Free Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) by Cindy Brandner

the right thing to do. But smack lies to you and justifies all your actions.”
    “So what made ye quit?”
    “How do you know I have?”
    “Because ye don’t tend to wear overmuch in the clothing department, an’ I would have noticed fresh tracks did ye have them.”
    She smiled, but it wasn’t a humorous expression. “You’d be surprised the places on your body a junkie can find to shoot up. But you’re right—I’m clean, have been for five years now. Cause I got knocked up again. And this time I did love something more than the smack. Rosemary was there for me the whole time. Cleaning up puke, sponging me down when I was hot, bundling me up when I was cold. Forcing broth down my throat when I was being the biggest pain in the ass you can imagine. God, I don’t think I slept for a year after I came off and then Jakey was born and he kept me up at night. When he got croup and I thought I was gonna’ totally lose my mind, Rosemary walked the hall with him nights. Walked a path right into the carpet.” She wiped at the tears that had spilled down her face, as though their presence angered her. “Did you ever have a friend like that? One who had your back no matter what?”
    “Aye,” Casey smiled, “I did—once.”
    “I thought you might have, you seem like a man that people could trust. I think it’s why Love Hagerty is afraid of you.”
    Casey snorted. “Afraid of me? I don’t see why. The man’s got Southie zipped up so tight no one can breathe without his permission, an’ what he doesn’t hold the strings on his pals in the Bassarelli clan do. Besides how could ye know such a thing?”
    “Well whores don’t inspire a lot of loyalty,” she said, with a bitterness that Casey knew was hard earned. “But people often use them as a shoulder, I hear things and I’ve got a long memory.” She sniffed, her nose running now that she was warm. He leaned forward and handed her a tissue from the stash Pamela had neatly placed in his inside coat pocket.
    “I do wish ye’d quit callin’ yerself a whore.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s what I am. It’s honest, is all. I have no illusions about what I do. I don’t expect to wind up in some street version of Cinderella or anything.”
    “It’s what ye do, it’s not necessarily what ye are,” Casey said. “I drive car an’ offload questionable cargo, does that mean the sum of me is drivin’ and haulin’ boxes?” He shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t necessarily feel. “I am more than that, an’ so are you. No human bein’ is that simple, or can be summed up that tidily.”
    “Are you for real?” She cocked her head, eyes bright with doubt. But the tough stance was gone and suddenly she seemed horribly fragile, a lost soul in a world that surely seemed like one of the interior circles of hell. “Because if you say that you don’t think of me that way, that you don’t just see a whore when you look at me, I’ll believe it, I’ll believe you.”
    He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently, and his dark eyes met her own with a clear honesty. “Not for a minute have I thought of you that way. I see a woman, no more, no less.”
    She laid a hand on his wool-clad leg, the fingers trailing northward in unmistakable invitation.
    “I could use some warmth,” she said, “couldn’t you?”
    He clasped her hands between his own, stilling her. He realized suddenly that the kiss on her hand might have been grossly misinterpreted. He also understood that this was a natural coin for her to deal in.
    “Ye know I’m married, I don’t take that lightly.”
    “Your wife doesn’t need to know,” she said, and he could feel her trembling beneath his hands.
    “But I would know,” Casey said.
    “We could just kiss...for you it’d be free,” she trailed off as he gave her a very stern look. Tears suddenly flooded into the topaz eyes, making them glitter like cat’s-eye in the firelight.
    “Yer an attractive woman, an’