Ties That Bind by Natalie R. Collins Page B

it’s Sunday night, and I don’t have to work with you until tomorrow morning.
    “So right now I’ll say good night. See you tomorrow.”
    Sam clicked the off button on the phone and then slammed it into the base for good measure.
    She’d never been good at men or relationships. She did okay with the sex part. Something about her skinny body, gangly arms and legs, and smooth, pale Nordic complexion seemed to appeal to men.
    But bonding, mating, forging long-term contacts—those things were all foreign to her. Did someone teach these things to girls? All the girls who ended up with nice, successful, handsome husbands seemed to know how to do it. They must have had mothers who taught them to wear lipstick and comb their hair and giggle when a man said something he thought was witty—even if it wasn’t. The one boy she had thought loved her—Paul—had walked away without a backward glance, leaving to serve a mission for the Church while she was still aching from a loss she couldn’t come close to understanding.
    Her mother had been one step away from being a corpse. Sam grew up learning how to fight and defend, passionate and ardent but not at all refined. Maybe that was why she was good at the sex thing.
    She’d had her share of lovers, but none she’d allowed to get emotionally close or put down roots anywhere near her. Sex was easy. She’d learned the pain and dangers of love early on in life.
    And then there was Gage, a man she had found herself inextricably drawn to on a difficult case. He affected her in ways she couldn’t explain yet had never been her lover or even her friend. He hadn’t been a one-night stand or a friend with benefits. Instead, there was just that incredible pull—gravity. They’d never consummated a relationship that bordered on cinder hot. Maybe that was why he could still crawl under her skin and set her nerve endings on fire.
    The bond they’d formed during those very dark days had been irretrievably broken when he’d shown her just how disparate they really were, telling their chief that she was too close to the case and more of a detriment than a help. Stood up in front of their boss and claimed her unfit to remain in the undercover position.
    He’d betrayed her.
    Sam closed her eyes and let herself drift back to a time when the fireworks between her and Gage were of a different sort. She wanted to fight it, but his return to her life had triggered too many feelings and emotions. Maybe if she just let herself remember, it would get out of her system quicker. He would get out of her system.
    Her mind wandered back to the night he first cooked for her, in his house in Farmington.
    “Oh, you’re good,” Sam had said, watching as he expertly sautéed mushrooms in a pan, never missing a beat as he checked on the steaming asparagus. Outside, steaks were grilling, and he kept leaving to check on them, finally coming in with two perfectly done medium-rare fillets. He dished out the plates, scooping out the mushrooms over the top of the steaks and adding a steaming heap of asparagus, which he topped with a pat of butter.
    “Oh yeah, you’re good,” Sam said again, cutting into a steak that practically fell apart with her fork.
    “Sammy?” He drew in close, picking up his wineglass, and she picked up hers. Their arms intertwined, and they both took a sip.
    “I am only good at two things. Killing people and making love.” He gave her a wicked grin, and she felt her stomach flutter and moisture pool in places she didn’t know could react to a sexually charged statement like the one he had just uttered. Although she wasn’t quite sure how to take the “killing” statement. She knew he’d been in the Army and, after his enlistment ended, he came to work for the Salt Lake City Police Department. She wasn’t sure why he had decided not to reenlist for another tour of active duty, except she suspected his “good at killing” statement probably had something to do with that.