Bad Medicine (46 page)

Miss Elliott's carefully penciled eyebrows lifted like gulls' wings. "Well, whatever for?"

She hadn't even seemed to notice the gun yet. Her hand had stilled against her bony chest, though.

"Because somebody's trying to break into your store, ma'am. Now if you'd just—"

He reached out to take her arm, just to get her going. She flinched away, shaking her head.

"Oh, no," she demurred, that hand now out front where it was shooing him away. "You go on, now. I don't believe I called you. I don't believe I called you at all. That wouldn't be fair, now, would it?"

One eye still on the pitifully inadequate door lock to the back alley, the other on Miss Elliott's now-smiling face, Mac did his best to hold his temper. He'd never been one to deal well with stupid civilians. It was much worse now. Much worse.

"No, you didn't call me," he said, making another try to catch her. "I saw it. Now, come on, before you get hurt."

"Hurt?" she echoed incredulously, looking around the pastel walls and the forest of real and artificial flowers in the little showroom. "Why would you think I'd be hurt?"

"Because somebody's trying to break into your store," he insisted.

Somewhere behind the pots of azaleas on the floor, there was a rustling. A faint hissing. Instinctively Mac spun on it, his gun up, his heart stumbling. The leaves dipped and his finger tightened around the trigger.

Nonchalant as hell, a cat stepped out of the foliage. Fat, nasty, and yellow-eyed, with a tail that stood straight up. Behind him were three more. Mac almost put six rounds straight into the goddamn things.

He tried his damnedest to get his breathing back under control before he returned his attention to the matter at hand.

The matter at hand had her attention on his outstretched arm.

"A gun," she accused, pointing at him. "Well, of course. Put that thing away, and we won't have any trouble, will we? After all, I didn't call you. I did
not
call the police."

Maybe this job wasn't going to work after all. The streets might be quieter, but the denizens certainly weren't any less loony. And the cats were beginning to circle him.

"Listen, Miss Elliott," Mac warned, struggling for control. "I'm not going to tell you again. Either get out of the store now, or I'm not going to be responsible for your safety. You have somebody trying to break into your store."

Unbelievably, she broke into a big smile. "Why, yes," she said with a bright nod. "That's the whole idea, isn't it?"

If Looks Could Kill

by

Eileen Dreyer

~

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If Looks Could Kill

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Award-winning author Eileen Dreyer has been inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame, nominated for the Anthony Award (for suspense) and is a retired trauma nurse. Also trained in forensic nursing and death investigation, Eileen doesn't see herself actively working in the field, unless this writing thing doesn't pan out.

An addicted traveler, Eileen has sung in the best Irish pubs in the world, and admits that research is the best way to salve her insatiable curiosity. Film producers, police detectives and Olympic athletes are some of her best sources and friends.

When Eileen isn't writing suspense, she's writing historical romance. Having completed the Drake's Rakes series, which follows a group of British aristocrats willing to sacrifice everything to keep their country safe, she's moved on to Last Chance Academy where the female graduates are crossing swords with Drake's Rakes.

Eileen resides in her native St. Louis with her husband, children, and large and noisy Irish family, of which she is the reluctant matriarch. Animals are also a big part of her life, but she refuses to subject them to the limelight.