Page 19 of Infatuation

“I guess Mal didn’t tell you about me.”

“Other than you were single, could handle yourself, and well, that you’re pretty.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You added that last one in.”

He smiled. “Okay, I did.”

“I guess Mal didn’t tell you the nickname my brothers gave me, did he?”

He shook his head.

“I was known as the informer.”

He waited for a second, and when she didn’t continue, he asked, “The informer?”

“Yes. We had a big family: four boys, two girls, and a mother who worked by my father’s side to get thebusiness going. When my mother worried about the boys, she always let me go with them. And if I didn’t, she made sure I got to question them. I can get an answer out of anyone.”

“Is that why Mal let you go with me alone?”

She snorted. “First of all, Mal doesn’t let me do anything. I stopped answering to a man the day I turned eighteen. Secondly, I don’t think so. See, knowing my brother, he’s going to go catting around after a few of his lost loves. He’s not ready to settle down yet, so I know he will go to the women he knows won’t get clingy.”

Deke rolled his eyes. “Talk about someone who’s carrying a torch.”

She zeroed in on that statement. “Do tell.”

Deke’s eyes widened almost comically. “No. No way. I am not ratting out an officer to his sister. I’ll never live it down.”

“Spoilsport.”

“I would rather be called that than whatever the team would invent to pay me back for telling you something.”

“Why don’t we go do a little more walking? I need to stop by my bar. I just need to make sure there aren’t any problems.”

“I think I can handle that.”

She nodded. “And maybe we’ll stop at a voodoo store, and I’ll buy something to make you talk.”

“Don’t even think about it. I have a healthy respect for that shit.”

Laughing, she patted his hand.

“If Kade screws this up with you, I want first dibs at a date.”

Amused with him, with the solemn expression on his face, she smiled.

“You’re the first man I’d call.”

“So, how long you in town for?”

Mal smiled at Verna, and Kade tried not to cuss. He really hadn’t wanted to come to the bar, but Mal had insisted, telling him he needed to get out of the house. He knew his friend was right, but it didn’t mean he wanted to sit there with the skanky woman wrapped around Mal like he was a life preserver on the Titanic. And he didn’t want to be in Shannon’s bar.

“We only have a week of leave. So not long. Just needed to get out of Virginia, and I wanted to check on my sister. Has she been seeing anyone?”

Verna shook her head. "That new restaurant owner from down the street has been sniffing around. He’s one of the Augustins. But she shut him down. She told me he was just trying to scope out the competition.”

“Are we talking about Beau? He has always had a thing for her. When we were in high school, he used to follow her around like she was the goddess of New Orleans.”

Verna laughed, and Kade took another quick drink of his water. The woman’s laugh was equal to nails on a chalkboard to him.

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