LITMIR.BIZ

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about her?”

      Mitch gazed thoughtfully out the window at the approaching runway for several long moments. “She’s one of us,” he said simply, turning to look at Jake. “I get the sense that she wants the things I want from a relationship—no strings, no promises, no regrets. Just good, clean, healthy fun. Sex that’s just that—sex. No more, no less.” He laughed softly. “To be painfully honest, Jake, I tend to stay away from most women because I’m afraid of hurting them when I leave. And you know in our line of work, we always leave. We disappear on some assignment, and who knows when we’ll be back. But Zoe …” He laughed again. “Zoe would never expect anything long term. Because she leaves, too. And she’d probably leave first.”

      The plane touched down on the runway with a jolt.

      “I know you miss Daisy,” Mitch said quietly. “I know how you felt about her. But you’re not dead. And Zoe might be just what you need. It won’t have anything to do with what you and Daisy had. It doesn’t have to go too deep.”

      Jake sighed. “Just thinking about it makes me feel unfaithful.”

      “To whom, Jake?” Mitch asked gently. “Daisy’s gone.”

       CHAPTER SIX

      WEEKNIGHTS WERE THE WORST. Weekends were no picnic, but at least on Friday and Saturday nights, Mel’s was crowded and Zoe was kept busy.

      But on a Tuesday night like this one, Zoe sat at the bar with old Roy, who sat nursing a beer on the same stool every night and could have been anywhere from eighty to a hundred and eight, and Lonnie, who owned the service station on the corner of Page Street and Hicks Lane and was probably older than old Roy.

      On Tuesday nights, Hal Francke had his bowling league, so even he wasn’t around, trying his damnedest to brush up against her.

      And Wayne Keating—Monica’s boyfriend, the one who’d nearly overpowered Zoe—had been arrested for DUI. It was his third offense, and he was being held without bail. So there was no chance of him staggering into the bar and livening things up.

      No, it was just another deadly boring Tuesday night in Belle, Montana.

      Zoe was definitely going to go mad.

      Two weeks had come and gone and come and gone and here she was, well into week five in her new career as barmaid, with no sign of Jake.

      He’d gotten into the CRO compound. She knew that. She’d seen surveillance tapes of him being let inside. Even taken from a distance, she’d clearly recognized him. The way he walked, the way he stood.

      According to the team, he’d been spotted from time to time within the confines of the electric fence.

      But he hadn’t come out.

      Each time a car or van left the CRO gates and headed toward town, Harvard or Lucky or Cowboy would call, and Zoe’s silent pager would go off. And she would know to be ready.

      Maybe Jake would show up this time. Maybe …

      But even though Christopher Vincent himself had come into Mel’s a number of times, and always with an entourage, Jake had been nowhere in sight.

      Zoe was completely frustrated. And getting a little worried.

      Had something gone wrong? She called Harvard every night on the pretense of checking in, but in truth to find out if Jake had been spotted again during the course of the day.

      What if he’d gotten sick? Or injured? What if Vincent knew he was only there to find the Triple X? What if Jake were locked in the factory basement, beaten and bleeding and …

      Oh, dammit, and the really stupid thing was that beneath her worries and her frustration at this endless inactivity was the unavoidable fact that she missed him.

      She missed the man.

      She missed his smile, his solid presence, his calm certainty, the sweet sensation of his arms around her.

      Zoe groaned, resting her forehead on the bar atop her folded arms. He’d only kissed her once, but she missed that, too. Holy Mike, when had she become such a hopeless romantic? And hopeless was the key word here.

      This foolish schoolgirl crush she was experiencing was definitely one-sided.

      Yes, the man had kissed her. Once. And afterward, he’d run screaming as hard and as fast as he could in the opposite direction. And when he kissed her again, it was going to be because he had to. He’d told her as much.

      “Ya gonna do that singing thing tonight?” Lonnie leaned over and asked.

      He was talking about the karaoke. Last Friday, Hal had bought a karaoke system secondhand and very cheap from a guy going out of business over in Butte. Zoe had been the only member of the wait staff brave enough to give it a try. The songs were mostly all retro dance hits, with a bunch of old country songs thrown in.

      Zoe lifted her head to look in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Besides Lonnie, old Roy, Gus the bartender and herself, there were only three other people in the place.

      “I don’t think so,” she told Lonnie. “There’s not much of a crowd.”

      Old Roy was already leafing through the plastic-covered pages that listed the song titles available on this karaoke system. “I love this old Patsy Cline song.” He blinked at her hopefully. “Will you sing it? Please?”

      It was the same song he played over and over on the jukebox at least three times every single night. “The record sounds much better than I do,” she told him. “Here, I’ll even front you a quarter.”

      “But we like it when you sing it.” Now Lonnie was giving her his best kicked-puppy look. “I’d like to hear the other songs you did on Saturday night, too.”

      Zoe sighed.

      “Please?” they said in unison.

      She should really clean the bathrooms. God, she hated cleaning the bathrooms.

      “Sure. Why not?” She went behind the bar to the stereo system and powered up the karaoke player. “But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right.” She untied the short apron that held her ordering pad and change. She set it down, picked up the karaoke microphone and switched it on. “Ready for this, boys?”

      Both Roy and Lonnie nodded.

      She used the remote to turn on the TV behind the bar, setting it to receive the signal from the karaoke system. She put in the right CD and programmed the machine and …

      Thunderous strains of pedal steel guitar came pounding out of the speakers. Old Roy and Lonnie both clapped their hands over their ears.

      “Sorry!” she shouted, turning the volume down by a full half.

      The words on the screen turned color, and she sang them into the mike. “Crazy …”

      Old Roy and Lonnie sat paying rapt attention—the president and vice-president of her personal fan club—as Zoe did her best country diva imitation, singing to an imaginary crowd of thousands.

      One song became two, then three and four. Each time it ended Roy and Lonnie gave her a standing ovation.

      “Sing mine again,” Old Roy requested.

      When Zoe looked to the bartender for help, Gus just smiled. “I like that one, too.”

      “Last one,” Zoe said. “Last time.”

      She didn’t need the words on the screen this time as she sang. “Crazy …”

      It was her finale, and she went all out this time, exaggerating all the moves. Roy and Lonnie grinned at her like a couple of two-year-olds.

      And during the instrumental break and the subsequent key change, she climbed up to sing while standing atop the sturdy

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