A Vow to Love

“You wouldn’t feel that way if you’d seen us last night.”

This time her grandfather was the one who sighed heavily. “Okay, what went wrong this time?” he asked. He sounded defeated, but she knew better than to believe he’d given up.

Penny described the way she’d mistaken Sam for some maniac. Her grandfather chuckled with unmistakable glee as she told the story. By the time she’d finished, she was able to put aside the odd mix of outrage and embarrassment and laugh with him. “Okay, so in retrospect it was pretty amusing, but I don’t think he saw it that way. I humiliated him in front of his colleagues.”

“Trust me,” Brandon said, “Sam doesn’t humiliate too easily. He grew up with a hide like an elephant. He had to.”

Penny wasn’t so sure. She recalled that tiny spark of dismay in his eyes as his two fellow officers had listened to her scrambling to explain what had happened. Contrary to the image he liked to project, she was beginning to suspect Sam just might be a decent kind of guy. The mistake he’d made years ago had been in trying to please his surrogate grandfather rather than thinking of her feelings. Even that kiss hadn’t been a crime. In some ways, the discovery was incredibly disconcerting, fueling the ridiculous attraction she’d always felt and sworn she was over.

She’d probably just imagined that hint of sensitivity, anyway, she told herself sternly. Just as quickly, she countered with the reminder that he had hung out with her the night before. She wasn’t sure exactly why he’d insisted on dinner, especially since it had been abundantly clear that he’d have preferred to be almost anywhere else on earth. It was possible that once again he had only done it to please her grandfather. Or maybe he’d intended to satisfy some smidgen of guilt over his own behavior. Less likely, but certainly possible, was that he had recognized her unfamiliar desire for companionship in a new place. At any rate, Sam had been there for her.

“If you’re that worried about it, you could call and apologize again,” her grandfather said, apparently interpreting her silence as unspoken concern for Sam’s feelings. “Send the man some flowers. That’ll catch him off guard.”

Penny could just imagine the gossip at the police station if a dozen roses turned up on Sam Roberts’s desk. The idea held a certain appeal, but she squashed it. She recognized a sneaky tactic when she saw one. Her grandfather was just trying to manipulate another meeting. A dozen roses would leave Sam duty-bound to call.

“When hell freezes over,” she muttered. “If anybody apologizes to the man, it ought to be you.”

Her grandfather huffed indignantly. Then he said, “Okay, so maybe I will.”

Something in his tone warned her she should have let well enough alone.

Penny knew for certain just how big her mistake had been when the phone rang the following day, right when she was in the middle of a critical experiment in the lab.

“Penny, it’s Sam.”

“Yes,” she murmured distractedly, her gaze still locked on what she was seeing through the microscope lens.

“How about dinner?”

That got her attention. “Dinner? You and me? Why? We’ve done that.”

“You have to eat. I have to eat. We might as well do it together,” he retorted, his tone losing any last hint of graciousness.

“Granddad,” she said with a sigh.

He chuckled at her ready recognition of the source of the invitation. “Okay, he’s at it again. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to go along with him for one night, would it?”

“You don’t just go along with Brandon. The man is capable of steamrolling over the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“True. But you and I, we’re tougher, right?”

Penny hesitated, but she had to admit there was a certain temptation in trying to outwit her grandfather. And she did think of herself as particularly adept at avoiding anything resembling a relationship that might interfere with her work. And despite those little frissons of attraction she’d felt a few days earlier, she was long over her silly infatuation with Sam, wasn’t she? So what was the harm?

The wounded look she sometimes saw in Sam Roberts’s eyes chose that moment to flicker alive in her memory. The dangerous, sexy smile taunted her. She dismissed them as inconsequential. They were talking about one evening. Dinner. How complicated could it get?

“When?” she said finally.

Her lack of enthusiasm apparently communicated itself to him. “Let’s get it over with. Tonight?”

“Fine. What time?”

“I have an appointment at five, but I should be through by six-thirty. If you can meet me there, I know a great restaurant in the neighborhood.”

“Is it half as good as Rosie’s?”

“Maybe even better, but don’t ever tell her I said that.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Something to hold over your head. I like that.”

“Watch it, short stuff,” he warned, but he was chuckling when he gave her the address. “See you later.”

Penny started to remind him to stop calling her “short stuff,” then realized that every time he used the affectionate phrase she automatically recalled how much larger and more powerfully built he was. It was downright interesting the way her thoughts always came back to settle on an image of how blasted attractive the man was. He probably did it intentionally for just that reason.

“Later,” she agreed, and wished her pulse wasn’t suddenly racing in anticipation.

Sam changed into his boxing shorts in the locker room, then went through the gym in search of Johnny, who’d owned the place forever. He found him in his cramped, paper-strewn office. He picked a box of invoices up off of the room’s only spare chair and plopped them on the floor.

“Are you ever going to clean this place?” he inquired, grinning at the grizzled old man who owned this seedy old barn of a gym.

Johnny’s Place made up for in atmosphere what it lacked in high-tech exercise equipment. This was the kind of gym that world heavyweight champs would feel comfortable in. Some had even trained here in preparation for title bouts a few decades back, according to local legend. And Johnny had yellowing, dog-eared, autographed photos of some of the best on the walls of his cluttered office. Right now, as always, he looked horrified by Sam’s suggestion that he straighten up.

“And mess up my filing system?” he protested. “Why would I want to go and do that after all these years?”

“You might discover you’re rich.”

“Or that I’m close to bankruptcy. Either way, it’s better not to know. As long as I’ve got enough for dinner and some bottles of linament, I figure business is good.”

“Has Randy been coming around to help out?” Sam asked, referring to the seventeen-year-old he was supposed to box in a few minutes. He’d brought the teen here to work out his frustrations, much as Jason had brought Sam years earlier.

“He shows up pretty regular,” Johnny said evasively.

“How regular is that?”

“Every couple of days. Sticks around for a few hours. I don’t have that much for him to do.”

“I thought he was going to help with this paperwork. He has a good head on his shoulders and math was the one subject he passed with flying colors.”

“He tries, but like I said, things are a little disorganized in here.”

Sam sensed that Johnny was holding something back. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what, but he’d gotten Johnny into this. He owed it to him to see that nothing went wrong. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

The aging boxer regarded him with regret. “Hey, I don’t want to go telling tales.”

“Come on, Johnny. What’s going on?”

“The kid’s got these friends, okay?” He shuddered. “I gotta tell you, Sammy, they give me the creeps. I don’t want ’em hanging around.”

Sam could see how much Johnny hated making the admission. And coming from an old boxer who wasn’t afraid of much, the fear had to be taken seriously. Besides, Sam knew exactly which friends Johnny was talking about. They were precisely the reason he’d gotten Randy the job at the gym. He sighed.