Blazing Star
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Suzanne Ellison
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CHAPTER ONE
BRICK BAUER PARKED his old black pickup outside the main gates to the Schmidt farm, then hurried up the long gravel walkway that led through the dark to the house. It was already after eight, and he hoped the chief’s retirement party would be in full swing by now—the bigger the crowd, the less conspicuous his token appearance was likely to be. A half hour or so ought to do it, just long enough to say hello to everybody who’d be sure to notice if he lacked the courage to show up here tonight. All week he’d felt like a bug in a specimen jar, and he had no intention of spending the next week the same way.
Since last Monday, Brick’s name had been on the lips of every housewife who had her hair done at Tisha Olsen’s Hair Affair, every cop who hung out at Marge’s Diner and every old codger who was living out his sunset years at Worthington House. Nobody had dared to spread rumors at the Kelsey Boardinghouse, but Brick figured that was because his Aunt Anna had threatened to take a spatula to the backside of any of his fellow boarders who so much as mentioned that he’d been passed over for promotion, let alone that a woman from the other end of Sugar Creek County was going to take the helm instead of him.
The worst of it was that Brick still wasn’t sure how it had happened. He’d been Chief Paul Schmidt’s right-hand man at the Tyler Police Department for the past six years, and back in college he’d been engaged to Paul’s daughter, who was supposed to be making one of her rare pilgrimages home for the party tonight. Granted, Brick and Shelley had parted painfully, but nobody could blame him for that. It wasn’t his fault that Shelley had decided being a big-city microbiologist suited her better than marriage to a hometown cop. She still hadn’t married; she claimed she never would.
Brick was single, too, but it wasn’t because he didn’t want a family. He just hadn’t found his lifetime mate yet. He’d actually grown a bit weary of searching, but his Aunt Anna still spent a good deal of her time trying to find him the perfect wife. Her latest candidate was the new boarder who was moving in tonight.
Aunt Anna and Uncle Johnny had zipped off to Milwaukee at the last minute to put their daughter Kathleen on a plane for Switzerland, conveniently leaving Brick as the resident family member to greet the newcomer anytime after nine. He wasn’t holding out any hopes that he’d want to get particularly chummy with the new boarder, but he was pleased that he had such a good excuse to leave the party early.
As he pocketed his key and marched up the gravel walkway, Brick spotted a pair of long, magnificent female legs moving at a good clip in front of him. At once he found himself checking out some impressive curves that not even the stylish wool coat could conceal. Brick knew every woman in the retiring police chief’s life—there weren’t many—but for a moment he had trouble placing this one. The confidence of that saucy walk made him question his own memory; besides, there was something different about the hair. Shelley always wore her hair long and loose, the way he liked it. Tonight it was wrapped in a classy chignon but it was still dark and thick and tempting. In fact, in the moonlight, it looked even more silky than Brick remembered it. Shelley looked more silky than he remembered her! Womanhood had been good to her. Not only did she move with more compelling grace than she used to, but she’d put on a little weight, too...in all the right places.
As Shelley approached the porch where they’d exchanged fervent kisses so many times, Brick felt an odd sense of déjà vu. Was it possible that he still had deep feelings for her? Was that why he’d never really found another woman to take her place? Was that why she looked so good to him—better than ever—after all this time?
As December’s first tiny snowflakes began to fall, Brick remembered how Shelley had looked the first time he’d kissed her snow-sprinkled nose, when she was nineteen. She’d giggled ever after when he’d called her Snowflake. Oh, it was all over and done, but he had special memories of those days. He imagined that Shelley might, too.
Suddenly Brick realized that he didn’t want to greet her for the first time in years under the gossip-mongering eyes of every busybody in Tyler. Whatever they had to say to each other should be said alone outside.
He jogged the last few yards between them, reaching Shelley just as she pushed open the chain-link gate at the edge of the porch. Because she seemed to be rushing, Brick reached out with a friendly arm to encircle her waist, about to say, “Hey, Snowflake, you never used to be in such a big hurry to go inside when I took you home.”
