Dash of Peril

EPILOGUE

IT WAS JUST PAST the dinner hour at Rowdy’s bar, and Dash sat back on the bar stool, watching as Margo came through the door. Wearing skinny jeans that hugged her ass and showed off her small waist, a soft white tank top and heeled strappy sandals, she looked sexy as sin.

Every guy in the place swiveled his head to look at her, but Dash didn’t mind. Four months ago they’d married and he still couldn’t stop smiling.

Next to him, Logan laughed. “You’re more pathetic than I ever was.”

Pathetic. Deliriously happy. Either worked.

Reese leaned around Logan to see Dash. “She’s really taken to the whole letting-loose thing, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

Rowdy laughed at how he said that, at the note of lust in his voice. He shoved drinks to the bar and leaned forward on his forearms. “She looks as happy as you, Dash, so you must be doing something right.”

Margo had paused to talk with Cannon. He was in town for a visit, hanging with some of his friends. Pretty soon he’d fight for the SBC. That made him a local celebrity—although most already considered him that.

Next she paused to speak with the ladies. Logan’s wife, Pepper, Reese’s wife, Alice, and Rowdy’s wife, Avery, all shared a table. Normally Avery tended bar, but not tonight. Tonight was special.

Tonight they were celebrating Dash’s impending fatherhood.

“She doesn’t look pregnant,” Logan noted, and the rest agreed.

Dash didn’t say that he’d found subtle differences in her breasts, in her sexual appetite—which had already been pretty damned healthy, thank you—or in her desire to nest. She’d literally taken over the entire house, rearranging and remodeling and doing all those things women often liked to do, but that he’d never envisioned Margo doing.

She still kicked ass when necessary.

And she was still the most honorable, brave, amazing woman he’d ever met.

Pepper pushed out a chair, inviting Margo to join them. She agreed, but held up a finger indicating that she needed just a minute first. Then she joined Dash at the bar.

As soon as she reached him, Dash said, “Hey,” and pulled her in for a soft kiss.

Logan coughed.

Reese muttered, “Get a room.”

Margo just sighed against Dash, then slanted a look at her detectives.

They each laughed, which made her roll her eyes.

“Today,” she said, “I am officially back to being just a lieutenant.”

Logan choked. “Just?”

“No ‘just’ to it,” Reese added.

Dash pulled her up to his lap, cradling her close. “You’re happy about that?” During the investigation she’d worked entirely too hard. But she came home to him each night, and that was what mattered.

“Very.” At her ease perched on his thighs, she leaned in to whisper, “I’d rather put all my free time into being with my husband.”

Blatantly eavesdropping, Logan said, “I’m glad you’re back to your old position, because we need you.”

Slowly Dash turned his head. “For?”

Reese again leaned around Logan. “There’ve been three armed robberies in the past week, and we think they’re all by the same group.”

Margo slid off his lap. “Anyone hurt?”

“That’s the weird part. The robbers are polite about it.”

“How so?”

As they started talking shop, Dash grinned and turned to complain to Rowdy. But damn it, even as he filled drinks, Rowdy listened in.

It might have worried Dash more, how often her work came home with her, the peril she put herself in. He knew she could take care of herself, and with Logan, Reese and Rowdy helping, too, she was in good hands.

With a kiss to her temple, Dash excused himself so Margo could have his stool. When the police talk finished, she’d be going home with him.

He loved her, everything about her, all her various personas.

But he loved her best as his.

Smiling, content, Dash went to join the wives at their table.