An Eye for Danger (53 page)

Halfway between vehicles, the men shook hands, exchanged stories, occasionally letting out a burst of laughter. Burke pointed north, then south, and Sam whistled in surprise at something Burke said. Finally, the deputy climbed into his SUV and Sam returned to our truck.

I crawled over the center console to the passenger seat, keeping low so the deputy didn't see me. "Tell me that was protocol."

"Nope," said Sam, sliding behind the wheel. "Trust me, that would've produced very different results. Including a call to Reynolds to verify my ID. By the time Burke realized I wasn't a perp, he was relieved. Guy's got thirty years on the road, and he's still deputy sheriff. He's hit his career ceiling till the sheriff loses an election or drops dead. All he wants is to go home to his wife and kids, safe and sound. But I needed him to call off that plate search. Had I asked straight, I would've looked suspicious. Now he's embarrassed. Maybe a little starstruck, who knows. Bureau has that way with people. I don't get it, but hell, even chicks dig it."

I swatted his arm and he laughed.

"Bottom line is I got him to break his own protocol, do what I wanted him to do. He says hello, by the way. Asked if you liked the flapjacks."

My mouth dropped open.

"You were right, the man pays attention. Recognized me from the café and remembered my cute lady friend." Sam scratched Max's ears as we waited for the deputy's SUV to clear the road. "But he wasn't about to search the truck with a vicious dog inside. Huh, killer?"

"I don't see why you trust him. He could still call us in."

"Instinct." Sam made a three-point turn, leveling some bushes. "Look at it this way: I refused to break cover in order to guard my package. Risked getting shot to protect her. Now he knows I go down with the ship. Military men love that shit. He knows I'm fighting for something I care about, will stand by. Honor matters to men like Burke." Sam reached a hand to my cheek. "Besides, now I know a place up the road with dancing. You like country music, right?"

***

Mo's was a cinderblock gas station converted into a country bar, where a neon-red stallion bucked in three intervals, and a neon-blue cowboy fought to stay astride. The lot overflowed with double-cab trucks, jacked-up Jeeps on giant wheels, and muscle cars that screamed testosterone.

"We should be gaining ground, Sam, not partying."

"Bad guys think we're miles down the road. We're short-sheeting them."

Sam parked to the side of the building, at the base of a mountain and far from prying eyes so I could wriggle into the black dress he'd stolen from Malta's closet. The low-cut, crisscross bodice made me look like a yoga instructor going bar-hopping. At least Malta's old boots fit the venue, and I could run full gallop if chased.

"Leave your coat here," he said, pulling off his. "You'll get plenty hot inside. Whoa." His brows shot up. "You look plenty hot already."

"Plenty slutty is more like it." I yanked up the bodice that barely covered half my breasts.

"Never." Smiling, he gave me a soft, moist kiss. Then he fished a box from the mini-mart bag and threw back a couple of pills. Caffeine pills, not laxatives, I determined from the label. "Can't afford to lose my edge. Driving or on the dance floor."

"I can't believe I'm encouraging you."

"Sure you can." He was right. A last hoorah was exactly what we both needed.

As he leaned back in his seat, he held down a single digit into his cell. Speed dial. "Hey, baby. Yeah, I miss you, too. Miss that lovin' feeling. Getting real hot in here. Wish you were close... Maybe it's time we took that vacation, build a little love nest in the woods... Tell him daddy will be home soon. So get a babysitter, and someone reliable this time... Yeah, yeah, me too. Kiss kiss."

Snapping the phone shut, Sam turned to me. "My wife, she's so needy."

My eyes said it for me:
Who the hell was that
? Stone wasn't here, so there was no need for Sam to continue the ruse. Unless the story of his marriage was true. Or there was another girlfriend.

"Come on, woman. There's plenty of time to be jealous."

He jumped out and rounded the hood to fetch me, but I wrenched my arm from his grip. I was waiting for an explanation of immaculate conception proportions.
A wife and now a kid?

"Look at me." He thumbed at his chest. "What world do I live in? Don't say it out loud, just remember what game I gotta play. You need to be cool, Jules. Don't assume everything's black and white out here."

He waited until I conceded and then took my elbow, helping me down from the truck into the frigid air and railing winds. My boiling blood barely kept me warm. The lack of explanation I could handle, but his cavalier attitude salted my wounds. The last vision I wanted of Sam on our final night was of him with a family that didn't include me.