He got as far as “Hey, Snowflake” when the most amazing thing happened. Shelley grabbed his elbow, jammed her hip into his leg and flipped him straight up and over the gate. Twisting sideways as he struggled to find his feet, Brick came down hard on the protruding edge of the chain link. Raw steel ends clawed his jaw and shoulder, shredded his best suitcoat and bloodied a fair amount of skin before he hit the ground on his side. Gasping for breath, he rolled flat on his back before he caught a good look at his assailant’s face.
She wasn’t Shelley! In a dizzying rush Brick realized that this classy brunette was a total stranger. She was beautiful; she was curved in all the right places; she was pulling out a .38 Smith & Wesson from underneath the left side of her coat.
“Don’t move a millimeter,” she threatened in a dry tone that rivaled Dirty Harry’s. “Touch me again and you’re going to lose a vital portion of your anatomy.”
“Lady, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!” Brick grumbled, realizing even in his confusion that fear, not malice, was the reason she’d reacted so violently to such a simple touch. This stunning female had clearly been trained in self-defense. She’d also lived with the threat of urban crime or else watched too many cop shows. He wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to make a citizen’s arrest for...well, for whatever it was she thought he’d tried to do to her.
“I’m a police officer and I thought you were an old friend,” Brick explained, too woozy to sort everything out. His voice sounded odd and hollow. “Sorry if I frightened you. Now may I get off the ground?”
To his surprise, the woman did not immediately accept his explanation. She didn’t even look embarrassed. In fact, on closer examination, he decided that her beautiful gray eyes looked more fierce than frightened. Sternly she ordered, “Show me your police ID. Slowly.”
Brick was too angry to be scared, but he didn’t like the way she kept that gun trained on him. “Good God, you could shoot somebody with that thing, lady.” He dug out his ID and pushed it a few inches toward her. “Do you have a permit for that piece?” He didn’t ask her if she knew how to use it; it was obvious she knew all too well.
She barely glanced at his identification, unreadable in the darkness, before she barked, “What’s your badge number?”
Not his name, his badge number. A curiously eerie feeling, worse than the pain now coursing through his back, began to steal over Brick. How many women were so well versed in self-defense, handled a side arm like a pro and instinctively asked a question like that? Now that he was getting a grip on his equilibrium, he realized what all the signs pointed to.
His assailant was a cop.
She was also a rare beauty; she bore no resemblance to the woman who’d gotten his former partner killed. This lady wasn’t a tiny thing, but she wasn’t a husky bruiser, either. She looked to be five foot nine or ten, sturdy but slender, with high, sculpted cheekbones and infuriatingly well-curved lips. Even in his current situation, Brick found her femininity hard to ignore. He didn’t want to think about the effect she’d have on him if she ever traded in that scowl for a dazzling smile. Brick told her his number, then added darkly, “Lieutenant Donald Bauer, Tyler Police Department. Go ask my chief. He’s inside.”
“Lieutenant Bauer,” the husky voice countered, “Chief Paul Schmidt is now retired and the Tyler Police Department he ran for seventeen years no longer exists. You now represent the Sugar Creek County Sheriff’s Department. Archibald Harmon is your regional commander and Captain Karen Keppler is taking charge of the Tyler substation.” She sheathed the gun in a shoulder holster he hadn’t noticed underneath the thick coat. “Commit that information to memory, Lieutenant. You may be called upon to use it again.”
That was when he knew for sure. Brick felt his face flushing a furious red in the darkness, grateful she couldn’t see it but certain that she knew his face was hot. He was not a man who easily embarrassed, but he knew that only a miracle would save him from the whole damn town’s discovery of his humiliation.
It was bad enough that the brunette was a strikingly beautiful woman who’d gotten the better of him. Under any circumstances, Brick would have hated lying here on the ground, dizzy and wounded, with a looker like that leaning over him. Knowing that she was the one who’d hurt him, knowing that she was his new boss, knowing that she had stolen the job that was rightfully his and would lord it over him—lady it over him!—as long as she lasted in Tyler...it was just too damn much.
Incredibly, the brunette had the unmitigated gall to offer a hand to help him up. Brick ignored it. Still steaming, he struggled to stand up on his own, but when his wobbly knees gave out he plopped back down on the ground.
“I’m Captain Keppler, Lieutenant,” the beauty informed Brick, still towering over him. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Are you injured?”
