Tara Janzen - Loose And Easy

She needed to move.

“I’ll just go ahead and get a cab,” she blurted out, taking a step up the sidewalk. “Uh, thanks. For everything. Really. I’ll call you-”

The key turned.

“Get in the car,” he ordered, swinging the door wide.

He didn’t wait for her to obey, just stepped around her and headed for the driver’s side of the wreck.

Shit.

She grabbed the door and glanced down the street again, then slid her gaze back to Johnny, who was already dropping in behind the steering wheel, the ignition key in his hand.

If the Cyclone started, so help her God, she was getting in. Dovey had hit the sidewalk and was moving in fast-and she had to wonder, really: Just how damn badly did Bleak want her? And if he wanted her as badly as it looked, sending three of his boys after her, then, chances were, it would definitely be to her advantage to-

Geezus holy mother -the beat-up old car came to life with one twist of the key, sending a body-rocking vibration up through her hand, up her arm, and down her body all the way to her toes-and in that instant, inside of a heartbeat, the Cyclone ruled the street.

The hunk-a-junk was alive and well, tuned and timed to a rumbling roar of horsepower and headers, growling low in its throat like a feral cat, shaking like a wet dog, and making the glass rattle in the door frame.

She didn’t hesitate.

In one move, she was in the car, dropping into the passenger seat, reaching for the seat belt with one hand, and slamming the door behind her with the other. Johnny instantly spun the wheel, his feet working the pedals. Shoved up into first, and then second, the Cyclone slid fast and sleek into a break in the traffic.

She craned her head around, looking back toward Wazee, only to see Dovey standing stock-still on the sidewalk, his gaze riveted to Johnny, his mouth hanging half open.

Damn, damn, oh, double damn.

“I think Dovey has definitely recognized you,” she said, feeling beholden to warn him. For whatever reasons, he’d just saved her ass-again.

“Good,” he said, the word succinct. “It’ll give him something to think about.”

She arched an eyebrow in his direction, surprised at the coldness of his voice.

In high school-sure, Dovey would have definitely thought twice about messing with Johnny Ramos. In fact, he would have thought about it until he’d changed his mind. But Franklin Bleak wouldn’t, and Dovey worked for Bleak-at least according to Johnny, the guy in the driver’s seat, the one momentarily in charge.

Very momentarily, if she so chose.

She looked him over again, from the thick dark hair cut short on his head, to the lean, chiseled lines of his face. There was no “give” in the way he looked, no softness. His shoulders were broad under his shirt, his hands large and strong on the steering wheel, the way he moved filled with intent. He wasn’t the wild kid she’d known in school. He was something else. She just didn’t know what. No shot caller for some gang-she’d bet the house on that, and no errand boy for Franklin Bleak, setting her up for a takedown. Something about him was too straight. She felt it. Something emanating from his core, and it filled him with a confidence she’d only seen in a certain kind of guy. Guys like Dax.

Yeah, that was it, and she knew damn well where her partner had gotten it from-the crucible of combat and years of exacting training engaged on a level that was recognized in all quarters as elite, those teams where the percentages of acceptance were measured in single digits, with only two or three men out of a hundred already toughened soldiers making the cut. Dax belonged in the life-anddeath game of war played by the “for real” big bad boys, not the sagging gangbangers, not the mall rats and the street punks, but the ones who’d “been there, done that” in far-off places under circumstances few men could survive.

And Johnny Ramos reminded her of that.

It was enough to make a girl think.

No, he wasn’t setting her up for Bleak, and she knew for damn sure he wasn’t part of any fallout from Otto. She knew Erich Warner’s guys, and Johnny wasn’t one of them. Whatever he was up to, following her, getting involved, he was up to it for his own reasons-and she couldn’t help but wonder what in the hell those were.

They cruised up Market Street in the Cyclone, weaving through traffic at just over the speed limit, just fast enough to give them an edge without getting a ticket, leaving Dovey and his crew behind, which was all great and good, except for one thing.

“We’re going the wrong way.” She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but it was the truth.

“Excuse me?” He slanted her a quick glance across the darkened interior of the car.

“Wrong way,” she repeated, pointing out the windshield. “We’re going it.”

“We’re on a one-way street.”

“I know.” And she did. She knew Denver like the back of her hand, and she knew he did, too. “We need to get up on Larimer and back down to Speer, or you need to pull over and let me out somewhere up here, so I can catch a cab.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding his head, his brow furrowing. “Right. Good idea. I’ll get right on it, right after you settle down for a minute and take a breath, and maybe, just maybe, tell me what in the hell is going on.”

He downshifted for a light, and they sat at the corner, rumbling and rocking in place.

“Is this thing street legal?” It didn’t feel street legal.

“Not in fourth gear.”

Whatever that meant, though she thought she had an idea. Just like she had an idea of what was making his jaw so tight. Just like she had an idea that he wasn’t really considering her suggestion to pull over and let her out.

“I have an appointment,” she explained. She didn’t dare put it any plainer, or make it any clearer, and her appointment was in the other direction.

“So you said.” He kept his attention on the street, his gaze checking the intersection and the Cyclone’s rearview mirror. “But you didn’t say who with, or what it’s about, and frankly, given who’s chasing you, I think we’d both be better off if I knew the answers to both those questions.”

She thought about his request for a nanosecond, and gave him the only possible reply.

“You can think whatever you like.”

It was a summer night in August, in the middle of the city, but the temperature in the Cyclone dropped forty degrees in a heartbeat, with the Ice Age starting on his side of the car. She didn’t bother to turn and see what kind of look he was giving her. She could figure it out on her own-glacial, with a side order of pissed-off. So what-she had a job to do. That was her bottom line, and he wasn’t part of the job.

While they waited, two cop cars came down Eighteenth, heading northwest, passing in front of them at a good clip. A second later both cars hit their lights and sirens. Another siren sounded somewhere behind them, the noise fading north.

Typical Friday night in the city, she thought. Trouble everywhere, and her in the middle of more than she liked. She had to get to Isaac Nachman’s. Her schedule wasn’t flexible, her plan was not optional, and Johnny Ramos wasn’t part of either.

The light turned, and they cruised up another block and stopped at the next light with cars on either side of them. He slid the Cyclone back down into first gear.

“I saw that guy you hog-tied at the Oxford,” he said, not sounding any too happy about it.

She didn’t blame him. Otto Von Lindberg hog-tied in a black leather thong and leashed to a bed frame was one of those haunting images she was afraid she was just going to have to live with, probably for quite a while.