by Nora Roberts
desk drawer. “I believe these satisfy your warrant.”
Her palms were sweaty, but she couldn’t sacrifice the dignity she was trying to rebuild by wiping them off. She took the tapes, slipped them into her shoulder bag. “I’ll give you a receipt.”
“Forget it.”
“I’ll give you a receipt,” she repeated and took out a pad. “It’s procedure.”
“We wouldn’t want to tamper with procedure.” He held out his hand, accepting the copy she offered. “Don’t let me keep you, Fletcher. Clock’s ticking.”
She strode to the door, yanked it open. Dignity be damned, she decided and spun back. “You can save the attitude. You made the first move, I made the second. That’s an even slate to me, and now it’s done.”
“Honey—make that Detective Honey—if we were done, we’d both be feeling a lot better right now.”
“Yeah, well. We’ll live with it,” she muttered and sacrificed dignity for satisfaction by slamming the door.
* * *
Ally wasn’t cut out to be a waitress. She was sure of it when, during her second shift at Blackhawk’s, she poured the drink Beth had allowed her to serve over the head of the idiot customer who’d grabbed her butt and invited her to engage in a sexual act that was illegal in several states.
The customer had objected, rather strongly, to her response, but before she could flatten him, Will had appeared like smoke between them. She’d had to stand passively and be rescued.
It had grated for hours.
But if she was sure of her lack of waitress potential after her second shift, she was desperate to shed her cover by the third.
She wanted action. And not the kind that required her to serve wild wings in demon sauce and take orders for drinks called tornadoes to young executives on the make.
Twenty minutes into her third night at Blackhawk’s had given her a profound respect for those who served and cleared and tolerated impatience, lousy tips and lewd propositions.
“I hate people.” Ally waited for her drink order at the bar while Pete drew a beer off tap.
“Ah, no, you don’t.”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I really do. They’re rude, annoying, oblivious. And all of them are jammed into Blackhawk’s.”
“And it’s only six thirty.”
“Please. Six thirty-five. Every minute counts.” She glanced back at Jan, who worked the bar area, all but dancing between tables as she cleared, served and played up her assets. “How does she do it?”
“Some are born for it, Blondie. You’ll excuse my saying so, but you’re not. Not that you don’t do the job, but you don’t have the passion.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have the arches, either.” She started to lift the tray, eyes tracking the room as always, then she let it drop again when she spotted the man coming in the front door.
“Oh, hell. Pete, ask Jan to get this order to table eight club side. I have to do something.”
“Ally, what’re you doing here?”
It was all Dennis got out of his mouth before Ally grabbed his arm and hauled him through the bar, into the kitchen and out the back door. “Damn it, Dennis. Damn it!”
“What’s the matter? What did you drag me out here for?” He put on his best baffled look, but she’d seen it before. She’d seen the whole routine before.
“I’m on the job. You’ll blow my cover, for God’s sake. I told you what would happen if you started following me again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His injured air had worked on her once. More than once.
“You listen to me.” She stepped close, jabbed a finger in his chest. “Listen hard, Dennis. We’re done. We have been done for months. There’s no chance that’s going to change, and every chance, if you keep hassling me, I’ll slap a restraining order on your butt and make your life a living hell.”
His mouth thinned, his eyebrows lowered, the way she knew they did when he was backed into a corner. “This is a public place. All I did was walk into a public place. I’m entitled to buy a drink in a bar when I’m in the mood.”
“You’re not entitled to follow me or to jeopardize my cover in a police investigation. You crossed the line, and I’m calling the D.A.’s office in the morning.”
“You don’t have to do that. Come on, Ally. How was I supposed to know you were on the job here? I just happened to pass by and—”
“Don’t lie to me.” She balled her hand into a fist, then in frustration tapped it against her own temple as she turned away. “Don’t lie.”
“I just miss you so much. I think about you all the time. I can’t help it. I know I shouldn’t have followed you. I didn’t mean to. I was just hoping we could talk, that’s all. Come on, baby.” He took her shoulders, buried his face in her hair in a way that made her skin crawl. “If we could just talk.”