Brick tried to swallow his fury as the front door opened and he heard Paul Schmidt call out, “We thought we heard somebody out here. Glad you found the place all right, Captain.” Then, after a sharp breath, “What the devil—”
“Lieutenant Bauer had a little accident,” his new captain said bluntly, her husky voice devoid of humor or concern. “He’s bleeding.”
The next few minutes were a nightmare for Brick. Paul instantly called out, “Somebody get George Phelps out here!” and rushed over to his side. “Brick, what happened? Are you all right?”
Brick had to steady himself on the gate as he tried—and failed again—to stand. His spine felt battered and his scraped jaw stung. Blood dribbled down his chin to the gravel.
By this time half a dozen people had bounded out of the house. Through the din of worried friends and co-workers, he recognized a few voices: Judson Ingalls’s, Janice Eber’s, and—it was inevitable—Shelley’s.
She sounded just the way she used to when he’d gotten hurt playing football. “Brick! Oh, Brick! You’re bleeding! Let George take a look at you and—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” he burst out, ready to strangle the whole lot of them. He was fully upright now and his head was finally clear. “I’m fine, my suit’s a wreck and Aunt Anna wants me to meet some damn boarder at home by nine o’clock. I just dropped by to say hello to Shelley, goodbye to the chief and to meet Captain Keppler. I guess I’ve done all three, so if you don’t mind—”
“It won’t seem right without you here, Brick,” protested Zachary Phelps, a former chief of police, a fellow Kelseys’ boarder and a member of the town’s council. The tone of his voice said more than his words: Zachary was still feeling guilty for having voted to merge the Tyler Police Department with the Sugar Creek County Sheriff’s Department, even though he’d explained to Brick in detail why the town’s financial situation demanded it. Brick was certain that neither Zachary nor anybody else on the council had ever believed that the regional commander would bring in outside talent to run Tyler’s law enforcement in the wake of Paul Schmidt’s retirement. As Zachary studied Karen Keppler in the dim porch light, Brick read the same dismay on the old man’s face as he was sure Zachary read on his own.
“Brick, I thought we’d have a chance to talk,” Shelley said quietly, so quietly that probably no one but the nearby captain could hear. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
Brick gave his old flame a quick glance, trying to remember why he’d wondered if some seed of love for her still lingered within him. Oh, she was still pretty...though she’d cut her long, black hair. But she was a stranger, a woman who’d chosen the big city and the scientific world over anything Brick could offer, and he knew that his earlier momentary fantasy had had nothing to do with her.
Kindly he said, “I’ll call you, Shelley. Maybe we can have lunch sometime before you go.”
He saw something different in the eyes of Captain Keppler, who still stood tensely in front of him. Calculation, assessment...disapproval that did not bode well for a police officer under her command.
By this time George Phelps, head of staff at Tyler General Hospital and Aunt Anna’s boss, had pushed his way through the gathering crowd. “Everybody get back!” George commanded, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
They did pull back, but they didn’t disperse. Impatiently Brick snapped, “There’s nothing wrong with me a dab of Bactine won’t cure, George. If you want to help, just get all these folks to stop gawking at me, would you?”
George seemed to get the picture faster than anybody else. Then again, he was a doctor, and he knew when blood was serious and when it was just as embarrassing as hell.
His eyes were sympathetic as he called out, “Okay, everybody, Brick’s fine. Let’s go back inside.”
Before Brick could thank him, Captain Keppler asked in a businesslike tone, “Are you feeling strong enough to drive, Lieutenant? I can ask one of the other officers to take you home.”
“I can take care of myself, Captain,” he snapped. If she’d been a man, he would have been hard-pressed to keep from decking her. But he’d been raised to be gentle with women; he’d been raised to obey his boss. Still, he wasn’t used to the raging fury that was strangling him at the moment. It was something new and terrible, a beast he knew he must learn to subdue. A beast that drove from his heart the slightest interest in getting reacquainted with Shelley, lauding his old boss or kissing up to his new one.
Reluctantly Shelley said good-night, then turned back to the house. Her father shooed a couple of other men after her. Captain Keppler, rebuttoning her coat, had the nerve to look downright pretty as she brushed past Brick without another word and followed them inside.
