Don't Mess With Texas (10 page)

“Why do you have my underwear?” Nikki repeated when Tony didn’t answer.

A few more seconds of silence ticked by. Dallas cleared his throat. “Evidence,” he said.

“I thought you’d run,” Tony answered.

Dallas wished he’d had a chance to explain without Tony’s presence.

“Evidence?” she asked and then, shutting her eyes for a second, she muttered, “Oh yeah.”

It was as if she’d forgotten she was suspected of killing her husband. How she could forget it for even a second was beyond Dallas. Then he recalled how upset she was about her friend. He didn’t want to downplay that situation, but he worried that she didn’t realize how serious her own problems were.

“He can only keep them if you agree to let him have them,” Dallas explained.

Tony shot Dallas a frown. “I could get a court order and force you to comply.”

“Just explaining her rights.” Dallas looked back at her and continued. “However, I recommend you let him have them. If there is no blood splatter on the clothes, it’ll corroborate your story.”

Nikki stared down as if considering her options.

“Or I could obtain a court order,” Tony said. “Place you under arrest and wait for the test results. The choice is yours.”

Her gaze shot back to his brother. “So if I cooperate, you’re not going to arrest me?”

“Correct,” Tony said. “Of course, the investigation is still open, and if the evidence comes back—”

“Just say yes,” Dallas said, stopping his brother from scaring Nikki more than he had. Couldn’t Tony see the woman was at her wits’ end?

An ER doctor, a tall, exhausted-looking brunette, popped in behind the curtain and looked at Tony. “I’m Dr. Rodriguez. You wanted an update on the stabbing victim’s condition?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Tony started to step out of the room.

“No,” Nikki said. “Please, I need to know, too. She’s my friend.”

From the look on the doctor’s face, Dallas worried it was bad news. But either way, Nikki deserved the truth. “She has a right to know,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, alone, worried and still sitting in the hospital bed, still hearing the words the doctor had confided in Tony,
They’re doing all they can
, and
It’s critical
, Nikki nipped at her lips and waited to hear news
about Ellen’s emergency surgery. A new nurse had come in and put a bandage on her wrist, scolding her about leaving her bed, but they’d decided she didn’t need another IV.

Alone again, Nikki saw the curtain shift to the side ever so slightly. She sat up higher as a nose appeared, followed by an eye in the slit as if the person didn’t want to make a commitment to enter. It was the nurse Nikki had run into while calling Nana. The one the bird had pooped on. And, if Nikki remembered correctly, she thought the detective had called her LeAnn.

After giving the small area a glance, the nurse stepped inside the curtain. “I come bearing gifts.” She held out some folded scrubs. “Dallas called and asked if I could get you something else to wear besides a hospital gown to leave the hospital. It’s not Valentino, but they’re comfy.”

“Thanks.” Nikki inwardly softened at the thought of Dallas taking care of her needs, and she took the thin cotton uniform from the woman. “It’s LeAnn, right?

“Yeah.” She nodded. The room went quiet and LeAnn continued, “He also told me about your friend. I’m really sorry. Dr. Peters is the surgeon working on her and, believe me, he’s the best we’ve got.”

“I hope so.” Nikki bit down on her lip again, found it sore, and inwardly scolded herself for doing it.

“I also heard about… your ex-husband. And that they think you were poisoned.”

“Yeah,” Nikki said. “It’s been an all around crappy day.”

“No shit,” LeAnn said, and half-smiled. “I guess you were right, huh?”

“About what?” Nikki asked. Since she was feeling as if she was in a place where everything went wrong, if she
was actually right about something she wanted to know what.

“You said you could top my bad day… earlier, by the picnic table.”

Nikki sort of remembered them talking about that. Hadn’t LeAnn said something about—

“If it makes you feel any better,” LeAnn continued, “I know he can come across as a hard-ass sometimes, but my husband is good at his job. He’ll take care of you.”

Nikki tried to wrap her mind around exactly what LeAnn was saying. “Dallas is your husband?”

“Oh, no. Tony is… was… soon to be was… my husband.”

