Lone Star Santa

by Heather MacAllister

  And Mitch didn’t seem the slightest bit curious. If anything, he seemed amused. After the Tutti Fruitti incident, she could hardly blame him, but his lack of concern and utter faith in Jeremy worried her.

  Without removing his hands from the steering wheel, Mitch indicated the dozens of restaurants and clubs lining Richmond Avenue as they drove past. “Do you see any place—”

  “Tex-Mex!” Kristen pointed. “There. That one. It’s been forever since I’ve had good Tex-Mex food. It’s just not the same in California.” And, no, she wasn’t just thinking of the sushi salsa place.

  “I guess it wouldn’t be,” Mitch murmured as he turned into the restaurant parking lot.

  “Mmm, queso. Chips. Salsa.” She affected an accent. “Margareeeeetas.”

  “Si, señorita.” His accent was better than hers.

  He’d probably paid attention in Spanish class.

  Kristen inhaled the scent of peppers and cumin and fried onions when they got out of the car. “I’m thinkin’ fajitas for two,” she said.

  “I’m thinkin’ they’d better be at least half beef,” Mitch said. “There is no such thing as a chicken fajita, I don’t care what they say.”

  “Tell you what, if you spring for extra queso, we can order all beef.”

  “Deal.” He shrugged out of the leather jacket. “I do believe you just managed to salvage this evening.”

  Unfortunately not for long, Kristen thought as she started toward the restaurant. Before they left, she had to convince him that he, well, that he owned a strip club for drag queens. How many margaritas would that take? She’d better plan on driving home.

  “Hang on.” Mitch caught up to her and draped the jacket over her shoulders.

  “You were serious about me wearing the jacket inside?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Kristen looked down at herself. “I know I’ve skipped a few crunches.” She poked at her exposed stomach, which yielded alarmingly. “Okay, I’ve skipped a lot of crunches. But I didn’t think I looked that bad.” But definitely squishy.

  Mitch pulled the edges of the jacket closed. They fell open again. He sighed. “You do not look bad. And you know it. But you do not fully appreciate how approachably hot you look. Men will want to approach. We do not want them to do that because then I would have to convince them to go away. But by this time, they will be gazing at you lustfully and will not want to go away. They will want to prove that they are the more worthy male by eliminating the competition—that would be me. Since I don’t want to be eliminated, I would put up a good fight, but I’d rather eat fajitas and drink margaritas in peace.”

  She dismissed his words with a wave of her hand that sent the coat slithering off her shoulder. “You make everything too complicated. How ’bout I just kick ’em in the nuts?”

  “How about you put your arms in the sleeves?”

  He held the collar until she pushed her arms through the sleeves. Warmth—his warmth—settled around her making her feel protected and cherished. It was a nice change from the self-involved men she’d gone out with in Los Angeles. It hadn’t mattered then because she’d been self-involved, too.

  Kristen dipped her nose to the lining of the collar and breathed in the faint smell of shaving cream mixed with an earthier scent…cigar?

  Kristen jerked her head up. Cigar. Her father’s cigar. And probably her father’s shaving cream, too. Ew. No. Not while she was having warm fuzzy feelings for Mitch. Not good, not good. People went into therapy to get over less.

  “Is it too late to change my mind about the dark side?” He lowered his voice suggestively. “You look like you’re naked under that coat.”

  Her brain was going to explode.

  “This is my father’s coat. Thank you so much for saying that.” Mitch was right, unfortunately. She could see her reflection in the window. Bare neck and miles of legs sticking out from the coat. Yeah. Her legs were still her best feature.

  “I think it’s pretty funny,” he said, opening the door.

  “No. No it’s not. I tell you, I’m scarred for life.”

  Laughing, Mitch hung his arm across her shoulders in the universal she’s-with-me signal.

  As soon as they were seated in their booth, Kristen slipped out of the jacket, but wrapped the arms around her waist. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and noticed Mitch glaring at her. “What? I’m covered in leather from the waist down.”

