to keep it. Take your time deciding about us, Sam, and when you've made up your mind, then you can invite me in."

"Is that all?" Sam asked dryly, "or do you have any other orders to give me?"

"One," he said. "The next time you invite me in when you're wearing a robe, you'd better be d.a.m.ned sure you want me to stay." His gaze dipped to her lips, dropped to the shallow cleft above the crossed lapels of her robe; then he lifted his smoldering gaze to hers and shook his head. "I'm going home now, while I'm still fit to drive."

Sam finally, completely, understood what he was saying... and doing. The look she gave him back was every bit as warmly intimate as his had been, and it was just as deliberate. "Good night," she said softly, biting her bottom lip to hold back her smile. "I'll let you know when I've made up my mind and I'm ready to invite you in, Mack," she promised sweetly, closing the door.

Holding her cell phone in her hand, Sam pressed the numbers for his cell phone, but not the b.u.t.ton that would make the call go through and his phone vibrate. She waited more than a full minute to do that... long enough for him to have taken the elevator down to the lobby... then she pressed the send b.u.t.ton on her phone.

He answered almost instantly with his name, his deep voice clipped and businesslike. "McCord."

"Mack?"

"Yes?"

"I've made up my mind."

"Open your door."

Sam turned the k.n.o.b; then she stepped back in shock. He was standing exactly as he'd been when she opened the door the last time-with his hand braced high on the doorframe, only this time he was holding his own cell phone in his hand. He wasn't laughing; he was looking at her intently, and Sam felt her voice shake at the enormity of what he was telling her solemnly with his eyes.

"Would you like to come in?" she asked unsteadily.

His arm dropped from the doorframe. He nodded slowly, twice.

Sam stepped back. He stepped forward.

He closed the door. She opened her robe and let it slide to the floor.

His burning gaze followed it down; then he pulled her tightly into his arms.

"You just ran out of time, Sam," he warned, his lips slowly lowering to hers.

"Time for what?" she whispered, sliding her hands over his shoulders and around his neck.

"To change your mind about us."

"I'll never change it," she promised him achingly-a moment before she lost the ability to use her mind at all.

IN the hospital waiting room, Michael stood in front of the television set, his hands shoved into his pants pockets, watching the rerun of McCord's brief press conference on the late-night news: " I understand the mayor is preparing a statement regarding Mr. Valente, which he will make shortly," McCord said. " In the meantime, I would like to express my grat.i.tude for Mr. Valente's a.s.sistance...

and my admiration for his unbelievable forbearance."

Beside him, Leigh slipped her hand through his arm and smilingly said, "I think we should send him and Samantha Littleton tickets to the play next week, and then take them out to dinner, don't you?"

"In Paris," Michael agreed with a chuckle.

CHAPTER 75.

What a fantastic place!" Courtney exclaimed when O'Hara let her into the living room of Michael's penthouse apartment on Central Park West. After Jane Sebring's death three weeks before, Leigh had moved out of her old apartment, and she'd insisted that O'Hara and Hilda come with her so that she could oversee their recuperation. "I phoned Leigh this morning and asked if I could come over.

Is she here?"

"She's in the kitchen, trying to convince Hilda to leave the dust on the top of the doorframes until Hilda feels better," Joe replied irritably.

"Didn't Mr. Valente have a housekeeper of his own?"

"Sure, but Hilda ran her off a week ago. That woman can spot dust where there is no dust."

"How are you feeling?" Courtney asked him.

"Foolish," O'Hara replied. "I barely got winged with that bullet and I got a heart attack over it."

"No, you didn't," Courtney argued, and with a rare show of affection, she linked her hand through his arm as they strolled toward the dining room. "You got a heart attack because you thought Hilda was dead. I think you're sweet on her."

"I am not. She's the bossiest woman I've ever met. But at least she lets me cut the cards when we play gin."

"You never bothered to cut them when we played, so I stopped asking you."

"That's because I was in a hurry to lose all my money to you and get it over with," he joked. "At least with Hilda, I've got a fair chance of winning."

Courtney nodded, but her mind was on something else, and she sobered. "I got my invitation to Leigh and Michael's wedding. It's still three weeks away, but I brought one of their wedding presents with me. They'll either like it or hate me for the rest of my life."

Joe stopped short. "What do you mean? What sort of present is it?"

"It's a newspaper," Courtney replied vaguely; then she put on a determinedly happy face and walked into the kitchen, where she said to Hilda, "O'Hara told me he's figured out a way to cheat at gin when he cuts the cards."

Hilda swung slowly around, her hands on her hips, her brows drawn together into an irate frown that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'll keep a close eye on him after this."

"Good idea," Courtney replied, sliding onto a chair at the kitchen table, where Leigh was going through the mail. "Where's Brenna? Why isn't she handling the mail?"

Leigh enfolded her in a quick hug and shoved the mail aside. "She had a lunch date."

"How are the wedding plans coming? "

Leigh laughed. "We invited one hundred people and we seem to have one hundred and eight attending. Mayor and Mrs. Edelman and Senator and Mrs.

