“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. There’s a bartender in there giving me a hard time. If he saw you...”
She reached through the window to feel his bicep, hard and bulgy.
He watched her hand on his arm and then looked up at her from beneath a lowered brow. Her request for protection had ignited something primal in him.
“I can hang in the back and look scary if you think that’ll do it?” His tone implied he’d do much more, if needed.
She squealed with delight as he cut the engine and joined her.
“Yer like a knight in shiny armor.”
His chest puffed as they walked to the entrance. Shee chanted in her head.
Please be there. Please be there...
Inside, she scanned the staff. All the bartenders were women dressed in Daisy Dukes and red-checkered midriff-tied shirts made out of what looked like picnic blankets.
All female staff. Figures.
Scotty’s dubious expression telegraphed he’d noticed the same thing.
“You got a dyke hitting on you?” he asked.
“No. He’s probably in the back. He’s more like a bouncer.”
She continued scanning until she spotted her father in a booth to the left.
Thank God.
In the mirror on the wall behind him, she clocked the reflection of his boothmate. Female, of course.
She motioned in Mick’s general direction. “I have to grab my check. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
She walked toward Mick’s booth, slowly, willing him to look at her.
Look at me and recognize him. Look. Look, look, look—
She was nearly on him before Mick pulled his gaze off his ladyfriend and noticed her.
“Shee? What are you—?”
He was going to say wearing, of that she was sure. She didn’t usually expose her belly and roll up her shorts until the curve of her butt cheeks saw the sun. Hopefully, he’d surmise by her attire something was up.
“Grab my wrist,” she said, letting her arm swing wide and flashing her eyes to show she meant it.
“What?” Mick scowled, a string of emotions passing over his expression like clouds—confusion, embarrassment, concern—but his hand whipped out and caught her arm. They’d been working together for too long. Like a well-seasoned improv group, they knew how to read each other. How to listen.
“Jack,” she whined, pretending to pull away but grabbing his arm with her opposite hand to keep him from letting go.
She looked toward Scotty, pretending to panic. He saw. After a quick scan of the room to see if anyone else was watching, he strode toward her.
“Recognize him?” she said to her father bouncing her eyes in Scotty’s direction.
Mick watched Scotty approach. She saw the moment the boy’s face clicked in his brain.
“That kid you wanted to—”
“Is this the guy?” asked Scotty, bumping into the back of Shee in his eagerness to show strength.
A rapist trying to protect her from her father.
Score one for irony.
Mick released her arm and stood.
Scotty poked his shoulder. “Back off, old man.”
The dark-haired woman in the booth couldn’t have widened her eyes any farther without them dropping to the table like dice. Mick’s puffing chest apparently aroused her.
Ew.
Shee took a step back to position herself at Scotty’s side. She motioned to the angry young man threatening to hit her father.
“Remember Scotty Carson?” she asked.
Scotty’s focus swiveled to her. “Wha—”
Fear flashed in his eyes.
He turned to bolt, but she’d expected it and thrust out a leg. With little room to maneuver between the row of booths and the tables, he couldn’t avoid the trip. He stumbled, slowing his retreat long enough for Mick to grab his shirt and horse-collar him backwards.
Shee whipped the cuffs from her purse and handed them to Mick. He clamped them on Scotty’s right wrist. Scotty twisted, swinging with his left. Shee saw it coming a moment too late and her jaw shifted hard to the right.
He screamed.
“Bitch!”
Shee caught her balance against a lacquer-covered table, her jaw already aching. She refused to raise a hand to it. She didn’t want her mark to know he’d hurt her.
Scotty’s eyes grew white and wild. He seemed oblivious to Mick cuffing him, so intent was he to reach her. Mick had to kick his knees out to stop him from pulling toward her.
Shee smirked as he dropped to his knees. “Those grade-school girls must have been merciless for you to hate women this much.”
She’d practiced the line in her head for days.
Her father’s raven-haired date barked a laugh. She’d slid from the booth and taken a place behind Mick against the wall, safe, but close enough to watch the action.
Shee eyed her. She didn’t seem like her father’s usual passing conquest. A calm aura of confidence and intelligence surrounded her.
Give them five more minutes alone and he’ll be in love.
Shee looked away to find Scotty’s angry stare bearing down on her. Being duped by a woman seemed to infuriate him more than being captured. The photos of the black-eyed, bloodied-lipped women he’d abused at the Academy made sense now. It wasn’t enough to rape them. He wanted to hurt them. He’d probably loved that they’d fought so hard.
“Call the cops.” Mick tapped her arm and snapped her from her murderous thoughts.
Shee looked at him, her mind slow to shift gears.
“Cops?” she echoed.
“We need a place to keep him until the master-at-arms can get here. He wasn’t scheduled to come until tomorrow for our other case.”
Shee heard the annoyance in her father’s voice. There would be a reckoning for her freelancing. She sensed it was all he could do to keep from scolding her on the spot.
It didn’t matter.
I got him.
His date’s attention had shifted from Mick to Shee.
“You’re his daughter?” she asked as Mick jerked Scotty