While the sounds of laughter from the house drifted out to his still-red ears, Brick limped out to his truck. On the street he ran into two more late arrivals from the substation—Sergeant Steve Fletcher and tubby Orson Clayton—but he ducked into his truck before they could see that he’d been roughed up. Tomorrow would be soon enough for them to start their ribbing.
By the time he turned on the ignition, the scrapes on Brick’s jaw were beginning to clot over, but his backbone was hurting worse than ever. He’d broken up barroom brawls with less pain and certainly less humiliation! By morning every damn soul in Tyler would know how Brick Bauer had been bested by the new female captain who’d been hired instead of him. The gouges on his face would heal a lot sooner than the scars on his pride.
* * *
KAREN STAYED at the party longer than she’d intended, not because she was enjoying herself—she wasn’t—and not because she thought courtesy demanded it. It was Paul Schmidt’s moment of honor, which in a town this size meant that most of his fans and foes were likely to make an appearance. Karen wanted to study those people with great care...particularly the ones who’d been an important part of Schmidt’s life for the past forty years or so.
At the top of the list was Judson Ingalls. Everybody kowtowed to him as though he owned the town. Ditto for his elegant blond daughter, Alyssa Ingalls Baron. Ingalls also had a niece named Janice Eber, who seemed sweet and unassuming, but Karen wasn’t taking anything at face value. The doctor was a Tyler fixture, as was the lady who owned the diner and the flamboyant one who cut everybody’s hair.
And then there were the other cops. Lieutenant Bauer—why did they call him Brick?—had only lived here since high school, according to Karen’s information, but his relatives had lived here for generations, and that might be highly significant. Both Alyssa and Janice were Bauer’s aunt’s close friends. The fact that he had some sort of relationship with Schmidt’s daughter might also prove important, and not just because it had provided the catalyst for his unfortunate first meeting with Karen.
If only that handsome man had been able to read her mind! If only he’d guessed how terrible she felt about embarrassing him, how frightened she’d been by the way he’d lunged at her, how his virility had unnerved her even after he’d quelled her fear by revealing that he was a cop! She’d done everything in her power to fool him with her tough-as-leather facade, and she hoped she’d succeeded. She would need a full set of armor to run the Tyler substation—not to mention carry out Commander Harmon’s secret assignment.
Everything Karen had heard about Brick Bauer—and everything she’d read in his file—caused her to believe that he was a man of powerful convictions, keen loyalties and devoted to his fellow police officers. Under some other circumstances, Karen would have looked forward to working with such a man. Commander Harmon had given her the impression that he truly hoped she wouldn’t find any black marks on Bauer’s record—he’d even confessed that he still had high hopes for the lieutenant’s career. But Harmon was a diligent cop, if a chauvinistic one, and he had a reputation as a man who upheld the letter of the law no matter who got in the way.
Karen had glowed when he told her that she’d earned the same reputation since she’d moved from Milwaukee to Sugar Creek.
Living under the same roof with Bauer would certainly make it easier to ascertain which hometown loyalties bound him, but after their inauspicious meeting, Karen knew that their domestic situation was going to be a strain on both of them. The knowledge did not dishearten her. She’d devoted her life to the badge and she had police work in her blood. From birth her father had urged her, “Make your old man proud,” and she’d devoted her life to that goal. His death in the line of duty had only strengthened her determination.
Karen’s courage, however, did little to squelch the butterflies in her stomach as she rang the doorbell of Kelsey Boardinghouse, a beacon of cheery light in December’s nighttime gloom. The wreath-bedecked door swung open on the first ring, which surprised Karen. The sight of the man who opened it surprised her, too.
He was wearing low-slung jeans, thick socks without shoes and a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt. Droplets of water clung to his freshly washed short black hair; droplets of blood oozed from three deep gouges on his face. His blue eyes sparkled with fun and his square jaw was softened by deep dimples when he smiled. It was the sort of smile that could make a woman forget everything else in the world.
Karen found herself wrestling with her memory.
“Hi, there! I’m Brick Bauer, Anna Kelsey’s nephew,” he greeted her cheerfully, reaching for the suitcase in her hand. “She asked me to roll out the red carpet and give you the grand tour. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
Karen stared at him, wondering if Bauer had dual personalities. What a joy to find him so forgiving, so friendly, so...so damn male. With a jolt she realized that the man’s dimpled smile was triggering an unexpected female response within her, one she ignored a good deal of the time and always suppressed with policemen. Karen had an uneasy hunch that she was safer with this man when he was angry, but it seemed cowardly to go out of her way to make him mad.
