Blame It on Texas (3 page)

“Pardoned?” Zoe asked.

“No, the other word. Exonerated. That’s it.”

“Dixie,” someone called from out front. “Getting busy.”

“Guess I’m on again.” Dixie stood up and pressed a hand on Zoe’s shoulder. “Don’t know why, kid, but only after a couple of weeks I decided I like you. I know you said you were only here for a month to say you’d done Texas, but I really wish you’d stick around and become a full-fledged Texan.”

Emotion filled Zoe’s chest. Reaching back, Zoe put her hand on top of Dixie’s. “I like you, too. But I’ve got a job and a life waiting for me in Alabama.”
A lonely life
. The thought whispered across her heart.

“Well, if you change your mind. You got friends here.” With a wink, Dixie walked out of the room.

Zoe sat there a few minutes, savoring that wonderful feeling of hearing Dixie’s words. Nothing like feeling someone cared about you.

Shifting her mental gears, she wondered if she should wait until Tuesday and hope the PI threesome showed up, or if she should take matters into her own hands. Impatience stirred inside her; she had less than a month before she was expected to be back at work. She hit the Google search engine. Typing in the agency name, she whispered, “Come to Mama.” Then she touched her neck again, hoping her impatience didn’t lead to her losing her head. Figuratively, of course.

Less than thirty minutes later, Zoe parked in front of the Only in Texas office. The sign in the window read
they were open. The fact that her Google search informed her that until recently their place of business had housed a funeral home almost seemed absurd. Convicted—albeit exonerated—murderers had bought an old funeral home to house their business. Was there not something slightly off about that? Maybe three angry ex-cops making a point to the townsfolk who’d judged them unfairly?

But angry men or not, she wanted answers. She grabbed her purse, climbed out of her silver Chevy Cobalt, and went to see if she could wrangle herself up some answers. Stopping at the large redbrick building door, she released her shoulder-length auburn hair from her ponytail and shook it out. Her hair, a tad too thick and too curly, usually caught a man’s eye. And if it took letting her hair down for a bit to encourage one of these men to talk with her, she wasn’t above doing it.

All she had to figure out was how much to tell the PIs. Sooner or later, she was going to have to trust someone. She just wasn’t sure who or when. Stepping inside the business, leaving the bright sunshine for a dark room, she allowed her eyes a second to adjust. And when they did, her gaze caught on the only piece of “furniture”—if you could call it that—in the room. She took a quick step back. A coffin, yup, an honest-to-goodness coffin with a raised lid, bracketed the back wall.

“Hello?” she muttered in the dead silence. And it did feel dead. Like a funeral home felt. She’d been in too many already in her life. First her dad when she was sixteen, her best friend who’d been killed in a car accident their senior year of high school, and then her mom. Personally, she preferred to never visit another one.

A noise, a slight moan, echoed from the room. No
wait… not from the room, from the casket.
Shit!
Her heart started racing. Her eyes shot back to the casket, and her hands jerked behind her, feeling for the doorknob. Then another snortlike noise came from the coffin. Suddenly, a big canine face popped up and rested its round head on the coffin’s wooden edge.

Zoe chuckled. “A vampire dog, huh?”

The dog stretched its neck—what little neck it had—and leaped out of the casket and came sniffing around her feet.

“So, you’re the official door greeter?” She knelt to pet the English bulldog as it started sniffing her up and down. “You smell Lucky on me? Or is it the Slam Dunk, Three-Egg Dollar Ninety-Nine special you smell?” It took two or three shampoos every night to get the smell of bacon from her hair. After a couple of seconds of giving the animal attention, she stood up.

“Hello?” she called again.

And again no one answered. She walked down the hall. The dog followed, his paws clicking on the wood floor, but the lack of noise filtering into the building seemed louder than the clickity-clack of his paws. The first door to the left was a large office. Three unmanned desks filled the room. She stepped inside.

A sign hanging from the front desk said, “If no one is here, press the button.”

Zoe looked for the button. Various files and papers covered the desk. Was the button under those? Moving in, she looked around the desk. She lifted a big pile of files when a name on one of the folders caught her eye. Bradford.

The same Bradford?

