Free Ace Is Wild by Penny McCall Page B

Not that she was complaining, she was just surprised. And aroused. She slid him a sideways glance. He was looking down at her, half-smiling, a challenge in his gaze.
    She might have taken him up on it— Correction, she wanted to take him up on it, with every nerve ending in her body. But she could see he knew that, and his ego was doing cartwheels. And since the drunk had taken himself off, there was no way to salvage her self-respect but to reach back and pluck Daniel’s hand off her butt. Much as she regretted it. “Way to step up, Ace.”
    “You saved my life. I’m saving your virtue.”
    She popped up an eyebrow.
    “It’s the thought that counts.” He turned to go back inside.
    Vivi still had hold of his wrist, and she didn’t let go. “Please don’t,” she said.
    For once he didn’t look harassed or irritated. He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand why my life is so important to you.”
    “It . . . just is.”
    “This is ridiculous,” he said, shaking her off.
    “If you go back inside there’ll be another attack—”
    “Right, and I’m going to die.”
    “No”—Vivi hooked a thumb over her shoulder, in the general direction of Cohan’s dining room—“your girlfriend is.”
    “Her name is Patrice Hanlon. And she’s not my girlfriend.”
    “Your choice, not hers.”
    He raised one eyebrow and flattened his mouth, back to irritated.
    She couldn’t help but laugh a little. “It’s not mind reading. It’s not even feminine intuition. It’s the way she’s looking at me.”
    Daniel peered over the top of Vivi’s head. Sure enough, Patrice was staring at them, and if looks could kill . . . And how the hell could Vivi see Patrice’s expression when she had her back turned to the window? “Annoying,” he said, although it went beyond annoying, wandering somewhere into the Twilight Zone. “And stop showing up in my life.”
    “Okay.”
    He halted, mid-stride and mid-argument. “Just okay?” he said, turning back to her.
    “My grandmother always said you could lead a jackass to water.”
    “You mean horse.”
    “Not in your case.”
    “Cute. Good-bye.”
    She crossed her arms.
    “Suit yourself,” Daniel said, and went back inside.
    Vivi had to give him credit. He crossed the room and sat down, never so much as glancing over his shoulder. From the looks of things he wasn’t telling Patrice about her, and Patrice didn’t like it. She put on a polite face, but her eyes, before she shuttered them, weren’t so polite. Vivi hadn’t enjoyed it the first time she’d been on the receiving end of one of those looks. She didn’t like it this time, either. It made her feel like retaliating, and since the retaliation she had in mind furthered the rest of her agenda, she didn’t see any reason to hold back.
    She ducked inside, slipping past the dragon at the door by hiding behind someone taller than her—not hard to do since three-quarters of the adults in America were taller than her. She found what she was looking for right next to the kitchen doorway, no ESP necessary. Where else would they put the fire alarm, she asked herself, pulling the little red handle and slipping into the crowd before she could think of any one of the hundreds of reasons why it was a bad idea.
    There was a moment of stunned disbelief, composed of sudden silence and people looking at each other while they connected the whoop-whoop-whoop sound with potential mortal danger. Then there was chaos. Diners shot from chairs, knocking them over, drinkers milled around at the bar, torn between abandoning their source of alcohol and saving their lives. Most of them chose some combination of the two, carting pint glasses and beer mugs with them as they headed for the door, where the exodus hit a bottleneck and, compliments of liquid refreshment, took on more of a party atmosphere than a panic.
    Except Daniel. Daniel wasn’t partying or panicking. Daniel was standing beside his table at the back of the room. He had his