Free Blame It on Texas by Christie Craig Page A

could have convicted someone for something they didn’t do. He’d been a cop, and it sounded like the whole police force had turned their backs on him and his two partners.
    As soon as Tyler had left, Zoe got on Dixie’s computer and downloaded all the files she could find about Tyler Lopez and his case. Hey, he’d Googled her, so it was only fair. Only difference was, she wasn’t laughing at what she read. Just the opposite—her heart hurt for the man.
    She reached for a carrot and dipped it in dressing. “Seriously. I hope he sued the state.” Her cat meowed at her feet as if certain Zoe had been talking to him. And hey, it was probably better than the idea of her rambling on to herself.
    The feline leaped up onto the table, something that he seldom did. “Can you believe that even after all that, he’sstill a nice guy?” She munched on the carrot and watched Lucky poke his face into the dressing.
    He yanked his orange face back, squinted his one eye, and stuck his tongue half out, making a comment about what he thought of her menu.
    She grinned and gave him a scratch behind his bobbed ear. “I told you it wasn’t ice cream.” Lucky moved in, sniffed her half-eaten carrot, and then rubbed his face against her cheek. “I’ll share if you really want it.” She sighed and leaned into his soft affection. Considering he was all she had, she treated him more like a family member than a pet. Perhaps it wasn’t completely emotionally healthy, but she suspected she wasn’t the only person in the world whose pets were their best friends. Besides, how could she not love such a brave little fighter?
    When she’d seen the news about the kitten that had been trapped in a burning building, and was severely burned but refused to die, she’d been one of about ten cat lovers who’d showed up at the vet offering to help pay his vet bills.
    Within a year, Zoe had lost her mother, her boyfriend, and her twenty-one-year-old cat Henry, and had discovered her birth certificate, causing her to question everything she knew about herself and her parents. The kitten’s spirit had been just what Zoe needed to focus on. And after visiting the cat almost three times a week for two months, Dr. Shoemaker had asked her if she wanted to take Lucky, a name given to the kitten by local press, home. Zoe had jumped at the offer. She’d been lucky to get Lucky.
    “I have one more article to look at and I’ll get your paté,” she told the feline as she dipped her carrot into the dressing again.
    The last article had a picture of Tyler. His warm brown eyes stared from the computer screen, and Zoe remembered how her heart had taken flight when she’d shaken his hand. The crazy thing was that she actually thought she’d seen some of the same feeling in his expression. Not that anything could ever come of it.
    She had a microwave waiting for her in Alabama.
    Her heart did a small lurch when her cell phone rang. She couldn’t help but think that it might be Tyler. Then again, he’d said it would be Monday or Tuesday. Still she didn’t waste any time answering the call.
    “Hello?” Something akin to giddiness sounded in her voice.
    Silence reigned for a moment, and then…
    “Let me spell it out for you,” a gravelly voice said. “Leave town now or die, bitch!”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    T YLER HELPED CART OUT the larger pieces of furniture to the moving van. While everyone joked and laughed, his mind stayed on Zoe Adams. And not just on how sexy she looked, or how he’d been so damn eager to make her smile. He started listing questions in his head about her possible case. Was someone really threatening her to force her to leave town? Why? Was it someone in the Bradford family who didn’t want to share the old man’s inheritance? Or did the threat stem from someone who was involved with the kidnapping?
    Then came the big question. If the girl they found dead all those years ago wasn’t Caroline Bradford, who was she? Had the same person