"Now," he said, pushing up a sleeve.

"Jesus, there's more," I muttered.

Glaring at me, he unlatched his bracelet, snatched my arm, and caught the chain's hook on the lowest loop to fit my wrist. "Read it. Out loud."

I already knew what it said:
trust
. Fuck that, I thought.

"You think I don't know your 'go to hell' look? Try again."

"Trust." I practically spat the word in his eye. He towed me toward the club. "Just use handcuffs on me next time. Or a dog leash."

"Lady, don't give me any ideas."

At the entrance, a bouncer inspected faces and IDs thoroughly, lowering a hard eye on women. He wasn't an intimidating size. Rather, he was eccentrically tall and cigarette-slim with a sinister black cowboy hat and dark boots, their tips so long they pointed north. His manner was to pin himself to the spot and let others approach his position, giving off an air of authority before he'd said a word.

Sam tugged my hand. "Stop tensing."

"Most bouncers are off-duty cops, as I recall."

"You need to watch less television. Look, even if he was a cop, he's focused on the women. Especially the young ones. Most bouncers are paranoid some underage girl will get nailed by a horny guy in the bathroom, then sue the joint. Not this hack. That's an old routine he's pulling. Leaning over the girls, flashing his light. When what he's really checking out is whether they're carrying double-Ds."

As the line edged forward, the bouncer set his eyes on me. I tugged my bodice higher.

"Stop fidgeting," Sam whispered. He seemed to forget my pale breasts shone like half-moons in the low-cut dress. "We're not using our IDs tonight."

Sam stepped sideways so his shoulder blocked my breasts from the bouncer's view, stared the man in the face, then palmed the guy a bill. We were waved inside.

A hot wind hit my chest as we entered the cavernous room, relieving my frost-prickled skin, but with it came the smell of stale beer and fried foods, like they'd mopped the joint in spilled whiskey and spent cooking oil. My boots hit the floor, which was covered in straw, though I could tell there was cement underneath. The idea of a country-western bar in New York state seemed rather cheap to me, like the quarter-sized Eiffel Tower at the fake Paris hotel in Las Vegas. Yet for such a small-town bar, the place was big-city packed. Especially at two in the morning.

Besides a roaring band that made my eardrums throb, the room pulsed with couples two-stepping, twirling, sauntering. Twenty-something girls wore slinky dresses or hip-hugging jeans cut too low. Here, lipstick ran thick, nails long, and hair wild and stiff. Everyone dressed in boots or cowboy hats, or both, and everyone wore flirty smiles.

Sam led me past a row of guys who were scouting the fresh meat. I felt overdressed for the venue, underdressed for the men's inspection. We landed at a horseshoe-shaped bar, where the barkeep was prepping picklebacks for the ladies, mixing shots of Old Crow bourbon with pickle brine.

Sam shouted, "Two Coronas," then reeled me against him for a swift but intense kiss that left no question among these Neanderthals which man would be dragging me to his cave.

The young bartender grabbed two bottles by their necks, popped the caps so they bounced off the bar. "Six bucks."

"Hope you got cops on the premises." Sam tossed the bartender a twenty, squeezing my waist when I tensed. "Thought I saw a guy keying that red Mustang out front."

"Shit," said the bartender. "That's the boss' car." His straight yellow hair fell over his receding hairline and keyhole eyes as he looked over the crowd. "Don't see any of our usuals. They tend to show up after midnight to check out crowd control, watch for DUIs. What did the guy look like?"

"Dark hair, black hat, dark plaid shirt," said Sam. Like half the guys in the room. Sam popped some peanuts into his mouth. "But you got security cameras, so they'll catch the guy in the act."

The bartender leaned over the taps, talking a little faster. "None outside. Just by the bathrooms and the back door. I installed them for the boss last summer when we got invaded with heroin junkies from the city. Not good for business."

"Don't I know it." Sam tapped his drink on the bar to salute the guy. "We don't like heroin junkies in the city either. Hope your boss appreciates thoroughness, or I might have to recruit you for my club."

The bartender smiled a bit more smugly now that the compliments were rolling in. Down the counter, a half-dozen bouncing breasts waved dollar bills at him. A grin curved over his pasty face when he saw the three women were in his age range.

