Adrienne Giordano - The Marshal

In front of his mother’s house no less. Helluva thing.

She slid into the car and the interior light illuminated her face and the grin that—wait for it—would cause the punch to his chest. Jenna Hayward was beautiful, but she wasn’t one of those everyday beautiful women you could find anywhere you looked. On sight, she took a man’s legs out from under him. Bam!

He leaned in to get a whiff of her perfume, something floral but light. Not allergy inducing. Thank you. Once again, his eyes went to that extra undone button on her blouse and the lush skin under it. He caught a glimpse of lace and swore under his breath. “Okay, Miss Illinois, cut the wisecracks.”

She straightened up. “Miss Illinois?”

“You think I’m going to let you anywhere near my mother’s case without checking you out?”

* * *

HE KNEW. Not that it was some big secret, but she didn’t necessarily flaunt her beauty queen background. In her line of work, it didn’t gain her anything. All she knew was that at the age of twenty-one, after years of working the pageant circuit, years of hearing her mother coo over how beautiful her daughter was, and the resulting pressure of it all, she’d had enough. Enough of the dieting, enough of having to look a certain way at all times, enough of the show. She simply wanted to be Jenna. A pretty girl who liked to eat cake and pester her detective father with questions about cases.

Playing along, she scissored Brent’s silky tie between two fingers. Nice tie. Nice man. Nice everything. And she so adored the way he interacted with his family. Teasing, but firm and loving when they tried to give him any nonsense.

“My pageant days aren’t classified information. All you have to do is check Google. And, by the way, you failed. I didn’t win. I was the runner-up.”

His lips lifted slightly as he watched her play with his tie. “I didn’t fail. I knew that, but decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. Those judges were either blind or stupid. I’m guessing beauty contest judges need eyesight, so that leaves stupid.”

Did that just send a hot flash raging? This was their problem. That connection, that heat she couldn’t ignore. “Marshal Thompson, are you flirting with me?”

“Nope. Calling it like I see it.”

She flicked away the tie. “I was fifteen pounds lighter then.”

Where did that come from? Sure, her brothers liked to taunt her about packing on a few pounds, but her pageant weight was impossible to maintain. And Jenna had a thing for food. In that she liked it.

“Yet another tragedy,” Brent said.

“What?”

“That you were fifteen pounds lighter.”

In the lit interior of the car, she studied his face. Looking for the tell that he was charming her into possibly removing her clothes. Which, if he kept talking like that, just might happen. Without a doubt, every one of her brain cells must have evaporated. Only explanation for this attack of flightiness.

“You don’t like skinny women?”

“Brent?” his aunt called from the front of the house. “Everything okay?”

He backed away and straightened. “We’re good! Seat belt jammed.”

He shut the door, came around the driver’s side, hopped in and fired the engine. “If we stay here, she’ll be all over us.”

Jenna waited. Would he answer her about the skinny women thing? Part of her wanted to know. The other part wanted to run. Although the extra fifteen pounds had only brought her to a size eight, it still bothered her. Made her wonder what men saw when they looked at the ex-beauty queen whose body had gone fluffy.

At the road, Brent hit the gas and the car tore through the blackness of the country road, the only sound being the radio on low volume. Tim McGraw maybe, but Jenna couldn’t tell. She was more of a pop music girl.

“No,” Brent said.

“No what?”

“I don’t like skinny women. And it’s a damned shame you think you looked better fifteen pounds lighter because, honey, you’re wrong.”

Oh, she might like where this conversation was heading. “I don’t think I looked better.”

“Liar.”

“Hey!”

“Just admit it and be done with it. I saw your picture—nice gown by the way—and I can promise you, from a completely male perspective, you looked like a bean pole back then. A guy my size would break that girl in half.”

“Did you somehow get drunk when you were outside with your family?”

He smiled at that and she liked the sight of it.

“Calling it like I see it,” he said again.

“Well, thank you, I suppose. For the compliment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“It never hurts to hear someone appreciates your looks.”

For a quick second, he turned and the dashboard glow lit his face as he helped himself to a look at her body. “I definitely appreciate your looks. I’d imagine most men do. I think you know that.”

The side of his mouth quirked again—all male and sexy and devilish—and my, oh, my, Jenna’s stomach did a flip. “You’re flirting with me.”

“I might be.”

“Is that wise?”

He laughed. “Probably not. But as I recall, you do your share of flirting.”

She shifted sideways in her seat and the belt scraped the side of her neck. Darn it, that’d leave a mark. Forget it. She needed a snappy comeback, but the big ox was right. Her flirting wasn’t personal, though. What? How insane would she sound if she said that? When she flirted, she did it to get somewhere, to make progress. Flirting for her had become a tactic. A strategic tool in her arsenal.

“We’re adults,” she said. “Let’s just throw it out there that there’s chemistry between us. Or am I totally wrong?”

Sounding a little desperate here, Jenna. What was it with her? Always needing the ego boost. Always needing approval. Blame it on her years of being judged in contests and her failure to get into the FBI, but she couldn’t get through the day without wondering what people thought of her.

“You’re not wrong.”

“About the chemistry, or flirting not being wise?”

“Both.”

She sighed, turned to the front again. “I need to do a good job on this, Brent. It’s important to me.”

“News flash, honey, it’s important to me, too. If you don’t want me flirting with you, I won’t flirt, but you set that tone the second I met you in the hallway outside Penny’s office last spring. Make up your mind what you want from me, Jenna. If you want this all business, it’ll be all business. It can’t be both ways. You decide.”

This man could have grown up in her household. So direct and strong and honest. “I want to do a good job for you. For your mom. She deserves that.”

“Yes, she does.”

“I like flirting with you. For once, it’s not a prop. It’s fun and you have a great smile that I don’t think you show enough. It makes me feel good that I can get you to smile.”

And again, it all rolled around to what made her feel good. Pathetic. She waved her hands and looked out the window. “No flirting.”

“Fine. No flirting. And yeah, you get me to smile, and that doesn’t happen a lot.”

So much for no flirting.

“There’s one thing I want to know.”

“What’s that?”

He glanced at her. “I’m not being a jerk here, I’m seriously curious.”

“I’ve been warned. Ask away.”

“How does someone go from being the runner-up in the Miss Illinois pageant to being a private investigator? And, again, I’m not being a jerk.”

“I don’t mind. People have asked me this question a million times. My father is a career detective. I’ve always been fascinated by what he does. I’d sit and ask him questions. Two of my four brothers are also cops and will probably make detective. I guess you could say we played a lot of real-life Clue when I was little.”