Careful What You Kiss For (27 page)

Tensley flinched at the sound of metal on metal and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. If Tawny thought she asked too many questions now, she hadn’t seen anything yet. Getting the answers to those questions was the only thing that was going to get her out of here.

• • •

“You went to see your mother,” Kate repeated. “Why?”

“Not only did I go see her, I spread a rumor around the company that she’s dying.”

Kate’s chin dropped. “You did not. Be serious.”

“Oh yes, I did.” Tensley ran a hand through her hair. “Probably not the smartest thing I ever did, but I had a reason.”

“What reason could you possibly have to — ?” Words seemed to fail her best friend. “That woman will take you apart.”

“Oh, don’t worry. She already did that. And she hadn’t even heard about the rumor yet.” Much as she tried to keep it away, hurt wobbled through her voice.

Kate curled a piece of paper between her fingers. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing I can do about it now.”

The paper crumpled into a ball in Kate’s fist. “The woman is evil.”

“So I hear.”

Her best friend looked at her long and hard. “You know, Max tried to see you after the whole thing with Rhonda. To explain.”

Max
. Tensley’s stomach did a somersault. She picked up her own piece of paper, folding it first one way and then the other. “What does that have to do with my mother?”

“She sent Leo after him.”

Tensley shuddered. Leo had been a sharp-toothed, muscular Rottweiler her mother insisted on getting when her daughter entered high school. Tensley had been scared to death of him. The dog had even slept in a military-ready position. “Leo would have made sure Max didn’t get anywhere near me.” Against her will, a spot in her heart warmed at the thought that he’d tried.

“Exactly. Max ended up in the emergency room.”

Tensley froze. “What?”

“That dog bit him in the face.”

The scar.
She’d seen it that first night, when he’d driven her home from the club. She
knew
it hadn’t been there before. She’d known and loved every inch of that man, and then some, in high school. “Along his jaw,” she said.

Kate nodded. “It healed, but still. She didn’t even call for help.”

“I can’t believe it.” The problem was that she could. “I worked with my mother. Things weren’t great, but we got along okay.”

Stinky padded into the kitchen, followed by Blinky.

“Are you sure about that?” Kate asked.

Better not to answer.
“At least I don’t have to feel bad about what I did today.”

“Just wait until she finds out how many people are already planning her funeral.”

Tensley shook her head. “That won’t be so bad. It’s what she’ll do when she finds out how many people are planning for
after
her funeral.” For the fifth or fiftieth time in her life, beginning when she was a kid glued to the TV, she wondered why Elyse Keaton couldn’t have been her mother instead. Strong, but compassionate. Driven, but still liked her kids.

And now that she thought about it, Tensley decided she would really like life to come with a pre-recorded laugh track.

For all those times when you just couldn’t make it happen on your own.

• • •

When Tensley arrived at the club, Sarah was sitting at a table in the dancers’ dressing room, a scowl on her face as she stared at a thick brochure.

“What’s wrong?”

Sarah didn’t answer. She pulled her red hair back with both hands, her eyes never leaving the piece in front of her.

Tensley leaned down and carefully picked up one end of the brochure. It was a catalog from the community college.

“Hey, leave it alone,” the other woman was quick to say, grabbing the catalog away and tossing it in the trash. “I was bored. Needed something to look at.”

“Are you thinking about going to school?”

“Nah, they asked me to teach a class,” Sarah replied, sarcasm coating her words. “How to take off your clothes like you mean it. One-oh-one.”

Tensley narrowed her eyes. “It’s not as though you
wouldn’t
have something to teach them. You’re a self-employed business person.”

Pink stained Sarah’s cheeks as she looked away. “Yeah, right.”

“This is like any other business. There’s profit and loss. How much is your time worth? What expenses do you have? How do you make sure there are more nights when tips are good than there are nights with cheap sons of bitches?”

The other woman turned back, slowly raising her eyes to meet Tensley’s. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. After a moment, she said, “I haven’t — you know. Thought of it like that.”

“Maybe you should.”

Silence. Then Sarah shook her head. “I’m a stripper. I don’t know shit about business or I wouldn’t be here. I’d be running a company or something.”

