Chapter 33 #2
“Aw, come on,” the first guy goaded. “You were sweet on her.”
“Was not.”
“Were.”
The man’s grip tightened on the cue. Not anger exactly. Something… stiffer. Like he was trying to hold a lid on something that wanted out.
He glanced toward the bar, then toward the door. Quick. A check.
Not unusual in a bar.
But the timing hit wrong.
“Maybe she’d still be around if you’d asked her out,” another guy said, laughing. “Instead, you let her take your last twenty and said thank you, ma’am.”
The man’s mouth flattened. “She was smart,” he muttered.
Not cute. Not hot. Not sexy. Smart.
That word snagged.
Smart meant he’d probably talked to her. Smart meant he’d seen her as a person. Smart meant the loss had landed differently than it might have for a total stranger.
Madden reached for another onion ring. I leaned in, voice low, casual enough not to trip her alarm. “Finish up.”
She paused mid-bite and looked at me.
I didn’t give her the explanation yet. I didn’t need her head turning toward the pool table.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
Madden’s posture stiffened the way it always did when someone gave her an order. Then she exhaled, the edge easing. She trusted me. That was new. Still strange.
“Okay,” she said, and took another bite.
I watched the group by the pool table without looking like I watched them, the way I’d been trained to watch: peripheral, relaxed, nothing that screamed cop. My body stayed loose. My attention did not.
The man with the tight shoulders took his turn at the table. He lined up a shot, hands steady, cue sliding forward with controlled precision. He made the ball. The guys around him cheered like that meant something.
He didn’t smile.
He sank the next shot too. He missed the third by a hair and swore softly under his breath, not loud enough for the others.
His frustration looked real.
His tension looked more real.
Madden wiped her fingers with a napkin and slid her plate away. She glanced at mine. “You finished?”
“Yeah,” I tossed down enough cash to cover the bill and a tip. I didn’t want to wait on a check. I didn’t want to linger.
We stood.
I didn’t hurry her. I just placed my hand at the small of her back and guided her toward the door, letting it seem like we were leaving for the reasons people left bars late at night. Nothing urgent. Nothing alarming.
Outside, the ocean smell came in clean and sharp. I steered Madden to the side of the building, into a pocket of shadow near stacked crab pots and a leaning pallet. Enough cover that we wouldn’t be obvious, but close enough to see the door.
Madden leaned back against the wall and let out a quiet laugh, breath visible in the chill. “This is hardly a place I’d expect you to get amorous.”
I stepped in close and stole a brief kiss—quick, controlled, enough to look like the reason we’d ducked away. Her lips parted automatically, her hand sliding up to my chest like she’d forgotten what to do with herself and decided this was safer than thinking.
I pulled back before it could turn into something else. “Tempting,” I murmured. “But no. We’re here to wait.”
Her eyes sharpened. “For what?”
Maybe for nothing. Maybe for everything. But there was no time to explain any of that to her because the door opened.
I pressed Madden back gently, one hand braced beside her shoulder, the other at her hip. I mimed shhh.
She went still instantly, body aligning with mine, breath quieting like she’d flipped a switch. Madden didn’t do panic. She did control.
The pool player I’d been watching stepped out alone, keys jingling, head down. He looked over his shoulder once, quick and uneasy, before heading toward the docks.
I waited. Counted heartbeats. Let him get far enough ahead that he wouldn’t turn and catch us as part of the doorway light.
I leaned in, voice barely more than air. “Stay close.”
Madden’s eyes widened, but she nodded.
We moved off the wall and followed, keeping distance, using the shadows of pilings and parked boats the way I’d used alleyways overseas. The dock stretched out ahead, lights casting long, broken reflections on the water. Somewhere a buoy clanged softly, the sound dull and repetitive.
The man walked like someone with something heavy in his pockets that wasn’t metal. His shoulders stayed tight. His head turned slightly now and then, not quite looking behind him, but checking.
He felt watched.
Good.
Madden’s breath came steady at my side, her steps careful, quiet. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t whisper. She trusted me to tell her when it mattered.
We reached the point where the dock split—one branch toward the charter boats, the other toward smaller working vessels tied up close. The fisherman hesitated before turning down the working side.
My pulse picked up.
I didn’t like the way Madden’s fingers brushed mine—only once—like she needed the reminder that I was there.
For the first time all night, I wished she wasn’t here.
Wished I was on my own to follow this guy and satisfy the niggle in my gut.
But she was here, and we couldn’t risk losing him on the slim possibility my gut was right.
I gave her a brief squeeze back and angled us into deeper shadow as we followed the man from the bar.