“You saved my ass.” I pressed my hands against his chest and leaned up on my tiptoes to kiss his stubbled jaw. “So thank you. For last night. And everything before that, too.”

He cupped the left side of my face, thumb brushing lightly across my tender cheekbone. “Any time, Lee. That’s what friends are for.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead, my bruised cheek, and finally a brush across the corner of my mouth. “Take care of yourself, girl. No more close calls. You’re too important. Give me a call me when you get home. Don’t fucking forget, you hear?”

I nodded. He snagged my hand as I started to pull away, giving it a playful squeeze.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Con.”

“Damn right. I’m not giving you another day off this week.”

I tugged my hand from his grip and grinned at him before walking in the direction of home. I had a sliver of hope and a hell of a lot to figure out. It was a good thing I had the day off, because it was going to take more than walking nine blocks to do it.

A nightmare woke me around four-thirty on Monday morning. I blinked against the blackness of my room, trying to get the image of Kingman’s body being incinerated mid-air out of my head. The dream was almost worse than before, because I’d gone so many nights without having it. It had come back full force, in Technicolor. My mistake and the lethal consequences.

Rather than try to go back to sleep, I changed into work out clothes and wandered down to the kitchen to make coffee. My shoulders, arms, and hands were sore from beating the shit out of my heavy bag last night. Today, I’d try outrunning my anger, since I’d already discovered I couldn’t pound it away with my fists.

Bottom line: I was pissed. Pissed at myself. And pissed at Charlie. I shouldn’t have pushed her and said what I said, but she shouldn’t have walked away. Not so easily. Not over something like that.

Yeah, I was frustrated as shit that she still wouldn’t let me in, but I could be patient. Like I’d told her before, I was playing the long game. Somewhere along the line, I’d decided she was it for me. I wasn’t even sure it’d been a conscious decision. It just was. She was the one.

As I found my stride on the cracked and uneven pavement, I worked out my game plan. I wasn’t giving up on her. I wasn’t giving up on us. Not without a fight.

Nine hours after my unwelcome wake-up call, I was finally able to escape the City Council building and go after Charlie. I parked across the street from the Dirty Dog and hopped out of the car. Yve was behind the counter, ringing up a sale. I scanned the store. No Charlie. I waited for the customer to leave before I demanded, “Where is she?”

Yve’s whiskey-colored eyes narrowed on me. She ignored my question. “Something doesn’t make sense here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Con called me this morning to tell me Charlie wouldn’t be coming in to work today because she was passed out cold at his place. Didn’t think she’d be getting up any time soon. And now you’re here, looking like a man on a mission. So what the fuck happened last night?”

“Shit.” Visions of her walking away from me straight into Con’s arms flashed through my brain. No. She wouldn’t. She’d probably just gotten hammered last night. That’s it. That’s all. And that had to mean something, right? I pictured the heavy bag I’d demolished. We all had our own way of dealing with shit. I tried to calm myself down. “Where does Con live? You know if she’s still there?”

“Don’t know, but he lives above Voodoo. Con owns the whole building.” She seemed to be expecting shock at her revelation, but I didn’t give a fuck about Con. I just wanted to find Charlie.

“Thanks.” I turned toward the door, but a nagging question forced its way to the surface. It was none of my business, but suddenly it seemed imperative that I know. I looked back at Yve and asked, “Are you and Con still…?”

She fingered her necklace and looked down at the counter. “Nah. He gets bored fairly quick with just about everyone. Charlie was the exception.”

It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.

I drove down Canal, looking for a spot in front of Voodoo, but they were all full. I parked two blocks away and strode toward the shop, maneuvering through the throngs of people. Marquee in sight, I paused at the intersection and waited for traffic to clear. Dodging a taxi, I crossed and then stopped dead as soon as I hit the sidewalk. A guy stumbled into me and cursed, but I couldn’t hear him over the rushing blood in my ears.

What the fuck?

The too-big man’s T-shirt Charlie was wearing hung off her slim shoulder. Her hair was wild, and screamed just been fucked.

No.

My brain turned to rationalization mode. She’d sat in my kitchen, in my shirt, with her crazy bedhead that morning, and nothing had happened between us. There was no reason to think…

My justifications unraveled as she pressed against Con and leaned up to kiss his cheek. He cupped her face. I wasn’t close enough to see their expressions, but to me and everyone else on the street, it looked like a lover’s goodbye.

It wasn’t. She wouldn’t.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. Then her cheek. And finally her lips.

He held her hand as she smiled and turned to walk away. I could focus on nothing but where his fingers were laced with hers, their arms outstretched as if loathing letting each other go. His hand didn’t release hers until the last possible moment.

The breath in my lungs heaved out like I’d taken a solid jab to the liver. I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to believe that she’d run back to him only hours after she’d walked away from me. But, fuck. I was seeing it. I stood for several moments staring at the now empty sidewalk in front of Voodoo. Pedestrians streamed around me. Finally, I straightened and pulled myself together. A familiar numbness settled over me. The same one I’d been forced to adopt every time we’d lost one of the men whose names were tattooed on my back. There wasn’t time to stop and grieve in the middle of a mission. And now, it was better to feel nothing than the searing burn of betrayal that bled into my veins as I tried to comprehend what I’d just seen.

I needed to walk away. I wouldn’t chase her down and demand an explanation. I was afraid of what I might say. Afraid to give voice to my accusations. But more than that, I was afraid of how she would respond. What she would admit to. Because if what I saw was actually what it looked like, there was no going back for Charlie and me.