After a day spent testifying in court, he needed a beer before he headed home. There were few things that frustrated him as much as lawyers and the entire court system, even when the outcome was a good one. A bad outcome was when some slick legal eagle got a drug case dismissed because some unimportant i hadn’t been dotted, which pissed him off big-time, and he wasn’t above hoping that the druggie would then burgle the lawyer’s house looking for quick-sell items to support his habit. Today, though the cases had been relatively minor and justice had prevailed, he’d still had to spend too many hours hanging around just to give five minutes of testimony when he could have been out working cases. It was all part of the job, but it was the part he liked least.
He’d been there about fifteen minutes, long enough for the pleasure of not doing anything to begin seeping into his muscles, when the outside door opened, letting in street noise and warm humid air. All the cops in the bar automatically glanced over to check out the new arrival. It was reflex, an unconscious threat assessment: Was the new arrival friend or foe, cop or civilian? Eric did the same, and immediately recognized the newcomer. A warm jolt hit his midsection. No doubt about it: she was the woman he’d bumped into that morning in city hall, just outside one of the municipal courtrooms. She was still wearing the same stylish black suit, which meant her day had been as long as his.
He liked what he saw now just as much as he had in the hallway at city hall. Everything about her said “classy,” from the suit she wore to the way she pulled her thick black hair into a smooth, heavy knot at the back of her head. She had legs, capital L, holy-shit, wrap-them-around-me Legs: long, shapely, nicely muscled and toned. He could almost feel the interest level in the bar rising several notches as the guys looked her over. The women cops who came in almost always dressed down, suppressing their femininity not only so they’d fit in better with the guys but so they’d be taken more seriously by the disorderly element of citizenry they dealt with the most. This woman didn’t downplay anything. Neither was there anything gaudy or obvious about her, which made her even more attractive, because “class” and “Sadie’s” didn’t usually collide.
She paused briefly in the doorway, scanning the row of tables as if looking for someone, then she strode toward the back where there were two unoccupied tables close to the restrooms. The three-inch heels she wore meant she wouldn’t be able to run, but she sure as hell had a way of walking in them that made it almost impossible for him to look away from the sway of her hips. This morning in city hall when she’d walked away he’d had the same problem looking away from her ass, but then again, a sight like that was worth savoring.
She chose an empty table and sank into one of the chairs, positioned so that he had a view of her profile and her back was to most of the bar, which told him she either didn’t have the survivor instinct to watch the door or she didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone. When she was seated she visibly exhaled, rolling her shoulders and tilting her head from side to side to ease tense muscles, as if her purpose in being there jibed a hundred percent with that of most of the patrons.
From where he sat at the end of the bar, Eric could easily keep her in his field of vision without turning his head. She wasn’t paying attention to any of the other patrons, had chosen her seat so she actually couldn’t without turning around in her chair. She was probably waiting for someone else to arrive. He found himself surprisingly interested in who she might be meeting in a cop bar. Was she dating a cop? Or had she and a boyfriend simply arranged to meet here for convenience, then they’d move on to their dinner date, or whatever?
He glanced at his watch, because appointments were normally made for the hour or half-hour. It was eight-eleven. If she was waiting for someone, the odds were that she was roughly twenty minutes early. He felt that little ping of increased alertness he always felt when he noticed something that was even a little out of the ordinary. Most women would rather wait in their cars until their dates or appointments arrived, rather than sit alone in a bar. Maybe it was a sense of self-consciousness, a safety issue, or they simply didn’t want to deal with any unwanted attention. For this woman to come in alone, twenty minutes before a logical meeting time, didn’t fall within his mental parameters of most common behavior.
He automatically assessed her physically: five-seven, between a hundred twenty-five and a hundred forty, black and blue. Her hair was true black, and even though he couldn’t see their color now, he remembered the clear blue of her eyes, the paleness of her skin: Black Irish coloring at its finest. She was tall and slim, dressed like a million bucks, and, he kept coming back to the word, classy.
No wedding ring, either. She wore a slim gold watch, and small gold hoops in her ears. No rings at all. If he got closer, whether or not he’d see a pale circle or an indentation on her ring finger was up in the air, but from where he was sitting he couldn’t make out any telltale sign.
One of the waitresses approached her table, slapped down a cocktail napkin, and waited with a poised pen for the order. Eric couldn’t hear what she ordered, but a few seconds later the waitress slid the order across the bar to Will and said, “Margarita on the rocks.”
There weren’t many froufrou drinks served at Sadie’s, but Eric supposed a margarita on the rocks was kind of middle ground: not so swishy that a man wouldn’t drink it, but not in the same class with a bourbon and Coke, either. When the drink was carried across to her, he watched as she took a sip, savored the taste, and sort of relaxed deeper into her chair.
She took her time with the margarita, sipping slowly, probably deliberately nursing the drink while she waited, and he watched the clock hands move toward eight-thirty. But eight-thirty came and went, and no one arrived. Neither did she check the time on her watch, so she wasn’t feeling anxious about the passing time. She never looked around whenever the door opened. Huh. Evidently he was wrong that she’d been waiting for someone. Maybe she’d come in for no other reason than she wanted to unwind over a drink, just like almost everyone else in the bar.
