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“Oh, I will,” she said, sneaking another peek at his gun.
Jamie cleared his throat, and Tessa shot him a look of wide-eyed innocence. It had never failed her before. “I’ll go update Eric,” she said cheerfully, leaving the flirting for later when her brothers weren’t around and things weren’t so chaotic.
Hopefully this would all blow over soon, and then she’d give Detective Luke Asher a friendly citizen’s call.
“WHAT THE HELL do you think you’re doing?”
Luke blinked in surprise at the anger in Jamie’s voice. “Excuse me?”
“I know you, man, and I saw the look you were giving my sister.”
“I wasn’t looking at your sister at all.” He didn’t flush at the utter falsehood, because he knew he wasn’t going to date Tessa Donovan. It had only been a bit of harmless admiration. Her T-shirt had been tight in all the right places.
“I know how you are with women,” Jamie growled.
“I’m not any way with women, Jamie. Whatever I got up to in college, I left in college.”
Jamie set down his rag and crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed. “I’m not just talking about college.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Luke snapped, earning a glare from Jamie.
“I’ve got no problem with you, Luke, but I heard about your divorce. You’re not the kind of guy I want dating my younger sister.”
Luke’s shoulders snapped so quickly into solid tension that pain shot down his spine. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I may never have met your ex-wife, but she has lots of friends still in Boulder. People come to a bar to talk, and I’ve heard enough to warn you to steer clear of Tessa.”
They glared at each other for a long moment. “Plus,” Jamie added, “there’s the little issue of your—” Voices from the back room alerted them that the other Donovans were about to join them.
Luke cracked his neck. “She’s not my type. Let’s just leave it at that, all right?”
“Good enough,” Jamie muttered.
Luke wanted to defend himself. Hell, he wanted to go on the offensive and punch his old friend in the face, but he was too busy reeling, so he just turned and left.
He’d been aware that people must have talked about his divorce, but he and his wife had been living in L.A. at the time. He’d hoped the worst parts of it had been lost in translation. But clearly some of the details had crossed state lines.
Not that it mattered. Tessa Donovan’s smile was wide and pretty, but the girl was as fresh and new as a wildflower. And Luke … Luke felt bruised and broken already at thirty-one. No, Jamie didn’t have to worry about his sister. Luke wasn’t going anywhere near her.
CHAPTER THREE
TESSA HAD PLANNED to sneak into Eric’s office and search for Roland Kendall’s mobile number, but Eric kept hanging around. The only number she’d been able to nab was Detective Asher’s. Taking that as a sign, she slipped his card into her pocket just as Eric came back in.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” she answered too loudly. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
Eric gave his head a puzzled shake as he collapsed into his chair. “It’s not every day that we’re robbed.”
“Right. Yes. The robbery. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse, I guess.”
Eric ran both hands over his face. “Well, I’m exhausted, even though I haven’t gotten a damn thing done today.” He squinted at her past his fingers. “You look like crap yourself. Why don’t you head home?”
Leave it to a brother to boost a girl’s spirit. She had a brief fear that Luke Asher had only checked her out because he’d been worried about her health. But surely her breasts looked okay despite the pale worry on her skin.
“Go,” Eric said.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to stay to help Jamie close down tonight.”
“Eric, it wasn’t his fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.” The flat tone of his voice belied the words.
She felt Jamie’s presence at her back before he spoke. “You didn’t have to say it,” he growled. “We all know exactly what you’re thinking.”
Eric sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“I know you think I’m an eternal screwup, Eric, but there’s no question I set the alarm. Even you can’t argue with that.”
“No, but somebody turned it off.”
“And?”
“And you’re the one who hires the extra bartenders around here. We both know their qualifications rarely extend beyond ‘guys you once partied with.’”
“Fuck you, Eric. That’s not true. I hire guys who are good with the customers.”
“And not so good with showing up on time or coming in when they’re supposed to work.”
