Every Move You Make. Tori Carrington

report on his Texas relatives, he’d made contact and offered up a business proposal.

      But meeting Lily and Dylan in the flesh had been less business-oriented and much more personal than he could have ever imagined. And fruitful in so many ways. After spending a day with them and their blossoming families, he’d gone into Finders Keepers and was immediately hooked. After hearing their many success stories, he’d known down to the bone that his decision was the right one. That he was doing the right thing. The only problem was that everyone in Trueblood knew who he was. There weren’t all that many true Truebloods left without creating a fuss in the small town. And that’s when Lily came up with the idea of sending him to Jennifer Madison to learn the ropes incognito, the only ones knowing his true identity being Jennifer and her husband, Ryan. He would become a private investigator. Just as he’d worked from the bottom rung of the ladder up in his tool and die business, he would learn the art of private investigating in the same way.

      And here he was, gazing at pretty Jennifer Madison, waiting for the next step of his life to begin.

      Jennifer Madison was more than merely pretty; she was stunning in ways Zach couldn’t begin to count. Lily had spoken highly of the young woman, and Zach could see why. Anyone would have been overwhelmed by the busyness of the office he’d seen so far. But Jennifer seemed to be managing, although barely. And the little one dozing next to her desk was a gem. Whoever Jennifer’s husband was, he was one lucky guy.

      Jennifer gave a deep sigh of relief, pulling Zach’s gaze and attention back to her. “Mr. Gawlick. Good, good, you’re still there. I’m sorry to have kept you on hold for so long…” She smiled. “Yes, of course, I understand that you want a spot person from our agency involved with your case.” She eyed Zach. “In fact, I’m looking at just the person for the job as we speak.”

      Zach raised a brow.

      “I understand the urgency. Yes. No. Very good, Mr. Gawlick. My associate should be there shortly.”

      She replaced the receiver and smiled at Zach.

      He cleared his throat. “I take it you were talking about me?”

      “Uh-huh.” Jennifer reached down and tucked a blanket around the infant’s tiny body. “Mr. Denton Gawlick, of the Odessa Gawlicks. He and his wife are renewing their wedding vows in a week. Only the dress Mrs. Gawlick was hoping to wear, well, it’s been languishing somewhere in lost airline baggage hell for the past week.”

      Zach rubbed his chin and grinned. “The case of the missing wedding dress?” Definitely not Mickey Spillane material. Then again, it had its possibilities.

      Jennifer laughed and tilted her head to look at him closely. “You’re not licensed yet, right?”

      Zach narrowed his gaze, hoping she wouldn’t use his lack of experience as a reason to change her mind. “Right. I’m not just wet behind the ears, I’m soaked.”

      She opened a drawer and fingered through files before taking one out and handing it to him. “Then this should be a great case to break you in with.” He must have registered the surprise on his face because she said, “Don’t worry. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was an accountant. You have Lily’s highest recommendation, so you have my complete trust.”

      Zach eyed her, still not sure how to take this new way of operating. He didn’t think he’d be half as generous if their positions were reversed. Referral or not, he’d have checked the applicant’s references, asked a ton of questions, and still would have been hesitant to trust the candidate.

      Things really did work differently down here.

      He swallowed. “Thank you, Mrs. Madison. I’ll make sure your trust isn’t misplaced.”

      “It’s Jennifer,” she said as if by rote, then paused while going through some papers and looked at him. “Are you staying in town?”

      “Actually, I haven’t checked into my hotel yet.”

      “Good. Because right after meeting the client, you’ll have to head down to Houston and Clayborn Investigations. You see, I already farmed the case out to another agency to look into the dress down there since the flight the bag was scheduled to be on was bound for Hobby. But Mr. Gawlick wants someone from our agency to be hands-on, and so long as he’s paying for it…”

      “We’re there.”

      Her smile widened. “Yes. We’re there.”

      Zach couldn’t help but grin back at her even as he mentally prepared a list of questions. What groundwork had been laid down on the case already? Was there any advice on how to handle Mr. Gawlick? How should he document his expenses? Was there some sort of ID he should use? But before he could ask a single question, the phone started ringing, the baby started crying, and the few quiet moments they had just experienced vanished into a chaotic never-never land.

      “Call if you need anything,” Jennifer said as she propped the phone between chin and shoulder then reached for the wailing infant.

      “Right.” Zach hesitated. He supposed he’d have to find answers to his own questions, which, when you thought about it, was what being a private investigator was all about, right? He started toward the door, nodding at Jennifer’s light wave as she adeptly handled both the caller and the baby. He stepped outside the office and into the warm Texas sun, then squinted at the file in his hands. His first case.

      His first case.

      He turned his face up to the sun and grinned.

      THIS WAS THE LAST CASE she was going to take on from another agency.

      “I’m sure everything will be fine,” Mariah Clayborn said into the telephone. “I look forward to meeting your associate…” What had Jennifer Madison, the P.I. from Midland, said his name was?

      “Zach Letterman,” Jennifer said.

      “Yes. Zach. Got it.”

      There was a pause on the other end of the line. She opened her mouth to end the call.

      “Is everything all right?” Jennifer cut her off at the pass.

      Mariah pushed back her thick dark hair then slumped in her chair. Was her emotional state so apparent that a woman she didn’t even know except via a couple phone calls could tell something was wrong?

      “Everything’s fine.” Mariah forced a smile, even though Jennifer couldn’t see it. “Thanks for asking.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll give you a call once Zach and I retrieve the piece of luggage with your client’s dress in it.”

      “Good. Good.”

      After exchanging goodbyes, Mariah sat pole straight in her chair, her hand still on the receiver that rested in the cradle.

      Oh, she supposed just a short time ago everything had been fine, just as she’d proclaimed. She’d been a woman in charge of her own life, with her own agenda, well down the road to convincing herself that she didn’t need a man after her latest breakup.

      Then this morning she’d come in to find a section of the office roof had finally given way under the most recent Texas deluge—surely the saying “when it rained, it poured” originated in Texas. Of course it wouldn’t be just any section, but a stretch just above her desk, soaking piles of paperwork and the brand-new chair she’d finally given in to and splurged on a week ago.

      But that wasn’t what made today so bad. No. That reason had come while she was cleaning up the mess and her phone rang. She’d snatched it up to find on the line her least favorite person from Hoffland, the small town about forty miles southwest in which she was raised—gossipy Miss Twila Seidwick.

      At first she’d been more than a little irritated that the woman was calling her at work. Then she’d been afraid that something had happened to her widowed father and Twila was calling with the news.

      Thankfully her father was fine. Twila had been calling to gloat over the fact that Mariah’s