Twice A Hero, Always Her Man. Marie Ferrarella

she knew it. Now all she wanted to do was just forget about it and get this piece in to the editor.

      Jerry laughed. “Betsy worships the ground I walk on—you know that.”

      “Uh-huh,” she murmured, getting out of the van. “Let’s go get some of our background material for this story.”

      Jerry got out on his side, taking his faithful camera with him. “Your wish is my command.”

      Ellie spared him a glance as she rolled her eyes. “If only...”

      * * *

      Colin sighed. It had been a long, long day.

      After his morning had started out with all four burners going, what with the lucky catch of that thief and his cache and then that knockout news reporter coming to ask him questions, his afternoon had turned into a slow-moving turtle, surrounding him with a massive collection of never-ending paperwork. Paperwork that he’d neglected far too long.

      The trouble with ignoring paperwork was that it didn’t go away; it just seemed to sit in dark corners and multiply until it became an overwhelming stack that refused to be ignored. Unfortunately, he’d reached that point today. He supposed it was a way to keep him humble, even though he wasn’t given to grappling with a large ego. Philosophically, he’d rolled up his sleeves because he knew he had to do something to at least whittle down the pile a little before it smothered him.

      Rather than begin at the beginning, which might have been the orderly thing to do, Colin decided to start with the most recent file since that case had been the one that brought the reporter into his life.

      Besides, there was nothing like the feeling that came from actually being able to close a case rather than having it linger on indefinitely, doggedly haunting him because he hadn’t been able to solve it.

      What he especially liked about this last case—other than the fact that it had introduced him to the sexy reporter—was that the thief had been taken down, so to speak, without his having to fire a single shot. Not all cases involving robbery ended so peacefully.

      More often than not, someone was hurt, sometimes fatally. Colin didn’t admit it out loud, but he took it hard when that happened. It wasn’t that he thought of himself as some kind of superhero who should be able to prevent things like that from happening. He didn’t think of himself as a hero at all, but the fact that he wasn’t able to prevent a fatality really ate away at him for a long time.

      Maybe that was why before Heather had become his responsibility, he had lived a faster life, determined to enjoy himself as much as possible. Partly because life was short and could end at any time and partially to erase certain images from his mind.

      Images like having a would-be hero’s blood pool through the fingers of his hand as he desperately tried to stem the flow, desperately tried to keep the man alive. But he’d come on the scene just minutes too late. Too late to stop the gunman from firing that lethal shot, but at least not too late to take the gunman down.

      It still kept him up at night sometimes or disturbed his dreams, intruding like an uninvited, unwanted visitor determined to disrupt everything. Those were the nights when Heather came into his bedroom to wake him up instead of the other way around.

      They were a pair, he and Heather. Both trying to act as if nothing bothered them. She was becoming more like him each day, he realized, wondering how Ryan would have reacted to that little piece of news.

      He found himself wishing Ryan was around to react to anything.

      Colin rotated his shoulders, then just got up from his desk altogether. There was only so much sitting at a computer, inputting information, that a man could be expected to do.

      He needed to get some air, he decided.

      “See another art thief darting by?” Marconi, another detective sitting close by, asked as he looked up to see him walking out.

      Colin took the remark in stride. “Very funny. I need to stretch my legs.”

      “Hey, Benteen, so when do we get to see that chiseled profile on TV?” another detective, Al Sanchez, asked, speaking up.

      Colin merely shrugged. That alluring reporter had said she’d get back to him, but she hadn’t mentioned when. “Beats me.”