Read Online Fatal Divide by Jamie Jeffries - Free Book Online Page A

and ask if she should run the announcement before the final layout went to press.
    She looked at the clock again, just as her dad emerged from his office.
    “Go on home,” he said. “You’ve done enough for today. Great job this week, kiddo.”
    Kiddo was better than Baby Girl, but she wasn’t sure she appreciated the new nickname. Dad had called her that since she was, in actuality, a baby girl, and now Jen had taken it up, too, along with Nana and Dad’s sister, Aunt Jess. It spiked her adrenaline every time she heard it, so maybe ‘kiddo’ was better.
    “Thanks, Dad, but I’m expecting Dylan any minute. He said he’d see me here.”
    “Suit yourself. Hey, see if you can get more out of him about this thing at the park. I’m uneasy about it.”
    Alex understood the feeling. She was uneasy, too, and she knew more than her dad did. Waiting for the other shoe to drop on Dylan, or on Wanda, wasn’t her idea of a good time. Dylan had said he was going to tell Thurston about his dealings with Alvarez yesterday, and it worried her that he hadn’t sent her a text about how it went. If she didn’t think it would give Kevin ideas, she would call the sheriff’s office and ask if Dylan were being held there.
    Just before she began to chew her fingernails with anxiety, Alex was relieved to see Dylan walk through the door. He’d been home first, since he was in jeans and a tight t-shirt that made her draw in her breath sharply. Good lord, did the man have no idea of his effect on her? Or on other women, for that matter? The second thought made her scowl, and he stopped coming toward her, his brows pulled together and his head tilted.
    “Alex? Is something wrong?”
    She gave herself a shake and looked at her dad’s office door to be sure it was closed. “No, but if you value your life, don’t let any other woman see you in that shirt.”
    Dylan grinned and came closer, standing in her personal space without actually touching her. “You like what you see?”
    She pushed him back, her hand flat against his hard chest. “You know it, you jerk. Go home and put some clothes on, before I jump you right here.”
    Dylan threw his head back and laughed, bringing Paul out of the office to see what was so funny. He looked from Dylan, who was still standing close to Alex, to his daughter, and raised his eyebrows. “No sex in the office, kiddo,” he said.
    She immediately turned bright red and threw up her hands. “I can’t win with you two. What happened to the caveman dad I used to have?” She dived under her desk to retrieve her bag and hide, while her dad and her boyfriend shared a chuckle at her expense.
    They’d come a long way from that night when Dad held a loaded shotgun at Dylan’s bare chest and ordered him never to set foot in their house again. Today’s interruption and her reference to that other time had cooled her off for now, but she still wanted Dylan either dressed differently or out of her sight.
    “Ready to go, Lexi?” Dylan asked. Was he deliberately trying to get under her skin? She needed to get him out of the office and somewhere private, where she could remind him that they were supposed to be taking it slow. He didn’t seem very cooperative as she physically turned him around and pushed him toward the front door. “I’ll see you at dinner, Dad,” she called.
    “No you won’t. I’m going to the Rattler. Don’t fix anything for me.”
    Alex almost stopped and went in to make sure it really was her dad in there. What was going on with him? But Dylan had taken her hand and was pulling her out the door. “Come on, baby, that gives us more time, and I need to talk to you.” She turned her attention back to Dylan.
    “Where do you want to go?”
    “Can we go to your house? This can’t be overheard.”
    Moments later, they walked in the front door of Paul Ward’s adobe-walled home, built sometime in the fifties by his dad, before the accident took his life. It was a strange mix of the