Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,42
felt that way about my brothers in the club before she came along.
“The doctor who cared for my mother while she was ill was sleeping with Ashby. He lied to the police to cover for her. He helped her when she tried to make me think I was losing my mind.” She shook her head, a deep frown pulling her reddish eyebrows down low on her forehead. “I had questions I wanted him to answer, but he talked around me. He won’t tell me if Ashby was at the hospital the day my mother died. He won’t give anything away that might implicate her and thus himself. I don’t think my mother took a sudden turn for the worse. I think Ashby killed her. He won’t tell me the truth about that day, so I want you to make him tell it to you.”
I let out a low whistle and leaned back in the cheap chair making it creak under my weight. “You’re a little more ruthless than I expected.”
Her frown deepened and so did her blush. “I tried to be civil. I tried to get the information through traditional methods, and it didn’t work.” She cocked her head to the side a little, sending her hair cascading across her shoulder. Someone else whistled, causing me to whip my head around so I could glare at whoever was creeping on her.
“To be clear,” Presley was saying, “I don’t want him to die or anything that extreme. I just want him persuaded to tell what he knows, and if that persuasion gets a little more forceful than he is accustomed to, so be it. He made his choice when he decided to protect Ashby even after he knew she killed Conrad Lawton.”
The guy with the beer belly and trucker cap scurried away after I stared him down. I focused my attention back on the woman who didn’t even realize the buzz she was creating around herself.
“If he admits he knows that Ashby killed your mom, if he says he played a part in her death, what then?” I was honestly curious about her answer. If it was one of my guys, they would want immediate revenge. Hell, even Kody would want the man to pay something fierce. But I couldn’t see Presley being that bloodthirsty. Her response didn’t disappoint.
“I want him to get the punishment he deserves. He should lose his medical license at the very least, and she should be charged with my mother’s murder. They need to be held accountable.” She gave me a wry grin and pried her hands apart. “However, I won’t be heartbroken if either of them ends up a little banged up and bruised on the way to answering for what they did.”
I chuckled at her sweet honesty and stopped resisting the urge to reach for her hand. Her fingers were long and graceful looking. They also twitched uncontrollably as I wrapped mine around them. The skull tattooed on the back of my hand looked like it was grinning up at me in approval when she didn’t pull away.
“You’re a nice woman, Presley Baskin.” Niceness wasn’t something that had particularly attracted me to women in the past, but I really liked it when it was coming from her. “I don’t like it when other people hurt you.” There was no doubt about it, I was going to make this doctor tell me what he knew.
She cleared her throat before she muttered, “I’m surprised at how kind you can be, Shot. When you’re kind, you’re even scarier than when you’re being all fierce and biker-like.”
I tossed my head back and let out a real laugh. I brushed my thumb over the back of her hand and watched as the small touch made her shiver in her seat. “I’m never not biker-like. But there is something about being around you that reminds me there are people and things in the world that need to be handled with a slightly more delicate touch.”
She audibly gulped and finally pulled her hand free. She reached up to push some of her hair back behind her ear as she watched me shyly. “Like I mentioned, I don’t really know the difference between a good and bad date, but this oddly enough feels like a pretty great one.”
I laughed again. “Are you going to let me kiss you goodbye when I walk you back to your car?”
I was only halfway joking. I hadn’t been able to get the kiss from the parking