He more often seemed to only tolerate others. The Homeland Security suspended agent was a thorn in everyone else’s side. But Rogue liked him. He was snarly and grouchy and rarely seemed to smile when it was appropriate. When he did smile, he tended to cause others to shudder in wariness.
Rogue didn’t shudder; privately, she was usually laughing at others’ reactions. Until now. Now she felt that little shiver of wariness herself.
She made her rounds of the bar, stopped, talked, and laughed with the customers. She bumped hips with the accountant from Virginia, shimmied around the mechanic that worked for Natches Mackay, and flashed a smile at Deputy Gene Maynard as he lifted his hand in hello from the bar.
Jonesy was still scowling, but he was serving beer as he was supposed to be and keeping his hands to himself. She contented herself with that for the moment, though she knew she was going to have to discuss the night before with him.
Breathing out tiredly at the thought, she caught sight of Agent Cranston at a back table, hidden in a corner just off to the side of the pool tables that were set up in the large open room back from the dance floor.
He was nursing a beer; he wasn’t really drinking it. His expression was composed, almost innocent. God, she wished she could perfect that expression herself. She had been trying for years and hadn’t quite managed it.
Maybe it had something to do with the ill- fitting wrinkled suit or the thin hair falling over his brow. She knew there was something both compassionate and dangerous that lurked in his eyes. Something that warned a person not to consider crossing him, and yet invited trust. He was an odd little man, that was for damned sure.
“Cranston, you’re going to make me nervous if you keep lurking in corners in my bar,”
she told him as she moved into the other side of the booth and motioned one of the waitresses for a beer.
He smiled pleasantly. “I live to make people nervous. Keeps them from conspiring against me.”
“Ah, so that’s your secret.” She grinned back. “So what makes you believe you need to keep me from conspiring against you?”
He grunted at that. “I wouldn’t think that for a moment. You’re too honest to conspire, Ms. Walker. You’d just kick my balls into my throat and laugh at my anguish if you wanted to strike out at me.”
She smiled back at him approvingly. “I do so enjoy an intelligent man, Agent Cranston.”
His smile was smoother this time, more manipulating as he lifted his beer and sipped before asking. “So, is Sheriff Mayes as intelligent?”
What an interesting question.
Rogue leaned back in her seat as the waitress approached and set the chilled bottle of beer on the table in front of her. She continued to regard the agent as she sipped her own drink and wondered where the question had originated from.
“Sheriff Mayes is very intelligent,” she finally answered him. “From what I understand, he’s a master of making certain the family jewels are well protected.”
A wide smile creased Timothy’s lips. “Ah, how very elusive your answer is. Tell me.”
He tilted his head to the side as he regarded her. “Is it true you’re sleeping with him?”
“Is it true that it’s none of your business?” She opened her eyes wide and appeared a bit surprised that she had let the words pass her lips. “Forgive me, Agent Cranston, I’m sure that was the bitch in me speaking. I try to contain her as often as possible.”
He tipped his beer toward her in acknowledgment of her not-too-subtle hint that he had crossed the line.
“You’re a strong woman,” he said as he leaned back in his seat and regarded her intently. “I’ve heard there are bets being placed that you’ll be the first woman the sheriff has publicly claimed since his wife’s death.”
“And that’s about as much your business as whether or not I’m sleeping with him,” she pointed out. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell you want, Agent Cranston, and let me get back to work.”
His lips quirked at her demand. “I’m just a curious man, Rogue,” he finally stated. “And one that worries about supposedly unconnected threads. Did you know your cousins supplied information to Homeland Security in the operation that busted Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay’s little homegrown terrorist group?”
Rogue stared back at him in surprise. “No,” she said faintly. “I didn’t know that.”
But it shouldn’t have surprised her. Lazy and a little shiftless the boys might have been, but all in all, they’d had a patriotic streak a mile wide. Jaime and Joe both had attempted to join the Army when they turned eighteen, but a lung defect that they had shared had kept them out of the service.
Cranston nodded as he leaned forward again and braced his arms on the table and asked, “Do you think Joe killed Jaime, then himself?”
“There’s no evidence to suggest otherwise as far as I know,” she stated.
“And within days of their deaths their grandmother slips and falls attempting to take a bath?” he questioned. “Is that coincidence?”
“Why do you care? Fine, you think Joe and Jaime were upstanding citizens for helping you once. That doesn’t explain why you’re going out of your way now, Agent Cranston, or what makes you think I have any information you could use. So why don’t you get to the point while I still have some patience left.”
“My point.” He sighed. “My point is that I’m worried now. Maybe we get didn’t everyone Dayle was working with last year. The organization we disbanded didn’t have lists of names to guide us to their members. We’ve been shooting in the dark in rounding them up. I want to make sure all the loose ends have been tied.”
That made more sense. Rogue had a feeling Agent Cranston wasn’t the benevolent sort; having it confirmed at least eased some of the suspicion rising inside her, though it didn’t touch the tension knotting her shoulders.
