Chapter TWENTY
AUSTIN’S LIPS ALMOST touched hers, when she shot him. Right in the face with the water gun. Then she laughed and bolted up.
“Real funny.” He wiped the water from his face.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said. “I’ll try your bacon grilled cheese sandwich, and I’ll have one”—she held up her index finger—“ one glass of wine. But no… no hanky-panky.”
“Hanky-panky?” He smiled. “Is that another of your aunt’s sayings?”
She nodded. “She was quite colorful with her language and had this witty sense of humor that could have sent the pope into a fit of giggles.”
“Then you take after her,” he said.
Leah smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one.” He wiped his face again of the remaining water droplets and stood up. “Okay, I’ll go to my place and start slaving over a hot stove to cook you dinner.”
“You do that. I’ve got to feed my pack, change the litter box, and freshen up. I’ll be over with the wine in about forty-five minutes.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He stared at her and the moment just felt so right. “I like you, Leah Reece.”
She bit down on her lip and aimed the water gun at him, looking playful, looking happy, and looking so damn adorable it almost hurt to watch her.
“Behave.” She tilted up the pistol and blew on the barrel.
“That’s not hanky-panky. It’s just the truth.” He walked to the door. She followed him. When he walked out, he turned around to look at her standing in the doorway.
“Oh, here. Your new key for the door.” He’d kept one for himself. He pulled it out of his pocket and dropped it in her hand, and as his fingers brushed her palm he was zapped by the sweetness of that brief touch.
“See you.” But he didn’t step back. He wanted to kiss her so badly his chest hurt.
She nodded. “Go.”
He turned, opened his apartment door, and had one foot inside when he felt the spray of water hit the back of his head.
Laughing, he turned to give her a little playful hell, but her door slammed shut. He heard her laughter from the other side. And damn if it wasn’t a beautiful sound.
He stood there a few seconds, his chest swelling with something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Happiness. Just plain ol’ happiness. As if things in life were better than they’d been in… in forever.
She—Leah Reece—made him happy.
But one question hit and hit hard. Why the hell did she have to be DeLuna’s sister?
Austin took a quick shower and was frying the bacon when his cell rang. He flipped the strip of meat and went to grab the phone. His gut feared it was Leah canceling. She’d let down her guard more than ever before, and he worried she’d realize it and try to rein herself back in.
He didn’t want the reined-in Leah, he wanted the real one.
He checked the number and smiled when he saw it was Tyler.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“I ran a search on anything and everything about Luis Reece. There’s nothing. The kid’s clean. Hell, I even had a professor friend who works at the college he attends look into him, and he’s a good student.”
“Okay. Did Nance deliver the package?”
“He dropped it straight off at Logan’s lab.”
“Good.” Austin moved back into the kitchen to watch the bacon. “Have you heard from Roberto?”
“No, and I left a message this afternoon. Dallas wants me to come out and ask him about the Austin and San Antonio deals getting busted. See if he’ll come clean.”
“Shit! That’s it.” Austin set his fork down.
“What’s it?”
“Luis Reece. He lives in Austin and he just took a trip to San Antonio. And I’m pretty damn sure he was there when the deal went down.”
Tyler paused. “You think the kid is involved with the drug deals?”
“Yeah.” And that’s what Leah thought. He knew it.
“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “The kid reads clean.”
“Or maybe he just hasn’t been caught yet.” The realization of how Leah would feel if her brother got caught up in something illegal had him hoping he was wrong. But wasn’t it too much of a coincidence?
“So you’re thinking that the break-in to her apartment and the bloody shoe box are also related to DeLuna?”
“It would seem that way.” He listened to bacon sizzle and pop. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. I’m just trying to put the pieces together.”
“Well, keep trying; generally they fall together sooner or later.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “See if you can find out if there’s anyone who has ever worked for DeLuna named Cruz. It could be a last name or a nickname. I don’t know.”
“And this is the guy you think tried to rape Leah Reece?”
“Yeah.” Austin frowned, realizing he liked it better when he felt Leah’s issues weren’t DeLuna related.
“What’s your gut say? Do you think she knows where DeLuna is?”
“I don’t think so. But… she’s secretive.” Austin recalled her confession about her father. He also recalled that he hadn’t pressed her to get more information. If he’d prodded her, she might have told him about DeLuna.
Why the hell hadn’t he tried? The answer rolled over him. Because he’d wanted to console her, not interrogate her. But now to get her back to talking about that could be difficult.
“Shit!” he muttered, realizing he’d screwed up.
“Shit what?” Tyler asked.
“Just shit,” Austin said.
“Well, if you’re in a bad mood now, I’m about to make it a lot worse.”
