the one sitting here with an ice pack on his cheek.”
She shoved at him. Finn moved so Tucker could slide out of the booth. He figured asking her to sit still a little longer wouldn’t have made any difference. He could have stonewalled and kept her in, but he wouldn’t put it past her to duck under the table.
The minute she stood she let out a loud hiss and her entire body buckled again.
Jolting forward, Finn caught her around the waist, not bothering to wait before depositing her back onto the bench.
Kneeling in front of her, he asked, “What’s hurting?” even as his gaze swept over her looking for apparent signs of injury.
“My ankle. I must have twisted it when I got knocked on my ass.”
His mouth tugged into a frown. “It’s no wonder with these death traps you seem to think are shoes.”
Slipping one of the heels from her left foot, he dropped it onto the floor, not caring when it clattered with a resounding bang.
“Hey!” She jerked forward, trying to dive after the shiny black heel. “Those cost eight hundred dollars.”
Finn wrapped his fingers around her ankle, the smooth warmth of her skin registering somewhere deep inside. “Excuse me?”
“They’re couture.”
“Did you just tell me that you spent almost as much as my mortgage payment on an impractical pair of heels?”
For the briefest moment, Tucker looked a little sheepish. But the expression didn’t last long, quickly replaced with bravado and a no-nonsense stare that threatened to cut straight through him.
God, there was something about this woman that lit up everything inside him. She was infuriating and adorable at the same time. Intriguing and tempting.
“I don’t need to justify my spending habits to you.”
“No, you sure don’t,” he said, tucking his chin into his chest to hide the smile he couldn’t quite stop. Probing her ankle, he moved it from side to side, testing her range of motion. So far, it wasn’t swelling, which was a good sign. “But maybe you should lay off the heels for a few days while this heals.”
She harrumphed, crossing her arms over her chest, but didn’t argue with him.
Slipping the other shoe off, this time carefully setting it onto the floor beside them, Finn grasped her by the arms and gently pulled her up, taking as much of her weight as she’d let him.
“Try putting some weight on it.”
Gingerly, she did, only grimacing slightly, before shaking his hands away. “I’m fine.”
His fingers tingled where they’d touched her skin.
Scooping her shoes up, she limped away.
Shaking his head, Finn debated whether to let her go or try to help. It was obvious which she wanted. But before he could make up his mind, a commotion snagged his attention.
Several feet away, Duchess was raising a ruckus, barking and pawing at the floor.
Finn stilled. There was only one thing that would cause the dog to react that way.
“What the hell?” Tucker flashed him a glare. “If she leaves so much as a scratch on my floor I’m sending you the repair bill.”
“Darlin’,” Finn said. “You’ve got a bigger problem than a scuffed floor. Duchess only reacts that way to one thing.”
“I hardly think she’s found an IED buried beneath the floorboards, soldier.”
“No. Duchess isn’t trained to scent bombs.”
Pushing ahead of her, Finn stalked over to where Duchess was going crazy. A couple of tables had been pushed out of the way during the fight, and right there, tucked halfway beneath the leg of one of them was a plastic bag filled with a decent amount of crystal meth. Not the kind of baggie sold for a single hit of fun...this was a big enough score that it would be broken up and sold.
“Drugs. Duchess is trained to find drugs.”
* * *
SONOFABITCH. THAT’S WHAT she wanted to say, but she managed to not let the word out. Not because she particularly cared what the man standing beside her thought of her vocabulary—she’d been raised by a soldier and she owned a bar. Her dictionary of curse words was understandably intense. But giving in to that urge would probably lead to a serious meltdown that she didn’t have the luxury of indulging in right now.
Tucker stared at the little baggie dangling from the soldier’s fingers. Twice in one night. Her teeth ground together. Taking a deep breath, she dragged her gaze up.
“Well, that’s a problem.”
A big one. Finding that bag in the bathroom was one thing. Sure, she did what she could to keep drugs out of her bar, but it was inevitable that some might slip through.
But him finding a sizable amount on the floor, the same night, was more than a coincidence. It was a major issue, one she and Wyatt would have to address.
“Really?” His dry tone irritated the hell out of her.
She moved to take the bag, but he snatched it out of her reach, holding it above her. “No, you don’t.”
So frustrating. Tucker tipped her head back and glared at the drugs dangling above her.
“What? I wasn’t planning on using it.”
“Sure.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she scowled at him. “I try my damnedest to keep that shit out of my place, but I’m not naive enough to think it doesn’t still get in.”
“So you intend to turn this over to the police?”
“Why would I do that? It isn’t like the drugs can be traced to a person. They were lying on the floor. I’ll just...flush them down the toilet.” That was exactly what she needed to do.
“Uh-uh.”
“Look...” Tucker’s voice trailed off and she realized that she didn’t even know his freakin’ name. He’d picked her up off the floor, sent her blood pressure spiking as his palm cupped the back of her head, held an ice pack to her throbbing cheek and she didn’t even know his name.
Maybe she should keep it that way.
“Finn McAllister.”
“And Duchess.” She knew the dog’s name. The dog she didn’t like to even glance at because it sent a zing of apprehension through her chest. “Look, Finn, I appreciate you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Gee, what an amazingly passive aggressive expression of appreciation.”
Tucker let out a sigh. “Fine. Thank you for stepping in and
