went down her throat the wrong way, and bits of breading tried to work their way up and out her nose. She covered her face with a handful of napkins, spitting and wheezing at the vinegary burn, so lost in her little fit that she barely heard Mila say, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Followed by, “Ooh, I’ll take that as an even bigger yes.”
Natasha swiped the tears from her eyes and wiped her face clean before looking toward the lanes where all the good-looking guys were. Had been. One was weaving his way around benches and bowlers toward them.
And he didn’t look happy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Daniel saw Mila arch one eyebrow, then heard his choice of word too late. Too bad. Heck just didn’t get the emotion over.
Natasha coughed to clear her throat. “I heard the popcorn here is the best around.”
His gaze flickered at the corn dog on its paper sleeve. The popcorn was good. The corn dogs were like every other corn dog found in the freezer case at the market. “Why are you following me?”
“Judging by all the writing on your screen over there, you’ve been here a while. I just came...” A tiny hesitation, an offer of a smile. A sure indication she was about to lie. “For the food.”
“You need to leave.” His voice wobbled before he got it under control. “You need to leave the bowling alley, the hotel, the town and the entire damn state, and you need to go now.”
Mila was keeping an eye on the kids while discreetly following the conversation, and Daniel knew without turning that they had an audience back on the lanes. He didn’t often give them anything to talk about, other than how often he got hit on by the females he came across on the job. He didn’t want them talking about this, either, not even if he had to bodily eject Natasha from the bowling alley.
Which he had zero grounds for doing, especially with more than half of the county’s law enforcement officers looking on.
Natasha’s discomfort was palpable as she pushed back her chair. “Talk to me—listen to me—and then I’ll go.”
He clenched his jaw, though he managed to keep his hands flat and loose at his sides. He hated being outmanipulated, outwitted or outgunned. It wasn’t anything his fathers had drummed into him, though they both had competitive streaks a mile wide. It was just something he expected of himself. And he especially hated being undone by Natasha. Mila, Morwenna, Taryn—they were okay. Cheryl and Lois, the first-ever and still-serving female officer in Cedar Creek—it was a given they could undo him without even trying.
But Natasha? The idea made his stomach turn sour.
He glanced at Mila, whose attention was still on the kids, but a faint smile touched her face. She was his boss Sam’s wife, survivor of several assaults and murder attempts a year ago. In the beginning, he hadn’t cared a thing about her other than her ties to the case, but since then, they’d become...distant friends, maybe, or close acquaintances. He liked her, respected her, and when she gave him a tiny nod, he struggled not to grouse.
If listening to Natasha was the only way to get rid of her, he would listen.
“Fine.” He directed the response to Mila—he didn’t want to see the triumph on Natasha’s face—then pivoted and returned to the lane to change into his boots and get his slicker.
“Jeez, he even gets hit on twelve lanes away by the prettiest woman in the place,” Cullen Simpson muttered, then shot a look at Sam. “No offense, Chief.”
“None taken,” Sam said before pointing his beer at Simpson. “If I thought you were spending your time thinking about how pretty my wife is, I’d have to pound you into the ground.” Before Simpson could stumble over a denial that could only get him in hot water, Sam turned to Daniel. “I’m guessing you won’t be back.”
“Probably not.”
“You’re awful damn close to a perfect game.”
“I’ve had plenty of perfect games.”
Ben clapped him on the shoulder, practically knocking him off balance. “You gotta love the boy’s modesty, don’t you?”
“Just stating a fact. I’ll see you in the morning.” As he stalked back toward the play area, Daniel pulled on his slicker, making sure to cover his pistol and badge, then waited in the broad corridor for Natasha to dump her corn dog and beer in the trash.
She walked toward him with the long, fluid strides that had always seemed more than just a form of locomotion to him. Her jeans clung snugly to her thighs, and her shirt did the same with her upper body. She had gained a few pounds since he’d last seen her. They gave her body a softer, more womanly look.
Not that he cared. He was just appreciating a fine form. Jeffrey had always encouraged him to appreciate beauty.
Archer had taught him that sometimes it could be deadly.
When they reached the vestibule, they both stopped. He supposed it was best to decide their destination before stepping out into the deluge. There were plenty of places open, just none that he wanted to go to with Natasha. Her hotel was out of the question, and so was his house. There was no way he could let her in there.
“There’s a McDonald’s on South Main,” he said shortly. The micro-change in her expression showed that she remembered he wasn’t a McDonald’s fan—all those kids and all their oblivious parents with their cell phones. Better to go someplace other than usual, right?
“I’ll follow you.”
His car was parked in the row nearest the highway. Hers was twenty feet from the door. He jogged to his vehicle, the hood of his slicker down, cold rain running down his neck. By the time he got inside and started the engine, Natasha was waiting near the exit.
There wasn’t any traffic to speak of, nothing to delay the moment they would reach the restaurant. As he crossed the street that would lead to his house, he sent a mournful look that way but continued south.
Daniel waited for her in the parking lot—it was the polite thing to do—and held the door for her. They both ordered black coffees, each paying for their own, and carried them silently to the table farthest from other customers. It was a bench, actually, with stools for chairs. He felt like he was hunkered at the kids’ table, like his knees might bump his chin.
Natasha looked as if she perched on the most elegant chair ever imagined.
She sweetened her coffee, stirred it, then gazed out of the streaky window at a scene so saturated with water that everything overflowed: the street, the gutters, the sky itself. “Is the weather often like this?”
Irritation flared at the pointlessness of her comment. “No. Sometimes it rains really hard.”
Her gaze jerked back to him, her lips turning up in a startled smile before it faded beneath his scowl. “Sometimes I forget you have a sense of humor.”
Her comment gave him the same fleeting startle. Sometimes he forgot,