“Don’t … touch me.” She hunched her shoulders, started to pull away, but he wrapped his arms around her, one hard squeeze of possession.
“Don’t pull away. You know it makes me crazy when you go cold like that.”
She could have had him flat on his back with her foot on his throat in two moves. She didn’t want it to come to that. “Dennis, don’t make me hurt you. Just leave me alone. Take your hands off me and leave me alone, or it’s going to be so much worse than it already is.”
“No. It’ll be better. I swear, it’ll be better. You just have to take me back, and things’ll be the way they used to be.”
“No. They won’t.” She stiffened, braced to break the hold. “Let me go.”
Light spilled out of the kitchen door as it opened. “I’d advise you to do what the lady asked,” Jonah warned. “And do it fast.”
She closed her eyes, felt temper and embarrassment rise up under the frustration. “I can handle this.”
“Maybe, but you won’t. This is my place. Take your hands off her.”
“We’re having a private conversation.” Dennis turned but pulled Ally with him.
“Not anymore. Go inside, Ally.”
“This is none of your business.” Dennis’s voice rose, cracked. It was a tenor she’d heard before. “Just butt out.”
“That wasn’t the right response.”
She moved now, breaking free and stepping between the men when Jonah moved forward. There was a gleam in his eye that worried her, like a flash of lightning against thin ice. “Don’t. Please.”
Anger wouldn’t have stopped him, nor would an order. But the plea in her eyes, the weariness in them, did. “Go back inside,” he said again, but quietly as he laid a hand on her shoulder.
“So that’s the way it is.” Dennis lifted bunched fists. “There’s nobody else. That’s what you told me. No, there was nobody else. Just another lie. Just one more of your lies. You’ve been sleeping with him all along, haven’t you? Lying bitch.”
Jonah moved like a snake. She’d seen street fights before. Had broken up her share while in uniform. She only had time to swear and leap forward, but Jonah already had Dennis up against the wall.
“Stop it,” she said and grabbed his arm to try to pull him off. She might as well have tried to shove aside a mountain.
He shot her one steely look. “No.” He said it casually, like a shrug. Then he plowed his fist into Dennis’s belly. “I don’t like men who push women around or call them names.” His voice stayed cool and steady as he delivered a second blow. “I won’t tolerate it in my place. You got that?”
He let go, stepped back, and Dennis collapsed in a heap at his feet. “I think he got it.”
“Great. Wonderful.” While Dennis moaned, Ally pressed her fingers to her eyes. “You just gut-punched an assistant district attorney.”
“And your point would be?”
“Help me get him up.”
“No.” Before she could try to haul Dennis to his feet, Jonah took her arm. “He walked in on his own, he’ll walk away on his own.”
“I can’t leave him here, curled up li
ke a damn shrimp on the pavement.”
“He’ll get up. Right, Dennis?” Elegant and unruffled in black, Jonah crouched down beside the groaning man. “You’re going to get up, you’re going to walk away. And you’re not going to come back here in this lifetime. You’re going to stay very far away from Allison. In fact, if you find out that by some mischance you’re breathing the same air, you’ll hold your breath and run in the opposite direction.”
Dennis struggled to his hands and knees, retched. Tears swam in his eyes, but behind them was a rage that drilled in his head like a diamond bit. “You’re welcome to her.” Pain radiated through him as he stumbled to his feet. “She’ll use you, then toss you aside. Just like she did me. You’re welcome to her,” he repeated, then limped away.
“Looks like you’re all mine now.” Jonah straightened, flicked fingers down his shirt as if removing some pesky lint. “But if you’re going to start using me, I’d prefer we do it inside.”
“It’s not funny.”
“No.” He studied her face, the shadowed eyes and the pity in them. “I can see that. I’m sorry. Why don’t you come inside, take a few minutes up in my office until you’re feeling steadier.”
“I’m okay.” But she turned away, dragged the clip out of her hair as if it were suddenly too tight. “I don’t want to talk about it now.”
