Secret Admirer

He had a sudden vision of her in the aforementioned hot pants and spike heels, and something unwelcome stirred inside him.

As if she were reading his mind, her hazel eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t have a problem working with a female partner, do you, Detective?”

He shrugged. “No. I just don’t want a partner period.”

Something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he hoped, but it sure as hell looked like hurt. Jeez…

She gave him a cool smile. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we…Tony?”

The way she said his name…her voice…

For a moment, recognition teased at the fringes of his mind. Had they met before? She looked a little familiar, but surely he would have remembered that body. Those incredible legs.

“Why don’t you wait outside, Eve? I’d like to have a word with Tony before you two hook up.”

“Sure.”

Eve gave Tony a tentative smile before she turned and left the room. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he caught a whiff of her perfume as she walked by him. The fragrance was light, flowery—not at all like the heavy musk Clare had always been partial to. The floral scent was more like the perfume Ashley had worn.

Ashley…

Yes, something about Eve Barrett reminded him of Ashley, but he couldn’t say what, exactly. It wasn’t their looks. Ashley had been tall, willowy, blond. Drop-dead gorgeous. Eve was shorter, thin but more athletic looking. Attractive but not beautiful. Not even close.

Still, there was something about her that had momentarily taken Tony’s mind off his headache. Looking back at Clare, however, the pain hit him right between the eyes.

She gave him a slow smile. “So, what do you think? Can you work with her without driving her crazy?”

Was that really what Clare wanted to know? “I’d say she has potential.”

The smile disappeared from Clare’s red lips. “Consider this a trial. A probation of sorts. If you screw up…”

His brows rose. “Yeah?”

“Not even the Gallagher name will save you this time.”

Had it ever? Both his brothers were cops, just as his father had been before he’d disappeared almost eight years ago while investigating Ashley’s murder. Tony’s family had a long tradition in Chicago law enforcement, but he wasn’t so sure that history had ever helped him out of a jam. In fact, maybe the pressure of trying to live up to the name—and not succeeding—had been his downfall.

Or maybe he was just a screwup, Tony conceded with an inward shrug. The black sheep of the family. At least Fiona still had hope for him.

“So how old is she, anyway?” Tony nodded toward the door. “She looks like a kid. How long was she in vice?”

“A while,” Clare said evasively. “She graduated from the academy a year after you did. Top of her class, I might add. You didn’t graduate top of your class, did you, Tony?”

No, but damn close. Clare might be surprised. Then again, he doubted there was much about him that would surprise her. She’d once made it her business to find out everything she could about him—and now he knew why.

Payback was hell.

“She’s a good detective, so cut her some slack, will you? None of your usual male chauvinist bull.”

“How many times do I have to tell you—I don’t have a chauvinistic bone in my body. I just don’t have much use for people in general.”

“Except when it suits your purposes.” Clare gave him an enigmatic glance. “One of these days you’re going to fall and fall hard, Tony. I just hope I’m lucky enough to be around to stomp on the pieces.”

EVE WAS AT HER DESK in the cubicle she would be sharing with Tony when she saw him come out of Clare’s office. He looked thinner than she remembered, but then, the last time she’d seen him had been, what? Nearly eight years ago?

At Ashley’s funeral.

He’d been so torn up with grief that day he hadn’t even noticed Eve. But then, he never had.

Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d noticed her before Ashley had come into their lives. They’d even shared a mild summer flirtation the year before Tony graduated from high school. But then Ashley had moved into the neighborhood and there’d been no room in his life for anyone else.

He’d been completely consumed by Ashley Dallas—and why not? She was everything a man could want in a woman. Beautiful, blond, smart. She was even nice, for God’s sake. Eve hadn’t been able to hate her, although there had been times when she’d wanted to. But Ashley had been flawless in every way. The quintessential woman. Eve hadn’t been able to compete with such perfection, and she suspected Ashley’s memory would be even more daunting.

The fact that Tony hadn’t even remembered her told Eve how truly pointless such a competition would be.

Their two desks were shoved up against each other, and when Tony sat down, he and Eve were face-to-face. He gazed at her across the expanse. “Look. What I said in there—it’s nothing personal. I just like working alone, that’s all.”

“I understand. Some people are like that. I’ve worked alone before, too,” she told him.

“Yeah? How’d you like it?”

She shrugged. “I guess I’m more of a people person. I like working with a partner.”

“That’s fine.” He stood, placing his hands on his desk and leaning slightly toward her. “So long as we understand each other. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours. None of that bonding crap—”

“I get the message,” she interrupted. “Loud and clear. If I want someone to watch my back, I shouldn’t count on you. Right, Tony?”

He frowned. “I didn’t mean—”

“Then what did you mean?” She got up and stood facing him. “If you can’t trust your partner not to bail on you, you’re as good as dead out there. If that’s the way it’s going to be, let’s get it straight right here and now.”

Jeez, Tony thought. She was a lot tougher than she looked. Still, she was right. They might as well get a few things straight right from the start, even though he didn’t expect her to last.

“I’ve never bailed on a partner. You can ask any of the detectives in this division if they’d worry about me covering their backs. You’d get the same answer from all of them. They may not like me. They may not want to have to deal with me and my bullsh—my ways,” he amended with a begrudging shrug. “But they know, to a man—and woman—they can count on me when the going gets tough. And it will,” he added ominously.

She smiled faintly. “I’m hardly a rookie, you know. I’ve been on the force almost as long as you have.”

“How do you know how long I’ve been on the force?”

“Like the lieutenant said, your reputation precedes you.”

He studied her for a moment, his gaze hooded and steely. She’d forgotten how blue his eyes were. Blue and almost breathtakingly intense.

Awareness tingled down her backbone. They’d been kids the last time he’d looked at her so intently, just before he’d kissed her. She’d been sixteen that summer and had never been kissed the way Tony Gallagher had kissed her, his mouth fusing to hers, his tongue entwining with hers.

Eve’s mother had died when she was thirteen, and her father, an insurance adjuster, had become overprotective, resisting the reality of his little girl growing up before his eyes. She hadn’t been allowed to date, but that hadn’t stopped Tony. He’d come over before her father got home from work, and they’d sit on the stoop together. Sometimes they’d even go inside.

How easily he’d forgotten her, Eve thought with a measure of regret, when all these years she’d thought about him a lot. He’d been her first infatuation, and she hadn’t gotten over him for a very long time.