Louisa whirled around in midthump. “Ulk.” Fury was quickly replaced with panic over the fact that there was a large, almost naked man standing in her kitchen. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“I’m Pete Streeter. I occupy the apartment above you, and you’re ruining my morning with your ranting and raving.” He grabbed the broom from her and threw it into the hall. “No more brooms. No more kicking my door. No more cussing at the top of your lungs.”

He paused to look at her. She was prettier than he’d imagined. Average height with a lean, athletic body and a classic oval face. Snappy dresser. Too bad she was such a fruitcake.

Louisa was temporarily speechless. She’d been right about him being big and hairy, she thought, but she’d been wrong about the overall effect. He was six feet, with a rawboned, tightly muscled body, low slung jeans that sat on slim hips, and the most glorious head of curly brown hair she’d ever seen. It was rock-star hair. Hair she’d die for. “Is that really your own hair?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You play in a band?”

“No. I write movie scripts.”

Figures, Louisa thought, a flake from Hollywood. Her eyes narrowed. “You took my newspaper!”

“Sorry.”

“I want my paper back.”

“Be reasonable, I’m not done reading it, and you don’t have time to read it now. You’re late for work.”

“How do you know I’m late for work?”

“Lady, I could set my clock by you. At five-thirty your alarm goes off. I don’t know what the devil you do at that hour of the morning, but it involves a lot of door slamming. At six-thirty there’s more door slamming. You take a shower, tune your radio to NPR, and force me to listen to news until you leave precisely at seven-thirty every weekday morning.”

“I didn’t know my noise carried up to you.”

“Sweetheart, I can hear when your zipper goes down. And you shouldn’t be talking to your mother about your dates. Time to cut the umbilical cord, you know?”

She felt the air stick in her lungs. “You listen to my phone calls?”

“Yeah, and it’s pretty depressing. Why don’t you move your phone away from the air duct-”

“Out!” she screamed. “Get out of my apartment, out of my sight, out of my life! I’m going to get Mace. I’m going to get a gun. If I ever see you again, I’ll permanently disable you!”

Streeter grinned. “Must be awful to have PMS like this.”

“Ugh.” She smacked her fist against her forehead.

Washington was cold in February. Wind barreled up the open mall and wide avenues, and the sun hung shrunken and pale in the gray winter sky. The granite buildings seemed unrooted without their flower borders and the sere grass flattened under intrepid tourist feet. Street people huddled in plastic tents constructed over subway grates. Bureaucrats went about business as usual.

Louisa worked in the Hart Building, just north of the Supreme Court and northeast of the Capitol itself. She stretched at her desk and looked beyond the heavy teal-and-gold drapes framing windows that opened to an inner courtyard. It was six-thirty and the courtyard was dark. She was the last one left in the office, and the exodus of workers had slowed in the outside corridor. All things considered, it hadn’t been a bad day.

She’d managed to keep her boss on schedule and lint-free through two luncheon meetings, an interview with a Post reporter, a question-and-answer session with forty fifth graders, and an afternoon tea at the Australian Embassy. She’d coerced their two interns into stuffing and stamping the monthly newsletter to constituents. She’d badgered the caterer into an affordable buffet for the spring fund-raiser. And she’d secured a slot for her senator on Good Morning America.

She retrieved her purse from the bottom drawer and pushed away from the desk. She buttoned her long wool greatcoat high to her neck, switched the lights off, and closed the office door behind her. She exited the building at C and 1st Street, and her attention was immediately drawn to two men arguing half a block away. One of the men was her boss, and she recognized the other as Senator Stuart Maislin.

Maislin gave Nolan Bishop a jab to the chest with his finger, and Nolan went rigid, then stiffly nodded his head. Maislin stood with hands clenched for a moment, then wheeled around and climbed into the limo idling at curbside. The car pulled out into traffic. Bishop turned and quickly walked east on C Street.

Louisa was only mildly surprised. Maislin had a reputation for strong-arm tactics. He was a powerful man in the Senate, and some said he had Oval Office aspirations. It was also whispered about that he had bad friends. Louisa turned her collar up against the wind and marched across the street, pushing the incident from her mind. Sometimes a blind eye was called for on Capitol Hill.

