Lawman's Perfect Surrender. Jennifer Morey

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СКАЧАТЬ smoothed back into an elegant bun, she fitted Samuel’s demands for perfection. She was probably about three years older than Dillon, which put her around twenty-one. He was pretty tall and she was almost to his nose in height. Good-looking, and he didn’t miss how she checked him out from his black hair and hazel eyes all the way down his lanky form before she asked, “Your name?”

      You had to have reservations to come to a joint like this. He searched for Whack Job Hollywood among the late-evening diners. There weren’t many. It was going on ten. “I’m here to see Samuel Grayson.”

      “Is he expecting you?”

      “No. Is he here yet?”

      After a few uncertain blinks, her gaze flitted into the foyer. Dillon turned and saw a narrow, open doorway leading down into the basement.

      He faced the girl again. “Look, I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I just need to speak with him for a minute.” He didn’t, actually. He was here to find out why his dad was here.

      The hostess didn’t respond, but glanced around as though checking to see if anyone had heard.

      “Pretend I was never here.” Smiling at her, he walked out of the dining area. A wider stairway opposite the basement passage led to the upper-level rooms. The man and woman behind the fancy registration counter were still busy talking. The woman in the bar didn’t seem to see him.

      Dillon reached the threshold of the stairs. Descending them, he entered what appeared to have once been the servants’ kitchen and now functioned as the hotel staff’s food-prep area for what had to be a small conference center. Heavy wooden double doors probably led to a meeting room. The doors were closed.

      Moving closer, he heard muffled voices filtered through from the other side. He put his hand on the door handle and began to push.

      “You there!”

      Dillon jumped around to see a big burly man approaching him from the stairway. Tall and slick in a suit and tie, he looked as rich as all the other knuckle-draggers Dillon had seen with Grayson. Was his dad trying to become one of them?

      “Are you lost?” he asked.

      “I was looking for someone.” Dillon brushed past the man and climbed the stairs. Back in the foyer, he saw the woman who’d been in the bar standing there, and beyond her, the elaborately coiffed hostess watching nervously from behind her stand. He glanced back and saw the burly man enter the foyer. Time to go.

      Outside, artificial light illuminated his way. Past the circular drive, he stepped onto the lawn and looked back to check how safe he was. The big man had stopped on the front porch, holding a radio to his mouth. Safe enough. He wasn’t going to follow.

      Dillon jumped over a cluster of pansies, his feet crunching on mulch as he maneuvered through the wide and curving border. When darkness cloaked him, he stopped. The knuckle-dragger still stood on the front porch. Dillon moved behind the trunk of a pine tree and waited.

      Rustling in some nearby shrubbery made him turn. There was someone there. He walked toward the sound and stopped when he saw a girl. She inhaled her alarm, taking a step back. He recognized her. She was new to town. She and her grandmother had just moved here. She had long, thick, dark brown hair and green eyes, but it was her hot body that had always caught his eye.

      “What are you doing here?” he asked.

      “What are you doing here?” she countered.

      Had she recognized him? “Why are you hiding in the trees?”

      Pursing her lips, she folded her arms and stuck out a trim hip. “Why are you?”

      He chuckled and held out his hand. “I’m Dillon Monroe.”

      After a brief hesitation, she shook his hand. “Hallie Taylor.”

      “I know who you are. We go to the same school. Did you come here for dinner?” He knew she hadn’t but he played ignorant.

      She frowned while she studied him. “You go to Cold Plains High?”

      He nodded. She didn’t recognize him. “I’m a senior.” Or he would be in the fall.

      “I’m going to be a junior.”

      “I know.”

      “You do?”

      “Yeah. I noticed you at school last year. You’re new to town, right?”

      “Yeah.”

      There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, and they were standing in the landscaping like a couple of delinquents.

      Finally, he glanced back at the inn. “Samuel Grayson is in there.”

      She frowned again, this time from a different kind of curiosity. “Is that why you’re here? Did you have dinner with him?”

      “No. My parents are friends with him. I can’t stand the man.”

      She seemed to ease her tension, but there was an element of distrust that surrounded her. She did seem really quiet at school. She hung out with one girl and didn’t seem to have many other friends. Not popular, but she could be. She was pretty enough. She just wasn’t all that outgoing. He wondered if the reason she was here had anything to do with that.

      Her gaze shifted and he looked toward the inn again. Samuel emerged with his goons, but someone else with him made Dillon take notice. Chief of Police Bo Fargo.

      “I knew it!” Hallie said, moving beside him.

      Dillon looked over at her. “I thought you came here for dinner.”

      Her green eyes moved up to meet his confrontation. “I never said I came here for dinner.”

      He grinned because she’d fallen right into his trap. If she hadn’t come for dinner, why was she here, hiding in the trees?

      “I better get going.” She started walking toward the road on the other side of the trees that encompassed the inn.

      “Hey, I don’t care why you were here. I came to spy on Grayson and I’m pretty sure you came to do the same.”

      She didn’t stop or acknowledge him.

      He could understand her fear. Her reason for being here had to stay secret. If the wrong person found out, she might catch Grayson’s attention.

      They reached a bicycle lying on the ground and she picked it up.

      Dillon touched her arm to stop her. “My truck is right up the street. I can drive you home.”

      “I can ride my bike.”

      Just then a silver BMW drove by with Grayson in the back. He saw them. The BMW passed without stopping and Dillon let his held breath out. That was close.

      “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

      She didn’t argue as he took the bike from her and pushed it to his twenty-year-old blue-and-white СКАЧАТЬ