“Haven’t you ever heard the old newspaper adage that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel?” she interrupted.
He’d always had a soft spot for the fairer sex. Supposed that protecting things smaller and weaker than himself had been stamped into his DNA at conception. He could remember being barely four years old when he jumped in front of the little neighbor girl after the dog from across the street lunged at her with slavering jaws and snapping teeth.
His terrified mother had barreled out the back door of their suburban Indiana home, shooing the dog away and taking Ozzie into her arms. With one breath, she had scolded him for being so reckless. With another breath, she had praised him for being brave and selfless. He could still remember the love and the tears in her eyes when she had brushed his hair back from his face. It was one of his last memories of her, and—
He pushed the old pain away and focused on the present. “Samantha, whatever you’ve got going on inside that head of yours, it’s just flat-out wrong. I wish you’d tell me—”
“Wrong? Wrong?” A hysterical edge entered her voice. “After everything that’s happened tonight, you’re still trying to convince me I’m wrong?”
His attention was drawn to her rapidly rising chest and the thin sweater that covered it. The weight of the sopping wool pulled the garment down until he could see the top swells of her breasts and the barest edge of hot-pink lace.
Hot pink.
Samantha was so pragmatic, so sensible in everything she wore—take tonight’s black sweater, unadorned jeans, and low-heeled boots—that he’d pictured her as the typical white-cotton-underpants kind of woman. Then again, she did tend toward colorful designer handbags. So maybe that was her nod to her own femininity. Handbags and lingerie.
I can get on board with that, he thought, and felt movement behind the fly of his jeans.
After the bombing and the trauma to his thigh, not to mention all the pain meds he’d been taking, the mornings he woke to a pup tent in his sheets had been rare. He’d thought getting off the painkillers would help. And it had. Physically. His morning wood had been restored to its former glory.
But mentally?
Yep, that was another matter altogether. Those months when he’d been recovering, those months of abstinence had brought clarity. He’d realized that the way he’d been going about life, hopping from bed to bed, wasn’t getting him what he really wanted.
Not that he had gone on a woman diet, per se. More like he had lost interest in the hollowness of it all. Then Samantha had arrived on the scene. Samantha with her eager mind and biting sense of humor. Samantha with her gap teeth and long, lush hair that tempted his fingers.
She made him want to throw his convictions right out the window. He might have done just that if not for the teensy-weensy fact that he liked having her around. And in his experience, ladies tended to love him and leave him. So it stood to reason that if he wanted to keep her, he needed to avoid the “love him” portion of that equation so the “leave him” portion never happened.
Unfortunately, his dick hadn’t gotten on board with the plan. Anytime she was near, it took notice. And right now? Well, it saw that hot-pink bra and decided to stand up and wave a happy Hi, how are ya to the whole world.
“Sweetheart, if you would just explain what you think is happening or has happened, then I’m sure we can—”
“Oh, you just ooze charm like an oil spill oozes…” She blinked, seeming to search for the correct comparison.
“Oil?” he finished helpfully.
Her left eyelid twitched. A bright-red flush of anger stained her cheeks. “But I’m not buying it.”
His patience snapped. “Well, that’s good, because I’m not trying to sell you anything! For the love of James T. Kirk, could you please just—”
“Ma’am,” the officer who had been the first to tackle Christian butted in. “I think Detective Carver is waiting for you.” Of all the times for Barney Fife to find his voice. Ozzie wanted to deck him. “And we’d like to take these two into an interrogation room. Check them out, and see if they really do have licenses for their weapons.”
“Yep.” Ozzie nodded with mock enthusiasm. Since he couldn’t pop the po-po in the puss, he’d satisfy himself with sarcasm. It was nearly as gratifying. “As men, we will go and discuss important things. First thing we should talk about is the phone call you owe me. I’d like to make it to Lawrence Washington. You’ve heard of him, right? He’s your police chief.”
That seemed to set the officers back on their heels. Lawrence P. Washington was a former marine who had a tendency to bark orders at his rank and file with rapid-fire, machine-gun precision. He also happened to be the only civilian not affiliated with the Black Knights who knew the true nature of their business. More than once, the police chief had come to their rescue, helping them keep their real identities secret when the work they did for the government ended up intersecting with the mean streets of Chicago.
“Well?” Ozzie didn’t have to feign annoyance. He had it in spades. And the fact that his thigh was screaming due to his recent brute squad manhandling wasn’t helping matters. “Let’s get going. The sooner I figure out what I’m being accused of and why my night has turned into such an unholy dick suck, the happier I’ll be.”
Samantha stood silently as the officers marched him and Christian toward the back of the building. When Ozzie glanced over his shoulder, he was taken aback by the look on her face. There was only one word to describe her expression. It was betrayal.
*
Samantha drummed her fingers on the metal table and impatiently glanced at her reflection in what she knew was a two-way mirror. With a start, she realized the drowned rat with the smeared mascara and the shiny, red nose staring back at her was, in fact, her.
Good Lord.
Licking the tips of her fingers, she wiped the mascara from under her eyes as best she could. Then she finger-combed her quickly drying hair into some semblance of order. With curly hair, that was a challenge. As for her red nose? It’d just have to stay. She was so weighed down by disappointment and heartache that she didn’t have the desire or the energy to go rummaging through her purse for her compact powder.
She didn’t like that Detective Carver had insisted on answering her questions inside an interrogation room instead of at his desk. She liked it even less that she’d barely had time to ask him if he had any concrete leads in Marcel’s case before his cell phone rang and he ducked into the hall to take the call—which was almost forty minutes ago. And the fact that she felt guilty for turning Ozzie in? Well, that she liked least of all.
He’s a gunrunning piece of slime-sucking scumbag criminal crap who spent months buttering me up and then tried to kill me. He deserves anything and everything he gets, she forcefully reminded herself.