Blame It on Texas (21 page)

She dropped the magazine into her lap and leaned against the sofa. Her chest ached with what felt like disappointment, but that would go away in time. Unlike with Chris, she didn’t love Tyler.

The attraction issue was going to be uncomfortable, but now that she knew how incompatible they really were, that should fade.

Incompatible?

The word got hung up in her mind. Oddly enough, she had felt an almost instant kinship that in some ways was directly tied to her compatibility with Tyler. Well, not instant, not when he’d been dressed as a clown, but at the diner. She’d been drawn to his intellect, his wit, and his body.

Lucky jumped up on the sofa and rubbed his face against her arm. “You even like him, don’t you?” For some reason, she’d been compelled to trust Tyler. But trusting someone to help her find answers wasn’t the same as trusting someone with her heart. It all went to the lesson she seemed to be learning over and over again. Decent people, people you thought you could trust, could still hurt you.

She heard his footsteps coming down the hall. He stopped in front of her. She was hit again with how awesome he looked without a shirt.

“Here.” He handed her his smartphone. “Order anything you want to read from Amazon.” Lucky jumped down and started doing his figure-eights’ dance around Tyler’s ankles.

Zoe handed him back the phone. “I don’t—”

“I saw the books by your bed at your apartment. I know you read when you can’t sleep.”

“But I imagine you do the same,” she said, realizing another thing they had in common.

“I have a book.” He took off.

Alone again her chest commenced aching. Lucky jumped up on her lap and meowed right in her face, as if defending Tyler.

“Sorry, buddy. I don’t care what you say, we can’t keep him.”

Tyler gave up trying to sleep around six. He dressed, brushed his teeth, and started out of the bedroom. He told himself not to look at her. Pretend she wasn’t there. He knew if he got one glance at her, he’d start coming up with even more questions. He’d already come up with about a
dozen, all logged in his mental notepad. Some of them were about the case. Some of them about her—things he was curious about.

Did she always wake up in the middle of the night and go for a snack?

Did she always fall asleep early while watching television?

Did her hair always look that wild after she slept?

Would it look even wilder after he made love to her?

Then there were the questions about last night:

How had things gone so bad?

Why had her putting the brakes on a potential romance hurt so damn much?

He’d been turned down dozens of times. Well, not dozens, but enough that it shouldn’t bother him.

It did.

He got halfway across the living room, a foot from the door, when he lost control. He looked over his shoulder.

And stopped dead in his tracks.

He’d been right. Looking at her was a catastrophic mistake. Her hair, locks of curly red strands, scattered all over the pillowcase. Resting on her side, her knees bent, she made the sofa look big. She had her hands tucked under one side of her cheek, looking… vulnerable. Asleep, she looked… younger. His mind brought up the image of her when she was four, the picture she’d shown him. She hadn’t lost that innocent, precious look.

Oh, so you just want to use me for a slip-and-slide bang toy while I’m here, huh?

Her words rang in his head and felt like thorns raking over his conscience. They made him feel like some lowlife, womanizing bastard who only wanted to use women.
In fact, the reason he didn’t want a committed relationship was because, statistically, the odds were he might end up being just like his old man, who was a bastard. Then there was the time he’d attempted the whole hearth and home thing, and he’d been the one who ended up heartbroken.

All Tyler wanted was to share a pleasant couple of weeks with Zoe.

Yet, while tossing and turning in bed last night, he’d tried to see this whole argument from her point of view. Not because he thought she was right, but because the best defense was insight into your opponent. That way, he’d know how to explain to her how wrong she was when they talked about it. Consequently, after looking at this from her perspective, he realized it was true. He looked like a womanizing bastard. Did seeing a woman for mostly sexual reasons, when the woman was okay with the arrangement, make him a bastard? So maybe she wasn’t okay with it, but how would he know if he didn’t ask? Perhaps just asking a woman automatically made him a louse?

Damn it, he was overthinking things again. He swung around and left the apartment. He needed to spin his mental wheels coming up with questions that would help solve this case, not on questions about the ethics of sexual promiscuousness.

