Page 17 of Deathmarch
Another booking, fingers crossed.Allie stretched in her armchair as the call ended. She needed two bookings per week to make it, a hundred or so gigs per year. She had only seventy-four scheduled so far, thanks to school budget cuts, which meant she would have to hustle up more work at regional fairs and town festivals. Something she would work on another day, because she’d earned some serious relaxation tonight.
She let out a long breath and settled into enjoying the meditative quality of the dancing flames, but a knock on the door interrupted.
Shannon with more cookies? She really was sweet.
Allie sat up a little straighter and wrapped her robe more securely around herself. “Come in.”
Then she pulled her belt tighter yet, when, instead of Shannon, Harper Finnegan stepped through the door.
He wore the same quilted jacket and hat as earlier, but he had a police badge hanging around his neck, and his open jacket revealed a holster at his hip, confirming that his mother had been telling the truth about him.
“Well, slap my ass and call me Sally. Harper Finnegan, officer of the law. Doesn’t that beat all?”
Allie channeled Jane, smirking to cover up her discomfort with Harper being in her bedroom when she was close to naked. She wouldnotlet him see her rattled. Especially because hedidrattle her, and that was the pitiful truth.
His badge wasn’t the only change from ten years ago. Now that Allie could see him better… He was a fully grown man and then some, clearly having fulfilled the promise of his youth. Wider shoulders, a more pronounced jaw, the beginnings of laugh lines around his startling Irish Sea eyes. Well built, a body that clearly saw plenty of exercise. As he tugged his hat off and shoved it into his pocket, his thick hair got mussed a little, but it was short enough so that his appearance still qualified as clean-cut.
Oh God.Harper Finnegan was the townhot cop!
So damn unfair. Why couldn’t he have reappeared in her life with a beer belly and a double chin? Was thinning hair too much to ask? A discreet bald spot?
No woman wanted to see the ex who’d betrayed her looking better than ever. What any normal person would want to feel in this situation was:thank heavens I didn’t end up with that.
She wanted to see…warts.
Why did he have to look like this,dagnabbit,while she looked… No makeup, limp wet hair, and twenty pounds heavier than the last time he’d seen her this close to undressed. Not that Allie was ashamed of her curves, because she was not. But the fluffy pale-green robe made her appear even bigger. She looked like Rose’s stuffed cabbage at Finnegan’s. The only thing she was missing was a dollop of sour cream.
So of course, Harper wasn’t looking at her with anything near appreciation or desire. His eyes held sadness because she’d let herself go.
Except instead of commenting on how he barely recognized her, he asked, “Where is your father, Allie?”
Where is your father?
That was it? After ten years?
Allie jumped to her feet to give him a piece of her mind in words Calamity Jane would have been proud of, but her robe flopped open, so she snatched it together, then dropped back into the chair, channeling her righteous anger into a prizewinning glare. “Gone.”
“Where?” Broslin’s new Wonder Cop took a—threatening?—step forward, and demanded through clenched teeth, “Did he coerce you? This is not you, Allie, dammit.”
Whatwas he talking about? She blinked at him, feeling as if she’d fallen into a daydream in a middle of a conversation, then came back out having missed key information, unable to catch up with the topic. Except they hadn’t been conversing.
“I always thought you’d make it.” The way Harper’s gaze hardened another notch made goose bumps rise on her skin.
She didnotlike his serious don’t-mess-with-me cop look. “Make what?”
“Get away from the life.” The undisguised disappointment in his tone made her feel guilty, and she had no idea what she should feel guilty about. He shook his head. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb.” His eyes flashed, and his voice acquired a bite. He drew a breath and tempered that tone. “You don’t have to play anything with me. I’ll help if I can. Just tell me where he is.”
“Are we still talking about my father? I just told you he was gone. Died last year. In prison.”
The bite was back in his tone as he shifted forward and said, “Don’t lie to me, Allie.”
“I’m not lying. Another inmate choked him to death. Lewisburg Penitentiary. You can call and check.”
Harper’s impressive body went still. “Federal prison?”