“You are running a company. Your own.”

Sarah pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. “If I knew how to figure that stuff out, I would have done it a long time ago. Besides, all I’d find out is that Gary’s the one making all the money. And I’m the one stuck here because I can’t do anything else.”

Tensley leaned forward in her chair. This could be it. The way she could help someone. Her ticket back home. Sarah had a problem that needed solving. Could there be a lesson in there somewhere for Tensley? God, she hoped so. She really, really hoped so.

“Listen to me,” she said to Sarah, trying hard to keep the excitement from exploding out of her. “I hated business classes when I first started taking them. There was no way I was going to stay with that major. Where’s the romance in a bunch of calculations? But it was the only way my mother was going to pay for college, so I stuck with it and it hasn’t been that bad. I’ve even used it sometimes. Like now. I can help you figure out how much you’re making. And how you can make more.”

“Right.” Sarah snorted and looked away, then back. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, you have no idea how serious I am.”
Get ready, Gary
. Tensley Tanner-Starbrook’s business degree was finally going to get put to good use.

True to his word, the next time Max arranged for the two of them to meet, it was at Sol’s diner. A public place. The front door squeaked when Tensley pushed it open and a rush of warm air followed her inside, ruffling her hair.

She wasn’t sure about this. Not at all sure about this. But at least she was moving on to Plan B.

Plan B did not include Max Hunter.

Her bravado lasted until she saw him sitting at a table facing the door, in a navy T-shirt that stretched across the broad muscles of his chest and upper arms, his black hair tousled carelessly across his forehead and curling at the nape of his neck, blue eyes framed by dark brows and a day’s growth of whiskers.

His gaze locked on hers. Hers wavered and then locked on his.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Sol set a plate down at the counter and stand silent. Watching.

Max slid from the booth and rose to his feet. “Ten.”

The single syllable said everything and nothing. She could have melted in his arms and strangled him, all at the same time. Instead, she said only, “Max.” And waited.

Her feet might as well have been dipped in glue, because they would not move from the diner’s linoleum floor.

Sol, in an apparent bid to make sure his diner wasn’t the scene of the world’s most awkward reunion moment, lumbered to her side. He took her arm, loosening whatever had her feet locked, and steering her to Max’s table. “Getcha some coffee?” he asked.

“Yes. Please.” Tensley let him guide her into the booth.

Max sat down again, opposite her. He already had coffee in front of him.

Sol set a cup down in front of Tensley and splashed coffee into it. “What the hell did you do this time, Ace?” he muttered in Max’s direction.

Max shot him a glare and then turned his attention back to Tensley. “I said I was sorry for leaving like that.” His low voice caressed her across their steaming cups.

She took a long, slow sip of coffee. The china cup shuddered when she set it back down on the table. “Don’t worry about it. I haven’t,” she lied.

“But if we want to get Gary — ”

“Let’s be clear.
You’re
the one who wants to get Gary.”

He leaned against the booth’s high back. “You don’t?”

“I’m not going to have to deal with him anymore. I’m getting out of there. I’m getting a different job.” Oh, no. Now she was going to have to. And who exactly would hire a stripper with a record?

Max nodded, evaluating her with the deep blue gaze that turned her insides into a frothing, heated pool of pure want. Why, why had he come back into her life? Whichever life she was in. “I’m glad,” he said. “You deserve better.”

“Thanks.” She looked away. “I’ll finish the informant work, though.”

He leaned forward, putting his hand on hers.

She wasn’t prepared for his touch. Sparks shot through her. Alarmed, she drew her hand away. She didn’t want to confuse his professional interest in her with his — fleeting personal interest.
Ow
. She clutched at her stomach, pushing her index finger in hard.

He didn’t react for a minute. Then he nodded, back to cop mode, and looked down at the table. He drummed his fingers on its surface. “Speaking of that, do you have anything for me?”

“There’s something about ‘extra time.’ One of the dancers asked Terrible Tawny if she’d be able to get it, so she would have enough money to pay her bills, and the answer was yes.”

“Overtime.”

