Page 38 of Beware of Dog

“Why are you talking so slow? Do you think I’m some kinda moron?” he asked, mock-stern, just to mess with her.

Her responding look saidyes. “If Sig puts the squeeze on the witness—”

“Squeeze? You been watching old detective movies?”

“Would youlet me speak, Francis?”

He mimed zipping his mouth shut for the satisfaction of watching hers twitch with reluctant amusement.

She took a deep breath and said, “It’s important to make sure the witness doesn’t get frightened and recant his statement.”

“You think Dixon doesn’t know that?”

“I think that if I—”

“Christ. No.Stop. You can’t go around asking people if they ratted out that little bastard. That’s witness tampering.”

“But…” She interrupted herself that time, frowning. “Shit.”

“Not to mention, you don’t need to be anywhere near him, or his friends, or any potential witnesses. Be a good friend, let Dixon do her job, and leave the rest of it alone.”

“Be a good little girl, you mean.”

“I mean.” His temper flared, voice snapping and sharp-edged. “That I want you stay the fuck away from the creepy little asshole who drugged you.”

Her eyes widened, surprise she shouldn’t have felt, and which pissed him off.

“I know you’re not stupid, so what the hell’s your problem, huh?” The more he talked, the angrier he sounded—the angrier hewas. “Maybe your brother let his daughter play James Bond in London before Candy locked her down, but that ain’thappening here.” He gestured between them. “Real life is not a Nancy Drew story. All you’d do is fuck up the case, and/orget yourself raped or beat to shit, andI’m not having that.”

Her eyes got rounder and rounder as he spoke, until surprise was overtaken by blank incomprehension. In a strained voice, she said, “Are you really comparing yourself to Phillip? Are you trying to be myfather?”

“No. If I was your father, I’d be fucking around in Tennessee somewhere while my daughter fended for herself.”

He hadn’t meant it as a jab. It was the objective truth, one that angered him every time he thought about it. He hadn’t been a part of her detail when trained thugs-for-hire tried to abduct her at an art gallery when she was seventeen, but it was a thing that had happened, something spoken about at length in Albany, and her deadbeat dad hadn’t seen fit to take a more proactive role in her life. He hated Devin Green, and thinking about him brought out Shep’s asshole side.

The remark landed as a jab, though. He saw the fast flare of hurt in her eyes before she locked her expression down and went full Raven: ice queen in the extreme. “You don’t know anything about my dad.”

“I know he’s a philandering piece of shit who fathered ten children on ten different women, and can’t be there for any of them.”

Her head kicked back as though he’d slapped her. Her nostrils flared, and he heard her sharp inhale. “And you think it’s your job to tell me what to do, then.”

“Someone needs to before you run off half-cocked and wind up dead in a dumpster somewhere!”

She attempted to take a step back from him—a move she’d never performed, and which instantly banished his anger; panic welled up to take its place, because oh shit, he’d really steppedin it—but she bumped up against the coffee table, wobbled, and nearly fell back across it.

Shep jumped to his feet and grabbed her forearm to keep her upright. It put them chest-to-chest, face-to-face, her head tipped back, her eyes huge and blue and startled. He could feel her pulse on the inside of her arm, a hummingbird tattoo against his palm.

Her lower lip trembled when she dragged in a breath, and her eyes went glassy. She was on the verge of crying again, and this time, he hadn’t caused it with an awkward show of caring, like in the kitchen earlier. This was all down to being a shithead.

“You’re an asshole,” she accused, without any heat. She didn’t try to get away.

“I am. And I’m sorry that I am.” Somewhere, multiple women’s ears must have started burning because he’d just willfully apologized. “But I’m not sorry about what I said, because all of it’s true.”

She attempted to narrow her eyes and scowl at him…but fat tears welled up on her lower lids and she ducked her head away so she could dash at them with her free hand. “You’re anasshole,” she repeated.

“Yeah, I know, babe. Maybe I ought to—”

She sniffed hard, twisted her arm free—and then threw herself at his chest. She hugged him hard around the middle, her face pressed into his chest, and fought a silent, shaking battle with her sobs.

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