Foster Justice (14 page)

Kinnard's smile only deepened. “Ask Jasmine. I hear she's helping with the legal work. She might be able to point you in the right direction if you want to meet the president.”

Chad recoiled at the implication that confirmed his fears about her, but he caught himself. He knew Kinnard was yanking his chain. His voice came, long, low, and more Texan than usual. “We exterminate vermin in Texas. No mercy. But then you know all about Texas, don't you?” Chad went to his rig. He gave both men an equal share of his rage, looking from one to the other. “Time you learned about justice, Foster style. If my brother is hurt, I'll kill you.” Chad drove away.

When he got back to Jasmine's, he slipped inside and went straight to the couch, but despite the late hour, all he could do was stare up at the ceiling. He really should listen to the surveillance recordings, but he was literally sick at his stomach and his head was aching again. Tomorrow.

Besides, both of his main suspects were back in Beverly Hills, and wherever they'd taken Trey, he'd bet it was outside the city. For a moment he wondered if he should try to follow Montoya, but his truck would be a dead giveaway and he didn't have any more hundreds to bribe cabbies. Besides, if he went off half-cocked he might make a conviction even harder in this nanny state.

As tough as it was, Corey was right. He'd talk to Riley about the easel and see what he could stir up. “Patience,” Chad whispered to himself. The word came a bit easier than usual . . .

But unable to sleep and unable to lie still, Chad got up and powered on Jasmine's computer. She'd told him he was welcome to it. Chad spent the rest of the night searching for Thomas Hopper, the Dorado field, and the Del Mar Corporation.

T
he next day, when Jasmine arose after her late shift, it was noon. By the time she exited the shower some time later, she heard rattling in the kitchen as she dressed hurriedly in street clothes. Jeans, T-shirt, and boots seemed to be her favored attire these days. She'd given up boots long ago, BC. Before Chad.

When she went into the living room she found the tray she'd given him for a late lunch the previous day, reset for two. He'd found a box of macaroni and cheese in her pantry and added some frozen mixed veggies and a can of tuna. He topped off the meal with whole wheat garlic toast, all cooked perfectly. Not bad for an impromptu meal in a strange place. Jasmine was touched and surprised at yet another example of his domesticity and kindness.

Still, she had to make light of it or break into tears. For the first time in a long time, she didn't feel totally alone... “Wow, do I get a flower?”

Chad uncorked the bottle of white wine he'd pilfered from her fridge. He poured a finger into a wine glass, whirled it around, and offered it to her to smell. “Bouquet—a hint of sunflower mixed with woody pieces of oak.”

Jasmine sniffed. “I'm not sure those two go together in the sommelier world.”

“Lady, I'm just making this up as I go. How am I doing?” He poured his own glass.

She laughed at his honesty. “Not bad for a guy from West Texas.”

“Why don't you just say it like everyone else?
Cowboy
.”

Jasmine tilted her head as she studied him. “I have a feeling there's much more to you than that.”

They sat down before the tray and ate. Again, the companionable way they broke bread, he sensing her need for pepper and handing it to her, she picking up his napkin when it slipped to the floor, gave her deeper food for thought. But she'd think about it later; she could never keep her head when he was so close. She debated bringing up the articles she'd found, but hated to spoil their rare amity.

When they finished, she insisted on taking the tray to the kitchen. “You cooked, so it's my turn to wash.”

“That the way your Mama raised you?”

“Yes. In that way, I suspect, we had a similar upbringing.”

When she came back out, Chad was standing at her bookcase holding the only picture she had of her father. She'd ripped it apart, intending to throw it away, but she couldn't bear to and taped it back together, putting it in a beat-up, rickety frame that was almost coming apart, telling herself that's all he deserved.

“I can glue this back together for you if you want.”

She snatched it out of his hands and set it back in the shelf, not needing to see the tall, stern figure in judge's robes because her father was still a living memory to her.

He looked at the patrician bone structure of her face, back to the picture. “You have his chin and cheekbones. It's your father, isn't it?”

“Yes. Why do you think I left Texas?”

He nodded, apparently not surprised. “Whereabouts?”

“Houston. I ran away when I was sixteen.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. Even after ten years, the tears still rose up to choke her and her voice was husky when she said, “He made me have an abortion. He wanted me to live his idea of the perfect debutante daughter, wedding one of the oil and gas heirs of Houston.”

