Free Without Compromise by Becky Riker Page A

mean?”
                  “Malachi introduced you to his friends; you should probably do the same.”
                  “After all, we’re your friends now too,” Harry reasoned.
                  “Oh, really?” she stood with her hands on her hips, “If I needed help sometime, you’d be right there for me.”
                  “Absolutely,” Harry agreed.
                  “So,” she looked back to Tag, “if, say, someone was chasing me, I should give you guys a call.”
                  “Josie,” he muttered under his breath.
                  “Or, what if someone was climbing in my window?”
                  Lowell frowned, “You have that problem often?”
                  She laughed, “Not me, but my sister does on occasion.”
                  Tag took her shoulders and turned her away from the men, “Go find your friend, Josephine.”
                  She started to walk away, but she made a quick u-turn, “It was nice to meet you, Malachi.”
                  She looked at the other two, “Sergeant Lutz, Harry,” she smirked. “Thaddeus.”
                  Tag watched her walk away and then sat heavily in his seat.
                  Josie turned back to see Harry laughing. Lowell was shaking his head in a manner that told Josie the man knew there was something going on, and he didn’t approve.
                  Malachi just looked confused, “How’d she know your name?”

CHAPTER NINE
    Josie hoped to get to her sister’s place before five. Al wouldn’t be home by then, and Josie could get in and out unnoticed with the potato salad Molly was making for their mom.
                  She reached for the door handle and pulled.
                  “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Miss Drake,” a voice startled her from behind.
                  She whipped around, wide-eyed but relaxed when she realized it was just Tag.
                  “Neither was that, Tag. Are you lurking out here for a reason?”
                  He laughed aloud, “It isn’t lurking to walk up to my own building.”
                  She turned away and opened the door, “It is if you were lying in wait, hoping to scare me.”
                  “As if I have nothing better to do with my time,” he waited for her to punch in the code and then followed her up the stairs.
                  “So your luck has changed?” she couldn’t resist.
                  He gave a tug on her ponytail, “My luck would have changed incredibly if you hadn’t refused to introduce us to Carenza.”
                  “You’re not her type,” she laughed and knocked on Molly’s door.
                  “I can change,” he leaned against the wall. “Just tell me what her type is, and I can change.”
                  “Door’s open,” Molly called out.
                  Josie opened it.
                  “That’s not safe,” Tag called in to his neighbor.
                  “Don’t be silly,” Molly came out of her bedroom, “I live across the street from a paranoid cop. What could go wrong?”
                  “I do have a job to go to,” he reminded her.
                  Josie turned and looked at him, “Why aren’t you at it?”
                  “I went in at midnight,” he opened Molly’s fridge and poked around in her plastic containers. “They let me go about an hour ago.”
                  “Long day,” Josie commented. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
                  He closed the fridge, “I just caught my second wind.”
                  “Jo,” Molly reopened the fridge, “I hate to tell you that you