“All right.” He put his hands on her shoulders, used his thumbs to press at the tension. “Take a minute anyway.”
“I hate having him touch me, and I feel lousy because I hate it. I don’t think it jeopardized the cover.”
“No. According to Pete, some dude walked in, you flipped and dragged him out.”
“Anybody asks, I’ll keep it close to the truth. Ex-boyfriend who’s hassling me.”
“Then stop worrying.” He turned her around. “And stop feeling guilty. You’re not responsible for other people’s feelings.”
“Sure you are, when you help make them. Anyway.” She lifted a hand to the one he still rested on her shoulder, patted it. “Thanks. I could have handled him, but thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He couldn’t stop himself from leaning into her, drawing her close. He watched her lashes lower, her mouth lift to his. And was a breath away from tasting her when the light spilled over them.
“Oh. Sorry.” Frannie stood, framed in the door where kitchen noise clattered, a lighter in one hand, a cigarette at the ready in the other.
“No.” Ally broke away, furious with herself for forgetting her priorities. “I was just going back in. I’m already late.” She flicked one look at Jonah, then hurried back inside.
Frannie waited until the door swung shut, then stepped over to lean back against the wall. She flicked on her lighter. “Well,” she said.
“Well.”
She blew out smoke on a sigh. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Smart, too. It comes across.”
“Yeah.”
“Just your type.”
This time he angled his head. “You think so?”
“Sure.” The tip of her cigarette glowed as she lifted it to her lips. “Classy. Class shows. She suits you.”
It troubled him, more than he’d imagined it would, to dance around the truth with an old friend. “We’ll see how well we fit.”
Frannie moved a shoulder. But she’d already seen. They fit like lock and key. “Was there trouble with that suit?”
Jonah glanced in the direction Dennis had taken. “Nothing major. An ex who doesn’t like being an ex.”
“Figured it was something like that. Well, if it matters, I like her.”
“It matters, Frannie.” He walked to her, touched a hand to her cheek. “You matter, and always have.”
Chapter 5
Six days after the Chamberses’ burglary, Ally stood in her lieutenant’s office. To save time, she’d already changed into her waitress gear for the evening. She had her badge in the pocket of her trousers and her clutch piece strapped just above her ankle.
“We haven’t been able to trace one single piece of stolen property.” She knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “There’s no news on the street. Even Hickman’s bottomless sources are dry. Whoever’s pushing the buttons on this is smart, private and patient.”
“You’ve been inside Blackhawk’s for a week.”
“Yes, sir. I can’t tell you any more than I could the first day. Between the security tapes and my own in-the-field observations, I’ve tagged several regulars. But nobody pops. On the upside, my cover’s secure.”
“Fortunately. Shut the door, Detective.”
Her stomach sank a little, but she did so and stood in the glass box of his office with the noise from the bull pen humming behind the clear wall.
“On the matter of Dennis Overton.”
She’d known it was coming. Once she’d made the complaint to the D.A.’s office, it was inevitable that some of the flak would scatter into her own house.
“I regret the incident, Lieutenant. However, the way it ultimately played out added to my cover rather than detracting from it.”
“That’s not my concern. Why didn’t you report his behavior previously to the D.A.? To me?”
They both heard the unspoken To your father.
“It was personal business and, until this last incident, on my personal time. I believed I could handle it without involving my superiors or Dennis’s.”
He understood the defensive stance because he understood her. “I’ve spoken with the district attorney. In your complaint to him you state that Overton has, over a period of time beginning the first week of April, harassed you with phone calls both here and at home, has staked out your apartment, followed you on and off duty.”
“He didn’t interfere with the job,” she began, then wisely closed her mouth when her lieutenant stared at her.
Kiniki set aside a copy of her written statement, folded his hands on it. “Contacting you against your stated wishes when you’re on duty, as well as when you’re off, interferes. Are you unaware of the stalking laws, Detective?”
“No, sir. When it became apparent that the subject would not desist in his behavior, could not be discouraged and could potentially interfere with this investigation, I reported his behavior to his superior.”