As it turned out, such subterfuge was totally unnecessary. The instant she stepped into the lighted hallway, the smile vanished from Brick Bauer’s face. A shell-shocked look stilled the magic in his dancing eyes.
“Your aunt’s directions were quite clear, Lieutenant,” Karen said neutrally, firmly holding the suitcase handle. “I can carry my own things, thank you.”
Karen wasn’t sure why it hurt her to see Bauer change so drastically before her eyes. She didn’t know this man and couldn’t afford to like him. But she’d been spellbound by his delightful greeting when he’d assumed she was an utter stranger; now he was smoldering because he realized they’d met before.
“Captain Keppler?” His tightly controlled tone could not conceal the fury that now raged in his eyes. “My aunt didn’t mention her new lodger’s name. I didn’t realize that the new police captain would be—”
“Invading your home?”
His lips tightened at her bluntness. Karen almost regretted the hard words, but she knew that surprise and anger often drove people to reveal things they’d normally keep well hidden. If Bauer had any secrets, she wanted to find them out for Commander Harmon right away. She also wanted to clear the air about their respective positions. Sooner or later, they were likely to have it out over the way she’d been brought in to take the job he’d expected. Better to do it in private than in front of the men. They’d all be on his side. One to one, she had a better chance of victory.
“Captain Keppler, you are free to live wherever you like. I was just...startled to realize you were the new boarder. My information was incomplete.”
He said the words like a police detective who knew his stuff. Karen wondered how he’d managed to uncover so little in his investigation of the body found at the old Timberlake Lodge, recently purchased by Edward Wocheck.
So did Commander Harmon.
“I don’t like to advertise my private life, Lieutenant,” Karen told him. She didn’t need to add the obvious: she’d deliberately avoided revealing the nature of her job to chatty Anna Kelsey when they’d made arrangements on the phone. “I don’t have much off-duty time, but when I do, I want it to be all mine.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Good,” she said stoutly. “Then we have something in common.”
Bauer glanced away. He was fuming, she was certain, but trying to show respect. Karen had to admire him for it—even more than she had to admire his massive shoulders. Still, she couldn’t afford to let his hidden anger smolder.
“We have something else in common, Lieutenant. We both wanted the job I came here to do.”
His harsh gaze swung back on her. “Captain, I’m doing my damnedest to be courteous to you. Why the hell are you baiting me?”
“I don’t want you sandbagging me when we’re on the job, Lieutenant Bauer,” she told him truthfully. “I came here to run the Tyler substation to the best of my ability, and I’ll do it—with or without you. But as long as you remain here, we’ll have to work closely together. If you’ve got something to get off your chest, I’d rather deal with it right now.”
When he stared at her for a long, bitter moment, Karen had a sense of what it would be like to be a criminal collared by this man. He was a good six feet tall, his body a solid wall of muscle that looked as if he maintained it at a gym. Karen was used to dealing with all kinds of criminals. She was rarely intimidated just by a man’s physical strength, but this big guy had her struggling to keep her breathing even. She knew he would not be easy to control, physically or mentally. She’d flipped him over that fence only because he’d been oblivious to danger. She knew she’d never take him off guard again.
With slow, measured anger, he shut the door behind her. “On behalf of my aunt and uncle, welcome to Kelsey Boardinghouse, Captain Keppler,” he said as tonelessly as a robot repeating a coded message. Coldly he turned away from the door and began to head toward the back of the house, speaking as she followed. “Breakfast is served at seven o’clock. Dinner is served at six. There’s a refrigerator and a microwave you can use yourself as long as you clean up. The living room is for everyone. So is the phone. The den is my aunt and uncle’s private space. Only the family goes in there.”
He started climbing the back stairs, two at a time, and Karen found it hard to keep up with his long, angry stride while dragging the heavy suitcase she’d refused to let him carry. He took half a dozen steps down the hall, then dug into his pocket. “This is the key to the front door. This is the key to your room.” He dropped the keys in her palm, being careful not to touch her skin. Then he opened the door to her room and gestured for her to go inside.