His gaze remained averted, ostensibly scanning her bookcases, but she saw his white knuckles as he gripped the edge of the shelf and knew he was acutely aware of every word.

The story tumbled out then in a way she hadn't shared before, even with Mary. “He didn't approve of my boyfriend. I know now one reason I became so wild was because he was so strict.”

Chad nodded, still not looking at her. “Ponies and kids need a light touch. I had to learn that the hard way myself with Trey.”

She stared at the stern figure. After the abortion, Judge Routh had lifted a hand to slap her for the spiteful things she'd said, but when she shrank away, his hand fell. As soon as he hurried out to his Mercedes and screeched away, she packed one bag, took her mother's jewelry and quilt, and ran before he ever came home. She'd already broken up with her boyfriend, and she was the perfect misfit in her elite private school, so she had no ties to keep her in Houston. It wasn't hard to figure out where to go. Her mother had been born in Huntington Beach and her stories of growing up with a surf board in the golden years of the Golden State had made Jasmine's destination the only easy choice.

California. A new life. In the land of dreamers and misfits. She'd fit right in.

“I'd always thought it would be fun to try my hand at acting, and California was as far away from Texas as I could get.” She kept the remark as light as she could, but he was good at reading between the lines. To her knowledge, her father had never tried to track her down, and she had never called. Texas? It stopped being home to her with the loss of her child. Jasmine started when Chad's big hand took the picture out of her trembling fingers. Only then did Jasmine realize she'd picked up the photo again and had been stroking her father's severe face with a compulsive finger.

She tried to turn away but he was there, his broad chest and strong arms a refuge. She leaned into them, unable to help herself. The tears ran then, for the first time in many years. Tears for the girl she'd lost, the baby who never had a chance at life because of her foolishness, and the father who lost his only child to his own rigid sense of right and wrong.

“At least now I understand why you have a thing against Texas males.”

Jasmine sniffed and pulled away. “Why do you have a thing against strippers?”

Chad hesitated, and then said baldly, “It's wrong to use a man's male instincts against him like a weapon and fleece him in the process.”

She couldn't disagree. On the other hand—“No one forces them to come.”

“Some men, that's all they have. Poor suckers.”

Jasmine had to know. “Had you ever been in a strip club before you came to see me dance?”

“Nope.” He flung himself back on the couch and picked up the remote. She wouldn't allow him to barricade himself behind that male avoidance, especially after he'd been so empathetic to her history.

Compelled despite the risks to all she'd struggled to become, Jasmine knelt in front of him and dared what they might be, together. She put her hands on his knees. Immediately he tensed up. Expecting it? Or longing for it? Was there a difference? They were very alike in this regard, at least, afraid of emotion. Not because they didn't care enough.

Because they cared too much . . . She tugged the remote from his hand and turned off the TV, knowing she was playing with fire but too agitated to let things lie. “Chad, I'm not what you think.”

“You're exactly what I think . . . a gorgeous, sexy woman. And I guess, if I were in your shoes, I might use that, too, to get what I wanted out of life.”

“No, you wouldn't. You'd go hell-bent for leather in one direction. Yours.”

That impossibly strong but sensual male mouth quirked into an appreciative smile. “You are beginning to know me.” When she lightly moved her fingers up his thighs, he caught her hand on its journey and brought it to his mouth, switching the torment of touch given but not fulfilled right back to her. “You want to know why men come to strip clubs? You want to know what we think, what we feel?” Holding her eyes, he brought her fingers to his mouth and sucked them one by one.

Oh God, finally she had a measure of the torment she'd wielded so uncaringly for the last few years since she took up stripping. Was that what men felt and imagined when women gave them a lap dance? The long, moist slide of hardness into softness, warmth into a clutching hold that led to pleasures all the more enticing because they were forbidden. Since she didn't dare jerk away as she longed to, her body took the only protective measures possible; her toes curled inside her boots until they were compressed in the narrow tips and the pain snapped her back to her senses. “Stop it!” She pulled her hand from his mouth.

“You stop it.” He firmly removed her other hand from his thigh and made to rise. “You started it.”

She said, softly this time, “Stop it.”

Under the intensity of her green eyes, he sank back to the couch. “Why?”

“Because we've played games long enough.”

He barked a harsh laugh. “Games? Not hardly. I'm trying to find my brother.”

