Linc stuck out his chest. He didn't bother to look at her, but locked his gaze on Sam. “Got a message for you from Mr. Esposito.”
“What, Snips can't pick up the phone again?” She shivered but refused to give up any ground.
That earned her a look from the giant, who looked even bigger in a puffy coat. Who'd have thought it was possible? The guy was six feet seven and a wall of solid muscle. There were buildings on Dry Creek's Main Street that cast a smaller shadow.
“I'd hate to have to tell him you called him that, considering all he's done to accommodate your special circumstances.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. He wants…” She swallowed back the truth. “What he wants.”
Linc returned his attention to Sam. “Why don't you take a walk so the lady and I can talk business.”
Sam took a menacing step forward, half blocking her from Linc's view. “Why don't you go—”
“Sam!” Josie wasn't cold anymore even though her breath hung in the cold air like a cumulous cloud. She stepped around him and sent him a pleading look. Even as solid as Sam felt beside her, Linc made his living hurting people. “Please, I can take care of this.”
The tension in his shoulders screamed out how much he wanted to object, but he pursed his lips together and shot Linc a die-scum look instead.
The big man's face lost all expression and icy dread filled her up so fully she feared her bones might crack.
“Mr. Esposito wants to make sure you really understand what you've got riding on this.” He held out a photo of an adobe ranch-style house. Her mother sat in her wheelchair on the porch.
Anxiety curled around her brainstem and she battled her dueling instincts of attacking Linc or running away.
“Leave my parents out of this.” She barely heard her own words over the blood rushing in her ears.
Her choices were nil. She had to trick Sam into helping her find the treasure, steal it from under his nose and give it up to that shithead Snips. Only then would her parents be safe. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. But it was the only way out of this mess for her family.
“Why don't you just get the fuck out of here, or do I have to make you?” Sam snarled the question.
Josie whipped around, taking in the firm set to Sam's jaw and the way his hands curled into fists at his sides. “Stay out of this, Sam.”
The giant's smirk practically shouted out his hope that Sam would take a swing. “Don't fuck this up, Josie, or it won't just be you and Cyril facing the consequences.”
He walked away, a crowd of students parting automatically to make room for him, as if they knew that evil walked amongst them and wanted to get as far away as possible.
It took thirty seconds before Josie could feel the tips of her ears and another fifteen before her earlobes began to throb as the blood vessels opened up in reaction to the warmth of Sam's office. Linc had to have already been in Dry Creek when that bastard Snips called in the wee hours this morning. He wasn't leaving anything to chance. Neither could she.
“Sam—”
He silenced her by holding up his hand. “First things first.”
Ignoring her, he busied himself with a single-cup coffee maker on a sideboard that wouldn't dare hold a speck of dust, if the rest of Sam's office was anything to go by. The bookshelf by a large window held books alphabetized by author. The pen cup on his desk held only black pens. A white, unlined notepad sat near the phone. The rest of his desk was as barren as Nebraska looked from 20,000 feet above.
The only bit of color came in the form of the lone framed photo on the bookshelf. In it, Sam, three other men and a woman towered over a younger redheaded woman with curly hair and a devil-may-care smirk. Josie picked it up for a closer look. One of the men had been with Sam in Vegas. Must be a brother. The other men she didn't recognize, but the deep laugh lines and bald head of the tallest identified him as Dad. The tall woman, his mother that they'd passed on the sidewalk, had Sam's serious face. Her fierceness was undiminished by the ornery side-eye glance she leveled at the father.
“The Laytons.” He stood behind her, casting a shadow over the family photo.
She tried to ignore it, but a frisson of something buzzed between them, sweeping against her skin and overheating her flesh until her thin sweater felt as if it was made of thick Irish wool. She shrugged out of her jacket, laughing inside as his gaze dipped lower and then snapped back up to her eyes a millisecond later.
“Your mom looks like a handful.”
“You have no idea.” He handed her a plain white mug filled with coffee.
“Thank you.”
“Have a seat.” He nodded toward an empty wooden chair across from his perfectly clean desk.
She sat down and Sam lounged against one corner of the desk.