Extreme Measures

It was a huge step up from her worn upholstery and stained carpet, and yet another reminder of the different worlds in which they lived.

“Do you want something to drink?” Colin asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t come here for a drink. I came here for an explanation.”

“That’s what I figured.” But he didn’t say anything more for a long minute as he found a bottle of beer in the minibar and twisted off the cap.

Nikki watched his movements, fascinated by the strength and grace of those strong hands. As a player, his most notable skills had been speed and good hands. She remembered that those assets carried over to the bedroom. He’d moved fast enough to get her there, but he’d sure known how to take his time once he’d had her clothes off. And those hands weren’t just good, they were phenomenal.

She shook off the thought. She was here for a specific reason, and it wasn’t to reminisce about their sexual past. She dropped her purse on one of the end tables. “I want to know why you changed your mind about spending Sunday afternoon with Carly.”

“I didn’t change my mind.”

“That’s right,” she said scornfully. “Something came up.”

He tipped the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.

“Was that ‘something’ blond, brunette, or redhead?”

He set his bottle down carefully. “Is that what you think—that I blew off my daughter for an hour of personal pleasure?”

She refused to be swayed by his injured tone. “It’s the only explanation I could come up with for your abrupt phone call.”

“It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about on the phone.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, it’s not something I want to talk about now.”

“What’s not?”

“I couldn’t make it to the picnic on Sunday because I had to go back to Texas.”

Texas. It wasn’t at all the response she’d expected, yet maybe it should have been. “You couldn’t even spend four consecutive days in this town without needing a trip to the big city?”

“I didn’t go back for kicks,” he told her. “I went to a funeral.”

She was duly chastised. “Oh.”

“Nothing else would have made me break those plans,” he told her.

His response had completely deflated her anger. “If you’d told me someone had died, I would have understood.”

“I wanted to tell you in person.”

She felt compelled to ask, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, “Who was it?”

“Maria Vasquez,” he told her.

A woman. She swallowed. “Were you…very close…to her?”

“She was my cleaning lady for the past four years.”

“Oh,” she said again, strangely relieved by his response.

He took a deep breath, staring off into the distance. “Remember the explosion in my apartment—the one that you heard about on the news?”

She nodded.

“Maria was there at the time. She died from injuries sustained in blast.”

Nikki’s whole body went cold.