“Hit that?” Mac pulled a face. “What are we? Fifteen?”

“Dodging the question?” Zoelner countered, and Mac didn’t know whether to applaud the man’s astuteness or strangle him right where he sat.

Deciding neither scenario would be all that satisfying, he shrugged his shoulders in what he hoped was a gesture of supreme unconcern. “That Woman,”—Mac always thought of Delilah Fairchild, proprietress and namesake of the bar they were currently sitting in, that way, in capital letters—“isn’t my type either. And you know why.”

“Bullshit.”

Just the one word. Spoken with complete conviction.

Mac gifted Zoelner with a dirty look and reached for the bottle of Lagavulin. Upending it, he poured the last few drops into his glass, then slowly lifted the tumbler, taking a leisurely sip.

“You know what I think of that whole thing, right?” Zoelner asked. Mac ignored him, wishing like hell he’d never opened his big mouth after that goddamned mission in Somalia. But sitting in a bar in South Africa, basking in the glow of a successful operation—and after having downed a half dozen beers—the whole sorry story had come tumbling out. “Oh, and what? Now you’re a mute?” Zoelner inquired after it became apparent Mac wasn’t going to rise to his bait.

But what could Mac say? The truth was, he did know what Zoelner thought. The guy had flat-out told him he was an idiot to compare one woman to another. Horseshit was the word Zoelner used if Mac remembered right. But the guy just didn’t understand. He didn’t know what—

“Fine,” Zoelner spat, shaking his head. “So, we’ll pretend Delilah Fairchild isn’t your type either.”

And, yeah. It would be pretending. Because, in all honesty, they both knew That Woman was every man’s type. Not only was she a perfect ten on the curve-o-meter, but her heart-shaped face, with her clear green eyes and pouty Kewpie-bow lips, belonged on primetime television. And, as if all that wasn’t enough, her pale, creamy skin had to go and be all flawless and shit. Seriously, no matter how closely Mac looked, he couldn’t find a single pore to mar her porcelain complexion. To put it quite simply, from the top of her head to the ends of her red-tipped toes, Delilah Fairchild was one hundred percent pure woman. And one hundred percent, no-holds-barred beautiful. Beautiful and vivacious and used to commanding the attention of every man in the room. And that last bit made her all too familiar.

Too familiar and too…dangerous. And honestly? His life—the one where he masqueraded as a motorcycle mechanic when in fact he was part of a clandestine government defense group that operated as the very tip of Uncle Sam’s sword—was dangerous enough already, thank you very much.

And speaking of familiar…

Without warning, the unwelcome image of Jolene flashed behind his gritty eyes. Hair as black as a raven’s wing. Eyes the color of Texas bluebonnets. Skin like buttermilk. And a heart as fickle and capricious as a Texas spring…

He shook his head and blinked away the disturbing vision in time to see Zoelner raise a hand and call out to the bald, goateed man behind the bar. “Hey, Brendan! Where’s the lovely lady of the house this evening? Not that my rather large, rather slow-talking friend here,” Zoelner hooked a thumb in Mac’s direction, “is wearing the sulky look of a eunuch in a whorehouse because he’s missing her gorgeous face or anything. Because she’s absolutely not his type.”

Right then, Mac made the supremely wise and incredibly mature decision to kick the former CIA agent’s booted ankle. Zoelner turned to lift a dubious brow before he hauled off and kicked Mac right back. Which, of course, left Mac with no recourse but to respond with an even harder kick and soon they were scuffling like a couple of rowdy college frat boys instead of two highly trained operators. Then again, they were highly tipsy as well. So maybe that explained it.

“Delilah’s down south,” Brendan said, coming to stand in front of them while continuing to wipe wet pint glasses with a dish towel. Short and squatty, Brendan had the physique of a wrestler and the face of a boxer—the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones looked like they’d been flattened more than a time or two by heavy fists. What he lacked in height, he obviously made up for in sheer scrappiness.

“Where?” Zoelner asked, adjusting his leather jacket and shooting Mac a narrowed-eyed glare before turning his attention back to Brendan.

“Southern Illinois,” the bartender said, and Mac thought, Southern Illinois? What the hell is she doin’ down there?

“What the hell is she doing down there?”

He blinked, startled. Had he asked the question aloud? Just how much scotch had he had?

