Dangerous Flirt (13 page)

“What are you going to say?”

The giant Eiffel Tower gleamed
up ahead. The driver zipped the car over to the right-hand lane and turned his blinker on. The click, click of it echoed in the silence after her question.

Hank sighed and sank back into his seat. “You know my mom, there's nothing I can tell her. Knowing her, she'll have dug up every bit of gossip from the last six months, scoured the online marriage certificates in Vegas, gotten every little
piece of information out of my brothers—that is, if Chris and Sam are out of their poker game yet—and made contact with a private eye.”

The description made her laugh. “She does always seem to know everything about everything.”

The light bulb went off in Beth's head as bright as the sun. Why hadn't they thought of it earlier? She opened her mouth, but Hank cut her off before she could utter
a word.

“I'm already on it. I'll text her now and call her after I have a chat with Little Elvis. With any luck, he'll be willing to share his surveillance video from last night.” His large fingers crawled across his phone, too big to type quickly on the tiny keyboard keys. “Mom will give me all the rumors and innuendo there is about who wants to buy your grandparents' house.”

H
er perfume filled the cab with its warm, inviting scent until all Hank wanted to do was bury his face in the soft curve of her neck and breathe in his fill. This was torture; pure, blissful torture, and if he wasn't so pissed off, he'd be in heaven. The need to touch her wreaked havoc on his ability to function, let alone compose a decent text to his mom that wouldn't send
her through the roof.

Mentally groaning, Hank hit the itty-bitty delete key on his phone. Again. He hated texting. If God had wanted man to text, He would have made the keyboard bigger.

HANK: DON'T KNOW WHAT CLAIRE SAID, BUT NOT MARRIED. ALL WELL HERE. HOPE YOU ARE GOOD. TALK TO YOU SOON. LOVE HANK.

Giving the message another look, his finger hovered over the delete key. He sounded like an
idiot. Even in a text, his mom would know something was up. The woman always did.

The cab stopped in front of the Paris Hotel, leaving him without a choice but to hit send. There was no time to figure out a better way to lie because things were far from okay.

He slapped a wad of bills into the cabbie's hand and stepped out of the car. Beth emerged right behind him, still eerily silent. The lack
of chatter spoke volumes about just how much he'd hurt her feelings. She tucked a strand of dark-brown hair behind her ear and sighed as she walked past him into the hotel. Her normal jaunty swagger had disappeared, thanks to him and his big mouth.

You're a real asshole, Layton
.

She wasn't like Amanda. Hell, he doubted Satan himself was as bad as Amanda. But he'd lashed out at Beth as if she
was his ex-wife incarnate. Why was he still letting that manipulative woman influence his actions? If he didn't figure out how to shake off her ghost, he may as well give up on winning Beth over. The rub was, he had no idea what to do now besides follow Beth into the hotel and make sure she was safely on her panel before he paid a visit to Little Elvis.

Nodding at the bellboy, he quickstepped
into the hotel and spotted her glossy, dark hair moving through the throng of gamblers sitting in a trance at the one-armed bandits. She cleared the slot machines and took a right turn at the elevators. Hustling, he caught up with her in the walkway leading to the conference rooms. Nervous sweat made his hands clammy and he wiped them on his jeans before grabbing her wrist.

“Beth.” No other words
came. He had no idea what to say next, but he had to say something before it was too late.

She jerked to a stop, her face a dispassionate mask, mouth in a neutral position and her eyebrows arched. Her chin jutted forward as she tilted her face upward toward his. When her lips curved upward into an almost-smile, his stomach sank.

“You were right, Hank. I haven't been fair with you, so let me
be now.” She peeled his fingers one by one from her tiny wrist. “I'm your little sister's best friend, nothing more and nothing less. Let's just forget about what happened.”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path in a desperate attempt to salvage the tenuous connection they'd forged. “Look, I owe you—”

“No, you don't owe me anything.” She glanced around him and gave someone in the crowd
a little wave. “I need to get to my panel.”

Looking behind him, he spotted Sarah Jane Hunihan marching toward them like Patton bearing down on the Germans in Italy. Judging by the snap, crackle, pop in her eyes visible at twenty paces, the normally sweet-natured old biddy was more than a little ticked off. But by the time she stopped in front of them, the angry spark had melted away as if it
had never been there at all. But the spit-and-vinegar attitude seemed more natural somehow, an impression he filed away to consider later.

“There you are! We've been looking for you everywhere since you missed the morning sessions. I was so worried that something had happened to you.” She clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Goodness, this is such a dangerous city
that I feared the worst.”

Beth smiled down at the firm's executive secretary and the gaggle of attorneys behind her. “Nothing to worry about, Sarah Jane. I forgot to set my alarm, that's all.”

“I expect more out of my best associate than that, young lady. Especially at a high-profile event like this.” Ed Webster stood with his arms crossed, his mouth so tightly pursed it looked like he'd just
sucked a pound of lemons. “If it had been anyone but you, they’d be on the next plane home Don’t let this happen again.”

“Now, Ed, that seems a bit extreme. I don't need to remind you that we've all made a few mistakes in our lives, do I?” Sarah Jane's indulgent smile didn't quite eliminate the venom thick in her tone. “Anyway, Beth is one of those lucky people who manage to land on their feet
no matter what plans fate has made.”

Webster shuffled a few steps back from Sarah Jane, bumping into Phil Harris, Mason Carter and Charles McMillian, who had been standing in his shadow, as usual. The firm's junior partners sidestepped out of Webster's way, mumbling their apologies and eyeing each other nervously.

A light sheen of sweat dampened Carter's forehead and he swiped at it with a handkerchief
before taking a step away from the group. Harris drew a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He shook a single out and stuffed the pack back into his jacket.

