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  “What can I do for you?” he asked Carson.

  Carson shrugged. “I was at a loose end. I wondered if you’d heard anything more from your contact?”

  Cash shook his head. Just that. He didn’t say a thing.

  Carson actually looked uncomfortable. “Well, I guess we’ll get going. We’re having supper in San Antonio.”

  He was wearing a dark suit with a spotless white shirt and a blue pinstriped tie. His long hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. He was immaculate. Carlie had to force herself not to look at him too closely.

  “That desk is a mess! Don’t you know how to file things away?” Lanette asked Carlie with studied humor, moving closer. Her perfume was cloying. “However do you find anything?”

  “I know where everything is,” Carlie replied pleasantly.

  “Sorry,” Lanette said when she saw Cash Grier’s narrow look. “I can’t abide clutter.” She smiled flirtatiously.

  “Don’t let us keep you,” Cash replied in a tone that sounded as icy as his expression looked.

  “Yes. We’d better go.” Carson moved to the door and opened it.

  “Nice to have met you, Chief Grier,” Lanette purred. “If you ever want a competent secretary, I might be persuaded to come out of retirement. I used to work for a law firm. And I know how to file.”

  Cash didn’t reply.

  “Lanette,” Carson said shortly.

  “I’m coming.” She smiled again at Cash. “Bye now.” She didn’t even look at Carlie.

  She went to the door and through it. Carlie didn’t look up from her computer screen. She hoped she wasn’t going to bite through her tongue. Only when she heard the door close did she lift her eyes again and looked through the window.

  Carson was striding along beside the blonde and not with his usual smooth gait. He was almost stomping toward his black sedan.

  Carlie started coughing and almost couldn’t stop.

  “You okay?” Cash asked with concern.

  “Got...choked on the air, I guess,” she laughed. She could barely stop. “Gosh, do you think she bathes in that perfume?”

  “Go outside and take a break. I’ll turn the AC on for a few minutes to clear the room,” Cash said abruptly. “Go on.”

  She wasn’t about to go out front and risk running into Carson and his beautiful companion. “I’ll just step out back,” she managed, still coughing.

  She got outside and leaned against the door, dragging in deep breaths until she was able to get her breath again. There must be something in that perfume that she was allergic to. Although, come to think of it, she’d almost choked sitting next to a woman in church the week before who’d been wearing a musky sort of perfume. She’d learned long ago that she could only manage the lightest of floral colognes, and not very often. Funny, her lungs giving her so much trouble over scent, and she didn’t even smoke.

  She went back inside after a couple of minutes. Cash was talking to two patrolmen who’d stopped by with a legal question about a traffic stop.

  She went back to her desk and sat down.

  “You should see your doctor,” Cash said when the patrolmen went out.

  She raised both eyebrows. “He’s married.”

  He burst out laughing. “That’s not what I meant, Carlie. I think you had a reaction to Ms. Harris’s perfume.”

  “Too much perfume bothers me sometimes, it’s just allergies.” She shrugged. “I have a problem with pollen, too.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  “I’ll get the files in better order,” she offered.

  “Don’t let some outsider’s comment worry you,” he said curtly. “Women like that one tear holes in everything they touch.”

  “She was very beautiful.”

  “So are some snakes.”

  He turned and went back into his office. Carlie tried not to mind that Carson’s elegant girlfriend had treated her like dirt. She tried to pretend that it didn’t bother her, that Carson hadn’t brought her into the office deliberately to flaunt her.

  If only I was beautiful, she thought to herself. I’d be twice as pretty as his friend there, and I’d have oodles of money and the best clothes and drive an expensive car. And I’d stick my nose up at him!

  Fine words. Now, if she could only manage to forget the miserable afternoon. She was going to a dance, with a nice man. There might be an eligible man there who’d want to dance with her when he saw her pretty dress.

  She smiled. It was a gorgeous dress, and she was going to look very nice. Even if she wasn’t blonde.

  * * *

  THE LIMOUSINE WASN’T what she expected. It wasn’t one of the long, elegant ones she’d seen in movies. It was just a sedan.

  “Sorry,” Robin said when they were underway, the glass partition raised between them and the driver. “I did order the stretch, but they only had one and somebody got there before I did. Some local guy, too, darn the luck.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, smiling. “I’m just happy I didn’t have to bring my truck!”

  He laughed. Then he frowned. “Carlie, why aren’t you wearing a coat?” he asked. He moved quickly to turn up the heat. “It’s freezing out!”

  “I don’t have a nice coat, Robin,” she said, apologizing. “I didn’t want to embarrass you by wearing something ratty...”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Carlie,” he muttered. “We’ve known each other since first grade. I don’t care what the coat looks like, I just don’t want you to get sick.”

  She smiled. “You really are the nicest man I know. Lucky Lucy!”

  He laughed. “Well, at least she and I will get to dance together,” he said, sighing. “You’re so kind to do this for us.” He shook his head. “I’ve tried everything I know to make her folks like me. They just can’t get past who my grandfather was. Some grudge, huh?”

