If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (7 page)

He shrugged. “In a bit. They’re still talking—some big wedding coming up.” He needed to quit watching her. She was busy looking anywhere
but
at him and he was going to look like more of an ass than he probably already did, but he couldn’t quit staring. “Hi, Nia.”

She slanted a look at him. “Mr. Reilly.”

“Law.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, glanced between her and Ezra. “What brings you back to Ash?”

She shrugged, still not looking at him. Then finally, her shoulders rising and falling on a sigh, she met his eyes. “Personal business, Mr. Reilly.”

“Law,” he said again.

Ezra glanced past him again, toward the café, then met Law’s gaze. “Ah … Nia, can you give me a second?”

She shrugged.

Law scowled as Ezra grabbed his shoulder and all but dragged him about fifteen feet away. “Get back to the café and keep Lena in there.”

Law glared at him. “Excuse me?”

“Damn it, would you just
do
it? I’ll explain later.”

Curling his lip at him, Law jerked his arm away. “What’s the matter, you getting bored with marriage already?”

“What … are you nuts?” Ezra stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

Law wasn’t so sure he hadn’t. But he had a very hard time thinking clearly around Nia—something he’d demonstrated the one time he’d been around her before now. Rubbing his temple, he shook his head and glanced back at the café, then at Nia. “What’s the deal, Ezra?”

“Would you stop being so fucking obvious and just get to the café?” Ezra asked. “Please? I’ll explain—shit.”

Nia was sauntering toward them.

That look in her eyes—a glint of trouble, sparking there like an ember. She glanced from Law to Ezra, then down the street. A grim smile curled her lips and she walked right past them—straight toward the café.

“Shit,” Ezra muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he shot Law a glare. “Could you have been a little
more
obvious?”

“What?”

Ezra just shook his head and muttered under his breath as he started along behind Nia.

“Damn it, what in the hell is going on?”

Ezra shot him a narrow glance and then stopped. “Nia’s cousin.”

“What about her?”

Ezra glanced up as Nia started across the street. “She looks enough like Lena that they could have been twins. I’d hoped … well. Hell. Doesn’t matter now.”

The second she stepped foot inside the café, Nia knew why the sheriff hadn’t wanted her in there. The woman sat along the back wall, a pair of black glasses shielding her face.

From across the room, the similarity was eerie—the same deep, gleaming hair, although this woman’s might have a little more red. The same clear, milk-pale skin. The shape of the face, the mouth.

So much like Joely.

Nia stared at her, hard, fast. Part of her wanted to hope, to pray … wanted to think maybe it
was
Joely, even though she knew better.

But it was easier, for that moment, to just pretend.

Look at me …

If the woman would look at her, then maybe Nia could quit pretending. Maybe. She’d have to face reality, have to take that stab to the heart, accept it, and move on. But she continued to chat with her friend, some blond lady, totally oblivious of Nia standing there, with her heart lodged in her throat, and her heart aching, breaking …

Just then the bell over the door jangled. And the dog lying by the redhead’s feet sat up. Until that moment, Nia hadn’t even seen the dog. Now it was staring at the door, tail waving back and forth.

Apparently, something about it caught his owner’s attention, too, because now the woman’s face was turned toward them.

That was when Nia realized Lena King couldn’t see her.

“Your wife’s blind,” she said as Ezra came to stand beside her.

“Yeah, I think somebody mentioned that to me somewhere. Look, Nia, you don’t need to do this to yourself.”

She swallowed. “You know, if I’d seen her on the street, it would have been harder.”

“Not very likely. You don’t live around here,” Reilly muttered.

She glanced at him, then at Ezra. No. She didn’t live around here. But she wasn’t leaving, either. Not until she found out something—more of that indefinable, insubstantial closure. Which meant the likelihood of her running into Lena King on the streets was higher than they thought.

But they didn’t need to know that. Yet.

Slipping back outside, she started to walk. Blindly. She didn’t know exactly where she was going; she just needed to get away from there. Ideally, she’d like to be very, very far away, but there was no way she could leave. Even if she was willing, and she wasn’t, she couldn’t very well ride just then.