  “I know.” He briefly squeezed his eyes shut. “Try to look unapproachable. No eye contact with anyone but me.”

  “You mean like this?” She sent a smoldering look across the table.

  And he sent a smoldering look right back. In fact, his smoldering look was better than her smoldering look and she’d been practicing.

  Kristen was so surprised that he had a look like that in him that she blinked. She was pretty sure Mitch didn’t. She was also pretty sure he saw her blink because one side of his mouth moved ever so slightly upward.

  He had perfected the look of the confident, sexy male on the prowl.

  Wait a minute. She was supposed to be the hottie here and he was supposed to be the befuddled nice guy. He was not supposed to be letting his smoking hot gaze drift from the top of her head all the way down her torso and back up again in a way that felt as though he was touching her.

  And he definitely shouldn’t have be able to add that slow, knowing smile.

  Just then, their waiter thrust a red plastic basket of tortilla chips and a small bowl of salsa on the table, his arm right in the middle of their line of sight. It was excellent timing because Kristen didn’t have a smoldering-look exit strategy. She’d never needed one before.

  “Hello, my friends. What can I get you to drink this evening?”

  “Two frozen margaritas with salt. She likes salt,” Mitch said to the waiter.

  He smiled as he scribbled their order. “And she is the type of woman a man wants to please, eh?”

  Avoiding eye contact as instructed, Kristen bit into a chip as Mitch and the waiter exchanged a silent man-to-man thing before he left.

  “I saw that,” she said.

  “What?”

  “That way-to-go-amigo look he gave you.”

  Mitch looked pleased with himself. “Yeah, I liked that. It doesn’t happen too often.”

  “Because I’m better looking than your usual dates?” Kristen preened a little.

  Mitch dunked a chip in the salsa. “Because my usual dates wear more clothes.”

  “Oh, Mitch.” Kristen shook her head in mock sympathy. “It’s not the clothes. It’s how they’re worn.”

  “I see that now.” He ate the chip and reached for another one. “Coverage and accessibility are very important. Low coverage, high accessibility. So noted.”

  Kristen should have been satisfied with the smoldering look.

  As it happened, Mitch didn’t have to fight off any men and Kristen nearly forgot the whole purpose of the evening. Okay, she didn’t forget, she stalled. She stalled because she was enjoying herself more than she’d expected.

  Mitch didn’t resort to a canned patter or a schedule of date moves. Honestly, was there some book for men about dating that was making the rounds? First there was the head tilt with the enigmatic smile designed to prompt a “What?” or “Why are you looking at me like that?” The response would be a quiet compliment, followed by what Kristen liked to call a “rescue the puppy” story which was supposed to make the guy look good and the woman turn all gooey inside. Next came the touch—on the arm or leg, maybe even a heartfelt hand squeeze. After that came a series of maneuvers designed to create a romantic intimacy. Talking, listening, smiling, mirroring body positions and always at some point a faux shyness that somehow—and Kristen was never certain exactly how—led to a kiss. And other things. Why did the limpid look always work when she saw it coming a mile off?

  There was no limpidness with Mitch. Neither did he respond to her date maneuvers, which, of course, she had and which, of c
ourse, she tried out—just to see what would happen. What happened, of course, was nothing.

  Nothing turned out to be refreshing. Mitch was easy to be with. He talked, he listened and there was no pressure. Kristen didn’t have to keep up the pretense of her successful career around him and he seemed very laid back and normal. Normal except for the SEC and the FBI investigating him.

  Yeah, with guys there was always something.

  Other than that, he was great date material.

  They chit-chatted their way through an entire basket of chips, a bowl of queso just as decadent as she remembered, and half a frozen margarita—she was holding back—before Kristen reluctantly brought out the papers she had in her purse.

  Yeah, the time had come and she was sorry. Pushing the chip basket aside and blotting condensation from their glasses with her napkin, Kristen smoothed the slightly crumpled papers into a stack.