Zoe reached for the file, then pulled her hand back as if it might bite. Then she reached for it again and pulled back just as quickly. Yanking her purse higher on her shoulder, she stood there while her conscience played tug-of-war with her desire for answers. She gave the room a good look-see for anyone who might tattle if she… took a small peek.

Looking down at the dog, she asked, “You wouldn’t tell on me, would you?”

When he shook his head back and forth, she laughed.

Finally, her desire for answers won out. She flipped open the file. Less than a dozen sheets of paper resided there. The first one looked like a resume. She picked it up to read it, when the sound of a door opening filled the quiet office.

The dog barked and took off running.

She dropped the papers back on the desk and slapped the file closed. She stepped away from behind the desk, but in her haste, her purse knocked the folder off, and the file and all dozen or so papers scattered on the floor.

“Damn.” She dropped to the floor on her hands and knees to gather the evidence of her wrongdoing. She heard footsteps moving closer, and her heart pounded.

Snagging the folder and papers, she threw them on the desk and was about to stand up when she heard those footsteps enter the room, followed by the sounds of clicking paws.

Friggin’ great.

Now all she had to explain was why she was down on all fours behind someone’s desk. Her heart did another flip-flop when she remembered she was possibly dealing with angry ex-cops, now ex-cons, who’d been accused of murder.

The dog pranced around the desk and licked her right on the lips, then started sniffing her bacon-scented hair. Those footsteps moved closer still, and her mind raced right along with her heart.

The deep masculine sound of a man clearing his throat came from behind her. “Nice view.”

“Oh, I was just…” She looked back over her shoulder, praying she’d come up with a good excuse for being in this ridiculous position. But the moment her gaze landed on the clown, the only thing she came up with was a scream. A loud one.

CHAPTER THREE

D
IOS
. T
YLER WATCHED
the shapely jeans-covered butt disappear around the desk. He did a side step so as not to lose the view and watched her crawling at an amazing speed toward the door. It wasn’t every day he found a woman on her hands and knees behind his desk. So he jumped into action and planted his clown feet in front of the door.

The woman, long red hair hanging free and swishing around her arms, came to a dead stop about a foot from him. She raised her face. Her blue eyes, wide with what looked like panic, stared up at him. As soon as he got over the sheer terror he saw in her eyes, he realized the view from this side was just as nice as the one from her backside. Maybe even better. Her green scooped-neck T-shirt hung low, providing a nice view of her tan, lacy bra and ample breasts. Damn, she was hot.

“Hello,” he said. Then, somehow sensing the costume might have something to do with her fear, he yanked off the wig and without meaning to, his gaze shot back to her bra, or rather at the size Cs that were close to falling out of it.

Clearly seeing where his gaze had fallen, she slapped a hand to her chest. Balancing on one hand and two knees, she attempted to stand up. Apparently still shaken, she almost fell. He reached for her, but she lurched back. When she was finally on her feet, he summed up the package. Maybe five-four or-five in height, ample breasts, and a round ass.

“Nice,” he said without meaning to. “… to meet you.”

Alarm remained clear on her face—a face that would have been appealing if not for the fear. A face that stirred a slight flash of recognition, too.

“Do I know you?” He ran his hand over his swollen and bloody knuckles.

“I was…” She swallowed. “The… my purse hit it. I was…” She stopped jabbering and gazed at his injured hand.

He stopped trying to make sense of her mumbo-jumbo and shrugged. “Had to teach someone a lesson.”

She drew in a breath and stepped away from him as if thinking she might be next in line.

“He deserved it.” He studied her face again. “Who are you?” And just like that, he remembered Dallas saying he’d hired a receptionist. He looked back at the stack of files on his desk, then at her.

“My contact…” She slammed one eye closed. “My contact fell out.”

“You’re the new receptionist,” he said, and let himself give her another glance up and down. “Nice… to meet you,” he said again, but sexy, hot, and stacked were the words that came to mind.

Damn, he could kiss Dallas. She’d make a breathtaking addition to the office. Of course, it was going to
be hard to focus on anything but her.
Hard
being the key word. And a certain southern part of his anatomy had already twitched its approval. Which was a bit bothersome. He usually had better control. Thank goodness he had room in the costume.

