Harry, where were you? Why didn’t you stop me?
Harry popped in. Oh, please. Like I could’ve. And besides, good for you! You needed that. A little hot sex to wash away the last memories of Carter.
She hadn’t thought of her ex-husband at all. Not even once.
Doubly good for you.
And it wasn’t a little sex. It was gargantuanly, enormously great sex—no, it wasn’t just great sex, it was the greatest sex. Ever.
It’s been a while. Your ability to judge is probably at least a little impaired.
Okay, that was probably true. She might have to recheck that. Maybe first thing, when they woke up…
Good plan.
He was just so great. It was hard not to…
Don’t say the L-word again. Don’t make that mistake! L-l-l-lust. Call it lust. Because that’s what it is. LUST. Yay, lust!
Yay. Lust.
Oh, come on. Peter is a lovely distraction, a nice little stop on the train ride of life. A Navy SEAL. Hoo-yah! Just keep reminding yourself that this is not your forever home.
Shayla was not a shelter dog, thanks. Also? Kind of obvious, considering they were in a tent.
You know what I mean. Love him hard, have some fun, but when it’s over, it’s over. Just be ready to let him go.
Yeah, and how had it worked out for Harry, when he’d done that?
Badly, because I’m a character in a romance novel. You, however, live in the real world, with its shades of gray. With that, he was gone.
Shayla sighed and muttered, “Man.”
Peter’s arms tightened slightly around her as he roused himself. “Y’okay? Was there another aftershock?”
“No,” she said. “It’s all right.”
He lifted his head. “You sure?”
She turned to see that he was looking down at her, suddenly fully awake.
“We didn’t get a chance to do, you know, a debrief of the earthquake. Sometimes, talking about it can really help,” he said, then asked, “You want to talk?”
Shay shook her head, filled with more of that feeling that she shouldn’t be feeling, damnit. “Just…kiss me,” she said.
And he smiled, and did.
Someone was following him.
Daryl had had that feeling all night, and it was annoying as hell. More so, now that it was three o’clock in the morning and he was heading home on foot.
Fucking Dingo with his fucking jonesing for jailbait Maddie Nakamura. Normally, when Daryl worked this late, he’d call up the Ding-man and toss him a few bucks for gas, get a ride back to Sheryl-Ann’s apartment, where he was crashing on the couch.
But tonight, Dingo had been piloting his boat-on-wheels northward up the Five. Heading for Van Nuys, no doubt, where if he cried loud enough and long enough, Mummy would donate to the Support Dingo Super PAC.
As he crossed the street, there was no traffic moving in any direction, red lights stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. So that someone’s-following-me feeling must’ve been a figment of his imagination, triggered by that encounter with Maddie’s Navy SEAL father in the mall parking garage.
“Hey, Daryl.”
Daryl jumped and screamed as a shadowy shape emerged from a storefront. It was Cody O’Keefe—not quite a friend of Dingo’s, but more of a work associate. Assuming Dingo’s on-again-off-again consignment-style drug sales for that moron Bob Nelson could be considered a job. “Shit, man, you scared me! What the fuck?”
This was a weird coincidence—except, fuhhhhck, it was probably not any kind of coincidence, considering the whole matter of Fiona stealing ten thousand dollars and trying to pin it on Maddie.
“Sorry, bro,” O’Keefe said without an ounce of sincerity behind his apology. He wasn’t quite as tall as Daryl, but he weighed twice as much, which was intimidating, especially since he had that schoolyard bully attitude.
“A little late to be doing business,” Daryl said, hoping against hope that he was wrong, and that O’Keefe’s being here was a coincidence.
But “No such thing as too late,” said another shadow who’d appeared behind Cody.
Shit, it was Eddie Facciolo, a fucking skinhead, along with his creepy twin brother, Stank Stedman. They weren’t really related, but the shaved heads made them look it. Eddie had a nose ring, and Stank had a neck tattoo. Or maybe it was the other way around…?
“You out here making a delivery for Nelson?” Daryl asked, but his heart sank as Eddie and Stank moved back behind Daryl, so that between the two of them and O’Keefe, there was nowhere for him to run.
“Information gathering,” O’Keefe said with that smile that didn’t touch his eerie pale blue eyes. Reptilian, Dingo had called it. Dingo could be an idiot, but in this case, Dingo was right.
“Maybe I can help you out,” Daryl said quickly.
“I know you can,” O’Keefe said. “That’s why you been hiding from us, bitch.”
“What?” Daryl said. “Hiding? No, man, I haven’t been hiding from anyone.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” Eddie said, “and you’ve been fucking hard to find.”
“Full transparency, Ed,” Daryl said. “I’ve been working the kitchen for Yuri, you know, like I have for, fuck, five whole weeks now? He runs that high-end card game over by the Hyatt and the Hilton? You know, where the Richie Riches stay when they come to town?”
“I thought you worked at the Irish,” O’Keefe said.
“Nah, brah,” Daryl said. “That didn’t last. And this is way better. It’s all under the table. The walking home is for shit, but I’ll get my license back in another four months.” He cleared his throat. “So how can I help you? And I do want to help you. Let me guess, this is about Fiona’s friend Maddie, and some missing money?”
O’Keefe crossed his ginormous arms. It was meant to intimidate, and yes, it did.
“If I had to guess,” Daryl said, “Fee took that money. She hated Maddie because Dingo has a thing for her.”
“We’re not looking for your guesses,” O’Keefe said. “We’re looking for the girl.”
“Well, okay,” Daryl said. “That simplifies things, because I don’t know much about her. Her last name’s Nakamura. Her father’s in the Navy.” He almost said SEAL, but he suspected that wouldn’t be well received, so he didn’t. “Let’s see, his last name’s Greene, they live over on, um, Janson Street, yeah. I was with Ding and Fee, and we dropped off Maddie, once.”
“What’s the number?” O’Keefe asked.
“Dude,” Daryl said. “I don’t know. I wasn’t in remembering-numbers mode at the time, if you feel me. It’s kinda yellow stucco, Spanish style, with pink and orange what-cha-call-it—barrel tile roof. Her dad has a truck, it was in the drive. I think it’s blue…?”
“What else?” O’Keefe asked.
“Uhhhh, Maddie used to live in Palm Springs?”
“Are you telling me that or asking me?” O’Keefe said.
“A little of both?” Daryl shrugged, and gave him the smile that had won him friends and influenced people—particularly enemies—through the years. People liked him for a reason. “I don’t really know her—Maddie.”
“But she’s fucking Dingo?” O’Keefe asked.