“And what were you planning to do if I hadn’t shown up?”
“I have friends. I could have arranged the bail and you’d have never been the wiser.”
Jay snorted. “Worked out well for you, didn’t it, then?” And it meant he needed to thank the detective for yet one more thing, he thought blackly.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Louella said.
He scrubbed his hand down his face as they stopped next to Arabella’s sedan.
His grandmother looked confused. “Where’s your truck?”
Jay’s eyes met Arabella’s over the roof of the car as she unlocked the driver’s-side door. And despite everything—the frustration of not being able to kiss her as long as he’d wanted, the shock of his grandmother’s arrest and the fury of knowing the cops had been following him and he hadn’t even noticed—he couldn’t help smiling.
“Dead battery,” he said.
“Well?” Brady tossed a towel patterned with a distinctively ugly pink crest on his desk and gave Arabella a look. “Anything you have to say for yourself?”
She rubbed the pain in her temple and held back a yawn with no small amount of effort.
After getting Jay and his grandmother out to their place and driving back into Rambling Rose, it had been nearly four in the morning when she’d finally crept into her twin-size bed at Brady’s house. She’d been so tired, she hadn’t even spent her usual hour writing. “Like what?”
Brady had made no secret that he was annoyed with her. That had been plainly obvious when he’d summoned her to his office in the middle of her cleaning shift.
“Like the fact that this—” Brady shook the towel in her face “—was found next to the ice machine on the first floor last night by the night crew.”
“It’s just a towel, Brady.”
“It’s a towel from my own damn linen closet, Bella. And I sure didn’t leave it there.”
“Actually, it’s a towel from Mom’s linen closet. Do you remember when she ordered them? How appalled Dad was that she’d spent hard-earned money on a set of towels just because they had a royal crest on them?”
His expression told her plainly that he appreciated neither her irony nor the little trip down memory lane.
“Okay, fine,” she huffed. “I was using the hot tub after hours last night, okay?”
“Alone?”
“Of course I was alone,” she bluffed. “Every muscle in my body hurt after cleaning all day and—”
He thumped a pair of men’s tennis shoes on his desk. “These were with the towel. Your feet suddenly grow about four sizes?”
Arabella pressed her lips together.
“How’d you get into the fitness center?”
“Does it matter?”
Brady grimaced. He sat back in his chair and tugged at his tie as though it was suddenly choking him. “Yes, it matters.”
“Why? Look, we weren’t doing anything terrible.” Not entirely. “Jay just—”
Brady swore. “Jay Cross?”
She shoved out of her chair because sitting in front of Brady’s desk the way she was felt a little too similar to being called in front of the principal. And those elementary school days were long past. “So what if it was?”
“You snuck in the house at four this morning!”
She jabbed her finger in his direction. “Stop acting like Dad.”
“Stop acting like an irresponsible teenager, then!”
She gaped at him, feeling stung. “I’m a grown woman, Brady. If I choose to stay out all night with a guy it is my business. Not yours.”
He rose and planted his hands flat on his desk. “It’s my business when it’s under my roof.”
She slapped her hands on the desk, too, going practically nose to nose. “Well, we know the solution to that, don’t we?”
“Ahem.”
They both looked over to see Grace Williams standing in the doorway to Brady’s office.
As furious as Brady was with Arabella, she was somewhat surprised to see amusement in the other woman’s eyes.
“Brady, the camera crew is here to get started on filming the new commercial. Would you mind getting them set up? I’m afraid I have to deal with that other matter.” Her eyebrows rose slightly as if she were speaking in code meant only for Arabella’s brother.
Brady looked at Arabella. “We’re not finished with this discussion,” he warned.
“Damn straight we’re not,” she muttered under her breath after he and Grace had left the office again.
Arabella plucked Jay’s tennis shoes from the desk and left, too.
She knew that he wasn’t on duty that day. A happy coincidence for him since he needed to deal with getting his truck battery changed. Unlike hers, his hadn’t responded to charging, which was why she’d ended up driving him to the police station the night before.
On one hand, she was grateful that Jay had seemed glad to accept her help. On the other hand, she was left with more questions about him than ever before.
What had Teas said when he’d appeared at the pool?
I’m not here to question you again. Not yet, anyway.
Question Jay about what?
Even if there’d been an opportunity to ask him what the police detective had meant, Arabella hadn’t been brave enough to voice it.
She could go toe to toe with Brady all day long and twice on Sundays if she had to. But ask Jay one simple question?
I think you should know that...
...I’m wanted by the police.
She shook her head sharply. “Ridiculous,” she muttered and reached out to wave her badge over the service elevator call button.
“The first sign of genius is talking to yourself.”
Startled, Arabella dropped the shoes as she whirled to see Mariana walking toward her.
“I’m sorry, hon.” Mariana’s brows pulled together as she bent over to pick up the shoes. “Didn’t mean to scare you all to bits and pieces.” She handed her the tennis shoes.
“Thanks.” Arabella hugged them to the front of her black T-shirt. “And you didn’t. I was just, uh, just preoccupied.”
Mariana tilted her head slightly as if listening for sounds of the elevator’s movement. “These days, everyone here seems preoccupied.”
“Why is that?” Arabella flushed at the urgency in her tone.
“Oh.” Mariana waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing seriously bad has happened here in the last few
