Some Like It Hot

by Susan Andersen

  He’d given the clerk a warning just last week after pulling him over for doing fifty on Orilla Road. Anyone who’d lived here longer than a month knew it was posted at thirty-five—and Conner was a Razor Bay native. Still, the kid hadn’t begged special consideration. He had, in fact, given Max zero attitude—handing over his license with a respectful maturity Max saw in damn few adults in the same situation. Fifteen over the limit generally guaranteed the offender a ticket, but Max had cut the young man some slack.

  It was just too rare that he didn’t have to listen to a load of bullshit at traffic stops.

  Austin muscled his way past the postmistress in line behind Max. “Sorry, Ms. Verkins,” he said. “I’m not trying to cut—I just wanna say hi to my uncle.”

  Conner repaid Max now by quietly sliding the condoms into a paper bag before counting out his change. Max gave him an appreciative nod before turning to his nephew. “Hey, buddy. What are you guys up to?” He steered the boy out of the line.

  “I’m spending the night at Nolan’s, and Dad brought me here to get some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to take. They don’t carry ’em at the General Store.”

  Max shook his head. “That’s criminal.”

  “Tell me about it. You oughtta go arrest ’em.”

  “Max isn’t wearing his Deputy Dawg suit,” Jake said, “so that probably won’t happen tonight. And it’s Friday, bud—everyone and their brother’s getting their weekend supplies. You better make sure they haven’t sold out of the Flamin’ Hots here.”

  “Better not have!” Austin hustled toward the chip aisle.

  Jake turned to Max. “Got yourself a cool hat—” he gave Max’s Brixton classic fedora a nod of approval “—and a big box of Trojan Supras. Hot date?”

  “Jesus, you must have eyes like a raptor. How the hell could you tell what brand I bought from the door?”

  “Recognize the box.” Jake grinned at him. “Who you going out with?”

  “No one, yet. But I’m heading over to The Voodoo Lounge, hoping to change my luck.” A quick visual of Harper slammed through him, but he firmly shut it down before it could etch itself into his brain like acid. One fun day out on the water with her hardly stepped him up into her league.

  Jake looked at him in surprise. “You like to dance?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “I like slow dancing. I’m not too crazy about the fast shit, though.”

  “Yeah.” Max nodded. “It’s guys like you who leave the field wide open for me. Ladies just love them a man who likes to dance.” He gave his brother a cocky smile. “Not that you’d be any competition even if you could dance.”

  “Hey, I can dance!” His response sounded like the knee-jerk defensiveness of their enemy days. But then Jake shot Max a crooked smile. “Okay, not well, but I can dance.”

  “Dad!” Austin ran up, a bag of his favored chips in his hand and a look on his face as if the world were ending. “I told Nolan I’d bring my new video game and I forgot it at home!”

  “Not a problem,” Jake said easily. “It’s not like we have to go miles out of our way to swing by the house.” Reaching out, he hooked his elbow around his son’s neck, hauled him in and gave him a noogy. “Let’s get in line and pay for your grub.”

  Max suffered a fierce stab of wanting what Jake had with his son. He cleared the lump of envy from his throat. “I’ll see you two later,” he said. “Have fun at Nolan’s, kid.”

  Austin grinned. “I’m gonna.”

  “You have a good time, yourself,” Jake said. He tipped his chin at the bag in Max’s hand. “Happy hunting.”

  The teen looked Max over. “You’re going hunting? In your good clothes?” He shook his head. “Man. If it was me doing that, Jenny’d have something to say about it.”

  Max laughed. “Your dad was being funny. I’m going to a club in Silverdale to dance.”

  “And no one’s making ya?”

  “Nope. I like to dance.”

  “Huh. I thought guys only pretended they did.” He hitched a narrow shoulder. “But happy hunting.”

  Max felt his mouth tug up in an off-kilter smile. “Thanks, kid. And a little tip? Girls love guys who like to dance.”

  With a wave as Jake and Austin crossed to the now-nearly-free-of-customers counter to pay for Austin’s snack, he headed out to his SUV. Twenty minutes later he was pulling into The Voodoo Lounge parking lot.