Once in the office, he made a pot of coffee. Considering how little sleep he’d gotten, he made it strong. Twenty minutes later, he was still mulling over their argument, unable to think about anything but Zoe. And not even thinking about things relating to the case, but personal stuff that he wanted to know about her. Finally, giving in, he pulled out a pen and paper and started writing down his questions.

Was she always so damn beautiful when she slept?

Did she always sleep on her side?

Was she grumpy when she first woke up in the morning?

Did she need coffee before she was sociable?

Shit. There wasn’t any coffee in the apartment. He poured her a cup and gathered up some cream and sugar and a plastic spoon. He’d leave it on the coffee table. She could always heat it up when she woke up.

He eased open the apartment door. It didn’t appear as if she’d even moved a muscle. He stood there, coffee in his hand, and watched her sleep. He remembered how he’d felt when she’d defended him to the asshole Thompson. The way she’d looked up at him with belief in him. Then he remembered how she looked when she’d been angry last night. His chest grew tight again.

But why was he letting this get to him? Hadn’t life taught him to keep his emotional distance? Things never hurt as much if you didn’t care.

He felt something at his feet. Lucky brushed up against his ankles. He set the coffee down on the coffee table. Steam rose from the cup. Kneeling, he gave the cat a rub behind his good ear. Damn, the thing was ugly. And yet, Zoe loved him. What kind of woman took in a mutilated cat? He mentally tagged that question to add to his written list.

But then an answer shot back at him.
The same kind of person who didn’t go for short-time sexual flings with a possible womanizer.

Frowning, he rose and started to walk out, but instead went to the kitchen where he’d seen a pad and pen. He scribbled a note.

Warm it in the microwave or there’s more in the office. Come see me when you wake up.
He tore off the sheet and set it down beside the coffee. He started to leave and
stopped, knelt down, and reached for the note. He put the pen to the paper.

Sorry for…

What was he sorry for? He hesitated, the pen’s tip still against the paper. Then, feeling a grimace all the way to his lower intestines, he finished the sentence….
upsetting you
. He signed it with the letter
T
and stopped himself just before he added some Xs and Os.

He’d always added Xs and Os to the notes he’d written Lisa. When he’d first started dating her, he’d been working nights and he’d always leave a note on the bedside table. If something happened on the job, she’d always have his last note, letting her know he’d cared.

There it was again. The word
care
.

He stood and looked again at Zoe. Why was it that these last few days he thought more about Lisa than he had in the last year? Mentally, he tagged that one on to his personal list of questions, and then he left the room.

“Get that thing out of here!”

Tyler looked up from Lucky stretched out on his desk, his orange tail sweeping back and forth across his desk, to Austin standing in the doorway. Zoe was still sleeping when he went in to check on her for about the tenth time. This last time she had shifted slightly, and he spotted his phone tucked under the pillow. He’d almost tried to retrieve it, afraid someone might call, but at the last minute, he decided not to chance waking her up.

“He’s just sitting here.” Tyler looked to see the time: seven fifty-five. At eight on the dot, he was calling the Texas Department of State Health Services to see if Zoe’s birth certificate was legit. His gut told him it wasn’t, that
the Adamses had someone make them up a fake certificate. Though he hadn’t figured out why they would have done any of this. Did good people kidnap kids and then love them?

The whole thing was a puzzle, and he was itching to solve it—mostly for Zoe’s peace of mind. And as soon as he proved the certificate was a forgery, he planned on giving Rick Clark a call and see about him getting him a little DNA from the old man.

Austin cleared his throat and motioned to the cat.

“He’s not hurting anyone,” Tyler said.

“It hurts me to look at him. She should at least buy him an eye patch.”

Tyler frowned and eyed the time again. He’d already called Mr. Logan at Lab Inc. for some info. Unless Rick could actually get old man Bradford to open his lips and let him stick a swab in his mouth, any other retrieved item like a toothbrush was going to take a week.

“You’re seriously not going to get rid of him?” Austin asked.

Tyler looked up. “You’re seriously that afraid of a little cat?”

Austin laughed. “You’re in a bad mood, which means you didn’t get lucky.”

Tyler reached for the phone. “Kicking someone’s ass almost always helps my mood. Would you like to volunteer?”