“What?” he snapped.
“Don’t be mad at Ellen. It wasn’t her fault.”
“What wasn’t her fault?” Austin couldn’t think of one thing Ellen could have done to make him mad. He liked their receptionist. And if he had a problem with her, he’d probably have to go through Rick, her new husband, who worshipped the floor the woman walked on.
“Your… Ms. Adams—”
“Candy Adams?” His stomach knotted. Damn. He wasn’t used to that name coming up in conversations. He worked too hard all his friggin’ life to forget it.
“Yeah, she’s been dropping by the office every day looking for you.”
“Call the friggin’ police. I told her to get lost.”
“Look, she hasn’t done anything wrong. Just asked for you. She’s been polite and seems harmless. But this afternoon, she dropped by again. Ellen came back to ask me what to do. When she went back out there to nicely ask her to leave, Ms. Adams was sitting at Ellen’s computer. Ellen had the address book open on her computer because she was going to call you and let you know that Logan at Lab, Inc. and… Look, there’s a good chance she got your phone number and address.”
“Oh, that’s just f*cking great!” Austin bellowed.
“Ellen feels terrible.”
“F*ck,” he gritted out again.
Leah grabbed the wine and stood at her unopened door with all the new, fancy clearance-priced locks that her sexy neighbor had put on. It was crazy. She must be losing it. Here she was going to his apartment for dinner, feeling plumb giddy about it, and yet, yet… she had so many problems that she had no right to be giddy about anything.
Something was going on with Rafael and Luis. Even if Luis was telling the truth and nothing had gone down, Rafael was up to no good. And his no good was bad.
She went back to the sofa, dropped the wine on the coffee table, and reached for the phone in her pocket to call Austin and beg off. She had her finger on the call button and… paused.
Was there anything she could do tonight besides worry? She could call Luis and beg him to come clean… again. But their last conversation convinced her he wasn’t lying. That made the situation feel even worse. How could she fix something that was nothing more than a fabrication in Rafael’s mind?
She sighed. Calling Luis wouldn’t do any good. He’d promised to stay with his girlfriend and not go home. Sunday when he came to visit, they’d have a long talk and maybe figure out what was really happening. But tonight…?
Staying home, fretting, wouldn’t solve anything. She might as well go eat a grilled sandwich, drink one glass of wine, and let herself forget she had so many problems. Not that she could forget to the point that she might… do something she would regret.
Okay, she was going to dinner, going to enjoy dinner, but she had rules. No kissing. No more spilling her guts to him. No more… She recalled the electrical feeling she’d gotten when he’d passed her the key. No more touching. And absolutely no sex.
She snagged the bottle of wine, started out, then swung back. Smiling, she grabbed the water gun. She might need it.
Austin paused before answering the knock. He pushed a palm over his face hoping to wipe the scowl from his expression.
He opened the door. “Come in. The sandwiches are almost done.”
She glanced at his face, and he worried he hadn’t chased away his scowl. She walked past him, and he got a sniff of waffle cones again.
“It smells good.”
“So do you,” he said, not thinking.
She quirked an eyebrow at him as if to remind him of the no hanky-panky rule. Little did she know, she didn’t have to remind him. He’d already given himself a good swift kick in the ass.
“I brought the wine.” She held up the bottle.
“Great.” He took the wine and saw the water gun in her other hand. And just like that, he remembered he hadn’t put away his Glock. Shit! That could cause questions.
As he walked past the dining room table, adjacent to the kitchen, he saw the gun on the table.
He looked back at her following him. “Can you turn the sandwiches? While I open this?”
“You bet.” The kitchen, nothing more than a nook, hardly held two people.
“Spatula’s there.” He pointed to the counter.
She grabbed the spatula and set her water gun down on the counter. “These look good.”
“They are.” He snagged the wine opener and then went to the table to open it, hoping to snag the gun and hide it.
With his back to her and praying she wasn’t looking, he reached for the gun.
“I hope you’re licensed to carry that.”
Busted.
“Of course I am. Sorry. I meant to put it away earlier.” He walked in the bedroom and put it in a drawer. He got a glimpse of himself in the dresser mirror, frowning. Inhaling, he went in to face the music.
He went straight to the wine and waited to see if this was going to cause a wrinkle. He didn’t need any more wrinkles tonight.
“Why do you have a gun?” she asked. “Do you consider your job dangerous?”
“No,” he lied. “But when traveling, I feel a little safer.” He removed the cork and stepped into the kitchen to grab the glasses.
“I guess I should be fortunate you didn’t have it on you when you found the guy robbing my place.”
