If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

I’d want to go chasing after one of Miss Lucy’s granddaughters. That lady terrifies me—hell, I’d almost rather go chasing after one of Miz Tuttle’s girls than one of Miss Lucy’s.”
    Keith gave him a dark look. At the same time, he smacked Ethan on the back of the head. “I’m not chasing after anybody,” he said, his voice stiff and formal. “And don’t we have things to talk about?”
    Ezra laughed. “Sure. What do you want to talk about, loverboy?”
    “Hey, I saw that woman—Nia, Nia Hollister—a few days ago. Up at the Grill,” Ethan said, swiping his scrambled eggs through some ketchup before he popped them in his mouth.
    “Your wife know you still go down there flirting?”
    Ethan hunched his shoulders. “Ain’t flirting. Just shooting pool, having a few drinks. She knows I wouldn’t do anything.” He shot Kent a narrow look. “I heard Kent had a few drinks with her last night.”
    Kent rolled his eyes. “I didn’t have drinks with her. She was there and I was there. It’s not like there are a whole lot of choices around here if you don’t want frozen food. Plus, it’s close to the hotel where she was staying.”
    At the other end of the table, one of the night deputies, Craig Dawson, glanced up, his eyes bleary, a heavy growth of stubble on his narrow face. “You talking about that Hollister lady? Shit, she’s hot. I saw her outwith Reilly the other night—they were …” His words trailed off, but the grin on his face did a pretty good job filling in the blanks. He paused long enough to take a drink of coffee and added, “I thought I might have to arrest them for indecent exposure—although it was one hell of a show.”
    “Pervert,” Keith muttered, shaking his head.
    Dawson smirked. “You’re just jealous you don’t get to see the good shit.”
    “Yeah, knocking on windows when kids start getting hot and heavy down at the park, that sounds like my idea of a good time,” Keith muttered with a curl of his lip.
    Kyle Mabry leaned forward. “Hell, I saw Hollister and she ain’t no kid.” Although he was only in his early forties, he was already bald, his body built solid as a brick wall, and his face was perpetually red, like he’d spent too much time in the sun. Good-natured and easygoing, Mabry also liked to take things apart, piece by piece, Ezra had learned.
    He should have known Mabry would be the one to ask.
    “So how come she’s here, anyway, Sheriff?” Kyle asked. “What’s she doing back in Ash? Not like there’s any reason for her to be here, and you’d think she’d want to put this whole mess behind her.”
    Ezra made a noncommittal sound and shrugged. Yeah. One would think that. But Nia wasn’t about to put this whole mess behind her. She couldn’t.
    “Her business here is her own,” he said as more and more gazes swung his way. Ignoring the question would just draw more attention to it, he guessed, but for reasons he didn’t completely understand, he was reluctant to voice Nia’s reasons for being here to everybody. Keith knew. And Lena.
    That was it.
    There were a few in the department who had likely guessed, and more who
would
guess, the longer she hung around, but he wasn’t going to confirm it. Not just yet.
    “Doesn’t much matter,” Ethan said, scooping another bite of ketchup-drenched eggs into his mouth. “Leslie’s sister, she works weekends at the hotel, and guess who checked out today?”
    “Nia didn’t leave town.” Kent popped a piece of bacon into his mouth.
    “She checked out of the hotel,” Ethan pointed out.
    Natalie appeared at the table just then. “Y’all talking about Nia?”
    “Yeah. She’s leaving, though.”
    “No, she’s not,” Natalie said, shaking her head. She glanced at Keith, brushed a hand along his shoulders as she refilled his coffee cup.
    Keith reached up, returned the caress, all without looking at her.
    Natalie continued to talk. “She’s already checked in over at the Inn—subletting one of the cabins that Roz doesn’t use much.”
    “Really?” Ethan’s brows shot up.
    Ezra glanced up at Natalie.
    She grinned. “Hey, I hear things.” Then she wagged her eyebrows. “You know one of my sisters helps Roz with the cleaning—she was out there when Nia checked in. Mentioned it when she called a few minutes ago to see if I wanted to go to Lexington with her later.”
    Natalie took his order and as she paused by another table, he heard somebody else asking about Nia—that poor