the girl was as fresh and new as a wildflower. And Luke … Luke felt bruised and broken already at thirty-one. No, Jamie didn’t have to worry about his sister. Luke wasn’t going anywhere near her.
CHAPTER THREE
TESSA HAD PLANNED to sneak into Eric’s office and search for Roland Kendall’s mobile number, but Eric kept hanging around. The only number she’d been able to nab was Detective Asher’s. Taking that as a sign, she slipped his card into her pocket just as Eric came back in.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” she answered too loudly. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
Eric gave his head a puzzled shake as he collapsed into his chair. “It’s not every day that we’re robbed.”
“Right. Yes. The robbery. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse, I guess.”
Eric ran both hands over his face. “Well, I’m exhausted, even though I haven’t gotten a damn thing done today.” He squinted at her past his fingers. “You look like crap yourself. Why don’t you head home?”
Leave it to a brother to boost a girl’s spirit. She had a brief fear that Luke Asher had only checked her out because he’d been worried about her health. But surely her breasts looked okay despite the pale worry on her skin.
“Go,” Eric said.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to stay to help Jamie close down tonight.”
“Eric, it wasn’t his fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.” The flat tone of his voice belied the words.
She felt Jamie’s presence at her back before he spoke. “You didn’t have to say it,” he growled. “We all know exactly what you’re thinking.”
Eric sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“I know you think I’m an eternal screwup, Eric, but there’s no question I set the alarm. Even you can’t argue with that.”
“No, but somebody turned it off.”
“And?”
“And you’re the one who hires the extra bartenders around here. We both know their qualifications rarely extend beyond ‘guys you once partied with.’”
“Fuck you, Eric. That’s not true. I hire guys who are good with the customers.”
“And not so good with showing up on time or coming in when they’re supposed to work.”
Tessa held up her hands to try to stop the violent tension spinning through the room. “Guys, just—”
“You’re a real asshole,” Jamie snapped. “Besides us, the only people who have the alarm code are Wallace and the guys who’ve closed down the front room, and they’ve all worked here for at least three years. Some of the temp help I’ve brought in might not have been ideal, but they only ever work fill-in.”
Eric shrugged, his mouth still tight with disdain.
“I’d like to see you try to run the front,” Jamie said. “It requires personality. Ever heard of it?”
“Stop!” Tessa ordered. “Just stop. Everybody’s tense. So—” Before she could finish, Jamie walked out. Tessa almost stopped him. Her instinct was to calm things down. Make them both apologize. But she didn’t have the energy, not with all that hung over their heads. So instead of picking up the threads of her family and trying to weave them back together as she always did, Tessa let them hang there and walked away.
She was tired, as Eric had so kindly pointed out. Tired of playing the peacekeeper. Tired of trying to fix things. But it didn’t matter if she was tired. She couldn’t imagine how exhausted Eric must have been those first few years, when he’d taken on two teenagers and the brewery. He’d done his part to keep the family together; Tessa could do her part, too.
But she was starting to worry that she didn’t know how to fix this mess. Jamie might not have screwed up the alarm, but he’d done something far worse. The chances that the High West deal would go through … she knew they were low. Really low. But she couldn’t give up hope. Not yet.
She waved a listless goodbye to Jamie just as the first group of office workers walked into the bar, relief hanging around them like a cloud. Their workday was over. It was almost over for Tessa, too. Almost.
She pulled the ponytail holder from her hair and shook out as much tension as she could. The drive to the High West office would take nearly an hour with the traffic. Roland Kendall almost certainly wouldn’t be there, but she had to try.
And in the meantime … Tessa fluffed her hair and cranked up the stereo.
She meant to think of nothing. Driving soothed her. Something about the road and the music and the hum of the engine. It was the only place she could just be and not think. But today it didn’t work. Today the music made her think of Luke Asher.
He’d been a quiet kid, but now he looked mysterious. Almost dangerous. Dark and strong. As if she could lean on him and he’d banish her problems with one cold look.
Maybe it was just the hint of forbidden fruit. Her older brothers had rarely brought friends around when she was a kid. When they had, as Jamie had said, there’d been no introductions made. It was an unwritten rule that male friends were not allowed to simply hang around the house as if they lived there. But that hadn’t stopped Tessa from watching their brief visits with close attention.
Yeah. Forbidden fruit. And big strong shoulders. The kind of man who’d take care of all her problems, or at least make her forget them.
But at that moment, the fantasy was so far-fetched that Tessa switched off the music and set aside thoughts of Detective Asher. He might be able to solve the mystery of the robbery, but there was nothing he could do about the tangled mess Jamie had created. If anyone was going to do the rescuing today, it’d be her.
So she squared her shoulders and rode off into the sunset, clutching the steering wheel as if it were a weapon. Tessa to the rescue, one more time.
LUKE SUSPECTED ONE of the university students was behind the robberies. Not because he hated college kids—he only marginally disliked them—but because a college kid would fit the profile. Smart, tech-savvy, daring and in need of quick money. That also described the kids who’d dropped out of school and never managed to quite leave town. And there were a lot of those. Then, of course, there were the educated meth heads. Plenty of those around, too. In other words, without fingerprints or a hot lead, this case would be solved by running down every tiny detail, even the ones that seemed inconsequential.
Luke ran the surveillance video one more time, just for the hell of it. It offered little detail. At around 1:15 a.m., a shadow crossed the video of the loading dock. A few minutes later, it crossed again. This repeated a few more times, and that was it. No body, no height, no description. Just an approximate time of the robbery, and he’d already had that.
He backed up the digital feed a little farther,