He pulled the glasses down. “If I’d had it, I’d been able to detain him and he’d be in jail.” Moving to stand beside her, he said, “For a girl who doesn’t like guns, you sure do like to use one.” He tried to make his tone sound teasing, but he wasn’t sure he’d pulled it off.
She looked down at the sandwiches, still cooking. “I think these are done.”
“Perfect.” And she was. She’d changed clothes. She wore a pair of light-colored jeans and a gray long-sleeve T-shirt with hearts printed on it. Her hair was the only thing he would change. She wore it up in a ponytail. He liked it loose.
“Do you want some water?” he asked.
“Sounds good. Where are your glasses?”
He motioned to the top cabinet. While she filled the glasses with ice and water, he set the table.
They didn’t talk, and it felt awkward. Was she still thinking about the gun? He walked back into the kitchen, brought the skillet to the table, and put their sandwiches on the plates.
She set the glasses on the table and dropped into a chair. Then she met his eyes and neither of them said anything.
Finally, she spoke. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Why?”
She looked at him. “You’re frowning.”
“No, it’s…” He didn’t want to lie. “Sorry, I just got off the phone right before you came in.” He remembered the chips and guacamole. Popping up, he grabbed the chips from the pantry, then snagged the prebought guacamole from the fridge.
“Bad news?” She reached for her wine as he opened the chips and pulled the top off the dip.
There wasn’t a reason in the world for him to tell her the truth, but since he’d already told more than he normally told anyone, he decided what the hell. He dropped back in his chair.
“Yeah. The woman who… who dares to call herself my mom is trying to nettle her way into my life. She wants us to talk.”
“Wow. That would be… tough. I guess. But it could be good.”
“Not good.” He held out the bag of chips. She took three and put them on her plate. He dropped a handful on his.
She picked up one chip. “What does she want to talk about?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” he said.
He cut his sandwich in half, and even with his anger popping off like fireworks in his chest, he realized this might be the opening he needed to move the conversation back to her dad.
“If your dad hadn’t died, and he came to… talk, would you let him back into your life? Forgive him?” He handed her the knife to cut her own sandwich.
She cut her grilled cheese. What she didn’t do was answer. She picked up half the sandwich, and cheese oozed out of the two slices of grilled bread.
“Man, this looks good.” She took a bite and he watched her savor it. She closed her eyes and flicked her tongue out to catch a loose string of cheese.
“You like?” He smiled for real for the first time since she showed up.
She moaned. “Like? No. This is love. True love.” She talked around the melted cheddar, crisp bacon, and good sour dough bread lightly toasted and cooked in real butter. “I think I just died and went to heaven. Of course, I think I just gained an inch around my hips, too.”
He glanced under the table and then came back up. “Your hips look fine.”
She rolled her eyes. “How many pieces of cheese did you put in here?”
“Only three.” He reached over and caught a piece of cheese that hung on her chin.
“Sorry.” She grabbed a napkin. “You can’t take me anywhere.”
Yeah he could, he thought. And first place he’d like to take her was back to heaven, but in a completely different way. A completely sexual way. And he could think of a dozen different things he’d like to do to match the expression the sandwich had netted.
She looked at him, looking at her. And she pointed at his plate. “You’d better start eating. If I finish first, I can’t promise you I won’t steal yours.”
“And just when I put my gun away.” He ate a couple of bites and watched as she continued with her meal.
“Guacamole?” He nudged it to her after he’d used a chip and put two heaping scoops on his plate.
“No, thank you.” She picked up her other half a sandwich. “I think my fat intake has hit the ceiling already. For the next two weeks.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who worries about every bite you eat?”
She made a cute face. “I’m short and that means I have to eat like a short person, but I think I got a tall person’s appetite. Not that I don’t eat bad stuff all the time. I’ll just have to do my aerobics video twice tonight.”
“You’re not short.”
She cut him a get-real look.
“Well, I mean you are… short, but you’re proportionate.”
“Now there’s a compliment I won’t forget.” Smiling, she put her sandwich back on her plate.
He pointed a chip at her. “What I meant was… you look great.”
She grabbed a chip off her plate and dipped it in the guacamole. She bit the end of the chip and sighed. “Oh, my. I might have to do the video twice and get on my elliptical.”
He grinned. “If you want, I can take the rest of that sandwich off your hands.”
She frowned. “Over my dead body.”
“Fine, but save room for ice cream. Pecan cheesecake. And I picked up some of that Chocolate Shell.”
“Kill me now,” she said.
The conversation moved around for the next twenty minutes. He helped himself to ice cream and talked her into a very small bowl. Which she ate slowly. He hadn’t missed the fact that she never answered the question about her dad. But he knew better than to pry.