He thought about approaching her table, speaking to her, but even though his interest was piqued he was way more cautious with women now than he used to be. At his age, thirty-five, he wasn’t led around by his dick any longer, and he’d been through a divorce, all of which should make a man see the wisdom of not rushing in.
The fact was, she looked expensive, and he wasn’t in the mood for an expensive complication. Women were always complications, bless their perverse little hearts. He enjoyed women for a lot of reasons, but he also enjoyed the simplicity of his bachelorhood. A man didn’t even have to marry a woman to lose his bachelorhood; all he had to do was be in a somewhat steady relationship with her, and he’d find himself structuring his free time to accommodate her. And God forbid you actually move in with a steady girlfriend; you might as well get married. He knew, because he’d tried all the variations: married, not married but living together, steady dating, semi-steady dating … it all boiled down to the same thing, meshing their lives together. For right now, he wanted his life unmeshed. Some day, yeah, he’d probably get married again, but he wasn’t in any hurry, and when he did take that step he’d make damn sure they were more compatible than he’d been with his first wife. There should be a law against people getting married before they were at least twenty-five.
There was one other possibility for Ms. Classy, too, one that made him doubly cautious. Maybe she was a cop groupie. Some women got off on having sex with a cop. It had something to do with the uniform and the weapon, whether it was the one in the holster or the one behind the zipper, or maybe both. Some cops, especially newbies, let the increased sexual attention go to their heads, which could wreck both careers and marriages. Eric had always steered clear of that, even when he’d been in uniform. Now that he was a detective, he was looking ahead to other promotions, and he wasn’t about to let a piece of ass, even a prime piece, mess with his good judgment and common sense.
The temptation got to someone else, though. A chair scraped back; he watched Blake Gillespie, a street cop still in uniform, approach Ms. Classy’s table. Eric controlled a scowl. It wasn’t any of his business if Gillespie tried his luck, and if she was a cop groupie, better Gillespie than any of the other guys. At least Gillespie was single. That didn’t mean Eric had to like watching another man make a move on a woman he’d spotted first, even when he didn’t intend to make his own move. Okay, so men were territorial sons of bitches. Inform the newspapers, call the TV stations, and see if anyone gave a shit.
He watched as Gillespie made his move, with the easy smile and an invitation to join him. Ms. Classy glanced up without a change of expression, then calmly shook her head and said, “No, thank you,” before looking away as if the matter had been settled. Eric couldn’t hear what she’d said, but easily read her lips because she’d formed the words so firmly and plainly.
Okay, so she wasn’t a cop groupie. Gillespie was a young guy, worked out all the time to pack his uniform with muscles, and he wasn’t butt-ugly, either. If she’d been looking to bag a cop in the sack, Gillespie would be sitting beside her now instead of shrugging and heading back to his own table. At least he hadn’t got pissy about her rejection, which upped Eric’s opinion of the young patrolman.
She wasn’t waiting for anyone, and she wasn’t looking to get picked up. Hell, maybe she was simply a woman who’d wanted a drink. He could relate to that. Not the part about being a woman, but wanting a drink was definitely relatable.
Eric turned his attention to his beer, studying the amber liquid for several long minutes. He should probably finish it and head home. The last thing he should do was waste any more time trying to figure out what a woman was thinking, even a woman with world-class legs and a drool-worthy ass. But—“What the fuck,” he muttered under his breath as temptation grabbed him by the dick and hung on. He slid from the barstool, grabbed his beer, and headed toward the classy, expensive complication.
Out of her peripheral vision, Jaclyn saw another man approaching. She could hope that he wasn’t really headed her way, that he was on his way to the men’s room which was just past her table, but it certainly seemed that he was walking directly toward her. He had a drink in his hand, so she was almost certain he wasn’t going to the restroom. Why couldn’t a woman stop after work for one drink without men—some men, anyway—assuming she was willing to be picked up? At least the first guy had been decent, taking himself off without an argument when she’d said no, so she could only hope this guy would do the same. She purposely didn’t look his way, hoping he’d take the hint and keep moving.
“Small world.”
The two words jarred her, because they weren’t what she’d expected. She looked up, her cool expression still in place, but when she recognized the man standing in front of her her mind kind of went blank for a minute. She never sputtered, but she came damn close to it as she mentally scrambled for something to say, and what finally came out was a far cry from the stone-wall dismissal she’d planned. “Don’t call me ma’am again,” she said, her eyes narrowing in warning.
The cop smiled, that same slight but humorous curve of his lips she’d noticed before, and something in Jaclyn unwound. There was something real about him, a straightforwardness that didn’t scream pickup or any other kind of game playing—and, damn, he was fine. That description seemed to be the best she could come up with. He wasn’t handsome, but all her hormones and little chemistry receptacles or whatever were sitting up and paying attention. They were saying Man! in all the best ways. She wasn’t the type to moon over a man, and God knows she’d never been a giggler or much of a flirt—much—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a man’s body and face, if he had a body and face worthy of appreciation.
This cop had both.
She found herself giving him a small, rueful smile in return, and explained, “It’s just … on a bad day, being called ma’am by someone near my own age makes me feel old. You have good manners, and I shouldn’t hold that against you.”
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