No Chance in Hell (17 page)

Marcus thought about it for a minute. “There are things Chris and I need to do without worrying about somebody shooting at us. She’s wished for a hairbrush all day.”

The corner of Nate’s mouth lifted into half a smile. “I heard about the kiss.”

“Figures. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“She’s a beautiful woman, and for reasons unknown to me, she apparently likes you. Let Kaycie make you a reservation at a hotel for the night. She’ll find one with a suite. Take Chris out for a nice dinner. She deserves a break from all the tension, and you could use one, too.”

“I’ll agree to some of that. She’s mentioned needing to get a few personal items from her place. I’d like a team of professionals to scour every inch. If the nervy bastard put a tracer on my car, he might’ve bugged her house.”

“Leave me her key. I’ll get somebody over there. If it is bugged, maybe I can do a little tracing of my own. But for the next few days, we’ll move you two around. Make it harder to track you. Be good for you to relax and get to know her.”
 

“Don’t start playing matchmaker,” Marcus warned, hoping to end the conversation.

“I give up.” Nate threw both hands in the air. “The only person who’s going to drag your ass back into the land of the living is you.”

Marcus snarled but made no comment. Nate was hitting too close to home. Truth was, Chris was the first person in years who’d made him think about living again.
 

“We better get back inside before Kaycie busts out the door.” Nate chuckled. “She’s never been good at staying out of things.”

“And aren’t you glad?” Marcus knew how proud Nate was of his wife’s strength and independence. “We can swing by here tomorrow afternoon and swap vehicles. Our telephone friend will have figured out by then we found his tracker.”

“No hurry. We’ll keep Diablo. You concentrate on keeping Chris safe.”

“I don’t like leaving him.”

“He’ll be fine with Kaycie and me. It’s Chris you should worry about.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“She likes you. So be careful.”

“Yes, dear.” Marcus ground out the words and led the way back inside. “If I need romance advice, I’ll write Dear Abby.”

“Hey, I did okay in the romance department,” Nate said, closing the door behind them.

“What department?” Kay asked.

“Never mind.” Grateful she’d heard only part of Nate’s comment, Marcus continued walking toward the conference room. Behind him, he heard Nate ask Kay to pick an extra nice hotel in downtown Dallas and reserve a suite.

He stopped at the doorway, absorbing the scene playing out in front of him. Diablo was sitting in his chair next to Chris. His head was tilted, and he appeared to be in a trance. Chris’s hands were buried in the fur behind his ears. Marcus could barely hear her, but the tenderness in her voice was unmistakable. The bond forming between her and his dog filled his lungs with warmth.
 

The connection pleased him. Yet, in an odd way, he felt left out. Shit. He was too old for schoolboy crushes.
 

“How’d you get him on the chair?” he asked.

“I patted the seat, and he jumped right up.” The smile on her face complemented the sparkle of her eyes. “Tell me the rest of his story.”

“There’s not much else to say. A drug lord’s kid had him attack an old woman. An evil old woman who had sliced me across the chest. Anyway, he’d killed her before I could pull him off. I had to bring him with me. No way was he going to be put down for following orders. So I smuggled him into the country and went to work teaching him to be a dog.”

Chris reached up and put her hand on his chest. “She cut you?”

“Not bad. It wasn’t deep enough to leave a scar.”

“You really are one of the good guys. Not many people would have taken him on.”

Marcus had to look away for a second. Her eyes had filled with admiration. Admiration he didn’t deserve. “He’s not a success story, yet.” He motioned for Diablo to get down, and then Marcus sat in the same chair.

“Did you and Nate find anything on your car?”

“Yeah,” Marcus said. “Bastard’s been tracking our every move.” Marcus explained where the tracker had been found. “We’re borrowing Kay’s car for the night, but first we’re going shopping.” Her face brightened. Chris’s smile was contagious, and he caught himself grinning like a fool.

“Now?” She lifted her eyebrows in question.

“Might as well. Let’s find out from Kay where she’s putting us for the night. Nate’s going to have a crew go through your place to make sure there are no cameras or bugs hidden.”

The pink drained from her cheeks. “You think he’s been watching and listening to what goes on inside my home?”

Marcus fought back the urge to take her in his arms and offer comfort. He wanted to tell her no, but he’d only be guessing. “There’s only one way to be sure. The team Nate’s calling will search and, if they find anything, destroy.”

She nodded, a slight movement of her head, indicating she understood. “Then I’m ready to go if you are. I’ve used a lot of excuses to go shopping, but this removes my need to go home.”

“I thought any reason worked for a woman.” He tried to ease her tension.

“Normally, that’s true.” She stood and scratched Diablo’s head. “What about him?”

“Kay and Nate will keep him. I don’t like it, but he’ll think he died and went to dog heaven.” Marcus gathered the stack of files and shoved them in a briefcase. He knelt in front of Diablo and ruffled the scruff on the back of his neck. The dog looked Marcus in the eyes as if trying to communicate. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“He’s so smart. I’m glad he has you.”

“Me, too,” Marcus said honestly, following Chris to Kay’s desk.

“You be careful with my car. No bullet holes,” Kay said then bit off a laugh. “Sorry. Bad joke.” She handed him a printout of the hotel reservation and her car keys. “I’d say have fun, but if you’re like Nate, I’d be wasting my breath.”
 

“You’re right,” Marcus agreed. “Shopping is about as much fun as stepping on a rusty nail.” He was faced with an unavoidable task, so he straightened his shoulders and walked into the fray. “First, we take care of a little business.”

****

The insurance adjuster waved goodbye and drove away, leaving Marcus and Chris standing in front of the pile of brick and charred lumber he’d once called home. Not much was salvageable, but the construction company had people who would sift through the pile of rubble before starting the rebuild. Any memorabilia found would be cleaned, boxed, and saved for Marcus to pick up.
 

