Page 6 of Convincing Alex (Stanislaskis #4)

“How often do you have one of these things? ” Alex asked when he took Bess up on her offer of a last cup of cappuccino in her now empty and horribly cluttered apartment.

“Oh, when the mood strikes.” The after-party wreckage didn’t concern her. She and the cleaning team she’d hired would shovel

it out sooner or later. Besides, she enjoyed this—the mess and debris, the spilled wine, the lingering scents. It was a testament

to the fact that she, and a good many others, had enjoyed themselves.

“Want some cold spaghetti?” she asked him.

“No.”

“I do.” She unfolded herself from the corner section of the pit and wandered over to the buffet. “I didn’t get a chance to

eat much earlier—just what I could steal off other people’s plates.” She came back to stretch out on the cushions and twine

pasta on her fork. “What did you think of Bonnie?”

“Who?”

“Bonnie. The brunette you were dancing with. The one who stuck her phone number in your pocket.”

Remembering, Alex patted his shirt pocket. “Right. Bonnie. Very nice.”

“Mmm... she is.” As she agreed, Bess twined more pasta. She propped her feet on the coffee table, where they continued

to keep the beat of the low-volume rock playing on the stereo. “I appreciate your staying.”

“I’ve got some time.”

“I still appreciate it. Let me run this by you, okay?” She continued to eat, rapidly working her way through a large plate

full of food. “Jade’s got a split personality due to an early-childhood trauma, which I won’t go into.”

“Thank God.”

“Don’t be snide—millions of viewers are panting for more. Anyway, Jade’s alter ego, Josie, is the hooker—or will be, once

we start taping that story line. Storm’s nuts about Jade. It’s difficult for him, as he’s a very passionate sort of guy, and

she’s fragile at the moment.”

“Because of Brock.”

“You catch on. Anyway, he’s wildly in love and miserably frustrated, and he’s got a hot case to solve. The Millbrook Maniac.”

“The—” Alex shut his eyes. “Oh, man.”

“Hey, the press is always giving psychotics catchy little labels. Anyway, the Maniac’s going around strangling women with

a pink silk scarf. It’s symbolic, but we won’t get into that right now, either.”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

She offered him a forkful of cold pasta. After a moment, he gave in and leaned closer to take it. “Now, the press is going

to start hounding Storm,” Bess continued. “And the brass will be on his case, too. His emotional life is a wreck. How does

he separate it? How does he go about establishing a connection between the three—so far—victims? And when he realizes Jade

may be in danger, how does he keep his personal feelings from clouding his professional judgement?”

“That’s the kind of stuff you want?”

“For a start.”

“Okay.” He propped his feet beside hers. “First, you don’t separate, not like you mean. The minute you have to think like

a cop, that’s what you are, that’s how you think, and you’ve got no personal life until you can stop thinking like a cop again.”

“Wait.” Bess shoved the plate into his lap, then bounded up and hunted through a drawer until she came up with a notebook.

She dropped onto the sofa again, curling up her legs this time, so that her knee lay against the side of his thigh. “Okay,”

she said, scribbling. “You’re telling me that when you start on a case, or get a call or whatever, everything else just clicks

off.”

Since she seemed to be through eating, he set the plate on the coffee table. “It better click off.”

“How?”

He shook his head. “There is no how. It just is. Look, cop work is mostly monotonous. It’s routine, but it’s the kind of routine

you have to keep focused on. Make a mistake in the paperwork, and some slime gets bounced on a technicality.”

“What about when you’re on the street?”

“That’s a routine, too, and you’d better keep your head on that routine, if you want to go home in one piece. You can’t start

thinking about the fight you had with your woman, or the bills you can’t pay, or the fact that your mother’s sick. You think

about now, right now, or you won’t be able to fix any of those things later. You’ll just be dead.”

Her eyes flashed up to his. He said it so matter-of-factly. When she studied him, she saw that he thought of it that way.

“What about fear?”

“You usually have about ten seconds to be afraid. So you take them.”

“But what if the fear’s for someone else? Someone you love?”

“Then you’d better put it aside and do what you’ve been trained to do. If you don’t, you’re no good to yourself or your partner,

and you’re a liability.”

“So, it’s cut-and-dried?”

He smiled a little. “Except on TV. You’re asking me for feelings, McNee, intangibles.”

“A cop’s feelings,” she told him. “I’d think they would be very tangible. Maybe a cop wouldn’t be allowed to show his emotions

on the job. An occasional flare-up, maybe, but then you’d have to suck it in and follow routine. And no matter how good you

are, an arrest isn’t always going to stick. The bad guy isn’t always going to pay. That has to cause immeasurable frustration.

