Everyone else had.
“I’m okay.” But she continued to tremble, so he tightened his hold, kissed her hair, and allowed others to handle everything.
On his left side, Marci leaned into him, too. Like her sister, she was still pretty shook up, so Lucius hugged her.
Hero sat before them, keeping them all three in his sights while paramedics worked over Michael, and officers helped themselves to coffee.
Lucius’s team members kept looking at him—and grinning. But hell, with two gorgeous twins plastered to him, he could have been in a porn video. What red-blooded male wouldn’t stare?
He kissed Bethany again, making sure everyone knew she was more than a mere conquest. Then, to seal the deal, he asked, “Will you marry me?”
Her head shot off his shoulder and she stared at him. “What?”
“I love you. I want to marry you.”
His men hooted and raised their coffee cups in a salute.
Marci chuckled and finally freed herself from his hold. “This is wonderful.” Then, to her wide-eyed sister, “Just say yes, Bethany.”
Bethany looked ready to hyperventilate, but she nodded. “I do love you.”
“I know. I love you, too. And unless I stake a claim right now, one of my guys is going to start getting ideas and I’ll have to set him straight and there’ll be more damage to my apartment.”
One man laughed. Two snorted in challenge. Another said, “I just got the blood off your door. You make another mess and you can damn well clean it yourself.”
Marci glanced at the other men, all of whom watched her from across the room. She chuckled. “They’re a cute bunch. All single?”
“Yeah.” And then, loud enough for them to hear, Lucius said, “Of course they’re single. What woman in her right mind would have them?”
There was more good-natured ribbing back and forth as the men touted their dubious qualities and flexed some outrageous muscle until finally, almost an hour later, everyone left the apartment and Lucius was alone with Bethany, Marci, and his dog.
Holding Bethany close, Lucius said, “I’d suggest we go out to dinner to celebrate, but I don’t want to leave Hero alone.”
Marci hugged the dog and sighed. “You are the most perfect man, Sergeant Lucius Ryder. I’m so glad you love my sister.”
“I’m so glad she loves me back.”
Bethany grinned. “You know, sis, if you’d give a guy a chance, we could both settle into marital bliss together.”
“A double wedding would be nice,” Lucius added.
Marci shook her head and backed up three steps. “No way. I’m happy single. Besides, what guy would want to hook up with a fruitcake like me?”
Both Bethany and Lucius quickly objected to that description.
“I appreciate the support, guys, I really do. But let’s face it—I’m an oddity.”
Lucius thought about it, then winked. “Well, like I said about the guys on my team, no woman in her right mind would want any of them. But a woman with an exceptional mind like yours…”
Marci balked. “Oh no, you don’t. You will not play matchmaker, Lucius.” She backed up until she reached the door. “I mean it. Now I’m sure you two have things to talk about, so I’ll leave you to it.”
The second she left, Bethany turned her face up to Lucius. “She’s not happy, no matter what she says.”
“Don’t worry about it, hon. Given the way my guys were eyeing her, I won’t have to play matchmaker. I’m betting they’ll be calling on her tonight at the latest.”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely. SWAT guys are astute. We know a good thing when we see it.” He pulled her onto his lap, then stood with her held in his arms.
“Where are we going?”
On his way out of the room, he said, “To see if I can find another favorite part for you.” He kissed her, a tickling kiss because he smiled. “I’m thinking there might be dozens you aren’t even aware of yet.”
Giving in to her own grin, Bethany said, “You know, you could be right.”
Hero sighed, turned a circle, and plopped down to sleep, secure that he now had a very happy home.
IT’SABOUTTIME
Erin McCarthy
One
It was a good thing Trish never intended to get married, because from what she could tell of the male population as a whole, they were mostly idiots and not worth the reception expense.
She’d been stood up again.
How hard could it have been for Brad to call her midday when he had known she was at work and leave a wimpy cancellation on her home voice mail?
