Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Read Free Page B

He stared at her, a mix of fire and frustration and something else she couldn’t quite read seemed to spark in his eyes. “Learning to be patient can be a very enjoyable experience.”
    He was trying to throw her off the game and succeeding mercilessly. His next card dropped to the bar.
    Eight of clubs.
    “I’ll take a Maker’s Mark.” Lacy fanned her cards out on the bar and turned to Connie. “Make it a double.”
    She had him, but the smile on Mitch’s face didn’t read defeat.
    “You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you? Confidence can be a damning trait.”
    She watched his final card land face up between them. Her lungs clamped down, forcing a sigh out through her parted lips.
    A freaking wild deuce.
    Shit. Four of a kind.
    Grammy’s rules had never failed her before.
    “Lace.” Connie’s elevated pitch caught Lacy’s attention. Connie’s hand hovered over the white panic button underneath the bar. “White Stetson’s plastered again.”
    Across the bar, Bret Adams, the same barely-legal boy who’d smacked her ass earlier and made the last several Sunday night late shifts a nightmare stood, staring at Connie as if he could reach across the bar between them and strangle her to death.
    Lacy had been so absorbed in the card game and the stranger she hadn’t even noticed him enter the back room.
    He swayed on his feet at the bar. “This shit’s watered down and tastes like ass. I’m not paying a dime for any of it.” He leaned his long torso across the bar, his jaw clenched. He brushed the empty shot glass beside him to the floor, and it was followed by the high-pitched shatter of glass.
    The game behind them quieted. All eyes turned to the drama at the bar.
    Connie, never one to back down from a good bar brawl, leaned in closer. Another inch from either of them and their foreheads would touch. “You weren’t whining a round of tequila shots ago. Where was your discerning drink palate then?”
    By the way some of the regulars glared at Stetson, they’d jump in to defend their favored bartender soon if Lacy didn’t do something to stop the argument.
    She needed to dissipate the tension, fast, before Connie laid Stetson out on the ground, and Charlie had yet another lawsuit on his hands.
    Before she could speak, Mitch stood and kicked his stool back with a heavy, booted foot. “You drank the booze, kid. Now pay the tab so the rest of us can enjoy our night.” His voice was smooth and good-natured, but the authoritative undertone added weight to the already heavy air in the room.
    Stetson’s lips curled back with a silent argument, but when Mitch pushed aside the front of his coat and revealed the Glock holstered to his hip, Stetson’s face paled, and he retreated a step.
    His mouth worked back and forth, ready to spew more hate speech, she guessed, but Mitch took one step forward and halted the unspoken words.
    Anger registered in hot, red marks across his face, and Stetson reached in his jeans pocket and threw a stack of bills on the bar. “Fucking cunts.” Spitting a wad of tobacco on the floor, he shouldered through the gathered crowd and stormed away.
    Connie stashed the money in the register and went back to the drink she’d started before Stetson threw his hissy fit; the true professional she was didn’t anger easily.
    Despite the tension in the room, Lacy forced a smile, signaling the regulars back to their game.
    “And I thought beating you at cards was going to be the highlight of my night.” Mitch draped his coat back over his gun. “Does that happen often on a Sunday?”
    “You’d be surprised.” Lacy took the drink Connie offered and rounded the bar to the stool beside Mitch. The bourbon stung going down but did little to ease her frayed nerves.
    Connie wrenched the cap off a beer bottle and handed it to Mitch. “That asshole comes here every Sunday. Has a thing for Lace. Always puts on a show to get attention. Probably didn’t like having competition.”
    Mitch’s