Page 2 of Price of Angels

Walsh didn’t make eye contact; he was a quiet one, a little like Michael, but social too. He puzzled her.

“You bet,” Holly said to RJ. She lingered, when she should have whisked away again. She knew, before she asked, that she should keep her mouth shut. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion. But she said, “Hey, RJ, do you know if Michael’s coming in tonight?”

RJ’s smile became wry; his brows gave a little jump as if to saywhy am I not surprised?“Dunno. He doesn’t tell me what he does and I don’t ask. He’s a weird-ass, if I’m being honest.” He gave her an almost sympathetic look. “What would you want to see him for? Ain’t nothing fun about Michael.”

Her own smile felt stiff. “Yeah, well…” There was no way to explain herself. “I’ll be right back with more beer.” And off she went.

The pitcher went to the bar, and she checked her other tables, fetching second and third rounds for the men who looked down the low cut of her tank top and pretended they weren’t trying to finger the silk edge of her uniform shorts as she turned to leave their tables. She didn’t care; she was dead to it. Let them look if they wanted; let them imagine. Her body had never been her own anyway.

Ava murmured a distracted thanks when Holly took the Johnnie Walker to the table.

RJ thanked her profusely when she took him the new pitcher; he asked her if she had any interest in coming to a club party sometime, and she managed to say “no thanks” and back away from the table before she broke out in a full terrified sweat.

Party. The word conjured a hundred awful mental images. The possibilities were horrible and endless. Too many men full of too many drinks, on their own turf rather than in public, free to do whatever they wanted. And her only five-two and not strong and not brave and not special…

She couldn’t think about it. She’d end up hiding in the ladies room, deep-breathing into a paper towel if she did.

She slid into the dark back corner behind the register, where she had a view of the whole bar, and a modicum of privacy, as she caught her breath and sought to wipe her mind clean. She pressed her clammy palms to the wall.You’re fine, you’re fine…

A strong gust of cold air funneled into the bar as the door opened, a high whistling sound ringing up among the table lamps. More than a few pairs of eyes swept toward the man who’d entered, because he was one of those men so tall as to attract uncommon notice.

Ava’s husband Mercy always gave Holly the impression of some wild animal who’d been mistakenly let into the house. He had the longest legs of anyone she’d ever seen, and was very lean, which made his height all the more exaggerated. Usually, he wore his black hair tied back in a tidy knot, but when it was down, like now, it made the harsh cut of his cheek- and jaw bones all the more severe. Dark-eyed and golden-skinned and Cajun enough to seem like an alien here in Tennessee, there was an edgy, too-alert quality to even his friendliest smiles, and he made Holly nervous.

Not Ava, though. She smiled as she greeted him, face glowing, tipping her head back to accept the kiss he leaned forward to press to her lips.

Mercy folded gracefully into his chair, returning his wife’s domestic questions with some of his own, and Holly watched the way the two of them locked together – mentally, emotionally – in a way that eased the tension in both of them, and brought an obvious warmth to both their faces. They completed one another’s electrical circuits. Matching pieces. Ava wasn’t the poor unsuspecting woman who’d let the wild thing into the house; she was the wild thing’s mate, creeping indoors at his side.

Holly couldn’t conceive of that kind of connection. She didn’t believe in its existence, even though she was staring right at it.

She felt the knot forming in her throat, the stinging at the backs of her eyes, the old familiar reactions to the things she’d never understand or have. She pushed the emotion down deep, where it couldn’t draw a physical reaction from her.

And then the door opened again, and there was Michael.

He entered quietly, in the vacuum left by Mercy’s entrance, and no one noticed him as he ghosted across the boards to his usual back corner booth.

No one but Holly, anyway. For her, he was neon, as he walked with loose, easy, ground-covering strides, his posture military straight, but his head bowed the slightest. He was a man who didn’t want to be noticed.

They had that in common. But she had the breasts and the shiny hair, and that always seemed to draw eyes, the way his nondescript, dark-haired plainness never did.

Michael carried a hardback book under one arm, as per usual, and he slid into his booth with catlike grace. Holly watched him get situated, opening the halves of his cut, tugging at the legs of his jeans: little masculine settling gestures, unconscious and long-practiced. He opened the book on top of the table, flipped to the page marked with a slip of paper, and set the bookmark off to his right. No looking around for a waitress, no impatience for a drink. He exuded an aura of patience. That was what had captured Holly’s attention; unlike all his brothers in arms, he was the Dog with the unflappable calm, the unshakeable aplomb.

And he was cold. So very cold.

Her killer.

She went to Matt and asked for a double Jack, neat.

He smirked. “Your boyfriend showed up?”

“Don’t have one of those,” she said as she carried the drink off.

Her pulse picked up as she approached Michael’s table. She knew that he noticed her – not as a man noticing a woman, but as awatchfulman noticing the approach of someone, anyone. She saw the quick flicker of his lashes, down at his cheekbones, the twitch of his fingers on the corner of the page, the subtle tightening of his entire frame. In the span of a heartbeat, he tested the air for threat, and she knew when he recognized her the moment his body relaxed, the hard bundles of his biceps unclenching inside his sleeves.

That unclenching was important to her. He’d never shown her a thread of aggression.

“Your usual,” she said, setting his drink on the table as she reached him.

He nodded a silent thanks, and didn’t glance up at her.

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