Hollenbeck are going to be there, and the manager at the Plaza is determined to provide special security, which the mayor and the senator don't want. The banquet director is convinced we should move the event to a larger room, which I don't want. The chef is tearing his hair out over some of my special requests, and Michael's aunt is threatening to cater the event herself." When Courtney didn't smile or reply, Leigh studied her for a moment and then said, "What's up?"

"Nothing. Well-something is." Reaching into her oversize shoulder bag, Courtney pulled out several typewritten sheets of paper and a copy of USA Today. She handed Leigh the typewritten sheets, but kept the newspaper folded on her lap. "Two weeks ago," she explained, "after I interviewed Lieutenant McCord, I finished my article about Michael for my investigative journalism cla.s.s. I thought you might like to see it."

"I'd love to see it," Leigh said, puzzled by the teenager's unusual apprehension. Leaning back in her chair, Leigh read the article written by a teenager for a special journalism cla.s.s for the intellectually gifted: Among citizens of the United States, there is a widely held, fundamental belief that the criminal justice system exists to protect law-abiding citizens, and that when this system errs, it errs on the side of leniency to the guilty, rather than deliberate persecution of the innocent.

Most of us believe in this premise as surely as we believe that a person must be considered innocent until he has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; that "double jeopardy" prevents anyone from being tried over and over again for the same crime and that once a debt has been paid to society, the debt is... paid in full.

But there are those among us who have reason to doubt all those concepts, and their doubts are based on bitter experience, rather than intellectual self-deception and wistful philosophy. Michael Valente is one of these people.

Michael Valente is not an easy man to know. And until you know him, he is not an easy man to like. But like everyone else who reads the newspapers or watches the news, I thought I knew all about him long before I met him. And so I did not like him.

I like him now.

More than that, I admire and respect him. I wish he were my friend, my brother, or my uncle. I wish I were older or he were younger, because, as I've seen for myself, when Michael Valente loves a woman, he does it unselfishly, gallantly, and unconditionally. He does it permanently, forever.

Of course, there is one small drawback to being loved by him: It apparently allows the entire criminal justice system a license to spy, to malign, to misrepresent, and to persecute-not only him, but you as well.

It allows them to violate every civil right the Const.i.tution promises and that they have sworn to uphold.

From that point on, Courtney's article was factual, rather than emotional, and it doc.u.mented several of the cases brought against Michael. By the time Leigh finished reading, Courtney had gotten an apple and was munching it while stealing worried glances at her.

Leigh was so touched by the article that she reached out and laid her hand over Courtney's.

"What do you think of it?" Courtney asked.

"I think it's wonderful," Leigh said softly. "And I think you're wonderful, too."

"Hold that thought," Courtney said obliquely.

"Why?" When Courtney hesitated, Leigh thought the problem must have been that Courtney's journalism professor hadn't liked it, so Leigh asked what he'd thought.

Before replying, Courtney took another bite of apple. "Well, he wasn't quite as enthusiastic as you are. He busted me for displaying a flagrant bias in favor of my subject, and for using a writing style that was 'so gushingly sentimental that it couldn't be digested on an empty stomach.' He said the only connection between investigative journalism and what I wrote was that I used paper to write it on."

"I don't think that's fair-" Leigh exclaimed loyally.

"Why not? He was absolutely right on target. I knew he'd say stuff like that."

"Then why did you write it that way?"

Courtney took another bite of apple and chewed it while she contemplated her answer. "I wanted to set the record straight on Michael Valente."

"I know you did, and I appreciate that. But I also remember that your professor was only going to give out one A in the cla.s.s, and I know how much you wanted to get it."

"I did get it."

"You did? How?"

"I got major points for 'Degree of difficulty of access to the subject' and for 'Fresh point of view.' "

"I can believe that," Leigh said with a smile.

"But there was one other little thing that practically guaranteed me that A"

"What was it?" Leigh asked, trying to fathom Courtney's hesitant expression.

In answer, Courtney pulled a new issue of USA Today out of her lap, opened it to an inside page, and folded it; then she slid it across the table to Leigh. "I even got my own byline on the story."

Leigh's eyes widened with a mixture of alarm and horrified amus.e.m.e.nt as she transferred her gaze to the open newspaper. "Oh, my G.o.d."

"Honestly-I didn't realize our professor was going to submit all the articles to the news services, just to see what might happen," Courtney explained, "but when I heard my article was the one they chose, I really felt that since Michael was maligned in the national media, that's where the situation ought to be corrected. I mean, he's already sort of a hero in New York City to anyone who's ever been ha.s.sled by a rude cop over a traffic ticket. But I wanted to set the record straight everywhere else."

She seemed to run out of words in her own defense, and her shoulders slumped. "What do you think Michael will say? I mean, it's sort of an invasion of his privacy, particularly when I never actually interviewed him-formally, I mean."

Unaware that Hilda and O'Hara were also looking worriedly at her, Leigh tried to imagine how Michael would feel about the article. "He's never cared what other people think of him," she said after a moment. "He didn't care when the newspapers blackened his reputation, so I doubt that he'll be any more concerned that you've shined it all up for him."