“I guess I didn’t get that memo.”

“We’ll let it go this time.” He gazed down at her and asked, “So are you going to tell me what you wished for?”

She smiled.

Reaching up, she drew his face down to hers and kissed him full on the mouth. If Sam was surprised, he recovered quickly.

It had never been Fiona’s habit to make the first move, but there was something about this man and this place that she needed to hold on to. Sam DelVecchio was the most decent man she’d ever met, and if she was ever going to let him know how she felt, it was going to have to be now. Tomorrow, things could change, she knew that all too well. Maybe there would only be tonight. If so, she needed to take advantage of that. If other days, other nights, were in the cards, she was fine with that, too. She’d welcome them. Right now, she was trying to ignore the voices in her head that were telling her that she should have waited for him to make the first move.

There’d been nothing tentative about that first kiss, nothing tentative in his response. She held his face in her hands and looked into his eyes, wanting him to know without her telling him that she was in this for wherever it would lead. She teased the inside of his mouth with her tongue and he reciprocated. She felt as if she couldn’t get close enough to him, and when he moved back on the lounge to reposition her, she settled into him as if she belonged there. When his hands ran up and down the sides of her body, she raised her arms and wound them both around his neck to give him better access. She kissed him with total abandon and for the first time in her life, didn’t bother to outline the potential consequences first. She got a glimpse into what her carefully constructed life had been missing, and it was exhilarating. His mouth moved down the side of her throat as his hands moved on her breasts, his touch on her bare skin sending a quick shot of heat to her very core.

“Hey, Sam, is that… oh.” Tom stood half in and half out of the door. “Sorry. I didn’t…”

Startled, Fiona bolted upright.

“Not a problem,” Sam said with a great sigh of resignation, as he pulled her shirt down as surreptitiously as possible.

“The dogs were getting restless, coming in and out of our room for the past half hour,” Tom explained from the doorway, “so I let them out the front. Then I came into the kitchen for a glass of water and saw the back door open, and thought for a minute we had a visitor. Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” Tom began to disappear into the house.

“It’s okay, Tom. Come sit with us.” Sam pointed to the row of rocking chairs.

Tom appeared hesitant until Sam said, “I guess we’re all having trouble sleeping tonight. Everyone’s a little on edge.”

Tom took a few steps toward them. “Yeah. Then when I saw the kitchen door open I thought maybe I let the dogs out the wrong side of the house. Stopped my heart in my chest until I realized it was you two out here.”

He grabbed one of the chairs and turned it around to face Sam and Fiona. She tried unsuccessfully to act as if sitting there in Sam’s arms was the most natural thing in the world, something she did every day.

Well, it had felt natural, until Tom showed up and scared the crap out of her.

“It’s a beautiful night, Tom. The flowers in Kitty’s garden smell great.” Sam pointed overhead. “Beautiful stars. Fiona and I were just admiring the overhead view.”

“Yeah, the old place has its charm.” He nodded. “I think I’ll grab me a cold something out of the fridge. You want anything while I’m in there? Sam? Fiona?”

“I’ll take a beer if you’ve got one,” Sam said.

“Nothing for me,” Fiona replied. “Actually, I think I’ll be going back up. The mosquitoes are beginning to like the taste of me a little too much.”

Tom disappeared into the house.

“I like the taste of you, too,” Sam said, pulling her down for one long, last kiss. Fiona slowly pushed from his embrace and stood up.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Sam.”

She’d gotten as far as the back door when he called her name.

“Fiona.”

When she turned around, he was sitting on the edge of the lounge.

“Did you get what you wished for?” he asked.

“Not all, but it will do for a start.” She smiled and went inside, waving to Tom in the kitchen, and shot quietly up the back steps to her room on the third floor.

It was well past dawn before Sam awoke the next day. After Fiona had gone to bed, he and Tom sat outside and talked for another hour or so, the first time in years they’d done that. Still, if he said he’d been pleased when his brother had shown up, he’d be lying. He’d been wanting to kiss Fiona practically since the first time he saw her, but it had been so long since he’d made a serious move on a woman that he was afraid he’d botch it. While he’d never cared much for aggressive women, that Fiona hadn’t waited for him but had, rather, taken matters into her own hands-so to speak-had delighted him.

He sat up against the wooden headboard, thinking that she just might be the first woman he’d ever been comfortable with on every level. Carly, for all her love for him, had never really understood who he was, nor had she understood how seriously he took his oath to seek justice, to stand for the innocent. A bit of a Pollyanna, Carly had believed that every man had a good heart and if given the opportunity, would always choose to do the right thing. Sam knew better. Fiona did, too. There were things he’d never have to explain to her, and that in itself was liberating. She knew, as he did, that evil was a real force in the world, that it had to be met head-on, and she was as unafraid to put herself on the line as he was. That she was beautiful was just a bonus. It was her heart and her spirit, her character, that he was falling for. Apparently, she felt the same way about him. In spite of everything that was going on around him-including a potential threat to his own life-Sam was feeling pretty good, possibly even optimistic.

He lay in bed until he heard the old grandfather’s clock in the front hall chime eight times, then, surprised at how late it was, jumped out of bed and grabbed his clothes before going down the hall to the bathroom. Once showered and shaved and dressed, he knocked quietly on Fiona’s door. When there was no answer, he opened the door slowly, hoping to find that she, too, had overslept. The thought of kissing her awake was hugely appealing. But when he stepped into her room, he found the bed already made. Disappointed, he made his way downstairs, the tantalizing scent of pancakes and sausages leading the way.

“Smells incredible, Kitty,” he said as he came into the kitchen. Tom and his son were already chowing down, but no Fiona. He walked to the open back door. “Did Fiona go out to the garden? She mentioned last night that she wanted to see just what all you were growing out there that smelled so good.”

Kitty turned from the stove, a bowl of batter in one hand, a large wooden spoon in the other.

“She left around five,” Kitty told him. “She said something came up unexpectedly and she had to go. She said she had to take the car but I told her not to worry, that you could use one of ours. Now she did say that you could rent one and the Bureau would pay for it, but I told her-”

“Did she say where she was going?” Sam frowned. Fiona left? Without even waking him to tell him she was leaving?

Kitty shook her head. “No. Just that she got a message and there was something she had to do. I thought maybe it might be something to do with your case… but then again, I guess she would have told you. She was in a big hurry, though. She was starting to write a note when I came down but I told her not to worry, that I’d give you the message.”

He stood in the center of the room feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Sam?” Kitty was saying. “Should I have let her write the note?”