Don't Mess With Texas (35 page)

“Better than expected.” Dallas dropped his hands in his jean pockets, and reared back on his heels as his head replayed that purring sound she made when she came.

Tony stared at him. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

“Why would you think that?”

“You got that just-got-laid look about you.”

Dallas started to lie, but decided not to. His brother always knew things. Not that he’d go into details. He nodded.

“Was she good?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.” But he couldn’t help smiling. “How was the homecoming with LeAnn?”

“Not as good as your night.” Tony chuckled. “You wouldn’t know anything about bedbugs, would you?”

“About what?”

Tony explained and Dallas couldn’t stop laughing. “You are so screwed. What if she calls your apartment?”

Tony shrugged. “Hell. Chances are by the time she got up this morning, she already figured out I was blowing smoke. I’m hoping she sees the croissants and jam and my note about cooking her dinner tonight and realizes she misses me.”

“Or she decides to take you out for lying to her.” Dallas chuckled.

Tony stared at Dallas. “How are you playing this with Nikki?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You keeping it light, or is it leading somewhere?”

“What kind of question is that?” Dallas pushed off the wall.

“The kind you should be asking yourself right now.” Tony stared down the hall as someone passed.

“What the hell is wrong with just enjoying what it is?”

Tony cut his gaze at Dallas and frowned. “Nothing’s wrong with it if you both know that’s how the game is being played.”

“I’m not playing games. We’re two adults—” The
door to the interview room shot open, and Dallas’s words stalled.

A frowning CSU officer and an unhappy Nance walked out. The boy’s gaze shot to Dallas. “I got a fucking scratch on my knuckle. Does this mean I’m going down for this, too?”

O
N HER WAY TO WORK
, LeAnn drove by Tony’s apartment—admittedly not for the first time. At least once a week, she’d find herself cruising his street, hoping to get a glimpse of him. Today she wasn’t looking for him, but for exterminator trucks or guys in hazmat suits. Not that she expected to see them. She might have been born yesterday, but it wasn’t that early in the morning.

As expected, she saw no sign of bedbug extermination and so she drove on to the hospital. What was Tony up to? Was he moving back in because he was afraid she’d try to take the house? Hadn’t he read the divorce papers? She planned to move out in three months. She wasn’t going to steal his house out from under him, but maybe he wanted her out sooner than ninety days.

No. That wasn’t like Tony. Heck, every month when she sent in the mortgage bill, she’d get notified it was already paid. She’d told the bank to just let the check go toward the principal.

After clocking in at the hospital, she headed for Ellen Wise’s room. Hearing laughter, she knocked and poked
her head in the door. Nikki and Ellen’s mom were in the room, visiting.

“Is this a party?” LeAnn asked.

“They’re making me laugh and it hurts,” Ellen said, smiling.

“She was in here.” Nikki spoke to Ellen but was gesturing toward LeAnn. “Ask her.”

Ellen looked at LeAnn. “Did I really offer to have sex with a couple of guys yesterday?”

LeAnn grinned. “I’m afraid so.” She moved in and fit the blood pressure cuff around the woman’s arm. “But don’t worry. You explained yourself.”

“That I was blitzed on morphine?”

“No, that it had been too long since you got lucky,” LeAnn said.

They all laughed again.

Once LeAnn updated her chart, she started toward the door. Nikki said her good-byes to Ellen and her mother and walked out with LeAnn.

“How are things?” LeAnn asked Nikki.

Nikki shrugged. “I haven’t been arrested yet.”

“Tony won’t let that happen.”

Nikki frowned. “I’m not so sure. I don’t think he’s on the pro-Nikki team.”

LeAnn considered it. “If I can see you didn’t do it, I’m sure he can.”

“Thanks. Maybe you could put in a good word for me… I mean, if you see him.”

“I will.” LeAnn paused by her next patient’s door, but her curiosity about Nikki kept her standing there. “You don’t have to answer me, but… are you and Dallas more than friends?”

After a brief hesitation, Nikki sighed. “If I told you I didn’t know what we were, would you think I was crazy?”

“Not really. Life’s peculiar sometimes.” Tony was back home, and LeAnn didn’t know why.

“I just… everything is happening at once. And I’m not sure what he wants… Crappers, I don’t know what
I
want.”

LeAnn grinned, but she felt the same stirring of panic. Did she know what she wanted? Somehow, she’d stopped thinking about what she wanted and started doing what she thought was the right thing. “Sounds like you’re confused.” And LeAnn could really relate.

“I’d say.” Nikki looked at her watch again. “I’m already late opening the store, so I’d better run.”

Before Nikki could leave, LeAnn said, “Hey. About Dallas. He’s one of the good guys.”

“Like his brother?”

LeAnn inwardly flinched, but it was a fair question, especially considering she’d been the one to start the personal line of questions. “Yeah. Like him.”

“Then why…” Nikki studied her and LeAnn could guess what she was about to ask.

“It’s complicated,” LeAnn answered, not wanting to say more.

“Yeah. The same here,” Nikki said.

LeAnn hesitated and, while she wasn’t ready to share her own issues, she did want to help Nikki. “I couldn’t believe Dallas’s wife divorced him when… Oh, you do know about his being accused of—”

“Murder.” Nikki nodded. “He told me.”

“Dallas thought the sun set and rose on Serena. But personally, I never liked her. She was just… I don’t know, too high falutin’.”

“Then I’m really not Dallas’s type,” Nikki said and walked away.

LeAnn watched her. “I’d beg to differ,” she said to herself. She’d seen the way her brother-in-law looked at Nikki. LeAnn remembered the same look on Tony’s face when he’d sat beside her in the cafeteria.

