Page 1 of Over the Edge

CHAPTERONE

Anna Marlow slipped inside Miss Mabel’s Country Saloon and Dancehall, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dim, neon light while the odors of stale beer and cigarette smoke assaulted her nose. The way she heard it, Miss Mabel was actually a fat, bald guy with roving hands around the ladies.

Where are you, Trevor? What’s got you hiding in a bar you despise?

She checked off faces, looking for the familiar features and tall, elegant physique. Sometimes in her secret fantasies about her Reaper teammate, Trevor Westbrook was a dashing British spy. He certainly looked the part with his coffee hair and cognac eyes.

She scanned the line-dancing crowd shuffling back and forth on the wood-plank floor. Absently, she noted exits and obstacles, plotted egress routes, catalogued sight lines, and spotted potential hostiles.Low threat environment.

Trevor’s vintage Dodge Charger was in the parking lot, so he was definitely here, somewhere. Where would a Trevor predator hide?

The telltale cluster of women caught her attention first, circling like agitated sharks.Target acquired. She headed for the feeding frenzy.

“Hey beautiful? What’s your name?” a guy shouted at her as she waded through the dancers.

“No thanks,” she shouted back.

“That’s a weird name!”

“My last name is My-old-man’s-a-jealous-cop!” She didn’t even know any police officers personally, but her lie did the trick. The urban cowboy turned away to try his luck with someone else.

She reached the women and spotted their quarry. As she’d expected. Trevor was hunched over a beer on the last barstool at the end of the bar, scowling murderously. Not that it stopped the ladies from flirting with him. Not that she blamed them. Her SEAL swim buddy was seriously hot. It was just that, if they had any idea how dangerous he really was, these civilian women would be giving him much wider berth.

She reached the group, a preponderance. One of them said in a teasing-not teasing tone, “Go find your own guy. This one’s taken.”

“Yeah. I know,” she replied flatly. The complete lack of emotion in her voice apparently gave the blonde pause. Or maybe the cold promise of bodily harm in Anna’s eyes penetrated Blondie’s rum-and-coke induced fog. Either way, the woman stepped back as Anna moved forward.Splash one.

The hovering women dispersed for the most part as she scowled her way through them. One woman, another blonde as it happened, pretend-accidental hip checked Anna, presumably to provoke her, but she was more amused than offended. If only that gal knew what she did for a living.

She paused to make eye contact with Blonde the Second, her eyebrow arched sardonically. The woman seemed to think better of picking a fight and walked away.Splash two.

One more female to run off before she would have access to the bar stool at Trevor’s left elbow. This one was a redhead. Not half-bad looking. In another universe where Anna didn’t have a wild crush on her teammate, she might have let Red stay. But as it was…

“Excuse me,” Anna said politely. “I need to talk with the gentleman.”

The redhead stared back and remained stubbornly planted on the barstool.

Well okay, then. Anna sighed theatrically. “Honey, he’s got the clap. It’s so bad I’m worried his ding-a-ling might fall off. You sure you wanna roll the dice with catching that?”

The redhead all but trampled her, pausing only long enough to grab her beer before beating a hasty retreat.

Trevor’s head turned slowly, just far enough for one baleful golden eye to glare at her. “The clap?” he echoed ominously.

Grinning unrepentantly, Anna slid onto the stool next to him, vividly aware of how he towered over her. And she was no delicate flower, herself. “I cleared out the ladies, didn’t I?”

“Thanks for nothing.”

She waved an airy hand. “No thanks needed. I’m happy to run off flirting women. What are teammates for, after all?”

“You do realize I was going to get lucky, tonight.”

“Trevor Westbrook. You do not need luck to find female companionship. What you need is to exercise a little taste and restraint.”

He grunted. “I do not need you telling me how to choose my women, thank you very much.”

“And yet. You came to a dive like this. I thought you hated this place.”

He glared into his beer glass, which was mostly full. Some of the Reapers drank more when they were upset, but Trevor went the other way. He tended to get quiet and get lost in his thoughts when he was chewing on a problem.

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