With relief, Karen saw that the room was well-kept and charming. On the old four-poster lay a quilt, hand-pieced in yellows and blues. It matched the curtains. There was a small desk and a tallboy chest of Early American style. A chestnut-and-rust braided rug covered most of the shiny hardwood floor.
Before Karen could comment on the welcoming vase of flowers and the note she spotted on the nightstand, Brick marched over to the far door and pulled it open, revealing an equally quaint bathroom. “This is the bath. You share it with the lodger on the other side.” He opened the far door a crack as if to illustrate his point, but Karen couldn’t see much of the other bedroom.
When he took a stiff step and grimaced, Karen felt a sharp need to offer another apology. It was obvious that his scrapes and bruises were bothering him. As the secret investigator who might bring about his downfall, she couldn’t afford to show much mercy, but as a human being who prided herself on her quiet compassion and tact, Karen found it hard to keep from showing concern.
“Any questions?” he asked brusquely, interrupting her thoughts.
Will you always hate me? Will all the other Tyler cops hate me, too? Will I ever see those incredible dimples again?
Aloud she said, “No, Lieutenant. Thank you. Good night.”
“Good night,” he said stiffly, his cautious movements revealing his pain as he edged through the far bathroom door.
It took Karen a moment to realize the significance of that simple act. He’s the boarder who lives next to me! she realized in dismay. We’ll be sharing meals and the same bath.
As she juggled the memory of his anger with the realization that such proximity would make it easier to uncover Bauer’s secrets for Harmon, Karen closed the door between her room and the bath, locked it carefully, then read the note beside her bed. It started personally:
Dear Karen,
I’m so sorry we were called away tonight, but we’ll be back in the morning to fix you up with anything you need. In the meantime, you can count on my nephew to make you snug as a bug in a rug.
Isn’t he adorable? He’s Tyler’s finest police officer and single, too. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted. We’re so glad to have you with us. Just make yourself at home!
Anna Kelsey
Karen fought back a lump in her throat. Mrs. Kelsey would never know how much it meant to her to know that one person in Tyler actually welcomed her. The officers she’d met at the Schmidts’ had made it clear enough that they’d all been hoping Brick Bauer would be their new captain. And Bauer himself—why the hell did he have to be so handsome, why the hell had he greeted her with that dimpled smile at the door?—was probably already making devious tactical plans to oust her.
Wearily she began unpacking all she’d need for the first few days: her uniforms, a warm robe, jeans, sweatshirts and sturdy barrettes to clip her waist-length braid flat against her head whenever she was on duty. At the bottom of the suitcase Karen found the one sentimental item that followed her everywhere: a framed eight-by-ten glossy of her father in uniform, taken shortly before his death. He was smiling, as he’d so often smiled in life, and she felt his faith in his only child buoy her now.
“I’ll do it, Daddy,” she vowed softly. “I’m going to make you proud.”
She touched his beloved face through the cold glass, then placed the frame on top of the desk, took her gun out of its holster and laid it on the nightstand near the flowers. Quickly she took down her hair, shed her heels and peeled off her panty hose. She was standing in her bare feet, still wearing her slinky black dress and empty shoulder holster, when she heard a knock on the adjoining bathroom door a moment later.
“Yes?” she asked as she opened it uneasily. Karen wasn’t used to such domestic proximity with a handsome hostile stranger. Maybe he’s come to clear the air, she told herself hopefully.
Belatedly Karen realized that she truly didn’t want to go to bed in a strange place with her housemate and second in command furious with her, whether he was guilty of a cover-up or not. There was a fifty-fifty chance this man was innocent of any wrongdoing, and besides, a skilled police officer ought to be able to maintain civil relations with another cop without divulging any secrets. Surely she’d displayed enough strength for one night! Now maybe she could set things right.
But the minute she found herself face-to-face with that square, bloody jaw and those blue eyes dark with rage, Karen knew it was way too late for reconciliation.
“Captain Keppler, there’s something I think you should understand,” Bauer stated baldly, his great size seeming to fill the room. “I’m damn proud to be a Tyler cop, and that’s never going to change. If you can’t stand to work with me—” his tone grew nearly feral “—you’re the one who’ll have to move on.”
