Texas! Lucky (28 page)

"Was there any possibility that you were the, uh, donor?"

He shot her a retiring look. "She's just a kid, younger than Sage. I didn't even remember who she was until one of her kinfolk produced her from the back of a flatbed truck. Uncle Somebody shoved her forward to accuse me face-to-face."

"You recognized her then?"

"Sure. We had met a couple of weeks earlier in an office building in Henderson. I was there to see a client. As I was crossing the lobby, I noticed this girl sitting there fanning herself, looking ready to throw up or faint or both. I asked if she needed any help. She told me she'd gotten dizzy and hot. And it was hotter than hell in there.

"So I helped her to her feet, escorted her outside, and offered to buy her a can of cola, which I did from one of the vending machines at the nearest filling station. We walked there. I was never even alone with her. The only thing I touched was her elbow.

"During our conversation she asked me what I did for a living, and seemed impressed by the business card I gave her. I remember her running her fingers over the engraving. That's it. After she assured me that she could call someone to come pick her up, I left her there, sitting on a stack of retreads, sipping her coke.

"As it turns out, she had been in Henderson to see a doctor in that building, and was already about four months pregnant. I couldn't possibly have fathered her child. I was just a convenient scapegoat. Eventually she broke down and admitted it."

By the time he finished telling the
tale,
Devon was shaking her head with amazement. "You attract trouble like a lightning rod."

"Not intentionally."

"And it always centers around women. Even the cow." She looked away from him, adding softly, "And now me."

Laying his palm along her cheek, he turned her face toward him. "You look so sad."

"I am."

"Why? Was it terrible yesterday?"

"Yes. It was awful having to face my husband, both of us knowing that I had betrayed him. Physically. With you."

"And knowing you want to again."

She sucked in a quick little breath. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. "I didn't say that, Lucky."

"You didn't have to." He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. She whimpered quietly. Glancing down at the peaked centers of her breasts, which were making impressions against her blouse, he whispered, "Just like before, your body says it for you."

Chapter 17

P
at Bush was sitting on a picnic table in Dogwood Park, drinking from a long-neck bottle of beer. It was against the rules to be drinking in uniform, but it was against the rules to hand over official crime reports to civilians, too, so he figured he might just as well be hanged for a sinner as a saint.

Devon scanned the top sheet of the stack of documents. One of the park's halogen security lamps provided her with enough light to read by. She had slipped on her glasses. "What's a trailer?"

"A trail of fuel leading back to the building," Pat explained. "There were several radiating out from the garage like spokes on a wheel. They set the flares to them."

"Then ran like hell," Lucky contributed from the adjacent playground, where he was sitting in a swing.

"Whoever did it was smart," said Pat, playing devil's advocate. "Apparently the perp shut off the ventilation system in the building first. The gasoline fumes collected like air inside a balloon. One spark introduced into those compressed fumes, and
kablooy
. You've got yourself an explosion hot enough to melt metal."

"Maybe we'll see something when we've gone over the material more carefully." Devon tried to inject some optimism into her voice, but Lucky knew that her hopes were as faint as his own. He rued the day he'd bought those flares, which the roughnecks sometimes used at night to mark the route to an out-of-the-way drilling site.

Pat finished his beer and conscientiously placed the empty bottle in the trash barrel.

"Guess I'd better get home. It's late. If y'all turn up anything, let me know. But for the love of God keep your investigation covert. Don't do anything conspicuous."

"Don't worry, Pat. If we're caught, your name would never enter into an explanation of how we got the crime report."

"You didn't have to tell me that," the older man said to Lucky. He doffed the brim of his hat to Devon and ambled off through the park toward his squad car.

"Ready?" Lucky asked.

Devon pocketed her glasses, picked up the stack of documents, and allowed him to hold her hand as they moved in the opposite direction from Pat, toward Lucky's Mustang. The house was dark when they arrived. Laurie had already gone to bed. A light shone from beneath Sage's door, and she had a radio on, but for all practical purposes she had retired to her room for the night, too.

At the door of the guest bedroom, which Laurie had hospitably prepared for her, Devon turned to Lucky. "Tomorrow we'll begin again, asking questions about anybody who might be harboring a grudge against you. One by one we'll eliminate them."

