Located not far from the precinct and inherently inviting, Malone’s was thought of as more of a tavern than a bar. The difference boiled down to the crowd that tended to congregate within the family-owned establishment.
All manner of law enforcement agents—although the balance tended to lean toward officers and detectives—came to Malone’s seeking a little respite from the burden of keeping the city and its residents safe. The tavern was a place to go when someone needed to blow off a little steam, or seek the company of like-minded people, or just remain silent while listening to brethren in blue talk and attempt to make some sense of the madness around them.
In addition, at any given time of the day—but especially in the evening—a good dart game could always be found.
Kane had been to Malone’s a handful of times, but for the most part, if he sought relief, he did it in the confines of his own living quarters rather than in the middle of a crowd of people who shared his calling.
His idea of blowing off steam did not involve talking or competitive dart throwing.
The upshot of that was Kane had no overwhelming desire to go to Malone’s.
However, he was beginning to realize that if he didn’t make at least a minor show of going along with his new, hopefully soon-to-be-ex partner, he would get absolutely no peace until he finally did go along with her—at least for a small amount of time.
Which was why he wound up going to Malone’s with her at the end of his day.
The moment Kane walked through the front door, the heat generated by having so many bodies milling around in what was actually a relatively small space hit him with a jolt.
Malone’s appeared to be filled to maximum capacity—and it wasn’t even a Friday or Saturday night.
“Looks like there’re a lot of partners here,” he commented.
Kelly hadn’t thought the tavern was going to be this crowded, but she was quick to adjust. It was a trait she had acquired in her formative years. If nothing else, life with six siblings demanded constant adjustment and she had gotten good at that.
“Partners?” she questioned. That was rather an odd way to put it. At times Kane could be very difficult to follow. He probably did that on purpose, to keep her off balance.
Which meant that she had to rise to the challenge.
“People partnered with a Cavanaugh,” Kane elaborated for her benefit. “I figure that’ll drive anyone to drink every time.”
Ah, sarcasm. How could she have missed that, Kelly wondered. “Very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Kane told her. “Just factual.”
There wasn’t a hint of a smile evident on his face or in his voice. Still, she preferred to think that Kane was joking. That way she wouldn’t take offense at his words—the way she secretly suspected that he might want her to.
I’m not rising to the bait, Durant. Sorry.
“Well, then, I’d say you had a lot in common with these people,” she concluded cheerfully. “Why don’t you go and mingle a little? I’ll be here when you’re ready to go home.”
“I’m ready now,” Kane informed her flatly.
“You left off two very crucial steps before the final one,” Kelly pointed out. “You forgot all about the drinking and the mingling parts.”
“You might not have picked up on this,” Kane told her testily. “But while I do drink, what I don’t do is mingle.”
“Neither did the Unabomber,” she reminded him. “And we all know how that turned out. It’s a fact of life, Durant. People need people,” she insisted
That sounded suspiciously like a lyric to an old song his uncle’s lady friend used to sing. Kane was instantly on guard. “I swear, Cavanaugh, you break into song and I’ll strangle you right here, witnesses or no witnesses.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I forgot my sheet music,” she told him sweetly. She caught hold of Kane’s arm and began to pull him to the counter.
Caught off guard, Kane allowed himself to be pulled rather than to cause a scene. Since the place was this crowded, he had no doubt the Cavanaughs were well represented. He also had no doubt they’d be quick to defend one of their own and he had no desire to get into the middle of anything like that.
“What’s your pleasure?” Kelly asked him as she reached the bar and raised her hand to attract the exceedingly busy bartender’s attention.
“Home,” he answered.
Kelly decided to ignore her partner’s response.
The bartender had managed to cross over to her at that moment and she gave the retired officer the name of a beer she happened to know he carried on tap. “Two,” she told the man.
Kane looked at her in mild surprise. “I thought you said you weren’t drinking.”
“Just the one,” she told him. “It just doesn’t seem right, taking up space and not buying something from Devin.”
The name meant nothing to him. “Devin?”
She nodded, saying, “The man who just took our order. It’s his bar. Well, his family’s bar,” she amended. “They’re all former cops.”
He thought that was rather fitting under the circumstances. “The job’ll drive you to drink, all right,” Kane agreed. He looked pointedly at her as he said it.
Kelly returned his look and smiled at him. She was determined not to allow the man to get to her.
“You’ll get no argument from me,” she told Kane, her eyes on his.
Just then someone bumped into Kane, throwing him off balance. Before he could do anything to stop himself, Kane bumped up against his partner.
The tavern was unusually warm and the space exceedingly tight. Kelly had her back against the bar, so she had nowhere to move when Kane bumped up against her.
