Page 46 of Lone Star Rescue

“Mainly for me because I don’t like to go hungry, but yes, for the occasional guest. Jericho sometimes shows up after he’s been out on assignment and is in the area. He doesnotkeep a stocked fridge, so he raids mine often.”

But Rafe thought she was silently asking something else. So, he just went with it and hoped he didn’t sound like a fool.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” he said. “Haven’t for months. There won’t be any lovers, former or ex, showing up.”

Bree glanced at him again, and her frown was different this time. “Why not?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” Rafe had to say.

“Why don’t you have a lover? I mean, you’re hot. Really hot. If you don’t have someone warming your bed, then it doesn’t hold out hope for the rest of us mere mortals that we’ll end up with a bed warmer of our own.”

She had thrown him for a proverbial loop with that one.

“Is that a, uh, compliment?” he wanted to know.

Bree huffed. “It’s the pain and fatigue talking. In addition to snapping, it makes me ramble and say things I shouldn’t. Forget I brought it up.”

Not in a million years. In fact, Rafe was hanging onto it, making him feel a little like a teenager who’d just gotten hit on.

“Why don’t you have a lover?” he countered.

Her frown returned. “Too busy. Too tired of the fix-ups people keep arranging for me. Sometimes, it’s just easier to be alone.”

“I understand,” he said. And he did. “There are times when I’m away on assignment for weeks. Assignments that aren’t technically classified, but I can’t discuss them. Someone who shares your bed probably expects to share the rest of you, too.”

And there he was. Treading on ground that held a whole lot of bad memories. He couldn’t go there. Not even with Bree.

“Parker Livingston,” he announced, taking out his phone.

He could feel her glances and knew she had noticed the abrupt change in subject. She might even know why he’d done it. Sometimes, the worst hurts weren’t the stitches and the bruises.

Sometimes, it was the scar that went all the way through you.

The one that stayed with you, no matter what.

“Parker Livingston,” she repeated. “Please find out he’s a murderous scumbag that I can arrest. I need to put someone behind bars for killing those two women.”

Rafe accessed one of the Maverick Ops’ databases and immediately pulled up the basics. “There are two with that name in Texas,” he muttered and glanced through the ages to choose. It wasn’t a hard choice since one was thirty-six, the same age Sandy Lynn would have been, and the other was sixty-four.

“Parker Livingston…” he read and then stopped. “Hell. This looks like a shell identity. There’s nothing on him in the past eighteen years. And before that, there’s way too little.”

“A false identity,” she muttered. “But Nancy seemed sure that it wasn’t Buckner.”

“No, but it could have been someone on Buckner’s payroll. He was rich even back then. And remember, she never actually met him.” Rafe paused. “So, let’s play this out. Why would Buckner have wanted to have someone romantically involved with Tessa’s half-sister? A someone who bought her an expensive coat and then apparently broke her heart?”

Neither of them immediately came up with anything, and the one thought that did come to mind seemed so out there. Still, he voiced it anyway.

“Let’s assume Buckner or one of his henchmen stirred up Patricia enough for her to want to kill you. Could the other henchman or Buckner have done the same to Sandy Lynn?”

Bree made a sound to indicate she was considering that. “Maybe. Especially if Tessa had dumped Buckner, and he perhaps wanted to use Sandy Lynn to get back at her in some way.” She took the turn off the Interstate toward his place. “That’s a lot of ifs, and it doesn’t explain how Sandy Lynn ended up dead.”

No, it didn’t, but Rafe had a gut feeling that Buckner had played into not only what Patricia had done but also what had happened to Sandy Lynn. And Tessa. She was somehow at the core of this.

They rode in silence, both of them mulling it over, and Rafe kept up the mulling until she made the final turn toward his house. He took out his phone, temporarily disarming the security.

“There are motion sensors on the driveway,” he explained. “And the perimeter of the house and yard.”

She didn’t ask why he had taken such measures. Bree likely knew that in his line of work, he made enemies. It was the same for her.

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