Justice Burning (Hellfire #2)(17)

Laughter met her ear, and she was tempted to slam the phone onto the cradle, but she couldn’t hang up when Nash was the only person she knew besides Lola. If she wanted to save Lola’s house, she had to put up with Nash laughing at her.

Once he got past the initial bark of laughter, Nash said, “I’ll be right there.”

True to his word, he showed up fifteen minutes later and walked into the kitchen where the suds had completely covered the tile flooring. He followed the flow to the source, the older model washing machine. “What soap did you use in the washer?” he asked as he leaned over the machine and switched it off.

“The blue liquid I found under the kitchen sink that said detergent.” She left him with the foaming machine and returned with a bottle of blue liquid.

“Honey, that’s dishwashing detergent, not laundry detergent.”

Heat swirled low in her belly when he called her honey. “What’s the difference?”

He nodded toward the flood of bubbles. “The difference is how sudsy it gets. Laundry detergent is low-suds. Get me a plastic cup and a bucket. We have to get the water with the soap in it out of the washer tub, and then run the rinse cycle several times to get the soap out of the clothes.”

Forty-five minutes later, the clothes were rinsed and in the dryer, and the bubbles had been mopped up, making the floor sparkling clean.

Phoebe’s stomach rumbled, and she pressed a hand to it.

Nash smiled. “Hungry?”

For a moment she couldn’t think past the way his mouth curved upward and his blue eyes shone. Then her belly sounded off again. Phoebe laughed. “I guess I am. With everything that’s happened this morning, I suppose I forgot to eat.”

He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Bob’s Diner has the best burgers in town.”

“No.” She pulled back. “I need to go to the store and stock up on groceries. I can’t spend all my money on a burger. I have to make my tip-money last all week.”

“I’m buying.”

She shook her head. “You’ve already done too much for me by taking me to work and back.”

“Then consider having lunch with me returning the favor. I don’t like to eat alone.”

Phoebe chewed on her bottom lip. When her stomach protested yet again, she sighed. “Okay. But I’ll pay for my own.”

Nash didn’t argue, but he drew her out of Lola’s house, not letting go of her hand until she climbed into his truck.

Phoebe barely noticed how damp she still was from cleaning up the bubble mess. Inside she was warm and happy. She hadn’t been arrested for murder, and Nash wanted her company at lunch. Perhaps he’d only invited her so he could keep an eye on her. After all, she had been chased by bad guys and discovered a body in her trunk. Now that the car and the body were missing, he might want to stay close and see if they turned up with her hand in the middle of it.

Anything that might start between her and Nash would be tainted by a murder and a theft. Until they found the true killers, Nash would probably always consider her a suspect. Yeah, he’d said he couldn’t imagine she had it in her to kill someone, but even the slimmest doubt would hang over her until the men responsible were found. She’d only known Nash a very short amount of time. But what Nash thought about her mattered more than she cared to admit.



Nash sat across the table from Phoebe Sinclair, the daughter of one of the richest men in Texas, and couldn’t remember enjoying a hamburger as much. Sure, she was high-society and way out of his league, but then he didn’t expect their lunch date to go anywhere. It was just nice to sit across the table from a beautiful woman who might possibly be just as messed up as he was.

He didn’t like that she’d lied, but he could understand why. Who would have believed a runaway bride wasn’t the prime suspect in her fiancé’s murder, especially if she was carting him around in her trunk?

Thankfully, with no body, she couldn’t be arrested. The fact her fiancé was dead couldn’t be proven. No body, no death, no murder suspect. He stared across the table, wondering how Jonathon Sinclair’s daughter had found herself in such dire circumstances and yet didn’t want her daddy to bail her out.

“What?” She touched her face. “Do I have soap film on my face?”

“No.” He pushed aside his empty plate. “Seems like it would be so much easier to make a phone call to your father, and you’d have everything taken care of. You wouldn’t have to worry about paying rent, finding a ride or working in a bar. He could line up every lawyer and law enforcement organization in the state to keep you out of trouble.”

