He looked good in black, she'd give him that. It brought out the silver of his hair. And sitting in the dark room, with just the shafts of light splitting in through the cheap Venetian blinds, all she could see was black and glints of silver. And the flash of the barrel of his gun where it rested on his thigh. It was enough to make her mouth run dry.
And other places run slick. God, she needed to get out of this room.
It had been three days of stakeout. Black coffee, cold pizza, and that harsh yellow light streaming in through those old blinds, cutting lines across his already irritation lined face. She had long since given up on talking to him. He wasn't a talker anyway, she'd learned on her first case in Washington with the veteran detective.
He had a reputation for being better than good at cases but worse than bad at people. She understood, now, how he'd earned that reputation. They were hours, maybe, away from catching their guy, if they'd just hold their horses a little longer. But she'd never felt so inconsequential in her life. Or so damned turned on.
He had this way of looking at her, see. He looked at her like he knew things about her. And, maybe he did. He seemed like the kind of guy who could just look at you and know things about you. Maybe that was what made him such a good damn detective.
But he also had this way about him that made you think you didn't know a damn thing about him. But that you wanted to know his whole life story. Except, he wasn't going to tell you. The impression was he probably only told a select few people. She found herself really wanting to be one of those people.
The way his eyes bored into her made her insides go liquid. They were dark in ways that made her think about sex right off and she wasn't normally that kind of woman. She defintely wasn't the kind of detective that spent more time thinking about her partner than thinking about her case, she thought as she shook herself and literally turned herself away from him to stare out through the blinds to the window across the street.
"What?" he asked her.
"Nothing."
"Something happening over there?"
She took a moment to really check it out before answering forlornly, "No." Not that she thought for a single moment he wasn't intimately aware of what was happening over there. He'd been staring past her out the window for hours. She'd been staring at him. Or, mostly, honestly, past him. At the wall. Or at his chest. She'd been looking anywhere but at his eyes that would sometimes catch the light and look for all the world like something enticing.
"Yes, there is," he said and then he was standing with a purpose she'd rarely seen him move with, and he was yanking his jacket off the ladder-back of the chair and threading his arms through the sleeves. His gun went into the holster on his hip. Her hand immediately checked for both her badge and her gun and found them both where they were supposed to be. She grabbed her jacket and found she had to jog to catch up to him – he was already out the door.
She had no idea what he saw but she wasn't going to take the time to ask him. If he thought he saw something, she was going to trust his instincts. She might not know him well, she might not know him well enough to put that kind of faith in him yet, but she felt that kind of faith in him already. She knew better than to put all her eggs in a basket like that, she'd been burned before, but this was a different situation than that had been and this was, most certainly, a different man.
When he pulled his gun, she did too and when he turned down the alley between the building they'd been watching and the one next door, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but she followed. They pinned down their perpetrator at the bottom of a fire escape as he was trying to make a mad dash for the other end of the alley.
The collar was his but he held the guy while she put the handcuffs on and read him his rights. He drove the black SUV to the precinct, though, and when it came time to do the paperwork, he did his share. It was after three in the morning when they finally walked out the building.
"You wanna grab a cup of coffee?" he offered, clenching his keys in his hand, looking like it didn't matter what she said, but she heard something in his voice, something kind of hopeful maybe. Something that said maybe he didn't want to go home. Or maybe he didn't want to go home alone.
"Sure." Because she was still living out of boxes and she wasn't even sure which one her coffee pot was in and she was too keyed up to go to bed right then anyway.
He turned and walked in the opposite direction from the parking lot that held their cars and she trotted a few steps to catch up with him. He was a man of few words and she could appreciate the strong, silent approach, but she didn't appreciate the idea that she'd follow him like a loyal dog. At least he didn't whistle. He glanced at her sideways. She knew because she was looking more at him than at the walk down the barely-lit sidewalk. "So, you're from California?"
"Yeah."
"What brought you to Washington?"
"Fiancé," she bit out, in a way, she hoped, that wouldn't invite more questions.
"Former," he said with a nod.
"Yeah."
She wanted to ask how he got that out of the way she said the word, but then she realized he probably noticed she no longer wore the ring.
They walked in silence for another block and then he stopped abruptly in front of a well lit bank of windows. "This okay?"
She looked up, out of habit, at the sign above the door. Millie's. "Yeah."
He held the door open for her. A rush of warm air hit her when she walked in and she shrugged out of her jacket immediately. He was peeling himself out of his, too. Her mouth went suddenly dry at the way his black, long sleeved shirt pulled tight across his chest. He wasn't muscularly built, but he was built nicely, and he had nice shoulders, and long arms, and he was put together in a way that was really, really pleasing to her eye.
He had to notice the way she'd been staring at him for the past few days. She'd done her best not to make it a constant thing, but there'd been little to do besides stare out that window, stare at a wall, or stare at him. He was the most interesting thing going.
She'd noticed the way he'd looked at her. It hadn't been as constant as the way she'd looked at him, but he'd definitely put some time in. And it had made her body notice him more than it might have under normal circumstances. At least, that was her story and she was sticking to it.
They slid into a booth, he held up two fingers for one of the waitresses to see and she figured he'd just ordered their coffees. She liked the kind of place they must be in. And she liked that he was familiar with it. She liked the idea that he'd have a place where he went where the people knew him and he knew them and... it felt like becoming a part of something in this big place where she felt like such an outsider. Not that she felt like she was a part of his world yet, that she was being brought into the fold, but she was his partner now and this was part and parcel of that. Coffee after a case.
Of course, the attraction to him was going to be a problem. A big problem. She knew there were partners who slept together. Not lots, not like people might think, but it was definitely a thing. Especially if you weren't married or otherwise entangled outside of the partnership. Sometimes it was just easier. Hell, she didn't know what his status was... just that he wasn't wearing a ring.