“I’m so sorry this happened. Your things, your memories, they were important.” Her blue eyes had clouded with a layer of anguish. She suffered for his loss, and somehow it lessened his pain.
 

“Sometimes the past is hard to let go.” Oddly enough, he was okay if they didn’t find a lot of his keepsakes. “It’s silly, but I hope my college football team picture survived. Nate, Ty, Jake, and I played for the University of Texas in Austin.”

“Not silly at all.” Chris pulled away from him. She crossed the yard and hailed the leader of the crew. Minutes later, she returned.

“They’ll watch for it.”

That simple act of compassion meant a lot to Marcus. “Let’s get out of here.”

He opened the door to Kay’s sports car. Chris slid inside. Marcus paused. He squatted and rocked back on his heels. He owed her an apology and now was as good a time as any to give it. “I’m
sorry for back there in the conference room.” He hoped she’d see his sincerity.

She frowned for a second. Then her blue eyes frosted over. “The kiss?”
 

“I let it get out of hand.”

She waved him off as if shooing away a fly, but he caught the hint of embarrassment in her eyes. “We kissed. No big deal. Don’t give it a second thought. You have your life, and I have mine. The sooner the killer is behind bars, the sooner I can get back to normal. We’ll both be happier.”

Her feigned indifference didn’t fool him. “Don’t do that. Don’t diminish what happened between us. You felt something, and so did I. You also know it would end badly, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”

She nodded her agreement but kept her face turned away from him. Marcus stood,
walked around, and slid behind the wheel.
His diplomacy never had won any praise, but
he’d never handled a situation so poorly. Maybe he’d screwed it up, because deep down, he hadn’t meant a damn word he’d said.
 

“You call it,” he said, taking one last look at his burned house. “What store do you want to hit first?”

“The nearest drugstore.” Chris ran her fingers over her hair. “I’m going to make their cash register sing.”

“And then?”

Chris was silent a minute. “Would you mind going to Han’s? They’re fairly new to Texas, but I like the quality of their merchandise.”

“Works for me. You’ll have to point me in the right direction.”

“It’s inside the Galleria.”

“Just shoot me now,” he muttered to himself. “This can’t be a long drawn-out shopping spree.” He took the ramp onto the freeway. He hoped she wasn’t one of those women who liked to browse. After a few minutes of watching for a tail, getting off I-635 and then back on, he took a side road to a neighborhood drugstore.

He had to admit the stop at the drugstore benefitted them both. But Marcus had picked out and paid for his toiletries long before she’d settled on the right shade of lipstick. Then it was back onto the freeway, headed for one of the largest and busiest malls in the state.

Halfway through the store, Marcus wholeheartedly agreed with Nate that giving Chris a break from the case would help. His decisions had been easy—underwear, jeans, one pair of slacks, and a couple of shirts, and he was good to go.

Chris, on the other hand, had tried on half of the women’s department. He’d finally parked his ass in a chair outside the dressing room and watched the show. It wasn’t long before he was waiting expectantly for her to come out and show him the next outfit.

Nate always claimed to hate shopping, but that guy was so in love, he’d have gone in the dressing room with Kay to help her. The more Marcus thought about it, helping Chris in and out of those clothes seemed like a great idea. That kind of thinking caused him to shift in his chair and will away a rising erection.
 

Chris breezed past him, stopping at a full-length mirror.

“Well? What do you think?” she asked, doing a three-sixty.

“Aren’t blue jeans just blue jeans? They look the same as the last two pair you tried on.” They didn’t. In fact, this pair hugged her bottom, curving in just the right places, but he was having too much fun teasing her.

“Men,” she huffed with a grin. “I’ve got enough to last a few days. Let’s get out of here.”

“Music to my ears.” He almost acknowledged his enjoyment at watching her relax and forget her worries for a few minutes. The words rested on the tip of his tongue, but they seemed to be stuck. Probably for a good reason.

At the cash register, he insisted on paying for her new things, gathered her packages, and walked beside her to the parking garage. The scene was too domestic for him. Hell, he’d never spent this much time shopping with a woman.

He’d married Lynne while he’d been on leave, and their two weeks together hadn’t been spent in a mall. The few times he’d had a pass, they’d met halfway, usually somewhere with a beach. He’d never taken the time to do the simple things, like watching a beautiful woman try on tight blue jeans.

Chris slipped her hand inside his arm. He glanced down, soaking in the warmth of her smile. Admitting he’d had a good time wasn’t an option. His man card might be revoked if he said it out loud. It was best to keep that bit of news quiet.

“Thank you for the clothes.”

“My pleasure.”
 

“I’m letting you off the hook. Where to next?” she asked.

“It’s a surprise.”

The trip into downtown Dallas was pleasant. Chris, it seemed, was the only woman in the world who could leave the word “surprise” alone. Not once had she tried to pry their destination out of him.
 

“Want to hear something weird? I miss Diablo,” she answered her own question without waiting for his response.

“So do I. When we came back from Colombia, I took a few weeks off and spent twenty-four hours a day working with him. Now I feel like something’s missing without him along.”

“I love how he looks at you as if he understands every word you say.”

“He’s smart. Teaching him English wasn’t as hard as I’d expected.”

It occurred to Marcus that he’d been talking a lot, something he never did. He was having a hard time remembering she was his client. A vulnerable and scared client.
 

He turned into the long driveway of the Grand Herron Hotel, relieved they’d reached their destination.

“What are we doing here?” Chris asked. She leaned closer to the windshield, looking up as if to double-check the name on the marquee.