Dangerous Tease (The Layton Family 3)

n. The filing cabinets' empty drawers gaped open like a kindergartener without his front teeth, their contents covering the floor. Books littered the once clean desk, volume upon volume lay where they'd been thrown from the shelf. Worst of all, Uncle Harlan sat slumped in the solitary upright chair, a clump of bloody paper towels pressed to his nose and a wicked shiner turning his right eye an unappealing shade of deep purple as he answered a campus police officer's questions. Uncle Harlan had left Sam's house a bit scraped up, but not bruised and battered like this.

“I'm going to kill that bastard loan shark,” Sam growled as they stood in the doorway.

She yanked him out of the opening and down the hall before anyone spotted them. “Don't talk like that. Snips is a shithead, but he's still a guy with muscle and a mean streak as wide as the Rockies. Do not fuck with him. I couldn't live with myself if you were hurt.” The truth of the statement hit her like a slap across the cheek, hard and crisp.

Something feral gleamed in his eyes and he kept his jaw clamped shut.

“We have to handle this ourselves or we'll make it worse.”

“And what do you recommend we do?” He barely got the question out through his clenched teeth.

“Cards close to the vest. We get Snips what he wants and he leaves us alone.”

“Do you really think it will be that easy?”

No, but what other choice did they have than to play Snips' game? “It has to be.”

“Another leap of faith, huh?”

Gazing into his lion-like eyes, Josie searched for the man she met in Vegas and had found again last night. The one who would take a chance and step into uncertainty without hesitation. “Please.”

“This is idiotic.” Sam twisted one of her short curls around his finger. “But I'll do it—my way.”

His caveat hung in the air between them, but still relief swept down her spine, lessening the tension holding her lungs tight.

“I was wondering what was keeping you. Now I understand.” A man in a brown sheriff's uniform walked toward them, a slight hitch in his gait. He grinned at Josie, his hazel eyes shot with green instead of Sam's gold. “Sheriff Hank Layton, at your service. You are?”

She shook his hand. “Josie Winarsky.”

“I'm Sam's brother. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances, but looks like little bro may have ticked off a student. Uncle Harlan said he was waiting for you when someone clocked him a good one. I imagine our mother has a good alibi so who else would have wanted to harm Harlan or go through your stuff?” Hank's mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed cop serious. “Why don't you update me on what's going on in your life.”

Sam hadn't been fooled by Hank's aw-shucks smile since he'd been six years old and his older brother had conned him out of the last Rolo in the pack. Hank's question was anything but innocent, but this wasn't Hank's fight. Hell, he didn't even have jurisdiction on campus. Whatever had happened in his office had to do with the folded map hidden away in Sam’s inside jacket pocket, and he'd be damned before he brought his brother in on another improbable hunt for Rebecca's Bounty.

But that was the kick of it. The more time he spent with Josie, the more the impossible started to seem feasible.

“What's going on in my life? Not much.” Unless, of course, you counted the bombshell next to him, the break-ins or finding a long-lost treasure map.

“Uh-huh.” Brother translation: Bullshit.

“Is Uncle Harlan okay?”

“His nose is busted up pretty good, but he'll live.” Hank shrugged his shoulders. “So I was about to call Mom before she heard the news through the town gossip mill, but figured I'd talk to you first to find out what's really happening.”

As threats went, this was a good one. Glenda Layton had been a helicopter parent before there was even a word for it. Since she'd retired, she'd devoted most of her energy to trying to run her four children's lives, something the siblings resisted more than a cat fights taking a bath.

A crash in the office sounded before Sam got a chance to respond to Hank's challenge. He, Hank and Josie sprinted toward the ruckus.

“I'm telling you, I didn't do this!” Uncle Harlan shook with emotion as he jabbed his finger into the campus police officer's chest. “I was sitting her waiting for my nephew when I heard a noise. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in here staring at the spit-shine of your boots.”

The man, identified as Smith on his name badge, swept aside Uncle Harlan's finger. “The office was unlocked when you entered?”

A flush rose fast across Uncle Harlan's cheeks. “Not exactly.”

“And exactly how was it?” The officer waited, eyebrows arched, for whatever tale Uncle Harlan planned to spin.

Sam couldn't wait to hear this answer himself. He locked his office whenever he left—and sometimes when he was still there, depending on the grades he'd given out during midterms.

“Alright, I may have fiddled with the lock a bit, but I did not do this.” Uncle Harlan waved his hand toward the worst of the disaster zone.