Maybe he did.

Then I was flipped onto my back and Luke was on top.

“Hey!” I snapped. “I was celebrating.”

“Probably you should celebrate after you’ve incapacitated your target,” he told me.

“I was thinking you might want to have a family one day,” I returned.

He laughed in my face. I frowned in his.

“Babe, you weren’t even close. Though, you wanna be, I’d give it a shot.”

“Stop flirting with me,” I snapped.

“Stop bein’ so cute,” he shot back.

The treadmill came on and both of us looked to it and saw Mace jogging. It was then I realized I was lying on the floor with Luke on top of me having a conversation.

Damn.

“Don’t mind me,” Mace said, face no longer blank. I didn’t know him very well and he normally looked like he was in a bad mood (Mace was Mr. Seriously Broody Hot Guy Badass) but now he looked like he was going to laugh.

“You have a big mouth,” I told him, turning my snit on him.

He jacked up the speed on the treadmill and the jog went to a run. He was completely unaffected by my snit.

“Too good not to share,” was all he said, knowing exactly what I was talking about.

“You’re on my list,” I said to Mace and then looked at Luke, “you too.”

“What list?” Luke asked.

“My Annoying Men I’m Going to Kill List.”

Luke rolled to his side and came up on an elbow. He was flat out smiling now.

“Why me?” he asked.

“Just because,” I retorted and got to my feet.

I looked at Mace. “If you told Dawn, I’m going to torture you before I kill you.”

“Dawn doesn’t know,” Mace said, amused look gone.

“Dawn’s not gonna know,” Luke said, on his feet too.

Well that was something.

Luke threw his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get a beer,” he said and he walked me out of the room.

I didn’t argue mainly because I could use a beer.

* * * * *

We went to Lincoln’s Road House for beer and dinner (it would seem Luke had been right, I was hungry).

Lincoln’s was a biker bar on a slip road facing I-25. It had great food, a broken-in feel, hot guys, women wearing chaps and slick bikes of every make, model and color lined up on the side road that flanked the bar.

They had a band so we watched it for awhile.

Then we got in a big fight about who was going to pay because I figured if he paid, it’d be a date and Luke figured he was a man with a significant overabundance of testosterone so he was going to pay no matter what (this wasn’t exactly his argument, more my take on the underlying message).

People started staring.

I shut up.

Luke paid.

Then we went on patrol.

* * * * *

This time at my door after patrol, keys held firmly and at the ready, I shouldered up to the door and let myself in.

Before I could claim the doorway and keep him out, Luke shoved me in with a hand at the small of my back, closed the door behind us and unarmed the alarm.

Then he walked through my living room.

“I’m tired, Luke,” I told his back.

He disappeared into the dark hall.

I sighed, turned on a lamp, shrugged off my blazer, threw it on the chaise and followed him into the kitchen.

The light was on and Boo was telling on me because I’d run out of kitty treats and hadn’t been to the grocery store. Luckily Luke didn’t speak Cat and seemed to have the Super Dude super-power to be totally oblivious to Boo’s meows.

Luke handed me an opened beer when I walked in and then he settled his h*ps against the counter, arms crossed on his chest, lifting his forearm to take a pull off his beer every once in awhile.

We didn’t speak.

For my part, this was mainly because the only thing I could think to talk about was whether Vance was back in town or not. And I wasn’t going to do that.

For Luke’s part, on the whole, he didn’t talk much.

Finally Luke spoke. “Tomorrow, you’re off. Monday, I’m workin’ and you’re ride-along.”

I nodded, drank some of my beer, settled my h*ps against the counter and looked at my boots. I was happy about ride-along. It was something to look forward to in a future that, all of a sudden, seemed kind of bleak. I never thought about my future. I lived life day-to-day. I thought a lot about everyone else’s future, Roam and Sniff, Nick, but not my own.

Luke’s boots came into my line of vision and I looked up. He was close. He set his beer bottle on the counter beside me, pulled mine out of my hand and put it next to his.

Then before I knew what he was about, his fingers curled around my wrists, he lifted my arms, got deep into my space, wrapped my wrists around his neck and his face started coming toward mine.

“What are you…?” I started then stopped.

His hands slid down the undersides of my arms and a thrill shot through me before he (I kid you not) kissed me.

I felt his hands glide down my sides, around my back, low and he pulled me to him.

It was a great kiss. It was a hot kiss. There was a goodly amount of tongue and Luke seriously knew what he was doing.

But it wasn’t a Vance kiss.

I participated. I don’t know why, maybe because I thought it was safe but also because it felt really nice.

Luke’s head came up and he stared at me.

Then he muttered, “Fuck.”

“What?” I asked, keeping my arms around his neck, he still had his around my back.

“You taste like bubble gum.”

My stomach went into a painful twist and I slid my hands to his chest, putting my arms between us and pushing back a bit. He allowed this but his arms got tight when he was done allowing it, his message was clear and I stopped.

“Vance told me you’re playing games,” I said to Luke.

“Vance would know about games,” Luke said back.

“Please don’t talk about him like that,” I whispered. “You don’t understand what happened.”

“I understand.”

“You don’t.”

“Babe.”

The way he said that made me shut up.

“I’m thinkin’ you should train with Mace from now on,” he said.

Um.

Yikes.

What did that mean?

I decided I didn’t want to know and this was mostly denial because I did know.

“I’m thinking that maybe training is a waste of time,” I told him. “I’m hardly going to get into hand-to-hand combat with these guys doing guerrilla maneuvers.”