Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

“Billy,” she said, as she was finally able to see in the gloom and caught sight of me gaping at her. I felt warm.

“Hi.”

Key West had been good to her. She seemed more relaxed than when I first met her. The smile lines that bracketed her mouth had grown gentler and there was a glow of health under her flawless olive skin. She still had a ripe mouth and the most perfect neck I had ever seen.

Her hair was pulled back now in what she called her “working do” and even the awful hospital whites could not make her figure look chunky. It flowed like a piece of sculpture, begging for hands to run over it and feel its curves and textures.

My mouth felt dry. I kissed her lightly and she smiled.

The door opened again. Two charter captains I knew came in with their mates, three women and two other guys I didn’t know. One of them, a guy with a deep tan and a shifty, uncertain look to him, started yelling that drinks for the house were on him. They all pushed past us to the bar, cheering and talking all at the same time.

I smiled at Nancy. “Have a seat.”

She looked around the room and then arched a perfect eyebrow at me. “If you’re sure I’m not interrupting anything—”

“But you are,” I said. “And just in time, too.”

I settled Nancy in my booth and went to get her a drink. I came back with her spritzer and slid into the booth across from her. That meant I had to sit with my back to the door.

No man who grew up in America dreaming about cowboys is comfortable sitting with his back to the door. That’s how Wild Bill Hickok was killed, and we’re all half-convinced some cowardly desperado will slink in the door and blaze away at your back. It happens all the time—look at Jesse James.

Most of that uneasiness faded when Nancy locked her eyes onto mine. “Billy,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been so—” she fluttered a hand. It was strong, sleek, and smooth, the nails short and clean. “I guess off-and-on is the phrase. I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” I took her hand.

I held Nancy’s hand and she didn’t pull it away and we hadn’t started our evening’s fight yet. Who knows what might have happened next.

“Hey,” she said softly in a voice I hadn’t heard for a while. The rum and honey sound of it sent goose bumps up my arms.

I squeezed her hand. “Hey yourself.”

“I haven’t seen that smile for a while.”

I thought of a lot of things I could say to that—that it hadn’t been around, that she hadn’t been looking for it. But I settled for, “It’s been here. It’s always here for you.”

She pulled her hand away and I wondered what I’d done wrong this time. She looked up over my shoulder and a voice boomed out behind me.

“Well,” said the voice, “do I smell bacon?”

I could only think, at least it wasn’t something I said. “Hello, Tiny.”

“Hello, Bacon,” he said in his annoying voice. “Bacon” as in ex-cop, burned-out pig. He thought that was pretty funny. Tiny had a surprisingly high-pitched voice with a thick Pittsburgh accent that always seemed to pour sarcasm out of his twisted mouth. It kept him talking from the left side. His hairline just missed merging with his eyebrows and his small blue eyes always seemed filled with stupid suspicion. He reminded me of a hornless pink rhinoceros.

He had been sniping at me for a while, taking cheap shots whenever he got the chance, and they had started to get to me, to eat away at my careful self-control, in that slow, sullen August heat. Sooner or later I knew he would catch me when I was worn down by the heat and the dull desperation of the summer, and then I would hurt him.

But this wasn’t the time. Not with Nancy here in front of me, smiling and not looking for a fight for the first time in months.

I turned back to Nancy, but I could tell by her expression that Tiny hadn’t moved.

I looked. He still stood there, staring down at me with stupid delight.

“Bar’s over there, Tiny.”

He curled his lip an extra inch

higher. Maybe he thought it made him look like Elvis. It didn’t. “Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought.”