A Dangerous Game

“Shepherd’s pie?”

“Always good.”

Declan started to head to the back. “Oh, sorry—you guys want something to drink?”

“I’ll get it,” Craig said, leaning over the bar for a couple of glasses. As he did so, Kieran came to his side.

“Shepherd’s pie. And—”

“Soda water, please,” Kieran said softly.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Honestly,” she assured him.

They sat at the bar. Declan came back with dinner for the two of them; Finnegan’s was famous for its shepherd’s pie. It was a standard, almost always available.

Declan and Mary Kathleen both came behind the bar as the place began to wind down in earnest. Only a few patrons, just finishing up and paying their checks, remained.

“Anything new?” Mary Kathleen asked Craig.

He arched a brow. “Not since I walked in here.”

“Sorry,” she murmured. She looked at Kieran. “What was this woman like? Did she say anything at all that would give you a clue about who she was, where she came from—or about why she would leave a baby?”

Kieran frowned. “No. She didn’t speak that much. She said my name, and not much more.”

“She knew your name?”

“Well, surely no one would choose a random person in any old office and just toss them a baby!” Kieran said.

“But, she didn’t ask for Dr. Fuller or Miro, right? She asked for you?” Declan asked, frowning. He glanced at Craig.

Inwardly, Craig groaned.

Now everyone was worried about Kieran.

Naturally, he was worried, too.

“Did you let the doctors know what happened?” Declan asked.

“Of course,” Kieran said. “I called them...they had to know. The woman came to their office.”

“The whole city knows by now, I’m sure,” Craig said. “The street was crawling with reporters by the time we headed here. Hopefully, that will be a good thing. Someone out there might know who the woman was—and where to find the baby’s mother.”

“I hope so,” Mary Kathleen whispered.

“Okay, let’s clean up and call it a night,” Kieran said. She stood and started picking plates up from recently vacated tables.

Declan looked at Craig with a shrug.

Craig knew all the Finnegan siblings well—he was pretty sure that he knew what they all might be thinking: better get involved; make it your case. This is haunting Kieran, and therefore, she will definitely be haunting you!

Twenty minutes later, they were at Kieran’s apartment, which he had mostly been calling home as well for at least the last year. They still used his place now and then. Somehow—though he couldn’t remember the last time they’d slept apart—they were still maintaining two apartments. They really needed to get rid of one of them. His apartment was larger—they both actually liked it better. But Kieran’s was in the Village, and often more convenient when they’d been out for a night, and they had gotten into the habit of staying there.

More of his things were even at her place, rather than his own.

Not even the sushi bar/karaoke place on the ground floor of Kieran’s apartment building was still going, and the streets surrounding St. Mark’s Place were quiet, as well.

Kieran seemed really tired as they trudged up the stairs past the silent bar and to her apartment level. Of course, she was tired. She’d worked some grim cases with him—little could have been much worse than some of what they’d already seen, endured and survived—but it had to have been traumatic for her, having a baby thrust into her arms.

And seeing the woman who had entrusted that baby to her staggering down the street with a knife in her back...

He intended to give Kieran whatever space she needed; respecting that might be a need to curl up in bed with her own thoughts, praying for sleep.

He was startled when she turned to him with a grin. “Race you to the shower!” she said, and she was gone.

Racing to the shower.

He’d thought she’d be so exhausted.

Apparently not.

He followed her.

There were, of course, all kinds of ways to deal with strange happenings.

She was already naked, beneath the spray of water. He hesitated at the door, then left his Glock in the bedroom and shed his clothing.

He stepped into the tub. She was instantly in his arms.

Sometimes, people just needed to be held.

And sometimes, they needed more.

Her lips moved over his throat and chest, while her fingers danced down his torso. Her touch...the water...

He was instantly aroused.

They kissed and teased in the water. They lathered one another, intimately.

Then she laughed and moved away, escaping from the shower.

They’d long ago realized that for a man Craig’s size, making love in the shower wasn’t particularly erotic. It could be awkward, and slippery in the wrong way.

But heading out of the shower could be completely wonderful, catching up with another with clean flesh, sliding into a damp embrace with token pats from towels, and then falling down into the bed, the coolness of the sheets against the heat of their flesh.

Foreplay quickly became something urgent, something needed, something more and more passionate with each brush of their lips, with the intimacy with which they caressed and kissed one another, with which their eyes met, and they came together at last.