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She sighed. “Your priorities are whacked.” This wasn’t the place for this conversation. The animals were stressed out and Terry was missing. Not that any place would be the right one. She’d never been the kind of girl who dreamed of bringing home a fiancé. Besides, right now her feelings were a jumble between her unwise attraction to Dale, the secrets of the dogfighting ring, and that kiss…
“Family trumps all, remember?”
“Is that the Morris family motto?” Dale asked, stepping up behind her. “She hasn’t mentioned it to me yet.”
She took more comfort than she should from having him at her back. His show of support wasn’t personal, but she appreciated it even if it was all an act for her nosy brother.
“One of them,” she and J.C. answered in unison. “Y’know, the polite response when sighting an engagement ring is to offer congratulations.”
J.C. ignored her, turning his anger on Dale. “A little premature isn’t it, Special Agent Nichols?”
“Was I supposed to ask you for her hand? Whoops. I thought that archaic tradition faded away decades ago.”
Gas meet fire, she thought, her own temper fighting to break free and turn this into a real spectacle. Why were men such idiots?
“Not here.” J.C.’s snarl was right up there with Sal’s.
“Not here is right,” Heather said, deliberately misunderstanding J.C.’s definition of the word. “Dale and I will help you search for the missing dogs.”
“We really shouldn’t,” Dale said. “We’ll miss our flight.”
“What flight?” J.C. glared at her.
She rolled her eyes. She’d known it would be messy when her family caught wind of this “engagement”, but she hadn’t thought it would be like this. “Forget the flight,” she said, addressing both men. “We’ll stay and search.”
“Great. But searching can wait another two minutes until we sort this out.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “There is nothing to sort out. Dale proposed, I said yes. Either congratulate us, or get back to business.” She stuffed her hands back into her pockets, hoping putting the ring out of sight would defuse her brother’s reaction.
Dale remained stoic while the muscle in J.C.’s jaw jumped with obvious tension. She counted to ten, but neither man spoke up. “Great. We need to get everyone accounted for,” she said, getting back to the terrible matter in front of them. “The dogs as well as Terry.” He never would have helped with this kind of thing. Her gaze drifted back to the fabric in the latch. Not willingly.
Dale might have made a mistake and revealed her involvement in his haste to close the case, but wanting to protect her friend, she’d been more careful as she’d pulled the facts together. Her caution had led to several extra layers of file storage, backup, and security. She hoped they held up now.
She hadn’t given Dale anything that could lead back to what Terry had told her. To protect him and honor his confidence in her, she’d taken the time, despite the prolonged pain for the animals, and searched out other ways to evaluate the information. It was like a twisted game of Concentration, having a peek at one clue, only to have it disappear again. She’d spent months working backwards to unravel the patterns and timing of dogfighting events and the key people who had surely been involved with planning them.
“We will talk about this,” J.C. said as they walked through the front office.
“Dale and I would love to have you and Eva over for dinner,” she said, referring to J.C.’s fiancée.
“We’d better go out,” her brother said. “Your apartment is too small.”
“My place is big enough,” Dale interjected. “Don’t you think that would be better, sweetheart?”
His hand brushed her hip and a rush of sensations swamped her. She wanted to simultaneously laugh at the absurdity of them as a couple, lean into the warm touch, and cry on his shoulder to purge her fury over this terrible situation.
Instead, she smiled up at him. “I think that would be perfect, darling.”
“Enough!” J.C.’s shout bounced off the cinder block walls of the office.
She jumped. Her brother rarely lost his temper, but even more startling was the way Dale moved in front of her.
“Dial it down, Deputy.”
“Just tell me what’s really going on. You don’t even know each other.”
“I don’t tell you every detail of my personal life,” she said from behind Dale’s broad shoulder.
“You don’t have a personal life,” J.C. shot back. “After Christmas Eve dinner you said he was—”