But no. It was Zoelner Brendan turned to to answer. Of course, Mac was forced to wonder again just how much scotch he’d had when, before any words had a chance to form on Brendan’s tongue, the thought don’t let her be down there visiting a lover whispered through the back of his brain.

Whoa. What? Where the hell had that come from? He didn’t give two shits what or…or…who she was doing down in southern Illinois.

Did he?

He couldn’t help but notice his question was answered with resounding, cricket-chirping silence.

Well, hell. That’s just the booze talkin’. Because anything else was too disconcerting to contemplate.

“Between you and me,” Brendan said, leaning in conspiratorially, “I think she’s trying to avoid the bar.”

What? Why?

“What? Why?” Zoelner asked.

Mac glared at the mind-reading man. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Carnac the Magnificent or somethin’?”

“Huh?” Zoelner frowned at him in narrow-eyed affront. “Why are you scowling at me like that? Stop it, or that brown-haired Betty over there is going to think you just broke up with me.”

As a group, Mac, Zoelner, and Brendan all turned to smile at the woman in question. Zoelner raised his glass and wiggled his eyebrows, which elicited a seductive lowering of the Betty’s lashes and a subtle quirk of one corner of her lacquered lips.

“So why is Delilah avoiding the bar?” he asked, finding his way back on track more quickly than Mac. Of course, the instant That Woman’s name was mentioned, every single thought in Mac’s head focused on her like a blue-tick healer pointing out a covey of quail.

Shit, shit, shit.

“After Buzzard’s murder,” Brendan began, and oh, great. Just what Mac didn’t need to be reminded of right now—the all-out gun battle Delilah had found herself involved in a few months ago, the one where her most loyal patron died. Because that had been the night he almost threw caution to the wind and went against all his better judgment to take her up on one of her offers. She’d been so vulnerable and sad. And he’d wanted to comfort her so badly. “She’s been jumping at every chance she gets to hightail it out of here. I think this place holds too many bad memories now.”

The three of them fell quiet for one moment. Then two.

“But anyway.” Brendan brushed a hand through the air, as if he could wave off the cloud of discomfort hanging over them. “She’s on a road trip with her uncle. Something about a visit to an old friend of his, and—”

“Oh, I figured she was down there working her woo-woo magic on the budget of some two-bit municipality,” Zoelner said.

Her woo-woo magic…

Zoelner wasn’t talking about Delilah’s ability to hypnotize a man with her cat-eyed stare or the bewitching way her hips swayed when she walked across the room. He wasn’t referring to her talent for whipping up an alcoholic concoction that could taste sweet as candy one minute and knock a man flat on his ass the next or how she could cast a spell over the entire bar simply by tossing her head back and letting loose with that low, throaty laugh of hers. Huh-uh. The guy wasn’t talking about any of that, though it could all certainly count as woo-woo magic, witchcraft, or, in Mac’s not-so-humble opinion, straight-up voodoo sorceress shit. What Zoelner was referring to was the fact that Delilah Fairchild, the sex-pot owner of a down-and-dirty biker bar, happened to spend her free time working as a…wait for it…freakin’ forensic accountant.

Sweet Lord almighty, sometimes Mac still had trouble believing it.

Though, truth be told, he had no trouble whatsoever imagining it. He’d spent more than an hour or two daydreaming about her sitting at a desk somewhere, hair twisted up in a bun, reading glasses perched on the tip of her prim nose. In fact, for the last six months—ever since he’d learned what her second gig was—it’d been his favorite go-to fantasy. Something like the tried-and-true naughty librarian dream set on overdrive, because, you know, that whole one-part-proper-lady-and-two-parts-sex-goddess shtick had been a male spanktrovision standard since the beginning of time and—

The front door burst open, slamming against the inside wall. Mac turned to see who was in such an all-fire hurry to get inside the bar. One look had his lungs playing the part of Michael Jordan. They attempted to leap right out of his throat.

Speak of the devil…

Even if he hadn’t recognized the long auburn hair cascading from beneath a motorcycle helmet and tumbling around a set of leather-clad shoulders, the shouts of gleeful greeting and the lifted mugs of beer would’ve told him the woman of the hour had made her way home.

See… Beautiful and vivacious and able to command the attention of every man in the room…