Blame It on Texas Read Online Free Page B

opened again. “I lost it. Got some extras in my car.” She started forward, stopped, and backed up, as if scared to get close.
    He stepped back, giving her room to pass. With only one eye open, she stared at the small space, then back at him. He took another step back and she scooted past—quickly, too. For a second, he could swear he got a whiff of bacon, but that couldn’t be right. Stepping through the doorway, he watched her hotfoot it down the hall.
    “When you get back, let’s introduce ourselves,” he said. Her hips swayed back and forth with her quick steps. Things below the belt did another twitch and almost gave her a standing ovation as she passed through the front door.
    Still smiling, opening and closing his swollen fist—and mentally preparing a list of questions about the new receptionist—he remembered he had a change of clothes in his car. Moving down the hall, he walked out the front door just in time to see a silver Cobalt with Alabama tags speeding out of the parking lot.
    He stared after her. Hadn’t she said she had contacts in her car? So, why was she—?
    “Hey,” Dallas O’Connor said from behind him. “I thought I heard someone come in. You’re back early. How did the party go?”
    Tyler turned around and scratched his head. “She left.”
    “Who left?”
    “The new receptionist.” Tyler ran his left hand over his swollen knuckles again.
    “Ellen was here?” Dallas asked. “She said it would be around three.”
    “Is that her name?” Tyler asked.
    “Yeah, it’s Ellen Wise. You met her. Nikki’s friend. The one who was stabbed at the gallery.”
    “Not the blonde?” Tyler asked.
    “Yeah. She needed a job and we needed a receptionist. But I’m telling both you and Austin that she’s off limits. No screwing with—”
    “That wasn’t Ellen,” Tyler interrupted.
    “Who wasn’t Ellen?”
    “The sexy redheaded chick I found on her hands and knees under my desk.”
    Dallas laughed. “You must have been dreaming.”
    “Seriously, she was…” Tyler walked back to the office with Dallas and his dog Bud following. Stopping at the office door, Tyler looked at his desk. “She was there.” He noticed a piece of paper on the floor and picked it up. It was one of the resumes they’d taken to fill the new position for the Bradford security job. He dropped it on the desk and continued to rub his fist.
    “What happened to your knuckles?” Dallas asked from the doorway.
    Tyler looked up. “My brother-in-law’s teeth got in the way when I broke his nose.”
    “So the party went that well, did it?”
    “Yeah.” Tyler glanced away, not wanting to think about Leo or how pissed his sister was at him. Or the fact that he might have ruined Anna’s party. So instead, he remembered the redhead’s face. Remembered how she’d looked familiar.
    “How bad is your hand?” Dallas asked.
    “Not as bad as his nose,” Tyler answered.
    “Did you confront him about the glass with your prints that the cops found at the crime scene?”
    Tyler tightened his sore fist. Funny how he’d forgotten all about his suspicions that Leo had been one of the people who had framed him and his partners until now. His suspicions hadn’t gone away—his sister was just more important. But now he knew how low Leo could go, and Tyler’s suspicions grew even stronger. His prints had gotten to the crime scene somehow. The fact that they had been found on a glass just like the one his sister owned made him wonder. No way in hell would Tyler ever suspect anyone in his family; but Leo? Oh, yeah.
    “No, I confronted him about hitting my sister.”
    Dallas frowned. “And you didn’t break his neck?”
    “That’s next time,” Tyler said. “She was going through our files.”
    “Your sister?”
    “The redhead.”
    “What files?” Dallas asked.
    “The Bradford file, I think.”
    “You’re serious? There really was someone here?”
    He looked up at Dallas. “Yes, a redhead.”
    “On her hands