The Bluest Eyes in Texas. Marilyn Pappano
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he’d seen a familiar face. Business trips to Dallas weren’t unusual for his father; he’d just never thought he could possibly run into him in a city of that size.
That afternoon he’d headed east, intending to keep moving until he’d reached the Atlantic Ocean. He’d made it only so far as Pineville. A few years later, when he hadn’t needed to run, he hadn’t stopped at the ocean. Germany, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq…
“What made you stop in Pineville?” Bailey asked.
“My last ride let me off there. I was headed east, but he’d turned north before I realized it. He let me out at the Jensens’ road. I was hungry, so I decided a little alfresco dining would be nice and I got caught.” He shrugged as if that was the end of the story.
“Most people who catch someone stealing from them don’t invite him into their homes and make him a part of their families.”
“No,” he agreed quietly. “Most people don’t.”
“They must have been very special.”
They’d never been able to have a family of their own—not that they hadn’t tried. Ella had miscarried four times, and the one baby who’d made it to term had died three days after birth. That was when she’d accepted that God intended her to mother other people’s children, and she’d done it with a vengeance. Everyone in town had regarded her as the mother or grandmother they’d always wanted.
“Is there any doubt that Pete MacGregor killed them?”
“None.”
“Is there any proof?”
Logan felt the tension growing inside him. It was always there, and had been for nearly a year, but sometimes it was so strong he could feel it hum. This was one of those times. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, ground his jaws together and answered in carefully controlled words. “I left that morning to go to a doctor’s appointment. The only people at the farm were Sam, Ella and Mac. When I got back that afternoon, I found Sam’s body in front of the barn and Ella’s on the kitchen floor. The farm truck was missing, and so was Mac. Who do you think killed them?”
“He could have been a victim, too.”
“Right. Someone breaks in, kills an eighty-year-old couple and leaves them where they fall, but they dispose of the body of the young, six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound man who was staying with them.”
“Maybe he was taken hostage.”
“Okay. You’re a burglar. You break in to a place and you think you might need a hostage to ensure your escape. You have a choice between two frail little eighty-year-olds and a twenty-something, six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound soldier. Which one are you gonna choose?”
“I’m just considering the possibilities.” She laid her hand on his arm, and the muscles clenched even more. A glance at the speedometer showed the needle hovering between ninety and ninety-five. With a deep breath, he eased off on the pedal until the speed dropped back to the legal limit. Then he shrugged off her touch. She didn’t look offended or rebuffed or really much of anything but thoughtful.
“Where are we headed?” he asked to break the silence. So far she’d given him simple directions—get on the interstate and keep going west.
“To the border.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of border. Where in particular?”
“I’ll tell you when to turn.”
He didn’t like being in the dark. If he’d learned anything in the Army, it was how to lead. He’d held a hell of a lot of responsibility, especially in the war, and he’d lived up to it. It rubbed him the wrong way to now be denied even the most basic of information.
Not that she didn’t have a good reason for withholding it.
“You have any reason to believe Mac has anything to do with this brother of his?”
She propped her bare feet on the dash, wiggling her toes for a minute before letting them relax. Her skin was pale gold, her nails were painted crimson and a silver band encircled the second toe on her left foot. A matching chain around her ankle was just visible under the hem of her jeans leg.
There was something…appealing about the sight. Something that made him think of those tiny little panties he’d picked up in her room back in Pineville. That made him wonder if she was that small all over, if she was wearing a similar bit of silk and lace right now, if she wore any other jewelry he couldn’t see.
Jeez, they were feet, he berated himself. Prettier than most, more decorated than most, but utilitarian just the same. Definitely no reason to be thinking in any way about sex.
Finally she looked his way, but with sunglasses covering half her face, he couldn’t read anything in her expression. “Are you looking for an explanation for his lies regarding his family? He didn’t know about the brother and therefore he didn’t lie when he said he didn’t have one?” She gave a shake of her head. “A couple years ago MacGregor got arrested for public drunk in the town where his brother lives. You think that was just coincidence?”
Of course it wasn’t. And it stood to reason that, being in trouble with the law again—in serious trouble—Mac would turn to his brother for help.
“And how did you find that out?” he asked sourly.
“I have my sources.”
“You got a cop friend to run a criminal history, didn’t you?” He didn’t need more of an answer than the pink staining her cheeks. “That’s illegal, you know.”
“Charlie’s Rule. The ends justify the means.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“A guy I work with.” She said it so casually that Logan knew immediately there was more to the relationship than that. A guy she was adversarial with, was jealous of or was intimate with? A guy who’d seen those same tiny panties, only with her in them?
It didn’t matter to him. He’d never cared about anyone’s sex life but his own, which had been pretty much nonexistent in recent years. She could be sleeping with half the men in Memphis and he wouldn’t give a damn. Not as long as she kept her end of the bargain and helped him find Mac.
“What else did you find out about this brother?” He was scowling, he realized. Probably because the sun was low enough in the western sky to blind a man. So what if the visor blocked the worst of the glare and his sunglasses took care of the rest? It was still there, and he knew it.
“Señor Escobar is a rancher. He’s married and has two children.”
“And you’re going to help with him how?”
This time when she looked at him, she was smiling. “Despite his married status, Señor Escobar considers himself a ladies’ man. I consider myself a lady. We should have a great deal in common.”
Logan’s chest tightened until the only breaths he could take were shallow. Escobar might be a hundred and eighty degrees opposite from his brother…or he might be just as dangerous, maybe even more so. And she was planning to toy with him? “This is your great plan—flirt with the guy in the hopes that he’ll spill his brother’s whereabouts in the heat of passion?”
“I don’t intend to sleep with him,” she said haughtily. “Look, we can’t decide on any course of action until we get to town and see what’s what. Who knows? Escobar may not have anything to do with MacGregor. He may have zero interest in protecting a brother he may not be close to.”
That was logical. How much would he risk for Brady? Nowhere near as much as Brady had once risked for him.
“What about the law in this town? Are they honest, corrupt, incompetent or just inefficient?”
“I don’t know. But they did arrest MacGregor.”
“Public drunk isn’t a big deal,”