“You haven’t filed charges.”
“No, sir.”
“Nor have you, as yet, requested a restraining order.”
“I believe a reprimand from his superior is sufficient.”
“That, or being knocked back by Jonah Blackhawk?”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. She hadn’t mentioned that part of the incident to the D.A.
“Overton claims that Blackhawk attacked him, unprovoked, in a fit of jealous rage.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” The words, and the disgust in them, were out before she could stop them. She yanked at her hair once, then bit down on control. “That is completely inaccurate. I didn’t detail the incident, Lieutenant. It didn’t seem necessary. But if Dennis insists on making trouble here, I’ll write out a full report.”
“Do it. I want a copy on my desk by tomorrow afternoon.”
“He could lose his job.”
“Is that your problem?”
“No.” She blew out a breath. “No, sir. Lieutenant, Dennis and I dated for a period of three months.” She hated this, bringing her personal life into her superior’s office. “We were … intimate, briefly. He began to display— Hell.”
She dropped the copspeak, approached the desk. “He got possessive, jealous, irrational. If I was late or had to cancel, he’d accuse me of being with another man. It got way out of hand, and when I broke things off he’d come by or call. Full of apologies and promises to be different. When I didn’t go for it, he’d either get nasty or fall apart. Lieutenant, I slept with him. Part of this situation is my doing.”
Kiniki waited a moment, pulling on his bottom lip while he studied her. “Tha
t’s one of the few stupid remarks I’ve ever heard you make. If a victim came to you describing this situation, would you tell her it was her doing?” When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “I didn’t think so. You would follow procedure. Follow it now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ally …” He’d known her since she was five. He tried to keep the personal separate as religiously as she. But there were times … “Have you told your father about this?”
“I don’t want to bring him into it. Respectfully, sir, I’d prefer you didn’t discuss it with him.”
“That’s your choice. The wrong one, but yours. I’ll agree to it if I have your word that if Overton so much as breathes within ten feet of you, you report it to me.” He cocked his head when her lips quivered. “That’s amusing?”
“No, sir. Yes.” She let go of the cop-to-cop stand. “Jonah made nearly the same statement, Uncle Lou. I guess it’s … sweet. In a manly sort of way, of course.”
“Always had the smartest mouth. Go on, get out of here. And get me something on these burglaries.”
* * *
Since most waitresses-in-training didn’t drive classic Corvettes, Ally was in the habit of parking two blocks away and walking the rest of the distance to Blackhawk’s.
It gave her time to shift gears, to appreciate what spring brought to Denver. She’d always loved the city, the way the buildings, silver towers, rode into the sky. She loved seeing the mountains go from winter-white to those steely jags laced by snow and forest.
And though she enjoyed the mountains, had spent many wonderful days in her parents’ cabin, she preferred to view them from city streets. Her city.
Her city had scarred-booted cowboys walking down the same streets with Armani-clad executives. It was about cattle and commerce and nightlife. It was about the wild, coated with a sheen or polish but not quite tamed.
The East would never hold the same appeal for her.
And when spring was in full, balmy life, when the sun beamed on the white-tipped peaks that guarded Denver, when the air was thin and bright, there was no place like it in the world.
She stepped out of the city, and into Blackhawk’s.
Jonah was at the bar, the far end, leaning casually, sipping what she knew was his habitual sparkling water and listening to one of his regular customers complain about his day.
Those light and beautiful green eyes pinned her the minute she walked in, stayed steady, stayed level and gave away nothing.
He hadn’t touched her since the night behind the club, and had said little. It was best that way, she told herself. Mix duty and lust and you end up compromising one and being burnt by the other.
But it was frustrating to see him night after night, to remain just close enough to maintain illusions and not be able to take a complete step forward or back.
And to want him, the way she’d never wanted anyone else.
She shrugged out of her jacket and got to work.
* * *
It was killing him, by inches. Jonah knew what it was to want a woman, to have one stir blood and loins and spin images in the mind. It could be a kind of hunger that slowly churned in the belly, gnawing there until it was finally satisfied.