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“Pardon me?”
“You were friends with Jamie in college.”
“Oh, right.” His brown eyes crinkled. “I stopped by with him a couple of times. I’m sorry. I don’t remember meeting you.”
Jamie snorted. “I doubt I introduced you to my teenage sister.”
“Ah,” he said, and Tessa thought she saw his eyes flicker down.
She let her gaze wander, too. Yeah, she remembered him now. He’d been a slim guy who’d waited quietly for Jamie the couple of times that her brother had stopped home to grab something from his room on his way out for fun. Tessa had watched him from the dining room table as she’d done homework. He’d been cute then, but now…
Luke Asher seemed to have grown into his lanky frame. He was still about six-two, but now his body looked powerfully lean. His skin was tan, and creases around his eyes made it look like he often squinted thoughtfully into the distance while puzzling out an investigation.
He was talking to Jamie about an old classmate when he glanced over and saw her staring. One eyebrow quirked in question.
“Oh, um… Do you have any news about the investigation?”
“Nothing yet. We’ve only found one print we can’t identify, but there are still a few employees we haven’t printed yet. I’m sure it belongs to one of your people. None of the robberies have turned up any useful prints.”
“You’re sure it’s connected?” Jamie asked.
“I’m not ruling anything out yet, but that’s what my gut says.”
Oooh, gut instincts and fingerprints. And she could just make out the edge of his shoulder holster when he put his hands in his pockets.
Despite all her worries, Tessa felt a sudden and startling jolt of attraction.
Jamie interrupted her ogling. “Did you get anything from the security cameras?”
“Nothing,” Luke said. “Your cameras are focused on the parking lot and loading dock. I’d recommend two more cameras pointing at the doors.”
“Yeah. Got it. I’ll let Eric know.”
Luke Asher’s eyes slid to her, and the hair on her arms stood on end. “Did you speak to your payroll company yet?”
“I did. It’s all good news. The program on the PC is encrypted, and data protection is part of our plan. They’ve already started contacting the employees, even the old ones. They’ve also alerted the credit agencies. So far it looks good. As for the credit card information, that’s uploaded live with every transaction. Nothing stored in the computers.”
“Great,” Luke said. “They might not bother trying to crack the encryption. It’ll probably be easier to just break into another place. And even if they crack the program, the credit alerts should help. Keep your fingers crossed.”
“Oh, I will,” she said, sneaking another peek at his gun.
Jamie cleared his throat, and Tessa shot him a look of wide-eyed innocence. It had never failed her before. “I’ll go update Eric,” she said cheerfully, leaving the flirting for later when her brothers weren’t around and things weren’t so chaotic.
Hopefully this would all blow over soon, and then she’d give Detective Luke Asher a friendly citizen’s call.
“WHAT THE HELL do you think you’re doing?”
Luke blinked in surprise at the anger in Jamie’s voice. “Excuse me?”
“I know you, man, and I saw the look you were giving my sister.”
“I wasn’t looking at your sister at all.” He didn’t flush at the utter falsehood, because he knew he wasn’t going to date Tessa Donovan. It had only been a bit of harmless admiration. Her T-shirt had been tight in all the right places.
“I know how you are with women,” Jamie growled.
“I’m not any way with women, Jamie. Whatever I got up to in college, I left in college.”
Jamie set down his rag and crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed. “I’m not just talking about college.”
