Texan Undercover (Romantic Suspense) Read Online Free Page B

why should she care?
    Good grief. She'd avoided men since her
divorce because there was no place for a relationship to go. She
didn't believe in happily ever after. At least, not for herself.
Not anymore. Bennett had hurt her. No way would she open up and
become vulnerable. She would never let a man have that kind of
power over her again.
    Claire needed to get away from Dillon and
temptation. She'd leave town and see about hiring that other tech.
The perfect excuse to put some distance between her and the
handsome private eye.
    Damn, she'd been all but drooling as she
watched the man hook up his little gadgets to her machines,
admiring the muscles beneath his shirt when he bent and stooped
over the computers. She couldn't help wondering what it would feel
like with Dillon bent over her.
    Don't go there, Claire. Sighing, she
switched off the last light. Dillon probably thought she was an
idiot, anyway. Why couldn't she keep his names straight? She was
smart, damn it. She had two degrees from Drexel. One in computer
science, the other in business administration. She should be able
to remember his cover.
    After locking the back door, Claire made her
way across the parking lot. Her stomach tightened when she saw the
shadow of a man leaning against her car. The panic subsided when
she recognized Dillon.
    Drat the man.
    "What do you think you're doing?" she asked.
"Is this some Neanderthal kind of thing? You don't think I'm
capable of getting myself home safely? I've managed fine so far,
thank you very much."
    "You're not from Texas, are you?" He pushed
away from the car.
    "No, I'm not." The question threw her. "What
does that have to do with anything?"
    "There's a Southern Code of Honor," Dillon
said. "Or maybe it's my code of honor. Or hell, maybe it is a
Neanderthal kind of thing. Never mind. Get in the damn car, lock
the doors and get yourself home."
    Claire watched him turn on his heels and
stalk away. He climbed into his pickup, but didn't drive off. He
sat there and stared at her. Waiting.
    She got in her little red BMW, started the
engine and pulled out of the parking lot. She glanced in her
rearview mirror. Dillon turned onto the street and eased in behind
her. Was he following her home?
    For several minutes, Claire decided that was
precisely what he was doing and it made her angry. She was also
touched.
    When he turned in the opposite direction as
they approached the freeway, Claire squashed the spurt of
disappointment gnawing inside.
    ****
    "So, the woman's hot. I say go for it." Stan
Brozek carried his laptop to the coffee table and sat on the edge
of the sofa. "Jeez! Why can't I get this? Take a look at line
five-sixty-eight in the pattern-matching module. I keep getting an
error."
    Dillon squatted on his haunches beside the
coffee table and looked at the code his partner was working on.
They were debugging the backup program that would log the data from
the computers in e*Claire's. The gadgets he'd installed last week
were a trip wire, to trap anyone who unplugged them. This program
was the key to the investigation.
    "Line five-sixty-eight, you said?" Dillon
studied the string for a minute. "Don't deallocate the structure
when you finish with the input."
    "Damn, why didn't I see that?" Brozek's
fingers flew over the keyboard as he made the correction. "I'm
going to finish this baby tonight. You can make book on that,
buddy."
    "Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I'll believe it when
I see it." Dillon walked back to the desk to his own laptop. He
picked up his Dr. Pepper and grabbed a handful of peanuts before
sitting down.
    "You gonna ask the lady out?" Brozek
asked.
    "Nope. It's business. I don't care how hot
she is."
    "Business, bull. She's not a client or a
suspect. Or is she?" Brozek looked up from his computer. "Is
she?"
    "Hell, no. I don't know. She's said a few
things . . . No, definitely not." Beautiful Claire Maxwell couldn't
be the hacker. He needed to keep an open mind, though. Everyone was
suspect, like he'd told her.