Sam jerked his chin. "Better feed the mares before they stampede the place. And keep the change."

The bartender jogged down the line and was soon leaning over the bar, peering down the ladies' blouses. Now I understood not just the male game, but how easily Sam could get a person to give up information. Sam was the smoothest operator in a room full of practiced players.

"Here's to a Caribbean beach somewhere," said Sam.

"I'll definitely drink to that." I tapped his bottle, took a swig.

"And to plenty more sunrises," he added, holding my gaze. I tapped his bottle more gingerly this time.

With his back against the bar, Sam pulsed to the music, watching gentlemen pick out their dance partners. "You probably know how to dance to this music," he yelled.

"Not really, but I can step on toes with the best of them."

He downed his beer, rolled up his white sleeves. "Come on, woman, let's give them something to laugh about."

With my hand clutched behind his back, he pressed through the crowd and swung me into his arms, stepping to match the beat of the band but looking a bit stiff in his button-down. Not bad for a cop, but not great for an undercover agent who should blend. Sam's cop-style street boots didn't slide like my cowboy boots, so he was pushing me around to make up for his lack of movement. Courage wasn't always elegant.

He scanned his competition and yelled, "Hell, if I knew a few more steps, I could get all the ladies in the room. That's so cowboy."

My smile dropped. I didn't know why I cared what Sam did, or with whom he did it once he dropped me at the state line. Jealousy didn't explain the hollowness that invaded my bones.

"Jules, I'm kidding." He spun me around, then wrapped me into his arms, kissing my neck. "You wear your heart on your sleeve. That's dangerous."

I sighed into his chest. "I just don't understand what we're doing here. One minute you're calling your fake wife, then you're yelling at me, then we're line dancing with red-state refugees. I feel like a pinball. You'd tell me if a plan was going down, wouldn't you?"

Sam tugged the bracelet on my wrist. "Gee, that's a lovely piece you're wearing."

"You're dodging. Standard operating procedure for you."

"And you've made worrying a sport."

The next song thrummed faster. Sam struggled to keep up with the couples, who were two-stepping and revolving as one high-speed carousel, so I helped set our pace, trying to lead without stepping on his delicate ego. I wasn't the only transparent one in the room. After a couple of turns round the room, we caught the rhythm. We laughed at our mistakes and wagered whoever stepped on the other's toes more bought the next round. The strained wires called my nerves had finally relaxed and I found myself smiling relentlessly.

"This is exactly what I needed," I yelled.

"I know." Lifting me off the floor, Sam spun me till I squealed, and I realized I hadn't laughed this hard since... since Sam.

 Then he set me down and sent me spinning away from him till I stopped at the end of his reach.

A curly red-haired bombshell jumped between us and caught Sam's arm. "My turn, good-looking." Her tits nearly sat on Sam's chest as she smirked over her shoulder at me with a "you can let go and get lost now" look.

My hand landed on her wrist. Hard.

"C'mon, darling," she said to me, bouncing under a severely short pink skirt that flounced upwards more than it stayed down. "Everyone shares out here."

"Not everyone." My grip tightened. Her hat and heels comprised half her height, so I knew I could take her.

"You'll get him back, doll, I swear."

"I already have him back." I squeezed, cutting off her blood supply. "And I don't share well with others."

She released and shrank away, rubbing her wrist and wearing a pout from here to the bar.

Sam shook his head. "Remind me never to piss you off."

"She's lucky she didn't meet my right hook."

"That makes two of us."

We resumed our dancing position, and I resumed my stiff posture as I watched to make sure Little Redhead disappeared.

I leaned into Sam. "My time with you is on the clock."

"Doesn't have to be." He reeled me in, all the way in. Warm lips brushed my ear. "I'm all yours. You know that."

Sam interlocked our fingers, holding my hand to his chest, and we danced a slower rhythm than the band beat out. We swayed till my muscles unhinged their heavy load. I wanted everyone in the room ghosted. Not just the pushy broads, but the ogling men and goal-tending bouncers and nervous bartender. Everyone out except me and Sam and a dance floor as wide as a Cozumel beach. A bucket of Coronas and grilled shrimp with lime. A large blanket to fall on, our bodies entangled and desperate like teenagers.