unfamiliar urge to giggle.
“So…” Still frowning, he took another bite. “Who’s going to call—you or me?”
“You really aren’t much of a card player, are you?” She was feeling amused, relaxed, confident, sure she had the upper hand again. “If I call, you’ve got two choices—fold or show me your cards.”
He stared at the spoon, his frown deepening. “Yeah, but you have to pay for the privilege, as I recall.” His eyes lifted and shot that keen blue gaze right into hers. As if he could see through her dark glasses. As if he could see into her soul.
Cold fingers took another walk across the back of her neck. A reminder that with this guy she couldn’t afford to let her guard down, not even for a moment.
“This isn’t poker,” she snapped, no longer amused, relaxed or confident. “And let’s quit the poker analogies, which I could think of a whole lot more of, but what’s the point? Here’s the deal—I don’t give a damn who you’re looking for or who you’re working for, and if you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay with me. Now—” she slid out of the booth and stood up “—are we done here?”
“The person I work for,” Holt said, pushing aside the dessert plate and reaching for his wallet, “hired me to find his two younger brothers and twin sisters. So far, I’ve found the brothers and one of the twins.” He took out some bills and laid them on the table, then looked up at Billie. “That twin’s name is Brooke Fallon. Her sister’s name is Brenna. She ran away from home when she was fourteen.” He tucked his wallet away again and waited.
The silence at the table was profound, but inside Billie’s head was the tumultuous crashing sound of her world falling apart.
“So?” she said, and could not feel her lips move. She was vaguely surprised to find she was sitting down again.
“So, I thought you might be my client’s missing baby sister,” he said softly, as he slid out of the booth. “And if you were, I thought you might be interested to know you’ve got a family that’s looking for you.”
She shook her head…pursed her lips, stiff though they were. “Sorry. Not me. Don’t know her.”
“Hmm,” Holt said, gazing down at her, “if that’s true, I’ll be really disappointed. I guess I’ll have to wait for the DNA to tell me whether I have to keep looking for Brenna Fallon, or whether I’ve already found her.”
“Wait.” A breath gusted from her lungs. She reached out and snagged his jacket sleeve as he turned away. “What are you talking about? I’m not giving you my DNA. You’re not a cop, you can’t—”
His smile was gentle. “Oh, but you’ve already given me what I need.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a folded paper napkin. Unfolded it and showed her what was inside.
Only years of practice at keeping her face and body under strictest control prevented her from blowing it completely. She stared at the thin wooden stick nestled in white paper in complete silence, and her mind was empty of thought. But somewhere in the primal recesses of her consciousness, a terrified child was screaming—Run.
Still smiling, Holt tucked the folded napkin and its contents away in his inside jacket pocket. The smile was only for show. He didn’t have any idea whether DNA could be recovered from the wooden skewer, and he didn’t know whether Billie would see through his bluff. Or, as she would no doubt put it, call him on it.
Waiting at the cash register for the mother-daughter duo to process his credit card, with his peripheral vision he could see her still sitting just as he’d left her, staring straight ahead, apparently at nothing. He wondered what in the hell she was going to do now. Was she really going to let him just walk away? He was her ride back to the garden shop, of course, but it wasn’t that far if she decided she’d rather walk.
What was going through her mind right now?
He wished now that he’d taken a little more time to study her playing style before rushing off to Vegas to meet her. He had no clue how this woman’s mind worked.
He signed the receipt, tucked it and his credit card in his wallet and returned the wallet to his pocket, then turned to check once more on his erstwhile lunch companion. His heart did a skip and a stumble when he saw that the booth where she’d been sitting was now empty.
Swearing, he slammed through the double doors and half ran to the parking lot. She wasn’t there. Since there was no way she could have gone farther in the time available, he reversed course and got to the restaurant’s foyer just in time to meet her as she came out of the restroom, drying her hands on her jeans and looking completely unperturbed.
“Ah, there you are,” Holt said, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on the fact that his heart was pounding and he was breathing like a marathon runner. “I was about to go off without you.”
“Yeah, right,” she said as she walked past him and pushed through the double doors. She was smiling that damn little half-smile of hers, the one that made her seem ancient and all-knowing.
About halfway to the car she threw him a sideways glance and said in an amused tone, “Do you really think you can get DNA from a wooden stick?”
“I don’t know,” Holt replied. “I guess I’m about to find out.”
She laughed. It was a low, husky sound, but like a shrilling alarm clock, it awoke the sensual awareness of her that had been dozing just below the levels of his consciousness. His skin shivered with it, a pleasurable sensation he tried without success to deny.
Determined to ignore it, he unlocked her side of the car and went around to do the same to his, since his restored 1965 Mustang didn’t come equipped with power door-locks. He slid into his seat as she did hers, and from the corner of his eye he saw her run her hands appreciatively over the black leather upholstery. He was suddenly acutely aware of the warmth of the leather seat on his backside. Although it was comfortably cool outside, the air in the car seemed too thick to breathe.
He got the engine turned on and the air-conditioning going full blast, and as he was waiting for it to take effect, she said in that same throaty voice, “I really do like your car, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Good God, what now? Was she actually flirting with him?
“Did you restore it yourself?”
“No. I got it from a grateful client.” He backed out of the parking place, then abruptly shifted gears and pulled back into it. “Tell me something,” he said as he slapped the gearshift into Neutral. “Why should you be afraid of the DNA result anyway?”
“Who says I’m afraid?”
“It’s not like you’re wanted by the police,” he went on, “or a suspect in a crime. All this is, is a family that’s trying to find their missing sister.”
Sister. Sistersistersister… Thank God he couldn’t see inside her mind, see that word pulsing there like the gaudiest neon on the Vegas Strip. Thank God for the years of training that would keep him from knowing the pain she felt with every starburst.
“Yeah, well,” she said, hating the gravel in her voice, “see, that’s the thing. I’m nobody’s sister. Okay?” Don’t deserve to be. Don’t you understand? I lost that right a long time ago.
“Pity,” Holt said softly, putting the Mustang once more into reverse. “These are some nice people. You couldn’t ask for a better family to be a part of.”
Yeah, right, Billie thought, and it was all she could do to keep from erupting in derisive laughter. Nice didn’t come anywhere close to describing the brother she remembered.
Then…something