Author's Note: This one is a little shorter than normal as there weren't' a whole lot of actual Lee/Amanda interactions. Many of them were Lee and Amanda's double. Sorry for the shorter length (no pun intended) but I hope you like this anyway.

Chapter 38-Oh My Gosh

"Odds on a Dead Pigeon"

Lee was standing in Billy's office explaining what was going on and he was growing more agitated by the minute as he thought of all the things that could have happened to Amanda. "Now, the house just doesn't look right. There's papers scattered all over the place, a drink on the end table and the ashtrays are full of cigarette butts." He knew that this just wasn't Amanda. She'd never leave her house messy like that and he knew for sure that she wasn't a smoker. He'd kissed her enough times to know. He flushed slightly as he thought of the other things he'd done with her.

"Ah," Francine said with a smirk, "A secret drinker and a secret smoker. My, my my..." She cast a knowing look at Lee to remind him of whet else she knew Amanda did in secret.

"Will you just can it, please?" Lee said, but couldn't help smiling slightly at Francine's look as it brought the memories of his time spent in Amanda's arms to the front of his mind. His smile soon faded as he gave her a stern look and when he saw her face fall, he continued. "I'm telling you something has happened to her." He looked from Francine to Billy and back again, as he continued by telling them about the shotgun and how Amanda usually had him go through the back door, not the front. Didn't they get that something wasn't right? That he was worried about her? He should have known right then that something was off. Why hadn't his gut instinct kicked in then? He thought of his partner and how intuitive she was. He was sure that if the situation had been reversed, she'd have picked up on it right away. She had this uncanny knack for reading people and situations like no one else he had ever known.

When Billy returned to his office a few minutes later, having found that Redding had been released after only six years in prison. He tried to insist that Lee go into protective custody. Lee, however, argued with his boss, saying, "Billy, I can take care of myself. It is Amanda that I'm worried about. Where the hell is she?" And what the hell was Redding doing to her? he added mentally. A cold knot of fear caused his stomach to clench. He knew Redding and knew there was nothing the man wasn't capable of when it came to revenge.

As they exited Billy's office, Francine grabbed Lee's arm and pulled him to the side, her eyes wide. "You're really worried about her, aren't you?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Lee said dryly. Didn't Francine understand that it was his job to keep Amanda safe? Or that he was feeling like shit for having failed in that regard?

Francine rolled her eyes, her defensive walls slamming up at Lee's sarcasm and instead of being a sympathetic friend as she'd planned to be, "What's the matter, Lee? Afraid of losing your little backgammon partner?"

"Knock it off, Francine. I don't have time for this. I have to find her," Lee declared decisively and abruptly left her standing there gaping after him.

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At pulling her to safety, Lee was able to breathe easily for the first time in days, knowing that Amanda was alive and well. He held her tightly to him, not wanting to let her go ever again. This had been another close call. Too close, he thought. He couldn't even begin to imagine what would've happened to him if he'd lost her permanently. The idea of not having her in his life was terrifying. He'd laughed at his own joke about her last words being "Oh, my gosh," but truthfully, he'd suspected that she was the real Amanda because there was something off about the other woman's cries for help. It just didn't seem like something that Amanda would do. She was never one for screaming and crying in perilous situations. She was strong than that. She has a strength that amazed him at times and a stubborn will that infuriated him at others. Hearing the Amanda-esque phrase had only clinched it for him. When Amanda pulled back slightly from their embrace, he lifted her chin, softly caressed her face and then without a word, covered her mouth with his, poking his tongue against her lips, demanding entrance to her mouth, which she willingly gave, opening to him.

Amanda moaned against him as his tongued delved into her mouth and she gripped him tightly to her, the adrenaline pumping from her near-death experience only heightened by the desire she felt building for him with every sweep of his tongue against hers. She tugged at lapels of his suit jacket, wanting to strip him of it, but was hampered by his arms being clenched tightly around her. She broke away from their fiery kisses and whispered, "Lee, I need..."

"I know," he replied as he walked the away from the edge of the building to the stack of pallets behind them. He knew all too well what she needed. His need for her was just as great, overwhelming even. He dropped his jacket as they went, before pushing her up against the pallets and tugging at the bottom of her sweatshirt, quickly pulling it over her head. He wasted no time in lowering his mouth to one breast, while he caressed the other with his hand and used his free hand to open her jeans, soon sliding it inside and stroking her through her lacy panties.

"Lee," Amanda gasped, his touch further fueling the flames of her desire for him. She wondered sometimes if that desire was merely fueled by the dangerous situations they often found themselves in. Would she still feel what she did for him if they worked in a normal nine-to-five job? Her escalating excitement soon quashed those thoughts, making her just want to feel, not think.

