“With you?” Montoya asked, then winked at her. “Always, baby.”

“Oh, jeez, Montoya, so smooth! Be still my heart.” Using her fingers, she made a fanning motion near her face, as if she were suddenly so hot she might faint; then she giggled and went back to slicing up strips of cantaloupe and watermelon. The baby let out a soft little sigh that touched Montoya’s heart. He grinned and placed a finger on Ben’s chubby cheek, watching as his son’s tiny lips moved.

“Is Cruz around?”

“Still sleeping,” she said, casting her husband a knowing smile. “It is only six-thirty. The only sane people awake are nursing mothers and type-A detectives.”

“Yeah, right.” His brother had crashed there for the better part of a week, spending time with Abby and Reuben, visiting their mother and other siblings, and generally hanging out. He hadn’t said as much, but Montoya thought that Cruz might be trying to find a way to see Lucia Costa again, the girl he’d known in high school and someone the department was interested in; after all, she’d somehow discovered both Sister Camille and Sister Asteria as they’d died.

Montoya thought Lucia wasn’t being completely truthful, but so far, he hadn’t figured out what she could be holding back. Cruz’s interest in her wouldn’t help the investigation; in fact, it could bloody well harm it.

“I’m serious. It’s too early to be up and around.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you know how it is.”

“When you’re wound up in a big case, you can’t sleep. So that means neither can I.” Sighing, she sliced another cantaloupe in half, then started digging out the seeds.

Montoya, on his way to the back of the house, paused to snap his sweaty, now-dirty T-shirt against her buttocks.

“Hey! You’re asking for trouble,” she warned, waggling the knife.

“Oh, I like the sound of that.”

“Really?” She was smiling as she twisted her head to look at him.

He couldn’t resist and wrapped his arms around her, the cotton of her robe shifting beneath his fingers. “Really.”

She glanced at the baby sleeping on the counter, as if considering. “I thought you had to be to work early.”

“I think you could change my mind.” He kissed her full on the lips and felt that hot, familiar rush, the liquid fire in his blood just as he did every time her mouth opened to him. Sometimes he wondered if it were possible to get enough of her.

He slid his tongue between her teeth and slipped one hand into the folds of the robe, searching out her breast, full and hard, filled with milk, covered in lace.

“Mmmm . . . ,” she murmured just as his damned cell phone rang.

He ignored it, but she pulled away. “Duty calls.”