On Fire by Carla Neggers

what?”
    He shrugged. “The morning will bring what the morning will bring.”
    “To hell with you, Straker. You have a plan and you know it. What is it? Do you think Emile had something to do with that dead body? Do you think he’s going to contact me? Has already contacted me?” She thrust her hands onto her hips, in full outrage now. “Are you going to follow me around just in case I’m up to something nefarious?”
    “Nefarious?” He grinned. “I’ve been in law enforcement for ten years, and I don’t think I’ve ever used that word.”
    She all but sputtered again. “You listen to me. I do not need and will not tolerate a reclusive, lunatic FBI agent with post-traumatic stress disorder in my hip pocket.”
    He got to his feet, crumpled up his Big Mac wrapper and walked through the dining room into the kitchen. Riley followed him. She wondered if she’d said something wrong. If she’d said a lot wrong. She reminded herself that everything she’d said was true and thus it might have been wiser on her part not to say it out loud. What if he snapped?
    He glanced back at her. “Trash can?”
    “Under the sink.”
    He pulled open the cupboard and tossed in the crumpled wrapper. He turned back to her. His eyes were narrowed; his body was rigid. She wasn’t nervous, but she was on high alert. He said, “Two things.”
    “Okay.”
    “One, I don’t have PTSD. I’d have PTSD if the guy’d shot his hostages. He didn’t. He shot me. So, no PTSD.”
    She nodded. “No PTSD.”
    “Two, you need a drink.”
    “I don’t need a drink. I don’t need anything—”
    He sighed. “Now I remember why we threw rocks at each other when we were kids. Do you have whiskey or is wine it?”
    “Wine’s it.”
    He plucked a half-full bottle of chardonnay from her refrigerator. He didn’t bother tracking down her wineglasses, just filled two juice glasses. He handed her one. “Toast?”
    She was past arguing. “Sure.”
    He clinked his glass against hers. “To the first thing Riley St. Joe needs.”
    “I don’t know the first thing I need.”
    He winked. “That’s why we’re toasting it.”
    “Huh?”
    “One night on your futon. Tomorrow I’ll figure out whether I need to jump into your hip pocket or not.”
    “I won’t let you.”
    “Sweetheart, I’m a pro. You won’t even know I’m there.”
     
    Straker had never slept on a futon. As sofa beds went, it wasn’t bad, and he had to admit it was better than that thing in his cottage Emile called a mattress. It was the clutter and the city noises that got him. And perhaps the presence of Riley St. Joe under the same roof. At least she didn’t have a cat. If he’d had to put up with a cat, too, he might not have endured.
    She was up at the crack of dawn, putting coffee on, humming to herself, digging through piles for odd items she tossed into her leather tote bag. Straker hada pretty good idea she’d forgotten she’d let him sleep on her futon.
    Suddenly she gasped and went still. She had her back to him. He figured she was trying to make herself disappear. She had on oversize, black-watch-plaid flannel boxers and a T-shirt with a guy snowboarding down a mountainside on the back. She had slender, shapely legs. The boxers were too big for him to make out the shape of her bottom. Forget the T-shirt; he could fit in it. He could also get it off her in one fell swoop. She was small, sexy and not as easy to figure out as he remembered. From what he could see, she didn’t have much of a life. He guessed she’d gone underground since the Encounter disaster. Instead of a deserted island, she’d picked think-tank clutter.
    He sat up and rubbed his overnight stubble. “You wear boxers to bed, huh? Not me. I sleep in the buff.”
    She didn’t turn around. “I’ll put more coffee on,” she mumbled, and quickly retreated to the kitchen.
    He pulled on his pants and shirt and for once didn’t bother checking the scars on his lower right side and thigh.