“If you stopped being so judgmental, so caught in a black-and-white world—” She wondered at the way his long, dark lashes went down like lights-out. “I know you'd see I'm trying to help, not stop, your investigation.”

When he rigidly looked over her shoulder, evading both her and his own feelings, she scooted up on her knees, pushed his legs apart, and scooted between them. She didn't care about the hard lump in his pants, she didn't care about the moistness creeping out from the secret places she seldom heeded, no matter how she used them to pay her bills. In a very strange way she neither understood nor questioned, she only cared about truth. Without that, they had no future and all that had gone between them was a botched symphony: a prelude with no crescendo.

The words came of their own accord. “Stop pretending you hate me, stop pretending I don't affect you, and I'll stop pretending I'm not attracted to you. I'll admit that if not for too many bad relationships, I'd have you pinned to my bed while I tried every weird position I've ever heard of in the
Kama Sutra
. How's that for honesty?”

His gray eyes darkened as they latched on to her passionate face with an intensity she could literally feel. “Stop. Don't take this any further unless you want to go where it leads.”

She was so tempted to test him further, but she felt the tremor in his strong thighs, took the prudent if cowardly path, and leaned back on her heels, outside the vee of his legs.

He swung his legs to the side and stood to put distance between them. Staring at her father's picture on the shelf, he said, his tone going that gravelly texture that betrayed his own stifled emotions, “How did you end up stripping?”

“I couldn't make my bills and when I met Thomas, he suggested it.”

“Of course he did.”

“He's the only reason I've been able to afford law school. I owe a lot to Thomas.”

“And if he's behind Trey's disappearance?”

“Then I'll do all I can to help you bring him to justice.”

He nodded, but she could see he still doubted her. For a minute, she contemplated giving him that matched set of knots on his head that she'd threatened in the hospital. He was under her roof, she'd fed him, doctored him, and gone on a police ride to help him, even committing a possible felony by searching her boss's private office and computer. And still he distrusted her? She debated telling him about the articles but before she could he shut her out. Chad picked up a book to scan it. “I know you have to go to work today, so we'll talk more later.”

He was dismissing her? In her own place? She tried one last time, the knowledge driving her that until he saw her as she really was, a woman on the verge of loving him, doing all she could to help him find his brother, they'd never bridge the gap of distrust between them. “Trey was never my boyfriend! He was only here once. He never left the living room.”

He just looked at her. “How many redheads are there in this town with butterfly tattoos? Who just happen to be strippers? I saw your card at my house, in Trey's car. Trey even told me he loves your scent, the scent of Jasmine—”

“My tattoo is temporary, you know. Thomas suggested it.”

“I bet he did, but that doesn't change the facts. The tattoo implies you're working with him. How much money have you really earned through him?”

With an
ooh!
of frustration, Jasmine hurried into her room and slammed the door to finish getting ready. Or at least that was what she was supposed to be doing. Every nerve in her body felt on fire and she knew she wouldn't be able to lose herself in the dance. Almost without her volition, she saw her hand reach out for her cell phone. After she got a coworker to cover her late shift, she shut off her phone and began to remove her clothes. She debated telling Chad about the newspaper remnants she'd found in Kinnard's hidden drawer, but Riley was on the case now and Chad would just break in to look at them himself, possibly getting into more trouble. Besides, they had more volatile unfinished business first. They'd work together much more effectively once he admitted how much he wanted her. For now, the physical would have to do.

Smiling grimly, she pulled on her favorite bustier and fishnet stockings. She owed him a lap dance, and he owed her the raw honesty of sexual attraction. Men bonded to women through sex. There was no bolder truth they could share as a basis for a real relationship. And she needed it, too. With this step she was banishing her own demons and taking a first step toward going home . . . And somehow, she knew Trey would approve.

When she came back out of her room, she was calm. Contained. He couldn't see what she was wearing beneath the coat, but she had on fishnet stockings. For her act, no doubt. For an instant he felt an urge to cover her in the quilt and lock her in her room. Other men had no right to see her so scantily attired . . . He squelched the primitive male instinct, and told himself she only had him so fired up because of her talk of the
Kama Sutra
and such.

She stopped directly in front of him. “I got someone to cover my shift. I think you shouldn't be left alone. You're kinda in a tizzy, aren't you?”