Bill glanced back and forth between them. "What is it with you two anyway? Why are you always sniping at each other?"
Sticking out her bottom lip in a pout, she said the one thing guaranteed to ruffle Mac"s already wildly ruffled feathers, "Because Mac won"t give me a ride on his pony."
"For Christ"s sake, woman!" Mac glared out at her from under his thick eyebrows. And bingo! That was the look she"d been waiting on. The one that told her she"d succeeded in really nudging him over the edge. "You"ve got more nerve than my uncle"s got liver pills."
Smiling into his flashing eyes, she gave herself a moment to study the face that"d haunted her dreams for the last few years. And, just like always, she was hard pressed to find anything she didn"t like. Because Mac had one of those big, square faces typical of his Irish heritage. Only, instead of the red hair and freckles, he sported the coloring of the black Irish: dark brown locks and striking blue eyes.
No one would call him handsome. Not with that sizeable jaw and that nose that listed slightly to the left-no doubt from some long-ago brawl or youthful indiscretion. But Delilah had always been a sucker for his kind of face. The kind that looked like it"d been forged from raw steel, all hard angles and brutal expanses. And that was before she got to his smile. Because his smile? Oh, man, it lit him up like a glow stick. And it tempted a woman to do seriously stupid things to try to keep the expression in place.
Unfortunately-or fortunately, depending on your point of view-right now, he wasn"t even close to smiling as he continued to gripe at her, "Has it ever occurred to you to try a little subtlety?"
She made a face before slowly glancing down at her body. In the vernacular of the former generation, she was a brick house. And she didn"t say that with any sort of vanity or pride. It was just the way of things, the way she"d been put together since the age of fourteen. It had its pros, it had its cons, but one thing it didn"t have was subtlety.
"Are you serious?" she gaped, shaking her head. "What about me leads you to think subtlety is an option?"
"I have the feeling," Bill said, "that if I don"t cut you two off right now, we"ll be here all night. And Mac and I don"t have time for that. Delilah," he reached across the bar and patted her shoulder, "we"re going to leave Eve in your care for a couple of hours."
"Leave her in my care?" she asked, one brow raised as she glanced at the woman in question. Eve just rolled her eyes. "Why do you need to leave her in my care?"
"It"s a long story for another time," Bill a.s.sured her, and it occurred to her then that all the Black Knights tended to be evasive. None so much as Mac though.
She slid her gaze over to the man, not surprised to find his expression churlish. "Fine," she said. "Good. Whatever." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "Off you go, boys. Leave us girls here alone so we can gossip about you."
She didn"t pretend to fight the smile that tilted her lips when she saw Mac"s back teeth set. Still, the guy held his tongue as Bill slapped him on the shoulder and motioned with his head toward the front door.
Delilah watched them go, idly wondering what they were up to-excitement generally followed that group of ruffians for one reason or another. And not for the first time, she speculated on whether or not they were running more than motorcycles out of that shop on Goose Island. They weren"t a chartered MC-motorcycle club-but that didn"t mean they weren"t living the whole outlaw lifestyle all the same. And there had to be some reason, regardless of their past government and military careers, as to why the BKI boys always wore an air of constantly being on edge, of looking over their shoulders.
Drugs?
Nah, she couldn"t see that.
Guns maybe?
But that was just too stereotypical.
Well, whatever it is, as long as they keep it out of my bar, we"re golden.
After the front door slammed shut, she turned her attention to Eve. Only Eve wasn"t staring back at her. Instead, the woman was gazing wistfully after the departed men.
"Which one?" Delilah asked, a sharp stab of jealously slicing through her. Eve was a gorgeous woman, and even though Delilah hadn"t seen Mac on Eve"s arm in any of those pictures that ran in the society papers, she could totally envision a guy like him going for a woman like Eve. Eve was subtle.
"Which one what?" Eve asked, turning to her.
"Which one of those handsome motorcycle hunks do you wish was your boyfriend?" Please, don"t say Mac. Please, don"t say Mac. Please, don"t say- "I don"t wish anyone was my boyfriend," Eve stated with forced conviction, wrinkling her nose.
Huh. Delilah reached up to scratch her head, studying the well-coifed woman across the bar. Finally she shook her head and blurted, "Well, you just said that like it"s a good thing when, in fact, I"d say it"s probably an example of where you"ve gone wrong in life. Either one of those guys could guarantee a girl a good time and-"
"Billy," Eve blurted, gnawing on her bottom lip.