A lot less difficult than sitting by himself in a restaurant for an hour waiting for a date who never came, which was what she had just done.
Sighing, she pushed the door open and stepped into Ryan’s Pub, wondering what it was about her that made men smile and promise things they never intended to deliver. While she had no desire to wade into matrimony despite her friends’ recent success with it, she would still enjoy a little companionship. Someone to take to the Christmas party at work, a dinner partner, a man to fulfill her very real and getting slightly urgent sexual needs.
“Hey, Trish. What’s up?” Joe called from the bar as he deftly shook a martini shaker.
Wiping the seat with her hand first, Trish dropped down onto a stool in front of Joe. She slid her outrageously uncomfortable shoes forward on her feet, until they were dangling, held on only by the grip of her toes. “The usual. I got stood up by my date.”
Joe looked properly outraged on her behalf, jaw dropping and shaker hitting the counter with all the force of his meaty arms. “No way! Well, the jackass obviously doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
“Is there something wrong with me? Do I have a sign on my behind that says ‘Lie To Me’?” she asked in exasperation.
Trish pushed the ashtray in front of her to the side and marveled at how morose she was being. This kind of thing didn’t usually bother her. Life went on, with or without men, and thankfully, she’d never actually been emotionally hurt before, just annoyed. But lately she was getting lonely, and while good for many things, a computer couldn’t carry a conversation or sexually satisfy her. Okay, if you wanted to get technical, it probably could do both in a roundabout sort of way, but it just wasn’t the same. She wanted to hear someone breathing next to her when she had a conversation, and she didn’t think that was too much to ask, damn it.
“You just intimidate men, that’s all.” Joe turned to deliver the drinks to customers, leaving Trish to ponder that. Intimidation was all about power, something she appreciated.
Intimidation was good in the courtroom, but not the bedroom. She’d never thought her sex life—if she could remember that far back—was lacking in anything. But put in those terms, she wondered if she had ever really had a relationship with a man where they weren’t both scrambling for control.
It was not an uplifting thought for a lonely Friday night in September when her good friend Kindra was three weeks away from her wedding to Mack, and Ashley was flashing a mammoth engagement ring from Lucas. Even Violet, who shied away from men, had managed to snag a pro baseball player, and Trish figured it wouldn’t be too long before they went down the aisle. Dylan was already chomping at the bit to marry Violet since she was having his baby.
On nights like tonight, when Trish was alone and her friends were all cuddled up with their men, she couldn’t help but feel a little tinge of something.
God, she was actually jealous. How small.
Joe bustled back and offered her a glass of wine but she shook her head. “Just a water, please.” She didn’t want an innocent glass of wine. Nor was she certain she could stop at one or two drinks of the hard stuff, not when her defenses were feeling as weak as they were tonight. And getting drunk alone was the adult equivalent of being the last kid picked for the dodgeball team in grade school. Sad. Better to stick to water.
“Shake it off, babe—you know
you’re hot stuff.”
The drinks were so-so at Ryan’s Pub, but it was nice to see a familiar face, nice to hear Joe’s staunch support. Trish had been wandering into this pub off and on for five years, and hung out with her girlfriends there twice a month after their bowling night. “You know what, Joe? I don’t feel like shaking it off. I want to feel sorry for myself tonight.”
Maybe she wasn’t justified. After all, she had a budding career as county prosecutor of domestic violence, a great apartment, and good hair. But men didn’t seem to appreciate any of those things. She didn’t think she was asking too much. It wasn’t like she expected comfortable pantyhose to be invented. She just wanted a nice guy, loyal, honest, friendly.
She supposed she could get a dog.
But Kindra and Mack’s yappy poodle annoyed the hell out of her. A lizard was more her style.
“If you’re going to feel sorry for yourself, slide on down the bar and join my buddy Caleb there. He’s having a hell of a pity party tonight.”
