* * *

The sun beating down on Tracey's head irritated her. "I can't believe I'm here," she said, gesturing to the baseball field in front of her and not looking at her companion, knowing Kelly would laugh at her. The softball game was the last of the season, Sex Crimes against Search & Rescue, and Tracey had been dragged to attendance by her co-chair, who liked this sort of thing.

Kelly nudged her and gestured at the field. "It's for office morale."

"We're prosecutors. How does softball help?"

Kelly grinned. "Aw, did someone move your cheese?"

"Don't even start." Tracey cursed under her breath and tried to focus on the game. She was determined to figure out the rules, because watching the sport was far more interesting than listening to Brown talk about his perfect lawn or listening to McCoy talk about his motorcycle. The game appealed to her competitive streak.

And to Kelly's, whose eyes were focused on a woman warming up to bat. Tracey couldn't understand Kelly's crush. Of all the women in New York City, Kelly had to pick a kiddie crimes lawyer who rode a bicycle to work. Really. "What do you think she'll do to her hair, next?" Tracey asked.

Kelly wrinkled her nose.

"Maybe she's done with the bold colors," Tracey pressed. "Stripes? Plaid?"

Kelly turned to face Tracey, and reached out to tug at a lock of her hair. "If you put a white streak here, you'd look more like a witch."

Her tone was complimentary, so Tracey laughed. "She's just so...impertinent."

"Passionate."

"Brash."

Kelly pursed her lips. "She'll learn."

"Before or after she's censured?"

Kelly smiled. "Before."

"She's like a newborn colt. All spindly and stumbling and--"

"You can't help loving her," Kelly finished, and Tracey fell silent. She studied the lines on Kelly's face, who couldn't be much older than Casey, even though she seemed to be. The girl at the plate was fresh-faced and eager, not even sun-damaged, probably had been using the proper amounts of sunscreen since birth. Casey had done things as an attorney that made Branch choke on his scotch. Maybe that's what Kelly, older, found desirable. The strength that came with naivety. Tracey appreciated the strength that came with empathy and brilliance, which Kelly had in spades, but no one was asking her opinion.

Kelly finally said, "Look at her. Look at her record. A prize foal." She was using the voice she used to convince Tracey of legal arguments. The words might not have worked, but the tone carried a challenge that Tracey rarely felt up to answering.

Casey swung the bat at a fast pitch, and had a strike called.

Tracey said, "Is this the ivy leaguer talking? Did you never get to play lacrosse as a girl?"

"I was more into ultimate frisbee." Kelly laughed. She tilted her head at Tracey, almost shyly. "And maybe it's just something I picked up from my role-models."

"Role-models. Christ. And what color is your parachute?" Tracey scowled at the field. Her forehead wrinkled in consternation. "You'd think this kind of thing wouldn't be in the budget."

"For firemen and police, sports are always in the budget." Kelly sounded wistful.

Tracey heard the opening and almost asked her what her father did for a living, but the crack of the bat drew attention. Casey hit the ball down the third base line, gave a brave dash to first, and got tagged out. She waved off the first baseman, maintained momentum and changed her direction toward Kelly. Kelly moved away from Tracey to meet Casey as she leaned over the fence, laughing and whispering something in her ear.

Tracey shook her head. The two women in her sight could easily be sorority sisters, well-coifed and smiling and carrying around their M.R.S. degrees. If the observer didn't know them that well, well enough to know they had nothing in common, not even the job when their departments were so different and there were a thousand prosecutors in Manhattan. Still, blonde and copper hair mingled well in the summer wind. Casey was wiping sweat off her face and Kelly seemed riveted by the sight of her. Tracey looked away.

Kelly came back when Casey ducked into the dugout. Tracey was deciding between several obnoxious comments to make when Kelly pre-empted her, saying, "She's dangerous, I think." She was somewhat pensive in her confiding, belying the blush in her cheeks. Kelly crossed her arms and looked again at the fence.

Tracey thought of Kelly's past relationships, a long string of boyfriends that brought Kelly into the office in the mornings dazed with joy, or crying, or that one time with a black eye. Casey was really no different than the men, the ones Tracey imagined as young hot-shot lawyers and day-traders, bar flies and college boys. Tracey realized that she was unfamiliar with the New York reality that Kelly circulated through, but that Casey fit into it somehow.

Casey emerged from the dugout to take her place on the field. Tracey turned to Kelly with her shrewdest smile. "She'd have to be dangerous, to walk into Judge Martin's courtroom with that hair."

Kelly smacked her arm.

* * *

Kelly was lying on her stomach on Casey's bed, feeling completely satisfied at ten o'clock on a Sunday morning when she should be at church. Casey had accommodated her at nine, had taken the cross at her neck between her teeth and growled invitingly, but the idea of sitting next to Casey in a narrow pew had aroused her, surprisingly, and she'd pulled Casey on top of her, choosing sacrilege to piousness. Repenting would be all the more fun, later. The sunlight warming her shoulders convinced her she'd made the right decision.

Casey appeared, naked and carrying a mug of coffee and a plate of oreos. Kelly smiled lazily and trembled when Casey said, in a low voice, "Cookie?"

"I can't. Not for breakfast." Kelly closed her eyes and groaned. "I've sinned too much today."

"Don't say that. You'll ruin my plans." Casey slapped her on the rear, and took a cookie for herself, chopping noisily.

Kelly kept her eyes closed. "Plans?"

"I like biking."

"I like water aerobics. Where shall the twain meet?"

Casey was running her fingers up Kelly's spine. "What about ice cream in the park and watching the children play while discussing the finer points of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey?"

"I love your ability to compromise." Kelly rolled onto her back.

"You should see the plea bargains I can come up with." Casey leaned down and kissed Kelly. Kelly, tasting the coffee on her breath, became possessive. She slipped her tongue inside Casey's mouth. Casey's hand slid up her side, nails brushing the side of her breast. Kelly shuddered, deepened the kiss, and hoped all discussion of leaving the apartment would be forgotten.

When their lips parted and Casey took another sip of coffee, Kelly said, sadly, "I promised Tracey I'd go into the office this afternoon. We're due in court tomorrow."

"And do you do everything A.D.A. Kibre tells you?" Casey bit at her shoulder, to ease the jealousy in her voice.

Kelly smiled, and then giggled when Casey's lips tickled her.Ê"Absolutely."

Casey said against her shoulder, "Would you do anything I told you?"

Kelly tilted her head back, to meet Casey's eyes. "For the next hour, anything you want."

Casey kissed Kelly again, hard, sucking on Kelly's lower lip until Kelly groaned and surged forward to meet her and hold the embrace. When Casey finally pulled back, in order to look at her more clearly, Kelly asked, "Do you have anyone you'd do anything for?"ÊShe meant it in the professional sense, but she wasn't sure the delineation mattered. For all that she desired Casey, Tracey owned her: owned her career, her paychecks, her livelihood, ten hours of her day, and her moral compass.

"She's tall, dark, and smoldering.ÊA complete pain to deal with." Casey pressed her forehead against Kelly's.

Except for tall, Kelly knew the woman intimately. She said, "I know the feeling."

Casey fell to Kelly's side, and laughed at the ceiling. "And I would do anything for her."

"I know the feeling." Kelly curled to kiss Casey's jaw.

Casey shrugged. "I don't do repressed too well."

"I have noticed that."

"You and half of New York." Casey grinned. She eased on top of Kelly. "Besides, you're what I want. You don't smolder, you burn."

END


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