“With Deidre Jones? She told me a vet had joined the group.”

“I didn’t realize you knew Deidre.”

“She works with my brother at the Nashville Police Department. We cross paths occasionally. How’s the running going?”

“I’m the slowest in the group. And that’s not false modesty. It’s the truth.”

“Tortoise and the hare. Stick with it.”

“Maybe.” She sipped her beer. “You don’t seem to have a lot of friends at Rudy’s.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I investigate cops. Doesn’t win me many points with the rank and file.”

She traced the rim of her cup. Ah, that explained the man’s comment in the bar. “Does that bother you?”

“No.”

His attention shifted to her palm and the scar slashing across it. She closed her fingers, resisting the urge to explain. Whatever she told him would be a lie. She never told the truth about her past, which still shamed her. How could she explain that she was a smart woman who had stayed with an abusive and, ultimately, murderous man? The less said, the better.

“Seems they’d want to weed out the bad apples.”

Alex’s expression didn’t change, but somewhere inside him she thought she saw a door close and lock. “You would think.”

They both hid behind walls. Guarded secrets. Good. You leave mine alone, and I won’t dig into yours. “So, we’re two very simple people.”

The corner of his lip tipped into that grin. The ice melted for a moment, and that unfamiliar pull of desire flowered again. Some would have embraced it. Leah likened desire to a tiger’s dangerous beauty.

“I think we’re two people who’re fairly bad at dating and don’t like to talk about ourselves,” Alex said.

His directness charmed her. And that scared her. Being charmed led to liking, which led to desire, which equaled vulnerability. Her nerves stretched tighter and tighter. “Then why’re we here?”

A shrug. “I was curious about you. And Tracker likes you. He’s a good judge of character.”

Secrets, sadness, and shame banged on the wall so carefully built. She sipped her beer, which now tasted flat and lifeless. “Ah.”

“So what about you?”

“I’m fairly straightforward. Raised in Nashville. Both my parents have passed. Got my vet degree in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee. Enjoying the single life.”

He leaned forward, as if a bullshit meter had clanged in his head. “How did you get the scars on your hands?”

Cut to the chase. This guy didn’t waste time or mince words. No need to look down to see the deep slashes that crossed both palms. “Are you this nosy on most first dates?”

“No.” No apology. “They look like defensive wounds.”

“Nothing so dramatic,” she lied.

No adult had ever asked about the scars on her palms, or the ones on her arms. They might have stared, but they hadn’t asked. Once a little girl in a grocery store had asked her about them. She’d looked as if she’d believed in fairy tales, Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy. Monsters under her bed could be chased away with a mother’s kiss. Leah couldn’t bring herself to tell the girl real monsters walked among them. “It was an accident.”

“Okay.” Alex tapped a finger on the table, as if forcing back more questions that, eventually, he’d ask. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She kept her hand on her beer glass, refusing to tuck it in her lap. “I’m not upset.”

“You’re pale now.”

She moistened her lips. “Just been a long day.”

“It’s my job to be nosy.” That smile appeared again. “Sometimes it’s hard to shut off.”

“No worries.”

Alex Morgan was the kind of guy who’d unearth all her carefully buried secrets. And when he did, what would he think of her? What kind of woman, what kind of fool, would willingly lay down with a monster? The idea that he’d see her as less or weak scraped the underside of her scars.

Her phone buzzed, startling her. With a grateful heart she dug her phone from her purse and read the message. “It’s from my clinic. I’ve got to go by the kennel to check on one of the dogs.”

Alex looked more curious and disappointed. If his job was to sniff out lies, then he surely knew this was no fib. Their clinic took emergency calls, and this was her night on call. “You can’t eat first?”

“No.” She gathered her coat, anxious to step into the cold and slide behind the wheel of her car.

He tossed a couple of twenties on the table and rose. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

She gathered up her purse and coat. “You don’t have to. I’m right across the street.”

“I’ll walk you.” He helped her on with her coat, opened the front door, and waited for her to pass through before allowing it to swing closed behind them. Across the street, the door to Rudy’s opened and closed. In a rush of music and flashing light, Deidre and her date sauntered out arm in arm.

Leah envied the couple’s easy manner. Her back stiff, she started toward her car, her pace brisk as she fished her keys from her pocket and pushed the unlock button on the key fob. She opened the door, and he lingered back an extra half step. For a tense moment she thought he might kiss her. Normal women on first dates kissed their dates, right? A kiss, a touch, vulnerability, pain, and death.

Alex held back a couple of steps. He watched her. Seemed to see fear and accept it as a fact to be filed away under Leah Carson. “Drive safe.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’ve been a real lousy date, Alex. I’m sorry. I’m way out of practice.”

A small shrug. “No worries, Leah. See you soon?”

“You don’t have to check up on Tracker every day.”

“But I will.” The patience humming under his tone coaxed her out of her shell a little further. “You want to go out with me again?”

Fear hovered around her like a ghost. Stay behind the walls. But something she could not put into words challenged her to reach for more. Elbowing aside gnawing butterflies, she nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Great. We’ll figure it out.”

“Perfect.” She drove off, wondering if she’d lost her mind, all the while daring herself not to look in the rearview mirror, knowing he was watching.

He sat and watched as his wife stood by her car and spoke to her date. The guy had dark hair and a trim build. A gust of wind had caught, blown back his jacket, and for a split second, the edge of a gun resting on his hip caught the moonlight before the guy tugged the coat’s edge back into place.

This man was not a beat cop like he’d been. He had the look of a detective. “Moving up in the world, babe. The uniform isn’t good enough for you anymore.”

Embers of rage, always warm and glowing, flared and flickered into a hot flame. His wife and the guy lingered, staring at each other. A smile flashed on her face, and he knew they’d be seeing each other again.

“She’s my wife, dick.”

This close he could see dick’s face. Keen interest sharpened the man’s gaze. No doubt he was thinking about getting into his wife’s pants.

Irritated, he tore his gaze away and focused on the mission. He studied the text he’d just sent Leah: EMERGENCY AT THE CLINIC. CAN YOU COME INTO WORK?

“I might be a regular cop, but I found her number and I’m going to win this chess game, dick.”

She slid into the front seat, started the engine, and rolled down her window. She glanced up, smiling, nodding, and drove off. Dick got into his car and drove off.

He started his truck and shifted into first gear. Slowly, he turned onto Broadway and followed it until it branched right and turned into West End Avenue.

The drive back to his wife’s town house took ten minutes, but of course he knew the way. He’d been watching the house since he’d arrived in Nashville a week before. Many a night in the last couple of weeks, he’d sat in the parking lot across the street and watched her town house. He’d gotten to know all her new habits.