"Okay."

"Let me know if you think of anyone else, and I'll add him to my list."

"Okay."

"Are you listening?"

"Of course." Actually he wasn't. "You sleepy?"

"A little."

"I'm not. I've never been so keyed up."

"I started out this morning with a hundred-mile drive, remember?"

He nodded, but his eyes were fastened on her neck with the single-mindedness of a vampire. "Is, us, is the bedroom okay?" he asked, reluctant to leave her. "Is the bed comfy?"

"I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it will be fine."

"Is the room hot?"

"Not at all."

"Too cool?"

"It's just right, Lucky."

"Got everything you need?"

"Yes."

"Towels?"

"Yes."

"Soap?"

"Yes."

"Toilet paper?"

She smiled. "Your mother is a thorough and gracious hostess. I even have a candy dish I stocked with little candy bars."

"Oh well, then I guess you've got everything."

"Mm-hmm."

"But if you need anything else…"

"I won't."

"…like extra blankets, pillows…" He bent his head and brushed his mouth across hers.

He kissed her, fluidly, first touching the tip of his tongue to hers, then melding their mouths together. Groaning, he placed his arms around her and drew her against his body, which was full and feverish with a desire he'd studiously kept at bay until now, when he couldn't restrain himself any longer. Just one taste of her. Only one. Then he might survive the night. But, by the second, his mouth became more possessive, his tongue more intimate, his hands more seductive. She ground protesting fists against his chest. He moaned her name when he finally surrendered and raised his head.

"We can't, Lucky."

"It's just a kiss."

"No it isn't."

"Just one kiss."

"It's wrong."

"I know, I know."

"Then let me go. Please."

He released her but didn't move away.

Their eyes met and locked in a searing gaze. It gratified him to hear that she was as breathless as he, and that her protests were without conviction.

She slipped through the guest-room door and closed it behind her, but not before he saw in her eyes pinpoints of confusion and passion that matched those burning in his.

He hardly slept a wink that night, knowing she was only two doors away but unable to do a damn thing about it.

* * *

After three days of that he was on the verge of going stark staring mad. One by one the names on their list of possible suspects had fallen through the cracks of logic, reason, and fact. No one who had a recent grievance against him could have set the fire.

His mood was foul, his disposition sour, his language vulgar, his patience depleted, and all because he was desperate for Devon.

Her fourth morning in Milton Point she told him over coffee, "The farmer was our last chance, and he was in Arkansas buying cattle. It seems that the only people in town that night were those who love you. I don't know what else to do."

"Is that right?" He sneered. "I was under the impression that you knew everything. I thought you had a bag of tricks. Don't tell me you've run out."

Furiously she scraped back her chair and stood up, heading for the kitchen door. As she sailed past his chair he put out his arm, encircled her waist, drew her between his wide-spread thighs, and ground his forehead against her stomach.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He butted his head against the soft heaviness of her breasts and rubbed his face in the fabric of her blouse, breathing in her fresh, clean scent. "I know I'm acting like a jerk, but I'm slowly dying, Devon. I'm going to explode if—"

"Somebody's coming."

She backed out of his reach only seconds before Laurie entered the kitchen, followed by Sage. If Laurie noticed the steamy atmosphere and their rosy, guilt-ridden faces, she didn't acknowledge them. Sage, however, split her knowing look between the two of them and winked saucily.

"Well, hello. We're not interrupting anything, are we?"

Lucky snarled at her.

"What's on your agenda today?" Laurie asked.

"Actually we hadn't decided on anything specific," Devon said feebly.

"Well, if you ask me, which I realize you haven't, you're overlooking the obvious."

"What's that, Mother?"

Lucky glanced up at her, curious in spite of his longing to thrash his impudent kid sister.

He welcomed his mother's opinion—anything, in fact, that would momentarily distract him from his physical discomfort.

"That Cagney oaf and his unsavory friend."

"Little Alvin and Jack Ed Patterson?"

Laurie gave a delicate shudder at the very mention of their names. "Detestable people, especially Jack Ed. And those Cagney children were hellions from birth."

"But they're
so
obvious," Lucky argued.

"Maybe they figure that's what everyone is thinking and are using it to their benefit."