Asa

 

Fiona Dixon raised her eyebrows to me disbelievingly. "Nothing?"

 

I nodded. "That's what I'm telling you; nothing happened."

 

Fiona raised her eyebrows again. "Asa, I've seen you take a lot of women—some younger than the Dugas girl—back to that motorhome and never has nothing happened."

 

"Well, this time nothing did."

 

"What happened? You losing your charm?"

 

We were chatting over dinner at her bar the day after my failed attempt to break into Brian Dugas's. I'd spent the day asleep after a long and somewhat frustrating night.

 

"I guess that must be it." I wanted to tell her that I could have had Corinne there and then, and that she had been all over me. But if I told her that then I would have to explain to Fiona why I had turned her down, and I couldn't explain that to myself yet.

 

Fiona shook her head. "I saw the look in the little girl's eyes. I've seen that look in a lot of girls’ eyes. Hell, Asa, I've been that girl—and thank you for the memory. No way was she turning you down."

 

"The little bitch did nothing but get in the way since I met her," I said, trying to get the conversation away from an uncomfortable subject and back to where it belonged.

 

"So, your Black Book is still in Dugas's house."

 

"I guess. We checked out the sheriff station, and I'm as sure as I can be that it's not there."

 

Fiona nodded. "If the sheriff's got any sense, he'll carry it around with him."

 

"We'll have to hope he hasn't got any sense."

 

Fiona shrugged. "Well, he let his youngest daughter ride off with the president of War Cry last night, so I'd say there was hope."

 

Fiona was making light of the situation, but I knew that she was worried. I'd known Fiona since I joined War Cry in my late teens, over ten years ago . We had a bit of a thing back in the day, off and on, heating up, then cooling down. It was mostly just good fun between old friends. Every now and then, we hooked up again for old time sake. She was still the sexiest 'older woman' I'd ever met, but these days it was mostly business. Fiona was my best client for selling hooch, and that made her a target for local gangs and big city hustlers, so she also became my best client for protection.

 

Not that Fiona couldn't take care of herself. There was a pool cue behind the bar that was well-used despite never having been anywhere near a pool table. But that wouldn't be of much use if Sheriff Brian Dugas got his way. The Black Book contained my client list and enough evidence to put me and the rest of War Cry away for a long time. Fiona herself would probably do some time too for receiving stolen goods. More importantly, with War Cry gone, she'd be without protection.

 

"He saw you there last night. He'll be on the look-out now," said Fiona.

 

"Yeah.”

 

"Any of your boys up to it?"

 

I pulled a face. There were too many youngsters in War Cry these days. I supposed there always had been, but it never seemed like it when I was one of them.

 

"What about the girl?"

 

I frowned. "What girl?"

 

"The Dugas girl."

 

"Corinne?"

 

"Unless you're banging the other one as well."

 

"I'm not banging ..."

 

Fiona rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure. It's all perfectly innocent. You rode up with a twenty-one year old tight ass ..."

 

"Twenty-three."

 

"... clinging to you like a limpet. Then you take her back to your place for half an hour and come out looking flushed. But nothing happened. All very innocent."

 

"Fine, don't believe me."

 

"I don't," said Fiona. "I'm struggling to figure out why you can't talk about this one. What makes her different?"

 

That was a question worth asking. What did make Corinne different?

 

"Look," Fiona continued. "The girl likes you, yeah?"

 

"Maybe."

 

"Quit playing dumb. She's crazy about you. They always are. I bet she'd do anything you ask. So, ask her to find out where her dad keeps the book and steal it for you."

 

There was no doubt in my mind that if I asked Corinne to do that, she would. Partly to please me, but mostly to anger her father. Why should I care if Brian Dugas had a bad relationship with his daughter? The man was, after all, trying to stick me behind bars. But that was his job, and I'd broken the law, and that was the way it went. Dragging family into it was different. You didn't do that. I didn't have the greatest of childhoods. My dad's drinking made him violent, and that drove my mom to drink, and neither of them much wanted me. War Cry gave me a family—not a good one, but better than the one I was born into.

 

From Corinne's behavior, I could guess that Brian Dugas maybe hadn't been the perfect dad, but I'd have laid odds that he was better than mine. He was a trier, and even if he had failed where Corinne was concerned, you had to rate a man for trying. I had a scar on my head from where my dad cracked a bottle over it. That was the only thing he gave me that I’d kept. However screwed up Corinne's relationship with her old man might be, I didn’t want to screw it up further. I knew firsthand how that worked out, and the world didn’t need any more people like me.

 

"Her dad trusts her about as much as he trusts me," I said to Fiona, which wasn't all a lie. "No chance of her getting the book. We need another plan."

 

"Do you have one?"

 

I was about to answer when the door to the bar opened and in walked Corinne Dugas. With one thing happening after another, I hadn't had much of a chance to look at her last night, and I took the opportunity now. She really was a stunning girl, with an attractive tangle of wavy red hair piled up on her head, bright green eyes, pale skin, and a cupid's bow of a mouth. She was wearing a short denim skirt that hugged her tight backside and showed about nine feet of bare, shapely legs, taut, toned, and accentuated by heeled boots. A vest top hung loosely on her frame, with no evidence of a bra to support her high, firm breasts. It occurred to me that I really shouldn't be taking this much interest in the girl I had very much rebuffed last night. It wouldn't end well for either of us. But it was impossible to ignore the thumping desire that was welling up from within. The damn girl looked incredible, and I wanted her so badly I could taste it.

