On The Rocks by Sable Jordan

Stopping a
lunatic from detonating a salted bomb in the Tidal Basin and
preventing the utter calamity that ensues when a lunatic detonates a salted bomb in the friggin’ Tidal Basin …
Same diff, right?
    “Really, really big waves,” she
added.
    “You’re full of it, Baldwin.”
    Kizzie stretched her arms out in front of
her. “Fine. They weren’t that big. But decent enough. I’d
show you the tan lines but, well, when you do it right there aren’t
any.” She tossed him a saucy wink and grinned. “Tag along next
time. Sun and sand would do you good. You’re looking a touch
pale.
    “And what’s with the cane? Break your hip
doin’ the hully gully down at the old folks’ home?”
    Heaving a sigh, Bill turned to Lennox, thick
brows bunched. “What happened to your face?”
    “Had a run-in with an old friend.”
    She snorted. “I thought you were dead.”
    “Did you mourn me?” Lennox asked.
    “Check that: I hoped you were dead.
Would’a saved me the trouble.” To Bill, “Did you have him tail
me?”
    Judging by Bill’s face, his confusion at
that little morsel was sincere. He shifted his gaze from Lennox to
Kizzie and back again, the look on his face indecipherable.
    Lennox paced toward her. “Don’t be so mean, chuchu. ”
    Kizzie snatched up her pistol and leveled it
at him. “In case you missed the first memo, I’m not in the mood,
Lennox.”
    A thunk sounded from near the door
and reverbed in the echo chamber.
    Kizzie kept her vision trained on her former
partner. In spite of the weapon, his movements didn’t slow. And
that smile was still in place.
    And that plain pissed her off.
    “You didn’t always feel that way,” he said.
“You used to—”
    She squeezed the trigger.
    BOOM!
    Bill jumped back, looking mighty spry for a
septuagenarian. Made her hully gully comment all the more
plausible. He clapped a hand to his ear, screamed, “Jesus, Kizzie!
What the hell’s the matter with you?” as he shuffled toward the
kitchen, a blur in her periphery.
    Smug asshole that he was, Lennox didn’t even
flinch. Came right up to her, bent at the waist, and caged her
thighs between his muscled forearms. His face paused a bare inch
from the warm muzzle, and he inhaled deeply.
    A devilish glint in his dark green eyes,
Lennox whispered, “Don’t miss this time.” His jaw unhinged, lips
parted just a bit.
    Kizzie lifted the gun so the barrel was
lined up nice and tidy like. “I never miss twice.” Louder, she
said, “Call off your mutt before my humanity kicks in and I
euthanize him.”
    “Goddammit, Tate, stand down. Stand down!”
Bill barked. “You’re no good to me dead.”
    “He’s not much use to you alive,
either.”
    “ You need a psych eval!”
    “For what?” Kizzie rolled her shoulders
toward her ears. “I’m certifiable, William. It’s why you hired
me.”
    Bill grumbled something she couldn’t hear.
Didn’t matter. Her attention was wholly on Lennox. How could it not
be? He was so close she could smell his skin— that recognizable
scent of denim and leather. Clean sweat. A faint undercurrent of…
of… It was on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t quite—
     
    “ Everyone thinks Cubans are the best but
they’re not.” Lennox ran the fat red head of a wooden match along
the rough edge of the table. Friction turned to flame, and he
reverently roasted the rolled tube of leaves until the bottom
smoked like incense for a ritual…
     
    That was it. Rocky Patel cigar. Nicaragua’s
finest.
    Lennox would always complain about how hard
it was to get the good stuff in Belém. She’d thought to take him to
Managua once their stint at the mouth of the Amazon was over. Let
him grab a box of his own straight from the source.
    God, she hated that she remembered that.
Hated that she could recall the many times she’d tasted it on his
mouth.
    His gaze shifted over her face and an
unauthorized frisson of heat shimmied up from her belly and into
her cheeks. Kizzie forced