  “I know.” She searched his dark eyes. “You and Lucy should elope.”

  “Don’t I wish.” He grimaced. “When I get established in my own business, that’s exactly what I have in mind. They’re pushing Lucy at the guy who’s bringing her tonight. He’s old money from up around Fort Worth. She likes him but she doesn’t want to marry him.”

  “They can’t make her,” she pointed out.

  “No, they can’t. She’s as stubborn as I am.”

  * * *

  THEY PULLED UP at the door to the civic center, just behind the stretch limousine that belonged to the same car service Robin had used.

  “There’s our car. At least, the car I wanted to order for us.” He frowned. “Who is that?” he added.

  Carlie didn’t say, but she knew. It was Carson, resplendent in an immaculate dinner jacket. Getting out of the vehicle beside him was the blonde woman, in a saucy black gown that hugged every curve from shoulder to ankle, and left a lot of bare skin in between. Her breasts were almost completely uncovered except for a bit of fabric in strategic places, and her long skirt had a split so far up the thigh that you could almost see her panty line.

  “Well, that’s going to go over big in conservative Jacobsville,” Robin muttered as the driver opened the backseat door for them. “A half-naked woman at a dance benefiting the local church orphanage.”

  “Maybe she’ll get cold and put more clothes on,” Carlie mused, only half-jokingly.

  “Let’s get you inside before you freeze,” he added, taking her hand to pull her toward the building.

  There was a crowd. Carlie spotted the chief and his beautiful wife, Tippy, over in a corner talking over glasses of punch. Rourke was standing with them. He looked oddly handsome in his formal attire. Tippy was exquisite in a pale green silk gown, decked out in emeralds and diamonds. Her long, red-gold hair was up in a French twist, secured with an emerald and diamond clasp. She looked like the
world-class model she’d once been.

  Close at hand was Lucy Tims, wearing a long blue gown with a rounded neckline, her black hair hanging down her back like a curtain. She was standing with a tall, lean man who seemed far more interested in talking to two of the local cattlemen than with his date.

  She waved to Robin, said something to the tall man, who nodded, and made a beeline for Carlie and Robin.

  “You made it!” Lucy enthused. “Oh, Carlie, bless you!” she added, hugging the other woman.

  “You may call me Cupid,” Carlie whispered into her ear, laughing.

  “I certainly will. You don’t know how grateful we are.”

  “Yes, she does because I told her all the way over here,” Robin chuckled. “Shall we get some punch?”

  “Great idea.” Carlie looked down at the spotless green velvet dress. “On second thought, the punch is purple and I’m clumsy. I think I’ll just look for a bottle of water!”

  They both laughed as she left them.

  Well, at least she didn’t see Carson and his new appendage, she thought, grateful for small blessings. She walked down the table with a small plate, studying the various delicacies and grateful that food was provided. She’d been too nervous to eat anything.

  She was trying to decide between cheese straws and bacon-wrapped sausages when she felt the plate taken from her hand.

  She started to protest, but Carson had her by the hand and he was leading her out toward the dance floor.

  “You...didn’t ask,” she blurted out.

  He turned her into his arms and slid his fingers into hers. “I didn’t have to,” he said at her forehead.

  Her heart was beating so hard that she knew he had to feel it. He had her wrapped up against him, so close that she could almost taste his skin. He was wearing just a hint of a very masculine cologne. His shirtfront was spotless. His black tie was ruffled. Just above her eyes she could see the smooth tan of his jaw.

  He moved with such grace that she felt as if she had two left feet. She was stiff because it disturbed her to be so close to him. Her hand, entwined with his, was cold as ice. She could just barely get enough air to breathe.

  “Your boyfriend’s dancing with someone else,” he observed.

  She could have told him that she didn’t have a boyfriend, that she was only helping play Cupid, but it wasn’t her secret to tell.

  “Will you relax?” he said at her ear, shaking her gently. “It’s like dancing with a board.”

  She swallowed. “I was getting something to eat.”

  “The food will still be there when you go back.”

  She stopped protesting. But it was impossible to relax. She followed him mechanically, vaguely aware that the song they were playing was from the musical South Pacific and that the evening actually did seem enchanted. Now.

  “Whose tombstone were you talking to?” he asked after a minute.

  She cleared her throat. “Nobody was around.”

  “I was.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be there.”

  He shrugged.

  She drew in a steadying breath and stared at his shirt. “I took my mother a bouquet,” she said after a minute. “I go by the cemetery and talk to her sometimes.” She looked up belligerently. “I know it’s not normal.”

  He searched her soft green eyes. “Normal is subjective. I used to talk to my mother, too, after she was gone.”

  “Oh.” She glanced down again because it was like a jolt of lightning to look into those black eyes.

  His fingers became caressing in between her own where they rested on top of his dinner jacket. “I was six when she died,” he said.

  “I was fourteen.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Of cancer,” she said on a long breath. “It took months. At least, until she went into hospital. Then it was so fast...” She hesitated. “How did your mother die?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She groaned inside. She’d done it again. She couldn’t seem to stop asking stupid questions...!

