“Incoming at nine o’clock.” He kept walking, hustling her along. Given half a chance, she might have resisted, but he didn’t give her half a chance. He’d grabbed her, and they were moving back through the traffic, fast, too fast for her to get any leverage against the hold he had on her.
“Incoming? What the… dammit … This is a bad move, Ramos,” she said in a tone of voice that reminded him that besides the.45 he could feel through her jacket, she had a knife, that she had a knife for a reason, and that he’d just become one of those reasons.
Sonuvabitch. That was not the sort of information he was used to forgetting. That was the sort of information he was used to hardwiring into his brain.
“Do you remember Dan Smollett?” he asked, his grip still very firm on her, very close to a death grip. He couldn’t afford to have her squirming away just yet, or going for one of her weapons, or doing any damn thing, not in the middle of the street, or anywhere else for that matter. He was in charge, and that was for the best almost one hundred percent of the time.
“Dovey?”
Obviously, she did remember the cretin.
“He’s thirty yards behind us and closing.”
She let out a short sound of disgust. “If you’re on the run from Dovey Smollett, that’s your problem, not mine.”
“No. It’s your problem, babe.” They reached the other side of Wynkoop, but he didn’t relent with his grip. He kept her moving. He had a plan, and it didn’t involve letting Dovey Smollett catch up to them.
“The hell it is. I don’t give a damn if Dovey Smollett is in LoDo, or if he dropped off the edge of the earth. Now let go of me, you…you… jerk.” She tried to twist out of his grip, and got exactly nowhere-for a damn good reason. He was well trained in the ways and means of physical restraint, and he could bench-press Esme Alden, all hundred- and-what pounds of her.
Hell, he could bench-press three Esme Aldens.
“Can you run in those heels?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate with her answer. “But-”
“There’s no but,” he cut her off. “If I say run, you keep up. Got it?”
“Go to hell.” Short, succinct, and impossible to misinterpret-he had to give her credit for that much.
He opened the next door they came to and pushed her inside ahead of him, straight into the crush of people jamming O’Shaunessy’s back bar.
“Excuse me… sorry…” Johnny edged his way through the crowd, keeping one hand wrapped around her waist, keeping her close. Nobody was getting to her without going through him first, and the only people in this town who could get through him were on his side.
She could thank him later-but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.
“What the … oh, cripes. You’ve got a…a… dammit,” she said, her voice low.
Yeah, he had her pulled real close to his right side, and he’d wondered when she would notice the pistol riding under his arm.
“Dammit,” Esme swore again. “I don’t believe this. I can’t believe I… dammit.”
“Just keep moving.”
The crowd thinned out at the service end of the bar, and after getting the two of them tucked into the dark corner between the waitress station and the kitchen door, he took a moment to check and see if Dovey had followed them inside.
Geezus. Franklin Bleak. Whatever she’d gotten herself into, she needed to get herself out, or she was going to end up wishing she’d picked a different line of work. The stories he’d heard about Franklin Bleak weren’t just grim; they were gruesome.
“Dammit, Ramos. If this is your way of getting a girl to have a drink with you, I can see why you’re alone on a Friday night.” He had her about half behind him in the corner, and her voice was close to his ear and very sharp-edged, understandably so. He’d pretty much railroaded her into O’Shaunessy’s.
Which in no way fit in with his plan to head back to his beer at the Blue Iguana, despite the fact that she had in no way begged him for help.
No, there had been no begging. That was too big of a stretch, even for him. It had been a clean snatch-and-grab all the way.
“And now, if you’re finished manhandling me,” she continued, starting to push by him, “this party is over.”
No, it wasn’t.
“Stay put,” he said, shifting his body sideways and holding her in place, while keeping his gaze on the crowd of people.
“You’re out of line, no matter what you’re packing under your shirt,” she whispered, her voice even closer to his ear.
“And you’re in more trouble than you seem to realize.”
At that, she let out a short, surprised laugh. “And how in the hell do you figure that?”
“For a secretary, you’ve got some real bad guys after you.”
“Like you?” The comeback was vintage Easy Alex, pure smart-mouthed.
“No. Dovey,” he said, turning to face her. “He’s what we call an undesirable element, no matter where he is-in LoDo, dropped off the edge of the earth, or sitting at home on his couch.”
A flash of something darkened her gaze, but only for a moment, and it took him another second to realize what it had been: alarm, the first instance of it he’d seen in her since he’d spotted her up on Seventeenth.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to let Dovey get within ten feet of you.” The skinny numbers runner was no match for a U.S. Army Ranger, not on his best day with three of his buddies.
“It’s not Dovey I’m worried about,” she said, giving him a carefully measured look, holding the moment for the space of a breath before she continued. “So what’s with the ‘we’ and the ‘undesirable element’ lingo? You sound like a cop.”
Her tone implied it would be the worst damn thing in the world, which did nothing to reassure him that she was up to anything except no good.
Geezus. She’d hog-tied that poor sap in the Oxford. She’d stolen something from the guy, and Mr. America here had been going to let her just walk away from the crime. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what was up with that. Just because he’d liked a girl in high school did not make her a saint, although he had seemed to fall for the saintly ones, the good girls, the ones who wouldn’t give it up in a backseat.
No wonder it had taken him so long to get laid.
Thank God, he’d expanded his horizons since then. Saintliness didn’t even make the cut on his top ten list of attributes to look for in a woman anymore. As a matter of fact, given what he’d learned of human nature, any woman aspiring to saintliness was highly suspect in his book.
Which, of course, under her current circumstances, made Esme Alden look like the perfect girl for him all over again, except this time from the dark side-very dark, if Franklin Bleak was after her.
“No. I’m not a cop. I’m the guy who just saved you from getting shook down by Dovey Smollett and maybe getting thrown into the back of that Buick LeSabre parked on Wynkoop.”
Her reaction was almost imperceptible, a slight, extra stiffening of a body already strung tight, but without another dose of alarm. He knew the difference between readiness and fear-and she was ready.
Ready for the likes of Dovey Smollett, and alarmed by the police. That didn’t look good or set well.
“What’s it to you who shakes me down?” she asked.
Her cool little attitude didn’t set too well either. Neither did the fact that he didn’t have an answer to her question. What the hell was it to him who shook her down? None of his business is what it was-and yet here he was, jammed into the back of O’Shaunessy’s, up close and personal with her for no damn good reason.