Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
O nce again, Frank had let his big mouth do the talking before his brain had even started walking. How many times was he going to do that tonight with Katie?
The best night of her life? How in the hell was he supposed to deliver on that? She wasn’t the kind of woman that he could impress by flashing his dimples and buying her a beer. Tonight was probably his last, best chance to win her over, and he was all fire hose and no water.
He squeezed the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles turned white as he flipped through every date idea he’d ever had in his life.
The movies? Too boring, plus they’d both just gone.
Dinner? Yeah, no one had ever taken her out to eat on a date before.
A concert? The ticket offices were all closed by now, and he only had a five and a half torn single in his wallet, so scalpers weren’t an option.
Think, Hartigan.
He was about to make a left onto Vine when he saw it. The massive elephant skeleton stood three times higher than an actual elephant and had been on the news the other night when he’d been on shift. They’d just finished watching the Harbor City Giants lose in the tenth inning when the news started with a story about the new elephant exhibit at the Harbor City Natural History Museum.
A rookie had groused that no one gave a shit about elephants, and before Frank even realized he was going to, he’d dropped a mini-dissertation on African Elephants. Everyone in the station’s living room had stared at him, mouths open wide enough to catch the cross-town bus.
“That’s it,” Collin Madigan had said, tossing a balled-up fire pamphlet at Frank’s head. “My sister is not allowed at our poker nights anymore.”
And that’s when Frank had realized why he’d known more than the old dad joke about how to eat an elephant. About six months ago at poker night, Katie had insisted they leave on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom during the game and had then oohed and ahhed over the baby elephants—calves he now knew—while claiming the night’s pot.
Frank’s grip now loosened on the steering wheel, and he crossed three lanes of traffic, ignoring the blaring honks of the other drivers, and drove into the museum’s parking garage. He pulled into the first spot he found and cut the engine, then got out and hurried to her side of the car so he could open her door for her.
She thanked him as she got out and stood in the small space between him and the car. They weren’t so close they were touching, but they were near enough that he could pick up the vanilla scent of her perfume and spot the dusting of pale freckles across her nose. He wondered—not for the first time—where else she had those barely-there dots. The supply closet at Marinos had given them privacy, but not the kind where they could shed any more clothes than necessary. He’d spent every day since then regretting that.
“Here you go,” he said, handing the keys to her.
That—of course—was when he should have stepped back, but he just couldn’t get his feet to move away from her.
She took the keys, her fingers brushing his and sending a jolt of awareness straight to his dick—as if he needed a reminder of just how much he wanted her. A soft blush turned her cheeks pink, and she bit down on her lip, but she didn’t look away. Just like in those few moments between shutting the supply closet door and fucking her— finally fucking her —everything slowed down as the air grew thick with anticipation and want.
He gripped the passenger door hard enough that the metal bit into his palm as he tried desperately to hold onto his fraying sense of control. He couldn’t lose it like he had in the supply closet. He’d known the second she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him like she’d been fantasizing about him as long as he had been dreaming about her, that he was a goner.
In that closet, next to the mops and the industrial-sized bottles of floor cleaner, there hadn’t been any slow and easy, and definitely not any sweet and gentle. It had been desperate and needy and so fucking good.
He wouldn’t change that night for anything, but tonight was his one chance to show her he could be more.
And he was trying to do just that when she pressed a hand to his chest and tilted her face up at him. Her perfect lips, glossy and pink, parted as she rose on her tiptoes.
Then the slam of a car door and a woman’s laughter echoing off the parking garage’s concrete walls broke the moment. Katie jerked back, blinking rapidly as she looked over toward the noise as if trying to remember where they were. Then she looked back at him, her gaze lingering on his mouth. A bright spot of red appeared at the base of her throat.
“You brought me to the museum for the best night of my life?“ she asked, her voice higher than normal and her motions all fluttery as she turned and reached back inside the car for her purse.
“Of course,” he said. “They have a new exhibit all about the African elephants you like.”
She started, and her huge bag slipped through her fingers. It landed on the seat and fell over, sending keys, pens, tubes of lipstick, a deformed wire hanger, a bunch of hair things, two books that had to weigh several pounds each, a Walkman, and more spilling onto the floor. Muttering to herself, she shoveled everything back in and stood up, clutching the purse to her chest.
“How did you know I like elephants?”
“You watched a show about them during the poker game a few months ago.”
Her face softened. She looked down, a small smile curling her full lips. “Thank you.”
He looked down at the cracked concrete and shrugged. A jittery awkwardness, like a bundle of electricity, sizzled in his gut. “It’s just the museum.”
“Yeah, but when you grow up one of thirteen, most people just lump you together,” she said with a quick huff of frustration, hitting the locks and closing the car door behind her with more force than necessary. “You aren’t an individual with your own likes; you’re just another one of those Madigans.”
He looked up and grinned at her. “Trust me. I will never, ever lump you in with your brothers. You smell way better.”
Giggling, she rolled her eyes at him, and her shoulders relaxed back down. “Come on. Let’s go see those elephants.”
An hour later, they’d explored the life-sized, walk-thru exhibit showcasing how the elephants are considered ecosystem engineers, watched a short documentary about elephant social structures, and pressed their hands against the wall so they could feel the vibrations the animals spoke with that were too low for humans to hear. They were admiring the thirteen-foot-tall. taxidermy elephant that weighed eleven tons when someone with a thick Harbor City accent yelled out. “Yo, Hartigan!“
Frank turned around. Some sixth sense warning of trouble made the back of his neck tingle as he watched the two guys he’d never seen before approaching them a little too casually. Both were the kind of ruddy-faced, blonde-haired, no-neck type of guys who tended to forget leg day but always remembered a personal slight (real or imagined). Their eyes were too glassy, and their smiles too big for this encounter to be anything other than a shit parade.
