"You locked your door," he said, like an idiot.
"Yeah."
He stepped inside. The kitchen smelled of chocolate and peppermint. "You never lock your door."
"You've been after me about it for three years now. Eventually, even I can learn something new." She looked up at him. "I'm not going to just let someone waltz in here and hurt me."
He stared at his boots until she walked back to the white enamel stove. Her feet were bare. She was wearing a blue and white seersucker robe loose over mint-green pajamas. "I didn't know if you'd still be up," he said.
"I couldn't fall asleep." She glanced at the ceiling, to where, presumably, her guest was dreaming of happier days south of the border. Although she kept her voice low, so maybe he wasn't asleep yet, either. "I got Amado settled in, but my mind was going a mile a minute, so I decided to come downstairs and make hot cocoa." She gestured to a mug on the white counter. HELICOPTER PILOTS DO IT WITH BOTH HANDS, it read. There was a bottle of peppermint schnapps and an open carton of eggs next to it. "I still have some in the pan, if you'd like a mug."
"No, thanks," he said.
"It's nonalcoholic. I put the schnapps in afterward." She took a long drink from her own mug.
"I'm not staying long," he said, even as he shucked his jacket and dropped it on the back of one of the chairs drawn haphazardly against the heavy pine table.
She shrugged. "More for me." She took another pull from her drink and turned toward the stove. He heard the click-click-click of the gas jet, and then the pilot caught and a blue flame shot up from the black iron burner. She turned it down and slid a cobalt-blue omelet pan over the heat.
"How're you doing?" he asked.
"Fine," she said. She reached for the egg carton. Cracked an egg into a grass-green ceramic bowl. "Grab the milk out of the fridge for me, will you?"
Her twenty-year-old refrigerator was almost buried beneath photos, clippings, comics, and brochures. He figured the whole appliance was held together by magnetic force at this point.
He set the carton on the counter next to where she was now whisking eggs furiously in the bowl. She took another drink of hot cocoa before slopping a measure of milk into the frothing eggs. He eyeballed the schnapps bottle. It was more empty than full.
She cracked pepper from a scarlet peppermill into the mixture and then beat it as if it might get up and walk away if not subdued. She crossed to the refrigerator, popped it open, and retrieved a lump of greasy white paper, which, unwrapped, proved to be a lump of greasy white something else. She hacked off a piece of it and dropped it into the omelet pan. It snapped and sizzled.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Pig fat," she said, taking another swig of hot cocoa. She bottomed out the mug and looked into it, frowning. "You can't make comfort food without pig fat." He noticed her Virginia accent was more pronounced. She took a spoon from the drainboard, stirred the pan at the back of the stove, and poured more hot cocoa into her mug. She unscrewed the schnapps and added a liberal splash.
"Don't you think you ought to ease up on that?"
She turned on him. Cocked her fist against one hip. "Maybe I should relax by beating somebody to a pulp instead?"
"Christ, Clare, you were the one who broke his nose!"
"I was defending myself. What's your excuse?"
He inhaled, took his glasses off, and rubbed them on his shirtfront. "I don't have any excuse." He tossed his glasses onto the pine tabletop and ran both hands through his hair, tugging at it, hard. "God knows, I already feel bad enough without you laying into me. If one of my officers had done that, I'da had him on suspension by now." He dragged a chair out and dropped into it. "I don't know what got into me. I just don't know." He stared at his hands. In the glow of the hanging lamp, he could see the nicks and scars from every accident he'd ever had. The knuckles of his right hand were reddened and puffy and aching.
"Do you want some ice for that?" she said, her voice quiet.
"No." He flexed his fingers into a fist and opened them again. "I want it to hurt."
She sighed. He heard the sizzling pan slide off its burner. He heard her bare feet as she crossed the floor. Then her hand settled over his, light and warm. "What did you come here for, Russ? Absolution?"
He shook his head. "I wanted to… make sure you were okay." He folded his hands on the table and stared at them. She hesitated for a moment, then touched his hair, her fingers stroking him like you'd pet a cat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I guess that was…"
She gave him time to finish, but he had no idea what he was saying. She sighed again. "I can't solve your problems, dear heart. I'm part of them."
He looked up at her, then. "No," he said. "Never that. It's me. I'm… stuck. I'm like an old truck up to its hubcaps in snow. I go forward, I go back, nothing ever changes or shakes loose, and the whole time I'm cold, inside and out. The only time I feel anything is when I'm angry. And that scares the crap out of me."
Her hand never stopped moving over his hair. "How do you feel now?"
He studied her face. Let himself feel for a moment. "Naked. Sometimes you scare the crap out of me, too."
She laughed a little. He pressed his palms against the table and pushed himself up. She stepped back. "I better head home," he said. "I think I've reached my maximum daily limit of honesty." He pushed the chair back into place. "If you hear or see anything, anything at all, that makes you nervous, call nine-one-one. And call me. We'd rather come out on a false alarm than see you get into trouble again."
She smiled, one-sided. "Thank you, Chief Van Alstyne."
He covered his eyes with one hand. "Christ, I'm pitiful, aren't I?"
He felt her arms go around him. She hugged him, something she probably wouldn't have done without the encouragement of the schnapps. "No," she said. "You're human. And someday, when you can admit that to yourself, you'll stop feeling so bad that you can't save everyone."
He looked down at her, about to say that sounded like a pretty damn accurate description of her, but her eyes were X-raying through him, and her pointed half smile said I know you.
He didn't let himself think. He kissed her. As lightly and briefly as one of her blessings. A thanksgiving and an apology. Then he lifted his head and saw her face, tipped back like the survivor of a long winter on the first day of hot spring sunshine. "Clare," he said, his voice thick. She opened her eyes, full of heat, and just like that the desperate desire he thought he'd never feel again flamed to life like blue gas jetting out of cold iron.
He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her to him, kissing her, deep, hungry kisses that tasted of chocolate and peppermint. She moaned in the back of her throat and wrestled her hands free from around his waist to twine them about his neck. He bumped against the kitchen table and bent her back, kissing her, kissing her, her mouth and her jaw and the pulse trip-hammering in her throat. He felt something huge and powerful racing through him, sparking every nerve end, blanking out everything in the world except Clare, the taste of her, the sound of her, panting and gasping, the feel of her, oh, God, better than anything he had ever fantasized, as he yanked open her pajama top and pushed it aside and touched her, touched her, touched her.