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  She had to get a grip, Scottie chided herself. Going off the deep end wasn’t going to do Ethan any good and it could terminate her career, commendations or no commendations.

  “I did, but I couldn’t get your attention. And I couldn’t very well call or text you, either,” he added with a grin. He handed over the phone to Scottie. “These days, people have their entire lives on their phone and I figured you might want yours back.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured. Taking the cell, she tucked it into her messenger bag. “I owe you one,” she tacked on ruefully.

  Bryce shrugged. “Have that drink with me at Malone’s and we’ll call it even.”

  Malone’s again. She was tempted to ask this bright and upstanding representative of the Cavanaughs why it was so important to him that they have a drink together, but since he had obviously gone out of his way to get her phone to her, instead of questioning him about what was undoubtedly looked upon as a tradition by Cavanaugh and his crew, she decided to just go along with things.

  “Okay,” she finally replied. “If that’s what it takes, I’ll have that beer with you.”

  Her wording caught his attention. “So then we’ll be even, is that what you mean?”

  “I don’t see it that way,” she admitted, “but since you went out of your way like this to reunite me with my phone and, for some reason I don’t understand, having a drink after work means something to you, and since I am in your debt, the answer to your invitation is yes.” Having agreed, she pressed her lips together. “I’ll follow you there.”

  She expected Bryce to get into his car, but he remained where he was. “Table or stool?” he wanted to know.

  Scottie stared at him. Was this some kind of code? “Excuse me?”

  “If you’re following me,” he patiently explained, “that means I’ll get there first. I just wanted to know if you would rather sit at a table or take a stool at the bar?”

  A table represented more privacy, a small haven from the general press of bodies and the noise, but a bar stool, while implying brevity to her also left her out in the open and vulnerable. She liked neither choice so she shrugged. “Surprise me.”

  He studied her for a moment. Part of him felt she had no intention of showing up, which had him wondering a host of other things he hadn’t quite nailed down yet, but he wasn’t about to stand out there in the parking lot, negotiating details.

  “I’ll do my best,” he told her with a wide, inviting smile.

  The man obviously thought he was too good-looking for his own good, Scottie decided as she made her way to her car. Reaching it, she turned in his direction and waved her hand, indicting that he could go.

  He didn’t. Instead he waited until her vehicle drew closer to his and then he put his car into drive and pulled out of the parking space.

  Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw that Scottie was indeed following him.

  How long was that going to last? he mused, still not certain he could take her at her word—which in turn would bode rather badly for their fledgling work relationship. A man had to trust his partner, otherwise his life wouldn’t be worth the proverbial plug nickel for long.

  Bryce drove slowly, as if he was a sixteen-year-old driver with a brand-new learner’s permit going on a maiden run under his father’s watchful eye. Approaching intersections, if the light had turned yellow, he came to a full stop instead of pressing down harder on the accelerator to make it through before the light went red. Looking back over his life, Bryce couldn’t remember ever driving as slowly as he did tonight.

  Consequently, it felt like getting to Malone’s took forever, but finally he found himself pulling into the parking lot.

  He parked in the first space he found, then got out quickly and looked over his shoulder to see if his partner was still behind him.

  A silver Honda was just pulling into the lot.

  “Son of a gun. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” he murmured to himself, grinning. She’d actually followed him, he thought, astonished.

  Parking her car, Scottie got out and then wove in and out of the rows of vehicles, making her way toward Malone’s front entrance and, apparently, to Cavanaugh who was just standing there, watching her every move.

  A lesser woman would have felt self-conscious, but it had never been about looks for Scottie. Everything else had always been too important for her to waste any time worrying about her appearance or spending hours fussing with her hair. She had a living to earn and a brother to raise.

  She’d done progressively better and better with the first part. The second part, not so much, she thought now. She’d showed Ethan’s photo to everyone at the shelter, but no one had seen her brother. The shelter had once been his go-to place when he’d wanted her to find him. Helping out at the shelter in turn seemed to help him and center him.

  He was a good guy, she thought. He just needed help to stay the course.

  “I thought you were going to find someplace for us to sit,” she said to Bryce as she approached.

  “Changed my mind,” he said mildly. “I thought I’d wait since you might have trouble finding me once you were inside.”

  “I wouldn’t have any trouble, I’d just follow the light from your aura,” she quipped.

  Rather than get his back up, or take offense, Bryce seemed amused by her wisecrack. “And here I thought I’d hidden it so well.”

  She wasn’t about to stand out there, talking half the night away. She reached for the door. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  “‘Over with’?” he repeated. “This isn’t a root canal, Scottie. It’s just two partners having a drink together, getting to know each other.” Turning from her, he reached for the heavy oak door, opened it and then stood there holding it for her.

  She glanced at him over her shoulder just before she crossed the threshold.

  “I don’t need to ‘get to know’ you. I know all I need to know about you,” she informed him.

  “Probably not,” he countered easily. “And I know that I know next to nothing about you,” he said as he ushered her into the large room.

