“Did they catch the perp?” she asked, trying to mentally organize everything that he had just told her.
“No, the killings stopped and the trail went cold. The agents who were working it lost the scent. It’s now a cold case sitting in a box. I’m going to have the files sent over. Do you want them sent as an email or fax?”
She thought about it. “Fax them. Then, I won’t have to print them out if I’m on the run.”
“I’ll have them to you by tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Luke. It looks like I’ll be baking you a pie after all.”
“Yep, and I like mine extra sweet,” he said lecherously, and then laughed. “Your brother just smacked me in the head. You want to talk to him?”
“Oh, yeah, I want to talk to him. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in a while. I’m not feeling loved anymore,” she said laughing. “Put him on.”
She heard talking, and then her brother’s southern drawl.
“Sugar, are you being a good girl down there?”
“I absolutely am, Nathaniel. Are you being a bad boy like always?”
His laughter filled her ear. “Always, Callie. Why change it up this late in the game? I can take some leave and head down there if you need me. I’ll even bring my side kick, if you want.”
Callie was smiling and Quinn couldn’t miss it. The joy on her face twisted his gut into a knot. It was getting harder and harder to not get angry, as Callie continued to sweet talk these two men.
Had she dated both of them?
Was she still seeing them and that was the reason she was hesitant to give him another chance?
Shit!
He couldn’t believe that he overlooked the possibility that she was in a relationship. After all, she was perfect, and women like that weren’t on the market long or in his case- ever.
Damn it!
“No, Nate, not yet. I’ll talk to Quinn and see what he wants to do. This is, after all, his case and his town to protect.”
“Anything you say, sugar. Are you fine with doing another serial killing case?” In his gut, he wasn’t okay with it at all. In fact, it terrified him.
“Yeah,” she said, not sure if that was the entire truth.
“Luke said you’re hot for the sheriff,” he said, brotherly intentions creeping in and taking over the logical part of his brain. The last thing he wanted to think about was his baby sister hot about anything but the damn weather.
His blood pressure shot up.
Callie stared over at Quinn, who was trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably.
“I could be, Nate. I’m not sure. It’s like being on a rollercoaster.”
“Are we talking about a really scary rollercoaster where you scream and get off happy, or one where you cry the entire time, and I have to kick the ass of the person who made you get on it in the first place?”
She snorted. “You’re out of control, Mr. Big Shot.”
“Do you want me to check on him?”
“Nate, if you dare, so help me God! I’ll drive my ass up there and kick you in yours so damn hard that you’ll walk funny for two weeks.”
“Okay, okay, calm it down, tiger. I’ll let it go, but I want you to call me tomorrow, okay? I assume he’s in the room, and you can’t spill all the details.”
“You would be correct. I’ll take you up on that offer, and talk to you tomorrow.”
“I love you, Callista. You better take care of my baby sister, or our momma is going to hand me my ass.”
That made her laugh.
“I love you too,” she said, blowing kisses into the phone. “Give one to Luke, or he’ll feel left out.”
The man laughed.
Callie hung up her phone and picked up her soda.
“Well?”
God, please help him to stay in control and not punch holes in every wall in the place.
“They had a case much like ours in Phoenix about four years ago.” Efficiently, she relayed all the information, offering up everything that Nate had shared with her. “They’re getting the info couriered to them tomorrow morning and will be faxing it to us ASAP. It’ll be coming to my house, and we can get it there.”
“To your house?” he asked, wondering why they didn't just send it to his office. This was where they were working.
“Yeah, well, I have the security clearance, and you haven’t officially asked for their help, so it’s off the record.”
“I see,” he said.
“Is there something wrong, Quinn?” she asked, trying to read him.
“Nope, I’m just tired. Want to go over the coroner’s report now?” What were a few lies now and again? He was so far from okay that he didn’t think he’d ever get back to it.
Callie glanced at the clock and saw it was almost six at night. “Can you bring it with you?”
“Is it quitting time?”
“Yep. How do you feel about fajitas?”
Quinn smiled, the tension easing in his body. “Will there be guacamole?”
“Quinn, what’s Mexican food without that?” she asked with a serious face, and then started laughing as he actually pondered it.
“You realize that you had me at food, right?” he admitted, trying to let go of his anger, just so he could enjoy the night with a beautiful woman.
“So, you’re using me to get fed?”
He didn't reply because if he did, he would surely slip up and tell her that what he wanted from her had nothing to do with eating, but it was going to feed something.
His insatiable hunger for her.
* * *
Tuesday Evening
Quinn drove Callie to her car and helped her down from his truck like a gentleman. “I’ll meet you at your house.”
“Okay, Quinn, I’ll see you there,” she said, sliding into her car. Only when she was safely inside did he stepped back, allowing her to pull out of her parking space.
He didn't take his eyes off her vehicle until she was out of sight. It was hard not to feel ecstatic that he was spending another evening with Callie, and her cooking. It almost made up for the phone calls he’d been privy to in his office.
