she ignored those little frissons of awareness that warmed her blood and sat down to work. “Thank you, sir.”
He paused at the door, exhaling an audible sigh before glancing over his shoulder at her. “It’s ‘George’ when it’s just you and me talking. Okay? ‘Sir’ makes me feel like an old man.”
Not a chance.
But before Elise could do something foolish like tell him he was a fit man in his prime, Henry Johnson shouted from his office again. “Deputy Commissioner? Today?”
With a smile that was part relief, part sympathy, Elise shooed him on his way. “You’d better not keep him waiting any longer. You want to win his support, remember?”
George paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking as if he had something more to say. Instead of speaking to Elise, though, he opened the door. “I got the file I needed, Henry. Now let’s compare the costs of prevention strategies versus...”
When the door closed behind him, Elise turned to her computer and pulled up the memos he’d sent her for distribution and started proofing and addressing them. With the discussion on the other side of George’s door now muted, she worked in relative silence for several minutes.
But the bouquet was casting a shadow over her work space, drawing her attention away from her keyboard and screen. Maybe she should take the time now to walk down the hall to chat with Shane Wilkins, the floor officer. Or maybe she could spare a few minutes to call James. Or her parents. Do a little investigating on her own.
Elise rose in a huff and picked up the heavy glass vase to move the roses out of sight on the counter behind her desk. “Or maybe I should just get my work done and deal with you later. I know a nice hospital where you’ll be very happy and greatly appreciated,” she said to the flowers as she set them down.
With that much of a plan in mind, Elise sat down to finish the memos and save them for George’s final sign-off in the morning.
Do you like my gift?
The breathy whisper seeped into her thoughts to distract her again. Who else knew that her murdered mobster lover had sent her twenty-three roses, thanking her for the unintended pillow talk regarding her former employer, making a mockery of the way she’d given her heart and body to him? Or was this just an unfortunate coincidence that she was turning into something more sinister?
Lots of people got roses every day. Red ones, pink ones, yellow ones—any color of the rainbow for any occasion or no reason at all. They didn’t mean anything other than “congratulations” or “get well” or “thinking of you.”
So why did it feel as though someone was looking over her shoulder now?
Elise spun her chair around and gazed at the hated gift. Then she picked it up and set the vase back on her desk.
Better to keep the things that worried her in plain sight than to let them sneak up and nearly ruin her life again.
“Sorry, Spikey.”
Elise laughed at the furry black bullet that shot out from beneath her spirea bushes as the first spray of water from the sprinkler hit the tiny white flowers and dark green leaves. The dog was in her lap the moment she climbed up onto the new wood deck and stretched out on the chaise lounge, demanding a tummy rub and some kind words to make up for being splashed.
“Maybe you shouldn’t bury your treats out there. If you’d chew them up when I give them to you, instead of hiding them in the yard, you wouldn’t risk taking an impromptu bath when I turn on the water.” Elise rubbed the dog’s soft, curly hair a few seconds longer, then kissed him on his head and set the miniature poodle/terrier mix on the deck beside her. “It’s still too hot for a cuddle, though, you brave little toodle face. You’d better scout out the perimeter before we turn in for the night.”
With a soft tap to his rump, Spike scooted down the steps and followed his nose into the grass. Elise would be happy if the warm wind shifted and misted some of the water over her bare legs, shorts and paint shirt, but not the dog. She grinned, watching Spike circle along the fence, avoiding the spray while he reclaimed his rawhide chew from beneath the bushes.
Truly relaxing for the first time today, Elise picked up the icy glass of tea on the table beside her and flicked away the condensation before taking a long drink. She touched her damp palm to the nape of her neck before leaning back to enjoy the peaceful retreat of her backyard at twilight. She figured the reprieve would last about five to ten minutes before the mosquitoes found her. But by then, she’d be heading back in to finish cleaning up from the evening’s renovation work.
She took another leisurely sip, purposely letting the moisture from the glass drip onto the front of her dad’s old button-down shirt and trickle beneath the placket to her hot skin. The soft, worn cotton was stained with all the colors of her remodel, including a splash of dark blue from the shutters she’d been painting for the living and dining room areas this evening.
Once, she’d dreamed of restoring a home like this with her former boss, Quinn Gallagher, and raising a family together in the big house and spacious backyard. But Quinn, a widower who’d needed his trusted assistant to fill in as babysitter, comforter and sounding board, had fallen in love with someone else. And the need that Elise had hoped would blossom into something more had vanished in the span of a few hectic, dangerous days, leaving her reeling and alone. Easy pickings for Quinn’s business associate, Nikolai Titov, who had said all the right things and made her feel wanted...and then used information she’d inadvertently shared to not only ratchet up his plot to destroy Quinn’s security empire, but to murder Quinn and his daughter. Fortunately, Quinn’s new wife, a rifle-toting member of KCPD’s premier SWAT team, had been there to save them both.
A familiar knot of guilt and regret twisted in Elise’s stomach. While she couldn’t fault Quinn and his daughter for claiming happiness and moving on with their lives, there’d been no one but her parents to help her pick up the pieces of her broken dreams two years ago. And she’d been too humiliated to share everything with them. She hadn’t even shared all the details with the counselor who’d evaluated her before qualifying for the job at police department headquarters. How foolish or desperate did a woman have to be to have an affair with a man, and not know until he sent her flowers from the airport as he was leaving the country that he didn’t feel anything for her at all—that he’d only been using her?
Eric and Susan Brown had known something had changed in their daughter after that. They’d helped her make the down payment on this run-down Victorian with good bones in a quiet neighborhood south of downtown K.C. They’d encouraged her to dip into her savings for new appliances and updated wiring. They’d set her up on a couple of dates and said they understood when Elise bowed out of seeing those perfectly nice men a second or third time.
It was just her and Spike and a lot of hard work now. Hardly her dream life. Quinn and his wife were raising a family, all right, but Elise wasn’t any part of it. After Quinn and Nikolai, she didn’t want a man in her life. It hurt too much to love the wrong person, to believe in something that wasn’t really hers. She couldn’t trust a strong shoulder to lean on, even if it did smell of crisp cotton and musky man.
An image of George Madigan’s stern countenance drifted into her thoughts. Turning to him for grounding comfort had been so tempting this afternoon. A full-fledged smile from the man would probably awaken the hormones she kept in careful stasis inside her. And she could guess that a man in