“Where is she?” Austin looked down the hall as if he was half considering going to see her.

Tyler set the phone down. “She’s still sleeping.” He eyed Austin with a warning. It didn’t matter that she’d shot Tyler’s romantic attempt down. He wouldn’t stand by
and watch Austin try to make Zoe another notch on his bedpost. And the fact that Tyler saw that as so immoral, when it had been the same thing he’d wanted to do last night, sat on his conscience like a two-ton gorilla. Maybe he was a womanizer.

“You really are in a bad mood,” Austin said.

“I need to make a call, so sit down and shut up.”

Austin moved into the room… cautiously. “Fine, but I swear if that cats attacks me, I’ll take off the tip of his other ear.” He patted his gun under his shirt.

Tyler picked up the phone and dialed. Thanks to Pablo, his cousin with the Highway Patrol, he had the name and direct number. One of the investigative clerks had done some checking for him on a case a couple of months ago.

“Hi, Bee. It’s Tyler Lopez, Pablo’s cousin.”

“You know, I could get in trouble doing this, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, but it’s an easy one. Just need to verify a birth certificate.”

“Give me just a minute,” she said. “I just walked in. Let me pull up my T.E.R. program.” Clicking of the keyboard filled the line. “Name and a date?”

“Zoe Adams. February twenty-sixth, eighty-four.”

“Good year,” she said. “My daughter was born then. What you got going, a fraud case?”

“Something like that.” He held his breath and waited for her to say the record wasn’t there. That there wasn’t a Zoe Adams. Because why else would someone be taking potshots at her? What were the odds of her really looking that much like Nancy Bradford…

“Okay,” she said. “Just one more button and we’ll know if Zoe Adams even exists.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“B
ORN AT SIX TEN A.M.
in Shadows County at Main Street Hospital,” Bee said.

“Are you sure?” Tyler asked.

“I’m reading it to you, aren’t I?”

“And it’s not tagged with a deceased flag?”

“Nope. But I’ll cross-match it with my expired list.”

“Thanks.” Tyler picked up the pencil.

“What’s wrong?” Austin asked.

Tyler held up one finger.

“Okay…” Bee said a second later. “There’s no deceased record on a Zoe Adams. Miss Adams is still alive and kicking. Not that it means whoever you got claiming to be Zoe Adams is telling the truth. People will use anyone’s name and Social Security.”

Yeah, but it told him the most important thing. Namely, that a Zoe Adams had been born. Tyler said his thanks and hung up, feeling more confused than ever.

“Now are you going to tell me?” Austin asked.

He filled Austin in.

“So you think she’s lying to you?”

“No,” he said. “She’s telling the truth. She was raised as Zoe Adams.”

“Then maybe she
is
Zoe Adams,” Austin said.

“No. She looks just like Nancy Bradford. And someone has attempted to kill her or at least try to run her off. There’s a story here; I’m just not sure what it is.”

His thoughts ran around in his head. To focus, he picked up his pad and flipped back a few pages to the questions he’d written about the case. One question stood out: “If Caroline Bradford was still alive, whose body was it that they found?”

“Shit. Maybe it was Zoe Adams’s body that was found and mistaken for Caroline Bradford. Maybe something happened to her and the Adamses were either trying to cover up a murder or just wanted to replace her.”

“Are they about the same age?” Austin asked.

Tyler pushed his papers back and went onto the computer to find the article on Caroline Bradford. “Caroline was nine months younger than Zoe. But they might have been the same size.”

“Hey…” A female voice called from the doorway.

Tyler looked up, thinking it was Zoe, his gut tightened. He didn’t know how to tell her about his discovery, but it wasn’t her.

Ellen, the new receptionist, walked in looking a bit out of place. “I’m here and ready to work.” Her gaze went to Lucky. The cat was still stretched out on Tyler’s desk, appearing a little cautious of the new person in the room. Ellen’s eyes widened.

“Oh, my,” she said.

“See,” Austin said. “I told you that thing was ugly.”

The buzzing noise startled Zoe from a deep sleep. She shot up on the sofa, heart racing. The phone, Tyler’s phone, went sailing to the floor.