“I’ll have a Guinness waiting for you when you get back,” she said.
Cam gave himself a mental slap. This was Eva. Eva. In other words, off limits for naked fantasies. Fuck, how many more times would he have to remind himself of that tonight? Usually, when it came to her, he had better control over his urges. He’d spent the last five years reigning them in, after all. “Uh, yeah. Thanks. I just drank half a Corona, so I’m going to need it.”
She made a face. “You actually drank half a bottle of that cat piss?”
“It was for a good cause.”
“Aw, my hero. I’ll have two glasses of Guinness waiting then.”
“Have I told you lately that I love you?” he crooned in his best Rod Stewart impression.
She rolled her eyes. “Christ. I’m never singing karaoke with you again.”
Cam laughed, and it felt good, releasing some of the tension from seeing Seth’s scars. He’d talked her into karaoke a few weekends ago when some of his Air Force buddies were in town, and he’d made a complete ass out of himself, much to her horror. Her refusal to sing that night after she’d accepted his dare had resulted in her coming to Key West as his plus one for the wedding. Now he was getting a kick out of breaking into random song just to needle her.
“Hey, at least I never back down from a bet.”
She flipped him off, and Cam found himself smiling as he ducked into the hotel’s lobby.
Chapter Three
Most of the guests had taken their dinner seats by the time Eva made it back to the reception. Laughter and the faint clink of silverware mingled with the guitar music from under the tent. She watched the happy, glittering crowd for a moment, marveled at how they all appeared at ease as they chatted over drinks and appetizers. She should join them and play her part as one of the groomsman’s “dates” but…
Yeah, no.
Still barefoot, she about faced and strode into the hotel lobby, intent on finally finding the bar. She had no idea where her sandals had gone, only vaguely remembered setting them down somewhere. Didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she planned on wearing those toe-crushing torture contraptions ever again.
Signs pointed the way across the lobby to a dimly lit lounge packed with other hotel patrons. She imagined there was a bar set up specifically for the wedding guests, but this was more her speed anyway: Dark and a little cramped with TVs lining the oak bar tuned to the latest football highlights. It reminded her of Maguire’s, the Irish pub several blocks over from the police station, where a lot of cops hung out after their shifts. It was her and Cam’s favorite hangout, and this place gave her a comforting sense of familiarity as she parked it on a padded stool and flagged the bartender, who wore the brightest neon orange shirt she’d ever seen. He practically looked radioactive and his smile was just as bright. He chatted her up as he pulled two pints of Guinness with perfect white foamy heads. After the first sip had her wiping foam from her upper lip, she supposed she could forgive him for searing her eyeballs with his choice of clothing.
Still, homesickness tugged at her.
Key West was like a carnival: wild and unpredictable, full of bright colors and strange people and fun house mirrors reflecting a distorted, margarita-soaked version of reality. It was fun to get caught up in the whirlwind of it—until you started to get nauseous from all the spinning.
Man, she missed D.C. and grumpy old Rick Maguire, who never wore neon and only “chatted” when he wanted to complain about the president’s newest transgressions. At the moment, she wasn’t even sure why she’d agreed to come here. Well, except for the fact that she lost a bet. And she had a really hard time saying no to Camden Wilde.
Thank God she was leaving tomorrow.
Eva set the second pint of Guinness in front of the empty stool beside her. Cam wouldn’t have any trouble finding her when he got back, and she was a woman of her word. Besides, he deserved it. There was something about the man that people instinctively trusted. Even she had trusted him from the get go, and she wasn’t one to trust blindly. She’d been new to homicide, fresh out of a two-year stint with narcotics, and nervous that she wouldn’t be taken seriously as a woman in the all-male squad. But the moment she set her bag down on her new desk, Cam had slid his chair across the aisle between their desks and offered her a carrot stick.
“Carrot stick?” she’d echoed like a dunce, unsure that she’d heard him right and leery that he might be playing a prank on the noob.