  Pushing through the big teak door, he felt his energy jack up as he was hit by the wall of voices talking and laughing over and under the blast of DJ music. The throng on the crowded dance floor moved almost as one in time to a Rihanna song, but he ignored them to check out the tables he wound between on his way to the bar in the back, homing in on the ones that were filled with women he hoped were looking for a good time.

  He grinned inside. Because, helpful guy that he was, he was willing to help them with that. He lived to serve, after all.

  Once he’d made his way through the three-deep crowd at the bar, he ordered a beer on tap, then found a space away from the bartender where the ranks thinned enough for him to lean back against the black ironwood bar as he sipped his brew and broadened his search beyond the tables he’d passed.

  He loved this place. The DJ was good, the beer was decent and the women invariably outnumbered the men two to one. He had his eye on a tall brunette when a petite blonde stopped in front of him.

  “Hey, there!” She raised her voice to be heard, and still he had to bend down to catch everything. “Want to dance?”

  “Sure.” He looked at the beer in his hand.

  “You can leave that at my table, if you want.”

  He nodded his agreement and followed her to a table nearer the dance floor. She turned to him.

  “These are my friends,” she yelled without introducing anyone. “Your beer’s safe with them.”

  He set it on the table, then followed the swing of his new partner’s hips, which moved to the beat a little more emphatically with every step that brought them closer to the dance floor.

  Reaching it, they carved out a couple square feet for themselves and began to dance. She was good, which he appreciated, and he was just truly getting into it when the song came to an end.

  The blonde laughed and stepped aside to let by some of the dancers deserting the floor. More continued to mill around, waiting for the next song to begin, and she leaned into him. “Bad timing. I’m Kim, by the way.”

  “Max.”

  “Nice to meet you, Max. Care to try another dance?”

  “Sure. You’re good, you know.”

  Her face lit up. “Why, thank you! So are you.”

  The next forty-five minutes flew by. He danced with Kim and talked with her and her friends when they weren’t dancing. She was pretty, she had a good job as the office manager of a multi-physician clinic, she was nice—and she’d made it clear she was into him. Pretty much perfect, in other words.

  So he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t more interested in her than he was.

  Maybe it was because she was petite. He generally went for taller girls, having discovered the hard way that he’d end the night with a backache from having to perpetually hunch. Or maybe it was—

  “There you are, Max!”

  He knew that voice, and he whipped his head around to search the area where it had come from. He watched incredulously as Jenny made her way toward him through the crowded, insufficiently spaced tables. Looking beyond her, he saw not only Jake, but Tasha and Harper as well, following in her wake.

  What the hell? He rose to his feet, aware of all of them, but his gaze locked on Harper. Her lips were creamy red, she’d done something to her eyes that made them all smoky, and she was shrink-wrapped from collarbone to midthigh in a flaming-red dress.

  All the women were dressed in hot clubwear, he noticed when he dragged his gaze away, and Jenny strode right up to him on what looked like five-inch heels and gave him one of her ubiquitous hugs. When she cut him loose and twisted to s
ee if her friends were coming, he turned to his half brother. “What the fuck, man?” he demanded beneath the new song starting up.

  “I’m sorry, bro. This wasn’t my idea, I swear.” Jake took a step closer to Max but away from his fiancée. “Austin spilled the beans when we stopped at the house to pick up his video game. And before I could pull Jenny aside to tell her you were on the hunt for more than an opportunity to boogie, she’d decided she just had to go dancing, too, and was on the horn to Tash and Harper.”

  Jenny muscled Jake aside to grin up at Max. “You have to dance with me!” she yelled over the music. “Austin tells me you actually like dancing. In my experience, a guy who doesn’t merely tolerate it is a rare, rare animal. It’s not every day a girl gets a shot at one.”

  “Uh...” He looked helplessly between her and Kim, and Jenny followed his gaze.

