Serving Up Trouble Read online

  In the kitchen, he grabbed a pad and pencil, then stared at them, wondering what to say.

  That he needed to get out before he saw her rumpled and sexy from sleep? That he didn’t know how long he could resist the temptation, no matter how good his intentions?

  He finally settled on one brief line, telling her to call if she needed him, and that he’d be in touch. Then he left, without looking back.

  Luke was waiting for Sam in his office, halfway through a chocolate doughnut and a large cup of black coffee. “Tried calling your place this morning,” he said.

  “Didn’t hear the phone.” Sam dug into the box of dough nuts and grabbed the spare cup of coffee.

  Luke waited until he’d gulped a substantial sip of the really terrible but powerfully caffeinated brew. “Hard to hear the phone when you’re wrapped around a woman.”

  In the middle of a swallow, Sam choked.

  Luke set down his doughnut to smack Sam on the back. “Didn’t mean to nearly kill you.”

  “I wasn’t wrapped around a woman,” he managed when he could get air down his burned windpipe. “I was at Angie’s.”

  Luke lifted a brow.

  “She was scared.” Sam stared down at the jelly doughnut in his hand and scowled. “So I stayed, damn it.”

  “Then why are you still so uptight?”

  “I slept on the couch.”

  “Ah.” Luke, damn him, grinned at that. “What was wrong with her bed?”

  “It’s not like that between us.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Fool yourself if you want to, buddy, but you can’t fool me.”

  Sam pointed to the door. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “Sure.” Luke tossed him a file. “The calls made to Angie’s cell? All from a payphone across the street from her work.”

  Sam stared at him as that sank in. “Or across from the book store.”

  “Or the book store,” Luke agreed with a nod. “Tied into our case then, you’re thinking?”

  “Oh, yeah. God knows, she’s made herself visible enough. She’s told people she recognized a suspect, that she’s hoping to see him again. And with her place being trashed last night…”

  “She wasn’t hurt?”

  “No.” He swore softly and shoved his fingers through his hair. “Nothing was stolen either. So were they searching for some thing or…?”

  “Trying to scare her.”

  They’d been finishing each other’s sentences for years. Hell, no one else could. Not their families, not their lovers—

  But Angie could.

  Not anxious to follow up that thought, Sam headed toward the door. “Let’s go visit our John again.”

  “Right behind you.”

  John was a tall, wiry, spectacled twenty-year-old with a sweet smile that faded fast when Sam and Luke flashed their badges.

  “Dude…I paid my tickets.”

  “This isn’t about your tickets,” Luke said. “A little birdie told us you knew some thing about getting new IDs.”

  John’s expression went blank.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “And I suppose you don’t recognize this guy.” He showed him the composite drawing of their suspect.

  “Never seen him.”

  “Okay, let’s try this,” Sam said. “Where were you last night at approximately ten o’clock?”

  John paled. “Here. Right here.”

  “Wrong,” Sam said. “We were here, and you weren’t.”

  “Okay, I was on my way here.”

  “Got a witness?”

  Now he went a little green. “Do I need an attorney?”

  “You tell us,” Luke said. But he smiled easily. “Tell you what, John. Just answer a few questions and we’ll go away. Fair enough?”

  “Uh…” John divided an uneasy glance between the two men standing before him, one smiling nicely, one still as death. “Okay.”

  “You’re a student at P.C.C., right?”

  John nodded.

  “That’s good, really good,” Luke said. “So…why do you live so far from campus?”

  “Money,” John said. “My parents own this building. They let me stay here rent free as long as I’m going to school.”

  “And last night you were…where?” Sam raised one brow while he waited, not exactly the same picture of patience as Luke.

  “I…can’t say.”

  “John, John, John…” Luke tsked. “That’s not good.”

  “Want to go to jail, John?” Sam asked.

  “No.” The kid put his forehead to the doorjamb and closed his eyes. “I was with…”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Jeremy.”

  “Jeremy,” Sam repeated care fully.

  “My…boy friend.” John squeezed his eyes tighter. “You’re not going to, like, make me tell anyone else, right? My parents don’t know yet.”

  “We’ll need a place to reach Jeremy,” Sam said. “If you’re telling the truth, it won’t go further.”

  John lifted his head. “I’m telling the truth. I wish my roommate had been with us to verify everything, but he’s out of town. So what’s this about anyway?”

  “Roommate?” Sam asked, getting very interested. “What roommate?”

  “John? He’s out of town, but due back tomorrow.”

  “You’re both named John?” Sam asked, looking at Luke. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”

  Remarkably, Angie woke with a tentative surge in her sunken spirits. Lying in bed, studying the dance of early-morning sunlight playing across her ceiling, she decided she wouldn’t let the break-in keep her down.

  In fact, she’d do with it just as she’d done with the holdup. Use it to feed her strength and newfound determination.

  And she would see this through. Obviously, she’d gotten to someone, and she didn’t care. She wouldn’t be frightened away from seeing justice served, not if she could help.

  And then there was what had come after the break-in. The kiss. The amazing, brain-cell-destroying, bone-melting kiss.

  And the way Sam had touched her…oh, boy. There was going to be some trouble resisting him, that was certain. Especially since he cared for her. No one could have looked at her as he had and not cared deeply. But it wasn’t going to work, because he’d never let her in, not really. And she couldn’t settle for less.

  Was Sam still asleep on her couch? Lord, she hoped so. She wanted a chance to stare at all the long, lean, tough masculinity without him knowing. She wanted to drink in her fill.

  And then walk away.

  That part would be hard, but she was a grown up. She could do it. Tiptoeing into the living room, she was breath less already, and she hadn’t even gotten a look at him yet.

  She hoped he slept in the nude.

  At that thought, she had to laugh at herself. Then sighed in disappointment at the empty couch.

  She saw the note and sighed again.

  Call if you need me. I’ll be in touch.

  Sam

  Hmm, sounded like a promise. Too bad he was a man who didn’t make them.

  Josephine was waiting in the kitchen when Angie finally arrived. “You look pretty good for a woman whose apartment was broken into last night.”

  “How did you hear about last night?”

  “The hunk called for you.”

  Angie set down her purse, picked up her apron and pre tended her heart hadn’t picked up speed. “Hunk?”

  “Oh yeah.” Josephine waved a wooden spoon. “Tell me everything, starting from the be ginning.”

  “Sam called here for me?”

  “You got another hunk sniffing around I don’t know about?”

  Angie leaned back against the refrigerator and tried to decide how she felt about Sam leaving before she woke, and then calling her. “He is pretty hunky, isn’t he.”

  “He wanted to make sure you got here okay, so call him back.”

  “Yes, I will. But it’s n