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ADAM
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WE GOT TO THE BAR IN question—O’Malley’s—without me having a chance to do so much as get back to the hotel and change into more comfortable pants, and though I understood them wanting to get right into the drinking (and the fries, evidently), I also wished they’d given me a chance to change first.
Because it was just a bar in Houston. It wasn’t one of those high-brow places in NYC that cost you and arm and half your leg to get into and smelled of expensive perfume and looked like even more expensive plastic surgery.
Those places had dress codes, and I would have expected to have to go in a suit and tie. This place...
Was not like that.
It was, for all intents and purposes, an Irish bar, done up in that stereotypical British pub fashion. Lots of dark wood and dark green upholstery, hardwood under foot—probably so they didn’t have to pay to clean the carpeting the drinkers would otherwise ruin—and green and gold striped wallpaper.
I’d been told they had great fries, and those fries had sounded like Mexican food. I wondered if you could get them with salt and vinegar instead. It was one of my favorite ways to eat French fries, and it would have gone a whole lot more with the décor of the place.
“Does this place actually do British food, too?” I shouted to Joseph over the bump of the music.
Joseph just shrugged. “Dunno! The fries are insanely good!”
Well, this guy was a real brainiac. And yet when he’d asked Katie out, she’d jumped on it like she’d been praying he’d do just that.
Yes, I knew why she’d done it. I knew that she was looking at it as an opportunity to do research. That didn’t mean I had to like it, though. Because the truth was, I hated it. It was grabbing me somewhere right underneath my stomach and twisting, making me feel a whole lot like there was something wrong and I just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.
Still. If she was going to take one for the team in the name of doing research on our suspects, I could do the same. I’d always been a quick study, and this just meant I was learning from one of the best in the business.
I sidled closer to Joseph and gave him a friendly smile. “Have you ever had anything other than the fries? Or is that what you get every time?”
He returned the smile and gave me another shrug. “The fries are so good that I figure it would be a waste to come here and not get them, you know? Like... I’d be mad at myself for not having ordered them. What can I say? I like consistency.”
I laughed because I could definitely understand that. “I hear you!” I shouted, mentally cursing the level of the music, which was going to make doing research a whole lot more difficult. “Once I find something I like, I stick with it! Does your wife like the place as much as you do?”
It wasn’t an out-of-the-blue question. I’d seen the wedding ring on his finger.
It was something I’d meant to bring up to Katie later, when she got here. Because she might be going out with him just to do research, but I didn’t think that meant she’d want to get into a situation where his wife was charging into whatever restaurant they were in and trying to start a fight with her.
It had also made me dislike him even more. What sort of man asked another woman out when he was married?
Joseph made a wry face. “I wouldn’t know what she likes, to be honest. She kicked me out a couple months ago, so it seems like she doesn’t like me.”
Ooookay. I hadn’t been expecting that and had to quickly re-route my plans. “Ouch!” I shouted. “That sounds rough! What happened?”
His face closed off like he’d just lowered the shutters on it, and he almost turned away from me, though he kept talking. “Like I said, I’m guessing she just doesn’t like me as much as I thought she did. Good thing Arthur and his wife are letting me crash on their couch.”
His eyes went to the dance floor, where Arthur was dancing with... Rachel. And the way they were dancing made it pretty obvious that though he might be married, he wasn’t exactly concerned with what his wife might think of him.
I fought to control my face, disgusted at both Rachel and Arthur for the display, and turned back to keep talking to Joseph. HIs attention, though, had moved from Arthur and Rachel to the door of the place.
I looked up, wondering what he was looking at, and felt my heart leap right up into my throat.
Katie had arrived, and evidently had taken the time to go home and change between the office and this outing. She looked...
Damn, she looked amazing. Better than amazing. Hot and gorgeous and smart, like this was her hot librarian alter ego. She’d donned leather pants and a flowy white blouse that did nothing to hide her curves and everything to set off the color of her hair. A green necklace brought out the color of her eyes, and she’d stopped long enough to add heavy eyeliner and bright red lipstick.
Combine that with the glasses, and she looked...
I got up and started walking toward her, my instincts guiding me rather than my brain.
“You look amazing,” I said, ducking toward her to make sure she would hear me.
Fuck, she smelled amazing, too. Where had this version of Katie been hiding for the last week? Did she just trot her out for nights at the bar or something?
She gave me a flirty smile. “Why thank you. It’s not a mask I usually wear, but I can pull it off when I need to.”
“Ah, another alter ego,” I said, pleased at the continuation of what had become an inside joke between us.
“Not another,” she said with a sultry tilt of her lips. “You can call me... Natasha.”
The last word came out breathy and mysterious, and I had to fight to keep my hands off of her. Sweet cream cheese and bagels, I wanted to push her up against the nearest wall, pin her there, and taste her lips. Kiss that lipstick right off her mouth. Guarantee that she didn’t have eyes for anyone else but me.
Instead, Joseph appeared at my side, reached out, and took her hand. “You look great!” He shouted. “Sorry about calling off our date, but this seemed like it might be more fun! You know, everyone together!”
I could have killed him. I could have reached out and strangled him for interrupting our moment.
