LITMIR.BIZ

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never taken Miles Addison’s case.

      But she had taken it. And she’d been so determined to get ahead that she forgot all the reasons she became a defense attorney in the first place—to help people. People who needed it.

      See why she hated this time of day?

      “Hey,” Kelsey said, rubbing Allie’s arm. “You okay? Your ankle isn’t sprained, is it?”

      Allison rotated her foot while she cleared her thoughts. “No. It’s fine. I just can’t believe you don’t like Valentine’s Day, that’s all.” She climbed the ladder again. She was so counting this as her workout for the day. “Are you sure you’re female?”

      “Valentine’s Day is a holiday made by the greeting card companies and retailers to trick poor saps into spending money on a bunch of useless crap.” Kelsey’s voice rose and she began to pace. “I mean, what’s up with sending flowers? They just die. And if I want candy, I’ll pick up a Hershey’s bar at the convenience store.”

      Allie hung a set of pink hearts and climbed down. “What about jewelry?”

      She sneered. “Do I look like someone who wants diamonds?”

      No, she didn’t. Well, except for that gorgeous engagement ring Allie had helped her brother pick out. “You poor thing,” she said, wrapping an arm around Kelsey’s stiff shoulders. “Have you ever gotten a valentine?”

      “I never wanted one,” Kelsey said haughtily.

      “I’m sure Jack will get you something superromantic,” Allie assured her. She gave Kelsey a little squeeze.

      “He’d better,” she mumbled. “And it better be expensive.”

      “At least now I understand why you want to host a speed-dating event on Valentine’s Day. You’re rebelling against romance.”

      Kelsey crossed her arms. “I’m all for romance. The speed dating thing gives our customers a chance to find true love. And if they happen to find love while helping our bottom line, all the better.”

      Allie grinned and folded the ladder before carrying it back down the hallway to the supply closet. Her good humor faded as she realized what had become of her life. Instead of playing a very important part in the American legal system, she now spent her time hanging cheap decorations, preparing the same meals over and over, and avoiding paperwork.

      She slammed the closet door shut. Well, she’d wanted to change her life. As usual, when she set out to do something, she’d succeeded. And while running a bar might not be as exciting as practicing criminal law, it was a lot less stressful.

      And she wasn’t unhappy, she told herself as she went into the kitchen. She loved Serenity Springs and had fabulous friends and the best, most supportive family a person could ask for. A family that didn’t ask too many questions. Such as why she’d quit her job and moved back.

      She owned her own business, which was growing by leaps and bounds. Plus, she got to do something she enjoyed every day. Even if a year ago she hadn’t considered her love of cooking to be anything other than a fun hobby.

      Hey, she was nothing if not adaptable.

      She gave her pasta sauce a quick stir, adjusted the flame under the pot and picked up her coat.

      “I’m going home to change,” she told Kelsey as she walked back into the bar. “The sauce is simmering, so could you check it once or twice? Oh, and I almost forgot, can you switch the appetizer on the specials board to grilled flat bread pizza? I’ll do a veggie one and a chicken one.”

      Kelsey leaned against the bar and sipped from a bottle of water. “Sure. But hey, before you go, you never told me why you did it?”

      “We’ve offered bruschetta twice this month,” Allie said, pulling on her red leather coat, “and it hasn’t gone over too well. I thought we’d try something different.”

      “No, why did you reject Mr. Tall, Not-So-Dark but Very Handsome? Didn’t he pass your test?”

      Well, damn. And here she thought she’d avoided the subject of Dean Garret.

      “Actually,” Allie said, lifting her hair out from beneath her coat, “he passed with flying colors. He didn’t hit on me once.”

      Although she remembered how, right before he left, he’d stepped closer to her, how his eyes had heated and his voice had lowered.

      Kelsey set her glass on the counter and crossed her arms. “If he passed the test, what was the problem?”

      Allie shrugged and picked up her purse. “He wasn’t right for The Summit.”

      “Ahh.” She nodded sagely. “In other words, he didn’t need to be saved.”

      Allie narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “You only hire the downtrodden, the needy or, in a few memorable cases, the just plain pathetic. You’re like the Statue of Liberty. All you need is a tattoo on your forehead that reads ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your flakes who don’t know the difference between a cosmo and a mojito….’”

      “So?” Allie asked, sounding to her own ears suspiciously like a pissy teenager. “I don’t know the difference between them, either.”

      “Which is why you need to hire a bartender who does. Besides, none of the people you’ve hired since I’ve been here have stuck around. What does that tell you?”

      Allie pulled on her black leather gloves. “That my manager keeps firing them all?”

      “Hey, I only fired three of them—and they all deserved it. The rest quit. And they quit,” she continued, when Allie opened her mouth to speak, “because though you tried to save them from themselves, they weren’t interested. All they wanted was to get on with their dysfunctional lives.”

      “Who was stopping them?” Allie zipped her coat. “You act like I offered counseling sessions as part of a benefits package or something.”

      “Pretty close,” Kelsey mumbled.

      “Relax. I’m telling you, Dean Garret isn’t right for this job. Trust me on this, I’m doing the right thing here.”

      “I hope so,” Kelsey called after her as Allie walked out the door.

      She shivered and hurried over to her car. Yeah, she hoped so, too. And Kelsey was way off base about her trying to save people. She was out of that game.

      Because the last time she’d played, she’d saved the wrong person.

      

      THE NEXT DAY, Dean held his cell phone between his shoulder and ear as he dropped a cardboard pizza box onto his motel bed. “Hey there, darlin’,” he said when his call was picked up, “it’s me. I need a favor.”

      “I’m not that kind of girl,” Detective Katherine Montgomery said in her flat, look-at-me-wrong-and-I’ll-kick-your-sorry-ass New York accent. And people thought he sounded funny. “And don’t call me darlin’.”

      The corner of his mouth kicked up. He’d met Katherine over a year ago when he’d worked in Manhattan. The mother of three teenagers, she’d been married for twenty-five years and was built like a rodeo barrel. She was also one of the most savvy cops working in the anticrime computer network in the NYPD, and she didn’t take crap from anyone—least of all him.

      Was it any wonder he was half in love with her?

      “Now don’t be that way,” he said, flipping the box open and sliding a piece of pepperoni-and-onion pizza onto a paper towel. “I’m betting with the right incentive, you could be talked into being that kind of girl.”

      He could almost see her scowling at the phone as she sat behind her very tidy desk. “If you keep up with the sweet talk, my husband’s going to hunt you down,” she warned.

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