Raising the Stakes

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Dan said politely.

He watched as Baron stalked to the door. Then he looked at Dawn. He couldn’t read the expression on her face. Was she angry? Frightened? Distraught? Whatever she was, the Baron man had put that look there, and Dan didn’t like it.

“Dawn? Is everything all right?” he said softly.

He thought he’d never seen anything that took more effort than the smile she flashed at him.

“Yes. Everything is fine. Thank you for—well, thank you.”

“Listen to me, girl. If you need me, you call me. Not just here,” he added gruffly, before she could answer. “Anywhere. If you run into somebody who causes you grief, you call me and I’ll be there before you can blink. Okay?”

Dawn said that she would. Dan didn’t believe her but he smiled, gave her shoulder a fatherly pat and waited until she’d gone to her office. Then he picked up the house phone and dialed Keir’s private office.

“Coyle here.” He spoke softly, cupping the phone, his back to the lobby. “Keir, I need to see you. I think something’s brewing with Baron and the lady. No, I don’t know what it is but I’m going to tell Snyder to keep an eye on her.” Dan dropped his voice even lower. “And I have some information… Yes. Fine. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Dan hung up the phone. He hadn’t wanted to believe that Baron had any connection to Dawn’s past. It didn’t seem possible that such a man would even know a scumbag like her husband but he’d put out feelers for more information and just this morning, he’d learned something that made no sense.

Gray Baron had flown to Queen City right before he’d turned up in Las Vegas. That had to mean he’d met with Harman Kitteridge. Why? He’d been turning the question over in his mind when he spotted Baron and Dawn. The anger in the man’s face and the fear in hers had been

as visible as the sign that blinked outside the hotel.

Dan rolled his thumb over his pursed lips. Should he tell Dawn what he’d learned? No. Why frighten her until he had some answers? From now on, he or his man would be watching her.

Slowly he walked to the front door of the hotel. Baron was just getting into a cab. It was probably too much to hope he was heading for the airport, and out of Dawn’s life.

* * *

“The airport,” Gray said, as the taxi pulled away from the hotel.

The cab’s air conditioner was making noise but it didn’t seem to be working. That was fine. The blast of hot desert air was a welcome jolt of reality. To hell with Dawn Kitteridge or Dawn Carter or whatever she called herself, and to hell with Jonas and the guilt trip he’d laid on him.

Enough was enough. There was only one way to end this, and no reason to put it off.

He was ticked off, maybe more than he had a right to be. He calmed down enough to know that as he walked into the terminal at McLarran. The truth was that Dawn didn’t owe him anything, not even the courtesy of a “Sorry, I’ve changed my mind,” phone call. He’d figured on leaving Vegas in a couple of days. What had just happened simply speeded his departure. As for his uncle…if Jonas wanted a snoop, let him hire one because he was finished playing detective. Auf Wiedersehen, adios, au revoir. If the old man didn’t like it, he could bribe, browbeat or cajole somebody else.

Last night, he’d decided to fly to Espada to tell his uncle exactly that. Of course, his motives had been a little different at two in the morning. After that evening spent with Dawn, after those soft kisses, he’d decided he didn’t want to go on with the deception. If he was going to get involved with her, he wasn’t going to be Jonas’s pawn…

Which only proved how unreliable middle-of-the-night thoughts could be.

Involved? Gray snorted as he got on the end of a Southwest ticket line. A fancy word for what he’d wanted. A few more days in Vegas, a week, maybe, a little time spent in introducing Dawn to the pleasures of sex, was all the “involvement” he’d intended. Well, that was over. He was leaving Vegas ASAP. He’d have headed back to his room and packed after the confrontation with Coyle but he’d be damned if he’d let it look as if the interfering old son of a bitch had run him off.

So he’d fly to Austin first, tell Jonas what little he knew. How much information did his uncle need before he decided whether or not to put the granddaughter of a long-dead friend in his will? Either he’d be satisfied or he wouldn’t. Gray didn’t give a damn anymore.

This whole quest, whatever you wanted to call it, had been crazy from the start, not just Jonas’s desire to right a wrong but his role in it. He’d met a woman a couple of days ago and she’d turned his life inside out. He’d never let a woman have that kind of effect on him and now he knew why. Giving a woman such power was a hell of an uncomfortable feeling. A little while ago, he’d been torn between wanting to grab Dawn by the shoulders and shaking her, or hauling her into his arms and kissing her. That didn’t make him happy. He wasn’t the kind of man who liked emotional roller coasters.

He was done with digging into her life. What did it matter if he couldn’t forget the feel of her mouth under his, the soft intake of her breath when he’d cupped her face in his hands? What if he still couldn’t believe she was the woman Harman described…

…or believe her when she’d said that she didn’t want to see him again?

“Good morning, sir.” The ticket clerk smiled politely. “How may I help you?”

Gray cleared his throat. “I want to get to Austin as soon as possible.”

The clerk’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I have a seat on a plane boarding in half an hour.”

“That’s fine,” Gray said, and blanked his mind to everything but the business of buying his ticket.

* * *