and sipped.
“In what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
Seeing his genuine perplexity, she said, “Thanks for returning my wallet, but I’d like you to leave me alone now.”
“Uh...sure...okay.” He continued to look at her.
Rachel decided to hurry and finish her coffee and go.
“I’m sorry.”
She turned to him. Why was he sorry?
“I shouldn’t have come on to you like that.”
“That’s not the only reason I want to be left alone.” She didn’t know why she kept talking to him. She really did want to be left alone now. “My boyfriend broke up with me in a text message.”
“Is that the, ‘You’ve been great. Take care’ guy?”
Rachel reeled again from the callousness of those heartlessly chosen words. “Yes.” She leaned a little closer to the stranger. “Do you all do that?”
“No. I always break up in person. If I’m the one doing the breaking up.”
Rachel didn’t think that happened to him very often. And she didn’t want to hang around to be the next woman he broke up with in person. She stood from the stool, lifting her backpack and tucking her phone in the same compartment as her wallet, zipping it shut.
“You’re leaving?” Luke asked.
“Yes. I came here for company but now I need to be alone.”
As she put the backpack on, Luke watched her, reluctant to let her go.
“When will I see you again?” he asked.
“You won’t.” She waved to the bartender. “Thanks, Hans.”
Luke noticed her friendly exchange, and Rachel realized she’d just revealed she knew the bartender, which also revealed she came here regularly.
Luke stood. “All right. I’ll see you here again sometime, then.”
She stopped from turning to go and his towering height flustered her, as did his impossibly blue-gray eyes. “Will I have to avoid my favorite hangout?”
“You’d avoid it?” His flirty grin returned.
Rachel feared her unwanted interest had begun to show. “No. Just you.”
He chuckled. “Have dinner with me, then. Somewhere nice. Quiet.”
“I told you I wasn’t interested.”
“I could have kept your wallet. Thank me for returning it by having dinner with me,” he said.
“You’d have kept my wallet?”
“No.”
She started for the door with a “Goodbye” tossed over her shoulder.
He didn’t say anything. When she glanced back, he didn’t seem so confident anymore. She’d shot him down, and he couldn’t believe why.
Rachel smiled before going outside. Luke Bradbury wasn’t a man accustomed to being rejected. His tenacity flattered her, but the cautionary instinct that had reared up when he’d said he’d followed her remained.
Walking up the street in falling snow, she caught sight of a car parked across the street and a man sitting inside. He looked right at her. Another admirer? The way he just sat there made her think not.
She walked faster toward her apartment.
Lucas’s stepfather slapped his hand down onto the wooden desk, more indignant animation than anger. “I can’t lie!”
Joseph Tieber owned Bozeman, Montana’s, busiest private air transportation and tourism company. A pilot for more than thirty years, he now sat behind a desk and employed several young airplane and helicopter pilots and numerous other staff. Lucas wasn’t the executive he’d personified for Rachel, but his stepdad did make a lot of money on his passion for flight. He and Luella had been young when their dad died and their mother married Joseph less than a year later. While the transition had been rough, growing up with Joseph had always been an adventure.
“Even for Luella?” Lucas hated lowballing, but his motive had a lot of bite.
His stepdad sighed, full of defeat. He lowered his head as sorrow weighed him down, running a hand through his hair.
After a moment he rested his hands on the desk and lifted his head. “If you want me to hire this woman, why not create a job for her?”
“I mean to win her trust. Offering her a job like this will go a long way toward achieving that.” He hoped anyway. He may have difficulty convincing her to take the job. He hadn’t believed how quickly she’d shot him down. He’d dangled a subtle money carrot and she’d gotten up and left, refused an expensive dinner.
“I may be able to get her to talk, too,” his stepdad said.
Lucas was relieved he was coming around to his way of thinking. “Yes.”
“What if she recognizes me?” his dad asked.
“There wasn’t much news about Luella’s murder. There was something about the search for her for a while but nothing that will lead back to me. And you never adopted us. Luella and I are Curran, not Tieber.”
“She may have looked Luella up after she found out about the affair.”
“Luella didn’t like social media. There isn’t much about her on the internet. I checked. The news didn’t mention her maiden name. Right now Rachel only knows Luella as Luella Palmer, not Curran. She might put it together, but not before I get what I need from her.”
After mulling that over a little, his stepdad said, “I’ll swear my assistant to secrecy and temporarily reassign her elsewhere in the company. But I’m only doing this for Luella. For the record, I don’t approve of your deception.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Lucas stood.
Joseph stood with him. “Before you go, I want to talk to you some more about this vigilante agency you’ve gone and joined.”
“On my own I don’t have access to databases or certain types of equipment. Dark Alley has everything I need and more. Kadin even arranged for my fake identity. I have a driver’s license and everything.” He’d be a believable Luke Bradbury for Rachel. “I can work anywhere, too. Right here.”
“Your mother and I are thrilled you came home, Lucas, but we’re concerned with how far you’re taking this. We’re wondering if you should leave the investigation up to the local police.”
“Her case is cold.”
“They’re going to be pursuing the affair just like you are. I don’t see why you have to get involved. You should be concentrating on your own life. When are you going to settle down? We didn’t raise you to be an ineligible bachelor the rest of your life. Your mother would like grandchildren. Are you going to take that away from her?”
This had become an issue after his sister’s murder. It had been a small issue before, but now his mother had grown anxious over her reduced family. She was lonely, Lucas supposed, and mourning, still, the loss of her only daughter. His mother had crumbled after Luella’s death. Lucas would never forget the call early one morning. Some hikers had found a body, and police believed it was Luella. She would never be the same woman. A lot of his dad’s light had dimmed, too. Once a vivacious man who yearned to explore, he now went through his days with less fizz.
His father had never been one to push this before. His mother must be having a rough time. That only gave him more of a reason to be involved. The sooner he solved his sister’s murder, the sooner they all could move on with