Taming a Texas Devil - Katie Lane Page 0,42
preferred his cheeseburgers with no onions. By four o’clock, he had a five o’clock shadow that covered his jaw and the dimple in his chin with sexy black stubble. And pulling a conversation out of him was like extracting molars.
“Get what?” he asked.
She touched the top corner of her mouth. “Your scar.”
He removed his finger from the scar. “A cut when I was a kid. Have you found anything in any of the reports about deserted trucks?”
They had been going through all the reports that had come into the sheriff’s office after Sam left the Double Diamond, hoping to find the report about Sam’s truck being found. So far, they’d found nothing.
“No,” she said. “How did you cut it?”
He hesitated for a second before he looked back at his laptop. “On a ring. Now let’s get back to work.”
“You wore a ring as a kid?”
“No, my mom’s boyfriend did.”
All those tingles of sexual awareness turned into a huge pang of shock and sympathy. Her parents had never lifted a hand to her. Her punishment had always been long lectures given by her father or a look of disappointment from her mother. She was stunned and appalled.
“I’m sorry. I hope your mother kicked the jerk to the curb.”
He laughed, a harsh sound that held no humor. “Actually, I was the one who got kicked to the curb.” The heartbreak she felt that a mother would choose a boyfriend over her own child must have shown on her face because Lincoln sighed. “It’s not a big deal. Not everyone can be a spoiled senator’s kid.”
“I wasn’t spoiled.” He lifted his eyebrows and she conceded. “Okay, I was a little spoiled. But my mama and daddy believed in making me work hard for what I wanted.”
“Which explains how you graduated top of your class at the police academy.” It was her turn to lift her eyebrows, and he shrugged. “I looked it up. The only thing you didn’t excel at was firearms training.”
“Shooting isn’t really my thing.”
He studied her for a long moment before he closed his laptop with a snap and got to his feet. “I need a break. All the reports are starting to look the same.” He grabbed his hat off the hook and pulled it on, then grabbed hers and tossed it to her. “Well, don’t just sit there, Deputy Meriwether. Let’s go.”
She got up. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
The surprise turned out to be Lincoln taking her to the same place Dixie still had nightmares about. As soon as they pulled up to the copse of trees, she shook her head. “Oh, no. I want nothing to do with Rattlesnake Springs.”
He laughed. If she hadn’t been so scared, she might’ve enjoyed the way it transformed his face from serious ranger to impish bad boy. “I figured you might feel that way. Which is why I didn’t tell you where we were going. And it’s called Mesquite Springs, by the way.”
“I don’t care if it’s called Bunny Rabbit Haven. There are snakes here and I want nothing to do with it or them.”
He got the look he got on his face whenever he switched into teacher mode. Which had been a lot lately. In fact, ever since she had told the little white lie about having a dream to become a deputy, he’d been giving her lawman lessons. It was starting to get a little old. “You’re a deputy, Dixie. You can’t be afraid of snakes. Nor can you be uncomfortable shooting a gun.”
“We’re here to shoot rattlesnakes? I don’t like them, but I don’t want to massacre them either.”
“We aren’t going to massacre snakes. We’re going to shoot at a target.” He opened his door. “Now come on.”
“I think I’ll just stay here.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I’m going to do some target practice. And you’re going to get pretty hot sitting here in the sun.” He grabbed the keys and got out.
He was right. It was hot sitting in the truck. She couldn’t even roll down the windows, because he had taken the keys. She opened the door but sweat still beaded on her forehead and collected between her boobs. She glanced at the trees that were no doubt teeming with snakes as her mama’s words came back to her. The only thing to fear is lack of courage.
It took a lot of courage to get out of the truck and even more to walk through the snake-infested trees. She pulled out her gun and held