“Sam,” the other man said to his friend, “leave her be.”
“Eric, this is Ted Gentry,” Bree said in a friendlier tone of voice. “He’s our county coroner. Normally a perfectly nice man, though he could keep better company.”
Gentry grinned. “Sam’s okay if you catch him on a good day. And he said he’d pay for dinner.”
“Least I could do, after you let me keep all the fish we caught,” Needles said with a hearty laugh.
“We did some fishing last night out at Willowbrook,” Gentry explained. “Sheriff’s got a place there. I like to catch ’em, not eat ’em.”
Sam Needles sobered. “Don’t drag me back to court, Bree. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.” He sauntered off.
Gentry shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is. If he says a man’s guilty, he doesn’t like being proved wrong.”
“A common trait among prosecutors,” Eric said amiably, though he was far less accepting of Sam Needles’s behavior than he let on. The fact was, the prosecutor’s attitude got Eric’s back up. He felt this tremendous urge to say, “Hell, yeah, Project Justice is taking on this case and you’re gonna eat your words.”
Even if Eric did agree with the guy.
But he kept still. He didn’t want any arguing, particularly not in front of MacKenzie, although she seemed engrossed in her coloring book and looked as if she’d tuned out the adult conversation.
“If you need anything from me, just let me know,” Gentry said. “I don’t like being proved wrong, either. But as I recall, I wasn’t able to contribute a whole heck of a lot to that case.”
“Thanks, Ted.” Bree gave his hand a quick squeeze.
A jolt of some uncomfortable emotion shocked Eric’s system; it took a moment before he realized he was jealous.
The coroner left to join his friend at a table thankfully far away from theirs. Bree watched them for a few moments. “Of course. They’re sitting down with Sheriff DeVille. Birds of a feather,” she grumbled, then turned to look at Eric. “See what I’m up against? Good-ol’-boy network can’t stand the thought that they might be proved wrong, by a woman, no less. ‘Crusading lady doctor,’ my foot.”
“It’s an attitude I’m familiar with. The coroner seemed a nice enough guy, at least.”
“He’s okay. We go way back, actually. We were in med school together. He’s kind of weird, but you’d have to be kind of weird to, um, do what he does all day.”
The waitress arrived with their food, and for a few minutes they made small talk. Under any other circumstances, Eric would have found Bree delightful. If this had been a first date, he would have wanted a second.
But he didn’t date. Even if he had been ready to trust another woman with his heart—and he wasn’t—there was no way he would make MacKenzie negotiate the minefield of Daddy’s girlfriends. She’d had to endure so many changes so quickly, not the least of which was discovering the foster father who’d cared for her the past three years had killed her mother. That was after losing her mother to murder, then having everyone tell her her own father had done it.
While MacKenzie was working on her scoop of vanilla ice cream, Bree tried to call Philomene again but still got no answer.
“I’m worried about her.”
“Philomene sounds like a woman who can take care of herself. I read up on the case, you know.” He hadn’t exactly had a ton of work to do so far at the foundation. “She came across as gutsy, standing up to her attacker, testifying in court against him—”
“Against the wrong guy. If you met her, you’d know she’s not very tough at all.”
* * *
BREE SEEMED INDECISIVE as she pulled out a credit card to pay for their meal.
“Wait, you don’t have to pay for dinner.” Eric was already reaching for his own wallet.
“Of course I do. You drove all this way, for nothing, as it turns out. I’m so sorry she didn’t show.”
“Crime victims don’t always behave rationally. If I’d been through what she has, I’d be scared, too.” Come to think of it, he was scared.
“But this was our one chance to get someone at Project Justice to listen. She understood that!”
Eric wished he knew what to say to make Bree feel better.
“I’m going to swing by her apartment and see if she’s home,” Bree said. “I don’t suppose you want to come with me—in case she’s there? Maybe I can still get her to talk to you.”
Eric was torn. He wanted to be done with this matter. At the same time, he didn’t want to say goodbye to Bree forever. She was a bright and interesting aspect of his life all of a sudden, even if she did bring trouble. He honestly hadn’t thought he would ever be interested in another woman after Tammy. But this one—she caused something to stir inside him, something he’d thought dead and buried right along with his duplicitous wife.
“If it’ll save me another trip out here...” He tried to make it seem as if he were merely being practical.
She quickly paid the bill, deftly refusing Eric’s attempt to do so himself, and soon they were all headed out to the parking lot, though not without a brief tussle with MacKenzie, who wanted to take her ice cream with her.
“Do you want to ride with me?” Eric asked Bree. “It’s not far, is it?” How far could one drive in Tuckerville and not go beyond the city limits? “I’ll drop you off here when we’re done.”
“Okay, if you don’t mind.”
By the time he got MacKenzie settled in her car seat, Bree was already ensconced in the front of his Nissan, looking right at home. She brought with her not only a healthy dose of femininity but a light, clean scent that reminded him of an alpine meadow—like Colorado in the spring. He was on the verge of asking her what the perfume was, then realized that would sound much too flirtatious for this situation. But the feminine scent produced a ridiculous surge of pleasure.
As he fastened his seat belt and started the car, Bree took a small bottle out of her purse and squirted something into her hand. It was an antibacterial gel, he realized. The alpine scent grew stronger, and he felt like an idiot. No chance she’d gussied up for him.
“Habit,” she said as she tossed the bottle back into her purse. “Hospitals have so many germs that I put this stuff on every five minutes.”
“When MacKenzie was a baby, we were so paranoid about germs we went through a bottle of Lysol about every day. Our hands were always chapped from washing.”
“She must be your first, then.”
“First and only. I don’t see how people do it, the ones who have half a dozen, I mean. I worry about her all the time.”
“I guess you figure it out as you go along.” She sounded wistful.
He knew it was harder for women, doing the whole husband-and-kids thing when you had a high-pressure career. He’d heard enough of his female attorney colleagues say so, anyway. Tammy’d had a career as a bookkeeper before MacKenzie. After the baby came, she’d insisted there was no way she could work and be a proper wife and mother, and Eric had never pushed her to. They’d done okay on his income. If he’d known she was putting MacKenzie in day care so she could carry on with the guy from her coupon club—
No, he couldn’t think about that.
“Turn left at this next stop sign,” Bree said. “It’s the second house on the right. She lives in the apartment over the garage.”
It seemed a cheerful enough neighborhood, with lots of pecan trees and picket