Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

“I’ll see you later, then,” he said as he shrugged on his coat and pulled his gun off the shelf he’d left it on the night before.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek, a gesture so innocent that it made him smile. Once he had everything together, he pulled on the boots he’d left on the porch and headed down the steps, trying to think of ways to mitigate the reaction she’d have to the truth. He wanted to keep seeing her. It wasn’t just sex, at least not for him.

He didn’t hear the car approaching until after Isabelle had closed the door behind him. Not that it mattered in that first moment, when he assumed it must be Mary. He even had a fleeting thought that she’d spent the night at Jill’s and was swinging around to pick him up.

But then the car appeared, easing up Isabelle’s driveway in the muted light of sunrise. Tom froze on the last step and thanked God that Isabelle wasn’t here. Because the driver wasn’t Mary. It was Gates.

His heart filled so quickly with fear that Gates could have seen Isabelle in the doorway that Tom was halfway down the walk before he realized he himself shouldn’t be here. It was before seven in the morning. The FBI agent was already suspicious. And Tom was walking out of this woman’s house, unshaven and in wrinkled clothes. He almost stopped dead at the realization, but bluffing was all he had at this point.

He met Gates halfway down the driveway and glared as the man rolled down his window. “Can I help you with something, Agent Gates?”

One look at his face, and Tom’s heart fell. Shit. The guy looked smug. “Help me?” Gates asked. “You’re the one who seems to be lost.”

“Not lost at all. This is my jurisdiction. You, on the other hand...”

Gates looked past Tom toward the cabin. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure what your motive was here, but now I get it.”

“Motive?”

“In protecting a certain Isabelle West.” Agent Gates offered that smarmy, helpful smile as he pulled a square of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it.

Tom caught the flash of the Wyoming state seal, and his blood froze even before he saw Isabelle’s picture on the driver’s-license photo.

Gates smiled wider. “I’ll inform your supervisor as soon as I’ve brought her in.”

“She’s not a fugitive,” Tom snapped.

“So why lie to me?”

Tom looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t like you. And I don’t trust you, either.”

Gates put up his hands. “Come on, Duncan. We’re on the same side. Well...” He inclined his head toward the cabin. “Maybe not quite the same side. But that hardly matters now.” Gates put the car in gear.

&nbs

p; “Wait,” Tom barked, gripping the window frame as if he could stop the vehicle with his hand. “You want her father.”

Gates frowned. “Her father is dead.”

“Yet you’re asking around about him.”

He put the truck back in Park and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Are you telling me you know he’s not?”

Tom almost lied. He needed to buy time. But he knew he could buy it with manipulation instead of an outright lie. “I don’t know. She hasn’t opened up much about him yet.”

He felt filthy just saying that to this guy, discussing Isabelle and her private life, but there was going to be a whole lot more of it in the future. He just wanted to get her alone and explain what was happening. He could help if only she’d let him.

Tom leaned down, bracing his forearm against the top of the truck. “Let me work on her. If I can get her to talk about her father, maybe you can have him.”

“Bullshit. He’s not here.”

“He’s not here,” Tom agreed, “but maybe she knows where he is. She has a life here. She won’t want to blow it up.”

Gates shrugged. “She already did it once, my friend. She gave up Chicago for that fucking killer.”

My friend. Tom wanted to punch him in the face. She hadn’t left Chicago; she’d left everything, and she hadn’t done it for her dad.

Then again, she hadn’t come straight to Wyoming. She’d been somewhere else for a while. And that was what really pissed Tom off, because maybe she’d done exactly what Gates suspected.