Night Whispers (Second Opportunities 3)

"What did I sign up for?" the redhead asked, handing the clipboard back to him.

"Self-defense classes," he said with a wicked grin. "We're giving four of them at city hall, and the first one is tomorrow afternoon," he added, carefully omitting the information that Sloan was teaching most of the class, and that he would only be present to help her demonstrate some physical moves women could use to fend off an attacker.

"We'll be there," the brunette promised, breaking her silence.

"Don't let me down," he said warmly.

"We won't," they promised before they walked away.

They looked like Las Vegas chorus girls, Sloan decided, noting the choreographed movements of tight derrieres, long legs, and high-heeled sandals. A slight smile hovered at the corner of her mouth as she tried to imagine herself in the role of uninhibited femme fatale. "Let's hear it," Jess said wryly.

"Hear what?" she said, startled to discover that instead of watching the three women, he'd turned in his chair and was staring intently at her.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking they looked like Las Vegas chorus girls," Sloan said, bewildered and uneasy beneath his unwavering stare. Several times in the past, she'd caught him looking at her in that piercing, thoughtful way, and for some inexplicable reason, she had never wanted to ask for an explanation. At the department, Jess was renowned for his ability to extract confessions from suspects, simply by asking a question, then sitting across from them and staring at them until they began to answer. This gaze was less intimidating than that, but it was disconcerting nonetheless. "Honestly, that's what I was thinking," she insisted a little desperately.

"That's not all of it," he persisted smoothly. "Not with that smile…"

"Oh, the smile—" Sloan said, inexplicably relieved. "I was also trying to imagine myself in those heels and tight, skimpy shorts, strolling around in the park."

"I'd like to see you do that," he said, and before Sloan could even form a reaction to that remark, he stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and said something that left her gaping at him. "While you're at it, could you also slap on a half inch of makeup to hide that glowing skin. Dump some dye on that honey-blond hair, too, and get rid of those sun streaks."

"What?" she said on a choked laugh.

He gazed down at her, his expression bemused. "Just do something so you stop reminding me of ice cream cones and strawberry shortcake."

Her laughter bubbled to the surface, dancing in her eyes and trembling in her voice. "Food? I remind you of food?"

"You remind me of the way I felt when I was thirteen."

"What were you like at thirteen?" she asked, swallowing back a laugh.

"I was an altar boy."

"You weren't!"

"Yes, I was. However, during mass, my attention constantly wandered to a girl I liked who always sat in the third pew at ten o'clock mass. It made me feel like a letch."

"How did you handle that?"

"First, I tried to impress her by genuflecting deeper and appearing more skillful and adept than any of the other servers."

"Did it work?"

"Not the way I wanted it to work. I was so good I had to serve two masses instead of one all that year, but Mary Sue Bonner continued to ignore me."

"It's hard to imagine a girl ignoring you, even then."

"I found it a little unsettling, myself."

"Oh, well, win some, lose some, you know."

"No, I didn't know. All I knew was that I wanted Mary Sue Bonner."

He almost never talked about his past, and Sloan was intrigued by this unprecedented glimpse of him as an uncertain adolescent.

He lifted his brows. "Since piety and religious fervor didn't impress her, I caught up with her after ten o'clock mass and persuaded her to go to Sander's ice cream shop with me. She had a chocolate ice cream cone. I had strawberry shortcake…"

He was waiting for her to ask what happened after that, and Sloan was helpless to resist the temptation to hazard a guess. "And then I suppose you had Mary Sue?"

"No, actually, I didn't. I tried for the next two years, but she was immune to me. Just like you."

He was so damned handsome and so uncharacteristically disgruntled that Sloan felt a little flattered without knowing why.

"Speaking of you," he said abruptly, "I don't suppose you'd consider going to Pete's party with me tomorrow night?"

"I'm on duty, but I plan to go there later."

"And if you weren't on duty, would you go with me?"

"No," said Sloan with a jaunty smile to take the sting out of her answer, though she doubted he was stung at all. "In the first place, as I already explained, we work together."

He chuckled. "Don't you watch television? Cops are supposed to become romantically involved."

"In the second place," she finished lightly, ignoring that, "as I also told you before, I have a rule that I do not go out with any man who is a hundred times more attractive than I am. It's just too hard on my fragile ego." He accepted her refusal with the same unaffected good humor he had before, thus proving he didn't really care one way or the other.

"In that case," he said, "I might as well go and have lunch."

"This time, don't let the girls fight over who gets to buy it for you," Sloan teased as she began tidying up the table. "It's a terrible thing to watch."

"Speaking of admirers," he said, "Sara has evidently acquired a new one. He was hanging around, talking to her earlier; then she brought him by here and introduced him to me. His name's Jonathan. Poor bastard," Jess added. "If he doesn't have a few million dollars in the bank, he's wasting his time. Sara's a flirt." He stepped over the ropes that secured the tent to the stakes in the ground. "I think I'll give some of that chili you recommended a try."

"I wouldn't do that," Sloan warned, breaking into a mischievous grin.

"Why not?"

"Because I heard that it's so bad that the first aid trailer is dispensing prescriptions for a number of unpleasant stomach ailments."

"Are you serious?"

She slowly nodded, her smile widening. "Completely serious."

Jess gave a shout of laughter and headed off across the grass in the opposite direction from the chili stand, toward the booths where pizza and hot dogs were available. He paused to say hello to Sara, who was still engrossed in conversation with Mrs. Peale and was holding one of Mrs. Peak's cats while they chatted.