Thanks so much to anmodo, Andraya, Lyssanick, rozzy07, and Morfeo for your reviews! I am so happy you are enjoying this story!

I have to confess that even though I started Pictures of You first, it has taken a back seat to this story because the ideas for this case are just flowing out of me right now! But I have an outline done for Pictures and will get back to that poor, neglected story soon!

Hopefully, this chapter shows why Angie and Danny are perfect for each other. A little flirting, a little fighting, a little common ground, and a little romance. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 10 - The Lonely Hearts Club

Angie Sullivan's Brooklyn Brownstone - Fifty Three Hours Missing

Danny climbed the steps outside of Angie's brownstone two at a time, careful not to fall on his face in the darkness. Shaking her head, Angie walked up behind him. He turned to face her and held out his hand. "Keys?" He asked, motioning for her to give him the keys to her house.

"I can open my own door." She muttered but handed the keys over to him.

"Really?" Danny asked, raising his eyebrow at her. "Because if I remember correctly, you had a little trouble getting yourself out of the car. The door handle is much larger than your keyhole here, and..."

"Just open the door and don't rub it in." She said, waving him off. He smirked and turned around to open her front door. As she watched him, Angie said, "Cassie or Liz could have gotten me home. You didn't have to drive all the way out to Brooklyn."

Danny opened the front door to her house and stepped inside. Looking back at her, he said, "Your friends seemed to think that you might be safer with the Feds."

"That's because they don't know who I really am." Angie muttered, brushing past him into her front entry way. She looked back at him and added, "And don't kid yourself. They didn't want me to be safe. They wanted me to get laid."

Danny smirked, closed the door and followed her into the living room. "That sounds promising for me." He flopped down on her sofa and grinned up at her.

"Make yourself right at home, why don't you?" She muttered, moving one of her many throw pillows and sitting down next to him. She gave him a serious look and said, "I don't put out on the first date."

Teasingly, Danny put his arm around her and said, "Well, then I guess it's lucky for me that this is not a first date."

Angie resisted the urge to snuggle closer to him and simply leaned her head back, trapping his arm between her neck and the couch. "I'd offer you some coffee but, believe it or not, I have to be at work tomorrow. If I drank coffee now, I'd be completely useless by mid-morning."

"You know, I've been here twice now and you've come up with a reason not to offer me coffee both times." Danny observed, liking the feeling of her head resting on his arm.

"If you really want coffee, there is an all night convenience store down the street."

"If I go, will you let me back in?" He asked, raising his eyebrow at her.

"Nope." Angie grinned, turning her head to look at him.

"Then I don't want coffee."

"What do you want?" She asked quietly.

"To be your friend." He answered, just as quietly.

Angie laughed quietly. "Liar." She said, lifting her head off his arm. "You want me to help make your job easier so that you can find my brother. And, since you're a guy, you also want a little action." She sat up and turned back to look at him, adding, "You're not getting either one."

"I know there are probably not a lot of people in your life who tell you this, so let me be the first." Danny said, sitting up so that they were face to face again. "You're wrong."

"About what?"

"Me." He said gently.

Their eyes locked for a few seconds and it was Angie who was the first to look away. "I don't need any more friends." She said, standing up suddenly. She removed the leather jacket she had been wearing over her tank top and turned to hang it up in the hallway closet. But not before Danny saw the bruise that was swelling up on her arm.

"What the hell...?" He asked, getting up off the couch and moving closer to her. He took her arm tenderly in his hands and inspected the bruise further.

But Angie pulled her arm away before he could see anything. "Don't, Danny." She warned, meeting his eyes again.

"Where did that come from?" He wanted to know.

"I've had it all evening. You just couldn't see it under the lights in the club." She looked down at her arm and then back up at Danny. "It looks worse than it really is."

"You didn't answer my question." Danny said, taking the jacket from her and throwing it on the sofa.

"Which question was that?" Angie asked.

Danny was having none of it. Resisting the urge to grab her himself and shake her, Danny swore under his breath. "Damn it, Angie! Stop playing coy! It's not as cute as you think it is! Be straight with me!"

"Why?" She demanded. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I can help you!" He shouted back at her. Realizing that tears were forming in her eyes, Danny lowered his voice and said, "Let me help you."

Angie shook her head, not bothering to wipe her tears away. Allowing them to fall onto her cheeks, she whispered, "You can't help me. No one can."

"How do you know if you won't let me try?"

Angie looked at him for a few moments and then sat back down on the couch. She propped her elbows up on her knees and rested her head in her hands. "My cousin, Joey, came to see me tonight. Joey Caruso. After sixteen years, he just showed up."

Danny sat down on the couch next to her. "Tell me what happened."

