Blame It On The Cowboy. Delores Fossen

      For a moment, Reese thought her friend might be part of the dream, as well. She staggered out of bed and went to the door, checking the time along the way. It was close to midnight.

      And it was Jimena, all right.

      “Food pimp,” Jimena said, holding up several large grocery bags. She came in, looked around. Not that she had to look far to take it all in. It was only about two hundred feet of space for the kitchen, bed, sitting area and bathroom.

      “Uh, what are you doing here?” Reese asked.

      Not that she wasn’t happy to see her, but when Jimena had dropped Reese off in Spring Hill four days ago, Jimena had said she was heading back to Houston to see some old friends. When they’d spoken on the phone earlier that morning, Jimena hadn’t mentioned anything about a visit.

      “I’m here to help you.” Jimena handed her the bags of groceries, which Reese was certain contained nothing but junk food. She closed the door, took Reese by the hand and led her to the window.

      “See that guy?” Jimena asked.

      There were streetlights, but it still took Reese several moments to pick through the night and see the man in the back parking lot of the McCord building. Definitely not Lucky or Logan.

      “Who is he?” Reese wanted to know.

      “Some guy I met at a bar in San Antonio. His name is Elrond—you know like in Lord of the Rings? His dad was a huge fan. I know, I violated my bucket rule of making my way through the alphabet. I was up to the I’s, but all the I-guys I met didn’t do anything for me. Anyway, Elrond’s a great kisser, but he’s got something even better in his jeans.”

      Reese groaned. She was so not in the mood for one of Jimena’s sex spill-alls. “I have the breakfast shift at the café. I have to be at work in six hours.”

      “Well, this shouldn’t take long at all.” She pointed to Elrond again. “He’s got a key to the McCord building.”

      Instant suspicion.

      Of course Reese had told Jimena about her Lucky/Logan dilemma, but she certainly hadn’t expected Jimena to do anything about it. Especially anything illegal.

      “Did he steal the key?” Reese asked.

      “No. He was doing some renovations for the McCords a while back and forgot to return the key. I figured you could use it to look for the watch while no one’s there.”

      Reese was still skeptical. “And how do you know no one is there? Logan has an apartment on the top floor.”

      Jimena smiled. “He’s not there tonight. Don’t you ever listen to gossip? The clerk at the gas station said Logan was in Dallas for a meeting and won’t be back until tomorrow.”

      It was the first Reese was hearing of this—and yes, she did listen to gossip. Hard not to hear it in a town this small. But she hadn’t been especially listening for gossip about Logan but rather Mia. It turned out that the little girl’s arm wasn’t broken, after all, just sprained and bruised.

      “You said you were anxious to get the watch and then leave town,” Jimena reminded her. “So, here’s your chance. Say, what made you so eager to leave, anyway?”

      “Logan. He ran a background check on me.”

      Jimena gasped. A reaction that Reese had had herself. Her past had a nasty way of coming back to haunt her. Usually she could outrun it, but this time it’d caught up with her.

      “Did Logan tell your boss?” Jimena asked.

      “Not yet. But he will.” If it hadn’t been for taking Mia to the ER and then this trip to Dallas, Logan probably would have already done it.

      That meant tonight might be her last chance to find that watch. Bert probably wouldn’t fire her on the spot, but that was only because of his wife’s surgery. He needed her for both the breakfast and lunch shifts, but he would give Reese her walking papers as soon as he could find someone else. Or heck, maybe he would just close the café for a while.

      “I don’t even know if the watch is in the McCord building,” Reese admitted.

      “Elrond said Logan lives there, like all the time. Where else would he have put it?”

      Maybe in the trash, but that tightened her stomach just thinking about it.

      “If you find it, you won’t even have to do the breakfast shift,” Jimena said. “You can grab Tootsie Roll and ride back with me to San Antonio.”

      It was past being tempting, and it wasn’t as if she had a ton of options. Now that Logan knew who she was, he might never give her back the watch because he might think she’d stolen it.

      “You’re sure you can trust Elrond?” Reese asked.

      “The man gives multiple orgasms. Of course I can trust him.”

      There was no correlation to that, none, but Reese decided she had no choice but to risk it. She put the grocery bags on the counter, pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and followed Jimena out to the stairs and then out of the Bluebonnet. They didn’t walk on Main Street but rather on the street behind the inn. Probably because Jimena wanted to make sure they weren’t seen.

      Reese only hoped she didn’t regret this, but she already had a bad feeling about it.

      When they made it to Elrond, he kissed Jimena, and they started in on a make-out session while he handed Reese the key. His aim wobbled, because he had his eyes closed while kissing, and Reese finally just snagged them. Part of her almost hoped the key didn’t work, that Logan had changed the locks.

      But it worked just fine.

      She slipped into the back door, the AC immediately spilling over her. The floors were marble, all shiny and cool, and even the walls had some kind of slick finish to them. The bottom floor was dark except for the base lighting around a copper and bronze sculpture of a longhorn. It was large enough to have been a real cow, and Reese dodged the lethal-looking horns as she made her way around it.

      She also had to fight back a scream when something went zipping past her. Sheez. It was possibly a raccoon.

      Or a very small, hyped-up guard dog.

      It shot out of the reception area and disappeared. No growling sounds. No clawing sounds, either, so she hoped it wasn’t coming back for her.

      Since she wasn’t sure how much time she had, Reese went straight to the hall. There were a series of offices, thank goodness with nameplates on the outside. Logan’s was all the way at the end.

      And locked.

      She tried the key, but it didn’t work. Sadly, she knew how to pick a lock, but she hadn’t brought the old tools of an old trade with her. Elrond probably had something that would work, but judging from the way Jimena and he had gone after each other, he probably had her on the backseat by now for another round of those multiple orgasms.

      Instead, Reese went up the stairs. There were more offices here on the second floor, each door indicating the name of another person who worked for Logan and his brothers. She doubted he’d put a watch in any of these offices so she went up the final flight of stairs to the third floor.

      There were double doors, wide-open, so she stepped inside.

      Whoa.

      Unlike her place at the Bluebonnet Inn, this loft was huge. It sprawled over the entire third floor. There were no overhead lights on, but thankfully there was enough illumination coming from the appliances in the kitchen area that she could see well enough.

      And what she could see was a mess.

      There were gouges in the walls as if someone had punched it multiple times. No, correction. Someone had thrown stuff at it because some of that stuff was still on the polished hardwood floors. Broken sculptures—including what appeared to be a porcelain breast of a woman. Books. Glass. Feathers.