Navy SEAL to Die For (18 page)

So, why had Julia put it in his pocket?

Since he was a skeptic, his first thought was that she might be trying to set him up, to make it look as if he’d robbed her. But Logan couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that unless she was planning to try to blackmail him with it.

He dropped the watch on the bed and finished dressing, all the while staring at it. He cleared out some of the cotton in his brain and grabbed the hotel phone to call the front desk. Someone answered on the first ring.

“I’m in room—” Logan had to check the phone “—two-sixteen, and I need to know...” He had to stop again and think. “I need to know if Julia is there in the lobby. She left something in the room.”

“No, sir. I’m afraid you just missed her. But checkout isn’t until noon, and she said her guest might be staying past then, so she paid for an extra day.”

“Uh, could you tell me how to spell Julia’s last name? I need to leave her a note in case she comes back.”

“Oh, she said she wouldn’t be coming back, that this was her goodbye party. And as for how to spell her name, well, it’s Child, just like it sounds.”

Julia Child?

Right. Obviously, the clerk wasn’t old enough or enough of a foodie to recognize the name of the famous chef.

“I don’t suppose she paid with a credit card?” Logan asked.

“No. She paid in cash and then left a prepaid credit card for the second night.”

Of course. “What about an address?” Logan kept trying.

“I’m really not supposed to give that out—”

“She left something very expensive in the room, and I know she’ll want it back.”

The guy hemmed and hawed a little, but he finally rattled off, “221B Baker Street, London, England.”

That was Sherlock Holmes’s address.

Logan groaned, cursed. He didn’t bother asking for a phone number because the one she left was probably for Hogwarts. He hung up and hurried to the window, hoping he could get a glimpse of her getting into a car. Not that he intended to follow her or anything, but if she was going to blackmail him, he wanted to know as much about her as possible.

No sign of her, but Logan got a flash of something else. A memory.

Damn.

They’d taken pictures.

Or at least Julia had with the camera on her phone. He remembered nude selfies of them from the waist up. At least he hoped it was from the waist up.

Yeah, that trip to hell in a handbasket was moving even faster right now.

Logan threw on the rest of his clothes, already trying to figure out how to do damage control. He was the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. He was the face that people put with the family business, and before last night he’d never done a thing to tarnish the image of McCord Cattle Brokers.

He couldn’t say that any longer.

He was in such a hurry to rush out the door that he nearly missed the note on the desk. Maybe it was the start of the blackmail. He snatched it up, steeling himself up for the worst. But if this was blackmail, then Julia sure had a funny sense of humor.

“Goodbye, hot cowboy,” she’d written. “Thanks for the sweet send-off. Don’t worry. What happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio. I’ll take this to the grave.”

Don’t miss

BLAME IT ON THE COWBOY
by Delores Fossen,

available October 2016 wherever

HQN Books and ebooks are sold.

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Copyright © 2016 by Delores Fossen

ISBN-13: 9781488005831

Navy SEAL to Die For

Copyright © 2016 by Mary Jernigan

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