Without much interest, she glanced over. A guy was propping his head up with a massive, muscular arm, and trying to sip his beer without lifting his head. Moisture from the bottle dribbled onto the bar and his arm, and he made a halfhearted swipe at it. A quick count showed six empty bottles in front of him.
Now there was a winner. Hold her back.
“Do you know him?” she asked Joe, hoping she didn’t look that pathetic. This guy looked like he’d set down some serious roots in Loserville.
“Yeah, I’ve known him for more than fifteen years. We played ball in high school together and he’s a good friend.” Joe leaned on the counter, moving closer to her, and kept his voice low. “He never drinks.”
The six bottles hadn’t emptied themselves. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m serious. But tomorrow his ex-wife is getting married. He’s celebrating by getting shit-faced.”
Trish forgot to clench her toes, and her shoe fell to the floor. “That does not look like a man who is celebrating.”
Joe stood back up. “I know. Looks to me like he’s feeling sorry for himself. But that’s what he said—that he’s celebrating.”
This was not a man who was about a blow a party horn and throw some ticker tape. If he called this celebrating she’d hate to see sulking. “Did you know his wife? Was she a bitch or something?”
Trish would lay down five bucks she was. The ex was probably a busty blonde who had henpecked her mild-mannered husband while weeding the flower bed in her bikini. And clearly this guy was still passionately in love with her, devastated by the divorce. Sitting in a bar plotting the new fiancé’s murder. Or worse, planning to dash into the wedding ceremony in one of those cringe-inspiring moments and yell,Bambi, no one loves you like I do! Don’t marry him!
It was definitely a court case waiting to happen. Public intoxication, disturbing the peace, stalking, assault and battery—one of those was probably in his future. Trish’s whole career revolved around that kind of idiotic behavior.
Joe paused and scratched his light brown goatee. “No, she wasn’t a bitch at all. She was one of those people who’s always smiling, always something nice to say, always dressed like she was on her way to church.”
Well, that didn’t fit Trish’s image of his wife at all. No wonder he’d gotten divorced—he’d been married to the wrong woman.
“He said he has a plan,” Joe said.
Here it was. Poisoning the fiancé, slashing the tires on the limo, kidnapping the bride. Trish leaned closer to Joe. “What is it?” If he was planning something illegal, it was her duty to warn him of the ramifications.
“He said he’s not leaving until he finds a woman to sleep with. Tonight.”
What? Well, that wasn’t worth the buildup. She’d at least been hoping for a midnight serenade of the ex or something. But it was not news for a man to bury his problems between a woman’s thighs. This guy had probably slept with a dozen women in the past two years in his quest to forget or get over his wife. The world revolved around sex, not love, as she had seen over and over again as a prosecutor.
“That just sounds like another Friday night man on the make to me.”
“Except he hasn’t been with a woman since he left his wife.”
Trish didn’t know which was more curious—that an able-bodied man in his twenties had willingly gone two years without sex, or that he had shared that fact with Joe.
“How do you know?”
“By beer number five, he was starting to get loose-lipped.” Joe shuddered. “Look, it was a really embarrassing conversation for me. I think I’m permanently scarred.”
Trish bent over to retrieve her shoe and tried really hard not to brush her hair against the sticky black lip of the bar counter. “Then why the hell are you telling me? I don’t want to know about his sex life any more than you do.” In fact, less. The only person’s sex life she cared about was her own, and how she could actually get one.
“So maybe if you go down there and talk to him, you’ll distract him and he’ll forget about it. He’s not in any shape to be picking up a woman. He’ll probably wind up married to a stripper by the morning if he doesn’t chill out on the beer.”
Why was it her job to save him? He was a big boy. Really big boy. He could take care of himself. Trish sipped her water, thinking. She blew her hair out of her eyes. She studied the guy, his arms as wide as porch pillars. He looked like he could pick up a building, all muscular and brawny.
She wanted to be alone in her sulk.
He looked over then. Sexy, deep-green eyes stared at her blankly, glazed with alcohol. Damn, he was cute.
