Colton 911: Deadly Texas Reunion. Beth Cornelison
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Ranch came back to her. Specifically how bossy Nolan could be. Apparently, that hadn’t changed. But she had. She was her own boss now, and she’d learned the hard way not to give any man control of her life.
Nolan started across the pavement, and when she didn’t follow, he glanced back. “Coming?”
“Yeah.” She fell in step next to him and dug her keys out of her pocket. “But I’ll drive my own car to lunch. That way we don’t have to double back here to pick it up.”
He stopped at a dark blue Jeep Cherokee, where he opened the tailgate and slid the baby swing box in the back. “Suit yourself. If you beat me there, go ahead and get us a table.”
She chuckled lightly. “Bossy as ever, I see.”
He frowned. “Bossy? I only said—” He growled under his breath. “Whatever. Can I walk you to your car?”
“Thanks, but I’m just there.” She pointed three spaces over to her yellow VW Beetle. “Meet ya in five.”
Nolan gave her a wink and a nod that stirred a fresh wave of giddy bubbles in her veins. She trotted to her car, energized and more optimistic than she’d been in months. But as she backed her Beetle out of her parking spot, a niggling warning tickled her brain. As kids, she’d blown off Nolan’s autocratic dictates or complied happily enough. He was a year older, a boy, and usually had good ideas that she accepted at face value. Good enough reasons for a nine-or ten-year-old kid to be a follower. No big deal. But eight years later, going along, appeasement and blind acceptance with Robby had gotten her tangled in a dangerous and detrimental relationship that she still had nightmares about.
A cloud of doubt drifted in to cast her good mood in shadow. Summer squeezed the steering wheel and pulled onto the state road leading toward downtown Whisperwood. Nolan might be handsome as the devil and someone who’d graced her childhood with adventure and laughter, but she needed to proceed with caution. Clearly he was still a take-charge kind of guy. She couldn’t let her golden memories of Nolan, her fondness for their old friendship color this new iteration of their relationship. She needed to stand firm and set the parameters, or she could too easily repeat mistakes she had yet to live down.
When she arrived at the Bluebell Diner, a popular place for locals to eat their fill of home-style Southern cooking and Tex-Mex favorites, Nolan was already ensconced in a booth at the back of the restaurant near the door to the kitchen. He sat with his back to the wall, watching the door, and lifted his chin in acknowledgment as she entered the bustling diner.
She greeted the older couple that ran the mercantile across the street from her office and Madeline Klein, for whom she’d handled a case last month, as she wended her way through the tables toward Nolan. The first thing she noticed as she reached their table was that he’d changed T-shirts. He’d replaced the coffee-soiled one with a simple heather-gray one that read FBI over the breast.
He stood as she approached, waiting for her to sit before resuming his seat. He still has cowboy manners, she thought, smiling, flattered, while another part of her brain chafed. Did his old-fashioned manners translate to old-fashioned opinions about women?
Shoving aside the itchy question, she slid into the booth and nodded toward his chest. “Where’d you get an FBI shirt?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “My gym bag was in the back seat.”
She snorted. “I mean, how’d you come to own it?” She raised the ice water already at her spot for a sip.
He waved his fingers in casual dismissal. “Standard issue in the Bureau.”
Summer choked on the water and set it down, sputtering, “Wait, wh-what?”
He handed her a napkin as she coughed. “Standard issue. They may have given it to me for a Bureau event. I don’t remember for sure.”
She clutched the paper napkin in her hand and gaped at him. “You’re in the FBI?”
He scowled and grumbled, “A little louder, huh? I don’t think they heard out on the street.”
Nolan cut a glance to the table next to them, where a middle-aged woman with two small children sat. The woman gave him a curious glance, and Nolan flashed an awkward smile and smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from the blue gingham tablecloth.
“Yes,” he said in a hushed tone as he handed her a plastic-protected menu from the stack behind the napkin holder. “I am.”
Summer flopped back against the booth and stared at him, her mouth gaping. “Get. Out. Of. Town! Nolan!”
He shifted on his bench, and his hand fisted on the table. “Well, technically I still am, but…” He exhaled heavily and sent her a dark look. “The real reason I’m in town is I’ve been put on administrative leave.”
Their waitress arrived, placing napkin-wrapped cutlery at each of their places. “Y’all had a chance to look at the menu?”
Nolan picked up a menu. “Sorry, no. We need another minute.”
“Take your time, but the pumpkin spice cake is going fast. If you want any, you better order it now.”
“Hmm, that does sound good. Save us two slices,” Nolan said, giving the woman a lopsided grin.
Pumpkin spice cake did sound great, but Nolan’s high-handedness in ordering for her irked her. “Two slices? You are hungry, aren’t you, G-man?”
He peered over the top of his menu. “You don’t want cake? You used to love dessert.”
“What kid doesn’t? What I want is to order for myself.” She softened the scolding with a playful scowl. Leaning forward, she flattened her hands on the tabletop. “Now tell me about this FBI thing. How did that happen? When? What department are you in? Jeez, the FB freaking I?”
He cleared his throat, dropped his gaze to the menu again and said, “I was training for the Fort Worth Police Department when I saw an article that said the FBI was recruiting. So I applied, got accepted and have been in the Bureau for the last six years.”
A look of consternation crossed his face, and she recalled his comment about administrative leave. “And you’re here in Whisperwood rather than on the job because…”
He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, tapped the menu on the table, then met her eyes. “I’m being investigated for sexual assault against a fellow agent.”
As casually as if he’d just told her the sky was blue, he put his menu back behind the napkin holder. “I think I’ll have the chili with jalapeño cornbread. What looks good to you?”
Summer’s heart rose to her throat, and she squeaked, “What!”
“Chili and cornbread. I’ve missed Texas-style chili up in Chi-town.”
She reached for his arm and squeezed. His muscles in his forearm were rock hard, and despite the serious topic of their conversation, her belly twitched in recognition of the skin-to-skin contact. “Don’t pretend you didn’t just drop a bomb. Explain that—” she stopped, giving the woman with the young kids a side glance and lowering her volume to a whisper “—sexual assault comment.”
He firmed his mouth and withdrew his arm from her grip. “I’ll fill you in on the specifics later, somewhere less public. Leave it at this—I didn’t do what Charlotte’s contending.”
“Charlotte, huh?” She folded her arms over her chest and furrowed her brow. “I used to like that name. Not so much now.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you got started as a PI? And how long have you been back in Whisperwood? I tried to track you down in recent years and got nowhere. Where’ve you been?” He sipped his water, and his expression indicated he was closing the door on discussing his life.
“I’ve