Serving up Trouble. Jill Shalvis

she moved across the tile floor toward the distracted-looking teller. The woman had a beehive hair style that looked as if maybe she’d worn it for the past fifty years, and fuchsia-pink lipstick. She glared at Angie as if it were her fault she had to deal with slime buckets in light blue suits.

      Later, Angie would marvel at how quickly it all seemed to happen, but for now, time shifted into slow motion. One minute she was glancing at her watch and handing over her signed check, and the next, Mr. Edgy had grabbed her arm from behind.

      “Hey—” she started, annoyed, only to swallow the words when the tip of a knife appeared in front of her eyes before settling against her neck.

      “Give me all the money in your drawer,” he said to the startled teller while still holding on to Angie. “And don’t even think about the panic button.”

      Amazingly enough, as Angie was turned in the robber’s arms so that he had a better grasp on her, everyone had froze on the spot. Even Mr. Knock-Me-Over-Magnificent, whose big body had gone tense and battle ready, didn’t make a move.

      “Do it, lady,” the man growled at the teller, who let out a little cry and froze like a deer caught in the head lights.

      Angie had a moment to feel badly she’d mentally poked fun at the woman’s choice of lipstick color before she was rudely whipped forward again. Mr. Edgy stared down at her with a look of blatant hatred, and she took a terrified breath that ended in a little squeak. Fear iced her veins so that her ears rang, making it difficult to hear anything other than the echo of her own blood racing.

      “You’ll be my ticket outta here.” The knife flashed beneath her nose again, making her glasses slip too low. “Got it?”

      A response didn’t seem to be required, so she closed her eyes, realizing now was a heck of a time to suddenly understand what was wrong with her life—it was boring! She lived her life so purposely staidly to avoid the parents’ hopes and dreams that it had become utterly…unnecessary.

      “Move and you die,” the punk said with enough fury in his voice that Angie believed every word. “Scream and you die. Breathe and you die.”

      Okay, she got it. She was pretty much dead.

      The teller moaned in distress, and her fingers at tempted to work the drawer in front of her, but she couldn’t quite seem to manage it. Angie wanted to scream at her.

      “Move it,” the guy holding her muttered to the shaking woman.

      The teller stared at him blankly and he yelled it again. “Money! Now!” For emphasis he shook Angie, hard.

      She couldn’t contain the helpless whimper that was ripped from her throat. Her sweater tore from her shoulder. Her glasses slipped off her nose, but she couldn’t catch them because he held her so tight. She heard them hit the floor.

      Without them, her vision blurred. Her world became reduced to the knife against her throat. The cold steel of the knife dug into her skin. The arm that held her imprisoned was amazingly strong and her knees wobbled as her life flashed before her eyes.

      Unnecessary.

      Oh, yes, that’s what the niggling had been. Her life had been too unnecessary. Anyone could have lived it. That it was because she’d tried so hard to break free from those expectations of her didn’t make her feel any better. A wasted life was a wasted life.

      She needed more time. She needed another chance. She wouldn’t waste anything this time!

      Her heart drummed. She broke out into a sweat. As if from a mile away, she could hear the teller fumble at her drawer with clumsy fingers, but it must not have opened, because the man holding her swore lividly beneath his breath and shook her again, so hard this time that she cried out more loudly.

      “Shut up.” His grip tightened, and Angie cringed, biting her tongue, waiting for the searing pain she figured would accompany a deep knife wound.

      “Money,” he demanded of the teller. “Give me the money!”

      “I’m trying!”

      It wasn’t going to happen, Angie realized blindly. He’d petrified the poor teller so thoroughly that the woman didn’t have a chance in hell of opening the drawer, not with those violently shaking fingers, not to mention the shock that had already set in, making her eyes two huge blurry orbs of panic.

      Angie was going to die, right here, right now, and all because of bad timing. If she hadn’t written the rent check, if she hadn’t for got ten to come to the bank yesterday, if, if, if…she could think of a thousand of them.

      Standing there, as good as a blind mouse, her sense of absurdity took over. Why else would she think about her apartment, and the plants that would die without her?

      And, oh God, she was wearing under wear with a rip in the elastic. Her mother had warned her about that, hadn’t she, about getting in an accident with torn panties? Now everyone in the hospital would know.

      If she even made it to a hospital.

      Her parents would be contacted and told the truth. Their daughter had died before becoming someone. Anyone. And she’d died in old underwear.

      It would kill them.

      A shot rang out, and Angie automatically jerked. Then some thing slammed into her captor, hard enough to loosen his hold on her. The momentum sent her to her knees with a bone-jarring crunch. Someone screamed.

      And screamed.

      Pandemonium seemed to strike and Angie lifted her head, squinting like crazy, but it was no use—everything was out of focus.

      She could hear and feel though, so that when she was scooped up against a warm, hard chest, her hair shoved out of her eyes by a big, callused palm, she somehow instinctively knew who had her.

      Mr. Knock-Me-Over-Magnificent.

      Her hero.

      “Are you all right?” Sam O’Brien demanded.

      When the woman’s huge eyes just blinked up at him, he swore to himself. Heart thudding, he tipped her head back, his fingers running over her neck, looking for the wound as he went cold inside.

      Amazingly enough, he found nothing but a slight scratch, and lots of warm, creamy skin with soft, satiny light brown hair that had escaped its confines.

      “You okay?” he pressed, needing to hear her, his voice rough with concern and rushing adrenaline.

      Again she blinked those big, dark brown eyes, then squinted. “I…can’t see very well. Everything is fuzzy.”

      His heart wedged in his throat. Had she hit her head? Damn it, despite everything, had she gotten hurt?

      It had been every off-duty cop’s greatest nightmare as he’d stood in line watching the at tempted robbery take place. He’d had no backup, no radio, nothing but the comforting weight of his own gun at his back.

      And too many possible victims to count.

      He’d been forced to wait until the punk with the knife had turned away, knowing if he moved too soon the woman would die right in front of his eyes.

      So he’d held his breath while she’d been cruelly shaken and manhandled, biding his time so that he didn’t get her killed.

      Finally he’d had his moment and he’d fired.

      The bad guy was now bleeding, unconscious on the floor, and this wide-eyed beauty in his arms appeared to be going into shock.

      “Get an ambulance,” he barked to the growing crowd, but he could hear the siren in the distance. “Good. Okay,” he said, squeezing the woman’s arm. “They’re on their way, you’re going to be fine.”

      “I’m not hurt. I just can’t see well. Is he…dead?”

      Sam glanced over, saw the chest rising and falling on the perp. “No.”

      Using