  For a moment Scottie stood just inside the bar. She’d been on the force for five years, but this was her first time inside the bar most of the other officers and detectives frequented.

  Depending on the day of the week, Malone’s was full to varying degrees of that word. Tonight, a Wednesday, it was all but teeming with patrons, men and women who made it their life’s business to keep the residents of the city safe and secure in their beds.

  Slowly looking around, Scottie saw a number of people she recognized, people she had formerly worked side by side with in Homicide. She saw the surprised looks on several of their faces.

  They obviously hadn’t expected to see her there. Well, no more surprised than she was to find herself there, Scottie thought. She promised herself that she would have one bottle of beer with Bryce Cavanaugh—probably not the entire contents—and then, her so-called debt repaid, she’d be free to go.

  When she felt the hand on her elbow, her first reaction was to pull away. She actually tried, but the hand just took a tighter hold.

  “Easy, Scottie, I’m not trying to take your elbow from you, I’m just guiding you over to that table,” Bryce whispered against her ear.

  He did so because the noise level inside Malone’s was steadily increasing and he instinctively knew she wouldn’t want attention drawn to her by having him raise his voice so she could hear him. He had no way of knowing that getting so close to her, whispering so that his breath glided along her neck, would cause Scottie to unexpectedly feel something that had her instantly bracing herself.

  But, braced or not, it was too late, Scottie realized. She could feel something stirring as if in automatic response.

  Not the time, not the time, Scottie har
shly told herself, tamping down the feeling that had no place in her life right now.

  Her entire focus had to be on Ethan, on finding him and, if it came to it, saving him, although she was still fervently praying there was some acceptable reason why he wasn’t home, why he wasn’t picking up his cell phone.

  A reason that had nothing to do with these break-ins.

  “This okay?” Bryce was asking her.

  It took her a second to focus and realize what Bryce was saying. They were at a small table for two. It looked to be almost intimate if it wasn’t for the fact that there was so much noise surrounding them. She supposed this was as good as anyplace.

  “Sure, why not?” she said with a shrug.

  “Good answer,” he remarked with a smile. “What’s your poison?”

  Scottie never hesitated. “Pushy partners who won’t back off.”

  The corners of his mouth curved in amusement. She was feisty, he thought. He was raised with feisty women. Anything less would have been exceedingly dull. “I meant to drink.”

  She gave him the name of a currently popular beer.

  “That’s a new one on me. Is that any good?” Bryce asked.

  “Better than most. I’m not much of a drinker,” she told him.

  Even though there was so much noise building around them, his laugh wasn’t lost in the din. Instead it seemed to undulate right through her, like a shiver waiting to happen.

  “I already picked up on that,” Bryce told her. His grin intensified. “See, I’m learning things about you already.” The table was several feet away from the bar itself. “Stay right here,” he requested. “I’ll be right back.”

  With that, he made his way to the bar to order their drinks.

  Scottie glanced over her shoulder at the front door.

  Chapter 4

  This would be a perfect time to make a getaway, Scottie thought. Cavanaugh’s back was to her and he was busy trying to get the bartender’s attention. The latter was taking and filling orders like a house afire, but it still looked as if it might take him at least a few minutes to get to Cavanaugh.

  If she slipped away now...

  If she slipped away now, Cavanaugh would undoubtedly hunt her down and insist on collecting his “debt” at some other, probably less convenient, time. Scottie sighed. She might as well resign herself to getting this over with and out of the way.

  It wasn’t easy, but she stayed where she was.

  Cavanaugh came back faster than she thought he would, a mug of beer in each hand.

  “You’re still here,” Bryce said. There actually was a note of surprise in his voice.

  That made two of them, Scottie thought.

  “I said that I would have that drink with you,” she reminded Cavanaugh. “What, did you think I’d make a break for it?”

  She found herself, just for a moment and very reluctantly, being drawn in to the man’s genial smile. It was just this side of sexy and difficult to ignore.

  “It crossed my mind, yes,” he answered.

  Her eyes met his. Maybe ground rules were called for here. “When I say I’ll do something, I do it.”

  Bryce placed her mug of beer in front of her and then, straddling his chair, set his mug down where he was sitting.

  “Good to know.” He raised his mug, waiting for her to do the same. When she didn’t, he went ahead with his toast. “Well, here’s to a fruitful partnership.”

  Scottie knew she couldn’t very well ignore the sentiment behind that, so she nodded, raised her mug and clinked it against his.

  Taking a sip, she placed her drink down again. Glancing at her watch, she wondered how long she would have to remain at Malone’s before Cavanaugh would call them square and let her leave.

  “So, do you do that often?” Bryce asked out of the blue.

  Caught off guard, she stared at him, quickly reviewing their sparse conversation. She came up empty. “Do what?”

  “Serve dinner at the homeless shelter. I assume that was what you were doing there.” He hadn’t seen her carry in any bags of clothes to donate, so he had come to the only conclusion he could about her thirty-five-minute visit to the shelter. “Very noble, by the way,” he added.

