Night Shift by Nora Roberts

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.”
    “It’s not a matter of fault,” Deborah murmured. “We care what happens to you.”
    “Nothing’s going to happen. You’d better get going, Deb, or you’ll be late. And it appears that Detective Fletcher and I have things to discuss.”
    Deborah lifted her hands and let them fall. She shot one sympathetic glance toward Boyd, then kissed her sister’s cheek. “All right. You’d never listen to reason at this hour anyway.”
    “Get an A,” was all Cilla said.
    “I intend to. I’m going to catch a burger and a movie with Josh, but I’ll be back before you get home.”
    “Have a good time.” Cilla waited, not moving an inch until she heard the front door close. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve, Fletcher.”
    He merely turned and slipped another mug off the hook behind the stove. “Want some coffee?”
    “I don’t appreciate you grilling my sister.”
    He filled the mug, then set it aside. “I left my rubber hose in my other suit.”
    “Let’s get something straight.” She walked toward him, deliberately keeping her hands in her pockets. She was dead sure she’d hit him if she took them out. “If you have any questions about me, you come to me. Deborah is not involved in any of this.”
    “She’s a lot more forthcoming than her sister. Got any eggs?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator.
    She managed to restrain the urge to kick the door into his head. “You know, for a minute upstairs you had me fooled. I actually thought you had some heart, some compassion.”
    He found a half-dozen eggs, some cheese and a few miserly strips of bacon. “Why don’t you sit down, O’Roarke, and drink your coffee?”
    She swore at him, viciously. Something shot into his eyes, something dangerous, but he picked up a skillet and calmly began to fry the bacon. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he said after a moment. “After ten years on the force there’s not much you could call me and get a rise.”
    “You had no right.” Her voice had quieted, but the emotion in it had doubled. “No right to dredge all that up with her. She was a child, devastated, scared to death. That entire year was nothing but hell for her, and she doesn’t need you to make her remember it.”
    “She handled herself just fine.” He broke an egg into a bowl, then crushed the shell in his hand. “Itseems to me you’re the one with the problem.”
    “Just back off.”
    He had her arm in a tight grip so quickly that she had no chance to evade. His voice was soft, deadly, with temper licking around the edges. “Not a chance.”
    “What happened back then has nothing to do with what’s happening now, and what’s happening now is the only thing that concerns you.”
    “It’s my job to determine what applies.” With an effort, he reeled himself in. He couldn’t remember when anyone had pushed him so close to the edge so often. “If you want me to put it to rest, then spell it out for me. Ex-spouses are favored suspects.”
    “It was eight years ago.” She jerked away and, needing something to do with her hands, snatched up her coffee. It splattered over the rim and onto the counter.
    “I find out from you or I find out from someone else. The end result’s the same.”
    “You want me to spell it out? You want me to strip bare? Fine. It hardly matters at this point. I was twenty, I was stupid. He was beautiful and charming and smart—all the things stupid twenty-year-old girls think they want.”
    She took a long sip of hot coffee, then automatically reached for a washcloth to mop up the spill. “We only knew each other a couple of months. He was very persuasive, very romantic. I married him because I wanted something stable and real in my life. And I thought he loved me.”
    She was calmer now. She hadn’t realized that the anger had drained away. Sighing, she turned, mechanically reaching for plates and flatware. “It didn’t work—almost from day one. He