Almost.
What he needed to do now was find out what those men meant to her, and then see what his chances were of making her part of his life. Quinn needed to figure out what he planned on doing, if Callie was indeed spoken for.
Could he walk away?
Or would he fight to make her see what he was already feeling.
That they were meant to be together.
He felt it all the way to his soul.
Callie pulled into her driveway and raced for her house. Her thoughts had been plagued with Quinn, and what the hell she was doing inviting him over again.
She knew better.
In the back of her mind, Callie knew that she was playing with fire. It was easy to predict what was going to happen. Callie would let him into her heart, and then he would play his game and be off flirting with some other woman.
That thought alone made her sick to her stomach.
Let’s face it.
She wasn’t his type.
The weapons in her arsenal weren’t the things that would attract him as a man. She was brainy and academic, not big breasted and blonde. Callie sighed as she stepped into her sanctuary.
Oh well, what was done was done.
First, she would change out of her ruined shirt, and then she would make Casanova some dinner. All she had to do was keep her hands off him. How hard could that be?
She was just zipping her shorts when she heard Quinn’s truck pulling up to her house. As she hurried down the stairs, Callie was surprised when she opened her front door. There the sheriff stood with a bunch of daisies clutched in his hand.
“I picked these for you, ma’am,” he offered, grinning that deadly good ol’ boy smile.
She was screwed.
“If I knew you were wearing those shorts, I would have gone to ‘The Herb Pot’ and bought you roses.” Q
uinn allowed his gaze to slide up and down her long legs. When he saw her toes were painted a feminine pink, his heart skipped in his chest.
Damn, he never felt anything like this before.
Callie accepted his gift and invited him in. “I hope you’re hungry, Quinn.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” he replied, watching her from behind. Lord have mercy, it was going to be a very long night. All he had to do was not jump the sexy doctor.
How hard could it be?
She spoke, regaining his attention, “I have to admit something,” she began, knowing he was watching her like a hawk. “I lied to you tonight.”
He stiffened at her words, and immediately brought his guard back up. “Excuse me?” he asked, quietly.
Callie continued, “I told you that I would be cooking, but fajitas are more like a team sport,” she said, winking. “It’s a lot more fun if you have a partner to make them. Want to be mine?”
Oh hell, where to even take that one.
Quinn immediately relaxed, since this lie was nothing to freak him out. At least she wasn’t planning on telling him that the man on the phone was indeed her fiancé. “You want my help? Did you hit your head and not your lip?”
“Oh, yeah, darlin’. I certainly want your help. My momma always told us that on fajita night, if the men didn’t assist, they didn’t get dessert.”
“Well, that depends on what’s for dessert,” he said, playing along. God, he was enjoying every second of this. Quinn had forgotten how delicious this game could be. It had been a long time since he found a woman he wanted to play it with.
“There may be fresh strawberry shortcake, if you play your cards right.”
“For fajitas, baby, I’d do anything, but toss in strawberry shortcake, and I’d be your slave,” he said, following her to the sink. It warmed his heart that she was keeping the daisies that he’d picked for her. Quinn also wondered if she caught that he called her baby.
Washing her hands, she began. “Okay, let me get all the ingredients.”
He did the same, and then enjoyed how she efficiently moved around the kitchen.
“Okay, Quinn. You’re about to get your first cooking lesson,” she said, picking up a wicked looking kitchen knife.
“I’m ready, teacher.”
Yeah, that drew up some fantasies in his mind.
Callie seasoned some chicken, steak, and shrimp, and placed it on a platter. “First we do the prep work. The hardest part of fajitas is that you have to cut all the veggies,” she said, going to the fridge. When she bent over, Quinn nearly dropped the knife. The view of her in the tiny shorts, with her long sexy legs, made him even hungrier.
She turned and saw the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
Oh shit!
He was busted.
“I’m just worried that I’ll lose a finger with this knife,” he replied, covering quickly. “I’m really bad in the kitchen.”
Callie laughed. “Okay, I’ll cut the veggies. Can you take care of the avocados?”
“Yeah, that I can do,” he replied, watching her whip through red, orange and yellow peppers. Next, she finished prepping the other vegetables, by cutting them into delicate strips.
“You okay there?”
“Uh, I think so. You cook like a pro. I think you have an unfair advantage against me in the kitchen.”
She smiled and felt her lip throb. “Ouch,” her fingers went to her lips and checked to see if there was blood.
“Are you okay?” he asked, putting down the avocado.
“Yeah, I keep forgetting how much it hurts when I smile.” Callie’s heart skipped as he moved closer to her. For that brief instant, she felt like prey being stalked. The look in his eyes was very predator-like.
“I know what’ll make it feel better.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her mind was screaming for her to stop him, but she was curious and wanted to kiss him again.
“Yeah,” he said, leaning down to delicately kiss the split in her lip. When he pulled away, she swore that for some reason, it did stop hurting.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah, it is. I don’t know why, but it is.”
