Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,11

was and he was just a jerk.

Still, she felt a hell of a lot more than she wanted to when Kaeden’s arm brushed her as they stood and she took a step back, avoiding his eyes. She didn’t need this right now. Didn’t need it at all.

She felt his eyes on her and she chanced a look his way. That was stupid. Because she saw heat in his eyes and it made her stomach flip and her heart get that kind of hopeful feeling you get when you realize a guy you like might like you back.

She took another step backward. Hope was another thing she didn’t need. There wasn’t room for sexy men or hope or anything like that in her world. That time was over.

She turned and tossed the trash from her breakfast in a nearby can and then moved to the vans. Away from Kaeden and the temptation to hope for something normal in her world.

Chapter 7

Evan Willows looked at Turner Carson over the man’s oversized desk. Steel gray hair and eyes that were almost black on a face that had probably once been called chiseled. It was softening now with age, but the man was still tall and formidable.

Where Turner was over six feet, Evan was just grazing five feet eleven inches on a good day. He had never been athletic either, always staying a hair over what was considered a healthy weight. Turner looked like maybe he could have played sports once upon a time. And where Evan could have used a hat on his head to cover his bald spot, he knew Turner wasn’t covering one with his cowboy hat. He’d seen plenty of pictures of the man at big events mugging it up for the camera with a thick head of hair. It might be gray now, but it was all there.

The desk and all of the rest of the furniture in the room was what you’d expect to find on a Texas ranch of this size. Rustic but not cheap, with horses carved into the sides of the desk and couch.

Of course, the man had entered the room wearing a cowboy hat, though it was one that looked like it had never seen the dusty side of a pasture. The boots he wore with his suit were polished to a shine. From what Evan had read on the man, he’d bought the ranch ten years earlier and the place was prospering, but it looked like he wasn’t involved in any of the heavy lifting.

Turner Carson was a business owner. He was born into a wealthy family, inheriting several of the companies he still ran today, but also acquiring more with each year.

Evan couldn’t say he liked Turner but the man was paying him to do a job and that was something Evan couldn’t turn away. Not now.

“I think your previous PI has been chasing planted leads,” Evan said.

“Explain.”

Evan kept his face neutral at the man’s barked order. “Every time your stepdaughter pops up on any system, it’s a single credit card transaction and there’s never any sign of her in the area. No hotel rooms in her name, no one using her social security number for work, nothing.”

Evan knew Turner had paid the previous investigator to fly out to those locations the first few times they’d had a hit. The guy hadn’t come up with anything more than a waiter who vaguely remembered the woman who used the card and a convenience store clerk who remembered the woman using an ATM machine who might or might not have been Jane Walker. Not much to go on for nearly two years of work.

“So what does that mean?” Turner asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“All the hits you’ve gotten have been in major cities.”

Turner added a frown to his stance. “I’d guess cities are easier to hide out in. It’s not a stretch to think she might be there. Probably easier for her to steal to support them there. You can’t get away with that as much in a small place where everyone knows who you are.”

Evan glanced out the window. A place like the town they were in now. He had the impression Turner liked being known and revered by everyone in town. From what Evan had heard when he’d stopped for breakfast, half the town was employed by the ranch or one of the other businesses Turner owned. The other half rented space in his retail buildings or had a loan