Blame It on Texas

by Christie Craig

  Dixie took off. Red, towel in her hand, started cleaning the mess off his table. She paused after a couple of swipes and raised her face to stare at him. “What is it you want?”

  “I think I should be asking you that.”

  “I suppose that’s fair.” She bit her lip, and he could see her trying to figure out what to say. What he didn’t know was if she planned on lying. “I… I was going to talk to you guys about a case.”

  “What kind of case?” he asked.

  “A…” She lowered her voice. “A difficult one.”

  He reached for the cream she’d given him, pulled the tab off one, and poured it into his cup. “And how does it involve Mr. Bradford?” He decided to give her a little nudge so they could get to the truth quicker. “Heard you’ve been hanging out at the Bradford place, too.”

  She looked surprised. Glancing around the diner as if worried others might be listening, she leaned in. “Can we talk later? After I get off work?”

  “And give you a chance to run away again?” He pulled his cup to his lips and studied her reaction.

  “No. To give us some privacy.”

  As crazy as it was, his mind went to the private fantasies he’d had about her last night. He pushed those thoughts away and studied her expression again. If she was lying, she didn’t give the regular twitches. But he’d been wrong before. “Don’t you get a break?”

  She frowned and did a visual sweep around the room. “Let the breakfast crowd leave and… I’ll see if I can’t take a few minutes.”

  He nodded and thought she would walk away. She didn’t. Their eyes met and held. “What do you want?” she asked again.

  You dressed like a prim and proper librarian. Or maybe just to see a laugh light up your eyes again. “I figured that was clear. Answers,” he said.

  “I mean for breakfast.”

  He obviously was not at the top of his game. “You serve huevos rancheros?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you serve them on a plate so I can eat them instead of wear them?” He grinned, hoping to coax another smile out of her.

  Almost. He saw a flash of a smile touch her eyes, but something held her back. And he guessed what it was, too. She didn’t trust him, and that was okay—he didn’t trust her, either.

  “Huevos rancheros on a plate coming up.” She started to walk away.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  She turned around.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Zoe,” she said.

  “Last name?”

  Her expression told him she wasn’t thrilled about giving it to him.

  “Adams. Zoe Adams.”

  He stretched out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Zoe. I’m Tyler Lopez.”

  She hesitated, but he didn’t drop his hand. As he hoped, after a long second, she felt forced to comply. She slipped her palm in his. Her hand was soft, small, and felt nice against his. Somehow he knew last night’s fantasy hadn’t done her justice.

  A surge of desire shot straight to his gut and then went lower. So sweet was her touch that he didn’t want to release her hand, but he felt her pull away. To hold on would have intimidated her, so he forced himself to let that soft-as-silk palm slip from his.

  Reining in his thoughts, he asked, “Where in Alabama are you from, Zoe?”

  “How did you…”

  “Your license plate.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated. “Beaverville.”

  He tried not to laugh, but it seeped out. “I understand your hesitation.”

  Her eyes tightened. “For a guy who’s wearing eggs, grits, hash browns, and half a pat of butter in his hair, you sure are quick to poke fun at others.”

  He bit back his smile. “I wasn’t poking fun at anyone. Just the name of a town.” He ran a hand through his hair, and sure as hell, a couple of forkfuls of breakfast fell to the table.

  She swiped it up and then looked at him. “But it’s my town.” Then rolling her eyes, she took the towel and wiped his temple. The nubby feel of cotton moved over his brow, and he saw her staring, probably at his scar. The scar that would forever remind him of his stint in prison and how people and an entire justice system could let one down.

  When she continued to stare, he was suddenly self-conscious. But not so concerned that he didn’t appreciate how gentle her touch felt. Damn, had it been that long since he’d been touched?

  “And I don’t like people poking fun at it,” she finished, dropping her hand from his brow.

  “In that case, I apologize,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “But let me remind you that the reason I’ve turned into a human breakfast buffet is because of you.”

  Her lips twitched as if she wanted to smile, but she stopped again. “For which I’ve already apologized,” she countered, then twisted on the heels of her white tennis shoes and sashayed away. And she looked really good doing it, too.

  As soon as he was able to take his eyes off her, he pulled out his smartphone. First, he checked to see if his cousin had gotten back to him on her license plate number. When he didn’t find an e-mail from Pablo, Tyler pulled up Google. He typed in her name and Beaverville, Alabama. Hopefully, by the time she took a break, he’d know enough about Zoe Adams that if she tried to lie to him, he’d be able to call her on it.

  “He’s watching you like a hawk,” Jamie, one of the waitresses, said.

  “Don’t care,” Zoe said, but it was a lie. She cared. And not only that, she’d found herself watching him as well. What was he doing on that smartphone? She sensed he was looking up information on her. Several times when she’d let herself get a glimpse of him, she found him watching her. Her heart had been thumping like a trapped bird since she’d shaken his hand. She’d been so nervous that she’d asked Jamie to do all the refreshing of his coffee.