And repressing that frustration...” Considering, she tapped her pencil against the pad. “See, I think of people as pressure

cookers.”

“Sure you do.”

“No, really.” That quick smile, the flash of the single dimple. “Whatever’s inside, good or bad, has to have some means of

release, or the lids blows.” She shifted again, and her fingers nearly brushed his neck. She talked with them, he’d noted.

With her hands, her eyes, her whole body. The woman simply didn’t know how to be still. “What do you use to keep the lid on,

Alexi?”

“I make sure I kick a couple of small dogs every morning.”

She smiled with entirely too much understanding. “Too personal? Okay, we’ll come back to it later.”

“It’s not personal.” Damn it, she made him uncomfortable. As if he had an itch in the small of his back that he couldn’t quite

scratch. “I use the gym. Beat the crap out of a punching bag a few days a week. Lift too many weights. Sweat it out.”

“That’s great. Perfect.” Grinning now, she cupped a hand over his biceps and squeezed. “Not too shabby. I guess it works.”

She flexed her own arm, inviting him to test the muscle. It was the gesture of a small boy on a playground, but Alex couldn’t

quite think of her that way. “I work out myself,” she told him. “I’m addicted to it. But I can’t seem to develop any upper-body

strength.”

He watched her eyes as he curled a hand over her arm and found a tough little muscle. “Your upper body looks fine.”

“A compliment.” Surprised that a reaction had leapt straight into her gut at the casual touch, she started to move her arm.

He held on. It took some work to keep her smile from faltering. “What? You want to arm-wrestle, Detective?”

Her skin was like rose petals—smooth, fragrant. Experimenting, he skimmed his hand down to the curve of her elbow. She was

smiling, he noted, and her eyes were lit with humor, but her pulse was racing. “A few years back I arm-wrestled my brother

for his wife. I lost.”

The idea was just absurd enough to catch her imagination. “Really? Is that how the Stanislaskis win their women?”

“Whatever works.” Because he was tempted to explore more of that silky, exposed skin, he rose. He reminded himself that the

uncomplicated Bonnie was more his style than the overinquisitive, oddly packaged Bess McNee. “I have to go.”

Whatever had been humming between them was fading now. As Bess walked him to the door, she debated with herself whether she

wanted to let those echoes fade or pump up the volume until she recognized the tune. “Stanislaski. Is that Polish, Russian,

what?”

“We’re Ukrainian.”

“Ukrainian?” Intrigued, she watched him pull his jacket on. “From the southwest of the European Soviet Union, with the Carpathian

Mountains in the west.”

“Yeah.” And through those mountains his family had escaped when he was no more than a baby. He felt a tug, a small one, as

he often did when he thought of the country of his blood. “You’ve been there?”

“Only in spirit.” Smiling, she straightened his jacket for him. “I minored in geography in college. I like reading about exotic

places.” She kept her hands on the front of his jacket, enjoying the feel of leather, the scent of it, and of him. Their bodies

were close, more casual than intimate, but close. Looking into his eyes, those dark, uncannily focused eyes, she discovered

she wanted to hear that tune again after all.

“Are you going to talk to me again?” she asked him.

His fingers itched to roam along that tantalizingly bare skin on her back. For reasons he couldn’t have named, he kept his

hands at his sides. “You know where to find me. If I’ve got the time and the answers, we’ll talk.”

“Thanks.” Her lips curved as she rose on her toes so that their eyes and mouths were level. She leaned in slowly, an inch,

then two, to touch her mouth to his. The kiss was soft and breezy. Either of his sisters might have said goodbye to him in

precisely the same manner. But that cool and fleeting taste of her didn’t make him feel brotherly.

She heard the humming in her head. A nice, quiet sound of easy pleasure. He tasted faintly of wine and spices, and his firm

lips seemed to accept the gesture as it was meant—as one of affection and curiosity. Her lips were still curved when she dropped

back on her heels.

“Good night, Alexi.”

He nodded. He was fairly sure he could speak, but there was no point in taking the chance. Turning, he walked into the foyer

and punched the elevator button. When he glanced back, she was still standing in the doorway. Smiling, she waved another goodbye

and started to close the door.

It surprised them both when he whirled around and slapped a hand on it to keep it open. The fact that she took an automatic

step in retreat surprised her further. But it was the look in his eyes, she thought, that made her feel like a rabbit caught

in a rifle’s cross hairs.

“Did you forget something?”