Sleepless in Las Vegas (21 page)

Great. She had no idea how to unlock the effing doors. She’d been driving the car for four days, and she hadn’t figured that out yet? Strands of her hair fluttered, so the air-conditioning had to be on full blast. Sure, she could take her sweet time looking for the magic button because she was nice and cool. Meanwhile, he was stuck outside, the sun grilling him to medium well.

He peered inside the car, spied a series of buttons on the driver’s door panel. He rapped on the window.

She turned and smiled at him.

“Look at the driver’s panel.” He jabbed a finger toward her door.

She frowned, shook her head. “What?” she mouthed.

Drops of sweat stung his eyes. Blinking them back, he walked around the car and stopped at her window. He pointed at the driver’s panel and its buttons.

She looked down, then back up with a look of wonder as though she’d discovered a small pot of gold. Nodding eagerly, she punched a button on the panel. The back passenger window rolled down. With an oh-can-you-believe-I-did-that look on her face, she punched it again and it closed. Making a give-me-a-moment gesture, she scanned the buttons again, then pressed another one.

The door locks clicked open.

He walked back around the car, smelling the stink of melting asphalt, thinking how he’d once heard that crimes tapered off after temperatures hit seventy-five degrees. Seemed when people got overheated, their urge to do wrong diminished. At ninety or a hundred degrees, especially during the day, people apparently lost the drive altogether to commit any misdeeds.

Those stats didn’t apply to him. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to throttle a certain someone.

“You storing meat in here?” he muttered, climbing in and strapping on the seat belt. When she gave him a funny look, he explained, “It’s so cold in here, it feels like a meat locker.”

“It’s hot outside.”

“You don’t say,” he muttered, swiping a drip of sweat off his chin. “Why were you late?”

“You said ten minutes.”

“Which in your time zone apparently means seventeen minutes.”

“I wasn’t
that
late.”

A conversation that could only go in one direction—nowhere—so he addressed the next issue that pissed him off.

“Why did you park thirty feet away from where I stood?”

“My, aren’t you the number man,” she said, all huffy. “
Seven
minutes late.
Thirty
feet away.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not the best parker in the world.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if this was worth pursuing. It was. “You didn’t
park.
You
braked.
”

She scoffed, gave him a look. “Like there’s a difference.”

“Do you park at a red light?”

“Of course not!” She gave him a look as though he’d lost it. “What I meant was, when you’re pulling up to pick up someone, it’s like parking.”

This discussion was headed in the same direction as the other one. He’d stop talking altogether, which a wise man would do, but at the moment, his bad mood trumped wisdom.

“You’ve driven this car for four days and you don’t know how to unlock the doors?”

“Back to the number game, are we?” Her thick black lashes fluttered. “I’ve never unlocked the doors for anybody else because I’ve been the only person in this car. Hard to know how to do something if you’ve never done it before.”

He sucked in his aggravation and blew it out. Did he bother correcting her about being the only person in the vehicle by bringing up their trash run? “Let’s go,” he said between his teeth, “we’re late.”

She muttered something about men and moods while stepping on the gas and spinning a one-eighty, the tires kicking up dust and rocks. After gunning it for fifteen feet—a number that would not pass his lips—she jerked to an abrupt stop at the street crossing.

“Okay,” she said brightly, “which way?”

“What’s with the NASCAR moves?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, all sweetness and light, “you said we’re late, so…”

“Left,” he growled.

She punched the gas pedal so hard his head jerked back. He was about to yell at her to slow down when she sidled past a stop sign into the middle of a four-way, scaring the bejesus out of the driver in an Acura crossing the intersection. He hit his horn, she hit hers and the Honda sailed through.

Drake looked at her. “You need to—”

She waved him off. “No more.”

“No more what?” He jabbed his index finger at an upcoming cross street. “Turn right up there.”

“No more correcting me. We’re not at work.”

“When did I correct you?”

