standing in her minuscule kitchen from head to toe. Now that he was in the light and fear wasn’t clouding her vision, she could see it was Sam Roberts all right. Taller, broader through the shoulders and sexier, if that was possible.
Now she knew why her pulse had skipped at the sound of his voice. She’d heard it often enough in her dreams. That’s what came of adolescent fantasies. On rare occasions, they stretched clear into reality to zap common sense.
One thing for sure, his outrageous behavior hadn’t changed a bit. He was living up to everything Penny remembered about him from their brief but memorable encounter at the christening of his niece, Elizabeth Lacey Halloran, firstborn in the fourth generation of Hallorans. For an entire weekend he had blatantly regarded Penny as a pesky adolescent, hardly worthy of his attention.
Back then she had chafed at being so summarily dismissed, especially by the first true love of her entire life. The one kiss they shared still burned in her memory. The whole thing had been humiliating and ridiculous. Forever after, she had told anyone who asked that she couldn’t stand the smart-mouthed jerk. She’d finally started to believe it herself in the past couple of years. There were times when she couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
Well, that much was obviously true, she thought, thinking of the terrible mistake she’d made in that hallway.
Of course, she had also told herself that Sam Roberts’s being in Boston had nothing to do with her decision to come to Harvard after years of self-imposed exile from the East. Judging from the way her heart was thudding at the moment, she’d been lying through her teeth about that, too. Apparently some things never changed.
Today, despite his obvious and acute embarrassment in front of his colleagues, he’d managed to maintain that same insolent, arrogant attitude. His entire demeanor suggested that she was totally at fault for the mix-up. Even now he was lounging against the kitchen counter, a drink in hand, while she stumbled all over herself trying to explain how she’d confused one of Boston’s finest cops with a common criminal.
Penny drew in a deep breath and tried to reclaim some sense of dignity. “It was dark. Besides, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, over nine years in fact. He was dressed in a suit and tie at the time and looked considerably more respectable than he does at the moment,” she said.
Now she allowed her gaze to linger on his disreputable attire to emphasize the point. There was the very last time she’d seen him, of course, when he’d been dressed more casually, but he hadn’t looked as muscular back then. It was amazing what a little weight training could do to an already sexy body. She blinked and looked away. It wouldn’t do to spend too much time thinking about that.
“On top of that,” she said finally, “he never called me by name, never introduced himself. What the hell was I supposed to think when this jerk tosses me over his shoulder and hauls me into my apartment? It’s not a technique used by any welcoming committee I’ve ever heard of.”
Jake and Ryan listened sympathetically. All the while their eyes sparkled with merriment. They were clutching their sides, probably to keep from laughing out loud. No doubt it was Sam’s sour expression alone that kept them from howling.
“Look, I’m not the one who ought to be on trial here. Cop or not, he broke in,” she accused irritably.
“Do you want to file charges?” Jake inquired.
Judging from the expression of expectancy on his face, he really wanted her to do it just for the fun of it. Penny could just imagine how Sam, much less the rest of the family, would react. Still, she had to admit to being tempted. She could get even for a lot just by saying yes.
“I suppose not,” Penny finally said with some reluctance.
“Thanks, brat,” Sam said with that increasingly familiar edge of sarcasm. “Don’t do me any favors.”
“Actually, I believe I owe you one,” she said with syrupy sweetness.
He started to reply, but bit off whatever he’d been about to say.
It was just as well. Penny would have hated to pick up the threads of an ancient squabble in front of the two fascinated policemen. She found their obvious respect for Sam, which all the teasing couldn’t hide, something of a mystery. She couldn’t even figure out how he’d managed to get on the force.
Stories of Sam Roberts’s narrow escapes from the law were the stuff of family legend. Her grandfather had tried to regale her with several of them once again just before she’d left L.A., but she’d cut him off. At sixteen, when his sister had married into the Halloran family, Sammy had appeared destined for the life of a con artist at best. Naturally, her grandfather took full credit for his redemption.
But Penny had never gotten the sense that his salvation had been complete enough to land him on the Boston police force. She wondered what the whole story was behind that. She also wondered why no one in California had happened to mention it, then admitted that quite possibly it was because she tended to exit the room whenever his name came up.
Penny glanced over, noted the tension in Sam’s stance and the irritation in his expression and wondered if she’d ever get the chance to find out. She told herself it didn’t really matter. Sam Roberts clearly wasn’t the kind of man who’d be interested in being a pal to some distant relation. He’d made that more than clear years ago. In fact, he looked like the sort of man who viewed women as having one single purpose in life and it sure as heck wasn’t friendship.
Of course, that raised the question of why he’d bothered to show up here tonight in the first place. She figured she had her grandfather to thank for that. She wondered what he’d held over Sam’s head to get him to agree this time.
Sam’s temper had finally cooled sufficiently enough that he could look at Penny Hayden without wanting to murder her. He’d pretty well trampled any little flare-ups of guilt, as well, and was beginning to enjoy watching her trying to extricate herself from any share of the blame for the false alarm.
If she weren’t such an obvious pain in the neck, she might be attractive, he thought, idly studying her smooth-as-silk complexion and the dusting of freckles on her turned-up nose.
The kid had gone and grown up on him. She was wearing jeans that fit like a second skin, a denim shirt she’d tied in a knot at her tiny waist and those cowboy boots that she’d used somewhat effectively as weapons. She’d scooped her hair into a ponytail, though most of it had fallen free during their tussle. Sam had the oddest desire to free the rest of it and let it tumble through his fingers. He nixed that notion right away. He had no difficulty whatsoever recognizing trouble and until today he’d gotten fairly adept at sidestepping it. It was a skill he liked to think had come with maturity.
He deliberately forced his glance away and caught Ryan studying him speculatively. “What’s your problem?” he growled.
The younger cop grinned. “I’m not the one who came within a hairbreadth of being hauled in for breaking and entering and assault.”
“Oh, go catch some criminals.”
“Thought we had,” Jake reminded him. “Might even write up a lengthy report on it.”
“You do and you’ll be hoofing it around the lousiest beat in town come the first blizzard of winter,” Sam warned.
“Come on, Jake,” Ryan urged, still grinning. “You know what Sam’s like
