9

Lights by the front door and shining through the dark from the living room windows above the garage welcomed them. Another homecoming, Garreth reflected, squeezing the ZX into the driveway beside Harry's car. How many evenings had he spent here? Dozens. Hundreds. After Marti died it had been more of a home than his apartment had been . . . a sanctuary from the stress of the job, from personal pain. He climbed over the gear shift and out the passenger door.

"Harry! Garreth!" Lien rushed out of the house with her salt-and-pepper hair flying around her face, throwing herself into her husband's arms first, then breaking loose to circle the front of the cars and give Garreth a fierce hug that almost smashed the trooper glasses in his breast pocket. The warm, salty scent of her blood flooded him.

Thirst seared his throat and closed like a fist around his stomach. Garreth fought for the control not to push her away.

Fortunately she released him and drew back, smiling. "It's so good to see you. This is just like old times . . . the two of you home after dark to a dinner kept from total mummification only by arcane Eastern cooking arts." Catching both their arms, she propelled them toward the door. "Honorable husband, you could at least have sent Garreth on ahead instead of making him wait while you finished your reports. I would have had time to find out all the personal news that bores you, like what his Maggie is like, and we could have finished off four or five rum teas and gotten comfortably smashed."

Harry grinned. "See the virtue of a Chinese wife? She still scolds, but with respect."

Lien pinched him through his suitcoat.

Longing twisted in Garreth. The welcome and the fond bantering echoed so many other evenings. If only this one could be like those others.

Inside, Lien steered them past the stairs into the family room. They had changed it a little but the general flavor still remained . . . sleek, contemporary American furniture surrounded with oriental touches . . . a Chinese vase here, a Japanese flower arrangement, shoji doors closing off the dining area, paintings by Lien with brush strokes as clean and elegantly simple as Chinese calligraphy.

Lien vanished through the dining room into the kitchen, calling back, "Your rum teas are on the coffee table. Relax while I rescue dinner from the oven."

Dinner. Garreth grimaced inwardly. How are you going to fake your way through this one?

He and Harry kicked off their shoes, shed their coats, and unclipped holsters from their belts. Harry plopped onto the couch. Picking up his cup of tea, he leaned back and propped his feet on the coffee table. "It really is like old times. Cheers."

Garreth curled up cross-legged in an easy chair. "Cheers." The odor of the rum wafted up from the tea, setting his stomach churning. He pretended to start a sip, yelped, and put the cup back down.

"Too hot?" Harry said. "Sorry."

"No problem. I'll just let it cool a bit." In the course of which he could "forget" to drink it at all. But there was still dinner to face. Could he even tolerate being at the table? The tantalizing smell of Lien's sweet and sour pork flooded the room, leaving him torn between longing at the memory of the taste and the nausea of his new preference's rejection of it.

Harry mentioned something about an evening several years before. Garreth nodded automatically, eyeing the patio doors. Perhaps a few breaths of night air would help clear his head and settle his stomach.

"Garreth," Lien called, "will you please come help me?"

Harry winked at him. "Careful, Mik-san. She just wants a chance to cross-examine you about your girlfriend and your love life." He heaved to his feet and trailed after Garreth, still holding his tea cup. "I'll come along to protect you."

Lien raised her brows at them. "I might have known both of you would come in. Very well, but no snitching bites before everything is on the table."

"Snitching bites? Us?" Harry said innocently.

Garreth smoothed his mustache. That was an idea.

He feigned passes at the food while he and Harry helped move it into the dining area and sat down. And he kept talking, answering all Lien's questions about Baumen and Maggie at great length, telling every amusing anecdote he could think of, including Maggie setting up his patrol car. Lien seemed to have relaxed her rules about forbidding shop talk, but he did not want to push his luck.

Lien shook her head. "I really believe the biggest danger you face on the street is other cops. I remember when this one was in uniform." She pointed at Harry. "Nickles glued over keyholes, lockers turned upside down, windows and doors of other patrol cars sealed with fingerprint tape with the officers inside, and then, of course, we mustn't forget the Fourth of July, that wonderful holiday when he could throw bottle rockets into other patrol cars as he passed them."

Harry grinned.

Garreth winked at him. "I guess I'd better not tell her about the time you and I unplugged the mike in Faye and Centrello's car and it took them most of the morning to figure out why they couldn't roger their calls or reach Dispatch."

Lien rolled her eyes. "Boys in blue indeed."

Miracle of miracles, she did not appear to notice that he only stirred his food around on his plate instead of eating it.

Then Harry, reaching for the pork a third time, stopped with his hand on the serving spoon to raise a brow at Garreth. "Hey, Mik-san, you're falling behind. Better clean up your plate before you lose your chance for seconds."

Now they were watching him. Garreth cursed silently. Could he possibly swallow one bite and keep it down for a few minutes? The lurch of his stomach said no. So did memory. That last solid meal he had eaten, in the hospital after Lane attacked him, had done an instant reverse. "That's all right. This is plenty. My eating habits have changed since I left." The understatement of the year.

Perfectly true, though. Yet guilt pricked him as though he had lied. Well, didn't you? By implication, by omission, hiding the truth and separating himself from two people he cared about. Starting a fire on his bridge he could blame only on himself.