Page 79 of A Dead End Wedding

The brunette, meanwhile, twisted out of the hands of the man holding on to her shirt and dropped to the floor. I tried to roll out of her way fast, not wanting to be the next victim, but she curled up in a fetal position next to me and started sobbing.

Boy, do I know how to party or what?

Sobering up fast, I reached a tentative hand over and patted her shoulder. "Hey. Hey, are you okay? Did you get hurt?"

She shook her head, but otherwise ignored me completely, other than a slight increase in volume. Two more big, burly, no-neck guys shouldered their way through the crowd just then. One had a black shirt with the name of the bar on it, and the other guy wore a cop face.

Cop face introduced himself. "Deputy Marlin, ma'am. You're going to have to get up off the floor and hand over the knife."

Knife? Oh, yeah. I forgot about the fact that she had a deadly weapon. I backed away from her, fast. Two deadly weapons in two days are way over my limit.

She sat up all in one unbending motion, like a robot or something. It was kind of scary, to be honest. The silver blade in her hand didn't help.

The cop put his hand on his gun, but didn't pull it out of his holster. "Okay, just hand it over, nice and slow, lady."

She laughed bitterly. "It's Gina. Gina Schiantelli. And you're more than welcome to my nail file, you idiot." She flipped it up in the air so it twirled over and she caught it by the file edge, then extended it, pink plastic handle forward, to the cop.

He looked a little embarrassed, but I'd thought it was a knife, too. Sheesh. Butter knives and nail files. I was done being afraid of pretend knives, that's for sure.

"You're going to have to come down to the station with me, Ms. Schiantelli, and answer some questions, at the very least. We have witnesses who say you started this altercation, and it looks like your buddy wants to file charges."

The blonde looked at her arm. "Well, I'm not actuallybleeding, but you're still a psycho."

Gina started sobbing again. "Great. Now I'm going back to jail, right? You fall in love, and your life goes to hell. My life is afreaking country western song. All I need is a damn porch with a dog on it."

I felt that little twinge under my left rib cage. I hate that twinge. It always means I'm getting ready to do something stupid for purely emotional reasons. I sighed and did it, anyway. "Gina, I'm a lawyer. Do you need help?"

I ignored Max, who was violently shaking her head no, no, no. It was the twinge. Not my fault.

Gina sniffled and looked at me through the curtain of her dark, tangled hair. (Just for the record, I hate having clients who are so much better looking than me.) She looked me up and down for a beat.

It ticked me off. "Look, it's not like you can be all that picky right now. I don't see anybody else offering," I said.

She smiled a little. "You're right. Yeah, I could use some help. Can you meet me there?"

I returned her smile, but was already wondering what the heck I'd gotten myself into this time. I stood up and held my hand out to help her up. After she stood, I turned to the cop. "Officer, my name is December Vaughn, and I'm Gina's attorney. I'll meet you at booking."

He gave me his cynical face and then nodded, and snapped handcuffs on Gina, who was looking subdued but defiant. I watched them walk off, then turned to Max. "So. We need to call a taxi. Where do we go for booking?"

I'd been waiting for an hour and still had no news about Gina. The waiting room was not exactly pleasant and peaceful. It smelled of old urine and fresh despair. Max had left about ten minutes ago to find us some drinkablecoffee. The outside door opened, and the last person I expected to see walked into the room, looking like sex on a stick in his faded jeans.

"Jake Brody. Why am I surprised, after what Max said? Are you here for Gina?"

He sauntered over to me and stopped when he was a fraction of an inch too close. "I was her one phone call."

My instincts pushed me to back up, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he made my warning bells clang. So I put my hands on my hips and gave him my best lawyer face. (I could play poker with that face, trust me.) "I bet you're alotof people's one phone call. Friends in low places, much?"

He grinned. "Look who's talking. You don't even know her, but you're here. Business slow, Counselor? Going to run down some ambulances next?"

I sucked in a breath and told myself how bad it would be to punch somebody right in the sheriff's office. "Nice. Is this a sample of your much-vaunted charm?"

He reached over and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. The touch of his finger against the curve of my ear started other bells jangling.Crap.

"Nice to know you think I'm charming, Counselor. So, with all that gorgeous hair, do you get blonde jokes or lawyer jokes more often?"

I gaped a little. The man had balls of steel. "I think—you—oh! In yourdreams,do I think you're charming. And most people are too intimidated by me to make any jokes at all." I bared my teeth in my best scary-person grimace.

He laughed. "You might want to try harder. And you can go now. I called Gina's lawyer, and he's on the way down here."

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