 

"Something wrong?" asked Fiona, who had her back to the door.

 

"Nothing," I said, as Corinne spotted me and gave me a cheeky little wave. She might be in her twenties, but with Brian Dugas for a father she was still jailbait to me. I turned my attention back to my dinner companion. If Corinne wouldn't take no for an answer, then perhaps there was another way. I reached across the table to take Fiona's hand.

 

"Have I told you how good you’re looking since I got back?"

 

Fiona looked at me quizzically. "No, but you very seldom do."

 

"I should. You're a very beautiful woman, Fiona."

 

Fiona looked more bemused than flattered. "Is this just because you didn't nail the girl last night?"

 

As subtly as possible, I kept an eye on Corinne and was gratified to see the petulant expression on her face. She stamped towards the bar like a teenager who didn’t get her own way.

 

"It's been a while since you and I ..." I let the sentence hang.

 

Fiona nodded. "It has. But I'll be damned if I'm going to be a surrogate for the Dugas girl. When you're with me, I expect you to be thinking of me. I'm not that hard-up, Asa. You may not believe it, but there are other men in my life."

 

"I don't doubt that for a second," I said. But I was now becoming distracted. Corinne had sidled up to a man at the bar, an irritatingly handsome guy in his mid-twenties, and was flirting coquettishly. As she sat, her skirt rode even further up her thighs, and I thought I caught a glimpse of red underwear before she crossed her legs.

 

"How about a dance?" I suggested to Fiona.

 

"What is going on with you? We haven't danced in years."

 

"Then it's past time."

 

"You're a lousy dancer, Asa," Fiona said, shaking her head. "I hate to be the one to tell you, but you've got two left feet."

 

"It never used to bother you back in the day."

 

"That's because you were very good at something else, and dancing was kind of the prelude."

 

"Well, then." I stood and offered her my hand. I wasn't sure what was on the jukebox, but whatever it was would do.

 

"Look, I've got a bar to run," said Fiona, coming close to laughing in my face. "I know it's not exactly busy, but ..." Before I could stop her, she had looked past me to the bar and a smile spread over her face. "I see. Well, that's no way to treat a girl."

 

I shrugged. She had a point. "Sorry. I didn't mean to ..."

 

"Use me as a way to avoid dealing with the girl with the crush?"

 

"Okay, I did mean to do that."

 

Fiona eyed me, and I found myself struggling to tell what she was thinking.

 

"What is it about her?"

 

"What?"

 

"I've never known you to act this way around a girl."

 

"One dance?"

 

Fiona took my hand. "It has been too long."

 

Maybe I was a lousy dancer, but I still enjoyed dancing with Fiona. It got a lot less enjoyable, however, when Corinne and her new friend joined us, dancing so close that you couldn't get a five dollar bill between them. I watched the man's hands steal optimistically towards Corinne's backside and felt my fists tighten even as I danced with Fiona.

 

"I'm going to do you a favor," Fiona whispered in my ear. "And maybe do us all one in the long run."

 

"What?"

 

"Speak to her about the book."

 

"What?"

 

Fiona let go of me and strolled over to the other couple. "Mind if I cut in?"

 

I remembered when I met Fiona, that aura of sexuality she had for a man in his teens (barely even a man yet). She had lost none of it over the years, and the man with Corinne looked like he was having the best day of his life. Still, I didn't think he'd have let go of the younger woman so readily if Corinne hadn't instantly said, "Yeah, sure."

 

She slunk over to me, hips swaying as she walked.

 

"Can I have this dance?"

 

I should have said no. I wanted to say no. I knew that I had to say no. But there was no way that I was going to say no.

 

As if on cue, the music slowed. Corinne's young body pressed against me, her head rested against my chest, and I inhaled the scent of her hair.

 

"This is not a good idea."

 

"No," she replied, not looking up. "But some things you can't fight. You can try, but they're going to happen one way or another."

 

"I don't believe in that meant-to-be bullshit."

 

"I didn't say meant-to-be. I just meant that when there is an attraction between two people, like there is between us, then it's like a bullet from a gun. There's no stopping it till it hits its target."

 

Only now did she look up at me, those vividly green eyes staring into mine. Sure, there was a seductiveness about her, almost a calculation in how she had gotten me here, but there was a plaintiveness too, as if this was something she needed more than wanted. It was like not having it would cause her a physical wound.

 

I had no idea which of us moved first. I vaguely remembered it being her, stretching up to me, but she might have been responding to an unconscious move on my part, because God knew I wanted it as badly as her. Our lips met, and the taste of her was a flood of sensation, like I'd only ever seen in black-and-white and was now seeing color for the first time. Her sweetness seemed to flow into me. She crushed her hips against mine, and I knew she was feeling my hardness firmly against her. She wanted it. She wanted to be a bad girl. I wanted to stop, for all the reasons that had seemed so clear early on. But if a girl wants to be bad, then one way or another she's going to be. And if this particular girl was going to go bad then, damn it, I wanted it to be with me.

 

"Same goes as last night," Corinne whispered hotly into my ear.

 

"What?"

 

Her eyes met mine again, wide and wicked. "I'll do whatever you tell me to."

 

Fair enough. If she wanted to be a bad girl, then I was going to show her how to be a good one.