The Strong Silent Type by Marie Ferrarella

get clean instead of just tossing money at him—”
    She saw him set his jaw hard. “Doctor at the free clinic gave him maybe six months. He wants to spend it in oblivion, that’s his choice.”
    How terrible, she thought, to have nothing to lookforward to except the numbing oblivion that came from drugs. “Where do you know this man from?”
    He laughed shortly, ready to dismiss the question. Hawk had no idea what made him answer it. “He was my father’s best friend. Jack Armstrong. My mother named me after him. Jocko kept my father from branding me once. I owe him.”
    Teri felt as if someone had just punched her in the stomach. “Branding you? My God, Hawk, that’s awful.”
    Hawk blew out a breath. The incident had occurred over twenty years ago, yet it hovered around his brain as if it had been last week.
    “No, awful would have been if my father had succeeded. Jocko was a lot more together then than he is now.” Shaking his head, he took a corner. The neighborhoods slowly got better, the despair receding into the background. “He’s a pretty decent guy who just never had enough willpower to walk away from what was keeping him down.”
    “What gave you willpower?” she asked quietly.
    Hawk looked at her sharply. He knew what she was asking him. She wanted to know what had kept him from sinking into the mire he’d found himself standing in.
    “I didn’t want to be like my old man. Ever.” How did she do that—get him to talk when he had no intentions of talking? “Look, this isn’t something I want to discuss, okay?”
    He’d opened a door and she didn’t want it shutting again. “You brought up the subject.”
    She was nitpicking, he thought angrily. “You asked me where I knew him from.”
    She wanted to set the record straight. He’d been the one to start the ball rolling, not her. “But you said you grew up around here.” Shifting in her seat, she turned toward him. “Hawk, I don’t want to pry—”
    He snorted. “Well, then you’re doing a damn poor job of it.”
    “But sometimes, when you keep something like that inside of you for too long, it can make you break apart.”
    He rolled his eyes as he eased through a green light. “Any shrinks in your family?”
    “No.”
    Hawk turned in her direction before switching lanes. “You trying out for the position?”
    “No, I’m trying out for the position of partner.”
    The radio crackled, but no message followed. Just his luck. “’Case you haven’t noticed, you already are my partner.”
    It took more than a coupling to accomplish that. She wanted what everyone in her family had. What she’d grown up believing in. Partners knew each other inside and out. They were there for one another, come hell or high water, no matter what. That didn’t begin to describe what existed between them.
    “We sit next to each other in the car every day, and in the office, but you don’t share.”
    He scowled at her. Why hadn’t he gone with his first instinct and just disappeared on his way to the men’s room? She didn’t need to come with him. “You never stop talking. Nobody else can get in a word edgewise.”
    She was one step ahead of him. “You wouldn’t start talking to me if I did stop.”
    He laughed, savoring the thought. “No, but the peace would be nice.”
    “Hawk, partners share things.”
    Maybe in her world, but not in his. “I didn’t even know one of my partners had kids until they showed up at his retirement party. We talked about work, which we were getting paid for.” He looked at her, his point clear. “Nobody was paying us to be best friends.”
    She seized on the word. “Have you even ever had a best friend?”
    “No, but I’ve had an urge to wrap my fingers around a throat as white as snow.” His patience snapped. He shouldn’t have to have this discussion if he didn’t want to. What was it about this woman that brought his emotions to a full boil? “Damn it, Cavanaugh, I don’t need a friend, a father