“I’m Tyler.” She didn’t answer, just stared.

He frowned. “You don’t like clowns, do you?”

“No.” She gasped, trying to get oxygen down her lungs.

He hid his battered hand behind him. “Don’t worry, I’m a friendly clown. And I don’t run around in costumes all the time.” And he could get really friendly if she was so inclined. “My niece’s clown canceled and—”

“Contact.” She blurted out again, as if she hadn’t been listening. Then she slammed her left eye shut and opened again. “I lost it. Got some extras in my car.” She started forward, stopped, and backed up, as if scared to get close.

He stepped back, giving her room to pass. With only one eye open, she stared at the small space, then back at him. He took another step back and she scooted past—quickly, too. For a second, he could swear he got a whiff of bacon, but that couldn’t be right. Stepping through the doorway, he watched her hotfoot it down the hall.

“When you get back, let’s introduce ourselves,” he said. Her hips swayed back and forth with her quick steps. Things below the belt did another twitch and almost gave her a standing ovation as she passed through the front door.

Still smiling, opening and closing his swollen fist—and mentally preparing a list of questions about the new receptionist—he remembered he had a change of clothes in his car. Moving down the hall, he walked out the front door just in time to see a silver Cobalt with Alabama tags speeding out of the parking lot.

He stared after her. Hadn’t she said she had contacts in her car? So, why was she—?

“Hey,” Dallas O’Connor said from behind him. “I thought I heard someone come in. You’re back early. How did the party go?”

Tyler turned around and scratched his head. “She left.”

“Who left?”

“The new receptionist.” Tyler ran his left hand over his swollen knuckles again.

“Ellen was here?” Dallas asked. “She said it would be around three.”

“Is that her name?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, it’s Ellen Wise. You met her. Nikki’s friend. The one who was stabbed at the gallery.”

“Not the blonde?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah. She needed a job and we needed a receptionist. But I’m telling both you and Austin that she’s off limits. No screwing with—”

“That wasn’t Ellen,” Tyler interrupted.

“Who wasn’t Ellen?”

“The sexy redheaded chick I found on her hands and knees under my desk.”

Dallas laughed. “You must have been dreaming.”

“Seriously, she was…” Tyler walked back to the office with Dallas and his dog Bud following. Stopping at the office door, Tyler looked at his desk. “She was there.” He noticed a piece of paper on the floor and picked it up. It was one of the resumes they’d taken to fill the new position for the Bradford security job. He dropped it on the desk and continued to rub his fist.

“What happened to your knuckles?” Dallas asked from the doorway.

Tyler looked up. “My brother-in-law’s teeth got in the way when I broke his nose.”

“So the party went that well, did it?”

“Yeah.” Tyler glanced away, not wanting to think about Leo or how pissed his sister was at him. Or the fact that he might have ruined Anna’s party. So instead, he remembered the redhead’s face. Remembered how she’d looked familiar.

“How bad is your hand?” Dallas asked.

“Not as bad as his nose,” Tyler answered.

“Did you confront him about the glass with your prints that the cops found at the crime scene?”

Tyler tightened his sore fist. Funny how he’d forgotten all about his suspicions that Leo had been one of the people who had framed him and his partners until now. His suspicions hadn’t gone away—his sister was just more important. But now he knew how low Leo could go, and Tyler’s suspicions grew even stronger. His prints had gotten to the crime scene somehow. The fact that they had been found on a glass just like the one his sister owned made him wonder. No way in hell would Tyler ever suspect anyone in his family; but Leo? Oh, yeah.

“No, I confronted him about hitting my sister.”

Dallas frowned. “And you didn’t break his neck?”

“That’s next time,” Tyler said. “She was going through our files.”

“Your sister?”

“The redhead.”

“What files?” Dallas asked.

“The Bradford file, I think.”

“You’re serious? There really was someone here?”

He looked up at Dallas. “Yes, a redhead.”

“On her hands and knees behind your desk?” Dallas asked.

Tyler nodded.

Dallas picked up the file and thumbed through it. “She couldn’t have been here long. I was in the apartment less than five minutes.” He looked around. “Maybe she was just some mixed-up kid looking for change.”