“Oh, please.” She jerked the wheel, executing a right turn that could make an atheist believe in a higher being. “You disapproved of my spiel at the end of the Marta interview.”

“
Disapproved?
Because I offered
feedback?
”

“Yes.”

“It’s called
constructive criticism,
Val, not disapproval. You seem to forget that I’m
mentoring
you.”

She emitted a self-righteous exhale. “Do you realize how nerve-racking that was for me when she came in and I knew she was possibly part of the arson that occurred? That I kept my cool even though I was scared as a cat at the dog pound? And yet I managed to record her—at close range—without her knowing. Okay, so I trespassed and violated her privacy when I caused her purse to topple, but what if I’d seen a pay stub with her
real
name, or the name of a bar she hangs out at?
You’re
the one dragging your feet to talk to the arson investigator because you want more evidence before you do—I might have found some for you! What about them beans?”

He was trying to focus on what Val was saying, but he could barely focus on his own thoughts. Being in the car with Val driving was like sitting shotgun in some cheesy TV show car chase scene. Any moment he expected to hear the swell of guitar-grinding, piston-pumping background music.

“…and I was pretty cool when I saw you sneaking around her Lexus,” she continued, swerving around a car that appeared out of nowhere. “Somebody else might have acted surprised or nervous, alerting Marta that something weird was going on, but I kept it together. And last, I’m sorry I didn’t take your dog outside, but he seemed quite happy lying on his doggie bed and squeaking and sleeping. What was I supposed to do—wake him up and insist he do his duty?”

She brought the car to a jerky halt at a stop sign.

The beauty of this part of downtown was these small two-lane streets, which mostly catered to local traffic and got cars off the congested main roads. The constant stop signs were annoying, though, especially if someone named Val LeRoy was driving.

“After you get through this intersection,” he said, peering out the windshield, “pull over.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m driving.”

“Correcting me again?”

“Only because I’d like to live long enough to see my mother and grandmother one more time.”

After a beat, a laugh escaped her. “You shouldn’t hide that sense of humor, Drake. It softens your macho edge.”

“I’ll do that. Now, pull over.”

She did.

Unsnapping her seat belt, she gave him a sly look. “Got a confession. Took me six tries to get my driver’s license. But I promise you, Drake, I’ll be a better P.I. one day than I’ll ever be a driver.”

He didn’t want to bring up that she’d have to put rolling surveillances, those conducted while driving a vehicle, onto her never-do list, along with undercover work, because they appeared to be on somewhat civil terms again. No need to muck things up by opening his big mouth and shoving both his feet in it.

They got out of the car and swapped places. After Drake slid behind the wheel, he pulled out his phone and set it on his thigh. Seeing her looking at it, he explained, “So I can answer without being seen talking and driving.”

“Good idea.”

After he started driving, and his nervous system downshifted from red alert, he said, “You did a good job with that interview.”

“Would’ve been nice to have said that, once, before bombarding me with all the ways smart and savvy defense lawyers could rip it apart.”

He shot her a look, one filled with more irritation than sympathy. “No one is expected to know these things without training. Which is the whole point of mentoring.”

As he turned onto North Fourth, he caught a glimpse of Val’s polka-dotted dress. Vintage, he guessed, but like his dad’s suits, it also had a timeless quality. He recalled something he’d once read that claimed people who wore polka dots sought others’ approval. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so tough on her, but she was entering a tough profession.

He also liked how the dress conformed to her body—didn’t look sprayed on the way some girls in Vegas wore their clothes, as though a little mystery was a bad thing. He thought back to that black dress she’d worn with its oversize, frothy bow. Little too librarian for his taste, but it had that timeless look about it, too. She didn’t mess with what worked in the past. He respected that.

“Let’s talk business,” he said. “To be honest, I couldn’t hear parts of the interview. What did Marta want this time?”

“To hire me to find you.”

“Retainer?”

“Thousand dollars. Cash. I know I’m not supposed to accept cases, but if I had refused it, it would have alerted her that something was up, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely. Where is the money?”

