had about you to Sarah,” Dallas reminded her. And they already knew that Owen had the baby’s birth certificate.
“Yes,” she softly agreed, but he heard the anger mixed in with that softness. He was right there with her. He hated that Owen, and Sarah as well, had used their baby to try to get back at them.
“Anything I should know about this personal thing the gunman said?” Saul asked. “Didn’t think so,” he said a moment later when none of them spoke up.
Wyatt picked up the next report. “Rudy probably won’t face any charges except for the stunt he pulled at Rocky Creek when he locked out the CSIs. We’ve got no proof, but we think Sarah might have been the one to take that shot at him in the woods. There’s no love lost between those two.”
“No,” Clayton agreed. “And when Sarah realized she’d failed to rile up Rudy enough to destroy the evidence in Rocky Creek, she probably took her anger out on him.”
Wyatt nodded. “That’s my theory, too.” He picked up yet another form. “And that brings us to Lindsey and her call about shooting Owen. She didn’t. Sarah put her up to that by promising Lindsey that she’d help her get Owen back. Sarah talked Lindsey into making that call with the hopes of luring you and Joelle out to the house.”
“And it worked,” Joelle whispered.
What color she had in her face vanished. Well, except for that god-awful bruise. Dallas knew it would raise Saul’s eyebrows, but he didn’t give a flying fig about that. He leaned over and pulled Joelle to him.
She made a soft sound, and he heard the pain in it. Oh, yeah. It was going to take a while for her to start forgetting this.
Saul cleared this throat again. “The governor wants you to call him first chance you get,” he said to Joelle.
She managed a shaky nod. A nod that didn’t sit well with Dallas. Of course, she had to call her boss. And of course, the governor would want her back at work. But that would mean her leaving.
No.
That didn’t sit well with him at all.
Her gaze came to Dallas’s and he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. A bad mix with the bruises, scrapes and his own worry and concerns.
“You were never practice,” Dallas heard himself say.
And he said it a whole lot louder than he’d intended. Actually, it hadn’t been a good time to say it at all, but he couldn’t very well take it back. Especially since it was true.
Joelle blinked. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Then she looked around the room at the others.
“Could you excuse us a minute?” Dallas asked to no one in particular, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He eased Joelle to her feet and got her out of there.
By the time they made it out into the hall and to Dallas’s own office, there weren’t any tears left in Joelle’s eyes. But there was a Texas-size amount of confusion. He had a lot to tell her, and maybe what he said in the next few minutes would ease some of that confusion.
But she spoke before he could ease anything.
“You’re sending me mixed signals, Dallas. One of the main reasons I left you was because you never asked me to stay. Heck, you never asked me to be your girlfriend. Or to even go on a date. You definitely never asked me to be...yours.”
Yeah, and he was quickly coming to the realization that had been one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Dallas tried to figure out the best way to fix that, but after looking at Joelle, he decided to do what he thought was best. Heck, it might be the wrong thing to do, too, but it would make him feel a heck of a lot better.
Dallas pulled her into his arms, put his mouth on hers and kissed her.
She went stiff for a few seconds. Hopefully because she hadn’t seen the kiss coming and not because she objected to it. Dallas deepened it just in case, and he finally heard the sound he’d been waiting for.
That little purr.
He been lucky enough to hear it the night before when they were in bed together, and it was music to his ears now. Music to his body when she sort of melted against him.
“You always did play dirty,” she mumbled against his mouth.
Now, it was his turn to go stiff. Dallas eased back and met her gaze. “I’m