Free At Close Range by Jessica Andersen

time got no sexual thrill from the contact. He was too stirred up, too irritated, though there was no good reason for the mood.

    She closed her fingers over the gun. “Varitek, I—” Then she stalled, looking up at him. Faint color stained the base of her throat, where cloth gapped a little over skin.
    “What?” he snapped as the heat rose between them like an unwelcome friend.
    She looked away. “Nothing.”
    He nodded sharply. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in the morning.”
    And he shut the door between them before he did something really, really stupid.

Chapter Five
    Cassie was on the room phone before Varitek’s footsteps faded in the hallway carpeting. To hell with the long-distances charges—it was on his card, anyway. She knew the cell number by heart, and waited two rings, then four before the line went live and Alissa’s breathless voice said, “Hello?”
    A bass rumble sounded in the background, a low, intimate laugh that brought an uncomfortable twist to Cassie’s midsection and revved her system back to the point where it had been when she’d stood too close to Varitek and forced herself not to reach out and touch.
    “Hello?” Alissa’s voice asked again.
    Cassie forced herself to breathe. “Hey, Lissa. Am I interrupting something?”
    When she heard another low murmur, she knew damn well she was interrupting and wished she hadn’t called.
    “Cassie!” Alissa’s voice sharpened with concern. “Is everything okay? What’s wrong?
    Are you hurt?”

    “I’m fine,” Cassie answered quickly, even though she wasn’t really fine. Her arm stung where she’d been injected with God—and the biochemists currently testing her blood sample—only knew what, the back of her head hurt where she’d presumably banged it at some point, and she felt icky all over, like her attacker had touched her, only she wasn’t sure where.
    Finally allowing herself to feel the violation she’d held off while Varitek was in the room, she sniffed back tears.
    “Cassie, talk to me.” Her friend’s voice grew stern and Tucker’s background sounds quieted. Alissa continued, “You’re not fine. I know what fine sounds like.”
    You won’t be able to hack it in the field, Lee’s voice jeered. You’ll come crawling back in a few weeks. You’re not tough enough to cut it as a cop.
    Cassie’s stomach twisted. She was being selfish. Alissa and Tucker were on their first joint vacation, celebrating the fact that they’d managed to live together for the past month without killing each other. She was tough enough to handle this on her own. “I’m fine, really,” she said, voice stronger. “I just wanted to see how you guys are doing. It’s quiet here.”
    There was silence on the line. Cassie could almost feel her friend trying to decide whether to buy it or not.
    When Alissa spoke again, her voice was lighter, teasing. “What’s the matter? No hot date? Stuck home alone on a Saturday night?”
    God, was it really Saturday? Cassie thought furiously and realized that it was. She forced a laugh. “Come on, this is me you’re talking to. My idea of a hot date on a Saturday night is pizza and See Spot Run with my next-door neighbors and their new baby.” Which was a surprise. She hadn’t figured herself for a baby person. But go figure, she’d taken one look at little Eden and melted.
    That thought brought another, darker realization.
    Eden could have died, along with her parents, Dean and Mary McGlaughlin, for no better reason than because they were her neighbors.
    Anger sparked alongside the soreness of the day. When Alissa didn’t say anything, Cassie went with a half-truth. “Okay, so maybe I’m a little lonely. It’s silly, I know.
    The three of us have only been in town together for five or six months. I know how to entertain myself, it’s just…” She trailed off, realizing her words were more than a convenient excuse.
    “It’s just that of the three of us, you’re the