The tears blinded her so that she wouldn’t even be able to see the road.

“Why do I get the feeling she’s not leaving town?” Ezra muttered to himself as he watched Nia stalk out of the café.

Then he glanced toward Lena. She was gazing his way expectantly—Roz had pointed him out after Puck had noticed him, catching Lena’s attention. “I’m going to
say hi—and do me a favor, yank your head out of your ass and don’t mention Nia. Lena doesn’t need to know she …”

“Know what?” Law asked, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. “Need to know you were talking to a beautiful woman or that your beautiful wife looks just like her dead cousin …? Which don’t you want her knowing?”

Ezra glared at him. “Again, take your head out of your ass and figure it out. What in the hell is your problem, anyway?”

As Ezra headed over to his wife, Law rubbed the back of his neck and wished he could figure it out. Shit. That woman—she came around and his brain went the way of the caveman. He stopped being
able
to think.

Hell, why was he acting like he’d caught Ezra and Nia going at it? He knew better. Ezra would cut off his arm before he’d hurt Lena like that. Swearing, he glanced out the door. Saw Nia pacing aimlessly around the square.

Then, without a backward glance, he slipped outside.

He just needed to talk to her. A minute. Without anybody else, see if maybe he could manage to get his brain cells functioning on any level resembling normal.

She should have known she couldn’t be alone.

Not in Small Town USA. Or Ash, Kentucky, as it were. Ash, Kentucky, was the epitome of Small Town USA, too. And there, damn it, was the epitome of some things that could go very, very right in Small Town USA, she guessed, watching as Law Reilly ambled her way, that loose, easy gait, all lean, long limbs, the sunlight glinting off his hair

Damn. He was pretty, she thought, the observation winging up out of the blue to catch her off guard. She had an eye for attractive or appealing types—it was just
part of her job. He was definitely attractive and appealing. Usually, neither one was enough to hit her low in the gut, though. Something about him did—hit her low and hard, making her go all warm and tingly.

Except she didn’t have a right to be feeling this way, and she knew it. Pushing it aside, she tried to focus on anything
but
those warm tinglies. It was harder than she’d thought it would be, considering her ex-boyfriend hadn’t made her feel much of anything.

His hair had grown out since the last time she’d seen him. Almost down to his collar, and shot through with threads of gold, darker strands of brown. Nice hair, she thought. Nice face … nice eyes. Nice everything, really.

Just looking at him did bad, bad things to her. And damn, that was a shock.

It had been a long, long time since she’d felt anything other than grief, or rage. That low-level sexual attraction was a pleasant surprise … for a few seconds anyway.

Then guilt kicked in. She couldn’t do this—couldn’t feel this.

She was here for a reason, and even if she was inclined to lose her head for a few minutes, she sure as hell couldn’t do it with him. Definitely not with him.

She’d made a complete fool of herself with him already, and she wasn’t here to look at him, wasn’t here to repeat those mistakes.

Definitely wasn’t here to ogle him … but that’s what she was doing.

Her mouth was dry, she realized. Turning away from him, she tried to find something else to stare at. Something else, anything else. There wasn’t anything else. Just a lousy picnic table.

Desperate, she settled on it, clutching the edge of it in her hands. It was worn smooth from years of use—damn good thing, too, because the way she was gripping
it, she would be lucky if she didn’t have a forest of splinters in her hands.

“Can’t be easy.”

The table groaned a little as Law settled down beside her. Shooting him a look from her eyes, she said, “What can’t?”

“Seeing her … ah, Lena. Ezra mentioned that, she … well, looked like your cousin. I’m sorry. I …”

She sighed and rested her elbows on her knees. “Stop, okay? I figured out why he didn’t want me going in that café.”

“So why did you do it?”

She shrugged. “Couldn’t stop myself.” Closing her eyes, she buried her face in her hands.

“What was she like … your cousin?”

Nia lowered her hands. “Joely?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Why are you asking?” She turned to look at him, trying to figure out where he was going with this, what he wanted.

Law shrugged. “Why not? You look pretty shaken. Just sitting here isn’t going to help. Talking might.”

“And why in the fuck should it matter to you if I’m shaken or not?”

