Gilligan smiled that crugly grin, the one he gifted drug dealers before he gifted them his fists in a pretty red bow. “I’m touched, Rivera. Really.”

“Yeah, because cops and firefighters have so much in common.” Beck worked the pause for a beat. “They both want to be firefighters.”

An oldie but a goodie, it pulled a guffaw from Gilligan, who enjoyed the semiserious rivalry between the city’s first responders. But the detective’s words had pinched a nerve all the same. Beck would be hard-pressed to think of a worse time to be sidelined than the holidays. Burst pipes, electrical fires, Christmas tree combustions, and hot girls in skimpy Santa outfits usually kept the team at Engine 6 busy, a state of affairs he was not alone in enjoying. Since their foster parents and brother, Logan, had died, the rest of the family preferred camping out at the firehouse over the holidays. Anything to feel useful and honor their loved ones’ memories.

Hard to feel useful kickin’ back on the sofa. Christ on a crutch, he wanted to hit something.

Raucous shouts whooped from the corner followed by a distinctly female complaint of “Hey, watch it, dickhead.” Beck sent up a brief acknowledgment to the Big Guy. Ask and you shall receive. In seconds, he was out from behind the bar and halfway toward the corner pocket of Santas.

“Beck,” Luke called after him in a voice edged with warning. Beck raised a hand to say he had this. Damn it, he needed this.

“Want help, Smokeater?” asked Gilligan.

Beck threw a smirk over his shoulder. “Watch and learn, Mr. Policeman.” As the saying went, God created firefighters so cops could have heroes, too.

His fists balled of their own volition, and Beck could almost feel the tape wrapped taut over his knuckles. Three-time winner of the Battle of the Badges, the charity boxing match between fire and police, he was as at home wearing gloves as not. But there was something eminently more satisfying about delivering a pounding bare-knuckled. Definitely more primal.

“Boys, we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

Red Suit turned, wearing the gaze of a man not quite so wasted that Beck would have reservations about kicking ass.

Cue elfish smile. Hello, holiday nuclear.

“But I’ll warn you, amigo,” Beck said. “The hard way is my favorite.”

* * *

“It’s like the Justice League of hot bartenders.”

Mel’s hazel eyes shone as bright as the red-suited Santas on a zombified trail down Milwaukee Avenue. “And I’ve got my eye on Thor.”

Gingerly, Darcy planted her high-heeled boots on the treacherous sidewalk outside the wine bar where they had spent the night dishing. Soft, nonthreatening flakes melted as soon as they made landfall on her cashmere coat, but with five more inches forecast tonight, Darcy was unimpressed with the peaceful snow globe vibe. Native Chicagoans knew better.

“You have your superhero mythology mixed up. Thor’s part of the Avengers, not the Justice League. Maybe you’ve got your lusty eye on Aquaman or Green Lantern, both of whom are generally acknowledged as inferior in the superhero pantheon.”

“You would know that, nerdette.”

“It’s my job to,” Darcy said. “I get so many requests for bulging men in tights, I could write a thesis on it.”

Mel grasped Darcy’s arm so forcefully she almost hit the deck on her Michael Kors–covered butt.

“You’ve got to come with me! The last time I was there, Thor—”

“Or Aquaman.”

She waved the hand not death-gripping the sleeve of Darcy’s coat. “—made his interest very clear. I’m sure tonight’s the night. My womb’s feeling all tingly.”

“Might want to check that out with your doctor,” Darcy retorted.

Mel made a face beneath her dirty blond curls. Piqued looked super cute on her.

“Here I am,” Darcy announced as they drew alongside the ’96 Volvo jalopy her friend Brady had lent her for what was supposed to be a fleeting visit to Chicago. The month she had taken out of her life to shepherd Grams through her recovery from a stroke had stretched to three, but now the old girl was almost back to her crotchety, razor-tongued self. By the time the last New Year’s Eve firework had exploded over Navy Pier, the spectacular Chicago skyline would be perfectly framed in Darcy’s rearview mirror. Next stop, Austin, Texas, and that spanking new job.

“Always be moving” was her motto.

“This town isn’t big enough for me and my father” was a close second.

She would miss Mel, though, who had kept her entertained through the fall with dating horror stories that made Darcy laugh-pee every time. The woman was a magnet for every panty-sniffing mouth breather in Chicagoland.

