Rolling my eyes at myself in the mirror, I gave up. I was trying to keep him interested but not too eager that he’d think I wanted sex. I frowned as I went down the steps. He’d think I wanted sex with him because his ego was a mile wide.
This time, instead of cutting across the field, I drove. I wanted an escape route in place and not on foot. It left me vulnerable to Jett’s whims, and I liked having my Glock in the car.
Taking a deep breath and pasting on a fake smile, I rang his doorbell. The fancy sound of Pachelbel’s Canon came through the door. Figured.
The door opened thirty seconds later. The cloying cologne preceded Jett.
“Natalie,” he said. His smile wasn’t as warm as before, so I laid mine on a little thicker.
“Hi. I wanted to say thanks for dinner the other night and wondered if you’d help me. I don’t have a bottle opener.” I held up a Chardonnay I’d found at the grocery store when I first arrived. I didn’t take Jett for a beer drinker, and while he probably drank scotch, it was the expensive kind and my expense report probably wouldn’t look good with a twenty-five-year-old bottle as a line item. Wine it was.
He studied the bottle and sniffed, not as if he was smelling it, but as if it were rancid. “Wolf doesn’t have an opener?”
My heart thudded in my chest, but I’d been trained to keep my smile from slipping. “Wolf?”
“Rob Wolf.” The words were followed by a sneer.
“What… what about him?”
“He should have a corkscrew… or is the only thing you’re interested in getting from him a screw?”
“Jett… I don’t know what you’re—”
He held up his hand, and I instinctively stepped back with my right foot to make myself narrower, but also in readiness. He was an alleged middleman with connections to an international drug kingpin. On paper, Markle was clean. But he had a lot of land, though, to bury bodies. “Stop. Cooper Valley’s a small town. We’re neighbors. There are no secrets here.”
Besides the drug running he was doing after hours.
“Rob Wolf is just a friend,” I admitted.
“Call it what he really is: a fuck buddy.”
My cheeks burned hot from his insults… and the truth in his words. Rob was a fuck buddy. We hadn’t stated we were anything more and, really? What else could he be? He thought I was someone else, and when he found out, he’d kick me out. That totally worked because I was leaving anyway, right after Jett was in handcuffs. Still, that stung.
“Rob means nothing. I’m here with you, now, aren’t I?” I gave him a coy smile.
He looked me over. “I don’t take sloppy seconds from a Wolf.”
Stepping back, he slammed the door in my face.
Oooooookay. That went badly. My target, who I was supposed to get all hot and heavy with, thought I was a slut.
I walked back to the car realizing I probably was. No, I wasn't sleeping around—I liked sex, and I liked it naughty—but I was monogamous. Markle saw it differently. Starting the engine, I slapped my hand on the steering wheel and groaned. I’d fucked up. Whatever the beef was between Markle and Rob had messed with my plan. No, I’d ruined it all by myself. I’d made an attachment. I had no idea what kind, but there was something between me and Rob. Admittedly but unsaid, something more than just unbelievable sex. I’d felt it and ran with it.
I should’ve steered clear and kept my eyes on Markle.
“Stupid hormones and sexy cowboys,” I grumbled as I turned out of Jett’s driveway and onto the dirt road. I pulled over to the side. The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was behind the mountains, and the evening sky was soft and muted. Crickets chirped through the open car window. The perfect Montana evening, and I was alone in a car on the side of a rural road.
I was such a fuckup. Behind me was the case that I’d probably blown. Vaughn had okayed the job because I matched the real Natalie Shefield but also because I could become friendly with Jett. Get on his property. Get close. Get him.
I grabbed my cell.
“Vaughn.”
“Small problem,” I said, staring out the windshield at a falcon circling high overhead on an updraft.
“What?”
“I’m not Markle’s type.”
I heard his sigh. “You’ve got to be shitting me. You’re pretending. It’s not the dating game. Fake it.”
“I did. He’s not interested.” I wasn’t telling him the reason why. What I did with Rob was none of his business. Vaughn was single. Who he fucked wasn’t anything I wanted to know.
“I’m going to watch the place again later. We have the lead on the animal hauler.”
“Canadian customs confirmed the eighteen wheeler you spotted passed the border crossing north of Shelby. There are a lot of rules for live animals headed to Canada, words like breeder cow and brucellosis came up in the report.” He sighed again. “All I know is the transport happened as you suspected. Find a repeat.”