At the first break in the conversation, he leaned back, pushed his empty plate and ice cream bowl aside, and said, “Tell me about your brother.” He didn’t even feel like a lout asking, because he wasn’t just digging for information, he was genuinely concerned.
She smiled, and affection flashed in her eyes as she did a lap around her bowl with her spoon. “Well, he’s a royal pain in the butt sometimes, but… he’s a good kid.” She popped the spoon in her mouth and licked it clean.
“Do you want more?” he asked, watching her eat. Getting hot watching her work the spoon.
“No.” She dropped the utensil in her bowl.
He recalled her telling him that her aunt had died. “He’s a lot younger than you, right?”
“Six years.”
He picked up his wineglass, then stood up and snagged the bottle from the counter. “I’d offer you more, but I promised that—”
“No. This is all I need.” She put her hand over her glass, which still held some wine.
He settled back into his seat and topped off his glass. “What’s he taking in school?”
“It was a toss-up between law or hotel management. I wanted law, he wanted hotel management. But since I know how important it is to do something you love, I gave in.”
“So you really love taking care of cats?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound cynical.
“Yes.” She sighed, and he could tell she meant it. “Neutering is the most fun,” she teased.
“Ouch!” He grinned. “So, Luis… that’s your brother’s name, right?” And when she nodded, he continued, “So how old was Luis when your aunt died?”
“He was fifteen and I was twenty-one.”
“Did you take over custody?”
“Of course,” she said. Wasn’t that what family was supposed to do? Take care of each other?
He sipped his wine and studied her. She was easy to look at. “That must have been tough becoming a parent of a teen. And you were in school, too. Did he give you hell?”
“Depends on what you mean by hell. Did I find him drinking beer when he was underage a couple of times? Yeah. Did I find his stash of Playboy magazines? Yeah. Did I have to push him to do better in school? Yeah. But he’s smart, supersmart. And sometimes he’d make a B on a report card, not because he didn’t ace the test, but because he wouldn’t do his homework. But really, other than one time being led astray by some not-so-good people and almost following the wrong path—which, thank God, he didn’t do—he’s been good.”
Austin turned his wineglass in his hand. “Not to bring up a bad subject, but this afternoon when I overheard—”
“Eavesdropped,” she corrected, and shot him a look of discontent.
“Okay, when I eavesdropped. It sounded like you were worried he’d gotten himself into trouble again.”
She nodded. “Yeah, well, he assured me that wasn’t the case.”
He paused, unable to come up with a way to bring up the subject, so he just blurted it out. “Do you want to tell me more about this Cruz guy?”
She looked up at him disapprovingly beneath her long lashes. “No. Why end a perfectly good dinner with that?” She pulled out her phone. “Oh, my, it’s almost nine. I should help do these dishes and then head back.”
“You turn into a pumpkin at nine?”
“Yeah, and you don’t want to see it. I get the same look on my face as when I’m neutering.”
He grinned.
She started gathering dishes.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Please. It’s the least I can do.” She walked into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, and started loading them up. He enjoyed the view as she bent over, too.
He moved in beside her and started putting the chips and guacamole away. Stepping by the sink to stand beside her, he decided to give it one more try. “I know a few good detectives. I bet they could run some checks on this Cruz guy and—”
“No,” she said. “I’m handling it.”
“How?” he asked.
She glanced back at the table. “Are you done with your wineglass?”
Her ponytail shifted over her shoulders. This close he caught another whiff of waffle cones. He reached up and caught a strand between his fingers and brought it to his nose.
She cut her eyes up to him again. “Are you smelling my hair?”
He chuckled. “I’m trying to figure out if that’s what smells like… like waffle cones.”
“Waffle cones?” She pulled her hair from his hand.
“Yeah, like toasted cookie with extra vanilla.”
“That would be my shampoo.”
“I like it.” He leaned in closer.
She reached back and brought the water gun around. “Remember the rules.”
“I never was much of a rule follower.” He bumped his shoulder with hers.
“You’re going to be a wet non-rule-follower.”
“You wouldn’t do that again, would you?” He loved the humor dancing in her eyes.
She shot him, right in the chest. He grabbed the squirter attached to the back of the sink. She turned to run, but the spray got her between her shoulders. She squealed, turned, and shot him again. He gave her another squirt right in her face this time.
“Okay, I give up. You’ve got a bigger gun.” She held up her arms, emphasizing her breasts, and damn if he didn’t want to pull her into him. “Drop your nozzle,” she said.
“Drop your gun,” he countered.
She squirted him and turned to run. But the tile was wet and she lost her footing. He grabbed her, but she fell and he lost his balance. They went down together on the wet tile. Both of them laughing. She landed on top of him. And holy hell, she felt good there.