Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(40)
“Obvious? Why is it so freaking clear to everyone I’m closest to that I should go on bended knee before a woman I scarcely know who has proved to be a royal pain in the ass?”
“Because you wish me to state this obvious . . .” José wiped his mouth and pushed away his empty plate. “I have been your servant for almost twenty years now—”
“Mi amigo—”
José was more aware of the conventions than his boss and said steadily, “Your family retainer, I think they say on such shows as Downton Abbey. But se?or, in all that time, after you have had many women companions, I have never seen you unable to sit still at the thought of never seeing a woman again.” Having said his piece, José stood and collected his plate to take it to the sink and rinse it, then put it in the two-drawer dishwasher.
Damn the man, how did he know that’s what was really bothering me? Ross asked himself. Ross took his plate and dumped the contents into the trash, then offered it to his “family retainer.” He hesitated, even with José, but the words came of their own accord. “I don’t know what to do to get her to stay. She just got this job, and with a new PhD in historic preservation, how could I ask her to come to provincial Amarillo even if she wanted to?” He saw the question hovering on José’s tongue and explained, “Provincial means small and countrylike.”
“She loves old buildings, no? You own two of them.” José smiled into Ross’s blue eyes. “Besides, it is the mujer’s choice, sí?” Placidly, José cleaned Ross’s plate, too.
With his usual ease, José had cut to the heart of the matter. Ross played with that solution, but like everything with Emm, it was complicated. For one, he didn’t own the buildings, only his share as managing member. It would be quite costly to acquire them. For another...
While he debated the pros and cons of that idea, José dried his hands on a towel and turned to face him, his mournful countenance lightened by the devilment in his eyes. “Mees Jasmine came by to give me some of her first batch of fried cheeken, and she told me about your . . . deesplay, she said, in their front yard.”
Ross’s cheeks colored a bit. “So?”
“So, if Mees Emm kissed you back, so . . . bueno, then you can show her another reason to stay.” José folded the clean towel over the towel bar by the sink. “All things between mujer y hombre lead to that, se?or, and not just in Mexico. Be the jefe.” Jose gave his boss a last macho smile and exited, leaving Ross alone in his very expensive, sparkling kitchen that, God help him, he wanted more than anything in the world to be graced by Emm Rothschild, barefoot and pregnant. Mmm.
While Ross was envisioning her in his bed and his life, Emm was breaking into his forensic expert’s hotel room. Emm had earlier taped off the corner surveillance camera with black electrical tape, being careful to keep her face out of the camera angle, using the chair near the elevator to reach it, but she knew she didn’t have long before someone from security came to investigate why the camera had gone dark.
The tutorial she’d watched on YouTube didn’t seem to work very well with this old lock. She kept an ear out for anyone passing in the corridor, but this late on a Sunday she had the hallway to herself. She moved the pick she’d bought very gently from side to side, then up and down, but didn’t hear the click she was supposed to. She knelt on the carpet, looking through the keyhole, but she couldn’t see any light behind it. Like most hotels, even older refurbished ones like this, the door was opened by key card rather than key, but Emm figured it still had to have a tumbler release.
She was digging into her purse for a different pick when she heard the elevator stop at this floor. She looked up and down the hallway, but it was long, with nowhere to hide, so she could only stand up and pretend to be walking toward Abby’s room when the elevator opened and someone walked out. With her back turned, Emm didn’t know who it was, but she stopped at Abby’s door and knocked.
“I’m here, Emm.” Abigail Doyle stopped behind her. “As I informed you earlier, I was at the library, but somehow I knew my presence was urgently required.”
Emm turned with a big smile. “Why, Abby . . . I was just in the area and thought I’d stop by to see if you wanted to have a late cocktail.”
Abby eyed Emm’s big bag and too bright smile, her gaze now fastening on her black pants. “Indeed? You must have fallen on the carpet because there are fibers on the knees of those lovely black pants. What a shame.” She sent a look down the hall toward the taped-over camera. When she looked at Emm again with a stern expression, Emm had the grace to flush and look away.
Abigail sighed and took a tiny remote from her purse and clicked it. The light on the key card slot flickered but stayed red. Two loud clicks sounded in sequence, and only then did Abby take her card from her purse and insert it in the lock. After a third click, the key card light turned green and the door opened to Abby’s gentle push.
Inside, stacked neatly against the wall, Emm caught a tantalizing glimpse of the same evidence file boxes she’d seen that day in Abby’s trunk. Still, she kept her smile bright, but it took an effort. Of course Hermione Abigail Doyle, former MI6 and CIA, had had special electronic locks installed, given the sensitivity of the evidence within. Damn the woman, she was one of the few people Emm had ever met who made her feel inadequate. “Oh well, it’s late and I can see you’re tired. . . .”