A movement behind the bar caught Brianna’s eye. When she looked in that direction, she realized that Dan was trying to catch her attention. Once he did, he pointed toward the very back of the establishment. Curious, she turned and glanced in that general direction.
At first, she didn’t know what Dan was trying to direct her attention to. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
And then she saw what Dan was pointing to.
Or rather, whom.
Son of a gun, Brianna thought. Maybe miracles do happen.
When she finally reached the small table for two where Jackson Muldare was sitting, he greeted her with, “I was just about to give up on you. I figured I’d drink your beer, too, and then call it a night.”
Brianna looked at her watch as she took the seat opposite him. Talk about being impatient. Not much time had gone by since he’d left the precinct.
“How fast did you think I’d get here?” she asked Jackson.
“Faster than this.” He gestured toward the only beer mug that had any brew in it. “I told Dan it was for you, so if it’s the wrong brand, blame him.”
“I’m not a connoisseur,” she assured him. “As long as it’s not dark ale, I’m fine with it.” Taking a quick sip, she set the mug down again and looked at the table. There was nothing else on it except for his empty beer mug and hers. “You didn’t get anything to eat?”
“Anyone ever tell you that you can be pretty demanding?” he asked her.
He was doing it again, trying to distract her from getting an answer to the question she’d asked. “I’m not trying to be demanding—”
“You could have fooled me,” Jackson responded philosophically.
Refusing to let him distract her, or worse, to allow thoughts of him to dwell on her mind, Brianna pushed on. “But the whole point of getting you to stop here was so you—we,” she corrected before he could make another reference to her acting like a mother hen, “could get something to eat. Stay here—I’ll go order a couple of hamburgers.”
As she pushed back her chair to get up, she all but bumped into Dan, who was right behind her, carrying a tray with two hamburgers on it as well as a basket of fries.
There was amusement on Jackson’s face. “You were saying?”
“That you are a source of constant surprise,” she told him evenly, even though several other descriptive words rose in her mind as well.
“Your friend here said to hold off making the food until you got here.” Dan placed a hamburger in front of each of them, then put the basket of fries on the side. “Good thing I’m fast,” Dan told Brianna with a touch of pride.
“Good thing,” Brianna agreed, flashing a smile at the retired patrolman.
“Okay, I gotta get back,” Dan told them, tucking the tray under his arm. He looked back toward the bar and shook his head. “That new bartender my partner hired looks like he’s having trouble keeping up,” he said just before he hurried back to the front of the room.
Brianna turned back toward Jackson. “You could have told me that you’d ordered the food instead of letting me go on like that.”
“And miss seeing your eyes flash like lightning during a summer storm when you really get going?” Jackson questioned. “Not a chance.”
Brianna shook her head as she took her first bite of hamburger. She allowed herself a second to savor the taste before she told Jackson, “You know, I just don’t understand you.”
He wished she’d stop making everything personal. He didn’t want her getting personal. It made maintaining distance between them difficult, and he needed distance in order to function.
“You’re not supposed to understand me,” he told her. “You’re supposed to be trying to understand what would make someone go on a killing spree and then stick all those bodies into the walls. And then, when you’ve figured that out, figure out how he got those bodies in the walls without anyone noticing.”
Why was he so afraid of anyone getting close to him? “I can do both,” she told him. When Jackson raised one eyebrow in a silent question, she elaborated, “I can try to understand you and figure out why the killer put the bodies there instead of just getting rid of them in some field or ditch.”
“Even if you can do both,” he told her, “I suggest that you do the latter first. You might have more luck with that, and in any case, that’s the important puzzle here, not me.”
Her smile was enigmatic, he thought. And maybe just a little bit sexy.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she told him.
Well, being subtle wasn’t working, he thought. Maybe he just needed to be blunt. That usually worked better for him, anyway.
“Look, O’Bannon,” he said sharply, “I don’t want you rooting around in my head, and I don’t want you analyzing me. Understood?”
“Understood,” she echoed in a dutiful voice.
Jackson frowned at her. She wasn’t fooling him for a second. She was just humoring him.
“But you’re not going to listen, are you?” he challenged. It was a rhetorical question. He already knew the answer to the question.
Brianna smiled at him. “One right answer out of two isn’t bad.”
The expression on Jackson’s face was dark. He pushed the basket of French fries toward her and retorted, “Eat your fries.”
“Only if you do,” Brianna countered.
Jackson blew out a long breath, frustrated. He was usually indifferent to the people he worked with. She made him want to strangle her. “Why do you always have to set conditions on everything?”
“I don’t,” she protested with enough feeling to make him believe that she actually thought she was serious.
Which, upon reflection, made him laugh. “Right,” Jackson mocked. “I’m a grown man, O’Bannon. I don’t have to be told when to eat or even if I should eat.”
Since he was missing the point, she explained it to him. “It’s called caring about