Nikka was curious about the whole is/was dialogue, but didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask, so instead she asked for clarification. “Tony being… the detective?”

“Right,” LeAnn said.

Nikki remembered something else she was curious about. “And that would make Dallas your…?”

“Brother-in-law.”

“So they’re brothers.” Okay, Nikki shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. Dallas seemed eager to prove her innocent, while his brother seemed almost as eager to find her guilty. Or at least he suspected her of being guilty. She wondered if she could trust Dallas to help her when it appeared his brother was rooting for, and was the captain of, the other team.

She bit down on her lip, unsure what to say. Nikki didn’t want to tell LeAnn that she was right—her husband was a hard-ass—or that she wasn’t sure he was so eager to help her. Nor did she want to tell her that she was really happy Dallas wasn’t her husband. Nikki didn’t want to
analyze her reasons for being so happy about his unattached status, either.

Then again, she’d already admitted to having a slight case of lust going on. However, she’d be stupid to even consider letting it go anywhere. And Nikki Hunt wasn’t stupid. She might be weak on occasion. But—

“Hey?” A familiar male voice boomed from the curtain’s entrance and when Nikki’s eyes landed on all six feet plus of Dallas O’Connor, she was reminded of how weak she was. There was just something about a pair of wide shoulders and strong arms that said
lean on me
. Nikki knew she’d have to be careful not to do too much leaning.

He glanced at LeAnn and then at the folded scrubs Nikki held to her chest. “You found something for her to wear. Good.” His half smile came off tender, and Nikki took another swipe at her sore bottom lip with her teeth.

“They aren’t much better than a gown,” LeAnn said. “But at least she won’t be mooning anyone again.” LeAnn cast a chastising look in Dallas’s direction.

Nikki gulped. “Did I…?”

“No.” Dallas frowned at his sister-in-law.

Nikki didn’t know him well enough to swear it, but her gut said when his eyebrow twitched like that, he was probably lying. She was in the process of sticking that little piece of information into her memory for future use when voices exploded from the other side of the curtain.

“If Jack Leon is dead, I’ll celebrate later. For now I want to see Nikki!”

Nikki’s heart clutched at her grandmother’s words. The curtain to Nikki’s cubical was yanked back. Standing behind Dallas was Nana. Nana, all suited up in what looked like a dress from the eighteen hundreds. Nana with
a cowboy hat hung down her back and fury in her eyes. It took a second for Nikki to remember that her grandmother was playing Annie Oakley at the local theater. And standing behind Nana was her contributing cast, four of the Ol’ Timers group, all in western garb, and behind them was one very unhappy, hard-ass detective.

“You all can’t be back here.” A nurse popped into the scene and her eyes widened, right along with Dallas’s and LeAnn’s, at the garb of the Ol’ Timers. But Nikki didn’t flinch because Nana and this bunch were always up to something.

“Costume party?” the nurse asked.

“Dress rehearsal,” Nana’s friend Benny answered.

Nana, aka Annie Oakley, ignored the nurse and barreled past Dallas. “My gosh. What happened?”

The warm, aged hands of her grandmother came to rest on Nikki’s face. The hands that had tenderly cared for Nikki since she’d been a child.

The warm loving touch on both her cheeks, along with the fear in her grandmother’s expression, had Nikki’s eyes growing moist. Damn it, she wanted to be the one taking care of Nana, not the other way around.

“I…” She tried to talk, but then had to swallow the need to cry.

Nana leaned in. “That piece of shit cop right there insinuated you killed your ex-husband. Then he said they thought you might have been poisoned. And now Ellen? What the hell is going on?”

“Some of you cowboys are going to have to saddle up and leave,” the nurse said.

“Oh, goodness, Nikki, are you okay?”

Nikki opened her mouth to answer Nana, but her throat tightened and she couldn’t talk.

“Nikki’s fine, ma’am.” Dallas took a step closer, and rested his hand on Nana’s shoulder.

Nana looked first at Dallas’s hand then his face. She did a double take to Detective O’Connor, and then settled her eyes back on Dallas. “I don’t know you from Adam, young man, but I already don’t like you just because you look too much like that bastard.” She pointed to Dallas’s brother.

