Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

“It’s good,” she decided when they sat at the table and she’d swallowed the first bite. “I’m pretty pathetic in the kitchen, which is why I don’t keep a lot of food around that obliges me to deal with it.”

He shoveled into his own with the easy enthusiasm of a man who considered food one of life’s top physical pleasures. “Living alone’s supposed to make you self-sufficient.”

“But it doesn’t perform miracles.” He cooked, kept a tidy apartment, was obviously proficient at his job, and apparently had little trouble with women. Tess topped off her coffee and wondered why she was more tense now than when she’d gone to bed with him.

Because she wasn’t as handy with men as he was with women. And because, she thought, she wasn’t in the habit of sharing a casual breakfast after a frantic night of sex. Her first affair had been in college. A disaster. Now she was nearly thirty and had kept her relationships with men carefully in the safe zone. The occasional side trip had been pleasant but unimportant. Until now.

“Apparently you’re self-sufficient.”

“You like to eat, you learn how to cook.” He moved his shoulders. “I like to eat.”

“You’ve never married?”

“What? No.” He swallowed hard, then reached for his half of the muffin. “It tends to get in the way of-”

“Philandering?”

“Among other things.” He grinned at her. “You butter a great muffin.”

“Yes, that’s true. I’d say another reason you’ve never… let’s say, settled is that your work comes first.” She glanced at the papers he’d pushed to the end of the table. “Police work would be demanding, time-consuming, and dangerous.”

“The first two anyway. Homicide’s sort of the executive end. Desk work, puzzle work.”

“Executive,” she murmured, remembering very clearly the ease with which he had once strapped on his gun.

“Most of the guys wear suits.” He’d nearly polished off his omelette and was already wondering if he could talk Tess out of some of hers. “Generally, you come in after the deed’s been done and then put pieces together. You talk to people, make phone calls, push paper.”

“Is that how you got that scar?” Tess scooted the rest of her omelette around her plate. “Pushing paper?”

“I told you before, that’s old news.”

Her mind was too analytical to let it go at that. “But you have been shot, and probably shot at more than once.”

“Sometimes you go into the field and people aren’t too happy to see you.”

“All in a day’s work?”

When he realized she wasn’t going to let it drop, he set down his fork. “Tess, it isn’t like the flicks.”

“No, but it isn’t like selling shoes either.”

“Okay. I’m not saying you never run into a situation where things might get hot, but basically this kind of police work is on paper. Reports, interviews, head work. There are weeks, months, even years of incredible drudge work, even boredom as opposed to moments of actual physical jeopardy. A rookie in a uniform is likely to deal with more heat in a year than I am.”

“I see. Then you aren’t likely to encounter a situation, in, the normal scheme of things, where you use your gun.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, not liking where the conversation was going. “What are you getting at?”

“I’m trying to understand you. We’ve spent two nights together. I like to know who I’m sleeping with.”

He’d been avoiding that. Sex was easier if it wore blinders. “Benjamin James Matthew Paris, thirty-five in August, single, six feet one-half inch, a hundred seventy-two pounds.”

She rested her elbows on the table, setting her chin on her linked hands as she studied him. “You don’t like to talk about your work.”

“What’s there to talk about? It’s a job.”

“No, not with you. A job is where you clock in every morning, Monday through Friday. You don’t carry your gun like a briefcase.”

“Most briefcases aren’t loaded.”

“You have had to use it.”

Ben drained his coffee. His system was already primed. “I doubt many cops get around to collecting their pensions without drawing their weapons at least once.”

“Yes, I understand that. On the other hand, as a doctor I’d deal more with the results afterward. The grief of the family, the shock and trauma of the victim.”

“I’ve never shot a victim.”

There was an edge to his voice that interested her. Perhaps he liked to pretend to her, even to himself, that the violent aspects of his job were occasional, an expected side effect. He’d consider anyone he shot in the line of duty, as he’d put it, the bad guy. And yet she was sure there was a part of him that thought of the human, the flesh and blood. That part of him would lose sleep over it.

“When you shoot someone in self-defense,” she said slowly, “is it like in a war, where you see the enemy as a symbol more than a man?”

“You don’t think about it.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“Take my word for it.”

“But when you’re in a situation that calls for that kind of extreme defensive action, you aim to wound.”

“No.” On the flat answer, he rose and picked up his plate. “Listen, you draw your weapon, you’re not the Lone Ranger. There’s no grazing your silver bullet over the bad guy’s gun hand. Your life, your partner’s life, some civilian’s life is on the line. It’s black and white.”

He took the plates away. She didn’t ask if he’d killed. He’d already told her.

She glanced at the papers he’d been working on. Black and white. He wouldn’t see the shades of gray she saw there. The man they sought was a killer. The state of his mind, his emotions, perhaps even his soul, didn’t matter to Ben. Maybe they couldn’t.

“These papers,” she began when he came back. “Is there something I can help with?”

“Just drudge work.”

“I’m an expert drudge.”

“Maybe. We can talk about it later. Right now I’ve got to get moving if I’m going to make nine o’clock Mass.”

“Mass?”

He grinned at her expression. “I haven’t gone back to the fold. We think our man might show up at one of two churches this morning. We’ve been covering the masses at both of them since six-thirty. I got a break and drew the nine, ten, and eleven-thirty services.”

“I’ll go with you. No, don’t,” she said even as he opened his mouth. “I really could help. I know the signs, the symptoms.”

There was no point in telling her he’d wanted her to come. Let her think she’d talked him into it. “Don’t blame me if your knees give out.”

She touched a hand to his cheek, but didn’t kiss him. “Give me ten minutes.”

The church smelled of candle wax and perfume. The pews, worn smooth by the sliding and shifting of hundreds of cloth-covered haunches, were less than half full for the nine o’clock service. It was quiet, with the occasional cough or sniffle echoing hollowly. A pleasant, religious light came through the stained-glass windows on the east wall. The altar stood at the head of the church, draped with its cloth and flanked by candles. White for purity. Above it hung the Son of God, dying on the Cross.

Ben sat with Tess in the back pew and scanned the congregation. A few older women were scattered among the families toward the front. A young couple sat in the pew across from them, choosing the rear, Ben thought, because of the sleeping infant the woman carried. An elderly man who had come in with the help of a cane sat alone, two private feet away from a family of six. Two young girls in their Sunday best sat and whispered together, and a boy of about three knelt backward on the pew and ran a plastic car quietly over the wood. Ben knew he was making the sounds of the engine and screeching tires in his head.