I'd worked part-time at Tasty Pastry when I was in high school. It hadn't changed much since then. Same green-and-white linoleum floor. Same sparkling clean display cases filled with Italian cookies, chocolate chip cannoli, biscotti, napoleons, fresh bread and coffee cakes. Same happy smell of fried sweet dough and cinnamon.

Lennie Smulenski and Anthony Zuck bake the goodies in the back room in big steel ovens and troughs of hot oil. Clouds of flour and sugar sift onto table surfaces and slip under foot. And lard is transferred daily from commercial-sized vats directly to local butts.

I choose two Boston cremes and pocketed some napkins. When I came out I found Joe Morelli lounging against my car. I'd known Morelli all of my life. First when he was a lecherous little kid, then as a dangerous teen. And finally as the guy who at age eighteen, sweet-talked me out of my underwear, laid me down on the floor behind the eclair case one day after work and relieved me of my virginity. Morelli was a cop now, and the only way he'd get back into my pants would be at gunpoint. He worked Vice, and he looked like he knew a lot about it firsthand. He was wearing washed-out Levi's and a navy T-shirt. His hair needed cutting, and his body was perfect. Lean and hard-muscled with the best ass in Trenton . . . maybe the world. Buns you wanted to sink your teeth into.

Not that I intended to nibble on Morelli. He had an annoying habit of periodically popping up in my life, frustrating the hell out of me and then walking off into the sunset. I couldn't do much about the popping up or the walking off. I could do something about the frustrating. From here on out, Morelli was erotica non grata. Look but Don't Touch, that was my motto. And he could keep his tongue to himself, thank you.

Morelli grinned by way of hello. "You're not going to eat both those doughnuts all by yourself, are you?"

"That was the plan. What are you doing here?"

"Drove by. Saw your car. Thought you'd need some help with those Boston cremes."

"How do you know they're Boston cremes?"

"You always get Boston cremes."

Last time I saw Morelli was back in February. One minute we were in a clinch on my couch with his hand halfway up my thigh, and then next thing I knew, his pager went off and he was gone. Not to be seen for five months. And now here he was . . . sniffing at my doughnuts.

"Long time, no see," I said.

"I've been undercover."

Yeah, right.

"Okay," he said. "I could have called."

"I thought maybe you were dead."

The smile tightened. "Wishful thinking?"

"You're scum, Morelli."

He blew out a sigh. "You're not going to share those doughnuts, are you?"