She groaned, knowing she was going to regret this. “Dammit. Fine, I’ll talk to him.”
“You’re such a good person, Trish.” Joe clapped her on the shoulder, almost knocking her off her stool.
It wasn’t a compliment people usually paid her. She was reliable, efficient, and ruthless with criminals in her job, but no one had ever attributed inherent goodness to her before. She wasn’t even sure that’s why she acted now. But there was just something about a guy with six bottles of beer and a broken heart that had her standing up.
“Drinks are on me, Trish.”
“Then get me two bottled waters.”
Under the pretense of grabbing a book of matches, Trish sat in the chair next to Caleb. “What are you watching?” she asked, looking up at the TV. Baseball, of course. It was September.
He didn’t look at her. “The game.”
“Who’s winning?” She squinted through the dim light at the TV, seeing little men standing idly around a baseball diamond. In baseball, it always looked to her like the players were waiting for something good to happen, and that given the choice, they’d rather be eating barbeque.
There was silence. Trish discreetly shifted her bra strap under her black clingy dress and marveled at how huge this guy next to her was. Joe was big in a fleshy sort of way. But this guy was massive, his T-shirt straining against rippling muscle—and he towered over her, even sitting down. It was fascinating for a woman who spent all her time with professional men, who tended to be a little pale and thin, though with impeccable suits. She’d never dated a man who could snap her in half with his bare hands. Maybe that had been a mistake.
His rudeness didn’t bother her. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. He seemed to be floating in an alcohol haze, and when Joe put the waters in front of her, she gestured for him to clear away the empty beer bottles.
“Get me another one, Joe.” The giant tilted the bottle in his hand and drained it.
Joe nodded. “Sure, Caleb.”
Trish glared at Joe. Hadn’t he been the one to say this guy needed to go easy on the beer? Watching Caleb, she had to agree, and apparently it was up to her to be his salvation, savior, Saint Trish. That was her. Sure thing. Not.
But she did feel significantly less sorry for herself than she had when she’d walked in the door, and she owed it to Joe’s friend
to save him from himself. Especially if he had truly loved his wife, the prospect of which she found strangely compelling. For some weird reason, she wanted to believe a man could love a woman enough to be upset when she got remarried, and Trish didn’t want this guy to cheapen that by having a one-night stand, his judgment impaired by alcohol.
Nor did she want to see his name come across her desk as the defendant in a crime of passion. Those were always such a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Leaning over the counter, she grabbed the beer out of Joe’s hand when he returned with it. Using her best courtroom voice, she pushed it out of Caleb’s reach. “Take this back and don’t bring any more. I’ve cut him off.”
Caleb Vancouver had a good little beer buzz going, but he wasn’t drunk yet. Not the way he wanted to be, at any rate. Snapped out of his stupor by a stubborn woman’s voice, he glanced over at her.
“What?” he said, taking her in with one swift glance.
Woman wearing a scowl, looking at him like he was a pathetic lush, that’s what he saw. Caleb wondered if she was right. He was feeling pretty damn pathetic.
She was very attractive. But definitely not his type. Not what he was looking for. He had come to the bar to find a woman, true, but the smiling, laughing, big-hair kind who thought nothing of going home with a guy she’d just met, and didn’t expect or want a phone call after the fact.
So far he hadn’t seen any likely candidates, which was starting to piss him off. A guy goes two whole friggin’ years without sex and then he can’t even find one chick to sleep with? It didn’t seem right. Not that he was looking all that hard, if he were totally honest. Somehow his plan to celebrate April’s wedding with a drunken night of sexual revelry had disintegrated into him sucking down beers by himself in a sulk.
And he suspected, despite the physical urges and the emotional need to stick another woman in his bed, if only for one night, that he wouldn’t actually go through with picking anyone up. Hell, he’d been there for three hours already and hadn’t spoken to anyone besides Joe.
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