  Mitch stared at the stack. “You found that much stuff?”

  “I only brought the relevant printouts.”

  “Relevant to what?”

  Kristen looked into his eyes and didn’t see the slightest suspicion. The guy truly had no idea. He honestly still thought the SEC and whoever had made a mistake.

  He must have thought their trip to the club had been her idea of a joke. Kristen tried not to feel insulted because this was not about her and her abilities.

  “I’m going to start at the beginning.” She took his credit report from the stack. “I noticed that Anderson Personnel requested a credit report.”

  “Anybody can request a credit report.”

  “True, but it’s usually because they plan to do business with you. So I checked them out.” And then she showed him all the different holding companies Anderson Personnel was doing business as and what one of those companies owned. And then she showed him that his retirement fund owned Anderson Personnel. Therefore—

  “I own a bunch of strip clubs?” His voice was loud enough to attract attention.

  “Shh! We don’t know that they’re all strip clubs.”

  “Oh, come on! Look at those names.”

  Again with remarkable timing, the waiter appeared with their fajitas. Kristen hoped the sizzling meat on the metal plate had drowned out Mitch’s horrified exclamation.

  Judging from the waiter’s sudden deference to Mitch and the speculative looks in her direction—no.

  “But…” Mitch thumbed through the papers.

  “I took the liberty of making a company family tree and all the DBA children.” Kristen handed him another paper. “With colors.”

  He was clearly not impressed with the colors. “Where’s Jeremy’s name?”

  “It wasn’t there.”

  “But we both own Golden Boy.”

  “Not according to anything I came across.” Kristen showed him copies of the DBA filings listing the legal owners. Mitch’s name was there and Jeremy’s was not. “It costs less than ten bucks to file a business name, so there could be dozens I didn’t find.”

  Kristen decided she’d let Mitch absorb all this before she poured on part two.

  While he absorbed, she’d eat fajitas. As she piled her tortilla with meat, onions, peppers, pico de gallo and sour cream, she wondered if Mitch would think she wasn’t empathetic since she hadn’t lost her appetite.

  “Could you pass me the tortillas, please?”

  Kristen took the lid off the tortilla keeper and held it out. “I was afraid you’d lost your appetite.”

  “I still might.” He peeled a flour tortilla off the stack. “That’s why I’m eating now.”

  “Good plan.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” And he wasn’t talking tortillas.

  Kristen met his eyes. “Have some sour cream.”

  They ate in silence. Mitch studied the papers and Kristen studied Mitch.

  He concentrated fiercely on the information she’d given to him. Kristen figured he was looking for a flaw or an explanation or both. For his sake, she hoped he found one. She’d already decided that he was completely, even embarrassingly, innocent. A seasoned actor would be challenged to react as convincingly clueless.

  She caught the eye of their waiter—not that hard to do—and ordered another margarita for Mitch.

  He didn’t seem to notice the exchange of glasses when he picked up the fresh one. “All right. Hit me with the rest of it.”

  Kristen waited until he’d taken a fortifying swallow. “The rest is Jeremy and his father, or at least Jeremy’s father’s land development company.”

  Mitch nodded as he carefully set his glass in the wet ring it had made. “He’s referred some of his clients to us. That’s not illegal. They know Jeremy is his son.”

  “Right, but here’s where it gets complicated.”

  Mitch pushed aside the remains of his dinner. “I thought we’d already done complicated.”

  “Not like this.” Kristen showed him lists of investment trades, the companies making them, properties bought and sold and their selling prices and who was doing the buying and selling.

  “That’s a lot of activity, but, here again, nothing illegal.”

  “Ah.” Kristen had printed some of the details on pale green paper. “This information is courtesy of my mother.” Kristen held the papers close to her chest before letting Mitch see them. “It’s confidential to real estate professionals. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my mom—and my dad, too—”

  “Your parents know?”

  “Well, yeah. How did you think I got access to all this info?”