Darcy hugged her girl. “Thanks for hanging and listening to me whine about my family.” The Cochrane holiday photo shoot that afternoon, first in a number of dreaded family events dotting her schedule over the next couple of weeks, had left Darcy more than a little on edge.

“Ah, those little shits I teach have primed me well. But you know what’s the perfect antidote to whining? Drooling. Panting. Moaning.” Mel squeezed Darcy’s arm tighter as she punctuated each huskily spoken word. “It’s hard to whine when your mouth’s filled with a sexy bartender’s tongue or other interesting body parts.”

Darcy considered her friend’s arguments. She had to admit that chilling with the walker-and-Jell-O set at Grams’s upscale nursing home had put a decided crimp in her love life. “My sex point average is at an all-time low.”

“Which is why you should be coming to this bar with me.” Mel linked Darcy’s arm like it was a done deal. “I can’t believe you’re all dressed up like a North Shore princess—”

“Watch your mouth, bitch. It’s Gold Coast. Higher property values,” Darcy said, referring to the tony Chicago enclave where she’d spent her formative years.

Her friend flashed a toothy grin. “And you don’t want to use those pearls to flirt with a little rough? Come on, help this J.Crew–clad pleb out.”

“You know I only got trussed up like this so I wouldn’t scare Grams with my usual threads.” Actually, Grams would have taken Darcy’s biker chic threads and all they revealed in stride. Not so the rest of the Cochranes. The glare her father daggered her way a few hours ago was evidence enough that she was still a crushing disappointment to him. And as much as she would have loved to grace the shoot in ripped jeans and a tank, it would have smacked of a tad too much teenage rebellion for a twenty-five-year-old woman. Instead, she’d donned the designer twinset of boring to keep the peace.

“Just a half hour playing my wing girl,” Mel pleaded. “I can’t go in alone. What would that look like?”

Sighing, Darcy inched away from the car. In truth, she didn’t want the night to be over quite yet. With the holidays just around the corner, her chances to hang with Mel were diminishing rapidly.

“Lead the way to bartender nirvana.”

Holding on to each other as they walked a couple of blocks, they managed to remain upright on the slippery walk, no mean feat for women sporting weather-inappropriate footwear.

They were laughing so hard at the sight of yet another drunken Santa lurching down the street, this one with a healthy serving of chalky butt cheek on display—“Shrinkage alert!” yelled Mel—that it took Darcy a moment to realize they’d turned a corner. This bite of Damen Avenue was hopping with a steady stream of bar crawlers, suburbanites, and friends meeting for preholiday drinks. It was also achingly familiar. With each crunch of hard-packed snow underfoot, icicles of dread jabbed Darcy’s chest.

“What’s the name of this bar, Mel?”

“I dunno. Something Irish, Dennehy’s or Donnelly’s.”

What was the likelihood there were two Irish bars on the same block?

Oh, balls.

“Dempsey’s,” Mel announced. The muted strains of the Pogues’ holiday classic “Fairytale of New York” pulsed against the bar’s heavy oak door.

Dempsey’s. Darcy had driven by it a few times since her return, and on each pass she had floored it. Ridiculous, she knew. It was just a bar and he was just a boy. A man, now.

He might not work here.

It might be under new management.

But the kick of her heart to her ribs said nothing had changed. The Dempseys still ruled this little corner of green in Chicago just like the boy she once knew still took up valuable mental real estate. A spot that ignited whenever Darcy saw firefighters or boxers or Irishmen or . . . damn . . . Suddenly curiosity overruled her dread. Benevolent gods would ensure he had grown into a potbellied troll with a receding hairline and bad skin from a diet of Portillo’s hot dogs and deep-dish pizza. A girl could hope, anyway.

Didn’t she owe it to herself to find out? If he was behind that door, didn’t she owe it to herself to show him what he had missed by walking away from her all those years ago?

Bring it on.

Letting determination flavored with old-fashioned payback fuel her steps, Darcy reached for the wrought-iron handle. But before she could get a grip, the door crashed open and Bam! a large red blur filled her vision—and dropped her on her ass. Her ankle twisted as she hit the cold, punishing street.

The blur—more of a sack, really—rolled off her leg.

Then it spoke.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” it slurred through a beer-stained slash of white cotton. “I didn’t mean to—”

Whatever it didn’t mean to do, she would never know. Red Sack was violently wrenched aside. Huge hands settled on her shoulders and pulled her to a sitting position.