so young, though she could have passed for twenty-five easier than thirty-two. There were tiny creases at the corners of her eyes from all that smiling. Her cheeks were plump, unlike the rest of her, and she had cute eyebrows. They were thin and shaped into curves of mild astonishment above those big eyes. “Do you pluck your eyebrows?”
“What?”
Why had he asked her that? Annoyed, Flynn pushed his cup away. “Never mind. I need to talk to you.”
Wariness slid across her blue eyes, but she kept smiling. “My boss wouldn’t like that, I’m afraid. Henry has this idea we’re supposed to wait on several customers, not just one.”
“I’m not trying to pick you up. Here.” He raised up slightly so he could dig into his back pocket for his wallet, which held his ID. “My name’s Flynn Sinclair. I’m a P.I., and you—”
“I have to go,” she said abruptly.
That wasn’t wariness he saw in her eyes now. It was fear. Real fear. She edged away.
He grabbed her wrist. It was so narrow his fingers overlapped, which made him feel large and clumsy. “Hey, don’t worry. I have good news for you.” He gave her his best trust-me smile. “It’s about your mother.”
“Oh.” She smiled wider than ever, but it was neither real nor natural now. “My mother. Of course. I’d love to talk to you about my mother, but I can’t stop to chat when I’m working. You understand. If you don’t mind waiting until my shift is over, we can talk then, okay?”
A truly lousy liar, he thought, letting go of her wrist. “Sure, no problem. I’ll wait here for you.”
“That’s great.” She spoke brightly. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the coffeepot. “I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t heard from—Mom—in awhile.”
Flynn watched as his subject fled for the kitchen. His curiosity was itching fit to kill. She was going to bolt. He didn’t know why, but he knew she was going to bolt.
The back door, he thought, rising and pulling a couple bills out of his wallet. Every restaurant had a delivery entrance off the kitchen. She’d slip out that way, thinking he was waiting patiently for her out here.
Flynn was a big man, but he could move quickly when he wanted. He tossed the bills at the cashier and was out the door before the woman had done more than blink at him.
The air was sharp and dry despite the light dusting of snow on the parking lot and the yucca, creosote and dirt that surrounded it. Flynn spared a brief thought for the jacket he’d left in his car, then forgot the temperature as he reached the rear of the truck stop. A strip of pavement containing Dumpsters, employees’ cars, a tottering stack of empty crates and a stray cat separated the building from the land.
There was no sign of Emma. But Flynn knew which car was hers—the aging red Ford Escort on the other side of a jacked-up pickup that looked ready to compete in a monster truck pull.
Her car was still here, so she hadn’t run. Yet. Flynn jogged over to it, then stood there shaking his head. The paint was peeling, making the Ford look as if it had leprosy. How had she made it here from San Diego in this heap?
Desperation or stupidity, he thought, bending to pet the stray cat, which was twining itself madly around his legs. Maybe both.
He heard the door to the kitchen slam and the sound of running feet—soft footfalls, like a skinny, slightly pregnant woman in athletic shoes might make. He abandoned his feline admirer and straightened just as she rounded the side of the oversize pickup.
She saw him, stopped dead and shrieked.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly, holding his hands out, palms up, and trying to look harmless. Unfortunately, he wasn’t any better at harmless than he was at sensitivity. “I just need to talk to you for a minute. I was hired to find you—”
“I know,” she said, her voice soft and breathless. “But please, please—tell him you couldn’t find me. He—he’s crazy. You don’t know what he’ll do. Or at least give me time to leave town. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
She knew? His brows drew together. According to Carter, she knew nothing about her family. “I can’t lie to a client.” Not much, anyway. “Anyway, he already knows where you are.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, and shivered.
He frowned. “Don’t you have a jacket? It’s too cold out here for a little thing like you.”
The back door slammed again. The footfalls Flynn heard this time were heavy, solid. He grimaced.
“Emma?” The voice was heavy, too. Deep and heavy and obviously male. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Back here, Henry!”
Harmless, Flynn reminded himself. Think harmless. He smiled harmlessly at her. “I’m not here to make trouble for you. I want to tell you about your mother. Your family.”
For the first time, anger flashed in her eyes. “I don’t have any family. I sure don’t have a mother.”
“No, she—”
“You get away from her!”
Emma’s protector had arrived. Not many men were bigger than Flynn, but this one was. He wore a huge, stained apron wrapped around the middle of his three-hundred plus pounds, and brandished a butcher knife the size of a small sword. His face had been badly scarred by acne thirty or more years ago, a condition that the grizzled stubble on his cheeks didn’t quite cover.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Flynn said, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m a private investigator. If you promise not to get excited, I’ll get my license out and prove it.”
The big man took a threatening step forward. The hard desert sunlight gleamed on the steel of his knife. “What d’you mean, excited? You calling me names?”
Flynn sighed. Some days, nothing went right.
“Henry.” His subject put her hand on the man’s arm. “It’s all right.”
“All right? You get so scared you quit, you don’t even give notice, you go tearing out of my place like the devil was on your heels, you say it’s all right? You!” He scowled at Flynn. “I dunno anything about licenses or private investigators. I know you scared Emma. You go away. Now.”
“Listen,” Flynn said to Emma, abandoning the effort to look harmless and settling for determined. He was better at that. “Give me five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to tell you, you can go back to work, or peel out of here in your car—assuming it’s running—or whatever. Five minutes.” He glanced at her mountainous protector. “Alone.”
“No way.” Henry waved his knife.
Emma patted the man on one huge arm. She looked distracted and painfully unsure with those curvy eyebrows of hers trying to frown and managing only to make her look like a perplexed kitten.
She was so damned cute. “Okay, okay,” Flynn said.
