let down their guards or ease up on their continuing investigation.
“Birkenfeld is still out there somewhere,” Travis said, his voice chillingly cold. “Until he’s caught and put behind bars, neither Natalie nor Autumn are safe.” He turned to Ry. “That’s why I need you, man. Carrie—”
“Is a big girl,” Ry insisted, still determined to work his way out of this. He was more or less in agreement with Carrie on this issue. “I really don’t know why you think she needs protection. She’s not a part of this.”
“But I am. And I figure Birkenfeld knows that. Do you feel comfortable—no, strike comfortable. Do you feel one hundred percent sure that this sick bastard who drugs women and tells them their babies are dead so he can sell them, wouldn’t stoop so low as to try to get to Natalie through me and what’s mine?”
Ry closed his eyes, knowing in his heart of hearts that Trav was right. Ry didn’t feel one hundred percent sure about that. And since Carrie was part of Trav’s world, he had a legitimate point. “You’re right. It takes a twisted as well as a corrupt mind to do what he’s done.”
“And it takes someone I trust to look out for my sister until we find him and finish this.”
Ry rocked his beer bottle slowly back and forth on the bar and finally nodded in defeat. How could he turn Trav down in the face of such a compelling argument?
He expelled another deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. But I still don’t understand what Nathan Beldon has to do with any of this.”
Trav shrugged. “Probably nothing.”
Ry whipped his head toward his friend. “Then why am I watching out for him?”
“Because I don’t like him.” Trav gave Ry a bland look. “Do I have to have another reason?”
Three
“I don’t believe I’m doing this,” Ryan muttered under his breath later that night. He tugged his Resistol low over his brow. Slumped behind the wheel of his new black SUV, he watched with a scowl as Carrie walked toward the Royal Diner on Nathan Beldon’s arm.
She worked fast. He’d give her that. Or maybe it was Beldon who’d “put the moves” on her. Now, there was a statement that was going to haunt him into the next decade. Just like spying on Carrie was going to be his undoing.
Trav may call it keeping an eye on her, but Ry figured Wayne Vincente, the Royal police chief might have a different take on it—like maybe stalking. And Ry, hell, he called it a whole lot of other things. Like uncomfortable, and stupid and…hey. He sat up straight, all senses on red alert. Had he seen that right? Had the slimeball doctor’s hand slipped a gentleman’s distance too low at the small of Carrie’s back where he’d planted it with a little too much familiarity?
The diner door closed behind them before he had a chance to decide if it had been an accident or an illusion.
Slimeball.
Ry didn’t even know the guy, yet after seeing that—whatever that was—the assessment felt like a good fit. Without an ounce of hesitation, he slipped out of his SUV and headed for the diner. Trav wanted him to watch out for Carrie, so that’s what he was going to do. And that’s what this was about. A favor for a friend. Nothing more. He’d made up his mind last night that no matter what he wanted or how hot she was, Carrie was as off-limits romantically as a top secret military intelligence project.
And with that thought fueling him, he opened the Royal Diner door and prepared to run a little creative interference.
Nathan Beldon really was quite attractive, in a reserved, sophisticated sort of way, Carrie decided as she settled in across the booth from him.
“You sure this is all right?” the good doctor asked with a smile that was apologetic and attentive and…interested, she realized with pleased surprise. Interested in a way that Ry had never been.
She pushed thoughts of Ry from her mind and smiled back.
“This is fine,” she assured him. And it was more than fine that he actually looked a little shy…uncertain, even.
Imagine. A man who looked like him, as imposing and as self-confident as him, feeling uncertain of her. Why, it just set her little Southern heart all aflutter.
She smiled at herself and her silliness all the while covertly assessing her impromptu dinner partner. She’d been leaving her volunteer shift at the hospital when she’d run into him in the parking lot, introduced herself and asked him if he’d like to join her for dinner.
She’d been pretty proud of herself. She’d been cool, confident, not overly friendly…and he’d very graciously accepted her offer. Eagerly accepted her offer, even.
And now here they were. She shot a covert glance at him over the top of her menu. Nathan Beldon wasn’t what you’d call blatantly handsome—not like Travis or Ryan with their in-your-face, drop-dead-gorgeous good looks. His was more of a classic, polished appeal. His brown eyes weren’t flirty and warm like theirs; his were far more serious. Not that that was a bad thing, just different from what she was used to.
He was also very tall. Ryan was tall—an even six feet—but Nathan was perhaps a couple of inches taller. She liked that, she decided. At five-nine, she liked to sometimes feel a little delicate, liked to look up into a pair of interested eyes. And Nathan’s dark eyes were definitely showing some interest.
He wasn’t built like Ry, either. While Ry was all muscle and sinew and athletic grace, Nathan Beldon was on the slim side and moved with a refined elegance that made her wonder what it would be like to dance with him. Could she be Ginger to his Fred?
Could it be she’d been watching too many old, classic movies? Again she grinned at herself and all these sappy romantic notions.
“Next time,” Nathan said, his cultured voice so softly hopeful it dragged her away from her musings, “we’ll go to Claire’s…or am I assuming too much?”
She smiled, pleased. “No…you’re not assuming too much at all. I’d…like that very much.”
She also very much liked the way his perfectly styled hair—so dark brown it was almost black—completed the tall dark and handsome look, even if his hair was a little finer, a little thinner than Ry’s, which was a thick, lush sable and always looked as if he’d just run his hands through it in frustration.
“As a matter of fact,” she added, catching and hating herself for comparing Nathan to Ryan for about the hundredth time since she’d run into Nathan at the hospital earlier, “Claire’s is one of my favorite spots.”
Royal’s quaint and classy French restaurant was noted for its romantic ambiance and excellent wines. An invitation to Claire’s came with a wealth of implied possibilities.
“Then we definitely have something else to look forward to,” Nathan said with another one of those smiles that promised more than a casual cup of coffee after a romantic evening.
“Yes,” she said, determined to focus on him and the attention he was giving her and banish Ryan from her mind, “we definitely do.”
“Hey,