  His hand contracted. “My father was drunk. She’d burned the bread. She tried to get away. I got in front of him with a chair. He took it away and laid it across my head. When I came to, it was all over.”

  She stopped dancing and looked up at him, her eyes wide and soft.

  “She was very beautiful,” he said quietly. “She sang to me when I was little.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and meant every word.

  He smoothed his fingers over hers. “They took him away. There was a trial. One of her brothers was in prison, serving a life sentence for murder. He had the bad luck to be sent to the same cell block.”

  She studied his hard, lean face. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her eyes said it for her.

  The hand that was holding hers let go. It went to her face and traced the tear down to the corner of her full, soft mouth. It lingered there, the knuckle of his forefinger moving lazily over the pretty line of her lips.

  She felt on fire. Her legs were like rubber. She could feel her heart beating. She knew he could, because his eyes suddenly went down to the discreet rounded neckline, and lower, watching the fabric jump with every beat of her heart, with her strained breathing.

  Her whole body felt tight, swollen. She shivered just a little from the intensity of a feeling she’d never experienced before. She swallowed. Her mouth was so dry...

  “You’d be a pushover, little girl,” he whispered in a deep, gentle tone as he looked at her soft mouth. “It wouldn’t even be a challenge.”

  “I...know,” she managed in a broken tone.

  His head bent. She felt his breath on her lips. She felt as if she were vibrating from the sensuous touch of his hand at her waist, pulling her close to the sudden, blunt hardness of his body.

  He was burning. Hungry. Aching. On fire to touch her under that soft bodice, to feel her breasts under his lips. He wanted to push her down on the floor here, right here, and press himself full length against her and feel her wanting him. Her heartbeat was shaking them both. She was dying for him. He knew it. He could have her. She wouldn’t even try to stop him. He could take her outside, into the night. He could feed on her soft mouth in the darkness, bend her to his will, back her up against the wall and...

  “Carson!”

  5

  “CARSON!” THE STRIDENT voice came again.

  The second time, Carson heard it. He steeled himself to look away from Carlie’s rapt, shocked face and slowly let her move away from him.

  He turned to Lanette. She was glaring at them.

  “You promised me the first dance,” she accused, pouting.

  He managed to look unperturbed. “So I did. If you’ll excuse me?” he asked Carlie without actually meeting her eyes.

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  He took Lanette’s hand and moved to the other side of the room.

  Carlie was almost shaking. She went back to the buffet table mechanically and picked up another plate.

  “Might better calm down a little before you try to eat,” Rourke murmured. He took the plate away from her, just as Carson had, and pulled her onto the dance floor. “Just as well to escape before complications arise,” he added with a chuckle. “You seem to be the subject of some heated disagreement.”

  She tossed a covert glance toward the other side of the room where Carson and his date appeared to be exchanging terse comments.

  “I was just trying to get something to eat,” she began.

  He studied her. “That’s a nice young man you came in with. Very polite. Odd, how he’s ignoring you.”

  She looked up at him. “Private matter,” she said.

  “Ah. So many things are, yes?”

  The w
ay he said it amused her. She laughed.

  “That’s better,” he replied, smiling. “You were looking a bit like the hangman’s next victim.”

  She lowered her eyes to his shirt. It had ruffles, and crimson edging. He had a red carnation in the lapel of the jacket. “You’re not quite conventional,” she blurted out.

  “Never,” he agreed. “I like to buck the odds. Our friend over there is Mr. Conservative,” he added. “He doesn’t like the assumption of ownership, so you can figure the beautiful companion will be gone quite soon.”

  She tried not to look pleased.

  He tilted her face up to his and he wasn’t smiling. “That being said, let me give you some sound advice. He’s living on heartache and looking for temporary relief. Do you get me?”

  She bit her lip. She nodded.

  “Good. You remember that. I’ve seen him walk on hearts wearing hobnailed boots, and he enjoys it. He’s getting even.”

  “But I haven’t done anything to him,” she began.

  “Wrong assumption. He’s paying back someone else. Don’t ask,” he said. “I’m not privy to his past. But I know the signs.”

  There was such bitterness in his voice that she just stared at him.

  “Long story,” he said finally. “And no, I won’t share it. You just watch your step. Carson’s big trouble for a little innocent like you.”

  “I’m the only one of my kind,” she said a little sadly. “Everybody says I’m out of step with the world.”

  “Would you enjoy being used like a cocktail napkin and tossed in the bin after?” he asked bluntly.

  She caught her breath at the imagery.

  “I thought not.” He drew her back into the dance. “That platinum-armored blond tank he’s with doesn’t care what she’s asked to do if the price is right,” he said with icy disdain. “She’s for sale and she doesn’t care who knows it.”

  “How do you know...?”

  He looked down at her with weary cynicism. “This isn’t my first walk round the park,” he replied. “She’s the sort to go on the attack if anything gets between her and something she wants.”