in his territory. He figured the Feds could use some help.”
“So if you hadn’t shown up, I’d have been turned into a squeaky toy by this weekend. Which I guess means I shouldn’t hold a grudge about the undercover thing.”
He shrugged.
It was nearly midnight. Her eyes were heavy and her speech had started to slur around the edges. He knew he needed to get her back to the motel, let her get some rest, but he didn’t want to quit talking quite yet.
That was something else she did to him. He didn’t normally enjoy talking a long time with females, fae or not.
She was staring off into the distance, and he was wondering if she was about to fall over, when she said suddenly, “I hope they kill Wayne.”
“They will. Probably already have.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that to me. I knew he didn’t love me—he treated me like shit—but to set me up with that…” She shuddered. “And his own mother ? I mean, as nasty as he was, I still wouldn’t have— Wait. What about Jasper? You think Jasper’s dead too?”
“Yep.”
She nodded to herself. “Yeah, I bet he is. Jasper just cooked the stuff. Anyone can do that. Actually, anyone could do what Wayne did too. They wouldn’t really need him.”
“What did your grandmother do?”
“All the business stuff—where to sell it, how to move it, how much to charge, all that. Wayne managed the dealers and beat up the people who didn’t pay. He and Grandma fought all the time.”
“About what?”
“Everything. He hated the way she controlled the business, and she didn’t like the way he blew money on sinful stuff.” She grinned tipsily. “Because dealing meth is business, but gamblin’ and drinkin’ and runnin’ ’round with Shreveport hookers—that’s bad.”
“ I can’t believe your grandmother did the whole church and bake sale thing, then went home and ran the biggest meth op in the ArkLaTex area.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live in a real small town. People are good at ignoring what they don’t want to know about.” She took another long swig of beer. “It’s like…you have to see the same handful of people every day of your life, so everyone just instinctively agrees to pretend everything is the way they want it to be, and no one really talks about it. I mean, it’s not like everybody didn’t know my grandmother was the Redneck Drug Queen of East Texas.”
He choked on his beer, and she laughed too.
“Seriously. There’s no way anyone didn’t know what Jasper was doing back in those woods. But Grandma taught Sunday School for sixty years and no one would dream of talking bad about sweet old Mrs. Hedges. I think if anyone ever said ‘Hey, y’all ever notice Miss Helen’s boy is running a meth lab down by the lake?’ all their heads would’ve exploded.”
He laughed again. “Shit. I’m glad I grew up in the big city.”
“Yeah, well, I think I might like living in one.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe. Marshall was one thing, but Houston, God…”
He squeezed her hand. “Hey. It’s gonna be fine. You can stay at my place for as long as you need. And I promise, Monday morning, I’ll make some phone calls and we’ll get your car towed down to my place.”
“Seriously? Do you think I’ll be able to drive in Houston? I keep thinking about the freeways, and all those cars, and it scares me.”
“Don’t even worry about it. I’ll teach you the freeways. You’re plenty tough enough.”
“I don’t know about that.” A big yawn overtook her before she had a chance to cover her mouth.
“Come on, tough girl. Time for bed.”
Chapter Five
Sara had confessed she was afraid to stay by herself, so he’d gotten a room with two double beds.
Just last night, they’d been all over each other. Just a few minutes ago, at the diner, they’d started connecting again. But as soon as they were back at the motel, with the two double beds dominating the room, they were instantly