Listening to his gut, Frank stepped forward and pivoted enough to partially block Katie from Frick and Frack’s approach.
“Do I know you?” Frank asked, keeping his tone neutral as he watched the two men.
“Do you know us?” The taller man laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Then he smacked the other guy in the chest with the back of his hand. “Did you hear that, Petey? For the love of Mike, he’s going to pretend he doesn’t know us because he’s on a date.” He shot Katie a slimy smile. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Frank could feel Katie stiffen behind him. He took a step over so he stood fully between her and the men.
“Well, you know what they say about firemen,” Petey said with a chuckle. “They’re not the brightest if they’re willing to go into a burning building.”
“Look, buddy,” Frank said, letting his annoyance bleed through into his tone. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not him.”
The taller guy laughed again, a loud braying sound that had other people looking over at them.
“Petey, I’m telling you, this guy is fucking funny. A hoot, as Granny G would say.” He shook his head as another, quieter chuckle slipped out. But when he looked back at Frank, he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Look, Paul, you owe two grand, and it’s past time to pay up.”
Realization hit Frank like a two-by-four to the temple, and suddenly everything made sense. These two weren’t just assholes; they were assholes who collected for someone bigger, badder, and meaner. Frank bit back a groan. He was going to kill his twin brother. Slowly. Painfully. And then he was going to bring him back so he could do it again.
“First off, I’m not Paul. That’s my brother.” He ground out the words like he was chewing glass. “Second, I assume your office is at The Flying Sow?”
“Nice try, Paul,” Petey said, taking another step closer. “The town isn’t exactly crawling with giant redheads with a taste for double or nothing bets, even if that means taking the Cajun Rage to win.”
If he’d been alone, Frank just might have helped the idiot duo beat the crap out of this brother for pulling this shit again. Paul may have kept his promise to keep away from the Waterbury bookies, but it seemed he’d just started losing his money across the harbor instead. Now he’d lost more than he could pay. That explained Paul’s recent decision to take a sudden trip upstate, leaving his lookalike, five-minute-older brother to pay for his sins.
Yep. Frank was definitely going to murder him. Right now, however, he had to get Katie out of there before these two got any ideas.
The taller guy took a step closer. “Now, you and your lady friend will come with us to The Flying Sow so Mikey can have a little talk with you before Petey and I do what we gotta do.”
Yeah, there was no way they were going to a second location with these two—at least she wasn’t.
A sense of certainty settled in his gut as the plan came together. He’d do what he needed to so she could run. Her car was only two flights down, and she had the keys. She’d get back to Waterbury, and somehow, he’d get things straightened out at The Flying Sow.
He glanced back at Katie, then at the exit sign above the stairwell leading to the parking garage, and then back at her. She gave him a subtle nod.
He let out a quick relieved breath. For a second, he’d been worried that she’d fight him on this.
With Katie squared away, he turned back to Frick and Frack, giving them a mean-ass smile of his own. Understanding flashed in the taller one’s eyes half a second before Frank’s fist made contact. His nose made a satisfying crunching sound, and he stumbled back on his heels.
Frank pivoted to take care of Petey before the first guy got his shit together, but Katie was faster. Like some kind of Amazon warrior, she swung her purse, which had to weigh at least ten pounds, at Petey. It caught him right in the side of the head, and he went down like Mr. T in the final fight against Rocky.
She turned to Frank, gave him a blood-thirsty grin that probably should have scared the shit out of him, and yelled, “Fire!”
The museum erupted into chaos as people hurried toward the front doors in a massive, panicked crowd.
Frank grabbed Katie’s hand, and they joined the rush of people, losing the bookie’s debt collectors somewhere in the madness.
“We should keep going,” Katie said when they made it out of the museum’s front entrance. “We can come back for the car later, after they’ve left.”
Still holding hands, they made it three blocks east before he pulled her to a stop next to a crowd of tourists admiring the summer fashion window display at Dylan’s Department store.
Adrenaline still pumping through his veins, powered by worry that had nothing to do with the debt collectors or the record-setting pace they’d set getting away from the museum, Frank glared down at Katie. “You were supposed to run to the exit so you could get away.”
Obviously completely unintimidated, she shrugged. “I liked my plan better.”
“The one where you could have gotten hurt?” he asked, his tone gruff to distract from the fact that he was skimming his hands over her to reassure himself that she wasn’t hurt.
“But I didn’t,” she said. Her eyes glowed with excitement, as if she’d just gotten off the mother of all rollercoasters. “I’ve never knocked anyone out with my purse and caused a stampede before.”
God help him; she was as bad of a thrill seeker as any rookie firefighter he’d ever had to train. He rammed his fingers through his hair and exhaled a deep breath. The woman was going to kill him. “Don’t ever put yourself in danger like that again.”
She shot him an ornery grin. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” As if it mattered. Whatever it was, he would find a way to get it for her.
“A chocolate shake.”
Despite the fact that his pulse was still erratic because she’d scared the ever-loving shit out of him, Frank laughed. “I buy you a shake, and you won’t take on anyone else who breaks kneecaps for a living?”
She held up her hand, extending three fingers and holding her pinky down with her thumb. “On my honor as a Girl Scout.”
He’d always known there was a reason to be afraid of those green-sash-wearing cookie dealers.
“Come on.” He took her hand again, because not touching her when she was this close was beyond him. “I know just the place.”