He smiled. “Gus’s influence. You Winters are all too damned cheap.”

“Frugal,” she corrected, “not cheap.”

“Hair-splitting.”

She laughed in spite of her tension and lifted the tea bag out of the mug, setting it on the folded up paper towel Hank had also brought. “I’m not home often enough to make a big mess. And I don’t mind cleaning. It makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished something.”

“Unlike sewing an accident victim back together?”

“It’s different.”

He sat at the end of the table with his own mug of tea. “Did you clean that morning?”

“No.”

“The window didn’t open itself, Antonia.”

“Carine has a key. She might have done it.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No.” She sipped some of the tea. It was stronger than she normally would make it. “She’d have worried.”

“She worried, anyway.”

Antonia felt a pang of guilt. “I know. I wish I’d never involved her.”

“But you haven’t mentioned any of these events to anyone?” Before she could answer, he added seriously, “Not that I’m your stalker, Antonia, and trying to see if you’ve said anything—”

“Hank! Of course I know you’re not this guy, if there even is a guy. Anyone. It never occurred to me you could be the one—” She groaned in amazement at the thought of Hank Callahan hiding in a parking garage, whispering her name. “I didn’t tell you what was going on because I thought you were responsible, but because—”

“You didn’t want to worry me. You were trying to protect me.” He leaned toward her, his eyes piercing even in the dimming light. “I don’t need protecting, not that kind. I don’t care if I’m in a tight campaign race for the senate. I don’t care if I become a senator. If something’s going on with you, I want to know about it. Period.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple.”

Most people, she thought, would back down under that kind of certainty and conviction, but Antonia stood her ground. “What if our positions were reversed, and I had a lot of important commitments at work and didn’t need any distractions, if you thought you might hurt my reputation—”

He shook his head. “I’m not buying it. You’re just not used to telling people anything. You play it close to the vest, Antonia. It’s not just me and my reputation, my guilt over what happened to my family—it’s you. The way you are.”

She paused. “You’re probably right,” she admitted finally.

His eyes flashed with sudden humor. “Probably?”

She waved a hand at him. “You cocky military types. Honestly. Okay, I didn’t know what to do. I’m not sure I realized how rattled I was until you got here and I—”

“Ran for your life?”