"Amanda," he whispered hoarsely against her skin as his breathing became labored, his entire body aching with his raw need for her after fearing for her life for days. The thought that he might never get to be this close to her again had tortured him and despite his sarcastic reply to Francine, he had to admit that she was right and he would miss his favorite backgammon partner, who had been his only backgammon partner since their first encounter in the helicopter. As hard as he had tried to shut her out, to get her out of his mind and out of his heart, he found that he could no longer get excited about any other woman. His heart wasn't in it, so his body couldn't be either. No, it was only Amanda that could make him feel complete.

As she felt Lee tugging at her jeans, Amanda toed off her shoes to help him, needing to feel him within her again. Her near-death had given her the fiercest desire to feel alive and nothing made her feel more alive that when Lee's hard shaft was buried deep inside her. "Lee, please," she implored him as she tugged at his belt and the quickly moved on to the buttons of his slacks.

Lee removed her hands from his pants and he roughly yanked down her jeans, dragging her panties with them, and as she stepped out of them, he tossed them to one side, before he finished the job she's begun on his pants. "Amanda," He growled as he lowered his lips to her neck, then clasped one of her legs and hooked it over his hip and sheathed himself within her slick warmth, delighted by the feeling that he had feared he would never have again. "Oh, God," he groaned as he began to move deeper into her, pulling back and slamming into her harder than before, driving toward the completion that he craved. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold back much longer and wanting to take her with him, he slipped his hand between them, stroking her just as hard. Nearly being separated forever, now was not the time to be tender or gentle. Now, was the time for just reaffirming their connection to one another.

"LEE!"Amanda screamed as a fierce orgasm slammed into shaking her whole body like an earthquake.

"'Manda," Lee cried out equally loudly as her body shaking against his and her walls tightening around him sent him tumbling over the edge. "Amanda," he cried again as he emptied himself within her and held her tightly thrusting into her until he couldn't take anymore, their frenzied encounter leaving him sweating profusely and gasping for air. He buried his head in her neck and gripped her tightly to him as he tried to get his breathing to return to normal.

Amanda sighed in contentment and cradled Lee against her, elated by the feeling of his thundering heartbeat close to her, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction in knowing that she'd done that to him. "Oh, my gosh," she whispered with a teasing smile.

Lee couldn't help laughing and pulled back to see a mischievous smirk on her face, knowing by that look that she'd done it on purpose, "Famous last words, huh?"

"Something like that," Amanda responded. "But hopefully not the last."

Her twinkling eyes and mirthful smile gave Lee no doubt of the double meaning in her last comment. He leaned in close, intending to kiss her, but was stopped by the sound of a loud groan a few feet away. He abruptly pulled away from her, yanked up his pants and tossed her clothes at her. He cringed slightly that in his fierce frenzy to have Amanda in his arms again, he'd temporarily forgotten about Gordon Redding out cold on the other side of the partially finished construction site. "I...uh...guess we should get him taken care of," Lee said as he reached for his discarded suit jacket and pulled it on, a sigh of disappointment escaping his lips.

"Yeah," Amanda concurred as she pulled on her clothes. Even though she was disheartened by the unwelcome interruptions, she still smiled because it was obvious that Lee felt the same letdown. That's progress, she mused elatedly.

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That night Lee was standing on Amanda's patio listening to her ramble about how unnerved she'd been by seeing the other woman look just like her and about how creepy it was that someone else could simply walk into her life and take it over. He wanted to tell her that no one could ever take over her life, especially not her place in his heart. it just wasn't possible. He thought back to his encounter with the imposter and his insistence that he was only interested in the real one. That was Amanda's greatest strength...that she was real. She put on no facades. She was just, "here I am, World, take me as I am." It was that genuineness that was one of the bigger things he found attractive about her. There was no pretense in her. Sure, at first, she'd been awkward and nervous around him after that first interlude in the helicopter, but he knew she'd long ago stopped denying the intense attraction between them, just as he had. Now, they were just taking it as it came.

When he'd attempted to begin to tell her how he felt, by replying that it could never happen, that no other woman, lookalike or not, could do for him what she did, her attention was captured by her son, yelling about marshmallows. When she made a joke about nobody knowing where she hides the marshmallows and disappeared back inside, he walked to the picnic table, sitting on its hard surface just staring at the closed back door for a moment. If only she knew just how much more there was to it than that and how there were so many things unique to her that no one could replicate. He only wished that they had not once again been interrupted before he could tell her all the things that he wanted to tell her. He rose from his perch and with one final longing glance at the back door, he made his way out of her yard, muttering to himself, "Oh my gosh, indeed."