Force of Nature (Troubleshooters #11)

“For the love of God,” Annie exploded. “Will you just finish your fricking sentence? Because I’m what , Ric? Too tall? Too short? Too smart? Too attached to my dog? A liberal? An athlete? Not feminine enough? What? ”
“You’re gay,” he said, and at her total, openmouthed surprise, he asked, “Aren’t you?” He answered it himself. “No, you’re not. Okay, then. That’s…great.”

Ric looked at all women like that. With genuine appreciation. Regardless of the woman’s shape or size or age. Yeah, Ric Alvarado didn’t just look at women. He smoldered at them.


Ric tried to explain. “It’s more than that. I’ve got this thing where, I don’t know, I can’t say it without it sounding like, yeah, I’m sexist, but bottom line, I just want to protect you.” It wasn’t because she was a woman, it was because she was Annie. “And yeah, it has nothing to do with your ability or skill or—” “You want to protect me, but it’s not because you’re a man and I’m a woman.” His temper sparked at the attitude she was throwing at him. “No, it’s not.”

“Do you know how long it took me to put on this fucking makeup?” she asked him. Her use of the F-word brought wariness to his eyes. He knew he was in trouble. He just didn’t know why. “No,” he said. “Should I?” “Over an hour,” she declared. “I had to teach myself how to do it—talk about a pain in the butt. Check out my eyes—the liner? Do you know how hard it is to take some little pointy pencil and make a straight line like that? Right near your own eye? Will you at least look at it, please?” He looked. It was a little disconcerting to have him paying her such close attention, but at least now he didn’t look as much like a former cop working with the FBI, scoping out a suspect’s party.

“I said you smell really good ,” Ric corrected her, “which is actually the accepted way of telling your high school best friend’s little sister—who spent years being way too young for you—that you think she looks unbelievably hot.” “Nice try.” Annie wasn’t buying. “Right now, though? I’m looking for Wow, your eyeliner is really straight. Way to go. ”

Annie Dugan wasn’t traditionally pretty, at least not in a helpless-and-fragile delicate female sense. She did, however, have the fresh-faced, Irish American peasant-girl thing down pat, with big gray eyes and freckles, naturally curly hair, and a wide smile that could, at times, be incredibly sweet. Her attitude, however, was pure twenty-first-century kick-ass dominatrix.

But God, he still smelled exactly the same. And suddenly Robin went from just barely able to speak to unable to shut the fuck up. “Jesus, I’ve missed you,” came spewing out just as Jules said, “I’m here on business.”


“You won’t talk to me in private, fine. I’ll have this conversation with you in front of your friends. Seeing you again has…Jules, it takes my breath away—how much I just want to be with you.”


And in that split second, when their eyes met and the very air seemed to crackle around them, Robin almost did it. Three long strides would bring him to Jules’s side. He could picture the disbelief in his eyes—disbelief that would turn to wonder and then heat as Robin drew him into his arms and kissed him as ardently as he’d kissed his co-star, Susie McCoy, at the end of Riptide.


“I can wait.” Robin just smiled. “Yeah, but I can’t,” he said, and he kissed him. Right in front of the whole, wide world.

“He okay?” Martell asked.
“Yeah,” Ric said. “He’ll be fine.”
“So that’s what gay guys do, huh? Sit around racking up insane stunt bonuses on Grand Theft Auto,” Martell mused. “Who knew? I expected to find him redecorating your kitchen.”
“I got Colt 45s in the fridge,” Ric said. “Want one?”
Martell laughed. “Zing.”
“He’s a lot like us,” Ric said. “He just…has sex with…men.”
Martell turned his head to look at him.