Her lips thinned. “I’m tired of my father calling the shots for my life. I’ve been the good little daughter, doing everything my father and mother wanted of me, since I was born.”

“But you could have everything you would ever need.”

She shoved away her half-eaten hamburger. “Except self-respect and purpose. Until I worked at the Ugly Stick Saloon for one night, I didn’t know what I was missing.”

Nash snorted. “The Ugly Stick?”

“Yes, the Ugly Stick. I was actually needed. It felt good. Living with my father, the only time I’ve felt that way was when our stable hand took the weekend off. My father didn’t know it, but I took care of the horses. For three days, they were completely dependent on me for their food and water. The work gave me a sense of purpose. At the Ugly Stick last night, I liked that I could help Audrey, the woman who’d taken a chance on me, giving me a job when I had no experience.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Speaking of the Ugly Stick…I want to pick up some groceries and finish organizing my apartment before I go to work tonight.”

Nash laid a twenty on the table, and then stood.

Phoebe pulled a wad of bills from her pocket, selected a ten and handed it to him. “For my half of the check.”

He didn’t argue and accepted the bill. Paying her own way seemed to be a major point in her books. If doing so made her feel more in control of her life, so be it.

As Phoebe stood beside Nash’s truck, she raised her face to the bright Texas sun. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Her smile faded and she opened her eyes. “I just wish they could find whoever killed Ryan.”

“Did you love him?” Nash asked, and then wished he could take back the question. He shouldn’t care. But he did.

Phoebe’s lips tilted upward briefly and then fell. “No. I liked him okay, and he said all the right things, but there wasn’t anything else. No spark.”

“Then why marry him?”

She touched Nash’s chest, staring at where her fingers traced a wrinkle in his shirt. “I thought it was the right thing. Now I realize being so acquiescent was wrong in so many ways. Marriage to Ryan, had he lived, would have made us both miserable. But I didn’t wish him dead, and I’m scared to think that whoever did this is still running loose.”

She was so gorgeous with the sun’s rays bouncing off her auburn hair, turning it a flaming copper. Nash had the sudden urge to gather her in his arms and pull her body against his. He could keep her safe, if she let him. As though drawn by an irresistible force, he leaned toward her, wanting to press his mouth to hers.

Something whizzed past his ear and pinged against the glass of the passenger seat window behind Phoebe.

Nash’s gaze shifted from those tempting lips to a perfectly round hole in the glass. No sooner did it register what that hole meant than something struck his arm. He jerked at the stabbing pain.

Almost as soon as he did, Phoebe flinched and grabbed her shoulder.

“Ouch!” She glanced down at her hand. When she pulled it away from her shoulder, a bright red smear stained her palm and spread across her sleeve, where her hand had been. “What the h—”

Nash grabbed her and flung her to the ground, covering her body with his.

“What’s happening?” she said, her voice muffled beneath his chest.

“Gunfire. Stay down!”

More bullets pinged against the body of his truck, putting another hole in the window, this time shattering the glass completely. Nash lay still, listening, straining to hear the weapon’s report. Based on the lack of noise accompanying the shots, the weapon had to be a high-powered sniper rifle, fired from a good distance away.

“I can’t breathe,” Phoebe said, her voice dwindling to a whisper.

Nash eased off her body, positioning himself between Phoebe and the shooter. He eased his cell phone out of his back pocket and dialed dispatch. “Gretchen, I’m in the parking lot in front of Bob’s Diner, and we have a shooter lobbing bullets at us.”

“No shit!” Gretchen responded. “Stay down. I’ll alert the sheriff.”

“Tell him not to come to the front of the building. Seems to be us they’re shooting at, but I don’t want him to get caught in the crossfire.”

Half a minute later, Sheriff Olson appeared around the side of the diner, weapon drawn.

By then, the gunfire had ceased.

Nash didn’t feel confident it wouldn’t start up again, so he remained on the ground, his body a shield protecting Phoebe.

Within the next three minutes, every sheriff’s deputy on duty arrived in the parking lot, their vehicles surrounding Nash and Phoebe. The men on duty spread out on foot, searching in the direction Nash indicated from which the shots had been fired.