He watched her, a look of compassion on his face, and Nia felt the knot in her throat swell until it threatened to choke her.

Shit.

“Ah, hell,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “You don’t need to be sorry. Not like you haven’t had a lousy deal lately.” With his weight braced on his hands, he leaned back. “So what was she like?”

Nia stared at him for a long moment and then abruptly, she sighed. “Joely … she … she was my opposite.
Everything I’m not. Cool and calm, where I’m hotheaded and always ready for a fight—I can be as logical as I want, but I’ll still be spoiling for a fight at the end of it all. I looked for the bad shit. She saw the good.”

“You were close.”

“Like sisters. She was all the family I had,” she whispered. Tears threatened, but she blinked them back. “Shit, I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

“I could tell you that it will get better eventually—the pain will start to fade. And it does fade, but not because it gets easier. You just learn to live with it,” he said gruffly. “I know that’s probably not what you want to hear.”

Nia sniffed. “Actually, that helps a hell of a lot more than somebody telling me that this will get
easier
. She was raped and murdered—
nothing
about this should be easy.”

With shaking hands, she dug into her pocket, desperate for a cigarette only to realize she’d smoked the last one.
Shit
. Feeling the weight of his gaze, she slid off the picnic table, desperate to put a few feet between them. She needed to say something, anything—needed to stop feeling so fragile, and she needed him to stop looking at her like … hell, what was the look on his face anyway? She couldn’t quite figure it out.

Scowling, she shoved her hands in her pockets and turned away, staring toward the sheriff’s department and her bike.

Anywhere but him.

“I need to apologize to you again for what I did last year,” she said, the words coming out of her so fast, they tumbled over each other. “I was wrong and I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

She turned and stared at him. “Okay? I pull a gun on you and your girlfriend and you say … 
okay
?”

Law cocked a brow. “Hope’s not my girlfriend. And what do you want me to say? Tell you to take your apology and shove it?” He shrugged. “I know where it came from—I know Deb Sparks. She had it in her head I was guilty and Deb … well …” He stopped, ran his tongue along his teeth and shook his head. “Well, once she gets an idea in her head, there’s nothing that can be done to get that idea out, not until she decides she wants it out. And it’s not like you were exactly in the best state of mind that day.”

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered.

Staring at her averted face, Law tried to figure out just what in the hell she wanted him to say—what she wanted him to do.
Would
she be happier if he just told her to shove her apology?

Hell. This wasn’t familiar territory.

Looking away, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I just …” Her gold eyes cut his way and he blew out a breath, struggling to find something,
anything
to say. “Would you feel better if I told you to just fuck off?”

To his surprise a faint smile appeared on her face, tugging up the corners of her mouth for the briefest of seconds before dying. “I don’t know if I’d feel better, but it seems a lot more plausible than you telling me ‘
okay
.’ I know
I
sure as hell wouldn’t be saying
okay
to somebody who pulled the crap I had.”

“Maybe you’d surprise yourself,” he said softly. If she’d seen the way she looked … And damn it, he needed to quit thinking about that. Like now. Although really, it wasn’t that much better to think about how she looked now, either. Even with that irritated look on her face, there was something so damn appealing about her.

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I rarely surprise
myself.” Then she sighed and flicked her fingers through her hair. “I have to go. I’d say it was a pleasure seeing you but … well.”

“You’d be lying,” he finished. “How about interesting? I can’t say it’s ever been
not
interesting.”

“Well, seeing as how you’ve met me all of twice.” The smile on her face now was a real one, at least.

He tucked the memory of it inside his mind as he watched her walk away. He also lingered long enough to enjoy the view … hell, he was a guy, and it was too nice of a view to
not
watch it.

Her name was Nia Hollister.

Nia Hollister—Jolene Hollister’s cousin. Jolene’s cousin—explained perfectly why she’d been in town
last
year, but didn’t explain why she was here
now
.

He might not have worried if all he’d heard about her was that she’d been seen in the Circle K picking up some cigarettes—Marlboros, not the cheap stuff for her. But no, she hadn’t gotten her cigarettes and headed out of town.