Slow Dancing With a Texan. Linda Conrad
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got money. We can just put it on my credit card.”
Sloan shook his head and tried to keep the exasperated expression from his face. “Well, that might make some sense…if you had your wallet and credit cards with you. And if—”
“My purse! I forgot I dropped my purse when the shooting started.” The panicked look was back in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m sure the detectives have found it by now. And you can’t use the cards, anyway. Credit card charges are one of the easiest things to trace. From now on we’re strictly on a cash basis.”
Her eyes clouded over and he was fascinated by the muddy-river green color they had become. But she didn’t seem to have much else to say on the subject of how they paid for their getaway. He was grateful he’d remembered to bring along a few hundred in cash.
“One of my buddies in the Rangers has a cabin somewhere in the hill country,” Sloan mentioned, trying to sound casual. “He’s got it up for sale, but I don’t think he’d mind if we used it for a few days. What do you think?” He knew she must be feeling as if her world had tilted on its axis.
“I suppose so.” Lainie sounded so tentative that Sloan wanted to find a way to put the strength back in her voice.
“I’ll call him later and arrange it. Meanwhile…” Sloan hesitated, but in the end decided that even her anger had been better than this forlorn look. “Let’s go on back to our room and get some sleep.”
“Our room?” she yelped. “You think we’re both going to sleep in that tiny cubbyhole? Fat chance, buster.”
A flashdance of anger burned in her eyes, and Sloan breathed a silent sigh of relief that the spark was back. “Well, tell you what, sweetheart. If you don’t want to stay there, and since you don’t have any cash on you, I’ll be glad to give you the use of my truck for the night.
“The passenger seat reclines,” he continued as he covertly surveyed her reactions. “It shouldn’t be too uncomfortable for one night. But it might turn cold later on. Sure hope you don’t freeze.”
It was a thrill to see the bright pink flush of frustration spread across her features. She straightened her back and scowled.
So what if that look could burn a hole right through a steel door? At least her spirit was intact.
Her eyes narrowed to little slits when he didn’t make any other remarks and simply flagged the waitress to request the bill.
“All right,” she grumbled. “We can both stay in that little cave if you insist. But you’d better be praying that the bathtub is more comfortable than it looks, cause that’s where you’re headed. There’s no chance in the world that we’re both going to be sleeping in the same bed tonight.”
Three
“So what’s your plan for the night?” Lainie asked. They’d just locked themselves firmly inside the cheap motel room once again. “Where do you intend to sleep?”
Sloan sat down and stretched out companionably on the double bed, his body fully extended and his head propped up against the wall behind it. “The bed isn’t half-bad.” He patted the narrow spot next to him. “Try it out for yourself.”
The look on her face was priceless, Sloan mused. He loved it when he got to her, and he wondered why that was.
Since she continued to stand there, staring down at the ugly bedspread as if it were a rattler pit, he decided to try a different tack. “Look. It’s early yet. Why don’t you sit and tell me about your job? Maybe together we can come up with a reason why someone wants to kill you.” He pushed the lone pillow up against the wall for her.
When she tentatively checked to make sure the top button of his raincoat was securely fastened at her neck before she sat on the bed, it was all Sloan could do to keep a straight face. But he refused to laugh. He was feeling unsure enough about his own motives, let alone hers.
She settled in as far away from him as physically possible. “Maybe you’re right. I’m still too tense to sleep, anyway.”
He allowed himself a half smile, while she took off her shoes and daintily dropped them on the floor.
“Okay.” She wiggled her bottom down into the mattress until she’d apparently nestled herself into a more comfortable position. “That’s better. What do you want to know?”
“Well,” he began as he toed his boots off, “I thought maybe you’d just start talking. You know, tell me about how a normal day goes, what kind of letters you receive, that sort of thing.” He reached over, wanting to flick a tiny, lingering crumb off her chin, but quickly caught himself.
“Oh, but that’s so boring,” she sighed. “Are you sure hearing about that stuff might help?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “You never know. What else have we got to do?”
The minute he said it, the visions of what else he’d like to be doing in this bed blindsided him. But if Lainie noticed the change, she didn’t mention it.
“My day always starts at six-thirty. Suzy and I jog every morning. It gets the blood moving.”
“Your sister lives with you?” He eased his body around slightly and tried to concentrate on her words, but shifting his focus didn’t do much to change the tension.
She looked startled for a second. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know about my family.”
“Captain Johnson just told me that you were a single woman and that your mother was a longtime, dear friend of his. I assumed you either lived alone or with your mother.”
Lainie smiled then and folded her hands in her lap. “I sort of do both…live alone and also live with my family, that is. A few years back, I bought a big house in a fancy Houston suburb. It’s an old place and has a good-size guest house right on the grounds. I bought it with the idea in mind of letting my sister and her husband use the guest house.”
She frowned at a large crack in the wall directly in front of the bed. “But when it came time for us to move in, I realized that the two of them would be much more comfortable in the bigger place. So…”
“You moved into the guest house,” he said with a yawn.
“Yes, but it wasn’t a hardship. The smaller house is so cozy. It’s just perfect for my needs. And Jeff, he’s my brother-in-law, loves to entertain and have big parties. Someday, the two of them might have a bunch of kids, too, and the living arrangements have all worked out for the best. Without family nearby, a person is no one.”
“But you own both houses?”
“Sure. In fact, a year or so ago I bought a neighboring house when the old woman who lived there passed away. It was a good thing, too. My father had a stroke a few months later, so I insisted that he and Mom move in next door so I could keep an eye on them.” She inclined her head. “I suppose you could say we live in a family compound.”
Sloan could not imagine anything worse. The thought of having people—meddling family members especially—underfoot all the time gave him the creeps.
“Sounds real cozy,” he said, using her words and with a grin he didn’t feel. “So your father is still alive. Does he work?”
“He’s totally disabled. Confined to a wheelchair,” she said sadly.
“And your brother-in-law…what does he do for a living?”
Lainie studied her toes. “Well, Jeff runs my father’s bar now. It’s not much of a living, though. The place is only open a few hours a day, except on weekends. Mom keeps the books, but it never has been much of a moneymaker.”
Sloan got the picture. Lainie seemed to be the sole support for the whole clan. He wondered if she realized how much friction could arise between family members