AFTER SCOURING EVERY inch of the internet for more on Jack, Dani finally admitted that she’d gone too far when she looked up his astrological sign.
Sheesh.
Time to clear her head.
She stood in the doorway of the barn and dragged in a long gulp of air, her nerves steadying at the familiar scents of manure and freshly tilled soil, the afternoon warmth hinting at summer.
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she headed to Tanya’s. A moment later she’d climbed the porch steps and knocked on the front door. Waited. Rapped again. Waited some more. Tanya’s cat, Mittens, leaped off the porch railing and wound like a ribbon in between her ankles.
Cupping a hand over her eyes, she peered into the dim interior. The TV blared. A can of something sat by itself on the kitchen table. Maybe Tanya couldn’t hear her.
She headed around back and ducked beneath laundry hanging from the clothesline. A sudden gust lifted the damp garments.
“Mittens, stop!” He threw his lithe gray body at her feet with every step. “Fine!” She squatted to scratch behind his ears and he rubbed his cheek hard against her palm, her leg, her foot before he slid onto the grass, tail lashing. His fierce purr practically vibrated the air around him.
Resistance is futile, she thought, chuckling. “Who’s a pretty baby?” She skimmed her fingers along his soft stomach. “Who?” she cooed, because obviously all animals spoke the universal language of baby talk. “You’re the pretty baby.”
Long, jeans-clad legs stepped into her line of vision and she pressed her lips together, feeling her cheeks heat. She wished she could suck those words in like a popped bubble, but they rose around her, pink and sticky sweet.
She nearly groaned when she recognized the distinctive tooled leather boots. Jack. Brown eyes, rich as spring soil, gleamed down at her.
“Howdy.”
An amused expression tugged up one corner of his handsome mouth and her heart jerked to a stop. She waited for her lungs to start breathing again. The shadow cast by a nearby aspen slanted across his slashed cheek.
“Hey.” Mittens’s tail lashed her feet when she straightened and tilted her face to stare at him.
“Did you talk to Tanya?”
“She didn’t answer her front door, so I thought I’d try the back.”
“And that’s what you’re doing right now?” His head swiveled from the house to the cat. An eyebrow rose and his mouth twitched as if he fought off a full-blown smile. “Nice detective work.”
Smart aleck.
“What’s this?” He swooped down and grabbed a cigarette butt from the ground.
“A car?” she ventured, unable to resist. Why did he bring out her sass? Darn those bad boys and her apparently undiminished need to flirt with them.
He didn’t answer. Just pulled another cigarette butt from his pocket and compared the two. “Does Tanya smoke?”
“No.” She averted her eyes, which had been lingering much too long on his profile, when he glanced up at her, quick.
“Smiley?”
“Just cigars. He says cigarettes are the wine coolers of smoking.”
“Huh.”
“Sooo…what’s the significance, partner?”
He shot her a considering look. “Spotted the same type of cigarette at the top of the ledge where the avalanche started.”
His words knocked the air out of her. Something about Camel filters nagged at the edge of her memory. Then it hit her. Her ex…but he was thousands of miles away…behind bars. She forced down her panicked thoughts. “But Smiley wouldn’t have intended me any harm…”
He shook his head. “This could be the other guy on the double homicide. Ever heard the name Everett Ridland?”
“No. And Smiley isn’t a murderer.”
“And he doesn’t appreciate Very Berry wine coolers. Got it. Let’s see if Tanya is in.”
He followed her to the screened-in porch’s door. “I can handle this on my own,” she said over her shoulder and lifted her hand, then stopped. “It’s open.”
“All the invitation we need.” He eased open the door into Tanya’s kitchen and gestured for her to precede him. “Go in and call for Tanya like you think she’s home.”
“What if she’s not?”
“Just got an email saying my search warrant’s been authorized.”
“You can’t just go through her things,” she hissed.
“This isn’t exactly a panty raid, darlin’. Not unless you’re into that, of course.”
At his sarcastic drawl, she rolled her eyes and elbowed past him. “Tanya! Hey, girl,” she hollered once she’d stepped inside the kitchen, feeling like a complete fraud and the worst friend possible. “You decent?”
She moved farther into the cluttered space, noting a newspaper open to the sports section beside a can of beer, an empty pizza box thrown on top of her trash can and the shade still down on the window above her sink.
The stale scent of strong cigarettes rose from a dirty ashtray beside the paper, cigarette butts crushed in the middle. Muddy tracks crossed the kitchen floor and she put her foot next to one, seeing how much bigger it was. Not Tanya’s for sure… Smiley’s? The smoker’s? She ignored the questions. These were her friends. She knew them.
But you thought you knew Kevin, too.
And Jack? She couldn’t trust her interest in him, either.
“Anything?” rumbled a voice beside her ear.
“Thought you were waiting for my signal,” she said, her voice breathy.
“If I waited any longer, I’d be drawing Social Security.”
“Ha-ha,” she enunciated slowly, so he understood exactly how unamusing she found him—so he wouldn’t suspect that she really did find him funny.
No more flirting.
He tipped his hat. “Never thought I’d hear you laugh.”
“You didn’t.”
His lightbulb grin had her turning away, fast. “Tanya!” she called again. “Stopped by for that visit!”
She waved Jack back, hoping he’d return to the porch, but he waltzed right by as if breaking and entering—though he had a warrant…
Then again, bad boys didn’t ask for permission. Or follow rules.
Shoot.
“She’s not home,” he announced, and his boots thunked on the wooden floor as he paced through the rooms, searching. When he headed to Tanya’s bedroom, she hustled after him.
Jokes aside, she needed to protect her friend’s privacy. He looked under the floral spread across the bed, and when he peered up at her, the lace hem fell across his hard-bitten face in a contrast so comical she almost did laugh.
“Would you know what size shoe Tanya wears?” He pulled out a large pair of boots with a distinctive star pattern on them. She knew those… Smiley’s. But they could have been left here last year. Or Tanya might have held on to them after the breakup and planned to give them back.
“Same as me. Seven.” She’d borrowed a pair of Tanya’s heels once for a local wedding in the mistaken belief she could actually walk on stilts. Her toes stretched inside her comfy boots and wiggled at the remembered torture. Nope. She was a tried and true, square heel kind of gal.
He peered inside the boots and she heard him mutter, “Twelve.”
A clatter at the back door made the air clog her lungs.
“Mittens,” called a lilting, sing-song voice. “Did you leave this door open?”
“Tanya!”
Jack’s large hand engulfed hers and he tugged. “Quick! Into the closet!”