It was past seven when she emerged from the Metro station at Connecticut and Woodley. She turned left at Woodley and walked one block to 27th Street through one of the many residential pockets in urban Washington. The sidewalks were tipped from tree roots and worn smooth from generations of baby buggy wheels, roller skates, and leather-soled shoes. Four-story-high trees grew in the dirt median between sidewalk and street. The street was narrow from curb-parked cars and bumpy with patch jobs done by the D.C. Department of Transportation. It was a neighborhood pulling itself out of midlife crises, struggling with genteel neglect. It was a neighborhood of double-income families who required close-by gourmet takeouts and same-day shirt service.

She had her head down, searching in her purse for her key, when she approached her house. She gasped when she realized there was a large dark form on her porch steps. She pressed her lips tight together when she saw it was Streeter in an unbuttoned shearling jacket with the collar turned up.

He stood and held her paper out to her. “I thought I should give this to you personally.”

“Why?”

He followed her up the stairs and slouched against her door, hands in pockets, feet crossed at the ankle. “You seemed unusually bent out of shape this morning. I thought maybe there was some special significance to this particular paper. Like, maybe you’re a spy and there was a microdot in the Style section.”

She stuffed the paper under her arm and continued fishing in her handbag. “I’m not a spy. I’m press secretary to Senator Nolan Bishop. I was unusually bent out of shape because I was tired, and because I hate you.”

“How could you hate me? You don’t even know me.”

She paused in her search for the key and looked up at him. “I know you well enough to thoroughly dislike you. I’d give you specific reasons, but it’d take all night, and I don’t want to spend that much time in your presence.”

“This is about the phone calls to your mother, isn’t it? You’re embarrassed because I know you aren’t sleeping with the guy you’ve been dating for the past four months.”

“Get a life.”

Streeter’s grin flashed white in the darkness. “Why aren’t you sleeping with him?”

“He doesn’t appeal to me. We’re just friends.”

“So, who are you sleeping with?”

“I’m not sleeping with-” She clamped her mouth shut and shoved her key into the lock. “It’s none of your business. Get out of my way. You’re leaning on my door.”

Forty-five minutes later she was freshly showered and dressed in a cream-colored silk suit. She slipped her feet into a pair of matching heels, shrugged into her ankle-length black dress coat, and groaned when she caught a glimpse of the clock in the kitchen. She was late for the senator’s cocktail party. It couldn’t be helped. She’d had to make calls to the coast, and then she’d had to wait for the calls to be returned. She let herself out, locked the door, and almost tripped over Pete Streeter. He was back to sitting on the porch in the dark. She squinted down at him. “I almost stepped on you. What are you doing out here?”

“Sitting.”

“You’re very weird.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said that.”

A car turned onto the street. Its headlights flashed against parked cars as it moved forward. Pete stood and backed into the deep shadows. He pulled Louisa with him.

“Let go of me!” Louisa said. “I’ll scream. I’ll turn you into a soprano. I know how to do it. I took a self-defense course.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not interested in your body. I just want you out of the light.” That wasn’t entirely true, he thought, but this wasn’t the time to go into detail.

The car cruised by, and Pete relaxed his hold on her. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and grumbled when he didn’t find one. He searched for gum and struck out on that too.

“What are you looking for?” She was almost afraid to ask.

“Gum. I’m trying to quit smoking.”

Another car rolled by, and Louisa watched Streeter shrink back against the building. “Okay, what’s going on with these cars?” she asked. “Every time a car goes by you duck out of sight.”

“It’s a long story.”

She looked at her watch. “Can you do it in thirty seconds?”

“No.”

“Make an effort.”

“Some yokel’s threatened to vandalize my car.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yeah, and they’ve made two pass-bys, but they can’t baby-sit my car round the clock. So I thought I’d hang out here for a while.”

A dark, late-model sedan turned the corner and proceeded down the street. The car slowed and then stopped in front of Louisa’s house. Louisa felt Streeter’s arms wrap around her and pull her flat against him.

“Move back against the wall with me,” he whispered.

The sedan door opened and there was the sound of feet shuffling on pavement. A man approached a car at curbside, raised a sledgehammer to shoulder level, and swung. There was the sound of glass being shattered. He moved quickly, smashing the windshield and the side mirror.