"You're paying the tab," Rosalie said agreeably. With a grunt of assent, Bess tried to eat. Damn cop, she thought. He'd ruined her appetite.

There was something to be said for beating the hell out of inanimate objects. Alex had always found the therapy of a pair of boxing gloves and a punching bag immeasurably rewarding. With those so easily accessible, he could never figure out why so many people felt the need for a psychiatrist's couch.

Until recently.

Twenty minutes of sweating and pounding hadn't relieved his basic frustration. He often used the gym—in the middle of a difficult case, when one went wrong, when a good arrest turned sour in court. The same ingredients had worked equally well for him whenever he'd fought with family, or friends, or had female problems.

Not this time.

Whatever hold Bess McNee had on him, Alex couldn't seem to punch himself out of it

"So much energy, so early."

The familiar voice had Alex blinking away the sweat that had dripped through his headband into his eyes. His brother Mikhail, and Alex's ten-month-old nephew, Griff, were standing hand in hand, grinning identical grins.

"Got your papa out early, did you, tough guy?" Alex swung Griff up for a smacking kiss.

Griff babbled out happily. The only word Alex could decipher in the odd foreign language of a toddler was Mama.

"Sydney's tired," Mikhail explained. "She has some wheeling and dealing keeping her up at night. This one's an early riser." He ruffled his son's hair. "So I thought we'd come down and lift weights. Right?"

Griff grinned and cocked his elbows. "Papa."

"Your muscle's bigger," Alex assured him.

"Hey, it's the Griff-man!" Rocky, the former lightweight who ran the gym, gave a whistle and held out his wiry arms. "Come see me, champ."

With a squeal of pleasure, Griff wiggled out of Alex's arms to toddle off on his almost steady legs. "Better watch out, Rock," Mikhail called out. "He's slippery."

"I can handle him." With the confidence of a four-time grandfather, he hefted Griff. "We got things to do," he told Mikhail. "Why don't you talk to your brother there and find out why this is the third time this week he's come in to pound on my equipment?"

"Nosy," Alex muttered. "He's worse than an old woman."

Mikhail tilted a brow when Alex went back to pounding the bag. "Speaking of women…"

"We weren't."

"Why do men come to such places as this unless it's to talk of women?" The music of the Ukraine flavored Mikhail's voice. Alex wondered if his brother knew how much he sounded like their father.

"To hit things," he retorted. "To talk dirty and to sweat."

"That, too. So, it is a woman, yes?"

"It's always a damn woman," Alex said between gritted teeth.

"This one's named Bess."

Alex's punch stopped in midswing. Turning, he used his forearm to swipe his brow. "How do you know about Bess?"

"Rachel tells me." Pleased, Mikhail grinned. "She also tells me that this Bess is not beautiful so much as unique," and that she's smart. This isn't your usual type, Alexi."

"She's nobody's type." Alex turned back to the bag, feinted with his right, then jabbed with his left. "Unique," he said with a snort. "That's her, all right. Her face. It was like God was distracted that day and mixed up the features for five different women. Her eyes are too big, her chin's pointed, her nose is crooked." His gloved fist plowed into the bag. "And she has skin like an angel. I touch it and my mouth waters."

"Mmm… I'll have to get a look at this one."

"I've sworn off," Alex told him between grunts. "I don't need the aggravation. She doesn't have all her circuits working at the same time. Maybe Rachel thinks she's smart because she went to college."

"Radcliffe," Mikhail supplied. "She had lunch with Rachel, and Rachel asked."

"Radcliffe?" Letting out a breath, Alex leaned against the bag. "It figures."

"She also told Rachel that the two of you had a… misunderstanding."

"I understood perfectly. Look, maybe she went to some fancy college, but you couldn't fill up a teaspoon with her common sense. I don't need to get involved with someone that flaky."

Mikhail's bark of laughter echoed through the gym. "This from a man who once dated Miss Lug Wrench."

"It was Miss Carburetor."

"Ah, that's different."

A smile twitched, and Alex punched halfheartedly at the bag. Working up a sweat hadn't relaxed him, but five minutes with Mikhail was doing the job. "Anyway, we're finished before we got started. And both better off."

"Undoubtedly you're right."

"I know I'm right. We'd always be coming at things from different angles. Hers is cross-eyed. She doesn't see anything the way she should."

"A difficult woman."

"Difficult." Alex held out his hands so that Mikhail could unlace his gloves. "That doesn't begin to describe her. She acts so mild and relaxed, you wouldn't think you could rile her with a cattle prod. Then you point out an obvious mistake, for her own good, and she jumps on you with both feet. Kicks you out of the house."

Mikhail tucked his tongue in his cheek. "You're better off without her."

"You're telling me." Alex tossed his gloves aside and flexed his hands. "Who needs unreasonable women?"

"Men."

"Yeah." With a sigh, Alex sent his brother a miserable look. "I want her so much I can't breathe."

"I know the feeling." He punched his brother's sweaty shoulder. "So go get her."

"Go get her," Alex repeated.

"Put her in her place."

A dangerous light, one Mikhail recognized, flickered in Alex's eyes. "Her place. Right."

"Hey!" Mikhail called out when his brother strode off. "The showers are that way."

"I'll catch one at the station. See you later."

"Later," Mikhail agreed. He wandered off to find his son, wondering how soon he would meet this unique, unreasonable woman without common sense.