Since he and Sam interviewed personal trainer Elin Svendsen during the O’Connor investigation, he found himself fantasizing about her day and night. The way she’d been so free about her sexuality and talked so openly about the kinky sex she’d had with the dead senator. She was all Freddie could think about. She was the one he wanted.

That was why he was lurking outside Total Fitness, wearing one of his trademark trench coats while trying to work up the nerve to step inside to inquire about personal training. She didn’t need to know he was interested in personal training of a different sort. At least not right away.

“Detective Cruz?”

Startled, he looked up, and there she was. Tall, blonde—so blonde her eyebrows were almost white—she had dark blue eyes and a smile right out of a toothpaste commercial. Carrying a tray containing four coffees and wearing a light blue down vest and black yoga pants, it was all Freddie could do to keep from drooling. She was even sexier than he remembered—and he remembered every excruciating detail of the night he’d spent protecting her in a hotel room while Thomas O’Connor hunted down his father’s ex-girlfriends.

“I thought that was you,” she said. “How are you?”

“I’m, um, fine. And you?”

“Crazy today. It’s the busiest day of the year for us—all the resolutions.”

“Right,” Freddie said, remembering his own resolutions.

“Are you working on a case?”

“Me?” No, idiot, Freddie thought, that other guy she’s talking to. “Not today. I was just in the neighborhood and thinking about resolutions.”

She smiled.

He went hard as a stone and was thankful for the long coat.

“Do you want to come in? I could show you around and tell you about our program.”

“Um, sure, that sounds good.” He wondered if she’d think it strange if he kept his coat on inside.

After spending Sunday helping Nick finish packing up his place in Arlington, Sam woke up Monday morning with a stomachache. She lay still in Nick’s big new bed and tried to breathe her way through pain that had become predictable. Any time she was nervous or stressed out, she could count on her stomach to let her know. And judging by the particularly sharp pain, she was some kind of nervous.

Today she would officially take command of the HQ detectives. She had wanted the job for as long as she’d been a detective, but was nervous about all the responsibility that would come with overseeing forty detectives, hundreds of cases each year and all the accompanying personnel matters.

Another stabbing pain made her whimper.

Nick looped an arm around her. “What?”

“Stomach.”

“That’s it. I’m making you an appointment.”

“I’ll do it. Today.”

“Promise?”

Sam bit her lip and nodded as another sharp pain took her breath away.