Instead, Katie’s gaze slid toward mine and told me to back off and stay cool, because she was about to do some investigating.
I ground my teeth, frustrated, but gave her the start of a smile and backed off, my hands clenched into fists at my side and every single cell in my body screaming at the idea of Joseph grabbing at her while I had to stand around and watch.
Then she completely changed in front of my eyes. The smart, sophisticated woman I’d come to know over the last week somehow morphed, every line in her body growing soft and sort of... flexible, like she’d taken all the steel out of her spine.
She suddenly looked brainless. Ditzy. Clueless.
Exactly the kind of girl that someone like Joseph would be attracted to—and maybe spill information to, just because he didn’t think she had a brain in her head.
And exactly the sort of girl I didn’t really like.
I watched the transformation, surprised and more than a little bit impressed at how quickly it happened. Then I watched Joseph turn into something that looked very ugly and very possessive and grab at her.
She eluded him quickly, laughing at how grabby he was, and I met her gaze for long enough to see that she had everything under control. She could handle herself, I remembered. She did this for a living. She was a private investigator, and she was capable of taking care of herself.
I gave her a long look that I hoped communicated everything I was thinking—like that I would take the guy out the moment he got to be too much for her—and then turned and headed for the bar, doing my level best to grow eyes in the back of my head to watch out for her while also leaving her alone to gather intel.
***
I DRAINED ANOTHER MARGARITA without stopping and slammed the glass down on the bar, impressed despite myself. I wasn’t usually much of a drinker, but these things—over ice, with salt, rather than slushy and blended—were pretty damned good.
I’d heard of them, of course. We did have them in New York. But they were basically the mascot of this town, from what I’d seen, and given how easily every bartender seemed to make them, I was starting to wonder if they were part of the bartender testing process down here.
“Another!” I shouted to the bartender, lifting a hand and motioning.
He grinned and gave me the hold on one minute hand, then turned back to the conversation he’d been having with Rachel.
Man, that girl really did get around. Not that there was anything wrong with that. I had just never met anyone who made friends as easily as she did. No wonder Katie liked her so much.
And speaking of which. I turned and let my gaze fly across the room, looking for the Russian super spy in question.
She was on the dance floor, dancing with Joseph and looking like she was talking his ear off. Trying to get information, I thought proudly. Doing her best to get him to relax enough to spill what she was looking for.
He, however, looked distinctly uninterested in anything she had to say. He was, in fact, currently staring down her blouse, and looking like he was getting ready to...
I was moving the second I realized he was going to grab her, and by the time I got there, he had her pushed up against a table that bordered the dance floor, his hands groping and his face—mostly drunk but still aware enough to know exactly what he was doing—indicating nothing more than pure lust.
Katie was holding her own, her hands around his wrists and getting ready to snap up and do something that I suspected would probably break his nose. But she was also a lot smaller than he was, and at least 100 pounds lighter. She wasn’t going to have a chance to break his nose if he got her down.
Unfortunately for Joseph—and fortunately for Katie—I was more his size. And I didn’t have to worry about upsetting him and risking any future information he might give me. He wasn’t, after all, my target.
That was Arthur.
I grabbed Joseph from behind, yanked him back, and then shoved him right into the dance floor, people scattering out of his way and shouting when he went flying through their midst. I didn’t pause long enough to see where he ended up, though.
He wasn’t my primary concern.
Instead, I went right to Katie and helped her off the table he’d pushed her onto, my eyes roving over her body and trying to figure out whether she was actually hurt. I didn’t think so. She just looked...
“You look like you just transformed into a tomato!” I shouted.
Too upset about what had just happened to think of anything more sophisticated. Too drunk to have the vocabulary for it, anyhow. I could feel the alcohol burning its way through my system and throwing up a fuzzy veil between me and the rest of the world, and I knew I shouldn’t be making any decisions right now.
But I had also seen that guy going after Katie, and it turned out that my instinct to protect her was a whole lot stronger than my drunken self-discipline.
“And you look like you’re blowing our cover,” she hissed, getting right in my face. “I can take care of myself, Adam! What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” I hissed back, “that that guy had his hands all over you and was about to do heaven knows what to you on that table. What am I supposed to do? Stand there and watch him hurt you?”
She grabbed my head, turned it so she had my hear, and said, “You are supposed to remember that this is my job, and I’m a professional. You’re supposed to remember that I’m trying to solve a case. And you’re supposed to remember that we have a cover story that does not include you coming to my rescue at every fucking opportunity. Get out of the bar. I’m going to try to salvage the work I’ve been doing all night.”
She was gone before I could respond, and though I looked for her, I couldn’t see where she’d gone.
Then I remembered that she’d essentially just told me to get lost. And the still-sober corner of my brain, the one that still had at least some control of my mental facilities, realized that she was right.
The drunk part didn’t know about that but was definitely angry enough at what she’d just done to agree.
I turned and walked out of the bar, telling myself that if that was how she felt, then she could take care of herself for the rest of the night.
After all, she was a professional. What did I know about how she did business? At this point, I didn’t even know if I actually meant anything to her, or if I was just her boss.
