years ago, I might have smacked you for saying that,” she said with a grin. “But now I’ll just say ‘thanks.’ And suggest you might want to get your eyes checked.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his scrutiny straightforward and a little unnerving. “You have to know you’re a very attractive woman.”
She supposed she knew it, although the deeper into her thirties she went, the more she had a sense of time ticking past her at a quicker rate. She’d put her career first, her personal life a distant second, and she’d been okay with that order of things, because she’d always figured there’d be time, before her youth was spent, to change her priorities.
But she was two months shy of her thirty-fifth birthday, no longer the youngest, prettiest woman in any given room, and her expectations had changed.
“Thank you, again.” She cocked her head, smiling slightly. “You’re brave, Detective Nix. Flirting with the chief’s sister.”
“Oh, sugar, this ain’t flirting,” he said in a drawl so low and sexy her cheeks started burning.
“Just as well,” she murmured, retreating to the counter, where the coffee had finished burbling. She poured the hot black liquid into a mug and crossed to the refrigerator for milk. She spotted some hazelnut liquid creamer—had to be there for Laney, she figured, since Doyle didn’t care for sweet coffee—and poured a dollop from the container into her cup.
“You’re involved with someone back in Atlanta?” Nix asked. He’d moved to the counter to pour his own cup of coffee. Like Doyle, he drank it black, no cream, no sugar.
“Not at the moment.”
He glanced up from his coffee cup, a flame flickering in his dark eyes. She felt a responding flood of heat deep in her abdomen and forced her gaze back to her own coffee.
“Not in the market?”
“I don’t consider myself a commodity,” she answered a little more tartly than she’d intended.
Nix’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but he didn’t seem particularly offended by her response. “I’ll take that as a no.”
Still, she felt bad about snapping at him just for showing mild interest in her availability. She should feel flattered. Hell, she was flattered; Walker Nix was an attractive man. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t care to involve herself in a short-term, dead-end fling.
She pushed her hair back from her face, meeting his gaze. “Sorry. I’ve spent a long time trying to get my fellow marshals to treat me like one of the guys. I forget my social graces sometimes.”
“I’d rather you just say what you’re thinking, straight out. Honesty goes a long way.”
“Okay. Then, honestly, I’m here in Bitterwood for two weeks. I’m not sticking around after that.”
“And you’re not interested in a short-term fling?” The corner of his mouth twitched as he cut to the chase.
“Not that you were offering?”
“No,” he said, the twitch becoming a whisper of a smile. “I wasn’t offering. For pretty much the same reason.”
She let out a long, slow breath. “Well, then.”
He walked slowly across the narrow space between them, reaching past her to put his mug of coffee on the breakfast bar. The move brought him so close she felt his heat pour over her, igniting another blaze of heat in her center. He bent his head, his breath hot against her ear. “Not that it ain’t mighty damn tempting.”
He stepped back, flashed her a smile that she felt right down to the tips of her toes and headed out of the kitchen toward the front door.
“You’re leaving already?” she asked, her voice embarrassingly hoarse.
He turned in the open doorway. “You may be on vacation, Marshal. But I’m not.” He lifted his hand in a brief, stationary wave, then pulled the door shut behind him.
She forced herself to stay where she was rather than trail him to the door and watch him leave. She might be feeling like a giddy schoolgirl right down to her tingling toes, but she had her pride.
And more important, she reminded herself sternly, she had a mystery to unravel. She just had to figure out where to start.
As she was walking back to the bedroom, the house phone started ringing. She picked up the bedroom extension, bracing herself to explain to the caller that her brother wasn’t available.
But it was Nix. “Sorry—I meant to mention this before I left. I don’t know how much truth there is to that story about your mother, but there’s a way you can find out.”
“Yeah?”
“In the story I’ve always heard, your mother was penniless, a charity case. And the couple whose baby boy she tried to take were well-off and reputable, which made what she did that much more scandalous.”
“If it really happened.”
“If it happened,” he conceded. “But if even a germ of the story is true, then what you’re looking for is a hospital that would treat both indigent and wealthy patients.”
“In other words, not a charity hospital or a low-income care facility.”
“Right. And there’s really only one hospital close that fits that description. Maryville Mercy Hospital.”
“That’s the hospital where Doyle is.”
“That’s right. Good luck.” He hung up the phone.
Good luck, she repeated silently. She had a feeling she was going to need all the luck she could find to cut through the years of rumor and innuendo to get to the truth about her mother’s secret life in Bitterwood.
But Maryville Mercy Hospital was as good a place to start as any.
Chapter Five
Nix walked slowly across the narrow two-lane street that bisected tiny Purgatory, Tennessee, wondering how long Alexander Quinn planned to keep him waiting. He hadn’t even taken his seat in the detectives’ office at the police station when his phone rang, and a low voice informed him that Merritt Cortland had been spotted in Purgatory.
It had been a few years since Nix had spoken to the old spymaster, but even with the man’s voice disguised, there was a certain tone to it that Nix found unforgettable. Many things had changed since the last time they’d met—Nix now carried a badge, not an M-16, and Quinn had recently left the CIA to start his own investigative agency in Purgatory. But Nix had a feeling Quinn would never fully give up his secret-agent ways.
Case in point—luring Nix to Purgatory with an anonymous tip. Nix doubted anyone had spotted Merritt Cortland anywhere near Purgatory. Which meant Quinn wanted him to come to Purgatory for some other reason but didn’t want to approach him directly.
On the other side of the road, Laurel Park was little more than a scenic overlook, a narrow strip of grass and trees