“Locked it up in my desk before I left.”

“That’s why you were late?”

“No, I drove around the block a few times. I was mad at you.”

He pulled to a stop at a red light. “Over it?”

“For the most part.”

He glanced at her, waiting for her to tell him exactly what stood in the way of his being absolved, but she wasn’t telling. Just sat there, pretty in her polka dots, her hands folded primly in her lap as she stared out the window. One minute a road warrior, the next a sedate schoolgirl. One minute making him so nuts he swore he could turn criminal like his brother, the next intriguing him with a quiet reserve and a timeless style that left him a bit in awe.

He had the sense he would never understand her. And if he tried to, she’d inevitably surprise him with a quirk of her mind, a deeper layer of her personality or another facet of her beauty.

Val turned her head and their gazes met and held. Her eyes glistened with light, their color a swirl of brown, gold and green. His heartbeat accelerated, and his skin burned as though he was standing under the blistering sun again.

A warning bell clanged in his head. This was too much, and at the same time, it wasn’t enough. He was in the grip of something he couldn’t suppress, a fight he couldn’t win…but was he ready to lose?

“The light’s green,” she whispered.

He snapped his head forward and stepped on the gas.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

V
AL
HAD
BEEN
staring out the window at the traffic on U.S. Route 95 for the past several minutes. Not that the view of cars, concrete and exhaust was all that interesting, but she wanted to give Drake some space—dang, she needed some breathing room herself—after that sizzling stare-down at the red light.

As they drove in silence, she thought about what had transpired between them in those moments. When their gazes locked, she could almost sense something shift, deepen between them.

It wasn’t an awareness of sexual desire. She already knew he did things to her libido that were downright unholy, and she’d already accepted that he touched her heart in a place that made her want to believe in things she hadn’t dreamed about or wished for in a long time.

It finally dawned on her that it didn’t have to do with her, but him.

He had let down his guard.

Of course, one look at his stern profile, those big hands darn near squeezing the life out of that poor steering wheel, and she knew he’d tried to resurrect the wall. But if he had been successful, he wouldn’t be glowering at the highway as though it were a mortal enemy he would conquer and destroy.

My, oh, my. Had she gotten under the dark prince’s skin?

She still didn’t know what the total story was between him and Sally, but at least she knew they weren’t living together. And he sure hadn’t looked at Sally the other night the way he had just looked at Val. And as bizarre as his invitation had been to this family dinner, he’d asked Val, not Sally. Plus, she’d caught him checking out her dress twice today. The second time, when they’d been stopped at the light, right before that mesmerizing eye lock, he had stared at her dress with a look of pleasure on his face, a secret smile playing on his lips.

She’d never thought she’d go for an alpha male like Drake. That type had always seemed laughable, with their leader-of-the-wolf-pack mentality. She’d pegged alphas as being pigheaded, cold and overmuscled. But that was like saying all Southern girls were gossipy, lazy and had big hair. The truth was people were more complex than their labels.

The Drake she was getting to know could be pigheaded and then some, but he could also be flexible. Like the way he accommodated Jayne’s requests. And although he had that cold, unfeeling act down pat, Val was learning that’s what it was—an act. Anybody who saw him with his dog knew Drake had a soft heart. And overmuscled, well, she hadn’t had a chance to peel off that label yet.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he growled.

Oh, if he only knew how unquiet her thoughts had been.

“Figured I’d show you I can be from time to time,” she teased. “Sometimes my mouth tends to overload my tail.”

He quirked a questioning eyebrow.

“Which means I can talk too much.”

She caught one side of his mouth lifting a little, threatening to smile, then the scowl returned.

“After I took a picture of Marta’s license plate in the lot, I forwarded it to a buddy who ran it. It’s registered to a bogus business.”

Talking business, being brusque—she got it now. He’d retreated to his safe zone.
Well, move over, Drake, ‘cause I’m joining you there.