Free Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross Page B

blow this pop stand, buy myself my own tropical island, and live la dolce vita.”
    “I have a job.”
    “One that probably doesn’t cover your shoe budget.”
    Since when was appreciating a well-made, beautiful shoe a crime? “I’d rather work than spend my spare time drinking mai tais and polishing seashells,” she said, deciding not to share that escape to exactly such a place was on her to-do list.
    “You could always work for your family’s winery.”
    “I don’t know anything about running a vineyard. All I do is cosign the checks. Besides,” she added, “the only interest I have in wine is drinking it. I love my job here.”
    “Even when it makes enemies of guys like Vasilyev?”
    “We’re already enemies. That was decided when I chose to prosecute criminals and Vasilyev chose to be one. Besides, he threatened to have me killed the day of his sentencing, and as you can see, I’m certainly still around.”
    “But your former mentor and co-counsel on that case isn’t,” Mitchell pointed out.
    A cold shiver skimmed up Tess’s spine. “That was an accident,” she insisted, citing the Coast Guard’s findings.
    She didn’t mention that her recent calls coming so soon after her co-prosecutor’s death three months ago was—along with the murder of the Salem deputy district attorney who’d prosecuted another one of the Russian’s gang—the reason the police had gotten a warrant to listen in on her phone calls. “Accidents happen. Even to the best of sailors.” Which Jim Stevens had definitely been.
    “Hey,” Alexis broke in, “can’t you two discuss something a little more cheerful? At least until I’ve had my second cup of coffee?”
    Mitchell grinned sheepishly and held up both hands. “Sorry.” He turned his attention back to Tess. “I still think you’ve got major cojones. For a girl,” he said before continuing across the room.
    Tess and Alexis watched him go. “He meant that as a compliment. I think,” Alexis said finally.
    Tess sighed. “I know. It’s just that I really don’t like him.” She shook her head, watching as he stopped yet again to joke with another prosecutor. “He’s rude, sexist, and totally lacking in tact.” He was also slick. No, that wasn’t exactly it. More slimy . If he were a mobster, his name would be Bill “The Slug” Mitchell.
    “Speaking of your taste in men,” Alexis said, smoothly turning the conversation back to its original track, “I promise not to mention it again, but I still contend that you and Nate could work out.” Her friend’s eyes had the gleam of an unrepentant matchmaker.
    “Really,” she insisted when Tess rolled her eyes. “You don’t believe anything unless you read it in the The Oregonian in black and white. Despite his Marine years at war, including being wounded in an IED explosion, which should have made him cynical, Nate tends to believe in everything until he’s proven wrong.” Alexis’s smile was guileless. “See?”
    “The only thing I see is that somehow, when I wasn’t looking, you’ve turned into one of those women who, just because you’ve found happiness with a man, wants to send every woman up a white satin aisle for a life of wedded bliss.”
    “Would that be so bad?”
    Tess rose abruptly from her desk, brushing scattered doughnut crumbs off her fog-gray pencil skirt. “I don’t believe in marriage.”
    “Ah, yes,” Alexis drawled. “How foolish of me. I’d almost forgotten the infamous Lombardi curse.”
    “You can laugh all you want.” Tess picked up her briefcase, checking to be sure she had everything she needed for a long day in court. “But the fact remains that no Lombardi woman, from Isabella on, has managed to live happily ever after, including me. Captain MacGrath, bastard that he was, saw to that.”
    “How in the world can you continue to insist that you and Nate aren’t a match made in heaven when you say things like that?” Alexis argued doggedly. “He’s one of