Guilt

Dooher's face broke into a conspiratorial smile. 'I don't think I could put it exactly like that. She'd think I was the last of the reactionary pigs. Well, maybe not the last.'

'But you wouldn't be wrong.'

'Maybe not, but I'm afraid in today's social environment it's one of life's little truths that she's going to have to discover for herself.'

'So what's she going to do? What did you advise her?'

'I was punctiliously PC – told her, if it were me, I'd stay here and do a great job this summer, study for the Bar and pass it, be supportive of what Joe was doing. If they're in love, it'll work out eventually, maybe sooner. Lots of people get separated by jobs, by life. The ones that are meant to make it, make it. It doesn't have to be a crisis.'

She took his hand again. 'You know, Mark, sometimes I forget what a romantic you are.'

He shrugged it off. 'I'm just trying to be a good boss. They're both valuable assets to the firm – if they're not happy they won't be productive.'

'Oh, and that's it? All this paternal advice is simply an ingenious management technique?'

'Essentially.' He tipped up his glass. 'Mostly.'

She shook her head, smiling. 'Yes,' she said, 'I'm sure.' Motioning to his empty glass, she asked if she could get him another one.

He hesitated. 'I'm not trying to be an enabler here, but would you consider joining me?'

She still wasn't anywhere near telling him about the Nardil, her anti-depressant drug. She didn't think she'd ever get to there. But Mark was relaxed, in a sensitive mood, open to her. She'd gone back to her wine over the past few weeks and there'd been no ill-effects. Now Mark wanted her to join him for a nightcap. If she said no, the mood would be gone, and she wasn't going to risk that.

Midnight.

Sam Duncan sat up abruptly, terrifying Quayle, who'd been asleep in bed with her. The dog yipped twice, then whimpered, and she reached out a hand to calm him, bringing him over the blankets on to her lap.

Petting the dog absently, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She hated it when she couldn't sleep, and she' d made a resolution that she wasn't going to drink even a drop of anything to make her nod off. The last time she'd had a drink was St Patrick's Day, and look where that had gotten her.

To right here.

The couple who lived in the unit above her – Janet and Wayne – were silent now, though from the sound of it, they'd had a hell of a good night. Actually, it had been like one of those scenes in the movies where the couple next door let out all the stops and just completely went for it. Perhaps Janet and Wayne didn't realize that Sam had come home. Maybe they didn't think sound carried that well through the old building. Regardless, they put on some show – pretty much the complete range of the audio spectrum – vocals, screams, thuds, creaking springs, sighs and moans, you name it. In the movies, it was often pretty fu

For Sam, tonight, it wasn't. It was damn near tragic, she thought.

But she wasn't going to panic. She was a mature woman and if fate had not supplied her with a mate after all this time, she had dealt with it, made a successful life for herself. The men had come and gone, a few steadies, a fiance once for a couple of weeks, but for the past four or five years, she'd simply decided to stop pursuing it, stop worrying about it, concentrate on her career and let whatever was going to happen in her love-life simply happen. The problem was that nothing significant had happened.

Not until Wes Farrell.

She hadn't been with him more than two hours, but in that time – stupidly, without any reason or explanation – she'd felt more alive, simply better, than she could remember. There was just a whole different quality to the way they'd related – complete ease, immediate rapport, sexual attraction, attitude, humor. Of course, she'd been half in the bag. But the half that hadn't been thought it remembered pretty well.

And then he'd turned out to be…

Well, what, really? A guy who did a job she didn't approve of. Didn't it come down to just that? What was so bad about him? It wasn't like he was a mass murderer, a professional wrestler, a car salesman. And the violence of her reaction to what he did – though she hated with all her heart to admit it – might have had just a tad of a tiny bit to do with alcohol.

So she did the wise thing first – went completely on the wagon. Thought about the whole issue soberly and while sober. She was thirty-five. She hadn't been lonely before, but now, damn it, she was. Well, no, not exactly that. What she wanted was another fix of him.

Christina had said to look him up in the book, and after two days of struggling with herself, she had. There was a work number, on Columbus, no home number listed. And the number was there right now on the notepad on her bed-table under the lamp.

'Shit,' she said, flicking on the light.

What the hell, she was thinking. It's midnight. He's at home and I can just talk to the machine at his office, apologize for being such – no, not apologize, don't start on that note. I'd just like to talk with him. And she'd leave her number.

But wait. He knew where she lived, and if it had been important to him, he could have come by, rung the bell…

Except that, no, she'd thrown him out. He'd probably think, with some justification, that she was a nutcase. Even if he was tempted to come back, he'd think twice, maybe ten times – and decide he'd better not. She couldn't blame him. Also, if she was really, as he'd said, the first woman since his marriage, he'd be skittish. And again, she couldn't blame him.

It was going to have to be her.

I've got to find out if his marriage is over, she thought. That's got to come first. I'm not getting involved with a married man. I don't know him at all. This is dumb.

But she was punching the numbers and the phone had started ringing.

'Hello.'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number.'

She was about to hang up. She wasn't prepared to really talk with anybody, certainly not with him. She was only going to leave a message. 'Sam? Sam, is that you?' It stu

She clenched the phone. She should just slam it down. Wrong number. Wrong time. Wrong.

'Sam?' he repeated. 'Is that you?'

She sighed with frustration. 'I wanted to apologize. No! Not apologize, explain. I thought I'd get your machine.'

'You want, I'll turn it on, promise not to listen till tomorrow morning.'

'That'd help. Are you still working, I mean at work?'

'If you ask questions, my machine won't be able to answer. It'll get all confusing.'

'You're right.'

'Also, I think you should know that I got my client – Levon Copes? – I got him off today. If that's what you were calling about.'

'You got him off?'

'They dropped the charges. The DA decided the evidence wasn't going to stick. He's out of jail.'

She took a breath. 'Well, that's not exactly what I called about. Maybe a little, but not mostly.' Another pause. 'Listen, if I promise not to get psycho on you, would you like to meet me sometime for some coffee or something?'

'Sure. I mean okay. I guess. Why don't you tell me when?'

'Would, like, about now be all right?'