From A Taint in the Blood, the fourteenth Kate Shugak novel:

Johnny Morgan, elbows on the railing, watched from the deck.  It was pitiful, was what it was.  Here was this tiny little woman, couldn’t weigh 120 pounds wringing wet, facing down this big, strong, good-looking guy, an Alaska state trooper no less, a man accustomed to command, a man who hunted down criminals and brought them to justice, a man to whom Park rats of every age, culture and occupation looked to lay down the law of the land.  He had to be at least six feet four inches tall, although the Mountie hat he used to wear had made him look even taller than that, and he had to weigh two hundred pounds easy, although the bristling arsenal of badges and guns and epaulettes and hand cuffs and nightsticks added heft.  He was good-looking, too, with heavy dark blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and strong features, jaw, cheekbones, nose.  He didn’t look like a wimp, and if half of the Park gossip Johnny had heard was true he’d had a ton of girlfriends.  He just wasn’t a needy kind of guy.

Kate glided another step forward in a way that reminded Johnny irresistibly of a large, powerful cat.  Jim looked like a deer caught in the headlights, inches away from leaping into his vehicle and roaring off.

Wimp, definitely.

An object lesson, he thought was what his teacher, Ms. Doogan, was have called it.  No way was he ever going fall into that honey trap, which was what Old Sam Dementieff called it.  The irresistible force meeting the not-quite immovable object, was what Bobby Clark called it.

He shook his head, half in pity for a fellow man, half in shame, and went back inside.  It was just too painful to watch.

Chatter Kate Shugak Uncategorized a taint in the blood Kate Shugak No Fixed Line the Kate Shugak series