“It was just for fun,” she stammered, and then flushed. That wasn’t true. Cal had started teaching her right after Morris beat up her and Tad, while Morris was still living at home. Cal had even given her a little .32 caliber pistol. She’d assured him that she could never shoot anybody. He’d assured her that there were times when a gun might be the only way to save lives. And he added a rider about how Morris was drugged up half the time, and dangerous to both her and Tad. That was while Morris was waiting for his court case to be called. It didn’t go to trial for several months after the assault that had cowed Clancey.

“Does he still take you out to the range?” he wondered aloud and could have kicked himself for asking the question.

“Not anymore,” she said. There was no need, since Morris had been locked up. She handed him the bag. “The cartridges,” she added.

He took the bag from her cold fingers. He noticed that she had pretty fingers, but that she wore no polish on them. He looked at her hair as well, with a frown.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You don’t wear fancy nail polish or put green tips on your hair,” he noticed. His black eyes began to twinkle. “No tattoos, either?”

“I don’t like needles,” she replied. One side of her pretty bow mouth pulled down. “And I can just see me trying to wear purple-tipped hair and a tattoo in this office! The first time the lieutenant saw me, I’d be standing in the unemployment line!”

He pursed his lips. “The lieutenant has a tattoo. But if you ask him where it is, he turns red and finds an excuse to leave the room.”

“What?” Her eyes danced and she laughed.

Her whole face lit up when she laughed, and her pale silver eyes glimmered like sun on steel. He smiled unconsciously at the picture she made, like that.

She met those searching black eyes and her face felt suddenly tight, like her body. She moved back a step, uncomfortable and uncertain, not really understanding why she wanted to run.

“Cartridges. Right. Then if these don’t work,” he added, “we shoot it.”

“You can’t shoot equipment that’s issued to us. It’s a state agency,” she pointed out.

“I’ll shoot it in a very governmental way,” he promised.

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

“You don’t do that very often,” he remarked.

“Do what?”

“Laugh.”

“It’s not dignified.”

He chuckled. “Neither am I, mostly. Okay, hold down the home fort. I’ll waste half a day searching for cartridges that probably won’t even fit and then try to get this persnickety piece of office equipment to cooperate with me.”

“Persnickety?” she asked, eyebrows uplifted.