Flash Point. Metsy Hingle

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СКАЧАТЬ sighed as he climbed the steps of City Hall. Just what he needed, he thought and wondered for the thousandth time what had ever possessed him to take this job.

      But he already knew the answer. Tom Callaghan had been the reason. The man had taken the badass punk, with a chip on his shoulder, under his wing. Mr. Callaghan had made him believe he could be someone who could make a difference. And most of the time, he admitted, he felt that he did make a difference. He just wished that taking the job hadn’t come with the price of his privacy and, in particular, revealing his past. A past that included having a drunk and a whore for parents. Although he’d made something of himself and his life that he was proud of, having all that garbage dug up during the campaign last year had opened old wounds. It had also caused him to see himself through other’s eyes—through Meredith’s eyes. He hadn’t liked what he’d seen. It was the reason he had pushed Meredith away. And she’d done what he’d expected—she’d run off. Again. Only now she’d come back and was making noises like she intended to stay.

      Alex started down the nearly deserted hallway toward his office. And when he stepped through the doors and spied all the empty desks, he headed for Edna’s station. “Where is everybody, Eddie?”

      Edna Boudreaux, the stalwart office manager he’d inherited when he’d taken the office last year, glanced up from the reports on her desk. The woman did a hell of a job. She’d run the office for the retired D.A. for more than twenty years. Alex had been only too happy to keep her on since she knew anyone and everyone, and could cut through bureaucratic red tape faster than a hot knife through butter. He’d also never met a more dedicated employee. But damn if he didn’t feel like a punk running from the law again whenever she looked up at him with that “what have you been up to” expression on her face.

      The way she was looking at him now.

      “It’s lunchtime, Mr. Kusak. They’re at lunch. As am I,” she advised him, referring to the sandwich and pickle slices that sat next to the reports. “And I really do wish you would dispense with that ridiculous nickname. My name is Edna or Mrs. Boudreaux. Not Eddie.”

      Alex sat on the corner of her desk, helped himself to one of her pickle slices. “Come on, Eddie. Didn’t the late Mr. Boudreaux ever call you anything but Edna?”

      She waited a moment, then said, “He called me Buttercup.”

      Alex bit back a grin. With her tidy bun, granny glasses and prim suits, he couldn’t imagine Mrs. Boudreaux as anyone’s Buttercup. “I think I like Eddie better.”

      “So you’ve said, Mr. Kusak.”

      Alex sighed. Even after working side by side for nearly a year, the lady refused to call him by his first name. As she’d informed him when he’d first suggested she do so, she’d never called the former D.A. anything but “Mr. Newman” in the entire twenty years she’d worked for him. She saw no reason to resort to any such familiarity now. And though he doubted she’d admit it, he had a feeling he was growing on her. “You know, Eddie, one of these days you’re going to slip and call me ‘Alex,’ and when that happens our secret’s going to be out.”

      “And what secret would that be, Mr. Kusak?”

      “Why that we’re madly in love with each other.”

      “If you’re finished talking nonsense, why don’t you tell me what it is you wanted.”

      Alex flashed her a grin. “I need to get a brief typed,” he began, and proceeded to explain what was needed. As he spoke, he loosened his tie. Despite eight years in the D.A.’s office, first as an assistant and now as the district attorney, he still hated wearing the things. He might have come a long way from his days on the opposite side of the law, but he’d never gotten used to being trussed up like a turkey with a scrap of cloth choking him. “Do you think you can get it finished for me to take to court in say, forty minutes?”

      Mrs. Boudreaux lifted her gaze from his mangled tie and Alex didn’t miss the disapproving set of her mouth. Although she said nothing, he was sure she was comparing him to his predecessor, who’d been a dapper dresser known for his bow ties. “I’ll have it ready.”

      “You’re a lifesaver, Eddie. I could kiss you.”

      “I’d suggest you save your kisses for the young lady in your office,” she told him dryly.

      “Does the lady have a name?”

      “Miss Callaghan,” she informed him.

      His body went on full alert at the mention of Meredith’s name. She’d been driving him crazy from the time she’d been in a training bra and he’d been a juvenile delinquent on a fast track to trouble. “Did she say, uh, what she wanted?”

      “Since she doesn’t know that I saw her sneak in there while I was getting my sandwich from the kitchen, I didn’t bother to ask.”

      “You going soft on me, Eddie?”

      She shrugged. “The girl looked so pleased with herself because she thought she’d gotten by me that I didn’t have the heart to ruin it for her.”

      “Well, what do you know? You are a buttercup after all.”

      She straightened her shoulders, gave him that prim look, but Alex thought he saw a bit more color in her cheeks. “Mr. Kusak, if you expect me to get this brief typed, I suggest you let me get to it.”

      Alex eased off the edge of her desk and started for his office.

      “Oh and one more thing, Mr. Kusak.”

      “Yes?”

      “You might want to suggest to Miss Callaghan that the next time she wants to get by someone unnoticed that she’d be wise to leave the red trench coat at home.”

      “I’ll do that,” Alex told her, and opened the door to his office. He stepped inside. And there she was—sitting behind his desk wearing that scarlet-red trench coat and a pair of killer black heels that she had propped up on his desk.

      “Hello, Mr. District Attorney.”

      “Hello, Meredith,” he said with a calmness he was far from feeling. Some men had a weakness for booze. Others for drugs or gambling or even sex. For him, his weakness had always been Meredith Callaghan. She was like a fever in his blood, impossible to cure and equally fatal. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

      She gave him a pout and tossed her strawberry-blond hair so that it fell across her shoulders. “I didn’t realize I needed a reason to visit an old friend.”

      They’d been a great deal more than friends and therein lay the problem, Alex thought as he felt his body responding to her already. “I don’t have time to chitchat now. I’m due back in court in less than an hour.”

      “I didn’t come by to chitchat,” she sniffed. “I came by to remind you about my mother’s birthday dinner tonight. She’s expecting you.”

      “Jack already reminded me. I’ll be there.”

      “Good,” she said, giving him another one of those slow smiles that tied him up in knots.

      When she made no attempt to leave, he said, “Now that you’ve delivered the message, I’d appreciate it if СКАЧАТЬ