For someone as pretty, smart, and rich as Eve was, it was kind of amazing that she still managed to come off as self-conscious and shy. For the life of her, Delilah couldn"t understand it. But perhaps that"s because there wasn"t an ounce of self-consciousness or shyness in her own makeup, meaning she had little to draw on for empathy.
To each his own, she thought, refusing to look too closely at the wave of relief that washed through her upon Eve"s confession. Reaching across the bar to give the woman"s hand a sisterly pat, she c.o.c.ked her head and pursed her lips in consideration. "Bill, huh? Sure, I can see that. He"s got that whole ruggedly handsome, Josh Brolin thing going." A little too pretty for her tastes, but again, to each his own. "So, then, why haven"t you bought a ticket on that bus?"
Eve frowned and started chewing on the side of her thumb. "Well, probably because of the conversation he and I had this morning, where he made it clear the only stops that...uh...bus makes are in Buddyville and Friendtown."
"Ouch," Delilah winced. The Friend Card: the worst one in the deck when it was played by the man a girl dreamed of being so much more. She could relate. Although, come to think of it, Mac hadn"t even offered her that option. h.e.l.l, no. He was firmly holding all his cards close to his vest, the exasperating jerk. And when she added, "That sucks," she wasn"t sure if she was referring to Eve"s situation or her own. Perhaps both?
"Yes," Eve grimaced. "It certainly does."
Shaking away her own troubling thoughts, Delilah pulled on her bartender hat and tapped a ruby-red fingernail on the bar. "But you know what"s a guaranteed cure?"
"What?"
"One of my world-cla.s.s strawberry daiquiris."
Eve smiled wanly before shrugging. "Well, then serve me up. Because I need all the help I can get."
And now they were really talking turkey, which was Delilah"s forte...every good bartender"s forte as a matter of fact. She was a pro at hashing out troubles and patching up heartbreak with Band-Aids in the form of alcoholic beverages.
"Still," she propped a hip against the bar, narrowing her eyes at Eve, "I"m sensing there"s more here than a simple rejection. I"m sensing you"ve been...what? Having a bit of a dry spell, maybe?"
"Dry spell?"
"You know," she waved her hand through the air. "No s.e.x, or bad s.e.x, which is sometimes worse than no s.e.x."
Eve"s blush stretched from the roots of her hair into the collar of her delicate-looking blouse. Delilah lifted a brow. She"d never seen someone actually do that, and she was a natural redhead...
Glancing down at the bar, Eve cleared her throat softly, and whispered, "Between you and me, I haven"t had s.e.x, good, bad, or anything in between, for years. I have enough pent-up s.e.xual energy to power all of Chicago for a month."
Delilah chuckled. "I hear ya, sister."
Eve flashed her a look of disbelief.
"Hey," she motioned toward her b.o.o.bs, held up by an industrial-strength underwire bra and tight T-shirt, "don"t let these things fool you. I"m incredibly choosy when it comes to men."
Eve bit her lip, smiling, more comfortable now that they"d both shared confidences. It was another hallmark of any good bartender. "And you"d choose Mac if he let you?"
"In a heartbeat," she admitted. "But, alas, he wants no part of me." She shook her head, frowning, thinking back on all his rejections and trying and failing not to feel the sharp sting of them. What does he have against me? Again, she racked her brain and came up with a big ol" handful of...nothing. "I think I"ll join you in that strawberry daiquiri," she told Eve who laughed delightedly.
"I"d love that."
Nodding, Delilah turned toward the freezer. Pulling out a bag of frozen strawberries and some ice, she mulled over Mac"s decree that she could use a little subtlety-Subtlety? Her? Pfft, as if-as she dumped the load in the blender before adding sugar, lime juice, lemon juice, and top shelf rum. From the corner of her eye, she saw Eve fiddling with her phone, playing a game or texting or something. Then the device jingled out the opening bars to a Styx song and, with half an ear, she caught the woman"s exasperated-sounding, "Enough with the phone calls, Dad. I"m fine." That was followed up by, "No, I"m not going to come back home. And, no, I"m not going to make it to our weekly dinner tonight. Didn"t you read the email I sent you this morning?" Delilah hit the b.u.t.ton on the machine, drowning out the rest of the conversation, and allowed herself to focus all her efforts on forgetting about one infuriating ex-FBI agent turned motorcycle mechanic.
Somewhere on Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive 5:13 p.m.
He ran a hand over his mouth once he thumbed off the cell phone, staring at the device as his heart thundered out a terrible rhythm. The time was now. It was do or die. Meaning, he"d better do what he"d promised or he was likely going to die.