Closing her eyes, she tried not to hope. What she needed to do was decide what she was going to do about tonight. Tony’s note said he planned to cook dinner. Could she sit across a table from him and not break down because of all they’d lost—each other and Emily? Maybe she should just go to a hotel.

Dallas parked behind Venny’s Restaurant, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to lose the frustration from the last half of the meeting with Nance and Tony.
You said coming here would help me!
Nance, who’d guessed he’d scratched his knuckle when he’d changed the oil in his grandmother’s car, had left the police station more frightened than when he’d arrived.

The CSU officer had said it was unlikely a baseball bat had caused the scratch on Nance’s knuckle, but nevertheless it would go into the report. Tony had even tried to calm Nance down, but he was scared and for good reason.

Dallas hoped that Tony would get Detective Shane to take another look at the case. If not, Dallas would take the story of Shane going after Nance for revenge to the press. But even that might not hold water. It depended on how the judge saw it. And if it didn’t hold water… Dallas remembered the promise he made to Nance’s grandmother.

“Shit.” Could he give her the heads-up that Nance should run to Mexico and become a fugitive for the rest of
his life? And if he ran, and they didn’t find a suspect in the second robbery, the system would try to pin it on Nance just to close the case.

Dropping back in his car seat, Dallas released a gulp of frustrated air. He needed to get his mind off that case and onto Nikki. Or rather her case.

Every few minutes he’d think back to his bedroom—how soft she was, how it had felt when he’d first entered her and the sound she’d made when she came. But mostly he thought about her saying it had been a mistake.

Thinking about it, he didn’t believe she’d meant his lack of food in the house. Hell, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if she hadn’t been right. One part of him said nothing that good should be considered a mistake. Another part of him said he knew it would be a mistake from the moment he found himself being pulled into her soft, blue eyes.

Then his brother’s words played in Dallas’s head.
Nothing’s wrong with it if you both know that’s how the game is being played
.

Christ! He wasn’t playing games with Nikki. He liked her. Liked her a lot. If he didn’t he wouldn’t be so damn worried about her thinking their having sex had been a mistake.

His one-day-at-a-time approach felt weak. Frankly, he didn’t know what scared him more, falling for Nikki and falling hard, when he’d vowed not to become another candidate for the fool-in-love award, or falling for a woman who very well might be going to prison. But holy hell, he knew she didn’t see prison as a possibility. Decent people had a tendency to believe in the justice system. He knew differently.

He’d called her twice. Both times, the conversation felt awkward. He tried telling himself she’d had someone in the gallery. Everything was fine, but he wanted to see her. Mind made up, he decided when he was done here, he’d grab them some lunch and drop by the gallery.

Getting out of his car at Venny’s, he looked around, his mind turned to another direction. What had brought Jack Leon back here?

Had the person on the phone asked to meet him here? Near the Dumpsters? Not likely. Did that mean Leon had come looking for Nikki’s car? And if so, why? Leon had his own vehicle. Dallas recalled the cops having said his car had been towed from valet parking. Could Leon have wanted to hide something in Nikki’s car?

Tony hadn’t mentioned CSU finding anything in her car. Considering they planned on releasing it this afternoon, Dallas would bet it was clean. But damn, a piece of the puzzle was missing. He reached back inside his own vehicle for a pen and notepad. He saw the newspaper, which had a picture of Nikki in front of her store and named her a person of interest in the case. He’d already suffered through the article, but needed it as a conversation starter.

When he stuffed his pen in his shirt pocket, Dallas wondered if Leon had come back here to leave Nikki a note. Puking, the man wouldn’t have wanted to go back into the restaurant. But why not call Nikki? Had she changed her cell number? A good question to ask Nikki later.

Walking past the Dumpster, he planned his approach. People didn’t care much for talking to cops, or even PIs for that matter. But for some reason they loved talking to
reporters. He just hoped the day employees weren’t the same people who’d been there the other night.

Stepping inside the restaurant, relieved the hostess wasn’t the brunette he’d already spoken with, he hesitated at the door. The hostess obviously didn’t hear him walk in because she didn’t take her eyes off the newspaper she held. No doubt, she was reading about Leon’s murder.

Dallas waited patiently. She glanced up and quickly hid the newspaper. “Sorry,” she said.

“No problem.” He showed her his newspaper.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” she said, and Dallas saw the way her green eyes swept over him with feminine appreciation.

He smiled. “You got that right.”

“Table for one?” The flirty way her eyes moved over him told Dallas she might just be the person he needed to talk to.

“Unless you can join me,” he said, upping his wattage of smile.

She grinned. “I’ll bet you say that to all your hostesses.”

“Only the pretty ones.”

“Aren’t you the charmer?” She started moving into the dining room.

Dallas glanced back at the bar. “Why don’t I sit up there? The scenery is nicer.” He let his gaze move over her again.

She smiled. “Fine with me.”

She walked to a small table by the empty bar. “The bartender is running a little late setting up. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coke would be nice. But do you know what would be even better?” He forced a touch of seduction in his voice.

She moved closer. “What’s that?”

“A little information.”

“About me?” she asked.

“And the interesting story you were just reading.”

Suspicion colored her eyes. “Are you a cop? The boss said if you guys came in you’d have to talk with him first.”

“Nope.” He pulled out his pad and pen. “Just looking to add more to the story. Information that could be quoted as from an anonymous source.”

“I wasn’t here.” She sounded disappointed.

“But I’ll bet you’ve heard all about it.”

“True.” She perked up a bit. Glancing around as if to check for any of her managers, she started talking. She told him the cops had taken a bunch of knives to see if any of them were the murder weapon. And they were looking at waiters and the cooks for putting something in the guy’s gumbo.