Free Dream Man by Linda Howard

start?”
    “Eleven-forty, eleven forty-five. I’m not certain.”
    “So what time did you get home? How long did the vision last?”
    “I don’t know!” she shouted, whirling away from him. “I barely made it home; I collapsed afterward and didn’t wake up until late Saturday afternoon.”
    Dane studied her rigid back. She was shaking, a very faint but visible tremor. He should have been glad that he had her rattled, but instead he had this crazy urge to comfort her.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he said abruptly, and left before he gave in to that urge. Damn it, what was it about her? He was very aware of the heaviness in his loins, and knew that if she had looked, there was no way she could have missed it. Thank God, she seemed to want to look anywhere but at him. He’d heard of cops who got turned on by danger, but he’d never been one of them. What in hell was the matter with him?
    As he got into his car he admitted that he never should have come here, at least not without Trammell. Ostensibly they had called it a day, but he hadn’t been able to. Instead he’d waited for her in the parking lot where she worked, then followed her home. Stupid move; what if she called the lieutenant and complained that he was harassing her? The LT had given them the go-ahead to investigate her, but Dane knew he’d been out of bounds this afternoon.
    At least she’d given him something interesting to check out. If a patrolman had stopped to investigate a suspicious vehicle, it wouldn’t be difficult to verify. He had the location and date, and he knew it was on third shift. Piece of cake.
    He went back to the office and started making phone calls. It took him an hour to get the name of the patrolman in question, Jim Ewan, a six-year street veteran. When he called Officer Ewan’s home, there was no answer.
    He waited another hour, calling Officer Ewan four more times, without results. He checked his watch; it was almost eight o’clock, and he was hungry. He supposed he could get up early in the morning and catch Officer Ewan as he was coming off his shift, but he’d never been very good at waiting when he wanted something. What the hell; Ewan would be reporting in to work in less than three hours, so Dane figured he might as well get something to eat, then come back and talk to the officer tonight. Whatever he found out, it would give him the night to think about it.
    He drove home and slapped together a couple of sand-wiches, then checked his messages while he munched and caught up on the scores of the new baseball season. He was still pissed at the San Francisco Giants, and wanted anyone but them to win.
    Baseball couldn’t hold his attention, and his thoughts kept slipping back to Marlie Keen, to deep blue eyes that held more shadows than a graveyard. Whatever scheme she was running, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it; she became visibly upset every time she talked about Friday night. Not even an Oscar-winning actress could make her-self go as white as chalk, the way Marlie had been this afternoon. He remembered how her slender frame had been shaking, and the urge welled up again to put his arms around her, cradle her close to him and tell her everything would be all right. What was with this crazy protectiveness? He accepted his natural male instinct to take care of a woman; he was bigger and stronger, so why shouldn’t he put himself be-tween a woman and any danger that might threaten her?
    Why shouldn’t he guard her when she went up or down stairs, always ready to catch her if those treacherous high heels women wore caused her to trip? Why shouldn’t he do any grunt work for her when he could, schedule permitting? When he’d been a patrolman, investigating car accidents, he had always gone first to check on any woman or child involved, without even thinking about it. But damn it, his protectiveness had never before extended to someone he suspected of murder. He was a cop; she was a suspect. He couldn’t