She inhaled and exhaled. This was a date. Not a relationship. Shouldn’t be a big deal to go on a date with a cop. Once. But it was a big deal. Everyone assumed cops kept you safe, right? They were the good guys, right? Sometimes. Most times. But not always.
“Come along,” Alex had challenged. “It’ll be fun.”
Fun. The word hadn’t fit Alex Morgan. Straitlaced. His sharp, assessing gaze devoured details and nuances. And his even, controlled voice gave away nothing. He wasn’t a guy who did fun.
She’d been reaching for a quick no when he’d tossed in a very disarming smile, and for a split second, she’d been charmed. The yes had slipped out through a tiny crack in her carefully constructed barriers.
“Stupid.” She curled her fingers over her scarred palms as she glanced around the noisy restaurant. He’d offered to drive her to the bar, but she’d insisted on driving herself. Knowing where she worked was one thing. Knowing where she lived, another.
The energy of the bar, the loud taped music, the buzz of conversation and the clink of glasses swirled. Freezing temperatures had not chased away Rudy’s customers. Wall-to-wall mob. A crush. There were a few cowboy hats and men wearing western garb, but the majority had short-cropped hair, long-sleeved shirts, and well-worn jeans. Most had beers and many glanced toward the windows and doors. The ones who sat had their backs to the walls. Made sense that a cop would invite her to a cop function.
When she’d moved back to Nashville, her first stop had been Broadway and a cowboy boot store. She’d bought a midcalf-high boot with a pointed tip, tassels, and a heel tipped in silver. Oddly, she’d not worn the boots until tonight, and only impulse had made her put them on. Now the choice bothered her. The boots had a pay-attention-tome vibe, made her stick out just a little too much.
A long time ago, in another life, the boots wouldn’t have been a concern. A long time ago, she’d been a different person who didn’t worry about boots or cop dates. Now, doubts, like the bright neon signs on the strip, flashed. Too much? Too coy? Trying too hard?
Twenty-nine-year-old women should know what normal people did on dates. They were comfortable with men and enjoyed their company.
They. Had. Fun.
Index fingers absently traced the scars on her palms, still rough to the touch. The plastic surgeon had done his best to minimize the scarring, but palms were a tricky stitch job. The wounds had reopened twice and had to be restitched. Never fully fading, the scars always warned that sometimes smiles, even the best ones, hid evil.
Clutching her purse close, she glanced out the front window toward Broadway. The door was opened by a couple and the cold air cut like a whip. If this had been July, the streets would have been teeming with people, but on a cold January night, the sidewalks produced only the occasional group of partygoers burrowed in thick coats and wooly scarves. No one lingered or strolled. All hurried in and out of doorways.
Crowds or near desolation both offered advantages and disadvantages. Crowds offered cover. Empty streets gave her room to run.
A man caught her gaze, but hers quickly flittered away. Before her ex-husband, a stranger’s passing glance or a man’s seductive smile excited and titillated. Laughter came quickly and easily. Yes wasn’t to be feared. Thoughts didn’t have to be assessed and reassessed.
Philip had changed all that when he’d entered her life. Now, as she had a thousand times before, she wondered how she could have loved him. Married him. How did a smart woman miss the rising tide of suffocating attention and control? Exactly one year after they spoke their marriage vows, his final attack had left her with twenty-three knife wounds, nightmares, and unpredictable panic attacks.
The beat of the honky-tonk music pulsed in Leah’s chest, racing alongside her thrumming heart. Twenty feet separated her from the door and a clean getaway.
So easy, fear whispered. Leave while you can.
Fear’s warnings had stopped her so many times. Too many nights spent huddled behind a closed, triple-locked door. Too many nightmares.
Fear had gifted her with it all.
“You’re not quitting,” she whispered.
Philip did not have the power to control her. After his attack, he’d vanished. Weeks later, his car had been found in South Carolina at the bottom of a ravine. The car had been badly burned, the body unrecognizable. The authorities had shipped the body and his belongings back to Nashville, and his grandmother had seen to his burial. She hadn’t attended the funeral, and had only visited the gravesite once before she’d left for Knoxville. That was to confirm the bastard was in his grave.
The front door opened to herald a few more laughing couples. No Alex.
Still time to leave, fear coaxed.
No, she insisted, time to stay. Turning from the cold blast of air, she embraced the warmth, the music, the laughter, and that before Leah, who might have been a bit naïve and trusting but who’d been fun. She’d had friends. No fears.
Tonight, she clung to the memories of the before Leah and banished warnings and prophecies of doom.
“It’s the deep end of the ocean, Leah,” she muttered. “Jump or dive?”
A petite redhead, her hair pinned in a loose riot of curls around her face, cut straight through the crowd over to Leah. “Dr. Carson?”
“Yes?”
The woman had a wide, welcoming grin. “I heard my brother Alex invited you tonight. Welcome.”
Leah searched her memory for the woman’s name, but it lingered out of reach. “Thanks.”
Reading Leah’s questioning expression, the woman’s smile broadened. “Sorry. Right. Forgetting introductions. I’m Georgia Morgan. Youngest of the Morgan clan. My brother Rick speaks highly of you. Loves the way you take care of Tracker.”
Tracker. The police canine boarding at her vet hospital. Her nerves relaxed. Dogs were safe, soothing territory. “He’s a great dog. We always like seeing him. Your brother Rick wasn’t happy about boarding him a few weeks ago.”
“It’s the first time he’s ever boarded the dog. He and his wife are having a great time on their honeymoon, but Jenna knows the dog is not far from Rick’s mind.”
Honeymoons meant happiness. New beginnings. Love. And on cue, she produced a practiced smile to hide the flicker of worry. “The dog is doing great.”
“So I hear.”
“Was it Rick’s idea to send Alex by every day to check on Tracker?”
Agent Morgan had appeared every day and stayed long enough to take Tracker outside and then speak a few words to her. He always varied his arrival times, a disciple of ‘trust but verify.’
Georgia laughed. “We Morgans keep an eye out for those we love.”
Keep an eye out for those we love. The statement should have warmed her heart, but she filed the comment away under potential threat. “You’re close-knit.”
“We are.” Glancing toward the bar, she waved toward the bartender, an older man who’d shaved his head bald, sported a thick, bushy mustache, and wore a full, bright Hawaiian shirt that draped a rounded belly.
Leah followed Georgia’s gaze. “He looks annoyed.”
“That’s KC. He owns the place, and he’s giving me the stink eye because I’m supposed to be on stage in thirty seconds.”
She calculated the distance to the stage. “Thirty seconds. Cutting it close.”
Strong fingers with neatly shorn nails waved breezily around Georgia’s head. “Well timed, I like to say.”
Leah couldn’t help grinning. “Don’t let me hold you up.”
“I hate to give people what they want right away.” She lingered, questions dancing in her gaze as she sized up Leah.
“I understand you’re a very good singer. I work with a gal at the clinic who’s heard you sing a few times. I can’t wait to hear you.” A bubble of tension grew inside her.