“Walsh said something about it snowing for Christmas,” Mercy said, lifting his voice to be heard above the rippling breeze.
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Her jaw clenched and she burrowed closer to Mercy as they walked, awkwardly, together like this, back toward their apartment. Walking the short distance to the bar had sounded fine earlier. It seemed like a stupid idea in retrospect.
“Poorfillette,” he crooned in a voice that was half-laugh, half-come-on. “Cold little girl.” A playful voice she knew all too well.
“It’s freezing,” she said, in her own defense. “Yeah, I’m cold.”
Once they were out of sight of the Bell Bar door, he spun her back against the brick wall, landing her gently against it, covering her body with his, his open leather jacket shielding her from the worst of the wind.
Ava gasped in brief surprise, then laughed. “Whatare you doing?”
“Warming you up.” In the smeared light of the streetlamps, she saw the quick gleam of his teeth as he beamed a wicked grin down at her. One of his big hands reached through the gap between her coat buttons, slipped beneath her sweater, covered her belly. “You don’t want the baby getting cold, do you?”
“The baby’s plenty warm in there.”
His hand moved lower, shoving boldly into the waistband of her leggings, fingers toying against the cotton screen of her panties.
Ava closed her lips against the scandalized, delighted sound that tried to leave her throat. Her hips titled in automatic invitation, her body responsive to his touch at a moment’s notice. But she said, “The baby’s notdown there.”
“Good, I don’t wanna have to share.” He bent to kiss her, his hair swinging forward to tease at her face. It smelled like the flowery Herbal Essences shampoo he used; felt like watered silk on her skin.
“Mercy,” she protested, even as her neck stretched and her lips parted.
The loud and unhappy grumbling of a rattletrap car engine going past brought her back to her senses. He kissed her once – it was warm and verging toward hot – before she gave him a little shove. “Not on the street,” she said, laughing. “Not when it’s this cold, and there’s people driving by, and we’ve got a warm bed waiting on us at home.”
His hand slid from her leggings – she regretted that, if she was honest – and he tossed a glare over his shoulder at the rust bucket Buick limping along in front of the bar at a halfhearted one mile an hour.
Ava reached to lay her hand over the breast pocket of his cut, his chest, his beating heart beneath the layers of leather and cotton, and the tattoo of her teeth inked into the skin above. “We don’t have to steal time anymore,” she reminded, an excitement pulsing through her words. Just the sparse contact they’d had so far had heated her skin, faded the breeze to an annoyance, a dim scraping at her skin that was no match for the heat storm building inside her. “We can take however long we need.”
His gaze came back to her, a soft, tender expression lurking just behind the cocky smirk he presented to her. “We can, can’t we?” There was a small note of wonder in his voice, trace of that disbelief that still lingered in both of them. They were married now. No one could keep them apart. No one could threaten them with anything.
“Let’s go home,” Ava said, reaching for his hand, threading her fingers through his long dark ones. “I’d rather have you naked anyway.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
There were still tears in her eyes. Holly blinked at them furiously and dabbed at them with a napkin, but they kept coming in little trickles, leaking away from the buildup of frustrated sobs that wanted to burst out of her. She wouldn’t allow that sort of crying, of course. Crying had never served her a purpose a day in her life. But she’d been so patient, had been working all this time to cozy up to Michael, and he’d rejected her flat-out. If he had no interest in her body, what was her currency to be, then? What could she trade to get what she wanted? What she so desperately needed. Killers weren’t killers, she knew, out of the goodness of their hearts.
“Holly, hon.” Carly drew up in front of her as she stood in front of the soda station, trying to restore her composure. The other waitress, small and brunette like Holly, was on eye-level, and there was no hiding the wet sheen of tears from her. She laid a hand on Holly’s arm. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing.” Holly forced a smile and made a few final dabs with the napkin. “Just allergies, probably.”
Carly made a face, not fooled. “Did that guy say something to you?”
“Which guy?”
A gentle grimace. “The one you…the one you always sit and talk with. That creepy guy who doesn’t ever say anything.”
“He says things,” Holly defended, before she could catch herself, then, in a rush: “And it’s not about him, anyway. Something must be blooming. Ragweed, maybe.”
“In the middle of December, yeah,” Carly said, frowning. “Look, you’re closing up tonight, right?”
Holly nodded and jammed the crumpled napkin into the pocket of her silk uniform shorts – boxing shorts in keeping with the boxing theme of the bell, because Jeff the owner claimed the old ring bell mounted above the bar was signed by Muhammad Ali.
“Let me cover for you,” Carly said. “You go home, get some rest. You’ve been pulling really long shifts.” Her expression said she was worried about Holly.
“That’s sweet, Carly, but I couldn’t–”
“Can and will,” Carly said, nodding, her mind made up now. “You go take a hot bath, watch crap TV, go to bed early. I took all that vacation time last month; I’m glad to close up tonight.”