“No.” She raised her gaze, steeling herself for the physical reaction she knew would follow. And there it was. The memory of her and Max, naked, coming together —
Bam. Throw it in the mental Tupperware.

“Then what is it?”

Burp the lid. Store it on a shelf. Where it can’t hurt anyone.
“I’m not sure yet. But when I asked if I could get extra time, Tawny said I ask too many questions.”

Max tilted his chin. “Keep going.”

“She also said I didn’t want to earn money that way.”

He leaned forward again, pressing his forearms into the table. She watched his face tighten as he processed this information. Then he said, “We have to get into Gary’s office.”

Her. Max. On a dangerous mission. Together. She heard the Tupperware lid pop open.
Damn it.
“What do you mean … we?”

He grabbed her hand and held on tight. “This might be bigger than I thought and I’m not going to let you get in over your head. I have to be there with you.”

Yes! No-o-o. So no.

“Don’t you have to get a search warrant and all that? I don’t.”

He looked away and she knew she was right. “You’ve been watching too many episodes of
Law and Order
.”

“Hey.” She curled one of her fingers around one of his. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle dangerous. I signed up for this thing, didn’t I?” Why was her heartbeat speeding up? Just because his hand on hers made her remember the unimaginably good things those fingers had done to her when —

“I may have gotten you into this, but I’m not about to let you get hurt,” he continued, his blue eyes locked on hers. Every virtual Tupperware container slid off the shelf in a tumble of plastic.

Seriously. Her heart, not to mention her imagination, might just explode if he didn’t either let go of her or throw her into his bed. Right. Now. She clutched at his hand, hoping he didn’t see. He should be the one to say why the hell didn’t they leave the diner, the whole cop and CI thing, and go back to his place where they could shut the door on the world and —

“So this is who you’ve been spending time with.”

It took a second, and Max’s sudden release of her hand, for Tensley to realize the sharp female voice had come from just inches away. She whipped her gaze upward to see the last person on earth she ever wanted to see, in this life or any other.

Rhonda the Skank.

Her hand coiled into a fist. Tensley pulled it into her lap, out of sight, but not before she caught the narrowing of Rhonda’s eyes.

“Rhonda,” Max said. “What the hell.”

The woman hadn’t changed since high school. Still dressed in jeans so tight it was debatable whether it was actually fabric or a denim-colored paint, and a T-shirt stretched across boobs so big it was a miracle of nature she didn’t fall over. And still with that all-knowing, I’m-so-a-bad-girl-by-birth-and-you’re-so-not smile.

Tensley felt herself begin to shrink, inch by inch, into the booth.

“I had a craving for Sol’s chili,” Rhonda purred. She reached out to loop her finger through a curl of hair at the back of Max’s neck. “So I had to get some.”

Fury began a slow, rolling boil in the pit of Tensley’s stomach.
Her
fingers had last been in Max’s hair, not Rhonda’s. That skanky woman had better remove her hand right now before Tensley did it for her.

Rhonda tipped her head and gave Tensley a cold smile.

Tensley’s nails dug into her palm.

Max stiffened and pushed Rhonda’s hand away.

Sol called from the counter, “Got your take-out chili right here.”

“What are you doing now, Tensley?” Rhonda asked. “Bet you’re a librarian somewhere, right?” Her eyes glittered.

Bitch
. Tensley’s mouth opened, but before she could say anything, not that it would have been the truth, Max jumped in with his cop voice. “Go get your food, Rhonda.”

She didn’t move. “So is this who you were with the other night, Max, when I needed you?”

What the — the other night?
Max was still talking to Rhonda? How could he?

“We’re having a private conversation,” he replied, his voice terse. “Get your food and go home.”

“A private conversation.” Rhonda’s laugh was harsh. “Nothing’s private from a wife. Can’t believe you haven’t figured that out by now.”

She’d just said —
no
. She couldn’t have. But she had. Said —
wife
. Tensley couldn’t breathe.

Steam was practically coming from Max’s ears as every muscle in his body appeared to tense. Of course. He’d been found out. How could she have been so stupid? The phone call. Him leaving so fast. Worried about her.
Right
.