Free Capture by June Gray Page A

are just one really good Samaritan feeding the hungry.”
    His tapes came to mind then and what he’d said about coming home night after night to an empty house with nothing to eat but ramen noodles or frozen burritos. My heart hurt at the thought. “Okay, come over.”
    “Really?”
    “You’ve got fifteen minutes to get here or else I will eat it all.”
    “I’m out the door right now!” he said and I heard the door slamming.
    Even though the drive from the house he was renting was at least a seventeen minute drive, I heard the rumble of his motorcycle ten minutes later.
    “You shouldn’t speed on that thing,” I said when I opened the door and let him in.
    He grabbed me around the waist and held me close. “Man, I’ve been dying to do this all day,” he sighed against my hair.
    I couldn’t think in his arms, so I drew away and made my way back into the kitchen. “I hope I made enough.”
    He gave me a meaningful look. “Anything you can offer me is enough.”
     
    We sat on the floor, leaning against my couch out of habit, with bowls of stir-fry and rice in our lap. I usually made enough food for at least two meals and thankfully had enough to even feed a sizable hungry man.
    When he had finished, Henry placed his bowl on the floor and sighed. He leaned his head back into the couch and gazed at me. He looked so content in that moment that I decided I couldn’t tell him about the job yet, so I just mimicked his pose and tried to bask in this little slice of heaven.
    “How was your day?” he asked with a lazy grin. He reached out and held my hand, tracing circles on my palm with his thumb.
    “Fine,” I said. “How about you?”
    “Well, I heard back from the OKC Police Department today,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “I go in tomorrow for a physical and written test.”
    “So you’re really doing it.” He seemed so excited at the prospect of becoming a police officer. Of course, the application along with the rental house agreement he’d just signed meant that he was tied to Oklahoma now.
    He grinned. “I’m really doing it.”
    “You know, I don’t think that uniform is going to be anywhere near as sexy as your BDUs, but I guess it’ll have to do,” I said because flirting was easier than thinking.
    He quirked an eyebrow. “I still have some BDUs somewhere. I’ll wear mine if you wear your Tomb Raider costume.”
    “You’re still talking about that,” I said with a chuckle.
    “What? It was amazing.” He lifted my hand and kissed it. “You’re amazing.” The expression on his face softened and I suddenly knew exactly where this was headed: we were careening straight into trouble.
    I extricated my hand from his grasp and gathered our bowls. “You’re washing the dishes,” I said, handing him the stack.
    He jumped to his feet. “Small price to pay.”
    Thirty minutes later he had washed, dried and put away all of the dishes and cookware. “Done,” he said, wiping his hands dry and hanging the towel.
    I straightened from the counter where I’d been watching him the entire time.
    “I guess it’s time for me to go,” he said, hedging for a rebuttal.
    I bit my lip and nodded.
    At the front door, he turned and bent to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Thank you for letting me invite myself to dinner.”
    “It’s tradition,” I said with shrug. “It wouldn’t seem right if you didn’t invite yourself to dinner with a Sherman.”
    A shadow of a smile crossed his mouth. “You listened to all of the tapes?”
    “Yes.” So maybe I’d even listened to them more than twice, but he didn’t need to know that I had clung to his words like buoys to keep me from sinking into the depths of hopelessness. Just knowing that he had loved me at all had gotten me through the night on more than one occasion.
    “You don’t remember that night at my college graduation party at all?” he asked, his eyes flitting across my face.
    I shook my head. “I wish I did.”
    He drew me to him