For a split second it felt as though their two halves had sealed and formed a whole. The kind that created electricity and caused lightning bolts to shoot into space.
The kind that made Kane acutely aware of the contours of his partner’s body, as well as of his own.
Slightly shaken, Kane blamed his reaction on his surroundings, on the stressful day he had just put in and just possibly on the fact he felt trapped in more ways than one. Those were all the components he felt justified in blaming for the very intense way his body had reacted to hers.
It wasn’t Cavanaugh he was reacting to, Kane silently and fiercely insisted. It was the circumstances, nothing more. In the absolute sense, she was an attractive woman.
And he wasn’t made out of wood.
Kane wound up polishing off the glass of beer she had ordered without even realizing that he had raised it to his lips.
Watching him, trying to distract herself from the very intense way her body had reacted to his, Kelly asked, “Another?”
Kane was on his guard immediately. “Another what?” he asked.
Kelly indicated the empty glass on the counter in front of him with her eyes. “Are you up for another glass of beer?”
“I haven’t even finished the one I have,” Kane protested.
“Yes, you have,” Kelly contradicted.
About to argue the point—what was her game, anyway?—Kane looked down at the counter and saw that his glass had been drained.
“Oh.”
It was official, he thought. The woman was making him so crazy, he was oblivious not just to his surroundings, but to everything he was doing, as well.
Pushing his glass closer to the bartender, he said, “Okay, why not? One more.” After that, he silently promised himself, he would go home—even if he had to take a cab.
The second the words were out of his mouth, Kelly raised her hand, waiting for the bartender to look her way again.
But when the man came over to where they were standing at the bar, it was Kane who put down a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
“Another round,” he told the man his partner had called Devin.
“None for me, Dev,” Kelly demurred, putting her hand over the mouth of her glass. “I’m driving.”
“Understood,” Devin told her, then he glanced at her partner.
But Kane was looking back at her. “One more won’t hurt,” he told her, adding, “Worse comes to worst, we share a cab.”
“Tempting,” Kelly allowed, even though, if she were being honest, it really wasn’t tempting to her in the slightest.
She drank beer to be social, not because she actually cared for its taste. When it came down to drinking because she liked the taste, she preferred the kind of drinks her brothers made fun of. The fruity tasting drinks that came with tiny umbrellas and a smattering of fruit floating on the surface.
“But I’ll have to pass,” she told her partner. “I don’t like leaving my car unattended in a parking lot overnight.”
After a moment, Kane nodded. “Yeah, I see your point.” Although crime was down considerably, it was far from wiped out. A car left unattended all night in a parking lot represented a great deal of temptation. “You’d think that the city’s finest could find a way to keep their own vehicles safe.”
His eyes were still holding hers.
Kelly was aware of what he was trying to do. Kane was trying to get her to back down—or maybe back off. She was not about to do either.
“I’m sure they’re working on it,” she said, standing her ground. “Get me a ginger ale, Dev,” she requested. “So I have something to hold in my hand.”
Ginger ale, she reasoned, was the same color as some of the beer that was flowing tonight. Given the dim lighting, she figured that would be a good substitute.
No doubt aware of what she was trying to do, Devin winked at her. “You got it, pretty lady.”
She grinned, then said good-naturedly, “You’re already getting a tip, Dev. Go chat up someone else.”
The bartender laughed. Dispensing the ginger ale into a mug, he placed it on the counter in front of her. “On the house,” he said, then turned toward Kane. “Be good to her,” Devin told him before he moved on to answer the call of another customer.
“What was that supposed to mean?” Kane asked her. Did the bartender think something was going on between him and Cavanaugh? Where the hell had he gotten that impression?
“Maybe Devin’s telling you not to strangle me,” she quipped just before taking a long sip from the mug the bartender had served to her.
“He didn’t seem that intuitive,” Kane responded. “Unless, of course, he’s spent time with you.”
Kelly looked at him over the rim of her ginger ale. “You are a regular laugh riot,” she told Kane. “If you ever decide to leave the force, you might consider a job as a stand-up comedian.”
“I don’t like crowds,” he reminded her.
“Don’t worry,” she told him cheerfully. “There won’t be any when you perform.”
He was about to retort, then decided to dial back his response. Instead, he inclined his head and said, “Touché.”
The next moment, a tall, dark-haired man with a genial smile made his way over to them and began to talk as if he had been standing at the bar with them from the beginning.
“This your new partner?” Brennan Cavanaugh asked his younger sister.
If she was surprised to see him, Kelly gave no indication. She nodded in response to his question. “Durant, this is one of my brothers, Brennan,” she said, introducing her partner to her brother, and then reversing the order. “Brennan, Kane Durant.”
