On Dangerous Ground. Maggie Price

jerked on his suit coat, then shoved his fists into his pockets. Damn if he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.

      Chapter 2

      Hand unsteady, Sky rang the doorbell on the elegant Tudor brick house that sat bathed in silver moonlight. She was barely aware of the white roses that tumbled out of a massive planter near the door, paid no attention to their sweet scent that hung in the warm summer air. Two hours had passed since she’d walked out of the FOP club—away from Grant—and every nerve in her body was still scrambled.

      So much for well-laid plans. Facing him had been hard. More difficult than she thought it could ever be. She had rehearsed everything in her mind before she walked into the club. Knew exactly what to say about the results of the DNA profiles. Had fought to keep her voice steady.

      Nothing inside her had stayed steady, she conceded while she waited in the overlapping puddles of light from the carriage lamps bordering the house’s massive front door. She closed her eyes, picturing again the sight of Grant nursing his drink in a dim corner of the club. His thick, sandy hair had been rumpled, his broad shoulders bent as if they carried the weight of the world. His chiseled features had been set, remote. Yet, when he’d raised his head to meet her gaze, his eyes had been full of the pain of his partner’s death.

      Just one look and he had shaken her off balance.

      She thought she had grown stronger over the past six months. Maybe she had in other areas, but she still had few defenses where Grant Pierce was concerned. She needed those defenses. God, did she need them.

      From somewhere behind her, a sharp, metallic click sounded on the still night air. Sky’s scalp prickled, followed by a jolt of sheer terror. Years of self-defense training kicked in; she raised her arms and whirled. The screech that followed could have doubled for the tornado warning siren.

      “Good grief, Sigmund!” Sky stared down at twelve pounds of gray, outraged tomcat whose fur and tail were standing straight on end. “Sorry I stepped on your tail,” she muttered after her heart unfroze in her chest. How did you explain to a cat that she’d mistaken the metallic click of its tags with the snick of a switchblade shooting out of a hilt? The all-too-real memory of that sound echoed in her head, had her swallowing back bile.

      Just then, the front door swung open and she jolted.

      “Sky, what a pleasant surprise,” Dr. Judith Mirren commented in a soft voice that carried the faintest hint of her native Louisiana. Her searching gaze swept past Sky’s shoulder. “Please tell me it wasn’t you who just howled like a banshee.”

      Sky pushed away the chilling memories that had surged from her past. “Sigmund snuck up on me and I stepped on his tail.” She motioned toward the shadowy porch rail where the cat now sat staring with regal feline disdain, tail twitching as if it had electrodes attached.

      “No harm done, I’m sure,” Dr. Mirren said, pulling the door open wider. “Come in.”

      The woman’s brown eyes were kind—and sharp. At sixty, she had settled comfortably into middle age, the lines on her face revealing a quiet intelligence that came only with experiencing life. Her hair was a mix of honey-brown and gray, scooped up in a loose topknot. She wore trim black slacks and a chic linen blouse the color of storm clouds.

      Sky gave an apologetic smile. “I should have called first.”

      “Nonsense. This evening’s group left about ten minutes ago,” the doctor said as she stepped back to let Sky in. “I was considering making myself a latte, but Richard’s out of town and I didn’t want to drink one alone. Now I don’t have to.”

      “I didn’t plan on dropping by,” Sky explained as she entered the large wood-paneled foyer with glossy pine floors. “I went for a drive and somehow wound up here.”

      Dr. Mirren arched an eyebrow. Wordlessly she shut the door and nodded toward a wide doorway. “Make yourself comfortable in the study. I’ll be back with our lattes.”

      “Need some help?”

      “Thank you, no. I’ll just be a minute.”

      Sky walked across the entry and into the room where she had spent every Monday evening for the past six months. The study was warm and vibrant with thick rugs, polished brasses and solidly constructed furniture. Faint wisps of lavender haunted the air. Always before, the mood of the room soothed, but tonight Sky was as taut as a coiled spring and the feeling had nothing to do with her close encounter with Sigmund.

      Her fingertips grazed the top of the inviting tobacco-brown rolled-arm sofa. She’d sat here and told people she barely knew about the terrifying event that had altered the course of her life. Related intimate details she could not share with Grant, not after the way she’d humiliated herself that last time they were together.

      Getting involved with him had been wrong, so unfair. She had hurt him—not intentionally, but she’d hurt him all the same. Now he would rather take a cab than climb into a car with her. The knowledge made her want to weep.

      “Here we are,” Dr. Mirren said as she swept through the arched entrance, bringing with her two oversize cups and the heady scent of rich coffee.

      “It smells wonderful,” Sky said, accepting the cup the doctor offered.

      “Let’s hope it tastes that way. I’ve only had the espresso maker a week, so I’m still practicing.” Smiling, she sat in a leather wing chair on the opposite side of the rug that spread a soft pattern along the wood floor. She blew across the rim of her cup, then sipped. “Not bad.”

      Sky settled on the sofa. “It’s perfect,” she said, savoring the creamy heat that slid down her throat.

      “You mentioned you went for a drive and somehow wound up here.” As usual, the psychiatrist took little time getting to the heart of a matter. “Did something happen tonight?”

      “I saw Grant.”

      “A date?”

      “Hardly. I had to tell him about the results of a comparison on DNA found at two of his homicide cases.”

      “Did you go to his home to tell him?”

      “No.” Although she’d made only a few vague references about her relationship with Grant to the Monday-night group, she had told Dr. Mirren all the details during their private sessions. “I wouldn’t have the nerve to just show up and knock on the door. Grant’s partner died of a heart attack, and the funeral was this afternoon. I knew he’d gone to the FOP club, so I went there.” She lifted a shoulder. “A mistake.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      “It’s a social setting. We don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. Never will have again.”

      “Could you have waited until tomorrow to tell him about the DNA results?” Dr. Mirren asked, her eyes meeting Sky’s over the rim of her cup.

      “I suppose. He needed to know, though.”

      “I’m sure,” the doctor said agreeably, as if they were discussing the weather. “Could you have put this information in a memo?”

      Sky tightened her grip on the cup’s ceramic handle. “I have to do that, too.”

      “So, you chose to face this man.”

      “I don’t know why. We’ve had no contact in six months.” That hadn’t stopped a greasy pool of jealousy from churning in her belly when the waitress at the FOP club put the moves on Grant. Sky chewed her lower lip. It had taken everything she had to sit there while the temptation to deck the woman passed.

      She set her cup on the thick wood coffee table in front of the sofa. Too unsettled to stay put, she rose and walked to the leaded-glass windows that spanned one wall of the paneled study. Outside, an obviously recovered Sigmund scuttled full speed across the porch after a fluttering moth.

      “I think I decided to tell Grant in