Never looking up at him, Angie laughed a short little laugh and shook her head. "I'm not that drunk." Danny waited for a few moments and finally Angie looked at him, tears still running down her cheeks, and said, "The Caruso's don't have Eddie. They don't know where he is."

"And you believed him?"

Angie nodded her head, wiping the tears off her cheeks. "I know this man. Joey and I grew up together. For a gangster, he's a lousy liar."

"He did this to you?" Danny asked, gingerly touching the bruise on her arm.

"Because I mouthed off a little." Angie looked pleadingly at Danny and asked, "Do you see now why I can't tell you what I know? This isn't a game. Whether I like it or not, this is who I am, this is my family and what we are. I cannot change that, even though I've wished many times I could."

"Don't group yourself in with them." Danny said, anger welling up inside him for the Caruso boys. To damage the spirit of such a woman for selfish gain was the essence of cowardice. Danny got up and walked into the kitchen. He filled a dishtowel with ice and brought it back into the living room, gently pressing it to the bruise on her arm. He grinned at her and asked, "How about the doctor letting someone else take care of her for awhile?"

"I've been taking care of myself for a long time now." Angie said quietly. "I'm not sure I know how to let someone else do it."

"Allow me to show you." Danny said, moving back to the end of the couch and pulling her close to him. He somehow managed to keep his home-ade ice pack on her arm. Once she was nestled close to him, they both leaned back against the sofa cushions. "How's that?"

Angie breathed in the masculine scent of him and nodded. "You have a pretty good bedside manner." They were silent for a little while before Angie finally said, "If Joey and Uncle Tony don't know where he is and Theresa doesn't know where he is and you guys don't know where he is, then that means my brother is really gone. I never imagined that was possible. I mean, I know what he did was dangerous. But he just seemed indestructible." Her voice broke and a fresh batch of tears began to fall. "I would always be okay as long as I could talk to Eddie. I wasn't really alone as long as he was out there somewhere. And now he's really gone."

Angie's body shook with the sobs that overtook her and Danny knew there were no words to say that would make it alright. So he just held her and let her cry. When her sobs had subsided, she asked quietly, "You told me that you knew about loneliness. I told you some of my sad story, so now it's your turn."

"You didn't tell me everything." He reminded her.

Angie looked up at him and asked, "You're really going to argue with me? In this my hour of vulnerability?"

Danny chuckled and brushed a stray hair out of her face. "For a woman who hasn't been vulnerable too often in her life, you learn the lingo quickly."

"I've always been too smart for my own good." She told him, a smile creeping onto her lips. Danny was glad to see her smile again. "Spill it, Taylor. How much do you and I really have in common?"

"Too much." He said and the grin left his face. Angie looked at him for another moment and reached up to stroke his cheek. Danny caught her hand and brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss. "I lost my family, too." Angie laid her head on his chest as Danny recounted the events of his youth for her. His parents, his brother, the foster homes, the loneliness. He told her things he hadn't ever told anyone before. And as he spoke, he kept pulling her close. Together in the darkness of her living room, they held onto each other like two lifelines in a storm.

Angie finally looked up at him and moved so that her face was just inches from his. "Loneliness is a powerful thing for two people to have in common." She said, her fingers wandering over his jawline and the beginning of a beard that was growing there. She looked into his eyes and whispered, "I don't want to be lonely anymore. Do you, Danny?"

Danny's mouth was against her collarbone before she even finished her question. He traced a path up her neck, covering it with sweet kisses until she gasped. Angie's lips parted immediately when they met his and she tasted the masculine sweetness of him. Danny watched her eyelids flutter closed as his hand on her shoulder drew up into the curve of her throat, warm around the nape of her neck. His tongue met hers halfway and they kissed until she couldn't remember anything outside of this; the soft scratch of his stubbled beard, his wandering touch, the feel of his shoulders under her hands. But mostly she felt his mouth and hers and the many ways they could fit together, the taste of him on her tongue.

Danny finally drew back for breath, and she opened her eyes. "I could get in serious trouble for this." he whispered.

"Then maybe you should go." She whispered back, her voice low and intimate.

"Maybe I should..." he began, but she stopped his words with another lengthy kiss.

"I told you that I don't put out on the first date." she whispered against his lips when they drew apart again.

He lifted his head a little, and their lips brushed again. His other hand was on her waist, easing down to her hip. "It's a good thing that this isn't a date." he grinned against her lips, before capturing them again with his own.

Angie let herself sink back into his kiss, let her eyelids slide closed. His mouth was hot and slick and he tasted faintly of ginger from the ginger ales he drank earlier. She'd never liked it much, but second-hand, chased off his tongue, it was the best thing she'd ever tasted.

They fell asleep that way, entwined in each other's arms on her couch. She kept her promise and didn't put out, but what they shared was more intimate than any sexual encounter. For one night, their two lonely hearts had found comfort.