It was awful, really, what it"d all come down to. But self-preservation won out every day of the week. And, yes, he fully realized there"d be many who"d disagree with him. Many who"d think he was the sc.u.m of the Earth for choosing himself over her. h.e.l.l, even he would"ve shouted from the rooftops a couple of years ago that no way, no how would he sacrifice her to save himself. But that"s only because he hadn"t been faced with the actual choice back then. When a person was faced with the actual choice of their life in exchange for the life of someone they loved, convictions often crumbled.
His certainly had...
It"s time. Time to finally end it.
Taking a deep breath, he punched in a number that made his upper lip curl with distaste.
"Yo," a man whose accent was pure Southside Chicago gangster answered. "You got a location for us or what?"
"I do," he said. "She"s at Red Delilah"s biker bar for the next hour or so. Hurry."
"Don"t you worry. We"ll finish the job you were too chicken-s.h.i.t to do on your own."
Wishing he could reach through the phone and shove his thumb in the f.u.c.ker"s eye, he satisfied himself instead by jamming a finger down on the phone"s keypad, instantly ending the call.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n sonsofb.i.t.c.hes," he growled into the empty room, reaching for the decanter of scotch, disgusted to find his hands were shaking.
I"m sorry, my dear, sweet Eve, he thought as he raked in a steadying breath. I wish there could"ve been another way...
Chapter Eleven.
Red Delilah"s Biker Bar 6:01 p.m.
Fighting with the colorfully lit jukebox, trying to get the darned thing to accept her five-dollar bill, Eve felt woozy. And sad.
The wooziness was a direct result of having gulped down two of Delilah"s world-cla.s.s strawberry daiquiris in record time. The sadness was a direct result of the way her life was going.
Oh, let me count the ways...
For starters, her PhD-the goal she"d been striving toward for three, long years-was on indefinite hold because not only had her laptop burned up in her condo fire, but now all her dissertation materials were sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Also, someone, possibly someone she knew, was out there right now with a mind to kill her. And as if those two things weren"t bad enough, it now appeared that her love life-never a thing of beauty except for a brief, three-month period twelve years ago-was floating in the toilet while the Fates fiddled with the lever.
Yep. It"s official. You"re a real piece of work, Eve Edens.
She was just about to give up on the jukebox when the fickle machine suddenly decided that, yes, in fact it was hungry. It sucked in her money in one greedy gulp.
Victory!
It was a small win, sure, but at this point she was taking what she could get.
Scrolling through the options, she choked on a strangled sob when one particular number met her bleary gaze. Punching in the request for the tune, she used the rest of her money to jump the other songs currently waiting in the musical queue and turned just as the first driving drumbeat sounded.
This song reminded her of that magical summer with Billy and- "Boo!" one of the patrons shouted. "No contemporary country music allowed on Sundays!"
"Can it, Buzzard!" Delilah yelled from behind the bar, throwing an olive at a bearded man Eve recognized from the two previous times she"d been in Red Delilah"s. Idly, she wondered if the old, potbellied biker actually lived there. Maybe he had a sleeping bag somewhere in the back? But then Eric Church started singing about young love and loss, and she closed her eyes, letting the familiar lyrics of "Springsteen" wash over her, wallowing-yes, wallowing; a girl was allowed to do that on occasion-in her own regret.
A memory of Billy lying with his head in her lap on a patchwork quilt under a tree in Grant Park, listening as she read from Breakfast at Tiffany"s, stumbled through her slightly sluggish, strawberry daiquiri-addled brain. He"d been idly twirling a yellow flower-A dandelion? She couldn"t recall precisely-between his thumb and forefinger. And when she glanced down at him, down into his handsome face dappled with the sunlight spilling in through the leaves, she expected to find his warm, laughing eyes closed. But his gaze hadn"t been shuttered by his lids and long, dark lashes. Just the opposite, in fact. He"d been looking right at her, and the expression on his face? Oh, sweet Lord, it"d made her heart jump in her chest. Okay, not jump. Leap! Because it was the first time she"d ever seen love in a man"s eyes. And not those pale-by-comparison kinds of loves like puppy or platonic. Heck no. It was romantic love. And oh, it"d frightened her almost as much as it"d delighted her...
Wistfully swaying beside the jukebox, lost in the bittersweet memory, she was completely caught off-guard and more than a little stunned-her eyes snapping wide-when the front door flew open with a bang. Of course, even more shocking than the unexpected interruption was the man in baggy jeans, gold chains, and a ski mask who immediately charged inside.
"Hands in the air!" he yelled, holding a nickel-plated pistol out in front of him gangster-style, on its side, just as a second, similarly attired gunman stepped over the threshold.
