Crossfire by Joann Ross Page B

reality-based products of his imagination. They were a blow-by-blow account of those long, cold, deadly hours that had changed all their lives.
    The doorbell rang. Glancing down at his watch, he realized that more than two hours had passed since he’d sat down at the computer to write that scene, which would forever be burned onto his memory.
    Emotions still raw, he got up to answer the door. Quinn had stopped being surprised by life a very long time ago. But when he saw Cait Cavanaugh standing on his porch, he felt as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus with a Louisville slugger.
    One thing for sure—life had been easier, and definitely less complex, back when Quinn’s view had been narrowed to what he could see through his sniper’s scope.

 

     
     

    16
     
    ‘‘You’re being ridiculous.’’ Valentine continued the argument that had been going on since she and Brendan had left the police station.
    ‘‘Is it that American mothers haven’t taught their daughters about the fragility of the male ego?’’ he asked mildly. ‘‘Or is it just that you’d be choosing to ignore the warning? Because being referred to as ridiculous might possibly take the winds out of a lesser man’s sails. So to speak.’’
    Reaching into the front pocket of his jeans, he pulled out the key to unlock the pub’s heavy door. Although there’d been a howl of complaint among his customers, he’d shut down early in order to take the letter to the authorities.
    ‘‘But you’re not one of those,’’ she allowed as they entered the building. Everything was just as they’d left it—glasses, some not yet empty, sitting on tables, giving the pub the air of a party interrupted. ‘‘A lesser man.’’
    ‘‘I like to think not.’’
    He’d always kept a tidy establishment, which was why it pained him to walk past all those cluttered tables to the door leading to the stairway at the back of the room. But Caitlin had said she’d be sending a crime lab team over in the morning to check all those glasses for fingerprints, so he’d have to be waiting to clean up.
    She’d admitted she wasn’t expecting to find anything useful, but had hoped perhaps they’d get lucky and at least discover that one of the would-be pirates had served in the military. Even better would be if they’d find themselves a sniper.
    ‘‘I’ll be perfectly safe,’’ Val insisted yet again as she walked up the stairs in front of him.
    Despite the seriousness of their situation, what he’d told her in the police station was absolutely true. Valentine Snow did, indeed, have a very fine ass. World class, in Brendan’s opinion.
    ‘‘Of course you’ll be safe,’’ he agreed. And wasn’t he going to make sure of that?
    ‘‘I meant alone.’’
    ‘‘You won’t even know I’m around,’’ he said yet again.
    ‘‘Yeah. Right.’’
    Her dark hair fanned out as she shook her head with seething frustration. It was not the first time he’d imagined it spread across his pillow. His chest. His thighs.
    With a sigh of resignation, Brendan knew it wouldn’t be the last.
    ‘‘You’re not that easy to ignore,’’ she said.
    ‘‘Am I not?’’ he asked as they stopped at the top of the stairs.
    There were two doors—one leading to his loft apartment, the other to hers. He thought about asking, ‘‘Your place or mine?’’ but decided the American cliché wouldn’t help him make his case.
    ‘‘Any male as good-looking as you has got to know he’s a woman magnet,’’ she said. ‘‘Or do you actually expect me to believe that you haven’t noticed that a good two-thirds of your clientele on any given night is of the female persuasion?’’
    He had noticed. It would have been difficult not to when he often found telephone numbers written on the small paper napkins when he’d clear the tables. He wondered what Valentine would say if he told her the truth—that there was only one woman he wanted to attract. And she was currently