seen her legs and heard her voice, and those two things alone had been enough to stay with him through the night. Long legs and a slightly husky voice that had crept under his skin from the moment she’d asked him what the hell he was doing skulking around in the dark.
“Think he’ll show up here?” Alan asked with another yawn.
Dean dismissed his dreams of a woman he would probably never see again. He was here on business, and his business was fugitive apprehension.
Eddie Pinchon had been serving a life sentence before escaping from prison in Florida two days ago. A quick glance at Pinchon’s record showed that the man was capable of anything and everything. He was violent, occasionally smart, greedy and a little bit crazy. He could appear to be perfectly normal one moment, then do something no sane man would even think of. Killing a man who’d double-crossed him on a drug deal in the middle of a fast-food restaurant while dozens of people watched was definitely crazy.
Dean glanced at the picture they’d pinned to the wall by the window. The eight-year-old snapshot had been blown up several times, so the texture was grainy. Still, it was more than clear enough. Reva Macklin had been Eddie’s girl for almost two years before his arrest. In the only picture they’d been able to find, she was smiling widely, obviously happy. At nineteen she’d been a bleached blonde, wore too many earrings in one ear, too much makeup and a blouse cut low enough to advertise her natural attributes. She was definitely not Dean’s type; she was one step away from being downright tacky. But in spite of all those things, she was quite pretty. Beautiful, in a rare kind of way that couldn’t be completely hidden by her too-blond hair and her too-red lips. Yeah, Pinchon would come here. Reva Macklin wasn’t the kind of woman a man like Eddie left behind without a second thought.
There were other agents working on this case, keeping an eye on Pinchon’s family and acquaintances. Most of them were in Virginia and North Carolina, where Eddie had spent much of his life. Maybe the escapee would be foolish enough to go see his mother, or his cousin and business partner, or his drinking buddies. Then again, maybe not. He had to know the authorities would be watching and waiting. But could he turn his back on a woman like this one?
“Yeah,” Dean said softly. “He’ll be here.”
Alan didn’t immediately retire to his room, but leaned against the doorjamb and sighed. “Connie hates these things.”
Connie was wife number two for Alan, and it looked as if they were going to make things work. They’d been married six years, had two kids—a boy and a girl—and Connie was all Alan talked about when they were away from home. After a few days Dean got damned tired of hearing about Connie and the kiddies. Alan was so happy these days, so domestic. Every now and then, Alan’s domestic bliss got downright annoying.
“What about what’s-her-name?” Alan asked brightly. “The brunette. Penny, Patty, Pansy—”
“Patsy,” Dean said sharply.
“Patsy,” Alan said, as if he hadn’t remembered the name of Dean’s latest love interest all along. “Is she ticked off? Again?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Dean’s voice remained flat. “I haven’t seen her in three months.” And they hadn’t had much of a relationship for at least three months before the final break.
There was a moment of telling silence. “Thank God,” Alan finally said with a long, expelled breath of relief. “She was such a…well, I hate to use the word bitch, but really, what other word is there? I’m glad you finally got smart and dumped her. All she ever did was complain. You’re never home, you’re home too much, we can’t make any plans—” Alan stopped speaking abruptly. “Wait a minute. Three months. You dumped her three months ago and you didn’t tell me?”
Dean continued to study the house across the street. “Actually she dumped me.” Not that he’d cared by that point. Their relationship, if you could call it that, hadn’t been good for a very long time.
“Ouch,” Alan said softly.
“Don’t you need to get some sleep?” Dean asked, anxious to let this tired subject go.
“In a minute.” Alan moved closer, his steps surprisingly soft on a tightly woven rug. “You know what your problem is?”
Dean sighed. “No, but I imagine you’re going to tell me.”
“You’re all about the job,” Alan said in a kind voice.
“So are you.”
“Not anymore.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Alan shake his head. “I love the job. I don’t want to do anything else, ever. But not knowing how to leave it behind at the end of the day cost me my first marriage. These days, when I go home, I leave the job outside the door. If I didn’t, I would have found myself tossed out of marriage number two years ago.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a saint.”
“No, you’re the saint, buddy-boy,” Alan countered. “You have a real Boy Scout complex. Save the world, save the family, take care of everybody and his brother. And all the while, you do everything by the book. Didn’t you ever ask yourself what about me? What about my needs?”
Dean glanced at his partner. “Have you been watching Oprah again?”
Alan blushed. “Just a little. And that new psychologist she has on every week is a pretty smart guy.”
“Go to bed.” Dean returned his attention to the telescope, listening to Alan’s retreating footsteps. It was going to be a long damn stakeout if his partner insisted on dissecting Dean’s personal life along the way.
A woman rounded the antebellum house across the street, her stride slow and easy, and Dean shifted the telescope in her direction. For a split second her face was hidden by a low-lying limb, the leaves dancing this way and that in a soft morning breeze. All he could see was the swish of a full yellow skirt that hung well below her knees, the gentle swing of an arm. And then, two steps later, Dean saw her clearly.
At first glance, he was certain this woman was not Reva Macklin. Her hair was a soft dark blond and had been pulled back into a thick ponytail. Her dress was loose-fitting and simple. She wore little, if any, makeup. But he focused on the face, on the shape of her nose and the curve of her cheek, and with an unexpected thump of his heart he realized this was her. She’d grown up since the picture on the wall had been taken, and she’d discovered a touch of class along the way. She was not what he’d expected, but the woman walking through the grass with a serene expression on her face was definitely Reva Macklin.
She had changed remarkably, but she remained beautiful. Had she always been graceful, or was that new? It was impossible to tell from a photograph if she had always carried herself this way. A photograph only revealed so much. Reva Macklin was more than beautiful. She carried herself with elegance and possessed a femininity that might make any man’s mouth water.
Yeah, sooner or later Eddie Pinchon would show up in Somerset, Tennessee. Dean and Alan would be waiting.
The kitchen was in chaos as usual, but it was the kind of organized chaos Reva was accustomed to.
Most of her employees were older women. Tewanda Hardy was in her thirties, and Nicole Smith—a kindergarten teacher who only worked summers and Saturdays—wasn’t yet twenty-five,
