Page 33 of Grim Tidings

“Amazing.”

I trudge to the opposite side of the bar, desperate to be out of her orbit. Every time I’m near her, it’s like we’re back in that alley-way. Her plush mouth against mine. The small, bitten-off sounds she made. A flash of heat, and then bone-deep regret. I’m practicing exposure therapy tonight, trying to make her presence feel less like a sledgehammer.

But every time I look at Darcy, I see my own shitty mistakes reflected back at me. I was so easily led astray. I know my mission, and I got distracted by a pretty smile and sad eyes. I rub at the raised, rough scars over my chest.

I have two strikes. I can’t afford another. This is my last chance to get it right.

At the end of the bar, Frank is waiting with his cup of cherries, a contemplative look on his face. I top him off without him having to ask, shaking out an extra few for some karmic cushion.

He arches an eyebrow. “Looks like your friend is back.”

I screw on the top of the cherry container with more force than necessary, cracking the lid. “It would seem so.”

“But you’re not happy about it.”

“Yeah, well. I told you. Things didn’t exactly end well last time.”

“That’s right. Because you’re shortsighted.” Frank plucks a cherry from his glass. “She looks familiar.”

“She was here a couple of days ago.”

“No.” He rolls a stem between his fingers, thoughtful. “There’s something about her. Her eyes, maybe.”

I turn to look. Darcy is sitting sideways on her stool, her long legs crossed at the knee. She’s wearing some sort of black dress tonight that looks like an oversize T-shirt. Black tights underneath that are just sheer enough to tease at creamy skin. It shouldn’t do anything for me, and yet …

It must be her magic. Some sort of allure or attraction meant to pull me in. Like a goddamned spider to its web.

I turn back around and start rearranging the bottles underneath the bar. “I don’t see it.”

“I think I’ve seen her before.”

“Your nightmares, probably,” I say under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” I roll my shoulders back and abandon the bottles, rearranging coasters instead. The bar is quiet today. There’s a group in the corner and a few stragglers spaced out at various tables, but they’ve all been taken care of, and there’s only so many times I can drop off tiny bowls of peanuts. The quiet is giving my thoughts room to fester. “I want you to stay away from her, okay?”

Frank looks startled. “What? Why?”

Because Frank is teetering into his eighties, and the last thing I need is for Darcy to pad her quota for the month. “Because I don’t trust her.”

He rasps out a husky laugh. “Is she armed?”

“Frank.”

“You’re talking about that woman over there?” He points with one gnarled finger, a callus next to his knuckle from de-thorning roses. “That’s the girl you don’t trust?”

“Say it a little louder, Frank. I’m not sure she heard you.”

He’s gleeful, popping cherries into his mouth until his cheeks are bulging like a squirrel’s. “She’s a fraction of your size, Gabe. She looks like one swift wind could carry her off. She’s—what? Five foot eight? Maybe?”

I don’t know. All I know is the top of her head barely comes to my chin. I know that when I curl my arm around the small of her back, I can fit her snug against my body. I know that it was easy for me to hitch her legs around my hips. That her breathing sped up when I pressed my mouth just beneath her ear.

Christ. I can’t stop thinking about this woman.

Not just a woman, I remind myself. A Reaper.

A test to my priorities. To my senses.