Tessa held up her hands to try to stop the violent tension spinning through the room. “Guys, just—”
“You’re a real asshole,” Jamie snapped. “Besides us, the only people who have the alarm code are Wallace and the guys who’ve closed down the front room, and they’ve all worked here for at least three years. Some of the temp help I’ve brought in might not have been ideal, but they only ever work fill-in.”
Eric shrugged, his mouth still tight with disdain.
“I’d like to see you try to run the front,” Jamie said. “It requires personality. Ever heard of it?”
“Stop!” Tessa ordered. “Just stop. Everybody’s tense. So—” Before she could finish, Jamie walked out. Tessa almost stopped him. Her instinct was to calm things down. Make them both apologize. But she didn’t have the energy, not with all that hung over their heads. So instead of picking up the threads of her family and trying to weave them back together as she always did, Tessa let them hang there and walked away.
She was tired, as Eric had so kindly pointed out. Tired of playing the peacekeeper. Tired of trying to fix things. But it didn’t matter if she was tired. She couldn’t imagine how exhausted Eric must have been those first few years, when he’d taken on two teenagers and the brewery. He’d done his part to keep the family together; Tessa could do her part, too.
But she was starting to worry that she didn’t know how to fix this mess. Jamie might not have screwed up the alarm, but he’d done something far worse. The chances that the High West deal would go through … she knew they were low. Really low. But she couldn’t give up hope. Not yet.
She waved a listless goodbye to Jamie just as the first group of office workers walked into the bar, relief hanging around them like a cloud. Their workday was over. It was almost over for Tessa, too. Almost.
She pulled the ponytail holder from her hair and shook out as much tension as she could. The drive to the High West office would take nearly an hour with the traffic. Roland Kendall almost certainly wouldn’t be there, but she had to try.
And in the meantime … Tessa fluffed her hair and cranked up the stereo.
She meant to think of nothing. Driving soothed her. Something about the road and the music and the hum of the engine. It was the only place she could just be and not think. But today it didn’t work. Today the music made her think of Luke Asher.
He’d been a quiet kid, but now he looked mysterious. Almost dangerous. Dark and strong. As if she could lean on him and he’d banish her problems with one cold look.
Maybe it was just the hint of forbidden fruit. Her older brothers had rarely brought friends around when she was a kid. When they had, as Jamie had said, there’d been no introductions made. It was an unwritten rule that male friends were not allowed to simply hang around the house as if they lived there. But that hadn’t stopped Tessa from watching their brief visits with close attention.
Yeah. Forbidden fruit. And big strong shoulders. The kind of man who’d take care of all her problems, or at least make her forget them.
But at that moment, the fantasy was so far-fetched that Tessa switched off the music and set aside thoughts of Detective Asher. He might be able to solve the mystery of the robbery, but there was nothing he could do about the tangled mess Jamie had created. If anyone was going to do the rescuing today, it’d be her.
So she squared her shoulders and rode off into the sunset, clutching the steering wheel as if it were a weapon. Tessa to the rescue, one more time.
LUKE SUSPECTED ONE of the university students was behind the robberies. Not because he hated college kids—he only marginally disliked them—but because a college kid would fit the profile. Smart, tech-savvy, daring and in need of quick money. That also described the kids who’d dropped out of school and never managed to quite leave town. And there were a lot of those. Then, of course, there were the educated meth heads. Plenty of those around, too. In other words, without fingerprints or a hot lead, this case would be solved by running down every tiny detail, even the ones that seemed inconsequential.
Luke ran the surveillance video one more time, just for the hell of it. It offered little detail. At around 1:15 a.m., a shadow crossed the video of the loading dock. A few minutes later, it crossed again. This repeated a few more times, and that was it. No body, no height, no description. Just an approximate time of the robbery, and he’d already had that.
He backed up the digital feed a little farther, then farther still, looking for movement, just in case someone had cased the back door earlier in the evening.
But the only person who appeared was a woman with a blond ponytail and a happy smile. Tessa Donovan.
