Battle Tested
Page 20
Ryder Palladin didn’t look like a big-city detective. More like a cowboy straight out of that old Western. Complete with a cream-colored hat, plaid button-up shirt and nicely worn jeans. With dark longish wavy hair and glinting bronze-brown eyes that held a gold mine of secrets.
He took off his hat and allowed her to enjoy all that luscious wavy hair. “Do you remember who you are?”
“Emma. Emma Langston, according to the doctor.”
“But not according to you?”
“I’m remembering bits and pieces. Why are you here?”
Lifting a dark slanted brow, he chuckled while his secretive gaze did a round on her. “You get right to the heart of things, don’t you?”
“I don’t have time for idle chatter.”
He absorbed that with classic detective disdain. “Need to be somewhere in a hurry, Emma Langston?”
She didn’t like his smug attitude or the way he made tiny little shivering sensations float down her spine. “What do you know about me?”
“I’m the one who asks the questions,” he retorted, throwing his hat in a nearby chair. He had the kind of hair a woman wanted to grab onto and hold. Silky, shining, unruly.
“I’m the one who needs to know what happened,” she replied, her head hammering and grinding in pain while her heart jumped in a fast-beating tempo.
“You got hit with a baseball bat.”
He watched her cringe. “Yeah, the nurse told me. But I think I can almost remember that. I need a few more details.”
He put his hands against the foot of the bed. His big, tanned hands. “You were at the Blue Bull Bar—the Triple B to the locals. Do you almost remember that, too?”
Emma swallowed away the terror of not remembering, of not knowing. She liked to be in control—of her emotions, of her life, of her work. Somehow, she did know that.
“Why would I go there?”
He gave her that lazy slide of a gaze again. “I’m asking you.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Your ID shows you’re a private investigator from Galveston.”
Emma inhaled a breath, the sound of ocean waves crashing against a seawall filling her mind. Images of a tiny beach house, all blue and white and sunny, made her feel secure. But other memories of fear and urgency seemed to want to darken her mind.
He picked up on her confusion right away. “Do you remember that now?”
“Some. Maybe. I can see the beach in my mind. A house. I might live there. But why did I come to Dallas?”
“I’m thinking you were at the Triple B looking for someone or maybe tailing someone.”
“Why were you there?”
“Do you always answer a question with a question?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
That retort won her a grin of appreciation. “And she has a wicked sense of humor at that.”
“Seriously, why were you there? It might help me remember.”
“Good try.” He eyed her for a long minute, still not quite trusting her. Then he leaned in. “I work Vice.”
“A vice detective? Did I do something wrong?”
“No. But my partner found you unconscious in the alley behind the Triple B.”
Another memory of walking into a seedy, dark bar, the smell of beer and smoke assaulting her, making her feel sick. Stares and whispers and...questions.
“I asked some questions.”
“I reckon you did.”
“They told me to get out.”
“I reckon they would.”
“I can’t remember why I went there.” The panic started up. “I need to get out of here and find out what’s going on.” She lifted, tried to sit up. But her head went wild with pain and agony, causing her to turn dizzy and confused.
“Hey, hey,” he said, his hand on her arm strong and steady, his eyes kind now. “Lie back. You can’t go anywhere just yet.”
Emma gulped in air, nodded. Pretended she hadn’t noticed his touch. Crazy that this man seemed to hit all the marks even when she was in crisis mode. Even when she couldn’t remember if she was married or single. Single sounded more like it. Something she did need to remember. “Do you know who did this to me?”
He pulled out two grainy snapshots that made her have a flash of a memory. She’d taken such shots in her line of work.
“Do you recognize these two men?”
Emma squinted against the pain in her head and carefully studied both photos. “I don’t know. The skinny one seems familiar.”
He nodded and put the pictures back in his shirt pocket.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, his tiger eyes full of concern.
“My mind back.”
“We’re working on that.”
“And you look so happy about it,” she noted out loud.
He stood, his gaze holding hers for a beat too long. “Big Sam and Little Eddie guard that place. We call them a bounce and an ounce. One’s big, bald and beefy—”
“—And the other’s short, scrawny and scared?”
“Good description.”
“He came at me—the little one.” She motioned to his pocket. “That could be the same two men—in the photo. The skinny one came at me while the big one made sure I couldn’t get away. And I told myself it would hurt. I tried to fight, get to a weapon.”
“I know,” the detective said. “You’re alive because you fought, and that’s amazing.” Then he shifted, crossed his big arms over his chest. “If my partner hadn’t come along, you might be dead. He scared them away.”
“He saw them?”
“He thinks it was them but he can’t be sure. Okay, we know it was them but...we need your take on that. Identifying them can help.” He studied her for a couple of beats. “We did find traces of epidermis underneath your nails. Waiting on the DNA from that and the other bits and pieces of evidence we collected.”
Emma had a flash, a memory of her fingernails digging into skin. “I need to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I have to figure this out.”
“Rest,” he said, his tone gentle now, his eyes washed in empathy. “Let me do the figuring.”
Confused and wishing she didn’t have to depend on him, Emma gave him an astonished stare. “You’ll do that for me?”
Those eyes gazed at her with all the intensity of a strobe light. “You’re a victim of a crime and it happened on my watch, so yeah, I’ll do that for you.”
“You didn’t tell me why you were there.”
“I like the neighborhood.”
With that, he handed her his card. “Call me if you remember anything else. Anything at all.”
Emma watched him go, her eyes traveling down to his feet, her heart excited to take the ride with her.
Yep. Boots. Buttery tan and worn but probably handmade.
She wanted to ask how a cowboy like him had wound up working Vice in the first place.
She’d get to that question next time she saw him.
Because she knew the good-looking detective would be back.
He’d want answers. Well, she wanted answers, too.
They had that much in common already.
Copyright © 2018 by Lenora H. Nazworth
ISBN-13: 9781488088223
Battle Tested
Copyright © 2018 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Laura Scott for her contribution to the Military K-9 Unit miniseries.
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