Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

Yangtree warned him. “The Swede has an iron gut. Got it from her old man.”
    Rowan turned her face close to Gull’s and smirked. “Aw, do you have a tender tummy, hotshot?”
    He imagined biting her heavy bottom lip, just one fast, hard nip. “What kind of shots?”
    “There’s only one shot worth shooting. Te-qui-la,” she sang it, slapping her palm on the table with each syllable. “If you’ve got the balls for it.”
    “You’re sitting on my balls, so you ought to know.”
    She threw back her head on that sexy saloon girl laugh. “Hold them for a minute. I’ll get us set up.”
    She hopped up, swung around a couple times when Dobie grabbed her hand and gave her a twirl. Titania to Puck, Gull thought.
    Then she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and joined him in some sort of boot-stomping clog thing that had some of the other dancers whistling and clapping.
    She shot a finger at Gull—and damn, there went his heart again—then danced over to the bar.
    “Hey, Big Nate.” Rowan leaned in, hailed the head bartender. “I need a dozen tequila shots, a couple saltshakers and some lime wedges to suck on.”
    She glanced over, gave the man currently grabbing his crotch a bored look, shifted away again. “I can take them over if Molly’s busy.”
    The crotch-grabber slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar in front of her. “I’ll buy your shots and ten minutes outside.”
    Rowan gave the bartender a slight shake of the head before he could speak.
    She turned, looked the drunk, insulting bastard in the eye. “I guess since you lack any charm, and the only way you can get a woman is to pay her, you think we’re all whores.”
    “You’ve been wiggling that ass and those tits out there since I came in. I’m just offering to pay for what you’ve been advertising. I’ll buy you a drink first.”
    At the table, Gull thought, shit , and started to rise. Gibbons put a hand on his arm. “You don’t want to get in her way. Trust me on this.”
    “I don’t like drunks hassling women.”
    He shoved up, noted the noise level had diminished, so he clearly heard Rowan say in a tone sweet as cotton candy, “Oh, if you’ll buy me a drink first. Is that your pitcher?”
    She picked it up and, with her height, had no trouble upending it over the man’s head. “Suck on that, fuckwit.”
    The man moved pretty quick for a sputtering drunk. He shoved Rowan back against the bar, grabbed her breasts and squeezed.
    And she moved faster. Before Gull was halfway across the room she slammed her boot on the man’s instep, her knee into the crotch he’d been so proud of, then knocked him on his ass with an uppercut as fine as Gull had ever seen when the drunk doubled over.
    She back-fisted one of his buddies who’d been foolish enough to try to yank her around. She grabbed his arm, dragged him forward, past her. The boot she planted on his ass sent him careening into his friend as the man started to struggle to his feet.
    She whipped around to man number three. “You want to try for me?”
    “No.” This one held up his hands in a don’t-shoot-me gesture. “No, ma’am, I don’t.”
    “Maybe you’ve got half a brain. Use it and get your idiot friends out of here before I get mad. Because when I get mad, I just get crazy .”
    “I guess she didn’t need any help,” Dobie observed.
    “That does it.” Gull laid a hand over his heart, beat it there. “I’m in love.”
    “I don’t think I’d want to fall in love with a woman who could wipe the floor with me.”
    “No risk, no point.”
    He hung back as a half dozen Zulies moved in to help the three men to the door. And out of it.
    Rowan gave her T-shirt a fussy tug. “How about those shots, Big Nate?”
    “Coming right out. On the house.”
    Gull took his seat again, waiting for Rowan to carry the tray over.
    “Are you ready?” she asked him.
    “Line them up, sweetheart. You want some ice for your knuckles?”
    She wiggled her fingers. “They’re