LITMIR.BIZ

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and when that not-gonna-happen happens, I’ll make sure you remember.”

      After she closed her gaping mouth, she recovered nicely. “Stop talking.”

      Ryder did a zip swipe across his lips. But he wished they could go on a real date. Wished it and then dismissed it.

      Two hours later, Emma woke up to find Ryder still in the recliner, watching over her.

      Even though he wouldn’t let her have a cheeseburger, he looked just as yummy as ever, sitting there with his long, jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him and his shirt sleeves rolled up to show off his tanned, hair-dusted forearms.

      “Hello, sunshine,” he said, his voice husky. “How are you feeling?”

      “Like I’m under house arrest.”

      “That bad, huh? What can I do to help?”

      That was a loaded question, considering his sleepy, husky voice and that silky, curly hair. But she thought long and hard on how to answer it.

      “Tell me that long story about you,” she said, wanting to fill her mind with details. Wanting to remember what she needed to find. “I want to hear about your life. Maybe not thinking about mine will help me relax.”

      “It’s not that exciting,” he said, after taking a sip of soda from a can the nurse must have brought him. “Grew up on a ranch that’s been around since Custer’s last stand and pretty much farmed and worked the land until I became a cop. Crops, livestock, including cattle and horses, the usual Texas overkill.”

      “And you loved it, right?”

      “I did. I do. I still live there. I sleep in town a lot at headquarters but I get back to the Palace as often as I can.”

      “The Palace?” She snorted a laugh. “Think highly of ourselves, do we?”

      “Someone named it that long ago and it stuck. It’s always been the Palladin Ranch. Big and bold, but we ain’t fancy. Just my mother and my younger sister and me. We lost my dad a few years ago, but they still live in the main house. I have a cabin around the bend from them.”

      “I’m sorry about your dad,” she said, meaning it.

      “Yeah, me, too.” He shrugged. “I went into law enforcement because of him. Because of what happened to him.”

      Noting the darkness following that statement, she asked, “What did happen...with your dad?”

      Thinking a heart attack or stroke, she was shocked when he took a breath and told her the truth. “He was a sheriff. All my life, he was larger than life. Off duty one night and stopped to get gas. Robbed and his truck taken. He tried to stop them but they shot him. He died at the scene.”

      Emma put a hand to her mouth. “Ryder, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

      “It’s okay,” he said, his smile full of regret. “They caught the man who did it. A career criminal. Won’t see life on the streets for a long time.”

      “Good.”

      “I always wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I joined the police academy. I wanted to stop the hard-core criminals.”

      “You mean the ones like your father’s killer?”

      “Yep.”

      “So you asked to work Vice?”

      “Yep.”

      He’d told her more than he’d wanted to tell.

      Emma wanted to know more, but his gaze shouted to let it go. “Where is this palatial ranch?”

      “Northwest of Fort Worth between Lake Worth and Denton.”

      She stopped teasing. “I know Denton. I remember Denton.”

      “You’ll figure all of this out soon.”

      “I hope.” She noticed he didn’t like to talk in specifics. Because somewhere between Lake Worth and Denton could mean many out-of-the-way places.

      Having him near had helped her take her mind off things, but having him near also meant she was still in the thick of this mess. “What do we do now?”

      “We wait out the night and see if you remember anything else. Maybe the doc will spring you tomorrow.”

      She sat up, a slight throb moving through her temple. “Ryder, when someone is missing, we both know the first few hours are critical. And I’ve already wasted close to forty-eight hours in here.”

      “Did you remember something?”

      “No, I didn’t remember precisely but...I have this urgency in my gut and it’s telling me I need to get back out there. I have good instincts. I know that somehow.”

      “You can’t do anything right now regarding what we might find out there.” He checked his watch, then pulled out his cell. “I had one of the techs do a search for any underage teens reported missing in the last week. I’ll put a fire under him and see if he’s found any names.”

      Emma sat watching him work. He had a way about him—smooth, in control, calm—that got other people moving. She’d heard him passing insults with his partner, but the mirth in both their eyes told her they trusted and depended on each other.

      Would they help her? Really help her? Or were they using this as part of their sting operation? More evidence against the lowlifes who hung around the Triple B?

      She’d also heard his partner questioning Ryder about watching out for her. As in, he didn’t get too close to his subjects or his suspects?

      Was he getting close to her, or staying close to her in hopes of finding out what she knew?

      Hard to say. Emma closed her eyes and tried to picture her life coming back together, not in puzzle pieces that moved through her head and made it ache all over again. She needed the pieces to fit and make sense.

      But nothing more came to the surface.

       I’m Emma Langston. I’m a private investigator from Galveston. I have no idea why I’m here. Why? Why did I go to that bar? Who am I looking for?

      And why did Bounce and Ounce try to kill her?

      Ryder closed his phone. “We have several names and photos of missing teens. This is just in the last week or so. Want to look at them?”

      She swallowed, nodded, feared the worst. “Yes.”

      But after looking at the photos that came through on his phone and reading the names of the five missing teens—three girls and two boys—in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Emma fell back against her pillow and closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them to stare over at Ryder.

      “I don’t recognize any of them. And the names don’t ring a bell. What if one of them is the one I’m trying to find, Ryder?”

      “People are already on these cases,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t hire you.”

      She went cold inside. “What if the parents haven’t listed the teen as missing yet? What if they thought I’d find their child right away?”

      “No parent would do that,” he reminded her. “They call the locals right away.”

      “And if that didn’t work?”

      “They’d call you,” he admitted. “Maybe they called you and the locals don’t know that.”

      “That would mean the parents have to be frantic by now.”

      He put down his phone. “You look tired, and you won’t be able to focus if you don’t heal. So rest, Emma. Just lie back and go to sleep.”

      “I can’t sleep.”

      “Try.”

      “Has

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