Mad Dog winced and glanced toward the wide stairway. Martha—or was it Matilda?—was shoving her . way through the prostitutes an
d patrons on the steps, making her jostling, shrieking way to the bar. She half ran the last ten feet and came up beside him, breathing hard.
She smiled down at him, a practiced, pretty smile that for some reason set his teeth on edge. She fluttered her heavily kohled eyes and pressed a hand to her heaving cleavage. "Well, my, my," she sighed, dragging her tongue along her painted lower lip. "I was beginnin to wonder if you forgot me. "
Mad Dog frowned up at her. Hed slept with this woman a dozen times over the years, and hed always had a hell of a time. Hed always thought she was pretty in a loud, overblown sort of way. But now he saw her as she really was. A young woman aged before her time by booze and a bad life.
"Buy a girl a drink?" she purred, patting her bleached blond hair.
"Sure. " He shoved the bottle at her.
She frowned prettily. "No, thanks. That stuff makes me puke. "
Mad Dog smiled in spite of himself, remembering. "Yeah, it has that effect on some women. "
You shouldnt compare me to other women.
I didn t know it was important to be the first to throw up on someone.
The woman—Margaret?—touched him. "Its been a while, Mad Dog. Where you been hidin out?"
He took a drink, let it linger for a second on his tongue before he swallowed. "I wasnt hidin anywhere. I was just—" Home. The thought stunned him, confused him so badly that for a moment he couldnt speak.
"Just where?"
He shrugged, pushing the thought away. He didnt want a home, didnt want to think he had one. He liked his life on the road, goddamn it. He loved it. "Nowhere. So howve you been?"
"Fine. " She pressed against him, rubbed her satin | skirt against his thigh in a slow, erotic invitation.
It left him cold. She smelled of old sweat and cheap perfume, of tawdry back rooms and hasty couplings.
"You wanna go up to my room?" she whispered i throatily against his ear. Her gloved hand dove beneath the table and settled between his legs, squeezing lightly.
He almost said yes without thinking. But when he looked up at her, into her sharp, painted face and emotionless blue eyes, he knew he couldnt.
The realization shocked him. He didnt want her, and she didnt want him. Not really. They wanted . . . a connection. A time to pretend they felt something they didnt feel. Once, that hadnt mattered to Mad Dog. Hell, hed liked that cold anonymity, enjoyed women who cared nothing for him and less for themselves.
Women who asked nothing of him and didnt care if he forgot their names.
But he was different now. Mariah and what they shared had changed him. He knew the difference between sex and love—Jesus, the difference—and he couldnt go back to the old way anymore.
He looked away, unable to face her, and took another sip of tequila. "Sorry, M . . . "
"Millie," she said softly. There was a quiver of hurt in her voice he never would have noticed before.
"Sorry, Millie. Not this time. "
She sagged beside him, dropped an elbow on the table and stared at him. "You find yourself a woman, Stone?"
He couldnt answer.
She tossed back a shot of tequila and shuddered, wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve. "If you have, and you care enough about her to stay away from me, then what the hell are you doin here on Christmas night?"
Her jerked his head up. For the first time, he noticed the dying, empty tree leaning in the corner behind the bar. And the music. That tinny piano was banging out a staccato version of "O Holy Night. "
Millies face softened into an honest smile. "You didnt know?"
He shook his head. "Huh-uh. "