“Nasty habit,” Webster growled at Harris before striding down the hall toward the conference registration table, Carter and McMillian on his heels.

“Not to worry, you two.” Sarah Jane looked between Beth and Harris, patting Beth's hand
reassuringly. “He'll get over it. He always does. Now, Beth, let's get you ready for your panel presentation.” The older woman linked her arm through Beth's and together they walked down the hall.

Hank couldn't look away from them. She would turn and give him a last look, then everything would be okay, he was sure of it.

Tension locked his muscles tight the farther away she got until his bum
knee throbbed. They stopped in front of an open door and she laughed at something Sarah Jane said.

Now. This was when she'd give him a nod, a wink, a sign of some sort.

Instead, she shook her head and strode into the conference room, never glancing back.

Wasn't that a kick in the balls? All of a sudden his knee became the least of his aches and pains.

“Ms. Hunihan is right. He's all thunder
without the lightning.” Harris took a deep drag off the cigarette, closed his eyes and let the smoke out in a long exhale. The worry line between his eyes eased away and he brought the cigarette to his chapped lips again.

It took Hank a second to realize the junior partner was referring to Webster. “Uh-huh, is that why you're smoking like a condemned man?”

Harris chuckled and winked at him.
“Yeah, well…when he just gets to know me a little better, understands who I am, it will all be different. I know it will.”

Yeah, right. Webster was a first-rate asshole. Anyone with eyes could see that. “Good luck.”

Stubbing out the cigarette in a freestanding ashtray, Harris nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that.” He took a few steps, then stopped. “And don't worry about Beth. I'll keep an eye
on her.”

His cop radar went nuts. Was Harris involved? He puffed up his chest and loomed over Harris. “What do you mean, ‘keep an eye on her’?”

“Webster. To make sure he doesn’t blow up at her.” With that, he disappeared into a group of twenty or so attorneys milling around outside the conference rooms.

It made sense, but… Shit, he’d become so mixed up that even a chimney like Harris was starting
to look suspicious.

Torn between standing guard like an unwanted mutt or tracking down the thugs from last night, Hank hesitated. His cop sense had all of the hairs on his forearm reaching for the sky. Everything looked normal. Everyone acted normal. Everything should feel normal, but it didn't. Something was off.

Listening to his gut, he marched toward the conference room. Through the open
door, he saw Beth sitting behind a long table at the front of the room fiddling with some papers in front of her. A crowd of attorneys filed into the lecture hall through the other door to sit in the several hundred empty seats. Folks from her firm buzzed around the dais.

Fine. Everything was fine.

Damn, he couldn’t afford to overreact to every twingy feeling. Nothing would happen to her in
a room full of hundreds of people. Time to go make Elvis sing.

The Little Elvis Wedding Chapel didn't look any better in the light of day. It looked a hell of a lot worse.

In a town full of tacky, this velvet-and-gold shrine to a man who’d died on his toilet stood in a class of its own. A six foot tall papier-mâché Elvis in a well-filled-out
white jumpsuit with a suspicious eye stood next to a large hand-printed sign urging the marriage-inclined not to spill their drinks as they walked down the aisle.

While Hank waited for Little Elvis to finish a phone call in his office, he flipped through the velvet (of course) covered scrapbook on the reception counter. No matter what people may think of Elvis impersonators, this one was damn
good at his job. The man was the spitting image of Elvis—a fat, short Elvis, sure, but Elvis all the same.

Someone coughed softly behind him. Hank glanced over his shoulder to find Little Elvis, dressed in jeans and a red-and-blue striped golf shirt but with his hair in the young Elvis pompadour, standing behind him.

“How may I help you, sir?” he asked in a clipped British accent.

Startled,
it took Hank a minute to confirm the voice really did come from the man standing in the open doorway of the office. Who'da thought? Chalking it up to all the weird things life threw at you, Hank strode to Little Elvis and stuck out his hand.

“Thank you for seeing me. I'm Dry Creek County Sheriff Hank Layton and I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

The man glanced at the extended hand, then
crossed his arms over his chest. “And where exactly is Dry Creek County?”

Lowering his hand, Hank's best aw-shucks grin tightened. “Nebraska.”

“You're out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

That earned him a quirked eyebrow. The man gave him a considering look and his small green eyes stayed locked on Hank's face. “You were here last night. I believe you barged in on
the nuptials of a Georgia and Franklin Beauchamp.”

“Yep, that was me alright, and that's why I need to ask you a favor.”

“Mmm-hmmm. It’s always good to have law enforcement owe you a favor, even if he's from as far away as… Nebraska, I believe you said?”

Hank nodded.

“Alright then, sheriff, I'm Alistair Armstrong. Please join me in my office where we can chat in peace.”

Following Armstrong
into the office, he stopped dead as soon as he crossed the threshold. The room was as understated as the lobby was garish. Cool blue paint covered the walls, punctuated with a crisp white trim. Large black-and-white candid photos of Elvis backstage preparing for concerts decorated the walls in the few spots where floor-to-ceiling bookshelves didn't take up all the space. The only available seat
was a dark-blue wingback chair.

Armstrong walked behind a large oak desk, took a few steps upward and sat down on a full-size black chair. He must have noticed a quizzical look on Hank's face because a slight flush deepened the pink of his round cheeks.

“It's a step stool. The small things make life more convenient, don't you think, Sheriff?”

Hank settled into the wingback chair. “That I do.”

“So, how can I assist you?”

“I'd like a copy of your surveillance video from last night.”

“Really?” He steepled his fingers and tapped them on his chin. “What makes you think I videotape my customers?”

“The right eye of the craft-project Elvis in your lobby looks an awful lot like a camera lens.”

Armstrong chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “Score one for the hick sheriff. Okay, I videotape
my customers, for my own protection of course.”