It wasn't excitement he felt from her now. That she had banked. As she climbed into her car—and Lord, her skirt slithered up another inch—he caught bolts of anticipation, quicksilver streaks of fun. The kind Sebastian imagined another kind of woman might feel embarking on a shopping spree.

But Mel wasn't like any kind of woman he'd ever before encountered.

"Okay," she said as he settled into the passenger seat. "Here's the deal."

She shot away from the curb, and her driving was as quick and competent as her explanation.

There had been a rash of local robberies over the past six weeks. All electronics—televisions, VCRs, stereo equipment. A good many of the victims had been insured by Underwriter's. The police had a few leads, but nothing solid. And since no single home had been hit for more than a few hundred at a shot, it wasn't exactly number one on their hit list.

"Underwriter's is your average happy insurance company," she commented as she winked through an amber light. "Which means they really hate to pay claims. So I've been working on it for the last few weeks."

"Your car needs a tune-up," Sebastian told her when the engine made a gagging sound.

"Yeah. Anyway, I did some poking around, and what do you know? Turns out there's a couple of guys selling TVs and such out of the back of a van. Oh, not around here. They bop over to Salinas or down to Soledad."

"How did you find out?"

She shot him a mild smile. "Legwork, Donovan. Miles and miles of legwork."

Despite his better judgment, his gaze dropped down to those long, tanned thighs. "I'll bet."

"So I've got this snitch. He's had a few unfortunate run-ins with the cops, and he's a little leery. But he kind of took to me. Because I'm private, I guess."

Sebastian coughed, cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure that's it."

"He's got connections," she went on. "Seeing as he did some time for B and E—breaking and entering," she explained. "And some petty larceny."

"You have fascinating friends."

"It's a good life," she said, with a laugh in her voice. "He passes me some information, I pass him a few bills. Mostly it keeps him from picking locks. He hangs down at the docks. Strictly nontourist areas. There's a bar down there where he happened to be tossing back a few last night. Got chummy with this guy who was already soused. My friend likes a drink better if somebody else is paying for it. They got intimate in that happy way drunks do, and he finds out this guy's flush because he just hauled a load of electronic entertainment down to King City. Now, because they're the best of friends, he takes my snitch around the back of the bar to this dump of a warehouse. And what do you suppose is inside?''

"Previously owned electronics at a discount price."

Amused, she chuckled. "You catch on, Donovan."

"So why don't you just call the cops?"

"Hey, these guys might not be the James Gang, but it's a pretty good bust." Her lips were curved as she downshifted. "My bust."

"I suppose it's occurred to you that they might be… uncooperative."

When she smiled again, something hot and beautiful leapt into her eyes. "Don't worry, Donovan. I'll protect you. Now, here's what I want you to do."

When they pulled up in front of the bar a few minutes later, Sebastian had the game plan. He didn't like it, but he had it. A fastidious man, he looked dubiously at the low-slung, window-less establishment.

Seedy, he thought, but supposed that a good many bars looked seedy in the light of day. He had a feeling this one would look equally seedy in the dead of night.

It was built of cinder blocks that some enterprising soul had painted green. The paint, a particularly hideous shade, was peeling badly and showed the gray beneath, the way an old, peeling scab shows the pasty skin underneath.

It was barely noon, but there were nearly a dozen cars in the gravel lot.

Mel dropped her keys in her purse while she frowned at Sebastian. "Try to look less…"

"Human?" he suggested.

Elegant was the word she'd had in mind, but she'd be damned if she'd use it. "Less Gentleman's Quarterly. And for God's sake don't order any white wine."

"I'll restrain myself."

"Just follow the bouncing ball, Donovan, and you'll do fine."

What he followed were her swaying hips, and he wasn't sure he'd do fine at all.

The smell of the place assaulted him the moment Mel pulled open the door. Stale smoke, stale beer, stale sweat. There was a rumbling sound from the jukebox, and, though Sebastian had very eclectic tastes in music, he hoped he wouldn't be subjected to that surly sound for long.

Men were lined up at the bar—the kind of men with burly forearms littered with tattoos. This particular artwork ran heavily in favor of snakes and skulls. There was a clatter as four oily-looking characters shot nine ball. Some glanced up, their gazes sliding over Sebastian with a kind of smirking derision and lingering on Mel, longer and with more affection.

He picked up on scattered thoughts—easy enough, since the average IQ of the patrons hovered below three digits. His lips twitched once. He hadn't realized there were so many ways to describe a… lady.

The lady in question, one of three currently enjoying the atmosphere, sauntered up to the bar and wiggled her leather-clad bottom onto a stool. That wide, slicked mouth was pursed in a sexy pout. "Least you can do is buy me a beer," she said to Sebastian in a breathy little voice that caught him off guard. Her eyes narrowed briefly in warning, and he remembered his cue.

"Listen, sweetcakes, I told you it wasn't my fault."

Sweetcakes? Mel stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Sure, nothing is. You get canned, it's not your fault. You lose a hundred bucks playing poker with your slimy friends, it's not your fault. Give me a beer, will you?" she called to the bartender, and crossed those long, lovely legs.

Trying to hulk a bit, Sebastian held up two fingers, then slid onto the stool beside her. "I told you… Didn't I tell you that creep had it in for me at work? And why don't you get off my back?"

"Oh, sure." She sniffed as the beers were slapped down in front of them. When Sebastian reached for his back pocket, it occurred to her that his wallet was probably worth more than the combined liquid assets of the bar's patrons. And that it was likely filled with plenty of the green stuff, along with a few flashy gold credit cards.