StrongArmsoftheLaw by Cerise DeLand Read Free Book Online Page A

Big time.”
    He stepped on the gas. “Woman. You’ll kill me yet.”
    Not at all what I had in mind. She tossed him a saucy
smile.
    “Talk to me about something besides getting you in the
sack,” he said as he put his hand down between her thighs.
    “Ummmmm. Well, let’s see,” she began as the heat from his
palm infused her flesh with flaming new desire.
    “How about how you decided to write crime novels?” he asked
as he took his hand away to shift gears, then dropped it back between her damp
legs.
    “Being an ER nurse I saw a lot of gunshot victims.” He
squeezed her thigh muscles and she squirmed. “Honey, if you want this story you
better not be teasing me or I will open that fly and suck you ’til you roar.”
    Throwing her a cockeyed grin, he took his hand away.
“Better?”
    “Yes and no. But yes is the operative word. So…”
    “So. Tell me, Nurse Chamberlain.”
    As the scenery rushed past their windows, she recalled her
first years in a hospital. “I did the women’s ward, saw a lot of abused wives
and girlfriends who had no idea how to get out of their circumstances. That was
about the time the medical profession began to pay attention to injuries that didn’t
seem natural and we began to offer counseling for those we suspected were
victims. Their stories were heartbreaking.”
    “Is that a reason you came down here to research the Gonzaga
family?”
    “Yes. I’d read so much about how they treated their own
women and how they pressed others into prostitution that I wanted to do one
novel totally devoted to that kind of oppression. But all my interest in
writing about crime really stems from a combination of those criminology
courses and my years in the Emergency Room. You know, the sooner you get
someone into a stable condition after a trauma, the faster they recover. So I
trained in emergency procedures and transferred. I was in the ER for more than
six years when I started to write. I knew I’d need a dynamite story to get
published, so I joined a writers’ group and met a few editors and agents. The
first agent I signed with really worked hard for me. And here we are, six
novels later and I’m able to write full time.”
    “And do research that puts you in harm’s way,” he added, his
tone telling her he was none too happy about it.
    “It brought me you,” she said with an awe and reverence that
had him turning to her, finding her hand and squeezing it.
    “I won’t complain,” he told her.
    But there the conversation died. And Skye wasn’t quite sure
why.
    Then Rex said, “But if you and I continue together after
this is over, I might.”
    She wanted to hug him. Instead, she looked out her side
window. “I’m not the only one with a dangerous job, here, Ranger, sir.”
    “If you keep getting yourself on criminals’ hit list, you’ll
have a tough time staying alive, Miz Chamberlain, author, ma’am.”
    “There are things you don’t know about me, Rex,” she said in
a more congenial voice, lowering the tension between them. She hoped. “I’ve
walked rough streets and I—”
    “Walking them does not mean you will survive them!”
    She took his hand now and pressed it reassuringly as he
stared at the road dead ahead. “What I should tell you is that I know how to
protect myself.”
    “Not from the Gonzagas who want to scoop you up off the
streets and take you away to do, God knows what, rape you? Sell you to their compadres in Mexico? Shoot you up with—”
    “Whoa! Whoa! Rex, listen to me. I told you weeks ago I know
how to shoot a gun. Remember?”
    “Sure. But in a fight? Can you pull the trigger, honey?”
    “Why not?” she asked but inside she knew the stock answer to
that one.
    “If you’ve got one in your hand, you have to use it, or the
other guy will grab it from you and use it on you.”
    “I know. I’ve heard that, Rex. But I wouldn’t clutch. And
I’m a damn good shot because I practice every month at a range outside Chicago.
I own a Sig