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Cody was still careful, of course; he hadn’t io He alternated his route to and fro him, they wouldn’t be able to latch on to a pattern and plan an ambush And he watched his rearview uy who’d been tailing hih he knew that didn’t —the militia could easily have any nu hiency he’d felt when Callahan first called hier there

And he wasn’t coh he’d always hated being chained to a desk in the past There was so a full night’s sleep Not totime for a social life

A social life That was a bit of aseemed oblivious to your overtures, and you had to resort to stratagems to spend time with her away from work

Pathetic, Cody thought with a rueful laugh He’d quickly learned Keira was a tigress when she orking a case, especially when she was onto soed to spend tiht The first week they’d discussed the case as they grabbed a bite to eat after work before heading their respective ways

Then a week ago he’d surprised her with an invitation to a lecture on “Crime in the New Millennium” on the campus of the University of Colorado on Saturday afternoon He’d carefully picked so down, and she hadn’t And he’d avoided treating it like a date, although he had talked her into having dinner with him afterward

They’d had a great ti their different takes on the lecture But when he’d tried to get her to open up about herself, she’d steadfastly refused to go below the surface, adroitly steering the conversation into other channels when it got too personal

Sunday he’d invited her to go to the shooting range with hih she’d hesitated, she hadn’t refused that invitation, either They’d e to see who could score more points in a variety of competition rounds Cody had been secretly aotten out of beating hi to her hadn’t dented his ego He knew if the couns, she wouldn’t have been able to hold a candle to him

This past week she hadn’t even hesitated about accepting when he’d invited her to dinner every night—she’d al it But noas Thursday Oneout of excuses, he told himself Maybe you’d better just tell her the truth

The truth That was a good one The truth washe didn’t knohat the truth was He just kneanted to be with her no nment to make it possible

He wanted to listen to her arguing with herself and him about what she liked to call “next steps” He’d shared the field reports with her as they ca for clues that h But lately she’d seemed distracted, as if the information they contained wasn’t crucial to the case

He wanted to watch her face come alive as she animatedly discussed theories of the case, what she was uncovering and what it h the past few days she hadn’t said , almost as if she didn’t want to jinx whatever it was she was onto by saying anything about it

And he wanted—desperately wanted—to take her to bed That physical obsession had grown until it was now a constant ache, just barely contained Cody was finding it increasingly difficult to lock away how he felt, especially since Keira was thereevery dayjust a few feet away from him at times So close And yet, an impossible distance away

It was easier for Callahan, he thought When he let Mandy think he was dead, he didn’t have her around as a constant reminderand a temptation