“I’m the wrong person to ask then,” she told him. “The last I heard, Sheriff Mayes was investigating that case, not me.”
His gaze flickered as another smile threatened to curl his lips.
“So he is.” He nodded. “But men like to share things in the dark with their lovers. And you were related to the twins and their grandmother. I was hoping you could tell me more than he has.”
She leaned forward, eyes narrowed as her gaze locked with his.
“If you want information, Agent Cranston, then go to the source. I’ve never seen you as a man that likes to pussyfoot around anything; don’t start playing that game now. And while you’re at it, stop with the little innuendoes concerning your suspicions about my relationship with the sheriff. It’s not your business, nor is it anyone else’s. Now, if you have no further questions, I have a bar to run.”
She rose to her feet, turned, and stepped into a hard male chest that blocked her way.
Damn her temper. Her eyes shot up to stare into Zeke’s annoyed brown eyes as he stared over her head at the agent. If she had been paying more attention, she might have suspected he was there. She realized he must have been there for at least the latter part of the conversation because the agent’s eyes had continually flicked over her shoulder as Cranston fought a smile.
“What are you doing here?” Pushing back from him she tried to still her heart rate, tried to still her hopes.
As Cranston had said, Zeke had never publicly claimed a woman. Had he come here for her or for more information?
His gaze flicked to hers. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
Great, he was in one of his uncommunicative moods. Answering a question with another question, his gaze flat and hard, his expression honed and savage. She had a feeling he wasn’t there to put his handcuffs to use again. At least, not in the way she would have preferred. Guess that answered the question of whether or not he was there to see her.
“I’ll just let the two of you have your little male-bonding time then.” She smiled back at him tightly. “If you wouldn’t mind though, before you leave, I’d like to know what you’ve learned about Grandmother Walker. If you can find the time for me, that is.”
His brow arched. She hated the arrogance in that smooth, practiced shift of his expression.
“I didn’t come to talk to the rabid little leprechaun,” he told her, referring to the nickname the Mackays had given the agent. “I came to see you.”
She was certain she didn’t hide her surprise.
“Really?” She couldn’t contain her surprise, either. “Why?”
His gaze heated, moved over her face, touched upon the smooth tops of her breasts that rose above the bodice of the bustier that she had paired with a thin violet silk blouse, a leather skirt that almost showed too much, and over-the-knee black leather boots.
The look in his eyes had heat flooding to her cheeks. For a second she could feel the handcuffs around her wrists again, his hard hands on her thighs as he held her legs apart, and the touch of his tongue at her clit.
Wet heat flooded her pussy, her clit swelled, and her nipples pressed demandingly against the lace of her bra.
“Good-bye, Cranston.” Zeke’s voice was deeper, rougher as he settled his hand at the small of her back and he moved to her side. “Tell the Mackays I said hello.”
The hand at her back prodded her to move ahead of him. Surprised, uncertain, Rogue allowed herself to be led toward the bar’s exit before she turned to him with a frown.
“I can’t just leave, Zeke.” She hadn’t spent enough time there as it was. Working at the restaurant to help Janey out and then struggling to put in enough hours at the bar to keep it running smoothly had her stretched pretty thin for the past six months.
“Jonesy’s still here,” he growled. “Leave a message with one of your bouncers that you’ll check back in later. We need to talk.”
The chill in his tone had her spine tingling with warning. Looking around, she caught sight of Ronnie, one of the older bouncers, and waved him to her.
“Let Jonesy know I’ll be out of the bar for a while,” she told him. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I want him in my office tomorrow at noon.”
Ronnie nodded his dark head quickly, though his hazel eyes were suspicious as he glanced at Zeke. “I’ll let him know, Miss Walker.”
Zeke caught her hand then, twined his fingers with hers, and led her out into the night.
The feel of his hand holding hers did things to her that she didn’t want to delve too deeply into. She felt a band of emotion tightening around her heart and a fragile flame of hope burning within her.
He had come to the bar for her. He had taken her out of the bar while damned near every customer in the building had watched them.
“You can be arrogant, you know,” she told him as the hollow sound of her heels clicked against the paved parking lot.
“Really?” he drawled. “And here I thought I was being amazingly considerate. After all, I didn’t throw you over my shoulder this time.”
Her stomach tightened, her breasts felt fuller, swollen and sensitive at the implication in his tone.
“I can’t just go running off whenever you’re in the mood to drag me out of the bar, Zeke,” she couldn’t help but to argue. “Do I interrupt your day like this?”
“Just on a regular basis,” he grunted as she caught sight of the big red pickup he drove parked at the edge of the lot.
“In your dreams,” she retorted. “Tomorrow, I’m showing up at your office, locking the door, and interrupting you. You’ll see what I mean.”
“You’ll see what my desk feels like against your naked back,” he said, his voice rougher as he pulled her around and pressed her against his truck. “Damn you, Rogue, one damned taste of you and you’re like a fucking narcotic I can’t get enough of.”