Night Sins by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online Page A

a time warp?”
    Mitch chuckled. “Both. This is small-town Minnesota, Agent O'Malley. You ain't in the big city anymore.”
    “I realize that, but this is a college town. I expected attitudes to be more progressive.”
    “Oh, they are,” he said, dumping pepper on a mountain of scalloped potatoes. “We no longer require women to hide their faces or walk three steps behind men.”
    “Very funny.” Megan cut into her meat loaf and thought the aroma of herbs and spices might just induce her to fall face-first on her plate and inhale everything on it.
    “Seriously, Deer Lake is very progressive as small towns go. But the men you're likely to meet in the line of duty are going to be from the old school. There are still plenty of guys around who believe the little woman should stay home darning holey socks while they're off whooping it up at the NRA meeting. You can't tell me you haven't run up against your share in the departments you've worked.”
    “Sure I did, but in the city the threat of lawsuits means something,” Megan replied. “You seem to have made the adjustment to small-town life without any trouble. What's your secret? Besides having a penis, I mean.”
    “Gee, honey, I'm flattered you noticed,” Mitch drawled.
    Poor choice of words there, O'Malley.
“It was kind of hard to miss, considering what you were wearing when we met.”
    “I feel so cheap.”
    She made the mistake of giving him a look, and her gaze locked onto his again like iron drawn to a magnet. God, of all the rotten luck. Attraction. A rare phenomenon in the life of Megan O'Malley. Naturally, it would strike when she least expected it, least needed it. Naturally, it would be sparked by a man she couldn't touch. Old Murphy and his laws of irony had nothing on her.
    Mitch Holt felt it, too. Chemistry. His gaze drifted to her mouth. The moment stretched into two.
    “I thought you said you weren't one of them,” she murmured, mustering all defenses.
    “One of who?”
    “The gun-toting, flag-waving, Neanderthal rednecks who consider anything in a bra to be fair game for their I'm-God's-gift-to-women brand of charm.”
    Mitch sat back and sighed, forcing the tension out of his shoulders. He could have argued, but there didn't seem to be any point in it at the moment.
    “You're right,” he admitted grudgingly. “I let my testosterone run away with me there for a minute. Temporary hormone psychosis. Really, I'm enlightened enough to pretend I'm not attracted to you, if that's what you want.”
    “Good. That's what I want.” Megan turned back to her meat loaf and discovered her appetite had gone south. “Because that's my number one rule: I don't date cops.”
    “A wise policy.”
    A matter of survival was what it was, but Megan kept that information to herself. She couldn't afford to be vulnerable in any way. Not in police work. The ranks were too heavily dominated by men who didn't want her there. Her gender was a strike against her. Her size was a strike against her. If she let her sexuality be used as a strike against her, she'd be out. That would be the end of her career, and her career was all she had.
    “Yeah.” Mitch recovered his sense of humor as the madness receded. “There's a certain wisdom in not letting the people you work with see you naked.”
    “The underwear was close enough,” Megan said dryly.
    “But now you've got me at a disadvantage,” Mitch pointed out. “You've seen me in my underwear. It would be only fair for you to return the favor. Then we'd be even.”
    “Forget it, Chief. I'll take all the advantages I can get.”
    “Hmmm . . .”
    Across the room he caught sight of one of his patrol officers winding his way awkwardly through the maze of tables, struggling to keep from conking some unsuspecting diner in the back of the head with the revolver strapped to his hip. He clomped up the steps, his eyes on Mitch.
    “Hey, Chief, sorry to interrupt your dinner.” Lonnie Dietz pulled a stray chair up to