Luke very purposefully didn’t pause the video and look at her. Instead, he shut it down entirely just to avoid the temptation. She was cute, and that was that. There were thousands of cute women in this city. Granted, most of them were way too young for him, but then so was Tessa. Oh, she was past college age, but her eyes were still clear and bright and happy. She made Luke feel ancient.
“I’m heading home,” Simone said, gathering up her purse and briefcase. She wasn’t quite waddling yet, but she was definitely moving with more care. Luke shut his computer down and grabbed his own stack of work. “Here,” he said, reaching across his desk to grab for her heavy case. “Let me get that.” But she was still quick enough to jerk the briefcase out of his reach before he could touch it.
“I’ve got it,” she muttered, irritated by his offer of help. Lately, she always was, and that pissed Luke off. They were partners, damn it. They were friends, or they once had been.
“It’s seven,” he said as he followed her toward the front door. He watched her back as she shrugged. “You’ve been here since eight. You shouldn’t be working these kinds of hours.”
She slammed the door open with both hands, the briefcase banging against the glass. “You’re working them.”
“Simone. Don’t be stupid.”
Her shoulders snapped straight and she stopped so quickly that he had to grab her arm to keep from knocking her over.
“What,” she ground out, “is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to guess from your reaction that you feel stupid about something.”
“Luke—” She cut herself off at that one word, but he could read fury and sadness and resentment, all tied up in that one syllable.
She walked on, heading straight for her car, but he followed, waiting until she opened her door and ditched her bags. Before she could slip into the driver’s seat and escape, he put a hand across the door. “Please talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know that, damn it. It’s pretty obvious. Why?”
“It’s none of your business.”
He felt a sharp stab of pain and a sudden anger. He tried his best to tamp it down, but some of it leaked past his hold. “It is my business, because the whole town thinks I knocked you up.”
“So tell them that you didn’t.”
“And then what? They’re going to want to know who did, and I can’t answer that question. What the hell are they going to think about you, then?”
“I don’t care.” Her face was as blank as any hardened criminal’s under interrogation. She’d always been good at that, but Luke used to be the one she’d actually talk to.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled.
She met his gaze with a cool stare, and when he tossed up his hands and backed away, Simone simply got in her car and shut him out. He felt the dull, hard thud of the door all the way through his body.
If he had knocked her up, he could understand this, but he and Simone had never had sex.
Luke retreated to his own car, then sat there with the windows down, trying to breathe his way to calmness. After a few minutes, he made his hands unclench from the steering wheel, and he laid his head back. The sun was setting and the breeze was cool enough to soothe his temper. He heard the subtle whir of a pack of bikes sliding past the parking lot. Then the click of dog claws against the cement. His gut still burned, but the rest of him was calm when his phone rang. By the time he raised it to his ear, Luke had convinced himself it was Simone calling to apologize.
“Asher,” he said neutrally.
“Hi, this is Tessa Donovan.”
His head snapped up so quickly that the world blurred around him.
“Am I bothering you?” she asked.
Tessa Donovan? “No, it’s fine,” he managed to say.
“You’re not in the middle of a big murder investigation or something?”
Luke smiled. “No, we don’t get a lot of those around here. Luckily there are enough lesser crimes to keep me busy.”
“Luckily!” She laughed, and the sound was richer than he’d expected, not the least bit like a giggle at all.
“So what can I help you with?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t seem to have a dinner companion. Could you help with that?”
“Um.” Not the smoothest answer, but Luke’s brain was having trouble making the transition. “Pardon me?”
“Dinner? I’m driving up from Denver right now, but I’m almost home. I could be changed and ready in forty-five minutes.”
“For dinner.”
“Yes. Unless it’s against the rules. I don’t want to get you put on desk duty because I’m a material witness.”
Luke found himself grinning at his dashboard. “You didn’t witness anything. And you watch too much TV.”
“Wow, you figured that out quick. You really are a detective.”
Shit. She was cute as hell. “I promised your brother I’d stay away from you.”