  “Hi!” She leaned around him to offer Kim her hand. “I’m Jenny, Max’s brother’s fiancée. You don’t mind if I borrow him for a dance, do you?”

  “I...guess not.” But she didn’t look thrilled about it.

  Jenny either didn’t see it or didn’t care. “Great!” She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged. With a helpless shrug at Kim, he followed in her wake. Speaking of little women, Jenny almost made Kim look statuesque.

  But as first his brother, then he had learned, she had a will that was gigantic.

  He was feeling ambushed and a little pissed off, but he let the negative feelings go as soon as they hit the dance floor. He really didn’t get why more guys didn’t like to dance. It just felt so good to move to the music, and women really did dig the hell out of it. Shooting Jenny a grin, he yanked her into him and executed a dirty dancing move.

  Oh. My. God, she mouthed, sliding free one of the hands she’d grasped his shoulders with when he’d dipped her back over his arm. She used it to pat a rapid heartbeat against the satin covering her left breast.

  Then she performed a grinding sort of dirty dance move of her own.

  He laughed and threw himself into the remainder of the dance.

  “Omigawd, Omigawd,” she said, bouncing on her tall heels when the song ended. “You. Are. So. Good! How could I have not known that?” She shot him a rueful smile. “I don’t suppose you’d give me one more before we head back? Seeing as how this wasn’t a whole song and all?”

  “Uh, you sort of dragged me away from a decent prospect of getting lucky tonight.”

  She reached up and patted his cheek. “Ah, Max. You consistently underrate yourself, you know that? You’re gainfully employed, you’re good-looking, you’re built—and you dance. Don’t you know you could pretty much snap your fingers at any woman here and get her to go home with you?”

  Heat crawled up his face. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you really could.” Standing on her tiptoes, she gave him another hug. “But I’ll let you get back to your decent prospect. I expect one more dance tonight, though. And you definitely have to share the thrill and dance at least once with Tash and Harper.”

  He grunted noncommittally and escorted her to Jake, who was still standing by Kim’s table.

  “Harper staked us out a place over there,” he said, indicating a spot five tables away.

  “Neat trick,” Max said. “How’d she manage that after ten on a Friday night?”

  “Apparently she heard some women in the ladies’ talking about taking off to go hit the One Ten in Poulsbo.” He grinned. “She accompanied them back to their table so she’d get first claim on it.”

  “Enterprising,” Max said drily.

  “Really enterprising,” Jenny agreed. “I swear, that girl can do any damn thing she puts her mind to.”

  Didn’t he know it. He’d been watching her for a week since they’d taken the Cedar Village boys out tubing.

  She’d been great with the boys that day—and had shown up at Cedar Village three times since then, somehow volunteering at the same time he was. Not that he thought for a minute she had arranged it that way. For this week, at least, their down times had simply meshed. Bottom line was: he’d been there and she had been there.

  Not watching her hadn’t been an option.

  He rolled his shoulders impatiently. So he was attracted to her—big deal. It wasn’t exactly breaking news, and he was a big boy. He knew how to compartmentalize unwanted feelings, knew how to shove them down and forget them while he took care of the stuff in real need of his attention.

  Besides, his attraction to her aside, she was damn good with the kids, beautifully low-key and easy with them. It was a gift not everyone possessed. No matter how much an adult might like children—or thought they should anyhow—not all of them were comfortable with the species. That was especially true when you threw teenage boys who’d clearly had their share of trouble into the mix.

  “Max?”

  Something touched his arm, and he looked down to see Kim’s hand on his forearm. Dragging his attention back to the here and now, he smiled down at her. “Hey there. I’m sorry for the interruption. My brother’s fiancée is a force of nature. You want to dance?”

  She gave him a delighted “yes,” and he steered her toward the floor with a light hand on the small of her back. But his glance went over her head to the table where Harper sat laughing with Jake, Jenny and Tasha. As he watched, a man bent over her and said something. Smiling up at him, she rose to her feet and strolled ahead of him to the dance floor.

  Where she stopped not three feet away from Max.