  “Great. That means my parents are going to know.” He took a large swallow of margarita and winced. “Brain freeze.”

  “Ouch.” Kristen made a sympathetic face even though she was the one with the melted dregs in her glass because she wanted to remain sharp and capable of driving home in case Mitch was one of those men who liked to drown his sorrows. “My parents won’t say anything because of client confidentiality.”

  “I’m not a client.”

  “But I am. I hired myself.”

  Mitch looked a question at her as he dug in the basket for any leftover chip crumbs.

  “The Dater’s Special. We do background checks for people—mostly women—who want to make sure the guys they’re involved with are who they say they are and there aren’t any current wives or heavy-duty child support payments or felonies they neglected to mention.”

  “Nice. But I disclosed everything. Everything I knew, anyway.”

  “I wanted a legit paper trail in case there’s any question about why I investigated you. Anyway, the information on these papers came from my mom’s contacts and isn’t going into the files.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Kristen handed him the green papers.

  Mitch stared at them. “What am I looking at?”

  “Lots of your clients’ money seems to find its way into real estate before ending up elsewhere. My mother is plugged into a group that chats about sales and experiences that are out of the norm.” Kristen gestured as she tried to explain. “She won’t tell me any more.”

  He flipped through the pages. “So how does this affect me?”

  “For whatever reason, these property sales attracted attention. And, oh, look, they all involve Sloane Property Development and Construction. And you. In technical terms, your little family of DBAs is hanging out with Jeremy’s dad’s big family of DBAs. Something’s not right about that. I know it. I feel it.”

  Mitch looked up at her. After a long moment, he slowly nodded. “Okay.”

  “I thought it would help if I followed one trail all the way from the beginning—you, or rather an investment your company made on behalf of a commercial client.” Kristen pulled out a chart that she’d taped together.

  Mitch didn’t know it, but he was looking at two days of her life. Honestly, with all the names, it was like following an ant through an anthill.

  “I remember that.” Mitch pointed to the beginning of the chart. “He’s one of
Chuck Sloane’s referrals.”

  “My mother has serious issues with that guy.”

  “Jeremy’s father?”

  “Yeah. She’s gone head-to-head with him on some real estate deals and hasn’t been very happy about the way things turned out. She said he has an uncanny knack for buying and selling worthless property which then isn’t worthless anymore and inflates the property taxes in the area.”

  “Hmm.”

  Mitch had tuned her out to concentrate on her chart. “May I write on this?”

  She nodded, but he didn’t look up. “Go ahead.”

  He brought out a mechanical pencil and a fancy shmancy electronic phone thingie like she’d never been able to afford.

  “Blackberry?”

  “Palm Treo. I was allowed to keep it since all the files were in my computer anyway.” He still didn’t look at her, not that she was trying to get him to do so. She was interested in watching him, waiting for a reaction or at least an explanation. She felt entitled after all the hours she’d spent researching and making herself dizzy with numbers.

  Besides, he was much easier on the eyes than numbers.

  Minutes passed and Kristen began to notice details in Mitch’s face that she’d missed before. Details like the way the short hairs right in front of his ears grew in different directions. Details like the shape of his ear lobes, the bump in the bridge of his nose and the length of his eyelashes. There were a couple of tiny scars—one near the outer edge of his eye and the other on his chin. The crease between his eyebrows deepened when he concentrated. It was attractive now, but in ten years, he’d want to Botox it.

  His face was nicely shaped, but his cheekbones weren’t angular enough to look good on camera. And if she were doing a makeover on him, she’d part his hair on the other side, or give him one of those short shaggy cuts with lighter brown streaks in the front.

  She imagined him with various styles of facial hair. No mustache because his lips were very well shaped. She couldn’t see him in a full beard, either. A goatee? Maybe. Maybe not. Ick on a soul patch. He could wear his sideburns longer, though. A little bronzer wouldn’t be amiss, either. His eyebrows could be tamed a bit.