He flexed his left hand and she realized she was staring at his wedding ring finger. "Divorced," he said.
"I wasn't-"
"It's okay, it was a long time ago."
She instantly wondered how long. But she wouldn't ask and she got the impression he wouldn't volunteer. She wondered why. Got the impression he wouldn't volunteer that either. At least not this night, over this cup of coffee. Wondered if he was the kind of guy to go out for a drink. And if that was a story better told over Maker's Mark than over Maxwell House.
"Jonas is Air Force," she revealed.
"Pilot?"
"No." She couldn't tell him was Jonas did, because she didn't really know herself.
"Ah."
Their coffees arrived. She watched as he dumped two little creamers into his and a packet of sugar and thought back to the way he'd been drinking it black for three days. He caught her staring at the empty packets and shrugged with a little half smile on his face, "It's easier on my stomach this way."
She sighed and took a sip of the too-hot black coffee in front of her. She really liked him. She liked so many things about him. The heads-and-tails dichotomy of the man was just one of the things she found so intriguing about him.
"I took this job and then he decided... to be a different man." She didn't really know how to tell a man she liked that a man she didn't turned into a colossal asshole and forgot she carried a gun. Now that she thought about it, there was a good chance that he already knew the whole story. There was, after all, a police report. Different precinct, though...
He shrugged, that half shrug again, that she was discovering was his way. "You're safe now," he said with a finality that she believed. She was, anyway. She had a new apartment and Jonas didn't know where it was. She had a good job and a good partner and yes, she carried a gun. She was safe. But the way he said it... it made her wonder if he knew things even she didn't know.
He raised his hand and scratched at the scruff on his jaw and she realized it had been probably nearly twenty four hours since his last shave. And she felt bad, for a moment, for agreeing to the coffee. But then she remembered the sound of his voice, slightly hopeful. And she suddenly wanted to know something about him – anything.
"How about you? Anything to go home to?"
A darkness washed over his eyes. He took a sip of his light coffee. "Not anymore." She'd been asking about pets, maybe a girlfriend. But she got the feeling the answer had something to do with his ex-wife. Maybe children. And she felt instantly contrite.
"Jack," she said, saying his name for only the second time since she was introduced to him and had shaken his hand, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."
He visibly shook his head and waved her off. "Don't worry about it. Old water. Old bridge."
"It didn't look that old."
"I don't talk about it," he said with a finality she couldn't help but respect.
"Okay."
"You want something to eat with that?"
She looked down at her coffee. "No."
"I'm gonna have some cheesecake."
"Still... no."
"I'm not gonna share," he tried to tempt her.
She gave him a wan smile, still feeling slightly off about the can of worms she'd unintentionally tipped over onto its side. "That's fine. Not hungry."
"Okay," he said, drawing the word out. He caught the eye of one of the waitresses and held up a single finger. How the woman knew to bring the cheesecake, it would take Sam years to learn.
They sat in silence until his dessert arrived and then he dug in with gusto. Around a bite he said, "It's fine, Samantha. Stop looking like you killed my puppy."
A frisson of heat skittered down her spine at the way he said her name. That had to stop. "Sam," she said.
"Huh?"
"It's just Sam."
"Okay."
She realized that for days they hadn't said each other's names and she wondered... had they even really spoken to one another at all? Cup of coffee? What do you want on your pizza? Is he out there? Those phrases hardly seemed to count when the man sitting in front of her seemed so fascinating. She wanted to know everything about him, but she felt like anything she could ask him would be prying. He seemed so... private.
"I'm from Minnesota. And Chicago," he volunteered, harkening back to the very beginning of their conversation.
"What brought you to Washington?"
"My ex-wife. She worked for the National Gallery of Art."
"And you stayed, after the divorce instead of going back to-"
"Good job," he said with that half shrug again. "Memories."
Memories. Damn. What had the man lost? The possibilities were bleak, she decided. Bleak enough to make her second guess her attraction to him. But then she got lost in his eyes again. And the silver of his hair caught her gaze. And the cut of his jaw made her fingers itch to trail it. Damn, but the man was handsome.
She finished her cup of coffee just as he took the last bite of his cheesecake. He pulled out his billfold and threw fifteen dollars down on the table. More than enough to cover his coffee and cheesecake. Her coffee too. But Sam reached for the cash she kept in her pocket anyway.
"I got it," he said, nodding at the cash on the table.
"You don't need to-"
"It's fine," he said. "Consider it your welcome party."
Outside of the diner they slipped back into their jackets, against the cool of the early morning air. They walked slowly back towards the parking lot that held their cars. His elbow brushed her arm every third step sending sparks of awareness through her body.
In the parking lot, he walked her to her car and stood there holding the door open for her as she climbed in and turned over the engine of the old classic twice before it purred to life.
"I was afriad I was going to have to give you a lift home," he said, a chuckle in his voice.
"Not this time, but I'm not going to guarantee it won't happen one day," she said, somehow pleased with the idea of getting into the big truck she'd seen him driving, and having him drive her across town to her little apartment. Pleased, also, with the idea of him knowing where her home was...
"Anytime," he said, a small grin playing around his mouth. "And hey, Carter," he said tapping his hand on the roof of her car, "good work on this case. We wouldn't have known about that building at all if it hadn't have been for you."
"We wouldn't have even known it was him if it wasn't for you."
"Teamwork," he said, and she caught his wink, even in the low light.
"Yeah," she said, with a chuckle.
"Night, Sam." He sauntered off in the direction of his truck.
She watched him go, his back presenting a picture she couldn't help but appreciate. There was a lot to navigate with that man, and who knew, he might just end up being a helluva partner. But, she thought maybe there might be something for her, after all. In Washington.