"Wouldn't dream of it." Roarke rubbed a hand over hers. "Lieutenant Softie."

She slanted him a look, but got to her feet without resorting to violence. "Let's get the hell out of here."

She let him drive home because she wanted to think. Electronics weren't her strong suit. In fact, she and technology fought an ongoing war, and so far she'd lost most of the battles.

Feeney was captain of EDD because he was a good cop, and because he not only understood the strange world of electronics, he had a lifelong love affair with it. She could count on McNab, if he was physically up to it. He brought a young, fresh, innovative hand to the field.

And, after today, she could expect the full cooperation of every cop, drone, and droid in EDD.

But she had one more weapon, and it was sitting beside her, making her clunky departmental vehicle purr like a kitten as it darted through the misery of evening traffic.

She might have been Roarke's wife, and the wheel of the deal was his favorite pastime. Okay, second favorite, she corrected with a smirk. But electronics was his well-loved mistress.

"We need to get into Cogburn's unit," she began. "We need to take it apart and put every chip, every circuit, every board under a scope. And we need to do that fast, without whoever's working on it turning into a homicidal maniac. Any ideas?"

"I might have a few. I might take the time and trouble to refine them, if I were officially attached to the investigation. Expert consultant, civilian."

Yeah, she thought. Always a deal to wheel. "I'll consider it, after I hear the ideas."

"I'll discuss the ideas, after you consider it."

She only scowled and tagged Morris on the in-dash 'link.

His preliminary exam on Halloway showed the same massive intercranial pressure. Unexplained.

Early test results on Cogburn's brain tissue indicated some unidentified viral infection.

She frowned as they drove through the gates toward home. "Computers get viruses."

"Not biological viruses," Roarke pointed out. "A sick computer can and does infect other computers, but not its operator."

"This one did." She was dead sure of it. "Subliminal programming geared to mind control? We've dealt with that kind of thing before."

"We have." And he was considering it. He veered away from the house toward the garage to save Summerset the annoyance of remoting it there later. "As I said, I've some ideas."

She got out in what she thought of as his vehicular toy warehouse. She'd never understand what one man needed with twenty cars, three jet-bikes, a minicopter, and a couple of all-terrains. And that didn't count the ones he had stashed elsewhere.

"I'll run consultant status by the commander. Temporary consultant status."

"I really think I ought to get a badge this time." He grabbed her hand. "Let's have a walk."

"A what?"

"A walk," he repeated, drawing her outside. "It's a nice evening, and will likely be the last we'll have to ourselves for a bit of time. I've a yen to take the air with you, Lieutenant." He lowered his head, kissed her lightly. "Or maybe it's just a yen for you."

CHAPTER SIX

She didn't mind walking. Though she preferred pacing for exercising the brain.

And really, this was more meandering, so that she had to check her stride twice to cut it back to his pace.

It was funny, she thought, the way he could throttle back so seamlessly. From action and stress to ease without any visible effort. It was a skill she'd never mastered.

The air was heavy with heat, thick with it, so they were strolling through a warm syrup. But the sharp white light of afternoon had mellowed toward a gilded evening light that was so soft, it felt as if it could be stroked.

Even the heat was different here, she thought. Sucking itself into grass and trees and flowers rather than bouncing off pavement and smashing back into your face.

But there was something… something just under the surface of Roarke's placid calm. She could sense the honed edge of it, like a knife wrapped in velvet.

"What's going on?"

"Summer doesn't last very long." He steered her down a stone path she wasn't entirely sure she'd seen before. "It's pleasant to enjoy it while it does. Particularly this time of day. The gardens are at their prime."

She supposed they were, though they always looked spectacular. Even in winter, there was something compelling about the shapes, the textures, the tones. But now it was all color, all scent. Dramatic here with tall, spikey things with brilliant and exotic blooms, charming there with tangled rows of simple blossoms. And all lush and somehow perfect, without giving the appearance that any hand had touched it but Mother Nature's.

"Who does all the work out here, anyway?"

"Elves, of course." He laughed and drew her into an arbored tunnel where hundreds of roses climbed and dripped onto green, shady ground.

"Imported from Ireland?"

"Naturally."

"It's cool in here." She looked up. Little flickers of sun and sky shone through the ceiling of flowers. "Nature's climate control." She sniffed. "Smells like…" Well, roses of course, she thought, but it wasn't that simple. "Smells romantic."

She turned, smiled at him. But he wasn't smiling back.

"What?" Instinctively she looked over her shoulder as if expecting some threat. A snake in the garden. "What is it?"

How could he explain what it was to see her standing there in the dappled, rose-drenched shade, looking baffled, a little confused by the beauty? Tall, lean, her disordered hair streaky from the sun. Wearing her weapon the way another woman might a string of good pearls. With careless confidence and pride.

"Eve." Then he shook his head, stepped to her. Resting his forehead on hers, he ran his hands up and down her arms.

And how could he explain what it had been to stand by and watch her walk unarmed, unprotected into a room to face a madman alone? To know he might have lost her in an instant.

He knew she'd faced death countless times. Had faced it with her. They'd had each other's blood on their hands before.

He'd held her through dreams more violent and vicious than any human soul should have to bear. He'd walked with her through the nightmare of her past.

But this had been different. She'd been shielded only by her own courage and wit. And standing back, having no choice but to stand aside and watch, and wait, having no choice but to accept it was what she'd had to do had driven an unspeakable fear into his heart like a spike.

He knew it was best for both of them if he didn't speak of it.

But she understood. There were pockets and shadows inside him she still didn't fully comprehend. But she'd come to understand love. It was she who lifted her face to his when he would have drawn back. She who lifted her mouth to his.

He wanted to be tender. It seemed right with the romance of roses, in the gratitude that she was here, whole and safe. But the flood of emotion all but drowned him. Swamped by it, he fisted a hand in the back of her shirt as if it were a line tossed into a raging sea. That storm swept through him and into the kiss.

She waited for the heat of it to drop them both, and for his hand to tear her shirt to ribbons.

But his fingers opened, stroked one hard, possessive line down her back before his hands came up to frame her face.

She could see the tempest in his eyes, swarming in the blue of them with a kind of primal violence that made the breath catch in her throat and her pulse pound in response.

"I need you." His fingers dived into her hair, dragging it back from her face, fisting again. "You can't know what kind of need is in me for you. There are times, do you understand me, I don't want it. I don't want this raging inside me. It won't stop."