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She turned back to her customer.

Okay.

So much for that.

I’d told Marjorie Steel that all I could give her was a good fuck. It had taken every bit of my strength to leave her bedroom yesterday. Every damned ounce.

And now I was getting shot down by a worn-hard cocktail waitress.

Served me right.

I shot my third bourbon quickly.

Only to look down to see the waitress shove a napkin toward me before disappearing into the back room.

I get off at 7.

Scribbled underneath was an address in Rosevale, one of the more crime-ridden areas in Grand Junction. About

a fifteen-minute drive from the bar.

I checked my watch. Six forty-five. I signaled the barkeep. One more shot, and I’d be on my way.

“What’s your name, cowboy?”

I gazed at the woman in the denim miniskirt. How she’d beaten me here was beyond me. I’d left my car at the bar and taken a cab. I felt okay, but after four shots, I didn’t trust my blood-alcohol level.

“You deaf?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “Bob.”

“Yeah? I’m Alice.” She giggled. “Bob is not your name. You don’t look like a Bob.”

“I am a Bob, but you are definitely not an Alice”—I eyeballed the nametag she still wore—“Heidi.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll play it your way. Come in, Bob.”

I entered the modest studio apartment. The queen-size bed in the corner was neatly made, and my gaze zeroed in on it.

That was where I’d fuck this woman.

My groin was tight.

“You want a drink, Bob?”

“Sure. Bourbon if you have it.”

“I do. Not crazy about it myself, but I keep everything on hand.” She walked into her kitchenette and pulled a bottle out of a cupboard.

“What are you having?” I asked.

“I don’t drink.”

“Really? And you work at a bar?”

“Precisely why I don’t drink. I smoke a little weed, though. You want some?”

I shook my head. “Never enjoyed it.”