He returned to his avocados and could still feel her lips pressed to his. Quinn tried to think about being a gentleman, like his momma had taught him. Unfortunately, it was getting harder and harder every minute. When he glanced back over at her, she was at the stove with a large old-fashioned skillet.
“Cast iron?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Oh, yeah. You can’t make fajitas any other way, Quinn. Now, watch and learn darlin’,” she said, as she tossed the chicken and steak strips into the pan. Like a chef, she began whipping their meal together. First, she cooked the meat, added more seasoning, and finally the veggies.
He watched in awe as the woman beside him made him dinner. It felt so intimate and full of…
He pushed it out of his mind.
Quinn’s eyes never left her as she rummaged around in a cabinet. When she pulled out a blender and two bottles, one with a green liquid and the other with the telltale gold, his heart began pounding.
Hell yeah!
They were going to be drinking.
In his past, tequila and women were the perfect mix.
Callie tossed him the bag of limes. “I need your help, Quinn. How are you at making margaritas?”
“Oh, baby, I make a mean one,” he admitted, grinning as he approached the blender. “How wild do you feel?”
Callie’s heart tripped in her chest. This was the second time that he had used ‘baby’ as a term of endearment. It made her belly knot with anticipation.
“Not ‘strip down and dance on the furniture’ wild, Quinn,” she said, amused by the look of disappointment on his face.
“Damn,” he muttered. “How about, ‘make out with the sheriff on the couch’ wild?”
She thought about it for a second. “I doubt you can make one that damn good, Quinn, but if I’m wrong, then you just may get your wish,” she admitted, going up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Impress me, big guy,” she said, returning to the fajitas.
His fingers brushed the still warm lip mark on his cheek and finally, he was able to think again.
“I’m going to hold you to that, Callie.”
She winked at him over her shoulder, despite the warning that her brain was giving her. Apparently, the sexy sheriff was working his way into her heart.
Quinn grinned and thanked the powers that be for that summer in Mexico while he was in college.
This was his shot at happiness, and he wasn’t messing it up.
* * *
Callie served them at her dining room table. It gave them a little more wiggle room and space to spread out and enjoy their fajitas. When she took her seat, Callie could feel him watching her intently. It made her heart skip in her chest. The scent of his cologne was so alluring that she wanted to wrap herself in it.
“Here’s your margarita, baby,” he said, taking a sip of the one in his hand.
Callie tentatively took a sip and moaned in pleasure. When making drinks with something as potent as tequila, there was a fine line between yum and yuck.
The man nailed it.
“Okay, this is absolutely perfect.”
“Well, thank you, ma’am. I do aim to please.” Inside, he was celebrating the making out on the couch that he had just earned.
Callie offered him the tortillas, meat, and veggies. It was hard to not gawk at his large hands as he effortlessly constructed his first fajita. When he moaned, closed his eyes, and chewed, she had to grin wickedly.
“Damn it, Callie. This is amazing,” he said, licking his thumb.
“Uh huh,” she said, biting into her own. If he only knew that she whipped this recipe out only for special guys, he might be surprised. This was her ‘catch the man’ meal, and Callie’s brain was telling her to knock it off, before she regretted it.
Quinn pouring more potent margarita into
her glass had her attention. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we do have to work tonight.”
“Yeah, let me just enjoy the best damn fajitas I ever had, and I’ll be a good boy later.”
Who was she to argue?
“How much alcohol is in this?”
He laughed. “You don’t want to know,” he said, sipping his own, before continuing to feast on his fajitas.
“Oh, I think I do.”
“Let’s just say that if you start getting a hot flash, you better stop. The next step is where the clothes start coming off.”
Yeah, what wouldn’t he give to see that happen?
She stared at him, and the little butterflies in her stomach began fluttered again. “That sounds intriguing.”
It caught him totally off guard. So much so, that she actually had to close his mouth for him with her fingertips.
That one little sentence gave him so much hope.
Thirty-five minutes later, Callie cleared the table and poured them two more margaritas. Quinn had grabbed the coroner’s report and headed for her couch. When Callie met him there, she didn’t want to work. What she wanted, was to get to know the man who looked amazing in his jeans, drove around in a dusty truck, and made killer margaritas.
He was an enigma.
Finally, she managed to regain her sanity. There was a time and a place, but this wasn’t it. Tonight was all about murders, not mentally undressing the man in front of her. That was incredibly inappropriate.
And yet, she couldn’t stop.
“Okay, how about we start with the autopsy findings?” he suggested. He was enjoying himself way too much.
“Okay, what do we have?”
He flipped through the paper. “Aimee Jo was sexually assaulted multiple times, and the DNA under her nails wasn’t hers. It will take a couple days to get back from the lab, so we have to wait on that one,” he stated. “The reports matched the file on Sissy Parker, except that Aimee Jo had choked on her gag and died of asphyxiation. Other than that, we appear to be back to square one.”
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