Night Shield Read Free Page B

be a goal. She took the time for them, then studied the results in the mirror.
    Sexy, she supposed, certainly feminine and, in a satisfactory way, practical. And there was no place to hide her weapon.
    Damn it. She hissed out a breath, and settled on stuffing her nine millimeter in an oversize shoulder bag. She tossed on a black leather jacket as a concession to the brisk spring evening, then bolted for the door.
    There was enough time to drive to the club if she got straight down to the garage and hit all the lights on green.
    She pulled open the door. Swore.
    “Dennis, what are you doing?”
    Dennis Overton held up a bottle of California Chardonnay and offered a big, cheerful smile. “Just in the neighborhood. Thought we could have a drink.”
    “I’m on my way out.”
    “Fine.” He shifted the bottle, tried to take her hand. “I’ll go with you.”
    “Dennis.” She didn’t want to hurt him. Not again. He’d been so devastated when she’d broken things off two months before. And all his phone calls, pop-ins, run-intos since then had ended badly. “We’ve been through all this.”
    “Come on, Ally. Just a couple of hours. I miss you.”
    He had that sad, basset hound look in his eyes, that pleading smile on his lips. It had worked once,she reminded herself. More than once. But she remembered how those same eyes could blaze with wild and misplaced jealousy, snap with barely controlled fury.
    She’d cared for him once, enough to forgive him his accusations, to try to work through his mood swings, enough to feel guilty over ending it.
    She cared enough now to strap her temper at this last invasion of her time and her space. “I’m sorry, Dennis. I’m in a hurry.”
    Still smiling, he blocked her way. “Give me five minutes. One drink for old times’ sake, Ally?”
    “I don’t have five minutes.”
    The smile vanished, and that old, dark gleam leaped into his eyes. “You never had time for me when I needed it. It was always what you wanted and when you wanted it.”
    “That’s right. You’re well rid of me.”
    “You’re going to see someone else, aren’t you? Brushing me off so you can run off to be with another man.”
    “What if I am.” Enough, she thought, was way past enough. “It’s no business of yours where I go, what I do, whom I see. That’s what you can’t seem to get straight. But you’re going to have to work harder at it, Dennis, because I’m sick of this. Stop coming here.”
    He grabbed her arm before she could walk by. “I want to talk to you.”
    She didn’t jerk free, only stared down at his hand, then shifted her gaze, icy as February, to his eyes. “Don’t push it. Now step back.”
    “What’re you going to do? Shoot me? Arrest me? Call your daddy, the saint of the police, to lock me up?”
    “I’m going to ask you, one more time, to step back. Step way back, Dennis, and do it now.”
    His mood swung again, fast and smooth as a revolving door. “I’m sorry. Ally, I’m sorry.” His eyes went damp and his mouth trembled. “I’m upset, that’s all. Just give me another chance. I just need another chance. I’ll make it work this time.”
    She pried his fingers off her arm. “It never worked. Go home, Dennis. I’ve got nothing for you.”
    She walked away without looking back, bleeding inside because she had to. Bleeding inside because she could.

Chapter 2
    Ally hit the doors of Blackhawk’s at 5:05 p.m. One strike against her, she thought and took an extra minute to smooth down her hair, catch her breath. She’d decided against the drive after all and had run the ten blocks. Not such a distance, she thought, but the heels she wore were a far cry from track shoes.
    She stepped inside, took stock.
    The bar was a long, gleaming black slab that curved into a snug semicircle and offered plenty of room for a troop of chrome stools with thick black leather cushions. Mirrored panels of black and silver ran down the rear wall, tossed back reflections and