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“Maybe,” Conrad said, surprising her by lifting their joined hands and kissing her knuckles. “But Beau and I launched a thorough search of the grounds yesterday. He hasn’t stopped. That’s why he’s still at the cottage.”
Both of her boys had dropped everything to help her…and not because they loved her. The sheriff was wrong about that. But, um, had the air gotten thicker? Breathing became more of a chore.
She focused on the conversation. “For the record, there’s no need to tell me a terrible fact about yourself. I expected to languish in jail, paying my debt to society, never again endangering the local wildlife as I solved this case from lockup, and you ruined it with your gallant rescue.”
“Good to know. Give me a second to add this data into my Learning Jane logbook.” A brief glimpse of that lopsided smile. “More jail time for Jane. Got it.”
Jane didn’t mean to, but she laughed out loud. Oh! How could she let herself find amusement at a time like this? She lightly slapped his chest, thinking to issue a reprimand. Hmm. Was he smuggling rocks under his skin? Because dang. His chest was rock hard.
Cease fondling the agent, Jay Bird. Right. But like she could really blame herself. “Stop being adorable,” she scolded as she removed her hands from his torso. “I’m not supposed to enjoy my reentry into society.”
“Adorable? Me?” The lopsided grin returned wider...and lingered. “Now that isn’t something I’ve ever heard before.”
“Well, then, you aren’t hanging around the right people.” She grinned back at him; she just couldn’t help it. Besides, he’d needed to hear it, to know she recognized the specialness—the rarity—of his softer side’s emergence. To understand his importance to her.
They lapsed into silence after that, neither speaking again. Not until he parked in her driveway, unbuckled, and turned toward her.
“Another chat inside a vehicle. Maybe this one will end better for me, eh?” he teased. “Listen. Before we go inside and you crash—”
“I’m not going to crash,” she rushed to interject. Fatigue might have gripped her only moments ago, but fresh energy surged now. They had a murderer to catch.
“—let me tell you what I know about Blake Crawford, the real estate agent,” he finished.
Tony had passed along the message, as requested. What an unexpectedly kind thing to do. She nodded, saying, “Yes, please, and thank you. Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
“For the record,” he said, then performed some kind of romantic movie-move to free Jane. They shifted to face each other fully. “I prefer not to explain anything we learned. You’ll demand we do something I won’t like. Or something that will get me into trouble. Probably both. But. I’m telling you anyway, because you’re looking at me with those big, blue eyes.”
She was? “Conrad, doing things you don’t like has afforded me a hundred percent solve rate so far. Even Robby Waynes has noticed. Why stop such a good thing?”
He grunt-laughed. “I don’t want to know how Beau did it, but he got Mr. Crawford’s address and did a rundown on his personal history. He lives in Atlanta. Troubled marriage. Collapsing business. Massive debt.”
“You have Blake’s address?” The day grew better by the second.
“I do,” he responded cautiously.
Perfect. “Give me five minutes to shower, scour off the memory of prison—”
“It was jail. There’s a difference.” He scowled at her. “You had a cot, at least. I had to sleep in a cushionless chair.”
“—and change into clean clothes... Wait. What? You slept there?”
He tugged at his shirt collar as red crept along his cheeks, and Jane marveled. For the first time since meeting Special Agent Conrad Ryan, he appeared uncomfortable. Then he shook it off and cupped her cheek. “Sherrif Moore said you refused to leave. I didn’t want you feeling...alone.”
He’d spent the entire night in the lobby of the jailhouse? For her. Flutters erupted in her stomach. She…he…
No, no. She wouldn’t obsess about what that meant right now. Or if it meant anything at all. Or nothing. “After you talk Fiona into making me a stack or twelve of her blueberry pancakes, I’ll do you the courtesy of allowing you to drive me to the city. We’re going to stake out Blake’s place. And do you think it’s weird that we’re dealing with a Blake and a Jake at the same time?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jane. People have rhyming names. It isn’t a clue.”
Right. Of course. People had rhyming names often. Except, this time, it was weird. “And the pancakes?” Fiona was a baking sorceress with the singular power to transform ordinary pancakes into a culinary masterpiece.
Conrad didn’t look any less grim. “My answer to everything is the same. No pancakes. You aren’t getting rewarded for insisting on your own arrest. And no stakeout or interrogation either. I won’t question him. However, I will pass the information to Hightower.”