  Ignoring an inexplicable prickle of irritation, he angled his body away from the new pair. Yet when the music segued from fast to slow a few minutes later, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from glancing over as Harper’s partner pulled her into his arms.

  A low growl sounded in Max’s chest.

  “What?” Kim tipped her head back to look up at him.

  Realizing he’d forgotten about her for a moment, he blinked down into her eyes. “Huh?”

  “Did you say something?”

  “No. It was nothing.” Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around her and started to move. “Nothing at all,” he repeated grimly.

  The moment she tucked her head against his chest, however, his gaze went back to Harper.

  Which was how he saw the guy’s hands slide down over the curve of her short, snug red dress to grasp that beautiful round ass. Being taller than most people had its advantages.

  Having a bird’s eye view of that, however, was not one of them, and he stiffened.

  Then he relaxed and nodded approval when Harper promptly reached behind her, wrapped her fingers around the guy’s wrists and moved his damn hands to the more appropriate area of her hips.

  Not one minute later they crept back.

  Max stopped dead. Yet even as he did so, Harper froze, as well. Her immobility didn’t last, however. The hands she’d rested on the guy’s shoulders slid to his chest, and she gave an emphatic shove, taking a large step back as he stumbled in reverse. She whirled and stalked away.

  His lips curving up, Max picked up the rhythm again. He must have thought he’d been standing there longer than was actually the case, for Kim was just now lifting her head to see what the problem was. His renewed movement had her resting her cheek back against his chest almost in the same motion that she’d used to raise it.

  His brows drew together when Harper didn’t go back to the table but instead picked her way through the close-packed tables to let herself out through the big teak door. Then he gave a mental shrug, because what did he know about how she felt? It wasn’t as if anyone had ever pawed him the way she’d just been; maybe she needed a minute to gather her composure before she rejoined her group.

  None of whom were at the table, he saw when he glanced that way. He looked around the dance floor and spotted Jake and Jenny swaying in place and, after a second, Tasha dancing with a guy who made Max look like a shrimp. He glanced back at the door.

  Just in time to see Mr. Handsie passing throug
h it.

  “Sonofabitch!” He stepped back, catching Kim by the shoulders when she staggered and blinked up at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Something’s come up—I’ve gotta go.”

  “What? Now?”

  Not waiting to reply, he turned on his heel and strode for the door. He caught it before it could close behind a noisy group of twentysomethings who had just entered the Voodoo. As the thick teak door closed behind him, his ears rang in the sudden quiet.

  The silence wasn’t complete, however. Tuning in midconversation, he heard an angry male voice snarl from not too far away, “Can’t just shove me and walk away!” Max turned to follow the sound.

  “Be careful who you call a bitch,” he heard Harper reply with her cool, near-British diction. “And I certainly can walk away when you put your hands all over my butt and refuse to get a clue when I remove them.”

  “If you didn’t want hands on your ass, you wouldn’t wear that tight skirt to bring it to everyone’s attention!”

  “Tell me you did not just say that. ‘It wasn’t my fault, judge,’” she said in a surprisingly good imitation of his voice. “‘Sure, she removed my hands from her butt in no uncertain terms. But you could tell by the way she dressed that she wanted it.’” Her voice went back to normal. “The classic rapist’s defense.”

  “What?” The guy sounded genuinely shocked. “I’m not a rapist!”

  Max finally located them in the shadows cast by the corner of the building, and he lengthened his stride. “Everything okay here?” he asked in his sternest cop voice as he walked up.

  The man’s head snapped around. “Yeah. Jesus. Who the hell are you?”

  “Everything is fine, Deputy Bradshaw,” Harper said calmly. “My friend here was just leaving.”

  “Yeah. Right. Deputy,” the idiot scoffed, giving Max’s club clothes a skeptical once-over. “You don’t look like a deputy to me.”

  Max pulled his shield out of his back pocket, flipped open the leather holder he kept it in when it wasn’t on his uniform and held it up. “The lady said you were just leaving. Hit the road.”

  “Fine, I’m going.” He turned to Harper. “But I’m no rapist.”