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months ago and fallen in love with her "at first sight" by his own calculation. Unfortunately, neither Mary Beth nor her well-to-do parents had been particularly enthusiastic about marriage to a police officer whose occupational and financial prospects were far less than dazzling, but Pete had persevered. Armed with a great deal of advice from his fellow officers, most of which was very bad advice, he'd pursued Mary Beth and triumphed against all the odds and obstacles. Now, with his wedding only a week away, his boundless enthusiasm was boyish and utterly endearing to Sloan.
    "Don't forget to come to my bachelor party on the beach tonight," he reminded her. Jess, Leo Reagan, and Ted Burnby had originally planned to have a party with a female stripper and the usual sort of drunken revelry, but Pete wouldn't hear of it. His marriage to Mary Beth meant too much to him, he declared, to do anything right before it that he might regret…
or that she might make him regret
, Jess Jessup had added. To make certain he got his way, Pete had insisted that his bachelor party be a "couples" party, and he was bringing Mary Beth to it.
    "I thought the party was tomorrow night," Sloan lied, sounding as if she might have a problem being there tonight.
    "Sloan, you have to come! It's going to be a great party. We're going to light a fire on the beach and barbecue—"
    "Sounds like a violation of the Clean Air Act to me," she teased.
    "All the beer you can drink," Pete cajoled.
    "Drunkenness and disorderly conduct—we'll all get busted, and the news media will turn it into a national scandal."
    "No one will be on duty to make the bust," he countered happily.
    "I will," Sloan said. "I'm splitting a shift with Derek Kipinski tonight, so he'll be at the beginning of your parry and I'll be there later." Pete looked a little crestfallen, and she added more seriously, "Someone has to work the beach; we've got a serious drug problem there, particularly on the weekends."
    "I know all that, but we aren't going to stop it by busting some small-time pusher under the pier. The stuff is coming in by boat. If we want to get rid of it, that's where we should be stopping it."
    "That's a job for the DEA and they're supposedly working on it. Our job is to keep it off the beach and off the streets."
    She glanced at the entrance and saw Sara walking in; then she jotted another note on her list of reminders for the self-defense class. "I've got to teach my class in ten minutes."
    Pete gave her shoulder a brotherly squeeze and wandered off to his desk to make a phone call. As soon as he was out of hearing, Leo Reagan got up and crossed the aisle to Sloan's desk. "I'll give you ten-to-one odds he's calling Mary Beth," he said. "He's already called her three times today."
    "He's completely besotted," Jess agreed.
    Sara arrived, perched her hip on the edge of Sloan's desk, smiled a greeting at the two men; then she leaned around Leo and looked at Pete, who was leaning way back in his chair, grinning at the ceiling. "I think he's adorable," she said. "And based on the look on his face, he's definitely talking to Mary Beth."
    Satisfied that Pete was preoccupied, Leo pulled an envelope out of his shirt pocket and held it out toward Jess. "We're taking up a collection to buy Pete and Mary Beth a wedding gift. Everyone is putting in twenty-five bucks."
    "What are we buying them, a house?" Jess said. He dug into his pocket, and Sloan reached for her purse.
    "Silverware," Leo provided.
    "You're kidding!" Jess said as he put twenty-five dollars into the envelope and passed it to Sloan. "How many kids are they planning to feed, anyway?"
    "I dunno. All I know is that Rose called some store where they keep a list of stuff the bride picked out. Would you believe your twenty-five dollars will only buy part of one fork?"
    "It must be one hell of a
big
fork."
    Sloan exchanged a laughing look with Sara as she slid twenty-five dollars into the envelope. At that moment, Captain