Page 8 of Deadly Evidence
As usual, Juan was standing behind the bar, drying glassware with a striped bar towel.
At the jangle of the bell hanging above the front door, his wife poked her head out of the kitchen, gave Dante a curt nod, and then disappeared.
But everything—Juan, his wife, the gleaming bottles of liquor on the glass shelves behind the bar, and the pair of wiry cowboys hunched over a hand of poker—faded as his eyes settled on the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.
She was reading a book at one of the tables with an untouched hamburger and glass of lemonade in front of her. With her chin propped on a slender hand, her silky black hair shimmered down to her waist.
He didn’t know anything about fancy clothes, but the white dress she wore skimmed her slender figure and accented her smooth, golden skin. It probably cost more than he’d ever be able to make in a month.
From behind the bar, Juan winked and waved him toward a table near her. “What is it today, my friend? One of the best dinners this side of the border?”
“Nah. Just a Coke.” Dante sauntered over to the old jukebox a few feet away from the girl and braced one arm high on its frame to study the listings.
Embarrassment warmed the back of his neck as he tried to think up something to say to her.
On TV, it all looked so easy.
A little flirting, some laughs and a girl would melt at a guy’s feet. But he’d been off the streets during the years when most guys learned that stuff, and he didn’t have a clue.
“Here you go.” Juan crossed the room with a frosty glass of soda on a tray. He waggled one bushy eyebrow and glanced at the girl, then gave Dante a thumbs-up. “Say hello,” he mouthed.
Dante gave the man two bucks and took the Coke. He thought hard about what to say as Juan headed for the bar.
“Uh...nice night.”
She kept reading for another few seconds. Then she sighed and lifted her gaze.
Her dark eyes were huge, framed by long lashes, with an exotic tilt suggesting that she might not be pure Mexican. Her lips looked full and soft and made him wonder what it would be like to kiss a pretty girl again after two long years.
But her expression couldn’t have been more bored. “Are you talking to me, cowboy?”
Panic slid through him. “Um...yeah.”
Her laughter was soft. “Go play with your horses. Or go rope a cow or something. I don’t belong here, and I’m not staying long.”
He’d felt awkward. Hopeful. Now his embarrassment changed to humiliation.
Touching the brim of his hat, he moved past her to a table at the farthest corner of the room, where he could watch the old TV placed up on the wall.
It didn’t take some city slicker to tell him he was nobody, but the pain of it still bit deep.
CHAPTER TWO
Brady rubbed the buckskin behind the ears, slipped off the bridle, and sent him into the moonlit corral by the barn.
The gelding jogged a few yards, then snuffled the dirt as he turned in a tight circle, dropped to the ground, and rolled.
Brady shouldered the bridle and turned to collect his saddle and blanket from the hitching rail in front of the barn.
Startled, he jerked to a halt.
Anna stood in his path with a rifle at her side like some otherworldly, avenging angel, her long, straight blond hair gleaming beneath the security light overhead and anger sparking in her eyes.
There was nothing fragile about the set of her jaw or her aggressive stance. “You’re back late,” she said evenly. “Everything go okay?”
How had he missed hearing her approach?
Four years of reconnaissance missions in the Marines and another six tracking suspects here in the States had honed his senses, keeping him wary and alert whether he was working or not.
