One Good Man Read Free Page A

wasn’t a bad one, but Kell liked his better. He was here to put an end to any and all threats this case still posed to her as the only witness to the Sonora Nites Diner murders. He just needed Jamie to hear him out, and then to go along with his proposal. Now that he saw her as more than a name in a file, he figured he was in for a fight. She might be rattled, but she was not down for the count.
    Without looking toward them, Jamie spoke to the women standing behind her. “Can you two manage the patients and the doctor and the phones for a while?”
    At her question, they both nodded, the blonde adding, “They invented voice mail for a reason, Jamie. We’ll be fine. Go.”
    “And don’t worry if you can’t get back. It’s a short appointment day anyway. We can handle the afternoon on our own.” This from the darker woman.
    Jamie took them at their word, folding the newspaper into her purse hanging from her shoulder, then reaching for her coffee and what Kell assumed was her breakfast in a brown paper bag.
    He followed as she headed for the front door, catching it once she’d shoved at the glass, and returning his hat to his head, his sunglasses to his face, as he stepped onto the front walk behind her.
    She held up one hand to shade her eyes, looking first at his four-wheel-drive SUV, then off down the block. “Can you leave your truck here? And take a walk?”
    He could. “How far?”
    “The Cantus have a covered deck with picnic tables at their market. Have you had breakfast? Juan makes awesome burritos.”
    Kell had poured himself a cup of coffee for the road when he’d left Midland before dawn, but that was it. “A burrito sounds great.”
    Jamie set off toward the sidewalk. Kell fell into step at her side. He was six foot one; he judged her to be about five foot eight and a whole lot of that height to be leg. She matched him step for step as they silently hit the end of one block and crossed the street to the next.
    From behind the sunglasses he wore, he studied her. Her determination—she never faltered. Her focus—she trained it ahead, but that didn’t keep her from paying attention to movement on all sides.
    She was sharp, aware. She wasn’t going to fall apart at the first sign of trouble. No, if Kell was going to have trouble with this case, it would no doubt have to do with the way she filled out the flower-pink bottoms of her scrubs.
    He’d always been an ass man, and he’d never seen a tighter one than Jamie Danby’s. Combine that with the rest of what she had going for her, and it was going to take a whole lot of discipline to keep his eye on the prize.
    He pulled his lingering gaze away, catching the quirk of her mouth as they crossed one last intersection into the parking lot of the Cantu Corner Store. She didn’t admit to knowing he’d had his eye on her backside, but then she didn’t have to. That wicked half grin was her tell.
    They stepped up onto the raised cedar deck; he let her take the lead and choose the table farthest from both the store and the street. She left her coffee and her bag behind and went inside. Again, that kind of town. One where she didn’t have to worry about purse snatchers or identity theft.
    Instead, she had to worry about a killer following the media coverage of his handiwork discovering who and where she was and hunting her down.
    While Jamie heated what turned out to be a muffin in the small store’s community microwave, Kell ordered two breakfast burritos and doctored a large coffee as they were being made. Once he and Jamie were back outside and settled at their table—and out of earshot of the curious onlookers inside the store—Jamie pounced.
    “You’re here because finding Kass’s body reminded you that there’s still a killer out there. Is that right?”
    Kell stopped with his first burrito halfway to his mouth. “I’ve never forgotten there’s a killer out there. Not once in ten years.”
    She met his gaze, hers not so much disbelieving