I had no response for her and ordered a spiced rum and diet and excused myself and called Lee, again, to tell him I was at The Hornet. Marianne didn’t question this, she’d been an innocent bystander in one of my shootouts and anyway, Lee was hot.

“Well?” Marianne asked when I flipped my phone shut.

I sighed.

“Lee doesn’t take the bows from bras or panties, at least not anymore,” I said.

Marianne’s eyes lit up.

“Is he good?”

The way she asked it wasn’t gossipy or voyeuristic, it was a friend asking a friend about her sex life, which in my circle of friends was a natural thing. We weren’t exactly Sex in the City but we shared. It also meant our conversation wasn’t going to be e-mailed to half of the greater Denver Metropolitan Area by midnight.

So I answered her. “He’s good.”

“How good?” she asked.

My eyes slid to her. “Real good.”

Her face spread in a smile and I returned it.

“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered.

I was beginning to be happy for me too.

My drink came and I ordered a buffalo chicken salad with extra bleu cheese dressing. Marianne announced she was going on a diet and she ordered one too, without the bleu cheese dressing.

We ate at the bar, the plates were whisked away, I was on my third rum and diet and Marianne had gone to the bathroom when my hair was brushed to the side, a hand gliding across my bare shoulders. I looked around, then up, and saw Lee standing over me.

He’d showered and changed and he looked good. He was wearing jeans that were worn in but still newish, brown cowboy boots and forest-green collared shirt.

I smiled at him.

He frowned at me.

“Where’re the rest of your clothes?”

I looked down at my dress then back up at him.

“These are my clothes,” I said. “You don’t like it?”

“Yeah, I like it. If you’re wearin’ it in my kitchen while cookin’ steaks. I don’t like it when you’re wearin’ it sittin’ on a barstool and thirty guys are imaginin’ your legs wrapped around their backs.”

Jeez.

“Lee, you’re gonna have to get over this jealous-possessiveness thing.”

“Indy, you’re gonna have to get used to the fact that I’m the jealous-possessive type.”

Great.

I decided to change the subject. I wasn’t going to change how I dressed and he wasn’t going to start to like it. We were at a stalemate.

“Have you had dinner?”

“I grabbed something at the condo.”

His eyes moved to the bar and he lifted his chin and said to the bartender, “Fat Tire.”

Marianne still hadn’t materialized so I decided to broach a new subject.

“We need to talk about Eddie.”

Lee slid into the area between me and Marianne’s barstool, his hip pressing my knees to the side, he rested his forearm on the bar.

“Yeah, we do. From now on, you see Eddie only when I’m with you.”

My teeth clenched. “Okay, first we need to talk about you bossing me around all the time and how I really don’t like it.”

His eyes crinkled and I knew he thought I was being cute.

“I’m being serious.” I went on.

His beer came, he slid a note across the counter, took a pull and leaned into me. “This is how it works, I tell you how I feel, I’m honest about it, you do the same. A lot of the time we won’t agree but we’ll deal.”

I blinked at him.

Did he really think that was going to work?

Lee kept talking. “Obviously you heard our conversation. I know where Eddie stands, Eddie knows where I stand. If things are good between you and me, Eddie won’t be a threat. They start to go bad, Eddie’s movin’ in.”

“I got that part,” I said.

“I don’t intend for things to go bad but that doesn’t mean that Eddie isn’t gonna give you hints at what you might be missin’.”

Holy crap.

Lee continued. “So I want to be there when you’re with him because I’m the jealous-possessive type. That’s just the way it is and now you know how I feel. If you see him when I’m not there, then it’s down to you. Okay?”

“So, you aren’t telling me what to do, you’re telling me what you want.”

“If I wanted a woman who did what she was told, I wouldn’t be with you.”

I didn’t know any women who did what they were told, but I suspected they were out there. I just didn’t hang with them because that definitely wasn’t my scene.

“If it’s just you sharing your feelings, perhaps you can voice it less like an order,” I suggested.

“I’m used to giving orders and if it sounds like one then there’s always a chance you’ll obey.”

I gave him a look.

He gave me The Smile.

Marianne walked up and our conversation ended. While Marianne and I chatted and finished our drinks, Lee stood close behind me and nursed his Fat Tire. So close, I got comfy and rested my back against his front. Every once in awhile Marianne would take us both in and sigh.

When we were done, Lee and I walked Marianne to her car, I hugged her good-bye on the sidewalk and Lee and I watched her drive away. We went back to the front of The Hornet where Lee was parked, at the curb almost directly outside the front doors.

“How do you get these parking spots?” I asked when Lee opened the door for me.

“Luck,” he answered.

Bullshit. Luck. It was one of Lee’s “ways”.

We were coming away from the curb when his cell rang. He answered it as he was cutting across the four lanes of Broadway so he could make the turn right to my house.

“What?” he said into the phone and then barked out a clipped, “Details.”

Before he was done listening, he moved back into traffic. He flipped the phone shut and slid it in the console.

“I thought it’d be a quiet night. I need a quiet night,” he muttered to the windscreen, not talking to me.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“We aren’t doin’ anything. I’ve got something to do. You’re waitin’ in the car.”

“Lee, that sounded like an order.”

“That was an order.”

Hmm.

Lee explained, “Luke was scheduled on call tonight but since he’s in the hospital, we’re a man down. I thought it’d be a quiet night, only one skip who can wait and most of the boys have been doubling up, working cases and doing stuff for you. All of your shit is either dead, behind bars or been offered employment at Fortnum’s. An informant’s called Ike whose manning the surveillance room. The skip has turned up. Bobby and Vance are on call but instead of at the office, I let them go home. Vance lives in a cabin outside Golden. I’m closest. Bobby’s comin’ as back up. He’s five minutes behind.”