Straight to the Heart

“Just outside Corpus Christi, though I’ve lived in San Diego for the last eight years. Came back to El Paso with my boyfriend, Lenny. It didn’t work out.”

The best lies were couched in as much truth as possible, and while she had been living in San Diego when she was shot, and she did have a former boyfriend named Lenny, everything else was pure fiction. She waited for him to respond.

Taking another sip of her drink, her throat was suddenly dry for no reason other than he was one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen. Six-foot-plus of lean, incredible Texas male.

She had been raised by two strong men, her dad and her older brother, Jarod, who were both Texas Rangers and were also all the family she’d ever known after her mom had taken off when Joanna was seven. For this reason, she had always been very comfortable around men.

She worked with lots of very good-looking men in her job—ones easily as good-looking as Ben Callahan—but they were marshals, and she never thought of them romantically. Even back in high school, she’d found the boys easier to get along with, and had had more male than female friends.

For that reason, Joanna dated very rarely. She’d been halfway through college before she’d lost her virginity, and even that was with a guy she considered more of a friend than a lover. He was an Assistant District Attorney in Houston now, married, with four kids.

None of that was ever part of Joanna’s plan. She was all about the job, just like her brother and her father.

Except that Jarod was married now, and even her father had met someone.

That was nice. She was happy for them, and she loved her sister-in-law Lacey. But she wasn’t about to follow suit.

For all these reasons, it was mortifying that her breath caught when Ben Callahan leaned in closer over the table. She snapped her mouth shut, realizing she had actually licked her lip.

Make it work for you, you’re supposed to be nervous. Play the part.

He had to believe she was just a waitress, a girl down on her luck who’d made some bad choices and who needed the job. If she couldn’t pull that off, her supervisors would think she had really lost her touch.

A dark-blond lock fell forward on his forehead, and he pushed it back, every muscle in his arm showing off in the process. She could almost make out the movement of his abs under the white T-shirt he wore.

She’d memorized his file, of course, though none of the pictures there did him justice. He’d been out of the SEALs for less than a year, retired with an honorable discharge. She wondered what had happened. In her experience, those guys never left until they were forced to. Whatever it was, he still stayed in fighting form.

She dropped her eyes to his hands where they rested on the table. It crossed her mind that she could have gotten laid sometime in the last four or five weeks.

Joanna liked sex, but had always thought of it more like a sport, something to do that scratched an itch more than anything else, though there hadn’t been much chance for that recently. In fact, it had been the last thing on her mind until about two minutes ago. Ben Callahan was sex personified, and her previously dormant hormones were picking a hell of a time to wake up.

He was talking to her, and she was so busy processing her lust that she wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, yanking herself back to the present moment.

“Charlie said you were sleeping in your car, and he rented you the room upstairs?”

“Yeah, he’s a great guy,” she said.

“So there’s no family to help out, no other place you could go?”

She shifted in her seat. She had to give him something he would believe.

“Well, I do have a brother, but to be honest, he’s not too interested in having me around. I’m also trying to stay off the radar. I don’t want Lenny trying to find me. Not that he would, but you know, it can’t hurt to be careful.”

“Why?” His tone lowered, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

“Well, I thought I was giving him money to get his truck fixed and it turns out it was for drug deals. I swear, I had no idea,” she said quickly, appearing as desperate as she could. “I had no idea he was buying stuff and reselling it until he got really angry when he came up short, got in some trouble, and I refused to help.”

“And?”

“Well, he got a bit rough, and I knew I was in trouble if I stayed, so I sort of stole his truck to get out of there. He owed me, you know? I had given him hundreds of dollars.”

“And you had no idea he was into drugs?”

“Not really. He had used a few times, but that’s a long way from dealing. And I don’t have anything to do with that stuff,” she said convincingly. “I thought he was a nice guy, but I thought wrong.”

He watched her carefully for a few minutes, and she closed her hands into fists on the table top, a not completely false show of tension.

“So where’s the truck?”

“I traded it for my car at a used car place—you know, roadside, the guy didn’t ask many questions since the truck was worth more than the car I got. I paid him extra not to tell anyone. Then I was out of funds and I was sick of living in my car, so I looked for a job.”

She saw Callahan’s spine straighten. “I see. So you’re afraid this guy will come after you? Lenny?”

“He probably won’t, but if he does, he’d never think that I would stay here,” she said, smiling slightly, as if pleased with herself. “He’ll think I went back to San Diego.”

Ben didn’t smile back.

“But he might. I don’t appreciate trouble like this being brought to my door and not being told about it. You weren’t exactly straight with Charlie.”

She frowned and leaned in, too, getting closer. His pupils dilated slightly, and from that, and how he had looked at her earlier, she knew he was attracted to her. That gave her some leverage.

“I know, I’m so sorry,” she said, licking her lip again in a gesture of nervousness. “But I had to get away, and I did what I had to do. I just want to get back to my life. I honestly don’t think Lenny will come after me. He’s not that ambitious. I’m sure he’s found someone new to sponge off by now.”

There was no Lenny, of course, so she was one-hundred-percent sure that no one would be showing up here after her.

Ben considered, and then nodded slowly. “He didn’t report you for stealing his truck?”

She snorted. “He would have to risk me telling them about the drugs.”

“That’s true,” he said, nodding. “Well, I’m glad you got out. And you’re doing a good job here, so I have no problem with you staying on. But if he does show up, or if there’s any kind of trouble—”

“I’ll leave,” she finished for him.

“No. You’ll tell one of us—me or Charlie—directly.”

He really was a white knight, she thought. It made being here for him better, and lying to him harder.

“Oh, okay. I’ll do that,” she promised.

“Good. Anything else I should know?”

“I’m a really good waitress. I’ll work hard, keep my hands out of the till. I never stole a dime until taking that truck, so you don’t have to worry. I just need to get back on my feet,” she said, hoping she’d hit the sweet spot between being someone he would want to help, who’d had trouble but who wasn’t going to be trouble.

Ben nodded and sat back. “What about your brother?”

“He wrote me off years ago. Never really cared much about what happened to me after our parents were gone.”

Sorry, Jarod, she offered the mental mea culpa to her brother, who was the best of the best. She loved him madly, and he’d always been there for her and always would be, but she knew plenty of people whose families weren’t. Thinking of her mom, Joanna never failed to be surprised at how easy it was for some people to walk away from the ones they were supposed to love most.