“I want to make it right with her, Line. I never should’ve made her choose between me and her job.”
Linus came to sit next to Tigo on the table. “You think her choice would be any different this time around?”
“I don’t want to know what her choice would be.” Tigo folded his arms over his double-breasted heather-brown suit coat. “I don’t want her to make one. I only want her to make room for me. For us.”
“So you’re ready to accept that?” Linus folded his hands over the table’s edge and studied his black loafers. “She’s a real cop, you know? She’s got no qualms about bein’ in the line of fire. The girl’s no desk-rider.”
“I want her back, Line.”
Linus nodded, knowing his friend well enough to know the matter was settled for him. “So how do you plan to make it happen?”
Tigo groaned. “Not a damn clue.” He buried his face in his hands.
Linus massaged satiny facial whiskers, which had been tamed into a permanent five-o’clock shadow. Again he nodded. “But you know it involves denying what you both really want?”
“What I really want is her back.”
“Bull. What you really want is her back eventually and her in your bed now.”
Tigo grimaced, but his gaze was soft when he slanted a look at his friend. “I’m beginning to understand why you’re single.”
Linus slid off the table and shrugged. “She still got that doll face?”
Tigo bowed his head and massaged his neck again. “Yeah.” He smiled, envisioning the woman he loved.
“Goddess body?” Linus inquired.
“Better than ever.”
“Hell...” Linus’s smoky, calculating stare was filtered with something wicked. “And you expect to woo her or whatever the devil your plan is without the thought of taking her to bed ever crossing your mind?”
A growl worked its way up Tigo’s throat. “Hell, Line, that’s the only thing on my mind.”
“Exactly my point. Neither of you is gonna be able to focus on a damn thing with all that tension between you.”
Tigo gave a wan smile. “Thanks for your support.”
“I’m only saying that the situation is already stressful enough given your history.” Linus inclined his head. “Why make it worse?” he asked.
Tigo considered Linus’s point of view while taking a slow stroll around the golden-lit conference room. “The way she looked at me last night when I tried to talk to her...maybe sex is all she’s interested in.” He worked the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “If we take it there, Line, and that’s all she wants or expects from me...I’ll never get anywhere with her.”
Linus appeared as though he at least understood his friend’s point of view. “You really do still love her, don’t you?”
“Yeah...” Tigo massaged all ten fingers into his neck and smiled. “Yeah, I really still do.”
* * *
“Captain. Chief,” Sophia greeted Captain Roy Poltice and Chief of Police Dean Franklin. A surprised frown claimed her expression when she spotted the other unexpected face at the table. “Commissioner Meeks,” she whispered and then cleared her throat as she extended a hand.
Police Commissioner Ethan Meeks was a sturdy, broadly built sixty-something man with a head full of snow-white hair that framed his face, which was usually brightened by a smile.
“Detective.” Commissioner Meeks moved to envelop one of Sophia’s slender hands in both of his beefy red ones. “We hope you’ve saved room for a big breakfast?”
“Have a seat, Sophia,” Captain Poltice urged, expertly reading the young detective’s stunned expression.
“We know you weren’t expecting this particular cast of characters, Detective,” Chief Franklin conceded once orders for coffee had been taken to the kitchen of the corner bistro where the meeting was taking place.
In truth, Sophia had only received the call about the gathering the night before, after her dinner with Santigo.
“Um, no, not at all, Chief.” She remembered that she hadn’t answered the man’s question.
Her pitiful denial roused laughter from the three men. Chief Franklin’s dazzling white smile was a sharp, attractive contrast against his molasses-dark skin, and it had a quality that settled some of the nerves in Sophia’s stomach.
“I thought I’d only be having breakfast with the captain.” Sophia smoothed damp palms across her sandalwood-colored slacks. “Is anything wrong?”
“There is nothing wrong, Detective,” Chief Franklin assured her. “In fact, it appears that things are finally on their way to being right again.”
“Sir?” Sophia didn’t mind letting her confusion show.
The query wasn’t addressed until the waitress had arrived with the coffees and left with four hearty breakfast orders for bacon, hash browns, eggs and toast.
“Detective, we’d like to start by complimenting your work on the Cole case.” Captain Poltice leaned forward and nodded in Sophia’s direction. “You showed cool professionalism in what is still a very delicate situation.”
“You knew the risk, knew the beehive you were about to aggravate, and still you moved forward,” Chief Franklin added.
“With all due respect, sir.” Sophia scooted forward in her chair. “I’m no statement maker or politician. I was just doing my job.”
“Precisely, and that’s why we can’t think of a better detective for the job.”
“Sir?” Sophia eyed the commissioner, who had spoken.
Commissioner Meeks’s inviting smile came through again. “We’re sure you’ve heard that Detective Hertz submitted his resignation. We’ve accepted it and would like to offer you the chief of detectives post. Will you accept it?”
Sophia ordered her brain to send word to her face that it wasn’t polite to sit with one’s mouth hanging open when meeting with the commissioner of the force. Her brain and her face didn’t appear to be on speaking terms just then, however.
“I, um... This is... I...”
“Perhaps a couple of days to think it over might help?”
Sophia nodded gratefully at Chief Franklin’s suggestion.
“We’ll give you forty-eight hours to get used to the idea.”
“Right.” Sophia pursed her lips at Captain Poltice’s clarification of the chief’s suggestion. The man’s phrasing translated into: “The job’s yours. Get used to it.”
“You were at the top of a very short list, Detective. Actually, you were the list,” the commissioner shared.
Sophia reached for her coffee, gulped it down and tried to smother a cough as the bitter black brew burned a path down her gullet. Though rattled by the effect, she had at least regained a firmer grasp on her verbal skills.
“Sirs, uh...previous chiefs of Ds...they haven’t been posted until they were almost fifty. I’m barely into my thirties and...well, I am almost single-handedly responsible for my successor losing his job. That won’t exactly instill a sense of welcome from my new staff.”
“Perhaps not at first, Detective.” Chief Franklin sipped at his coffee. “But one thing it will instill from the onset is a sense of decorum. It’ll go