“Now I know I can’t trust you.”
“Explain that logic.”
She gestured to the pool table where a new game had started. “You just watched me fleece a guy, as you put it, and did nothing to stop me.”
“I’m not on the clock.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes. Damn, she usually had the ability to pick out cops from a mile away. How he’d managed to slip under her radar, she couldn’t fathom. She reached down and picked up the wallet, weighing it in her hands for a moment before she flipped it open. The first thing that caught her eye was a picture of an older couple, presumably his parents. A point in his favor. They looked happy, the older man who shared Troy’s good looks, and the much shorter merry-looking woman he had his arm thrown around.
Pushing aside a flash of melancholy, she moved on.
Gym membership, credit card, condom. She flashed him a look. He shrugged. No pictures of any kids or wifey-looking chicks. No frequent buyer card for a massage parlor. No Post-it reminders to chop up and eat anyone. He appeared to check out.
Ruby was nearing the end of her inspection when another picture grabbed her attention. Troy standing next to a man, about the same age, both wearing police uniforms. Wrigley Field towered behind them in the background. Abruptly, the wallet was snatched from her hands.
“Finished?”
She looked at him curiously. “Who is that?”
With jerky motions, he yanked his coat off the back of his chair and pulled it on around his broad shoulders.
Ruby followed suit with her own coat, watching him as she did so. Something about the picture had struck a nerve. In seconds, his demeanor had gone from teasing to rigid.
“My ex-partner, Grant,” he explained finally. “Did I pass muster? Can we go now?”
She’d always been too curious for her own good.
“Why ex-partner? What happened?” As the words left her mouth, she realized what was coming and immediately wanted to take back her question.
Troy sighed, pinning her with a look. “He’s dead. Shot during a raid earlier this year.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered before he’d even finished his explanation. Her stomach felt hollow.
She wanted to rewind the last minute and start fresh, make him smile again. An odd reaction to have over someone she’d just met, but there it was. Damn her nosiness. With a shaky swallow, she reached over and took his hand. “Let’s go.”
With a curt nod in his friends’ direction, he led her from the bar.
Chapter Three
Troy watched Ruby move around his half-unpacked kitchen, her inquisitive gaze lighting on every surface, taking stock of the slightest details. His takeout menus, the brand of his whiskey. He doubted anything escaped her attention. She would have made a hell of an investigator, he thought wryly. Each time he spoke, Troy could actually see her weighing his words, searching for another meaning, discerning his tone.
Street smarts were probably a necessity for someone who made their living hustling people out of money.
The thought made him frown.
She took off her coat and hung it on the back of his dining room chair, once again revealing those long, jean-encased legs and low-cut black sweater. He’d nearly imploded earlier, watching her bend over in those jeans. Seeing the smooth skin of her lower back peek out just over the top each time. His mind had gone wild with the fantasy of unbuttoning those jeans, wrenching them down over her ass, and hauling her back onto his waiting erection. It had been the sweetest kind of torture, sitting aroused in the overcrowded bar, hoping for a glimpse of her cle**age, while at the same time, battling the urge to belt her back into her coat so no one else had the privilege of seeing her high, deliciously rounded br**sts.
The way she’d so casually and efficiently divested the guy out of his money earlier still blew his mind.
Oh, she’d done it before. Many, many times. Troy had watched her opponent get progressively angry as the game wore on and luckily he’d been there to intervene.
Surely she wasn’t always so fortunate. He had a hard time believing the men she beat simply handed over their money once they realized they’d been conned.
He thought of the types of places she probably frequented looking for a game and inwardly cringed.
A girl who looked like her caused a stir merely by walking down the street, let alone in male-dominated pool halls. What she did on a regular basis couldn’t be considered safe by any stretch of the imagination.
She said she could take care of herself. To an extent, he believed her. But someone had introduced her to the world of gambling and he wanted to know who. It didn’t take a seasoned detective to see she was sharply intelligent and could probably do anything she wished with her life. Yet someone had encouraged her to become a professional liar instead. One who, as far as he knew, worked alone in a dangerous city with no one to step in if things went south. It made him uneasy just thinking about the possibilities. In his line of work, he knew all too well how quickly things could go to shit. The way they had with Grant.
As always, the thought of his ex-partner sent a feeling of discomfort hurtling through his chest. He’d been presented with too many reminders tonight.
First, watching Daniel and Brent interact in a way that reminded him of all too much of Grant’s antics.
Then again when Ruby stumbled on the picture in his wallet. But he couldn’t think about it yet. The pain of that fatal night months ago still felt fresh as though it had taken place yesterday.
He looked up to find Ruby watching him closely, as if she could read every single thought in his head.
Strangely, it comforted him, knowing he didn’t have to say the words out loud.
“Are you hungry?”
Ruby quirked a dark brow at his sudden question.
“You’re going to cook for me at one in the morning?”
“Have a seat,” he directed. After a moment of hesitation during which Troy suspected she was battling the urge to ignore his instruction, she pulled out a dining chair and sat, watching him expectantly.
“Omelet, okay?”
“Let’s see what you got, Chicago boy,” she responded, her lips edging up into a smile.
Troy threw an exasperated glance at her as he walked to the refrigerator to begin pulling out ingredients. “What tipped you off? The accent?”
Her smile dimmed a little, and he remembered.
In the picture she’d seen of him and Grant in their uniforms, Wrigley Field had been in the background.
Thankfully, she changed the subject. “What part of town are you from?”
“Oak Park. It’s a suburb just west of Chicago. You familiar?”
“I’ve been through Chicago once or twice,” she hedged.
“Really.” He pulled a Tupperware container out of the fridge and set it next to the carton of eggs. “Why do I get the feeling you weren’t there to catch a Cubs game?”
She ignored his question. “Are those prechopped peppers in that Tupperware container?”
Troy cracked an egg into a bowl. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Jesus,” he choked out. “How did we arrive here from prechopped peppers?”
Ruby pushed back her chair and stood, the poster child for nervous energy. “You must cook for girls pretty often to chop up peppers in advance, that’s all I’m saying. So if there are strings attached to that omelet, I don’t want it. No matter how good it tastes, the answer is no.”