Think Before You Speak (3 page)

I think.

“Let me get your key,” I said, digging
through my purse before extracting and holding it out to my former
landlord. Er, the Good Samaritan.

Friend
was a word I still hesitated to
use where Zeke was concerned. Reminded me a little too much of the
boy
friend variety. He held his hand open so I could drop the
key into his palm, almost as if he was as much afraid of touching
me as I of him.

The musky scent of the great outdoors
overtook new construction and touched me all the way down there. My
thighs clenched.

Having Zeke in my apartment, having him
standing so close I could feel the warmth radiating off of him – it
all served to be a little much for my present euphoria. My heart
pounded as dark eyes trailed from my hand to my lips, and breath
stilled when his gaze met mine. My nether regions jumpstarted awake
after weeks of forced hibernation. That promise I’d made to go to
bed alone tonight swept away like the deck chairs off the Titanic.
I suddenly wanted Zeke to take me in his arms and do unspeakable
things to me – all night long, y’all.

Instead he slipped the key in his pocket,
planted a kiss on my forehead, then turned and walked right out my
door in two strides. After staring at the closed door for a few, I
looked down at Slinky with a sigh.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again,
pardner.”

Slinky just looked at me before spitting out
the toy from his mouth and settling again in the window seat to
lick himself. My eye roll of disgust landed on the top of the new
stainless fridge. The
empty
top of the new stainless fridge.
Too bad Mom was a teetotaler and hadn’t replenished my liquor
stash. I could really use a shot of Jack about now. Or three
fingers of scotch. A Long Island iced tea anyone?

I knew the best place in town to get a drink
or two – and it probably wouldn’t cost me a thing.

Can you say Grady’s? I sure can. Could. Oh
hell, just get in the car.

The bar was a slow go so early in the
evening, kinda like my usual Wednesday nights – unless it was wet
t-shirt night. When I work the bar, I have a tendency to bring a
little chaos to the atmosphere. My co-worker Rochelle is a
different matter. She’s a classy cowgirl.

Wavy brown hair framed a cherubic face with
deep-set green and knowing eyes. My co-worker had seen a lot in her
thirty-some years. Had the little boys and the single parent
moniker to prove it. She didn’t talk about how her ex ran off and
left her with nothing, and we all knew better than to ask. As a
frequent sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease, I’d made that mistake
only once.

Schedules at work had gone a little screwy
since our former co-worker got caught in a drug ring and murder
moment. When he’d tried to launch me off my rooftop for a brief
flight sans wings, my boss sent Bud down under for an eternity of
keeping the likes of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler company.

This employee shortage was a boon for
Rochelle by opening up another bartender position. Higher wages,
better tips, and more hours than the server position, allowed
Rochelle the opportunity to start saving up so she could eventually
move out of her mother’s place. I’d worked with her over the last
few weeks, guiding and grilling her on mixing drinks, reading
people, and the best ways to entertain customers to earn more tips.
She was a natural in the making drinks category. Mimicking my
daring form of entertainment? Maybe that’s a category best left to
my area of expertise.

Rochelle’s full lips perked up in a smile
when I sidled up to a barstool. “Hey, Vicki. What’re you doin’ here
on your night off?”

“I just moved back into my apartment,” I
said.

“Congratulations.” Rochelle beamed. “Guess
that’s cause for celebration.”

“More or less.”

“So why aren’t you there relaxing instead of
hanging out in this place?” she asked, filling a couple of mugs
from the tap before setting them onto a tray.

“Since I’ve yet to restock the fridge, I have
no booze for celebrating.”

“Bummer. Sounds like a good time for a tea
from Long Island.”

“No truer words were ever spoken,” I
proclaimed.

“Coming right up,” she quipped, sliding the
full beer tray up onto the bar.

As Rochelle set to work on my drink, warm
lips trailed lightly across the back of my neck. A husky voice
followed. “You didn’t just do a good job trainin’ her, you did a
very
good job trainin’ her.”

I turned around to languid eyes the color of
milk chocolate and a smile tilting one edge of my boss’s mustache.
“Hey, Grady.”

