The Bluest Eyes in Texas. Marilyn Pappano

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      Logan leaned against the rear quarter panel, hands resting on the cool metal. Maybe the gorilla wasn’t the type to take public humiliation personally…but he could just as easily have wanted retribution. A lone woman against one man might not be a problem, but against three? He should have walked her to the room, not so much for her own safety but for the safety of the information she hadn’t yet given him. He wasn’t into the hero thing, but he did believe in protecting what was his.

      He rubbed his hands over his eyes, then turned and rapped sharply on the window. The first three taps brought no response at all. After the second three, she finally shifted and damn near slid into the floorboard before catching herself.

      “Come on, Madison, let’s go to bed,” he called through the closed window.

      Innocent words to conjure up not-so-innocent images. It was her fault, for looking softer and sweeter when she was only half-awake, for the braid that had come loose and the tendrils of pale brown hair that framed her hazy expression.

      It took her a moment to reach the door handle, to push the passenger seat forward and to maneuver through the narrow space. She swayed and would have stumbled out of the car if he hadn’t caught her, hands on her shoulders, deliberately keeping her at a distance. As soon as she seemed steady, he let go and locked the car door while she headed blindly for the bed visible through the open room door. She didn’t move her suitcase, didn’t bother to undress, but took a header onto the bed, pulled the denim jacket around her again and lost consciousness again.

      Sleeping in her clothes wouldn’t hurt her—he’d done it for months at a time in the war. Neither would sharing half her bed with a suitcase. She’d just proven she could sleep damn near anywhere. And if she got cold, well, she’d wake up long enough to pull the covers over her.

      Still, after locking the door and securing the chain, he moved the suitcase to the floor, then unzipped the clunky black boots and set them next to the bag. He pulled her purse strap from around her neck and over her shoulder—just so she wouldn’t risk choking herself in the night—and set it on the nightstand, then pulled the loose half of the bedspread up to cover her.

      He wasn’t being considerate but, rather, selfish, he told himself as he stripped to his boxers and crawled into bed. She wasn’t the best of traveling companions under good circumstances; she was likely to be even worse without a good night’s sleep. He was just looking out for himself.

      As he’d done since he was fifteen.

      As he would always do. Just himself, and nobody else.

      Logan had always been a light sleeper. Rita Marshall hadn’t liked it when her sons slept through the alarm, and the punishment for disrupting her morning routine had been severe. She’d also had a fondness for hauling them out of bed at odd hours of the night, using their disorientation at the abrupt awakening against them, so he’d learned over the years to awaken quickly and to come instantly alert.

      The room’s quiet was broken only by the distant sound of traffic. Light filtered in through a crack in the drapes above his bed and sent a wedge of illumination across the floor and onto the opposite bed. That bed was empty at the moment; it must have been Bailey’s movement that roused him. He lay motionless on his left side as his gaze searched the dark room for the source of the noise. He located the shadowy form an instant before it disappeared into the bathroom. After the door closed, the bathroom light came on, seeping underneath the door to illuminate a patch of dirty brown carpet.

      The bedside clock showed that it was three forty-seven. If he wanted to be a real bastard, he could be up when she returned and insist that they go ahead and hit the road. He didn’t move, though. He was still tired. She hadn’t deigned to share with him how much farther they had to go, but hands down, it was better to do it well rested. Who knew? He could drive into the town where Señor Escobar lived and see Mac right off the bat…or Mac could see him. Best to be sharp.

      The bathroom light went off an instant before the door opened. When she approached the bed, the light through the curtains showed her feet, narrow and pale, with that silver chain wrapped around one ankle. It also showed a length of bare leg—she’d removed her jeans while she’d been up and had traded her shirt for a doll-sized tank top. It clung everywhere and ended well above the panties that hugged her hips. If he was interested in sex or in her, it would be torture to lie there in his bed the rest of the night while she lay in hers wearing so little.

      But he wasn’t interested in sex or in her, he thought as he adjusted his erection to a more comfortable position. All he cared about was finding Mac and seeing that he paid for Sam’s and Ella’s murders.

      Bailey slid into bed and tugged the covers high around her neck, gave a soft sigh and closed her eyes. He debated saying something—to let her know he wasn’t asleep, that he’d seen her—but decided against it. It would just embarrass her.

      And then he wouldn’t get to see her like that again. His current lack of interest in sex aside, that would be cause for regret.

      It was nearly noon when they stopped for lunch in a dusty New Mexico town. Esperanza was exactly how Bailey had imagined a small desert town to look—mostly shades of brown, not too prosperous, not too hospitable. The only green was on the occasional building or sign, and the only hint of friendliness was in…well, her. Neither the waitress nor the other customers in the diner showed any sign of welcome—or curiosity, for that matter.

      “Esperanza,” she said thoughtfully as she removed the lettuce from her BLT and laid it aside. “That means ‘hope’ in Spanish, doesn’t it? Wonder how you say ‘lost hope’?”

      “Why do you order a BLT if you don’t like lettuce?” Logan asked.

      “Because if I asked for a BT, no one would know what I wanted. Do you speak Spanish?”

      “Some.”

      Which probably translated to fluently, she thought as she chewed a bite of crispy bacon and vine-ripened tomato.

      “Do you?”

      She shrugged. “I know the important phrases, like Where’s the bathroom? and I need chocolate. What other languages do you speak?”

      “A little German, a little Korean, some Farsi.”

      “What did you do in the Army?”

      This time he shrugged. “How much farther?”

      “Maybe twenty miles.”

      “Twenty miles? Then why the hell did we stop here?”

      “Because I thought we needed to discuss your plan.”

      He squirted jalapeño ketchup over his burger, replaced the top half of the bun, then took a hungry bite. While he chewed, he looked everywhere except at her.

      “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

      He chased the food with a gulp of pop, then scowled at her. “My plan is to find out if Mac is in the area.”

      “Which you can’t do by just showing up in town. This guy knows you. He’d disappear into the woodwork if he saw you snooping around where he’s hiding out.”

      “If he’s hiding there.”

      “Right. СКАЧАТЬ