Before Kane could say a word in response, Cavanaugh’s brother had taken hold of his hand and was pumping it heartily.
The moment the wide smile appeared, Kane saw the family resemblance.
“My sister driving you to drink already?” Brennan asked with a laugh.
“After the day we just put in, I thought he deserved to spend a little quality time at Malone’s,” Kelly informed her brother. “I’m only here because I’m his designated driver.”
There. That should take care of any speculation on Brennan’s part that this might be some sort of a date or something.
Her brothers were always trying to pair her off with someone, especially since Valri, their baby sister, was now officially engaged and off the market.
She wondered if they were doing the same thing to Moira, her other sister.
Brennan turned and eyed Kane in astonishment. “And you agreed to this arrangement? Having her drive you home?”
“She more or less agreed for me,” Kane replied. The only say he’d had in the matter had been uttering the word “Yes.”
“No” had not been an acceptable word to use at the time and clearly wouldn’t have computed even if he had said it. “Why?” Kane asked.
Brennan answered his question indirectly by turning to Kelly and asking her a question. “Has he seen you drive?”
“Not exactly,” she hedged. Only one block separated Malone’s from the police precinct. Brennan laughed as he clapped his hand on her new partner’s back, finally getting back to the man’s question.
“I’d say you were in for a treat, Durant, but I’d be lying. If you have a rosary, I’d suggest clutching it. It might afford you some measure of comfort.” Before turning to leave, he had one final suggestion. “Also, closing your eyes would probably help.”
“Brennan,” Kelly began, a warning note in her voice.
Obviously wanting to distract his sister from reading him the riot act, Brennan looked down at his watch. “It’s getting late. Gotta run. I promised someone dinner,” he told Kelly with a wink. Turning toward his sister’s partner, he told Kane, “Nice meeting you. Hope this isn’t the last time.”
With that, Brennan headed toward the front door and quickly disappeared into the crowd.
“He didn’t mean that,” Kelly was quick to tell her partner.
He wasn’t all that sure he knew what she was referring to. “What, that it was nice meeting me?” Kane asked.
“No, that he hoped this wasn’t the last time he’d see you. And for the record,” she added, “I don’t drive nearly as badly as Brennan was trying to imply. He never got over being my big brother, which made him utterly overprotective.”
But Kane wasn’t about to be distracted from the topic he had honed in on. “Just how badly do you drive?”
“I don’t.” Realizing that he might misunderstand what she was telling him, Kelly tried to clarify her statement. “What I mean is that I don’t drive badly.” Then, for the sake of honesty, she felt obligated to admit, “But I do drive a little fast at times.”
Kane nodded. He had nothing against that. A little speed was a good thing.
* * *
“A little fast?” Kane questioned approximately forty-five minutes and three more beers later. They had finally left the tavern and Kelly was taking him home.
She had just narrowly squeaked through two yellow lights that both had been in the process of turning red. In addition, she had taken a right turn a tad too quickly, all but completing the hairpin turn on the passenger side’s two wheels.
Kane had been entertaining a slight buzz as they’d walked out of Malone’s. That buzz was now completely gone, evaporated in the heat of what he felt was very justifiable fear.
“If you ask me,” he said to her, his hands braced against the dashboard, his body rigid to keep from falling to the side. “Your brother didn’t begin to scratch the surface with his warning. You drive like a crazy woman,” he told her.
“That’s just the beer you’re feeling,” Kelly told him.
“No, that’s just reality I’m feeling,” Kane contradicted. “Pull over,” he instructed, intending to take the wheel. “Thanks to your driving, I am fully sober now and more than able to drive myself the rest of the way home.”
She spared him a quick look, then focused back on the road ahead. If she recalled correctly, there was a tricky maneuver just up ahead.
“Too bad,” she told him. “This is my car, so I get to drive. Just take a deep breath and you’ll be home in no time.”
Her words gave him no comfort. “Home as in my apartment, or as in the afterlife that priests and ministers all talk about and on occasion refer to as ‘home’?”
Kelly laughed as she shook her head. “As in your apartment,” she answered, refusing to be baited. “Did my brother really manage to get to you?” she asked, surprised. Kane didn’t seem like the type to be spooked easily.
“No, but your driving is,” he told her.
Again he braced his hands against the dashboard in an effort to try to steady himself as she took another corner quickly.
“For your information,” she informed him. “I haven’t had an accident yet.”
That was one statistic he intended to follow up on. “I guess that’s enough to get me to start believing in miracles,” he replied.
“And here’s another one,” she concluded with a grand gesture of her hand as she indicated the area outside his side of the vehicle. “You’re home.”
Surprised, Kane looked out the windshield. She was right.