Of course, there"s another gunman, she thought with distaste, her mind working a little slowly due to either the shock or the second daiquiri or, more likely, both. Like nuns, guys like these always travel in pairs.
Only this duo was far from anything holy...
The second thought to stumble through her sluggish brain was, geez, I just can"t catch a break, can I? The third thought was he"s holding that gun all wrong. And the fourth thought, the most appropriate thought-h.e.l.lo! Finally, the right synapses were firing-was oh, c.r.a.p! But before she could form a fifth thought, the unmistakable chick-schnick of a shotgun being wracked a.s.saulted her ears.
"You picked the wrong place to rob, my friends," Delilah growled, and Eve"s eyes flashed toward the bar. The redheaded proprietress was standing there looking, for all intents and purposes, like a playboy model-except for the teensy, tiny fact that she had a sawed-off shotgun pressed tightly against her shoulder, and a deadly challenge gleaming in her green eyes. "And in case you"re too stupid to understand ballistics, let me give you a lesson." Her voice was tough and strident, not belying an ounce of the fear Eve knew she had to be feeling. "The chances of me tearing you to shreds with this here scatter-gun are much higher than you hitting me with one of those nine millimeter slugs."
The masked men seemed to hesitate, then the one closest to the open door turned to look directly at Eve.
"There she is," he said. And before she could begin to contemplate what on G.o.d"s green Earth he could possibly mean by that, he raised a gun toward her head.
Yep. Gun. Raised. Toward. Her. Head...
Everything that happened next was a blur, because her self-defense training kicked in and she instinctively dove for the man"s ankles. Knocking him off balance, he crashed onto her back, crushing her and forcing all the air from her lungs like she"d been punched in the sternum.
"Uhhhhh," she gasped, raking in much-needed air and the not-so-much-needed aromas of heavy cologne and weed. Fear sizzled along each of her nerve-endings until she was the human version of a live wire, and it combined with the hot burst of adrenaline to give her more strength than she would have under normal circ.u.mstances. When she pushed up from the floor, she was able to partially dislodge her a.s.sailant. And then the fight was on!
"b.i.t.c.h!" he yelled as they became a tangled mess of grappling arms and kicking legs, each wrestling for control of the weapon with a killing intensity. It seemed like hours pa.s.sed as they strained and struggled, heaved and bucked. But in reality, it was probably only seconds. Then, Eve misjudged which way the gunman was moving, and he was able to use her lapse along with his superior strength to pin her to the floor. His black eyes bored into her from the holes in his ski mask, promising death.
If you think I"m done, her burning eyes screamed up at him, then you"re dead wrong! I"m not going down without a fight, by G.o.d!
She wrapped both fists around the wrist of his gun hand, grunting and snarling while simultaneously kicking and flailing to try to heave him off her. But to her utter horror, with both of her hands occupied with the task of preventing the masked man from pointing that Smith and Wesson at her head, there was nothing to stop him from reaching over with his free hand to enclose her throat in a meaty grip. Which was exactly what he did.
Instantly her brain buzzed from lack of oxygen, and darkness edged into her vision.
Oh, no! Help me, Lord, I"m losing it!
Her vision tunneled, and she couldn"t seem to form a whole thought. As her world dimmed, she vaguely registered the boom of a shotgun and the wall next to the front door exploding in a shower of splinters.
Bam! The first gunman returned fire, and in a tiny corner of Eve"s mind she recognized the sound of bottles breaking.
Miraculously, the gunplay was enough to distract her attacker, and with only the most instinctual portion of her brain working, she saw an opportunity. Now! Twisting the gun from her opponent"s hand, she wanted to yell in triumph when the warm metal settled into her fist. But the sweat on her palms, and the fact that there was a two-hundred-pound man strangling her, precluded any whoop of victory and had the weapon slipping from her grip.
It fell to the wooden slats of the floor with a loud thump. The masked man released her throat to make a grab for it, and she barely had enough time to drag in a wheezing breath that instantly snapped the world into focus before she was wholly occupied in the mad scuffle and scramble to retrieve the dropped pistol. She twisted out from under her attacker, latching onto his wrists. But in the process she inadvertently kicked the gun beneath the happily playing jukebox.
d.a.m.nit!
Boom! Another blast of the shotgun, this time aimed directly above her a.s.sailant"s head. The top of the jukebox shattered, the music coming to a record-scratching halt, and a shower of colorful gla.s.s rained down on them like sharp, stinging confetti. In the ear-ringing silence that followed, her attacker, now relieved of his weapon, must"ve figured Delilah was right about that lesson in ballistics. Because he scrambled to his feet and dove for the open door.