Dying to Please by Linda Howard Page B

empty booth. “Let's move over there and get some food.” He grabbed his beer and slid from the barstool. Cahill got his coffee, signaled to the bartender where they were going, and joined Rick in the booth.
    “Where did you meet her?” Rick asked.
    “Who?”
    “Who?”
he mimicked. “The woman at the range. The one with the pistol and the great ass, which, by the way, nearly stopped my heart the way it was packed in those jeans.”
    “The house where she works was robbed last week. I took her statement.”
    “You just met her last week? There's still hope, then. You gonna ask her out?”
    “Nope.”
    “Why the hell not?” Rick demanded, his voice rising. The waitress approached, and he broke off to grab the menu and open it. Cahill ordered a burger, fries, and a beer. After careful deliberation, Rick ordered the same thing. As soon as the waitress left, he leaned over and repeated, “Why the hell not?”
    “God, you're like a broken record,” Cahill said irritably.
    “Don't you think she's hot?”
    He sighed. “Yeah, I think she's hot.” In fact, he thought she was hotter than hot; she was scorching. The problem was, he'd already suffered third-degree burns in the relationship wars, and he didn't have any skin to spare in another losing round. Not yet, anyway. He knew that, being human, he would eventually grow enough new skin to risk another flame, but not yet.
    “Then ask her out! All she can say is no.”
    “She's not a one-nighter.”
    “So go for two.”
    “One night is no-strings-attached. Two is a relationship, and that's exactly what I don't want.”
    “Maybe not, but it's exactly what you need. When you fall off a horse, you get right back on, you don't brood about it. Get on that horse, pal, and ride.”
    Cahill groaned. “Give it a rest.”
    “Okay, okay.” Rick drew lines in the condensation on his glass, then glanced up at Cahill. “You mind if I ask her out?”
    He wanted to bang his head on the table. “Hell, no, I don't mind.” He suspected this was where Rick had been heading all along, trying to make certain the way was clear.
    “Okay. I just wanted to be sure. What's her name?”
    “Sarah Stevens.”
    “Is she in the book? You have her number?”
    “I don't know, and no.”
    “You didn't get her number? I thought you had to have that for your files, or something.”
    “She has private quarters in the house where she works. I don't know if she has a private number as well, but she probably does.”
    “She works in the house? Whose house? Where? What does she do?”
    Sometimes talking with Rick was like conversing with a machine gun, the way he spat out questions. “She's a butler, and she works for a retired federal judge.”
    “I thought you said her name is ‘Stevens,' not ‘Butler.'”
    “Rick. Pay attention. She's a
butler,
like in an English mansion. With a napkin folded over her arm, and things like that.”
    “No shit.” Rick sat back, amazed. “I didn't know we had butlers in Alabama. Oh, wait, we're talking about Mountain Brook.”
    “Right.”
    “A
butler.
Is that cool, or what? I didn't know women could be butlers. Wouldn't she be, like, a butleress?”
    Despite himself, Cahill grinned. “I don't think so. I don't think
butler
has a gender, kind of like
pilot.
”
    Rick's jackrabbit brain had already moved on. “So I could call her at this old judge's number. What's his name?”
    “Lowell Roberts.”
    “Is his number listed?”
    “I don't know, and if it isn't, no, I won't get it out of the files for you.”
    “Some friend you are. Why the hell not?”
    “Because if it's unlisted, then it's because he wants his privacy, and I won't get her in trouble by giving the number to men who call her asking for dates.”
    “Aha!”
    “Aha, what?”
    “You
are
interested in her!”
    Cahill stared at him. “Your brain scans,” he said, “must be scary.” The waitress slid the beers in front of them and he took a fortifying gulp.
    “That's what makes