Free Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) by Alison Kent

her bed . . .
    She sighed, second-guessing yesterday. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the story to her girlfriends at all, and instead cornered all three members of the Dalton Gang at once, slamming them with a hard-hitting interrogation the way Whitey wanted—even if he hadn’t spelled it out in so many words. She’d known him four years. He didn’t have to.
    Scoops. Exclusives. Bombshells. She was supposed to drop explosive questions into her interviews, giving no advance warning, then watch the shrapnel fly. It was her job to knock the three members of the Dalton Gang off balance, to bleed their secrets onto the page. Collateral damage was nothing. No details were off-limits, no matter how revealing, how hurtful.
    Her arms crossed on her kitchen table, her chin braced on her stacked hands, she stared unblinking at the cordless handset of her house phone. It stood on end between the bottle of CapRock Roussanne she’d just opened and the glass of the same she’d just poured. She hated what passed for news these days: the sensationalism, the exposés, the absolute lack of respect for privacy as long as the story was served.
    Even before the last straw with Toby, which had cast an unwanted limelight on her, she’d decided she was done with anything that smacked of tabloid journalism. That sort of reporting had its place: selling papers, gaining viewers, giving a public hungry for celebrity news what they wanted. But having her own life pried into had shown her what happened on the other side of the camera or pen.
    She wouldn’t do that to the Dalton Gang. She wouldn’t have done it even before yesterday morning with Boone. Not to say yesterday morning wasn’t going to make keeping the story impersonal a challenge, but at least she didn’t have to worry about his feelings, or hers, since their encounter had been purely sexual, no emotions involved, no promises given, no future plans made.
    Still, she did have her assignment, and spending Saturday night home alone drinking wine was not going to get it done. She’d just picked up her phone to dial again, staring at the dark display, when the screen lit up and it rang. Boone’s number, but he wouldn’t know who he was calling.
    “Hello?”
    She answered, then listened to him grumble and curse in the background while her voice registered. “I’ve got fourteen missed calls from your number. I was about to tear whoever’d been harassing me with hang-ups a new one.”
    She cringed. Hard to blame him. “Sorry. I didn’t want to leave a message. I kept hoping I’d catch you.”
    “You’ve been calling the house off and on all afternoon. Why would you expect to catch me here?”
    “Because I’m an ignorant city slicker who thought you might take off early on Saturday?”
    He snorted. “You might be a city slicker, but you’re not ignorant, and you’ve lived in Crow Hill long enough to know weekends mean nothing to ranchers.”
    He had her there. “I should’ve left a message. I just wasn’t sure you’d get it.”
    “Now that’s a legitimate cause for concern because I’m not always one to check.”
    Hearing him drawl out the words
legitimate cause
brought a smile to her face, and she pulled her wineglass closer. “What made you check now?”
    “I always look at the incoming log in case my dad’s called. He never leaves a message either.” He paused, and she heard the banging of cabinet doors, the clanging of pots and pans, cutlery. “Why do you people do that? Or not do that, I guess, is the question.”
    “Usually, I do.” She ran the flat of her index finger over the base of her glass. “But like I said, I wanted to catch you and didn’t want to sweat out the wait, wondering if you’d gotten the message.” She paused, picked up her glass, took a sip. “Or if you’d call me back.”
    Another snort hit her ear. Then an even louder banging sound as if he’d slammed a skillet onto the stove. “You thought after yesterday morning I