  She frowned. What she’d heard about the Cavanaughs was true. Once they latched on to something, they just wouldn’t let go. She was going to have to answer him.

  “Before you start fitting me for a halo,” she told Bryce, “I wasn’t there serving dinner.”

  “Oh?” He watched her over the rim of his mug. “Then what were you doing at the homeless shelter?”

  The words “none of your business” rose to her lips, but antagonizing Cavanaugh from the get-go would just cause problems and she already had more than enough of those. So, she grudgingly told her partner, “I was looking for someone.”

  The look in his eyes told her that his interest had piqued a notch higher. “Who?”

  Okay, this had gone as far as she was willing to go with it. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I do off duty is my own business.”

  If she’d offended him, she saw no indication. “No, you’ve got that right. I was just going to volunteer to help you find that ‘someone,’ that’s all.”

  He couldn’t help her, not without her opening up about Ethan, her brother’s past and her concerns that it had caught up with him again.

  “I don’t need help,” she told him.

  The last thing she needed was to have Cavanaugh looking for her brother’s whereabouts. It wouldn’t take much for him to unearth a slew of things she didn’t want anyone knowing. Once Cavanaugh started digging, it would be all too easy for him to make the leap from her brother and his particular set of skills to the current break-ins plaguing the city’s residents.

  “I don’t know about that,” Bryce countered. She looked up at him sharply and he explained, “Maybe it’s because I was raised with so many relatives, always willing to pitch in, but to my way of thinking, everyone needs help at some time or other.”

  “Fine,” she said with finality, hoping this would be the end of it. “When I decide that I need help, I’ll let you know.”

  Bryce studied her for a moment and she could almost feel his eyes probing her, poking around in places he had no business being.

  “Will you?” he asked. The expression on his face told her he wasn’t that convinced.

  She instantly responded the way she knew he wanted her to. “Absolutely.”

  “I thought you always told the truth.” The skeptical note in his voice told her she hadn’t managed to fool him.

  Okay, time to go, Scottie decided. She’d done her due diligence, now she had to go home. She wasn’t sure just what her next move was since no one at the shelter had heard from Ethan in several months. Hearing that had just concerned her even more. Where was he? What had caused this break in his routine?

  She refused to allow panic to take center stage. If it did, then she’d be lost, not to mention that Ethan might very well be lost, as well. She had a feeling he might need her at her sharpest.

  Scottie pushed back her chair. “Well, this has been fun, but I’ve got to get going,” she told Bryce, preparing to get up.

  But what she’d hoped would be a clean getaway hit a rather large stumbling block when a tall, muscular man moved right in front of her.

  “Damn, it is you,” he said, surprised and pleased at the same time. He looked to Bryce, who was still seated. “Is the end of the world coming?”

  Scottie looked up and found herself staring into the face of Duncan Cavanaugh, Bryce’s older brother and one of the people she had worked with on occasion while she’d been assigned to Homicide.

  An incredulous expression on his face, Duncan looked at his brother. “How did you manage to talk her into coming
to Malone’s? She always said no when she was working Homicide.”

  Bryce grinned. “I guess she just finds me better company than you.”

  “Yeah, like that’s the reason.” Duncan laughed, dismissing the answer and shaking his head. He turned back to Scottie who continued to look as if she was out of her natural habitat. “Well, it’s nice to see you, Scottie. Hope things are working out for you in Robbery.”

  “Too soon to tell,” she replied quietly, unconsciously slanting a glance toward Bryce.

  “Nothing’s changed, I see. Honest to a fault,” Duncan commented. He smiled at her. “It has its charm.” It was unclear if he was referring to her honesty or to her new department. With that, he raised his bottle in a silent salute. “Carry on, little brother.”

  “Shouldn’t you be home?” Bryce asked. When Duncan looked at him quizzically, Bryce elaborated. “Isn’t Noelle due any day now?”

  “Another week or so,” Duncan answered. A bemused smile played on his lips. “But you know that old adage about a watched pot not boiling—”

  Hearing that, Scottie couldn’t help commenting, “I’m sure your wife must love being compared to a pot.”

  “Actually,” Duncan told her, “she was the one who came up with that line when she insisted I go about my business normally. As if I could.” Duncan laughed with a shake of his head. “Lucy’s with her when I can’t be home,” he told his brother in case the latter thought he was just abandoning his wife.

  “‘Lucy’?” Scottie repeated.

  “Noelle’s grandmother,” Duncan told her. “She doesn’t like being called ‘grandma.’ Likes ‘great-grandma’ even less,” he added with a laugh.

  “Still, don’t you want to be sober for your firstborn?” Bryce asked.

  “I am sober, bro. So sober that it’s almost painful. This is a light ale,” he told them, holding his bottle aloft. “And I’ve only had one, which is my limit these days. I’m here more for the company than the libation,” Duncan confided. “Like I said, Noelle doesn’t like having me hovering around her, being nervous.”