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he wanted to meet me."
Ten sat up straight. "Really? Who?"
"Jason Hemly."
"Then go. Go! He's gotten a couple of our girls on his show as extras, and one
even got a small speaking part. Those are credits we can use, Grace."
Jess hesitated.
"Hurry," Teri said. "Get out there before he gets distracted."
He'd had second and even third thoughts about it, but finally Hank decided
that he'd drop by Jess's place rather than go straight home. And take food,
because she wasn't going to feel like shopping on the way home, and she'd had
nothing in her cupboards.
So he was leaning against her door, starting to get worried, with grocery bags
scattered around his feet, when she came out of the stairwell and spotted him.
Jess gave him a weary, grateful smile, and Hank found himself thinking again
that he would have to be that fool the one who'd turned her down.
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"Long day." She sighed. "Thanks." And she opened the door and led him inside.
He had the irrational urge to hug her; it seemed so much like the right thing
to do. Instead, he said, "I'll cook while you change."
"You cook?" She looked surprised, and at the same time intrigued.
"I eat; therefore I cook."
She said, "Give me ten minutes," and headed into the bathroom.
He didn't let himself think too much about the fact that by this time tomorrow
their joint assignment would be over. The stakeout team would get the
killer or killers tonight. And once he and Jess finished whatever debrief
HSCU
required, Jess would be heading back to her regular job, and Hank would be
back at the dojo, with no reason to call her or drop by with food. If he
wanted to change his mind, this would be his last chance to do it.
Except he could call her after they were finished working together. And that
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way, they wouldn't be jeopardizing the mission. Wouldn't be screwing anything
up by being so drawn to each other.
Really, though, their part of the thing was done. Because he had found the
next victim before she was dead, because the police were going to be there to
step between the girl and her would-be killer, because HSCU would have the
bastard dead to rights, and arrest him, and that would be the end of it.
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Hank listened to Jess in the bathroom showering, and imagined her wet and
naked. That proved to be an awkward line of thought, leading as it did to her
wet and naked and beneath him. So he focused on how relieved he was that she
wouldn't have to take off her clothes in front of a big room full of drooling
perverts anymore, and that led to his being possessively relieved that he
wouldn't have to share her.
Usually Hank loved to cook. Right at that moment, however, it gave his mind
too much time to wander. He preheated Jess's crappy little oven, started a
base sauce of tomato paste, tomato sauce, and a dollop of water simmering in
her sauce pot, and got water boiling in his own stock-pot which he'd brought
with him because he did not think Jess was a woman who would own a stockpot.
Then he went to work crushing garlic and dicing tomatoes and rolling dried
oregano off his palms into the sauce and adding a little extra-virgin olive
oil and a pinch of salt and a bit of the garlic to his nice, crunchy loaf of
Italian bread.
The garlic bread went into the oven, and the diced tomatoes, more garlic, more
olive oil, and another bit of salt went into the sauce.
The shower stretched a lot longer than Jess's predicted ten minutes
The water was already boiling and the pasta nearly done when she came out of
the bathroom in a big, fluffy terry-cloth robe, her hair wet and pulled back,
her face scrubbed free of makeup. "Sorry I took so long. One shower wasn't
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got out, but then I had to get right back in again. And I
need& stronger soap. Or& Lysol or something." She shuddered a little. "Maybe
after supper I can take another shower. I keep feeling strangers& touching
me."
And then she stopped dead, and sniffed the air with an expression of utter
ecstasy on her face. "Ooooooh, what that?"
is
"Garlic bread, sauce, and pasta," he said. "Basic stuff, but I'm hungry and I
figured you would be too. This is quick and simple."
"Quick. Oh. Wow. It smells like that, and it's quick and simple? When you said
you cooked, I thought you meant that you knew how to microwave or something."
"I eat; therefore I cook," he repeated. "I don't like mi-crowaved food."
"Who does? Where did you learn this stuff?"
"My mom's Italian. We lost the language, but we kept the food."
"Thank God," Jess said so fervently that Hank laughed. "After the day I had, I
can't think of anything that would fix things better than real food."
He turned to her. "Don't talk about work. It'll ruin your appetite, and I'm
making a lot of food."
"A lot of food. Can I keep you?" she asked. Her tone was joking, but there was
a little flicker in her eyes that suggested the joking would end if he said
yes.
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He turned back to the stove and stirred the pots. "You don't like psychics,
remember?"
"I could make an exception in your case." And just like that, all the joking
was gone from her voice.
Hank swallowed hard. He was willing to make exceptions in her case, too, he
realized. Was willing to take chances when he'd sworn to himself that he would
never do that again. Willing to believe.
Was he stupid? Gullible? Setting himself up to get his heart broken?
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