Page 20 of Sniper's Pride

“You know it’s called Alaska Force,” Isaac replied, sounding significantly less mild and amused than he had a moment before. A stranger might not have been able to tell the difference. But to Griffin, it was glaring.

And he shouldn’t have taken much comfort in that, but he liked knowing that even Isaac had a weakness. Griffin had tried to rid himself of as many weaknesses aspossible, but it was comforting to know that someone as seemingly invulnerable as Isaac Gentry had one lurking around.

Griffin couldn’t help but enjoy it.

“We’re not in your café now,” Isaac was saying, and the look he aimed at her wasn’t the least bit safe or charming. “You can’t make idle threats about banning me from a bar you don’t own. What’s your next move, Caradine?”

Caradine reached over the bar, picked up a shot glass, and raised it mockingly in Isaac’s direction.

“Bottom’s up, jackass,” she said, and tossed it back.

And then she proved exactly how tough she was, in Griffin’s opinion, by failing to react in any visible way to the menacing, knife’s edge of a smile that Isaac aimed her way.

Griffin shifted his attention back to Mariah. “I’m surprised you’re out celebrating at a time like this.”

It was possible he sounded slightly cranky. Maybe that was why she laughed at him.

And laughed. And laughed some more.

He could have handled more of that cool, haughty politeness she’d tried to slap him with earlier. He liked the cold. He could handle it.

But her laugh was something else. It was loud, it was teetering on the edge of rowdy, and she didn’t seem to care at all that it made heads turn throughout the bar.

“If you’re trying to keep a low profile,” Griffin bit out, “going shot for shot with an infamous local and making scenes in the middle of town is probably not the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Am I supposed to be keeping a low profile?” Mariah asked. Her blue eyes danced, and Griffin didn’t knowwhat he was supposed to do with that. “You didn’t leave me with a list of instructions, sugar. You just left.”

“I have things to do, most of them with life-or-death consequences. Explain to me why you—left to your own devices, on the run and supposedly afraid for your life—figured this was a good time to make a spectacle of yourself?”

He expected to shame her. Or offend her enough, anyway, to get them to the same place. What he didn’t expect was another one of those wicked belly laughs that rolled over him like a gas fire. And made him feel charred all the way through.

He also didn’t expect it when she lurched forward, flinging herself from the bar with such force that she would have toppled over and gone straight to the sticky floor if he hadn’t snaked out an arm to catch her.

It was a reflex.

It was also a mistake.

Because she felt even better than she looked, silky smooth and warm where her T-shirt sleeve ended and her arm began. Mariah might not be his ex. She might not even be in particular danger, no matter what she said.

But she was here, she was the softest thing he’d ever touched, and Griffin understood in a sudden flash of unwelcome insight exactly why she got beneath his skin.

Because around this woman, he kept remembering he’d once been a man and could be again—if only for a night.

If he played his cards right, which he couldn’t. And wouldn’t.

But there was no escaping the fact that whatever else happened, Griffin was already in trouble.

Seven

After Griffin left her in the café, disappearing like a puff of smoke, Mariah had shifted around to the other side of the table so that she could take a turn with her back to the wall and a nice view of all the comings and goings.

She ordered another mug of coffee from the surly waitress, who she was surprised to discover was also the cook. And, as she replayed what Griffin had told her, she realized she was clearly the owner, too, which made all that attitude and grumpiness feel like even more delightful local color.

Mariah sat there, nursing her coffee and watching as the group of fishermen left in a friendly knot. And as the tourist couple continued to fight with each other, punctuating their strained conversation with pointed silences as they ate their soup and sandwiches.

After they stormed out, hiking boots hitting the old floorboards with obvious aggression, only Mariah and Caradine were left in the bright, cheerful space thatmade as much of the iffy sunshine as it could. Unlike Caradine herself, who sat on a stool behind the counter and scowled out at the village as if it offended her. Just by... being there.

“Are they always like that?” Mariah had dared to ask.

---