Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Six

Andie

Damon wasquiet as we drove. It was an easy silence, not awkward. At least, not awkward on his part. I found myself getting more and more tense, my shoulders tightening, my legs wanting to move. He seemed surprisingly large in my small, sensible Tercel. Damon’s body was deceptive. He was too thin, probably because of his injuries, but in close quarters you realized just how tall and powerful he was. Or at least I did.

Finally, unable to take the lack of conversation any longer, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How are you feeling?”

Damon glanced my way, surprised. “What?”

“How are you feeling? You said you got shot twice before you left the DEA. That must have been hard.”

Now I sounded like an idiot. That must have been hard? As Miles would say: No shit, Sherlock.

“I’m all right,” Damon said evenly. “The bullets hit me in the upper chest. Right side. They thought I would lose a lung, but I didn’t. It damaged my scapula, which was the most painful part after surgery. It took months to heal.”

Jesus. I couldn’t imagine feeling two bullets hit me. It must have been terrifying. “Didn’t you get shot during a raid? Tell me they caught the guys, at least.”

“Yeah, they caught the guys.” There was a smile in his voice. “That was the whole idea. But that was the end for me as a Fed. I was out.”

“Do you still have pain?” I asked.

“Sometimes, yes. Usually at night.”

“They have pills for that.”

My attempt at wit fell flat when he said, “I can’t take opiates. I’m an addict.”

“Oh. Right. You said that.” I tried not to fidget in my seat. He was too close, and I was having some kind of reaction to him, a reaction I wasn’t used to. It made my skin feel sensitive and my blood pump faster. “Are you going to explain to me how a guy who was an addict and a drug dealer ended up in the DEA?”

“You have a lot of questions.”

I shrugged. “We’re stuck in this car together, in traffic. We have time.”

We were, indeed, in traffic. I inched the car along for a moment as Damon seemed to think about my question.

“I never got caught,” he said. “Using or dealing, I mean. You can’t become a Fed if you have a criminal record.”

“Okay, so you weren’t that bad, then.”

He shook his head. “I broke the law plenty. I just didn’t get nailed for it. That’s the only difference between me and one of the guys I put away.”

“Okay, then. But something must have happened. Something that turned you off the path of a life of crime and onto the path of law enforcement.”

He frowned at me. “Are you sure you’re a bookkeeper? You said I sounded like a therapist, but now you sound like one.”

I laughed. “If I had an hour to myself and even a little bit of money, I’d probably go to one. It couldn’t make things worse, right?”

Damon drummed his fingers on his knee. “Therapy never did much for me,” he said. “I already know my childhood sucked.”

Yeah, this guy was trouble. Bad childhood, drugs, bullet holes. Definitely not my type—not that I was thinking about him that way. If I ever wanted a man again—which was never—I’d want the square, upstanding, rule-following type. A guy with a proper career, a savings account, and a 401(k). Someone who gave me missionary position orgasms every Friday night and could help guide Miles onto a proper career path. And why was I thinking about this right now? Damon and I weren’t dating. He was just my security guard.

“What are you thinking about?” Damon asked. “I can see the wheels turning in your head.”

I cleared my throat, unwilling to admit I’d been thinking about how I was definitely not dating him. “I was thinking about how you didn’t answer the question. What changed your path from drug dealing to the DEA?”

“I think this is our exit.”

Shit, he was right. I signaled and frantically changed lanes. I didn’t do a lot of freeway driving, and I wasn’t used to it. I got honked at as I made the exit.

I had given Damon the address of the whiskey warehouse, and he used his phone to navigate us there. We were on the outskirts of Denver, in an industrial park made up of ugly concrete warehouses and bleak parking lots. When we pulled up and parked at Sheffer Whiskey, Damon’s fingers were drumming on his thigh again, as if he was restless.

“We’re a few minutes early,” I said as I turned off the car in relief.

“Good.” Damon got out of the car, reaching into the inside pocket of his leather coat as he unfolded his long, jean-clad legs and got out.

I got out, too, and saw that he had pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tucked one between his lips and felt in his pockets for a lighter.

“Hey,” I said, the word springing from me before I could think twice. “No smoking.”

He paused, raising his eyebrows skeptically and looking around. He took the cigarette from his lips. “No smoking in this parking lot?”

I opened my mouth, trying to think of what to say. The words had been an impulse, because the sight of him about to light up had upset me. I couldn’t have said why. Plenty of the old-timers at the Wild smoked until their teeth were yellow and their skin was like old shoe leather.

Maybe that was why.

“No smoking while you work for me,” I said.

It was a complete overstep, a nosy request. It hung there in the air between us.

Damon’s gaze was a combination of surprised and cold. “Did you just say I can’t smoke if I work for you?”

He was intimidating, but there was nothing to do but double down. “Yes. I don’t like the smell. It makes me queasy. Plus, it’s bad for you.”

“It’s bad for me?” Damon couldn’t quite believe what I was saying.

I couldn’t either, but the more I dug my heels in, the more I was behind the idea. I really didn’t like that Damon smoked. “Yes, it’s bad for you. Deadly, actually. You just got shot twice, Damon. You almost died. Don’t you want to look after your health?”

“What I want,” he replied flatly, “is to smoke this cigarette.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Not while you work for me.”

He sighed. “Andie, you own a bar.”

“I don’t let anyone smoke in the Wild, either. The smokers have to go outside. Even if it’s snowing or raining.”

We stood there in a standoff in a parking lot. I knew I was asking for something crazy, but I also knew I was right. He shouldn’t be smoking. I kept my chin up and kept my gaze on his without looking away.

He was a grown man, one I barely knew. One who outweighed me, gunshot wounds or no gunshot wounds. But after a reluctant pause, he put the cigarette back in the pack. “Only while I work for you,” he said.

I nodded. “That sounds fair. Four weeks. You can quit for four weeks. Right?”

“Sure.” He moved to put the pack into his coat pocket again. “No problem.”

I held out my hand before he could put the pack away. “It’s easier if you give them to me.”

“Jesus,” he said in a low, annoyed voice. But he gave me the pack.

I shoved the cigarettes into my purse, not sure what to do with them now that I had them. There wasn’t a garbage can nearby. I couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to that. “We’re on time now,” I said. “Let’s go in.”