“Uh-oh.” Clark laughed. “She saw you kiss me. She’s terribly jealous. I’ll have to sweeten her up.” He pulled a jeweler’s box out of his pocket, opened it and showed it to Keely. It was a diamond necklace. A real, glittery, very expensive diamond necklace. “I asked her what she’d really like, and she said one of these. Think she’ll like it?”
Keely had to bite her tongue. “Sure!”
He closed the box. “It will put her in a good mood.” He chuckled. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Okay.”
She got out of the car. Nellie came around the SUV, locking it with her remote. She gave Keely, who was wearing corduroy slacks with a cotton blouse and Berber coat, a superior sort of look. Nellie was wearing a designer dress and expensive shoes with a coat that would cost Keely a year’s salary—probably another gift from Clark. She looked expensive and greedy and very jealous.
“Why did you kiss him?” she asked Keely, keeping her back to Clark. “I don’t want you touching him, do you hear? He’s all mine.”
“I noticed,” Keely said, indicating the coat and dress. “Bought and paid for?”
“How dare you!” Nellie snapped.
Keely smiled sweetly. “One day he’ll get a look at this side of you,” she whispered. “And you’ll be out on your ear.”
“Think I care?” Nellie drawled. “There’s always another one, a richer one. Besides, men are stupid.”
She bypassed Keely and went rushing into Clark’s outstretched arms. “Oh, darling, I missed you so!” she exclaimed, and kissed him hungrily. Clark was eating it up.
Keely shook her head. She walked into the library, thinking that P. T. Barnum was right. A sucker actually was born every minute. She wished she could tell Clark the truth. A man that much in love wouldn’t hear her, or believe her, and it would ruin their friendship. But worse was to come, she knew. She wished she and Boone weren’t enemies, so she could tell him what was going on. She knew that she was going to end up, inevitably, right in the middle of all the trouble.
CHAPTER SIX
THE LIBRARY WAS one of Keely’s favorite places. She didn’t get much time to spend there, because she was usually on call on the weekends. But this weekend, the senior vet tech had unexpectedly offered to take Keely’s place. Her husband was in the military, and his unit had been called up for overseas deployment. She was blue about it and didn’t want to spend so much time alone. Keely sympathized with her, but was glad to have the time off. Or she had been, until her life suddenly became complicated.
She was reading a thick biology text on canine anatomy when a shadow fell over her. She looked up, straight into Boone Sinclair’s dark eyes. Her heart raced. She fumbled with the book and it fell onto the floor.
He picked it up and, glancing at the title with an odd smile, put it back on the table. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. Here, in the reading area, she was alone. The librarian was in the back cataloging, so they had the room to themselves.
“I thought you and Clark had a date,” he murmured suspiciously.
She couldn’t think. He was leaning toward her, and she could smell the minty scent of his breath on her face. She bit her lower lip nervously.
“I wanted to look up something,” she stammered inventively. She flushed. She wasn’t good at lying. “He went to get gas. He’s coming back for me.” She forced a glare. “We were going up to San Antonio to the theater when you told him we couldn’t go.”
“San Antonio is too big and we don’t know many police officers there,” he said, unexpectedly somber. “You don’t need to be out of sight of the police. It’s easier to watch you here.”
“You’ve been talking to Sheriff Hayes,” she accused.
He nodded. “Hayes is pretty laid-back most of the time. When he worries, there’s good reason.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Your mother hasn’t been seen out at Shea’s for a week?” It was a question.
She needed so desperately to talk to someone. Her face was drawn with worry. Clark was sweet, but he was too concerned with Nellie to pay more than a little attention to Keely’s problems. Not that he didn’t care about her. He just cared more about Nellie.
Incredibly Boone’s big hand smoothed over hers where it lay on the book cover. He linked his warm, strong fingers into hers. “Talk to me,” he said quietly.
She actually shivered. It had been years since a man had touched her. Not even a man, really, just a boy she dated. She hadn’t been held, kissed, caressed. She was a woman with a woman’s feelings, and she couldn’t, didn’t dare, indulge them.
Boone knew more about women than she realized. He understood her reaction to him, and was puzzled by it. “For a woman who’s getting regular sex, you sure don’t act as if your needs are being met,” he commented.
She went as red as the book cover and her hand jerked under his.
He smiled, but not in a mean way. His fingers contracted more. “Tell me what’s really going on, Keely.”
His hand was comforting. She didn’t fight the firm, caressing clasp. It felt so good. She wanted to climb into his lap and put her head on his shoulder and cry her eyes out. She wanted comfort, just a little comfort. But this wasn’t the man, or the place or the time.
She took a deep breath. “Something’s going on about my father,” she confessed in a hushed tone. “I don’t know what. Nobody will tell me anything. He’s mixed up in something bad, and he has this friend…” Her soft features contracted and her eyes were full of pain at the memory.
“This friend,” he prompted, squeezing her hand. He was very intent.
“Jock.” The name tasted like poison in her mouth.
