“Help yourself. It’s a pleasure to find good cognac appreciated. We can pick up a few more bottles.”
“Not in the Quarter. Not Monnet.”
Shayne emptied his glass and held it out to her. “We may as well split what’s left.”
She studied the liquor line carefully, poured an inch in the tumbler and said dreamily, “This is the way things should happen in the Quarter — and don’t.”
“It’s happening now,” he reminded her.
She took a small sip from the bottle. “Is it — is this really happening, Mike? Won’t I wake up after a while and find some greasy fat man leaping over the rail to paw me?”
“Not while I’m around to ward them off,” he told her confidently.
She closed her eyes and took another sip from the bottle. “Will you ward them off, Mike?” A shiver passed over her tanned body.
“Is it that bad?”
“Worse.” She shivered again and curved her full lips in a smile of self-contempt. “Oh, what a heel I am. Something perfectly lovely happens and I—” she clenched her fingers tightly around the bottle as though it represented some cherished thing.