“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said, jingling the change in his pocket. “Now, spill it. What pretty little treasure are you after?”
My smile was feline. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Nolan put his hand on the wall behind me and leaned in like a high school quarterback with the perky head cheerleader. “Come on, Lina. Maybe we could work together?”
But I was no perky cheerleader. I also wasn’t a team player. “Sorry, Marshal. I’m on vacation. And just like work, I do that alone too.” It was safer that way.
He shook his head. “The good ones are always stubbornly single.”
I cocked my head to study him. In his government-issue black suit and tie, he looked like the top Bible salesperson in the district. “Didn’t you get married?” I asked.
He held up his bare left hand. “Didn’t take.”
Beneath the bravado, I caught a whiff of sad.
“The job?” I guessed.
He shrugged. “What can I say? Not everyone can deal.”
I got it. The travel. The long weeks of obsession. The rush of victory when a case came together. Not everyone on the outside could handle it.
I wrinkled my nose in sympathy. “Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Yeah. Me too. You could make me feel better. Dinner? Drinks? Heard this place called Honky Tonk a few blocks over has decent scotch. We could go have a few for old time’s sake.”
I could only imagine Knox’s reaction if I wandered into his bar with a U.S. marshal in tow. While his brother was a fan of law and order, Knox had a rebellious streak when it came to rule books.
“Hmm.” I needed to take a beat. I needed a plan, a strategy.
The opening of the station door saved me from having to formulate an answer. Then it was the scowl on Nash’s face that left me too tongue-tied to spit one out.
“You lost, Marshal?” Nash asked. His voice was deceptively mild with a bit more southern honey layered on top than usual. He was dressed in his uniform of dark-gray Knockemout PD button-down and tactical pants, both of which looked like they’d been washed and ironed. Both of which also looked fifty million times hotter than Nolan’s suit.
Damn you, thin shower walls. Damn you to hell.
My throat was dry and my brain went stupid, putting Nash’s low groan from the night before on repeat in my head.
If broody, wounded Nash was sexy, bossy-pants Chief Morgan was a panty melter.
His gaze flicked to me, then ran from head to toe.
Nolan kept his hand where it was above my head, but he shifted so he could look at Nash. “Just catching up with an old friend, Chief. Have you had the pleasure of meeting Investigator Solavita?”
I now owed Nolan a knee to the balls.
“Investigator?” Nash repeated.
“Insurance investigator,” I said quickly before shooting a glare at Nolan. “Chief Morgan and I know each other.”
Usually I was good under pressure. No. Not just good. I was great under pressure. I was patient and smart and cunning when necessary. But Nash giving me that hard, authoritarian look like he wanted to drag me into an interview room and yell at me for an hour was definitely screwing with my balance.
“I’m guessing not as well as you and I know each other,” Nolan said to me with a wink.
“Seriously?” I demanded. “Get over it.”
“Angel and I are close,” Nash drawled without looking away from me.
Angel? I was the Angel from Nash’s shower fantasy? My brain launched into a graphic replay of my nocturnal eavesdropping. I shook myself mentally and decided to deal with that information later.
“We share a wall,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to explain. My past with Nolan was none of Nash’s business. My present with Nash was none of Nolan’s.
“Shared a bath too yesterday,” Nash said.
My jaw dropped, and a sound like an accordion getting crushed wheezed out of me.
Both men looked at me. I shut my mouth with a hard snap.
I was going to knee Nolan in the balls and push Nash down the stairs, I decided.
“She always was a sucker for law enforcement,” Nolan said, rocking back on his heels and looking like he was enjoying this.
I was fuming, but before I could let the two testosterone-addled idiots have it, the library door opened. Nash moved to hold it.
“Ma’am,” he said to Cherry Poppa as she exited.
“Charmer,” she cooed.
Nolan bowed.
“It’s certainly yummy out here,” the drag queen observed as she headed for the door.
“Well, this has been fun,” I snarled at the idiots clogging the hallway before following the beautiful drag queen outside.
“You know what no one tells you about standing in the middle of a pissing contest?” Cherry said to me with a toss of her blond curls.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You’re the one who ends up smelling like pee.”
SEVEN
WE WEREN’T DRY HUMPING
Lina
Iwas still reasonably ragey by the time I got in my car and headed to Knox and Naomi’s house for dinner. Sure. What woman hadn’t had the stray fantasy about two men fighting over her? But it wasn’t nearly as sexy when the fight was actually a jurisdictional pissing match and I was just a pawn.
A little action on the gas pedal had my beefy Charger roaring to life on the open stretch of road. I loved big engines and fast cars. There was something about the open road and the rumble of a V8 that made me feel free.
I eased back to my customary nine miles over the speed limit. Just enough for a little fun but too much hassle for a cop to pull me over.
Angry, kick-ass lady music blasted from the sound system, and wind whipped through my hair.
All too soon, I slowed to make the turn onto the gravel lane that wound through the woods. Part of me was tempted to just keep going. To drive fast and sing loud until all the frustrations that had been building flew right out the window.
But as mad as I was, a cross-country road trip probably wouldn’t be enough to clear my head.
So I did the annoying, responsible thing and made the turn.
Even through my pissed-off-ness, I could still appreciate the show autumn was putting on. The woods were alive with color. Leaves of red, gold, and orange clung to branches and rained down to cover the driveway. I had complicated feelings about fall. What had once represented reuniting with friends and starting new adventures had only come to mean missing out on both.
“Man, I am bitchy tonight,” I grumbled to Carrie Underwood as she dug her keys into the side of her ex’s truck.
I dialed down the volume on the stereo and let the whisper of the creek through the trees fill the car.
Knox and Naomi’s house came into view around the next bend. It sprawled out in timber and glass tucked into the trees like it was part of the forest. I pulled in behind Naomi’s SUV and got out before I could talk myself into sitting and stewing. The sooner I got in, the sooner I could get out and go home and be bitchy alone.
I headed for the stone walkway that meandered its way through low-growing shrubs and late-season flowers to the wide steps of the front porch.
There was a kid’s bike on a patch of lawn and striped cushions on the rocking chairs. Potted ferns hung from the porch rafters. A trio of hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns were clustered just outside the front door.