  “Not a problem.” Jamie immediately refreshed her lipstick. Zoe regretted asking the man-hungry waitress to do it.

  Zoe wished she could believe the emotional storm stirring inside her was from fear over chatting with an ex-con with anger issues who liked to teach lessons with his fists. But nope. She wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of Tyler Lopez.

  The man hadn’t shown an ounce of anger when she dropped three hot plates of food on him. A real rageaholic wouldn’t be that understanding. Then she tried to convince herself that her heart palpitations were a residual effect from the clown outfit he’d worn yesterday, but nope.

  It wasn’t fear making her heart thump around in her chest. It was something more primal. It was his sexy bedroom eyes, his wide, thick shoulders, and the kiss-me smile he’d shot at her several times now. It was the desire to run her fingers over the scar that lined his left brow and ask him how he got it. It was basic, to the core, uncontrollable, old-fashioned lust. And she hadn’t been hit with this in a very long time.

  She was so screwed. And Lord have mercy on her, she prayed she hadn’t meant that literally.

  “There’s a gun in my desk drawer. If he makes an unwanted pass, or gets out of hand, just let him know you’re armed,” Dixie told her after she asked if she and Tyler could go into her office to chat.

  “I’m not going to shoot him,” she assured Dixie.

  “Maybe not, but I’m not letting anything happen to you on my watch, girly.”

  “I’ll be fine.” And Zoe actually felt guilty that she was about to tell a strange man something she’d been unable to confide in Dixie—a woman who’d been nothing but nice to her. A woman who trusted Zoe with the keys to the cash register and made sure she ate before she left every shift.

  Then again, maybe that was why she could tell Tyler Lopez her secret and not Dixie. She might be in lust with him, but she didn’t care if he thought she was a nut job. If Dixie started thinking Zoe needed to check herself in for a mental evaluation, well, that would hurt.

  Taking a deep breath, she poured herself some coffee, grabbed her purse, and went to get this over with. When she stepped away from the counter, she felt th
at hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  This feeling was fear. But not of Tyler Lopez. Was she afraid that he’d think she was crazy? Or was she afraid to discover her suspicions were all true? She pushed that thought aside in her mind. Who wanted to learn that everything you believed to be true about yourself was a lie?

  But darn it, she hadn’t come all the way to Texas, taken time off from work, to chicken out now. She wanted answers.

  When she got to the table, he was reading his phone screen and laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  He actually jumped. “Uh… nothing.”

  She knew he was lying. She also knew that whatever caused his laughter had something to do with her. Her gaze shot to the screen on his phone and, while she inwardly flinched, gave herself credit for being right.

  “You still have grits in your hair, you know.”

  He laughed again. “Yeah, but… I haven’t ever won a pageant and been given the title of Queen Beaver.” Gesturing toward his phone, he shook his head. “Why in hell would you have ever entered that contest?”

  She didn’t know why, but she told him the truth. “Because the woman running that pageant was doing it in honor of her daughter—my best friend—who’d been killed by a drunk driver six weeks before. The proceeds went to fund MADD—Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.”

  His smile vanished, and regret flashed in his brown eyes. She almost felt guilty for being brutally honest. He wasn’t the first one to tease her about the title. Heck, even Jay Leno had posted the headline on the Tonight Show, practically making her a celebrity in Beaverville.

  Tyler touched his phone screen and made the article disappear. “Okay, I apologize for the second time in less than thirty minutes. Which is a record for me, by the way.”

  She swallowed the nervous tickle down her throat. “Dixie agreed to let us use the office to talk.” While she didn’t want to tell him, she gave him credit for apologizing.

  “Okay.” As he followed her to the office, she felt him lean close to her ear and whisper, “I’m serious, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay. It is funny.” She pushed open the door and motioned to one of the chairs. Her pulse raced when he moved past her and his shoulder brushed against hers. Her palms started feeling clammy as she shut the door and sat in the chair beside him. His knee bumped up against hers, and the butterflies in her stomach started playing bumper cars. Had the office always been this small?

  “Where do I start?” she muttered.

  He didn’t say anything, just waited, staring at her with his sexy brown eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, she slipped her purse off her shoulder, set it in her lap, then pulled out a photocopy of the article she’d found in the local library’s microfiche. The article contained a picture of Caroline Bradford sitting in a tire swing. Then she pulled out her wallet and retrieved the school picture of herself in first grade.

  Hesitating, she handed both items to him.

  He glanced at them, then back at her as if he preferred she explain what she’d attempted to make him read.

  “That’s a picture of Caroline Bradford taken a week before she went missing.” She tapped the photocopied article. “She was almost four in the picture.”

  He nodded.

  “And that’s a picture of me right before my sixth birthday.”

  He looked down, studied the pictures, then glanced back up. His brows tightened as if his brain chewed on bits of information. Then he held up a hand and shook his head. “Please. Please tell me that you aren’t saying you think you’re Caroline Bradford?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ZOE POINTED TO THE PICTURES. “You don’t see the resemblance?”

