Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena. Linda Winstead Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ that you keep up,” she told him. She knew most men were too full of testosterone to let the challenge fall by the wayside.

      Still, she kept an eye on her rearview mirror the entire trip to the bar to make sure he wouldn’t suddenly turn around and disappear on her.

      Parking in front of the ramshackle building with its bright neon sign of a stick figure complete with a fallen halo, Cara quickly got out of her rented ’87 Nissan. She was standing beside the driver’s door waiting when Max pulled up. He was driving a sleek, black sports car. The vehicle looked as if it had just rolled out of the factory.

      It fit him, she thought, but it was a hell of a car for a private eye, if that’s what he actually was.

      “Private eye business must pay well,” she commented, running a hand along the hood as Max unfolded his long torso from the front seat and got out.

      Shutting the door, he flipped a switch. The whiny noise told him the antitheft device had been activated. “Can’t complain.”

      If he was on the level, Cara judged that Ryker had to do business with a very high-class clientele. “If your clients can afford to pay you fees that allow you to drive something like that around, what are you doing going after scum like Weber?”

      Max carelessly shrugged his broad shoulders. “Long story.”

      She raised her eyes up to his in a look calculated to make his knees just a little weaker. It annoyed her that he looked unaffected. “It’s going to be a long night,” she countered.

      We’ll see, Max thought, opening the door for her. With any luck, he’d have her sleeping it off within an hour, if not less.

      Stepping into the Saint was like stepping into a dimly lit, smoky cavern that had faint, piped-in music and was populated by denizens who were more comfortable frequenting the shadows of the night than moving about in the light of day. He’d seen dozen of places like this in as many towns. It was almost painfully stereotypical as far as bars went. He figured that the people who frequented it didn’t care.

      The door sighed closed behind him. He saw the bartender nod in their direction. Or was that hers? Lowering his head so that his mouth was level with her ear, he asked Cara, “Come here often?”

      A slight shiver danced over Cara’s neck, shimmying down her spine. She kept her eyes forward as she crossed to the bar. She’d passed through here three or four times, always on the trail of a bail jumper. The bartender liked to pass on information, for a fee.

      But she wasn’t about to give Ryker any details. “Often enough.”

      He couldn’t help wondering what a woman like her would be doing in a place like this. She looked like someone’s little sister, in need of protection from the kinds of people he saw lounging at small tables, sitting on bar stools, all building relationships with the nondescript glasses sitting directly before them.

      But then, he reminded himself, she did have that peashooter strapped to her thigh.

      Max found himself thinking about that thigh in great detail. He curtailed the mental journey.

      He would have rather taken a table, but she selected a spot at the bar. “So, what’ll you have?”

      “Whatever you’re having,” she replied cheerfully, making herself comfortable on the stool.

      “Scotch, neat,” he told the bartender. Sitting down next to her, Max glanced at the woman he was trying to temporarily put out of commission. She looked as if she weighed somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and ten pounds, maybe less. He figured he could easily catch her before she hit the floor. He’d rent a room for her at the nearest motel and deposit her there. Maybe she’d learn her lesson and stay out of his way.

      “Make it two,” she told the bartender.

      Max didn’t bother hiding the smile on his lips. This, he promised himself, was going to be interesting.

      The smoky blue mirror over the bar reflected his expression, bouncing it back to her. Cara spared him a look. “Something funny, Ryker?”

      If he went strictly by looks, not manner, she looked like someone who could sit under a shady tree, sipping a tall, cool glass of lemonade. “You just don’t strike me as the scotch type.”

      She exchanged glances with the bartender, although she was fairly certain that because of the angle of her body, Ryker hadn’t seen anything. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Ryker.” She wrapped her hand around the glass the bartender placed before her. “I don’t have a ‘type.’ I am a unique experience.”

      Max couldn’t help the short laugh. He’d run into confidence before, but not on this scale. “Think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

      She’d gone the shy, retiring route and it had gotten her abuse and heartache. Cara tossed her honey-blond hair over her shoulder. “Contrary to the popular hope, the meek don’t inherit the earth, Ryker. All they get is the dirt.”

      She caught him off guard. That was surprisingly harsh. “Meek is one word I wouldn’t have thought of when looking at you.”

      The bartender handed Max his glass. Once the bartender withdrew, Max picked up his drink and touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

      She smiled, then threw the drink down in a long gulp that had Max staring at her incredulously. “Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.” She placed her glass down on the counter. “Don’t you have any better lines?”

      “Actually that was from Key Largo,” he informed her. “Common mistake.”

      Maybe, she thought, but you just made another one.

      Waving to snag the bartender’s attention, she held up two fingers, then turned her attention back to Max. “So, who are you working for?”

      Because he knew a silent challenge when it was given, Max downed his drink and offered his empty glass for a refill as well when the bartender approached. As an afterthought, he took out his wallet and peeled off the appropriate amount of money to cover the four drinks, plus a healthy tip. He placed the bills on the counter.

      “You know I’m not at liberty to say.”

      The question was her way of feeling him out to see what kind of effect the drink had on him.

      Taking a breath, she downed the second drink. Glass bottom met countertop with a resounding smack. “That’s all right, I already know.”

      Max followed her lead and downed his drink, although he had to admit that he preferred taking in his alcohol at a slower pace. But then, going this route only meant the lovely creature sitting beside him would cease to be a problem that much quicker.

      He was amused at her certainty that she knew who he worked for. There was no way she could be privy to his work for his uncle. But for the sake of distracting her from his true goal, he played along.

      “You do?”

      “Sure. It’s Phil.”

      “Phil,” he echoed. The name seemed to resound briefly in his head as he said СКАЧАТЬ