Free All I Need Is You by Johanna Lindsey Page B

boardinghouse on the edge of town, the cheapest accommodations to be found. The slovenly owner steered Damian to the first door upstairs. He was worried that his weight was going to cave a few of the steps in, they creaked so loudly on his way up. And there was no answer to his knock. Surprisingly, the door was open, so he stepped inside to wait.
    Damian wasn’t expecting the kid to be there at that point, yet he was. He came out of a tiny, closetlike bathroom rubbing a towel to the side of his head, having just washed his hair—which was undoubtedly why he hadn’t heard the knock. The poncho had been removed. It was the first time Damian had seen him without it.
    For a boy of around fifteen or sixteen years, the kid was skinnier than Damian had thought, with very narrow shoulders. The too-big-for-him, white cotton shirt was tucked into his jeans, showing a waist small enough to be envied by most females. Even his feet were small and delicate-looking, noticeable without his moccasins on.
    Actually, cleaned up as he was now, Casey looked damn near like a girl, and a pretty one at that. Perhaps Damian would have been doing him a favor to have landed that punch the other day. A permanently disfigured nose would have detracted a bit from that prettiness.
    The boy went perfectly still, except for the narrowing of those golden brown eyes, when he noticed Damian by the bed. “How the hell did you get in here?”
    “The door wasn’t locked.”
    “Did it have a sign on it that said ‘Walk Right In’?” Casey replied sarcastically as he draped the towel around his neck to hang down his chest, keeping a grasp on each end. “Or have you taken to breaking into other people’s rooms now, Damian?”
    Damian flushed. “The woman downstairs said you were in. When you didn’t answer my knock—I was just making sure you were all right.”
    “I’m fine. But I’ll be even better—just as soon as you leave.”
    “That isn’t very hospitable, Casey.”
    “Sure it is. At least I’m not shooting you.”
    Damian smiled. He couldn’t help it. Casey, disgruntled, was worse than a pouting female.
    “I’d like to apologize for my behavior the other morning. I’ll admit, my anger got out of hand.”
    “I noticed.”
    “It won’t happen again,” Damian assured him.
    Casey shrugged. “It don’t make me no nevermind if you fly off the handle. I won’t be around to see it. Now you’ve apologized. I’ll restrain myself from doing the same. The door is behind you.”
    Damian sighed. The kid was not making this easy. And he’d switched to his inscrutable expression, the one that hid his emotions so effectively, and had caused Damian more than a little nervousness on several occasions. This wasn’t one of those times, though, since the kid was presently unarmed, his gun and holster hanging over the back of the only chair, which was on Damian’s side of the room.
    “Before I leave, I have a proposal to make to you,” Damian said.
    “I’m not interested.”
    “It will be worth your while to at least hear me out before you decline the offer.”
    “Now just how do you figure that, when I said I’m not interested?”
    Damian ignored that comment. “I’d like to hire you to help me find a murderer.”
    Casey sighed at that point. “Do I look like I’m for hire, Damian? I’m not. I do the picking and choosing of the men I want to go after. Clean and simple, with no one trying to give me orders, or pushing me to get the job done, or complaining that I’m not doing things the way they think I should.”
    “I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”
    That took care of the inscrutable expression. Casey was clearly incredulous. And the amount Damian had settled on wasn’t arbitrary, it was the figure Casey had claimed to have just lost out on.
    “Are you crazy?” was the first response.
    “No, just very rich.”
    “That’s throwing away good money.”
    “That depends on how you look at it. This man murdered my father,