AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s going on?” Nate asked. “First, you’re all upset that we have to—oh.” His eyes had landed on Emma, who kept her head down while she kept trying to wipe her eyes and not have black come away on her fingers.
“I need a minute,” she said, and she spun and went toward the back corner of the house.
Ted and Nate stood in the shade, staring after her.
“Teddy,” Nate said slowly. “Tell me you did not make that woman cry.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ted said quickly. He explained what had happened in literally the last four minutes, and Nate’s eyes got wider with every sentence.
“So who was that guy?”
“She doesn’t know,” Ted said. “She freaked out hard, Nate. There’s something going on with her.”
“I can ask Ginger,” Nate said. “Should we go wait in the air-conditioned truck?”
“Heavens, yes,” Ted said, breathing a sigh of relief. He walked with his friend around the front of the house and to where Nate had parked in the driveway. “How well do you know Emma?” he asked. “Do you know what she’s involved in?”
“You think she’s involved in something?”
“Yes,” Ted said simply. Women didn’t fall apart because someone rang the doorbell and then went around the side of the house. This ranch was crawling with people, and it would take someone with some special skills to do something unnoticed.
But maybe Emma had been dealing with someone with just those kind of special skills. Ted’s mind whirred, especially when Nate didn’t say anything. The man never did just fill the silence with chatter, and Ted normally appreciated that.
Emma appeared in his rear-view mirror, and Ted opened the door and slid out. “Do you want the window or the middle?” he asked.
“Window, please,” she said, her voice stronger now. Her makeup had been cleaned from her face, and she hadn’t redone it. Ted stared at her, finding her natural beauty even better than the gorgeous woman she was with dark eye makeup and blemish-free skin.
And in that moment, he also knew who she was.
Emma Clemson, of course.
Emma Clemson, the girlfriend and known associate of Robert Knight, a suspected crime ringleader from the Knight family of criminals. They operated all over southern Texas, moving people and drugs, committing petty thefts and assaults, and sometimes, if they had to, people ended up dead.
It had been Ted’s firm’s job to find as many of their known associates as possible and interview them about a specific incident that could put Larry Knight, Robert’s brother, behind bars for a very long time.
He’d been right. He’d seen her picture in a case file.
She lifted her eyebrows, and Ted realized he’d fallen into simply staring at her while he reviewed the case mentally. “Sorry,” he said, hurrying to get back in the truck and slide over next to Nate.
“I need to talk to you tonight,” he murmured to his best friend as Emma climbed onto the seat next to him.
“Deal,” Nate said just as quietly, and then he reached for the volume dial on his radio. “Okay, phones first?”
“Yes,” Ted said. Nate set off down the dirt lane that led to the highway, but Ted couldn’t relax. He sat straight and tall, not daring to let any part of him touch Emma. Tension radiated through the cab, despite the pop music playing, and Ted couldn’t help turning his head to look at Emma again.
Something roared to life inside him when her eyes met his, and he wanted to protect her from whatever had happened and whoever had hurt her in the past. His fists clenched, and he had to work to calm his fight or flight reflexes back into submission.
There was no fight here.
And he literally could not leave the ranch by himself, so the flight option was out too, leaving Ted’s tension and adrenaline with nowhere to go but back into his body.
* * *
An hour later,Ted stood on the sidewalk outside the cell phone store, the line to his mother ringing.
“Teddy,” she said, her voice full of light though it had grown old in the last several years. “I wasn’t expecting you to call until three.”
“Ma,” he said, a laugh bubbling in the back of his throat. “I’m out of River Bay.”
