With the report finished, she finally allowed her thoughts to drift to Nick. As if floodgates had opened, she was overwhelmed by emotions and yearnings she had managed to resist all day. She had a list of questions she wanted to run by him, so she had every reason to take out the card he had given her. The call was about the case, right? There was nothing wrong with reaching out to him in a strictly official capacity. If she was also dying to tell him about her promotion and her father’s pending marriage, what did that matter?

She flipped the card back and forth between her fingers for several minutes until her stomach twisted with the start of the dreaded pain. Thinking of the case and only the case, she dialed his cell number.

He sounded groggy when he answered.

“Oh God, did I wake you?”

“No, no.” A huge yawn made a liar out of him. “I was hoping you’d call.”

Deciding to keep it strictly business, she said, “I have some questions. About the case.”

“Oh.”

She winced at the disappointment reverberating from that single syllable. “You sound…I don’t know…kind of lousy.”

“It’s been a lousy day, except for the very beginning when I was with you.”

Without saying much of anything he had managed to say it all. And she knew she couldn’t tell him what she needed to tell him over the phone. “You’re at home?”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you mind if I come by? Just for a minute?”

“Are you at home?”

“At the moment.”

“You’re just going to ‘drop by’ all the way over here in Arlington? And only for a minute?”

“I need to talk to you, Nick. I need… Oh hell, I don’t even know what I need.”

“Come. I’ll be waiting. And babe? You don’t ever, ever have to ask first. Got me?”

She melted into a sloppy, messy puddle of need and want and desire. “Yeah,” she managed to say. “I’ll be there. Soon.” Her heart doing back flips, Sam reached for her weapon, badge and cuffs. She released her hair to brush out the kinks and primped for a few more minutes before she headed downstairs to tell her dad she was going into work for a while. Celia told her he was already asleep.

“He was especially tired tonight.” She held Sam’s coat for her. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“Always.” Impulsively, she turned to kiss Celia’s cheek on her way to the front door. “See you.”

He’d turned on the outside light for her. A simple thing, but it evoked such a powerful sense of homecoming that Sam sat there for several minutes reminding herself of why she was there—and why she wasn’t. “It can’t be about you,” she whispered. “Not now. This is about finding justice for John O’Connor. Nothing more.”