Geoffrey, aka the gym monkey, had showed up at the gallery in a state, demanding to see Brynne now.
She’d been busy with a client, and asked her assistant to take Geoffrey to her office, give him a glass of water, try to calm him down. She’d be with him as soon as possible.
Geoffrey wasn’t having that.
He made a scene.
Brynne had been forced to move to plan B.
Her assistant took over the clients, and she half dragged, half cajoled Heather’s blathering husband out of the main gallery, along the hallway and into her usually quiet office.
Geoffrey, clad in spandex shorts, a skimpy muscle shirt and a pair of very expensive trainers, sank into a chair and began to weep.
Loudly. With plenty of sniffles and snot.
Brynne handed him a box of tissues, took a bottle of water from her private minifridge, and gave it to him with a one-word command. “Drink.”
He drank. Copiously.
The torrent subsided a little, though he was flushed.
“What is it?” Brynne asked, annoyed and oddly jittery. A part of her knew what was coming, though she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it just yet.
Geoffrey took care of that little problem.
“They’re cheating,” he blurted. “Heather and Clay, I mean.”
The core of Brynne’s being shifted on its axis.
She collapsed into the chair behind her desk, and began grasping at the proverbial straws. “No,” she said. “They can’t be.”
They can’t be cheating, because I will die if they are.
Because I love Clay Nicholls too much to lose him.
They can’t be cheating because that will be the end and I will probably never see the children again.
“They are,” Geoffrey insisted gruffly, fiddling with his smartphone and then thrusting it at Brynne.
Her hands trembled as she took it.
The first image—Clay and Heather, half-dressed and kissing so deeply that they might have been trying to swallow each other—struck Brynne like the engine of a runaway freight train.
“Scroll,” Geoffrey ordered.
She did.
The pictures were graphic, and undeniably recent. The small, bullet-shaped tattoo on the back of Clay’s right shoulder, commemorating his near-death experience at the convenience store, was only a few weeks old.
“How did you get these?” Brynne asked bleakly, wondering, even as she spoke, why that mattered.
“Nanny cam,” Geoffrey replied.
And that was it, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Brynne Bailey decided never to date another cop.
It was too damn risky.
CHAPTER TWO
BRYNNE SET THE cheeseburger down in front of Eli with a slight thunk, turned and walked away.
“Was it something I said?” Eli asked.
Cord studied him over the rim of his coffee cup, while J.P. quipped, “More likely, something you haven’t said,” he replied.
Eli cut the burger into four pieces and scowled. “Such as?”
“Such as, asking Brynne out,” Cord said reasonably, finished with his coffee now. “You know you want to.”
“Yeah,” J.P. agreed, with a grin and a nod. “Grow a pair, man. Ask the lady out for dinner. Take her to a movie. Live on the edge.”
“I ‘live on the edge’ practically every day of my life and you damn well know it,” Eli snapped, before taking a defiant bite of the best cheeseburger deluxe in three states. Brynne might be citified, but she could sure as hell cook.
Cord examined the check Brynne had left him earlier and reached for his wallet. “Give us a break, cowboy. This is Painted Pony Creek, Montana, not old Dodge City.”
Eli might have reminded his friend about some of the incidents he’d handled right there in the old hometown, but his mouth was full. Plus, he didn’t want to talk blood-and-guts when he was eating.
“Time you got serious about finding a good woman and settling down,” J.P. pontificated, still grinning.
Eli chewed, swallowed, took a gulp of water and shot back, “Says the man whose romantic life consists of swiping right on Tinder a little too often.”
J.P. frowned. For once in his life, he seemed stuck for an answer.
Cord laughed. “He’s got you there,” he told J.P.
Easy for him to be cocky. He was happily married.
J.P. got to his feet, reached for his own check. He still looked annoyed.
Truth hurts, Eli thought uncharitably.
“You guys are just going to leave me here?” Eli demanded, in a loud whisper.
Trooper emerged from his post under the table, stretched and yawned big.
“Yeah,” Cord replied. “We are.”
“That’s a crappy thing to do,” Eli protested. “Especially when you invited me here in the first place!”
J.P. arched an eyebrow, braced his hands on the back of his chair and met Eli’s gaze head-on. “You were late,” he said.
Eli glared at his friends, first J.P., then Cord. Then he ate another hunk of his cheeseburger. He was pissed, but he was hungry, too. Hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
And breakfast had been a leftover burrito nuked in his microwave.
“Fine,” he bit out, after swallowing. “Go. Leave me hanging in the wind!”
Cord rolled his eyes. They were very blue, Cord’s eyes; women tended to tumble into them, head over heels. “Spare us the drama, Eli. We’re trying to help you, here.”
“By leaving me alone?”
J.P. grinned again, that cocky tilted semblance of a smile that sometimes—like now—made Eli want to punch him out. “You’re not alone, dude,” he drawled. “Brynne’s here.”
Eli was well aware that Brynne was there. The air seemed to pulse with the energy of her presence. “Do not call me ‘dude’!” he retorted.
J.P. laughed.
Then he and Cord ambled on over to the cash register, Trooper meandering along behind them.
Brynne came out of the kitchen immediately, smiling at that pair of polecats in a way that made Eli feel just a tad bit crazy.
They paid their checks, chatting with Brynne about the upcoming New Year’s Eve celebration to be held right there at Bailey’s. Practically everybody in the county was planning on attending.