  His brow pinched tighter. He looked back at the pictures and then up again. “It’s two redheaded girls.”

  “Or is it the same girl?” she asked. “Can’t you see it’s the same girl?”

  He shook his head. “You seriously don’t think…” A piece of egg fell into his lap. “She was murdered. They recovered her body.”

  “Look at the pictures,” she insisted, desperation rising in her throat and stinging her sinuses.

  He put the photocopied article and her picture on the desk and studied them. Then he crossed his arms and stared at her. “What I see are two redheaded girls.”

  She shook her head, wishing she’d never told him. A part of her knew people would think she was crazy. She grabbed hold of what he said and went on the defensive. “So you’re saying all redheads look alike? That’s insulting.”

  “It’s not an insult. I happen to like redheads.”

  Her throat tightened. When her vision got blurry, she blinked a couple of times. Then somehow she found another stash of courage. “It’s me. They’re both me.”

  He inhaled. “Okay, I admit the pictures look alike, but we all look like somebody. Just because you…” He stopped talking, and his expression took on the appearance of suspicion. “You saw this on that TV show that aired a couple months ago, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I saw the show, but—”

  “Is that why you’re here? Why you came to Texas?”

  “Yes, but—”

  He rolled his eyes, as if he was thinking she was a total fruitcake. “You came all the way to Texas because you looked like a millionaire’s kidnapped grandchild? What? Did you not hear the part about her body being found?”

  “I heard it, but—”

  “But you still thought you might be able to sweet-talk the old man out of some money. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “No!” She jumped up from the chair. “I want the truth. I want answers. That’s what I want. Then I’m going back to Alabama.”

  He stood there staring at her as if she was lacking both a brain and any morality. “Don’t you realize that all it takes is a simple DNA test to prove you aren’t the old man’s granddaughter? He’s not going to hand you money—”

  “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

  “What a shame,” he said.

  She didn’t understand what he meant, but she continued. “Why would anyone take my word when there’s a simple test? All I want you to do is ask if he would be willing to do the test. I’ll figure out how to pay for it myself.”

  He started to walk out but then turned around. “Do you realize how stupid I would look going to this man and telling him that I have a girl who thinks she might be his murdered grandchild? Never mind that the police are certain that they found the body.”

  “They didn’t have DNA then,” she blurted out. “I’ve read the reports—they never said anything about checking dental records. The only evidence they had was the child’s size, her clothing, and a stuffed bear that belonged to… to Caroline. Those things could have been planted.”

  He ran a palm over his face. “You really believe this?”

  She nodded, hesitant to admit it verbally, but she’d already crossed the line of no return.

  “Why? I mean, I see the pictures, but unless you’re really a whack job, you’ve got to have more reasons than the fact that you look like the dead girl.”

  She wavered on telling him more; he already thought she was crazy. But then she reminded herself she didn’t care what he thought. He wasn’t important to her. She glanced down at the picture.

  “The swing. I remember it. I’ve always had this vision of a tire swing and someone with long red hair pushing me on it. And the house. A big white house. Inside, there’s one room that has bookcases floor to ceiling; I remember that, too. And when I was young I called my mother, Mother Two. As if there was another mother somewhere. There are no pictures of me as an infant. None.”

  “Were you adopted?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. My parents would never admit anything, but I didn’t look like either of them. And I asked, but my mother said I looked like my great-aunt, but she didn’t have a picture of my great-aunt. And then…”

  “Then what?” he asked.

&nb
sp; This was her trump card. If he didn’t see this as evidence of what she felt was true, she would never convince him. “And then when my mother died, I found my birth certificate.”

  “And?”

  “She never told me that I was born in Texas. I’ve always thought I was born in Alabama.”

  “So you have a birth certificate?” he asked.

  “Yes, but she never told me I was born in Texas.”

  He shook his head and in a bad, “can’t believe this shit” kind of way. “Okay, so she didn’t tell you where you were born, but you have the birth certificate. So you should know you’re not Caroline Bradford.”

  “Why would they lie about where I was born? And that’s not all. There are a lot of little things that never added up about my childhood. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents, but they’ve lied to me about so many things from my childhood. And if they lied about that, then what else did they lie about?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but this… This can’t be true. I… It’s absurd, Zoe.”

  “Absurd maybe, but possible. The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.”

  He cocked his head. “Albert Camus.”

  “I know who said it. My point is that he’s right. I could be right.”

  Tyler shook his head. “But you have a birth certificate. That should prove you—”

  “And you’ve never heard of forged documents? Please, you’re a PI.”

  He just stared.

  “Admit it,” Zoe said. “There is a possibility that I’m right. And now someone is telling me to leave.”

  His eyes tightened with what appeared to be genuine concern. “Who’s telling you to leave?”

  “I don’t know. Someone called me, and his exact words were, ‘Leave. Get the hell away before it’s too late.’ ”

  “Too late for what?”

  “I asked the same question,” she said.

  “And…?”

  “He hung up.”