“Heard you bought Tex a cel phone,” Al y said.

“Yeah!” I replied, maybe a bit more excitedly than a new cel phone warranted, and I pul ed it out of my pocket. “I’m getting everyone’s numbers for him. What’s your number?” I flipped it open, bent my head and hit the buttons that would add numbers to the phone book.

“I’m not gonna use it,” Uncle Tex said.

“Trust me, you’l use it,” I told him.

“Waste of good f**kin’ money,” Uncle Tex said.

I looked up and scowled at him.

“I’m tel ing you, Uncle Tex, you’l use it!” It wasn’t so much tel ing him he’d use it as ordering him to use it.

He grinned. “Darlin’ girl, you’re cute when you’re riled.”

“And you’re annoying when you’re stubborn,” I shot back and took a sip of martini (okay, maybe it was a gulp) thus catapulting myself into Naughty Girl Martini Land.

He just shook his head at me like I was funny.

My scowl darkened.

“What happens when Nancy wants to get hold of you when you’re out in the El Camino? Hunh? What then?” Uncle Tex’s face got red, and it wasn’t from anger, or maybe, I should say, it wasn’t entirely from anger.

If I’d been paying attention (which I was not, I was too drunk to pay attention), I’d have noticed that al the women in my vicinity (including Indy, Al y, Jet, Daisy and Trixie) smiled and al the men (including Hank, Lee, Vance, Mace and Eddie) tensed.

“Roxie,” I heard a deep voice say from behind me.

It wasn’t a voice that was total y familiar to me but I knew it anyway.

It was Hank.

“Wel ?” I asked Uncle Tex, ignoring Hank and putting the hand with the cel to my hip.

“Roxanne Gisel e, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” Uncle Tex said in a low boom.

“Ha!” I replied. It wasn’t much of a comeback but I felt Hank behind me and it was al I could come up with.

Tex leaned in, Hank’s hand wrapped around my arm and he pul ed me away from Uncle Tex’s threatening pose and back into his body. I was too drunk for an evasive maneuver and anyway, I liked the feel of his body against me.

Tex’s eyes went beyond me.

“Nightingale, maybe you should take her out back and program your number into my new f**kin’ phone.”

“I’m thinkin’ that’s a good idea,” Hank said behind me.

Sanity returned and I was thinking it was a very, very bad idea.

Too late, Hank was steering me sideways, then forward, through the dining room. He grabbed a jacket off the back of a chair and then moved me through the kitchen and out the backdoor.

* * * * *

That’s when it al began. The beginning of the end.

* * * * *

The cold night air outside was like a slap in the face. If I wasn’t in Naughty Girl Martini Land, I would have sobered instantly. Unfortunately, I was deep in Naughty Girl Martini Land. So deep, I was skipping dazedly through the Naughty Girl Martini forest and leaping over the Naughty Girl Martini streams, completely oblivious to everything. I shoved the cel phone in my back pocket and turned to face Hank.

“Uncle Tex is stubborn,” I said, sounding uppity.

Hank had flipped on the outside light and there was a streetlight in the al ey behind Indy’s house. Both il uminated us and I watched as he walked up to me and threw out the jacket. His arm came around one side of me, his other hand came up on the other side to catch the edge and settle the jacket around my shoulders. Both his hands pul ed the jacket closed at my neck and stayed there.

I warmed up immediately, even as I shivered.

“Think that runs in the family,” Hank remarked.

“I’m not stubborn!” I retorted, though I knew I was.

“Right,” he replied but his lips were twitching.

“We should go in there, show Uncle Tex how to use his phone. It’s good for emergencies, and, if the stories he’s been tel ing me are anything to go by, there are a fair lot of emergencies amongst you al .”

Hank’s eyes locked on mine. “Gotta admit, that’s the truth.”

“Whisky, it’s not only the truth, it’s an understatement.” His hands flexed and he came closer. My body stil ed at his further invasion of my space.

“Whisky?” he asked softly, his namesake eyes going languid and my heart skipped in my chest.

I ignored his question, his eyes and my heart and leaned back a bit. I wasn’t so far gone into Naughty Girl Martini Land to lose my safety bearings that much.

I went on doggedly. “From what I read in his letters, Uncle Tex respects you. If you told him to use the phone, he might do it.”

“I think it might be a good idea if you leave the phone alone.”

I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at him.

Before I could say anything, he asked, “Not stubborn?”

“Nope,” I lied immediately.

“Right.” Then he grinned, ful on this time.

“Stop grinning at me, Whisky. I’m not stubborn.”

“Next thing, you’l tel me you’re not high maintenance.” I gasped. “I’m not!”

I was. I was total y high maintenance.

His eyes moved over my face.

“Jesus. Yesterday, if someone told me Tex’s niece looked like you, I would’ve laughed at them. Acted like you, maybe, looked like you, no way.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean stubborn, ful of attitude, a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!” I was crazy, though not as crazy as Uncle Tex.

“Right,” Hank said again.

“You’ve known me what? Ten seconds? And you think you have me figured out.”

“Sweetheart, I had you figured out the minute you walked into Fortnum’s.”

I felt my breath catch then lock.

With effort, I unlocked it and exhaled. I decided to push the issue, don’t ask me why, it was stupid. Then again, I was a little hammered (okay, maybe a lot hammered).

“And you think I look high maintenance?”

“Eddie cal ed it and Eddie’s right.”

Good God. They’d been talking about me.

“So that’s why Eddie doesn’t like me,” I said.

His grin faded, his hands fel away and he moved back.

I didn’t like this. I liked his hands where they were, they made me feel warm and, if I was honest, safe.

made me feel warm and, if I was honest, safe.