This was about as normal as Grady had acted
toward me for – well, weeks. Our waltz of Grady advancing and me
retreating had formed a skid mark bigger than the ones my Vette
left in a sudden stop. Maybe it had something to do with him firing
the kill shot through Bud’s brain that night. Or something to do
with the newfound discovery my boss was actually an undercover ATF
agent and clandestinely worked with Ranger Zeke on occasion. It
couldn’t be that Grady was concerned I’d spill his secrets in a
drunken melee – could it?

I’m pretty sure I can guess the answer to
that.

As Rochelle set the full-to-the-brim glass
before me, a wave of Grady’s hand comped my alcohol consumption and
sent Rochelle to wait on a couple at the end of the bar about one
step shy of needing a room. The way that couple was going at it,
they were on the verge of violating two commandments, three Texas
statutes, and four of Newton’s laws. I focused in on my drink with
a cough. No matter how hard I tried to escape it, that nagging
nookie temptation was everywhere.

“This sure is a new look for you,” Grady
said, taking in my sweat-streaked t-shirt, comfy shorts and droopy
ponytail. “Dusty chic?”

“More like grimy girl,” I returned.

That got me a chuckle. “So how’s the new, old
place?” Grady asked, sliding in next to me.

I finished a desperate pull on my straw with
a sigh of liquid satisfaction. Yes, I’d taught Rochelle the mixing
drinks part of the job
really
well. “I take it you’ve
already talked with Zeke?”

“Yep.”

“And you know he’s ticked at me?”

“I think it’s more you scared him by leavin’
his place without informin’ him,” Grady asserted.

That rankled my catnip just a bit. “Is this
what I have to look forward to now? You two whispering behind my
back and sharing my every move with one another?”

“You’ve nothin’ to worry about from me, Vic.
Zeke was concerned about what might’ve happened to you, that’s
all.”

Happened to me, shnappened to me. The guy
could’ve picked up the phone and called. Or texted. But no, he had
to get my boss involved like a trail rider circling the wagons.

Men.

“Just because you two work together on
occasion,” I muttered above piped-in music, “does not mean my
day-to-day affairs are fodder for gossip.”

“Affairs?” The rise of his mustache signaled
more than understanding of my accidental double-entendre.

I punched his thigh. “You know what I mean. I
had enough growing up on the receiving end of Gossipers ‘R Us from
my parents’ fellow parishioners. I don’t need it from you two.”

He stood and planted a kiss on my forehead.
What was it with the forehead kisses today? I needed some
straight-up lip lock – and soon – before my girlie bits
exploded.

“You have my word it won’t continue,” Grady
pledged, jostling the laden beer tray. “Enjoy your drink then go
home and get a good night’s sleep. I need you in full Vicki mode
for the start of the alcohol X-games tomorrow night.”

“Yes sir, boss,” I said with a salute before
taking a huge slurp of my drink in preparation.

The alcohol X-games. I still thought it
strange an ATF agent ran a bar as part of his cover. Suppose it
made some sort of sense, being close enough to hear all about the
action
, so to speak. In more ways than one. I laughed out
loud then stared into my empty glass. What all had Rochelle put in
there?

Rochelle wormed her way over, and together we
watched the boss’s retreating backside. A sigh escaped from one –
okay, both – of us as he bent over to hand out beer to a table of
college-aged females, offering a bird’s-eye view of his jean-clad
butt.

“Would you look at that,” Rochelle
murmured.

“Yeah, howdy.”

“Reminds me of a little somethin’ I marinated
and threw on the grill for dinner last Sunday.”

“I see that,” I said with a tilt of my head,
handing over my empty glass. “But those gals are obviously too
young for him.”

“A woman of any age would have to be dead not
to pay attention to a man with an ass that fine.”

Ice clinked somewhere in my periphery as I
took in the scenery up ahead. “Hmm.”

Rochelle paused after she dumped another Long
Island iced tea on the bar in front of me. “Well?”

“Well what?” I asked.

“Are things better between you guys now?”

