Free Facing It by Linda Winfree Page B

realistic, would you?”
    Eyes narrowed to glittering slits, she shook her head. “You think it would inevitably end, don’t you? In your head, there’s absolutely no way we could make a go of a personal relationship in the long term.”
    “It always ends.” The words were out before he realized he’d even thought them. Shit, was he still carrying that old baggage around with him?
    “Does it really?” She tilted her head to one side, watching him, assessing him. “What about your friends Calvert and Falconetti? They seem pretty connected. How long do you think they’ll last before that ends?”
    “That’s different.” He waved, a dismissive gesture. He cleared his throat. “What time is your flight?”
    “Stop trying to change the subject.” She leaned forward and he caught a whiff of her—no perfume, just the soft blend of soap and shampoo and Jennifer. He’d become intimately acquainted with that smell over the last few months. “How long do you think they’ll last?”
    “Hell, I don’t know.” He shot up from the bed and rubbed his palm over his hair. The answer was easy enough. “With those two? Until it’s time to lay one of them in the ground.”
    Jennifer hadn’t moved from her position on the bed. She rocked in a slight back and forth rhythm, watching him with a considering expression on her face. “So you do believe there are long-term successful relationships.”
    “Yeah, I guess.” Hell, she’d obviously paid a lot of attention during her training in interrogation techniques. She was steadily pinning him down, cornering him, working him. “Why are we having this conversation?”
    She wiggled her bare toes against the mattress. “Because you’ve turned into the emotional equivalent of an alien with two heads, you gave me an opening and I’m trying to figure you out.”
    “Great.” Skin crawling, he turned toward the door.
    “Walk out that door before this conversation is over, Beech, and I tell Weston to get me a new partner, pronto.”
    Her steady voice brought him up short. He turned to glare at her. “That’s blackmail.”
    “Technically, it’s extortion.” She shrugged. “And you’re such a pessimist. I prefer to think of it as fighting for what I want.”
    He threw out his hands. “What exactly is it that you do want, Jen?”
    “It’s simple really, Beecham. I want you, and I’m not willing to give you up without a fight.”

Chapter Four
    “Chris?” Ruthie paused in the doorway between the minuscule kitchen and the small living room. She’d stayed outside for almost half an hour after he’d disappeared inside, breathing in the sea air, enjoying the alien sense of freedom. She frowned, watching him pace between the door and the couch, from there to the window, in a tight triangle. “Is everything all right?”
    He stopped at the window. “Fine.”
    His stance, the rigid line of his back, whispered of tense deception. The hair on her arms lifted, a wave of goose flesh traveling up her skin with a tiny chill. “What did Tick say?”
    “Not much.” He’d paused too long, the brief stutter almost imperceptible, but Stephen had made her an expert at watching men, gauging their reactions. Her apprehension deepened.
    She stepped into the room, glancing quickly at the room where her children slept. She crossed to his side. “What’s happened?”
    “Nothing. You’re—”
    “Stop lying.” She grasped his arm, just above the elbow. The muscles tightened dangerously under her urgent hold.
    “Don’t touch me.” His fingers closed on her wrist with near-bruising intensity and he put her away from him, moving so quickly that he was halfway across the room before she realized it. A deep anger trembled in his voice and the incredible tension in his body spoke of fear.
    Fear? How absurd. He had nothing to be afraid of, least of all her.
    She took a half-step toward him and stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
    “That’s fine.” He shook his head,