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He glanced at the door again, then his watch.
One and a half minutes and he was going after her.
“She slipped in the back entrance about three hours ago, collected the reports, and ran,” Sarah leaned forward and informed him quickly, her voice low. “Ran as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.”
Sarah straightened in her seat then and cast her husband a teasing look as he shook his head at her. Sarah was known to matchmake. Or at least, to attempt to. It had been making all of them crazy. They indulged her, were amused by her, but seriously, she made them crazy with it.
Well, all of them except the new guy, Morgan Keane. One of the six new bouncers Cooper had been forced to hire in the past year. He was a former special forces soldier referred by one of the U.S. Marshals who were protecting Sarah’s father. A former Italian mafia boss who had immigrated to America, Giovanni Fredrico.
Morgan was a brooding, grouchy son of a bitch with an attitude that managed to keep even the most aggressive jackals in the place at bay.
Nothing Sarah or anyone else did seemed to faze Keane much, though. He took it all in stride.
“Did she now?” Casey finally forced himself to mutter, irritation mixing with the lust and surging through his bloodstream with a hit of spiked adrenaline.
Yep, there it was. That shot of elixir that kept him perpetually hard whenever he thought of Sheila.
“She did.” Sarah grinned. “It was all rather curious, too. I thought she was running scared, but she swore she was simply in a hurry. What do you think?”
The gleam of knowledge in her eyes was highly discomforting. It meant she was matchmaking.
“Hell if I know,” he muttered, deciding in that second he didn’t need her help.
“Confused on that, are you?” she asked.
He leveled a suspicious glare in her direction. It only received another of her infamous smiles. Those innocent, I’ve-done-nothing-wrong grins.
Bullshit. She was obviously up to something, and he had a feeling he knew what. He was getting into trouble just fine all by himself. He didn’t need Sarah’s help.
“I shouldn’t be?” he asked softly.
She shrugged again as she brushed back one of the thick, heavy brown curls that had fallen over her shoulder.
“Well, it should have been rather obvious,” Sarah sighed. “Most wome
n of Sheila’s ilk refuse to play second fiddle to anything or anyone else, Casey. They’re simply too possessive to be placed in any position but first.”
“She doesn’t play second anything, period,” he informed her. “Where are you going with this?”
Why was he letting her “go with it”? The “it” being the head game she was playing.
“It would depend on where you intend on going with things,” she suggested lightly. “And perhaps that’s all she’s waiting on from you, to decide if you’re worth risking her heart for. Sometimes, all a woman needs is to know she’s wanted for more than what she provides her lover in their bed.”
“Troublemaker.” Cooper stepped forward, growling the accusation in a tone filled with pure adoration. He was damned crazy over the girl and everyone knew it. But he did make attempts to limit her interference in other people’s lives.
“Of course I am,” she admitted as she lifted her face and accepted the quick kiss he placed against her lips. “That’s why you love me so dearly, though. I never let you get bored.”
Casey watched their byplay until Cooper helped his wife from her seat and they headed for the door behind the bar. That door led to the stairs that would take them to the office/bedroom Cooper kept upstairs. From there, Casey didn’t even want to guess what they would be doing. It was better not to.
Because then, he would start thinking of all the things he could be doing with Sheila, and it would just piss him off worse.
He glanced at the mirror again and narrowed his eyes.
He knew where Sheila was. He knew where she lived and he knew how to get to her. And he knew he was really getting tired of waiting on her.
She was his, he’d made that decision a long time before and had been forced to wait far too long to claim her. But he had claimed her, and now, letting her go wasn’t something he was going to do. Not now, not ever.
chapter 4
