Page 37 of Airhead

If he’d been alone, Frank just might have helped the idiot duo beat the crap out of this brother for pulling this shit again. Paul may have kept his promise to keep away from the Waterbury bookies, but it seemed he’d just started losing his money across the harbor instead. Now he’d lost more than he could pay. That explained Paul’s recent decision to take a sudden trip upstate, leaving his lookalike, five-minute-older brother to pay for his sins.

Yep. Frank was definitely going to murder him. Right now, however, he had to get Katie out of there before these two got any ideas.

The taller guy took a step closer. “Now, you and your lady friend will come with us to The Flying Sow so Mikey can have a little talk with you before Petey and I do what we gotta do.”

Yeah, there was no way they were going to a second location with these two—at least she wasn’t.

A sense of certainty settled in his gut as the plan came together. He’d do what he needed to so she could run. Her car was only two flights down, and she had the keys. She’d get back to Waterbury, and somehow, he’d get things straightened out at The Flying Sow.

He glanced back at Katie, then at the exit sign above the stairwell leading to the parking garage, and then back at her. She gave him a subtle nod.

He let out a quick relieved breath. For a second, he’d been worried that she’d fight him on this.

With Katie squared away, he turned back to Frick and Frack, giving them a mean-ass smile of his own. Understanding flashed in the taller one’s eyes half a second before Frank’s fist made contact. His nose made a satisfying crunching sound, and he stumbled back on his heels.

Frank pivoted to take care of Petey before the first guy got his shit together, but Katie was faster. Like some kind of Amazon warrior, she swung her purse, which had to weigh at least ten pounds, at Petey. It caught him right in the side of the head, and he went down like Mr. T in the final fight against Rocky.

She turned to Frank, gave him a blood-thirsty grin that probably should have scared the shit out of him, and yelled, “Fire!”

The museum erupted into chaos as people hurried toward the front doors in a massive, panicked crowd.

Frank grabbed Katie’s hand, and they joined the rush of people, losing the bookie’s debt collectors somewhere in the madness.

“We should keep going,” Katie said when they made it out of the museum’s front entrance. “We can come back for the car later, after they’ve left.”

Still holding hands, they made it three blocks east before he pulled her to a stop next to a crowd of tourists admiring the summer fashion window display at Dylan’s Department store.

Adrenaline still pumping through his veins, powered by worry that had nothing to do with the debt collectors or the record-setting pace they’d set getting away from the museum, Frank glared down at Katie. “You were supposed to run to the exit so you could get away.”

Obviously completely unintimidated, she shrugged. “I liked my plan better.”

“The one where you could have gotten hurt?” he asked, his tone gruff to distract from the fact that he was skimming his hands over her to reassure himself that she wasn’t hurt.

“But I didn’t,” she said. Her eyes glowed with excitement, as if she’d just gotten off the mother of all rollercoasters. “I’ve never knocked anyone out with my purse and caused a stampede before.”

God help him; she was as bad of a thrill seeker as any rookie firefighter he’d ever had to train. He rammed his fingers through his hair and exhaled a deep breath. The woman was going to kill him. “Don’t ever put yourself in danger like that again.”

She shot him an ornery grin. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?” As if it mattered. Whatever it was, he would find a way to get it for her.

“A chocolate shake.”

Despite the fact that his pulse was still erratic because she’d scared the ever-loving shit out of him, Frank laughed. “I buy you a shake, and you won’t take on anyone else who breaks kneecaps for a living?”

She held up her hand, extending three fingers and holding her pinky down with her thumb. “On my honor as a Girl Scout.”

He’d always known there was a reason to be afraid of those green-sash-wearing cookie dealers.

“Come on.” He took her hand again, because not touching her when she was this close was beyond him. “I know just the place.”

Chapter Nineteen

By the time they’d stopped in front of a restaurant with a blinking neon sign that said Vito’s, Katie had gotten used to holding Frank’s hand. Well, getting used to it was probably the wrong phrase. More like. she didn’t want to let go. Which was worse—totally worse.

There was no way tonight would end well if she forgot the truth about Frank Hartigan. He went through women like men who walked out of the desert went through gallons of water—one after the other, none more special than the last.

The only reason he had even called her house after Marinos was that, once she’d stopped floating in orgasmic bliss and landed back into reality, she’d gotten the hell out of that supply closet and hadn’t looked back. That must have been a shock for Frank, since every other woman in Waterbury couldn’t get enough of him. So he’d called. He’d shown up at poker night. Then, he’d gone all knight-not-in-a-DeLorean at the movie theater. It would be so easy just to go with it, to let herself believe it was because he wanted more than another supply-closet quickie.