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She was possessive of him. She’d wanted to know if he was the sort of man who’d pretend interest in one woman and fall into the arms of the next one he met. Which meant, he considered, that she was very interested in him. It was mutual. He thought about going back to Chicago without her and it disturbed him. Amazing that a woman he barely knew could get such a hold on him. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
“I’m sorry,” she said after they passed through the intersection of a small town along the way where a snowplow was working. “It was a rotten thing to do.”
He shrugged. “Pretty flattering, though,” he replied, and his dark eyes twinkled as they met hers briefly.
“Really?”
He sighed. “Really. Angie wouldn’t have cared if I’d flirted with other women. I found out that she’d been two-timing me with the man she ran off with to New York and married.”
“That must have hurt.”
“Hurt my pride,” he confessed. “Not much else.” He watched the road ahead. “I don’t think I know much about real relationships.”
“And I don’t know anything about them.”
“So I suppose we’re learning together,” he commented.
She smiled. “Except that you think you’re too old for me, and I’m worried that you might get shot doing your job.”
He whistled. “We’d better let that lie for a while,” he commented with a glance. “That’s serious business.”
“It is?”
He nodded. “That’s the sort of discussion you have when you can’t bear to think of leaving the other person behind.”
Her heart was doing the hula in her chest. She didn’t dare look at him. She didn’t speak either because she knew her voice would sound choked.
His fingers contracted. “So, for the meantime, you’re a nurse in a local hospital and I’m over here investigating a murder.”
She nodded. “Okay.” Her voice sounded strangled. He was thinking ahead. She wanted nothing more than to consider him part of her future. But he was right. They had to take it slow. For now, at least.
“And there’s Denver,” he said, nodding toward the horizon.
* * *
He settled her in a coffee shop next to a building where he had an appointment with another agent.
“I’d take you with me, but I have to have a clear mind and you’re distracting.”
“I am?” she asked, surprised.
He smiled down at her. “Very. And no flirting with other men,” he added under his breath.
“I heard that,” she said.
He just chuckled.
* * *
By the time he was through speaking to Dan Parsons, the other agent, he had more than enough information on May Strickland. She really did have issues. She’d been under the care of a clinical psychologist her first weeks as a nursing student because of inappropriate behavior. The file was sealed, and he could have made an issue of it and gotten a warrant, but the information wasn’t going anywhere. He could get access to it later if it was needed. What he was interested in was May’s inclination to go after rich men when she worked in the nursing home. Dan had been out to do an interview with the owner’s wife, Jean, who gave him a lot of information about May’s tactics. Jean didn’t like May at all. She said May had tried to tell tales, to break up Jean’s marriage, to get her husband to divorce Jean and marry her. At least, until May understood, finally, that Jean had all the money and property. Her husband ran the nursing home, but only had a salary from the profits. May had stopped flirting with him that very day.
But there had been a very rich old man whose indifferent children had placed him in the nursing home. By promising to get him out, and playing up to him, May had managed to get some very nice gifts. When she was discovered badgering him for a check, she was invited to ply her trade somewhere else. The old man wouldn’t press charges, his children didn’t care, so May got away with it. About that time, she met Billy Turner, who was in Denver on an errand for his father. They met at a diner, and they hit it off at once. Billy had money at the time, and his father was very ill, so May followed him back to Raven Springs.
“I can’t remember a case like this in recent times,” Tom told Dan. “This woman is truly messed up.”
“Greedy,” came the quiet reply. “Very greedy. And there was some discussion that the old man she was trying to pump money out of had some sudden health issues. There was a suspicion by at least one coworker that May was trying to get him to sign over his estate to her and then she planned an accident. Food poisoning? Something similar?”
“Not playing with a full deck,” Tom mused.
