The Music Box by Cheryl Reavis

Author:Cheryl Reavis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I shouldn’t have said it, he thought yet another time. He sat at his desk and stared at the file cabinet. He never should have told Eden that he liked her. Never. She had only looked at him, and then she went running out into the rain and into his grandmother’s house—where he couldn’t follow. He wouldn’t have told her—maybe—if she hadn’t been so upset with him, if she hadn’t already been thinking the worst of him. She had wanted a reason, and he had given her one.

So much for thinking the worst.

Her low opinion of him before he made his little announcement would be nothing compared to her opinion of him now. And he couldn’t explain anything to her; he couldn’t even explain it to himself. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had told her the truth.

He liked Eden Trevoy.

All the time. And these past few days, he had been a pitiful and miserable human being because of it. She was the only thing on his mind.

What a joke, he thought. The orphaned heiress and the tribal cop. Only he didn’t feel like laughing. Neither would his family, and neither, he suspected, would she.

“Toomey!” Lucas Singer yelled behind him.

“Sir!” he said, startled.

“We’ve got a call about a man with a gun—possible shots fired at cars passing on the road.” Lucas handed him a slip of paper. “Here’s the last reported location. Take Joey Nez with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Toomey said.

“And be careful. And don’t do anything stupid. If you need more backup, you call in.”

“Yes, sir,” he said again.

Joey was already waiting for him in the parking lot, clearly excited by the prospect of something besides doling out speeding tickets.

“I’ll drive,” Joey said hopefully.

“You’ll ride,” Toomey answered.

“I’ll ride,” Joey decided.

“You ever been on anything like this before?” Joey asked as they drove away.

“Yeah,” Toomey said.

“What happened?”

“Captain Becenti—and Lucas—took the gun away from the guy before he killed somebody.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was supposed to take him out if things went bad and they couldn’t do it.”

“Oh,” he said, some of his previous enthusiasm fading. “You think you could do that—shoot a man?”

“If I can’t, I’ve got no business being here.”

They rode for a time in silence.

“Ben?”

“What?” he said, thinking that the last thing he wanted to deal with was Joey Nez with a case of cold feet.

“Is Eden Trevoy your woman?”

Toomey nearly ran off the road. “Whoa! Where did that come from?”

“I stopped her for speeding a couple of days ago. Your grandmother was with her. And she came out to your place the other day, so I thought maybe—”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

“She’s not then?”

“No,” Toomey said grimly. “She’s not.”

“Good. Great. I guess you won’t care if I ask her out then.”

Toomey looked at him. Clearly, Joey Nez didn’t feel any of the constraints he did. Joey didn’t care in the least about the vast difference in his and Eden Trevoy’s backgrounds. Joey simply liked what he saw and he wanted more. Nothing complicated there.

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