Rhyme scoffed but the expression vanished as he said good-bye to the law enforcers and, with a smooth gesture, lifted his working right arm to Dance and gripped her hand. She kissed his cheek, then embraced Sachs.

O’Neil added, “I’ll see you both Sunday. I’m bringing the kids over.” He glanced at Sachs. “You’re interested, we just got the new H&K MP7.”

“The little bullet.”

“Right. Smaller than a BB, seventeen-caliber. You want to come out to the range and put some holes in paper on Monday?”

“You bet I do,” Sachs said enthusiastically.

“Kathryn?” O’Neil asked.

“I’ll pass, I think. I’ll hang out with Lincoln and Thom.”

And with Jon Boling too? she wondered, then stepped on that thought.

The trio from New York headed out the door.

O’Neil too said good-bye to the locals, and Dance walked with him outside into the sultry air.

“You in a hurry to get back?” she found herself asking. Hadn’t planned it. She was thinking they might have dinner, just the two of them.

A pause. She could tell he too wanted to stay. But then he shook his head. “Thing is, Anne’s driving down from San Francisco, picking up some things. I ought to be there.” He looked away. “And the papers’ll be ready tomorrow, the settlement agreement.”

“So soon?”

“She didn’t want much.”

Also, a woman who cheats on her husband and abandons her children probably isn’t in much of a position to demand much, Dance reflected. “You doing okay?” One of those pointless questions that’s usually more about the asker than the askee.

“Relieved, sad, pissed off, worried about the kids.” As lengthy a discussion of his emotional health as she’d ever heard from Michael O’Neil.

Silence for a moment.

Then he gave a smile. “Okay, better go.”

But before he turned Dance found herself impulsively reaching up, one hand behind his neck, her arm around his back, and pulling him close. She kissed him hard on the mouth.

She thought, No, no, what the hell are you doing? Step back.

Yet by then his arms were enveloping her completely and he was kissing her back, just as firmly.

Then finally, he eased away. Came in for one more kiss and she gripped him even harder and then stood back.

She expected an oblique glance—his waiting state—but O’Neil stared easily into her eyes and she looked back just as comfortably. Their smiles matched.

Brother, what have I done now?

Kissed the man I truly love, she thought. And that unexpected thought was more stunning than the contact itself.

Then he was in the car. “I’ll call you when I get back. See you on Sunday.”

“Drive carefully,” she said. A phrase that had set her on edge when her parents would tell teenage Kathryn the same. As if, oh, right, I was going to drive off the road until you reminded me.

But as a woman who’d lost one husband to the highway, it was a sentence she could not stop herself from uttering occasionally. He closed the door, glanced at her again and lifted his left palm to the inside windshield and she pressed her right to the glass outside.