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concrete sidewalks and then climbed three flights of stairs, what little patience he might have been able to scrape up had eroded down to bedrock.
    â€œIf you want your friend to quit calling, sic the cops on him. The advice is free. Now you can hand over my personal property. I won’t even press charges.”
    â€œCharges! What charges? You’re crazy, you know that? I’m going to call 911 right now and report—”
    â€œFine. Then you can explain how you came to be in possession of six boxes of my personal, private property!”
    Gray eyes. Clear as rainwater. You’d think a woman with eyes like that couldn’t hide a damned thing, but she was hiding something, all right. Guilt, obviously, because if she’d been innocent, she wouldn’t have run away. “I’m waiting. Want to make the call or shall I make it for you? I’ve got a cell phone in my truck.”
    She was leaning against the door now, one hand gripping the edge so hard the tips of her fingers were white. She wasn’t anywhere near as cool as she would like him to believe, not by a long shot.
    He shoved his foot another inch through the crack and hoped to hell she didn’t throw her weight against the door. His metatarsals were about the only bones that hadn’t been busted at one time or another in his colorful career. He would kind of like to keep it that way. “You going to call the cops?”
    â€œThe cops,” she repeated numbly.
    â€œRight, O’Malley. The men in blue. So I can reclaim my boxes and you can get your boyfriend off your back. That is, if you want him off your back?”
    Heavy sigh. Her fingers slid down the edge of the door. They both knew she was fighting a losing battle—evidently fighting it on two fronts. Hell, even the U.S. armed forces had trouble doing that in these days of military cutbacks. “Miss O’Malley? You want to talk about this?”
    Somewhat to his surprise, a few protective instincts kicked in. It was part of the code every SEAL team operated under, only this was no team operation. If there were rules to cover a situation like this, he’d never heard of them. With his back on the verge of spasms, his left leg giving him fits and his gut complaining about the pastrami and horseradish he’d had earlier, he had to reach deep for patience. “Look, there’s obviously something going on here. You need to call 911. I can wait out here, or I can wait inside. Either way, I’m not leaving.”
    Small gasp. Could’ve been a sob, but he didn’t think so. And then the chain fell and she opened the door. Roughly 110 pounds, swathed in a shapeless velvet tent, hair spilling over her shoulders like a dark waterfall, not a speck of color in her face except for those wide gray eyes…and she was mad as hell. Ready to knock his head off.
    Ignoring an inappropriate and totally unexpected sexual response, he held up both hands. “Unarmed, see?”
    She backed down half an inch but still had that pit-bull look on her face. He couldn’t blame her. Evidently there was more going on here than six boxes of stuff he owned and she was trying to claim. “You want to make that call now or shall we get our personal business done first?”
    â€œPersonal business.” She was stalling, trying to come up with a good story, so he pushed a little harder.
    â€œWe can do this the easy way, or we can fight it out in court. Your choice.”
    â€œYou’re still upset about those papers? I’ve got this fruitcake who won’t let me alone—someone breaks into my apartment, meddles in my underwear drawer, and you’re worried about some papers? ”
    Oh, boy. “You want to run that by me again? Your underwear?”
    â€œIt probably wasn’t you, because you were right here at the door when he called, but…but—oh, dammit, I am so tired of this…this