Dallas’s eyes rounded and his mouth went slack. Detective O’Connor cleared his throat, and looked about ready to read Nana the riot act or her Miranda rights—or maybe both—but then his gaze fell on LeAnn and his expression shot from anger to longing.

“I… need… to go.” LeAnn swung around and ran face first into the curtain and fought with the thin material for a few long seconds before she finally managed to pull it over her head and disappear.

Everyone’s eyes went back to Detective O’Connor. His scowl returned. “I didn’t say she’d killed anyone.”

“And I didn’t say you said it,” Nana said. “I said you insinuated it.”

“And I said you can’t all be back here.” The nurse’s voice grew louder. Another nurse stopped and peered in. “Rodeo in town?”

“Dress rehearsal,” Nana said.

“I suggested we change clothes,” said Helen, who had been Nana’s best friend for as long as Nikki could remember. Helen met Nikki’s gaze. “But your grandma was too worried about you.”

“Took me fifteen minutes to lace up this western garb. I didn’t have another fifteen to get out of it.” Nana gave Nikki’s hand a squeeze and then looked back at the detective.

“And for the record, Nikki couldn’t hurt a fly. She even uses release traps to catch rodents.”

Dallas coughed, but Nikki could have sworn it had only been to cover up a laugh. Not that she thought it was funny. The knot in her throat remained tight.

“Nikki informed me of that fact.” The detective’s frown deepened when he looked at his brother.

“Why, Nikki’s an angel,” said Helen with all the confidence she could muster while dressed like a nineteenth-century saloon girl, with her aged cleavage spilling out of her dress. “And whoever killed Jack Leon deserves a medal.”

Nikki’s heart did a quick jolt. Before, when anyone said anything bad about Jack, she secretly liked it. But now that he was… dead, well, it didn’t have the same effect.

“Please,” Nikki said. “Can we just—”

“If you have to have a suspect, then slap a pair of handcuffs on me. It’s not as if I haven’t had them on before,” seethed Nana. “Seriously, I threatened to neuter his butt every time I laid eyes on him.” She glanced at Nikki and then back at the cop. “And who do you think poisoned Nikki? Or hurt Ellen? Or have you been too busy accusing my granddaughter of a crime she didn’t commit to go out there and find the real criminal?”

The nurse put her hands on her hips. “Do I need to call security?”

Nana scowled at the nurse again then glanced back at Nikki. “How’s Ellen?”

“In surgery,” Nikki said, finally able to talk.

“Can you people not hear me?” the nurse snapped.

Nana huffed and glanced back at the Ol’ Timers. “Can
you guys go to the waiting room before this woman has an aneurism?”

A chorus of, “Fine,” “Sure,” and, “I guess,” answered her.

They all nodded at Nikki. Well, everyone except Benny, the man who had a romantic interest in her grandmother. He stood there, dressed like an old lawman with a tin star pinned to his chest, and peered at the cop. Even though he was well into his seventies, his grizzly barrel-chested frame could still pull off the intimidating card.

“Walk the line,” Benny said to the detective. “I have connections and I’m not above calling in favors.”

“Just doing my job,” Tony O’Connor said.

Nikki dropped back on her pillow. Would the craziness of this day ever end?

“Let’s go,” Helen said and motioned the other two to follow.

“Thanks, guys.” Nikki waved at Nana’s friends as they walked out, leaving Nikki with the detective, Dallas, and her grandma.

“There’re still too many people in here.” The nurse held up two fingers.

Dallas and his brother met each other’s gazes and then the detective rolled his eyes and walked out. Nikki couldn’t help but think the better man won. When Dallas looked up, Nana was giving him the evil eye.

“You, too, Buster Brown,” Nana said.

Dallas stood there as if trying to decide whether he should chance going against Nana. Not many people chose to. Nana was only a few inches over five feet in height, but she had a big presence that screamed,
Don’t mess with me
. Hence the reason she got the part as Annie
Oakley. And her strong personality was one of the reasons Nikki had walked a straight line in her younger years.