As Grady finished flirting with the fishes
and moved on to another table, I realized nothing had yet been
resolved between us about the secrets revealed the night Grady
wrote Bud’s name on a bullet. I hadn’t considered how it’d affected
the rest of the staff either.

“Yup, right as rain,” I lied.

Don’t judge.

“It’s about time,” she commented,
absentmindedly wiping out a glass with the towel until I thought
it’d break before she put it down. “You two have seemed on edge
around each other for so long now, I didn’t think things would ever
get back to normal.”

“What
is
normal these days?” I
philosophized.

She leaned across the bar. “So was he that
good
or that
bad
?”

“With what?”

“You know,” she gestured suggestively with
both hands.

“Rochelle!”

“Well?” A smile spread across her face like
liquid butter.

“Is that what everyone around here
thinks?”

“It’s kinda obvious
something
happened.”

My turn to lean forward and whisper. “There
never has been nor ever will be any tangoing between the sheets
where Grady and me are concerned.”

Her brows pinched. “But I assumed, with the
way you two act and the sexually charged atmosphere…”

“It’s just a game. A ruse. Something we do
for fun.”

“I know some other ways you two could have
some fun.”

“Yeah, me too,” I responded, tossing a last
glance over my shoulder as Grady wandered toward his office. “But
not with the boss.”

“Smart girl,” Rochelle said, then frowned.
“It never pays to sleep with co-workers.”

“Here-here,” I said, raising my refilled
glass.

Rochelle’s stare trailed away from my face to
over my head. “But a customer? Now there’s a different story.”

I twirled the barstool around to lock with
familiar ice-blue eyes. Mussed dark hair hung over his forehead,
and the impeccably tailored cobalt-blue shirt hugged him in all the
right – yet oh-so-wrong – places before opening to reveal the
plunge of tanned pecs. Pecs I knew well – and not from his photos
in magazines.

I swallowed the knot in my throat as my
heartrate ticked my body temperature up toward volcanic
proportions. “Welcome home, Nick.”

***

So much for promises to myself to lay off
the...

Oh, forget it.

I awoke late the following morning in a
tangle of sheets, a stitch in my side, and an intermittent tap
tickling my cheek. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was
Slinky’s butt, his tail languidly flipping and flopping across my
face like a well-timed metronome. When I went to set him down, the
floor seemed much closer in the daylight than when I’d gone to
sleep last night.

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot.

After nearly two months of inactivity, my
sexual energy was a coiled spring released like pulling a trigger.
Like the Energizer Bunny, I’d kept going and going – until the new
mattress slid right off the box springs. After the second time,
we’d decided it was safest to leave it where it’d ended up. That
left Nick
and
Slinky spooning me.

As I flopped out of bed, I rediscovered a
thing or two about muscle memory. First, it’s pretty quick to
dissipate when said muscles are left to atrophy for more than a
week or two. Second, they’re pretty quick to let you know they’re
out of shape once you use them again. It took a bit more than a
little effort to get my carcass moving toward the kitchen, but I
finally dug out my robe and headed for a caffeinated fill-up.

Another good thing about Mom? She refuses to
buy me liquor, but she definitely doesn’t skimp on those necessary
Bohanan staples – like coffee. And Oreos. Not two cans, but two
cases
of Colombian roast took up the floor space in my tiny
pantry, and a whole box filled with packages of chocolaty goodness
sat on top. As the fragrant, steamy aroma wafted from the
percolating pot and cookie crumbs gathered at the corners of my
mouth, I bowed my head against the cool stainless steel countertop
and gave thanks for my thoughtful mother. God bless her.

Guilt followed soon after the first gulps
awakened my brain enough to engage. In my apartment less than
twenty-four hours and already I’d returned to my Mary Magdalene
ways. For weeks I’d struggled against those pesky urges and
succeeded while under Zeke’s roof.

My own roof? Yeah, I’d had about as much
self-control as a certain police detective in a coffee shop when
Nick showed up last night. He’d been in Europe all that time too,
with no word on when to expect his return. Wasn’t like we were
boyfriend and girlfriend – hell, I’d been a free agent the entire
time. So why hadn’t I taken advantage of the opportunities when
they presented?