One More Night with You Read Free Page B

stick.
    â€œWhat’s the greater good in this situation?” She pushed her cocktail toward Ozzie and let him knock it back. It’d take another half dozen to jiggle loose his sobriety. The man’s tipping point was legendary. “The Blues extract a couple of drug abusers from their team. Men lose their jobs and may not get the kind of aid they need to turn things around.”
    â€œChances are the dealers are operating in wider markets. Getting illicit drugs to kids, even. So we do what we need to do to shut ’em down. But look, Joey, nobody’s asking you to be a superhero. That’s not what DEA’s about, and not what this job with the Slayers is about.”
    â€œThen tell me, Ozzie, what’s the greater good?”
    â€œCould be there isn’t a clear one,” he said bluntly. “At the end of all this, though, if you can stop feeling like a victim, then it’s worth it.” He stood, left a few bills for the bartender and pointed to her stick. “It’s a cane, Joey. That’s all it is. And with the money the Blues are throwing at you, you can feed that fancy shoe fetish of yours. Get over the ego trip. Consider the opportunity.”
    She sat at the bar among a gathering of people she didn’t know, as music beat in her ears and her thoughts competed for priority. On contract with the Slayers, she’d be wading into a high-profile world she knew only through her friendship with Charlotte.
    Having a friend on the training staff might certainly help Joey become acclimated with the team. But Charlotte wouldn’t know the full truth behind Joey’s contract. Their friendship would be shaded with lies, shadowed under a layer of deceit.
    Not ideal circumstances, but what if in the end the franchise and the Blue family could be on a real path toward recovery? What if a little bit of lying on her part could secure their chance for a fresh start in the wake of a tumultuous year?
    Returning to the table, she announced, “I made a decision.”
    They watched her in expectant silence.
    â€œI’m accepting the gig. And I want dessert.”

Chapter 2
    â€œY ou’re a tough woman to pin down.”
    The echoing voice stabbed into the quiet gymnasium training room, throwing off Joey’s hand-eye coordination and causing her uppercut to miss the punching dummy’s jaw. Off balance, she stumbled forward, and her left hip started to throb.
    She swore, clinging to the six-foot mannequin’s shoulders, and grinded her teeth against the pain. “ Ay, Dios mio! Lottie, I’m stressed, carb-deprived and jonesing to hit something. I wouldn’t want to be near me right now.”
    The twenty-four-hour Main Street gym was the watering hole where a number of Joey’s colleagues gathered to sweat off calories and exchange gossip. Today she was alone, taking advantage of a predawn workout. Last night at CUT she’d practically binged, and she’d skipped her first-thing-in-the-morning stretches, which explained her pelvic stiffness.
    â€œAnswer me this.” Charlotte Blue, wearing a cream-colored jumper and a floral herbal fragrance, sauntered forward to stand behind the dummy and peek over its shoulder. “Is this the closest you’ve been to a man since Parker?”
    â€œIf you intend to go on about him, you can turn around and get the hell out of here. I mean that.”
    Parker Brandt, an LVMPD officer with a cute kid and a grin that made her forget herself, was supposed to be a summer fling but she’d lost control of the relationship. At a crossroads, trying to figure out whether or not what they had might be love, they’d ended up taking off in different directions.
    Parker had cut into her orbit again several weeks ago. The sex had been rough with desperation neither of them wanted to acknowledge, but it was a superficial thrill, satisfaction so fragile that she’d left his bed in an emotional fog. She