“All right,” he finally murmured.

Lily suppressed a sigh of relief, thanking him as she got up to leave. And as she walked out of his office, she mentally told herself that he was correct.

Not personal. Not personal. Not personal.

Maybe if she kept thinking that, she might actually start to believe it.

Dick’s Tavern had been built in the sixties, and from day one it had attracted a certain kind of crowd. Back then, it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid hippie freaks. In the eighties it had been a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid yuppie scum.

Now it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid anything resembling law and order. Or politeness, decency, courtesy, or class.

Stacey hated the place almost as much as her father did. But there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it, aside from responding to the inevitable brawls that sometimes spilled out into the road. The proprietor, Dick Wood-wasn’t that a porn star name if there had ever been one, and didn’t he just act like he’d earned it?-kept his nose clean in the two areas that could destroy him: He didn’t allow dope deals anywhere on the premises and he had never been caught serving minors.

If he had been, she’d have had him up on charges so fast the man wouldn’t have had time to lock the door before she’d slapped a CLOSED sign on it.

“Classy place,” Dean said as they pulled into the parking lot, already crowded with mud-encrusted off roaders, rusty pickups, and crotch rockets that had seen much better days. “I don’t suppose they have a lunch menu? That might explain the crowds at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Only if by lunch you mean peanuts, whose shells are about an inch thick on the floor in some places. This is why I figured we’d be safe coming out here this afternoon rather than waiting until tonight, when they got really busy. The regulars are already parked on their usual stools; I guarantee it.”

Dick’s was always busy on weekends, from the time the doors opened at ten a.m. until they closed, often with a last drive-by warning patrol by Stacey or one of her deputies at two. At any hour in between, beer was being poured or vomited back out on the sticky floor. Darts were being flung. Fights were breaking out. Sex was being had in the dirty, dingy back hallway or up against the side of the building.

“How often do you have to come out here?”

Swinging the patrol car into the lone vacant spot out back, she left the engine running to combat the heat. Stacey pushed her dark sunglasses onto the top of her head and glanced at her passenger. “Once or twice a week. More on weekends and holidays, when we set up sobriety checkpoints.”

“Like shooting fish in a barrel, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is Stan Freed a regular?” His simple question didn’t disguise the genuine dislike he obviously held for the man.

“Not that I know of.”

“That guy’s total scum; you know that, right?”

Hell, yes, she knew it. “Yeah, he is.” She quickly told him what Winnie had said about their visit to the hospital the night Lisa had disappeared.

“Easy to check her. Not so easy to find out if he sat in the waiting room all night, or left.”

Something else she’d already considered.

He looked at the tavern again and sighed audibly. “Too bad the place is such a pit. I have a feeling I’m going to wish for a beer after today.”

“You definitely don’t want to drink here.” Something sent a few more crazy words across her lips before she could think better of them. “Stop by my place tonight. I have a six-pack in the fridge. I suspect we could both use a cold one.”

So much for letting the guy make the first move. That resolution had lasted all of, what, eight hours?

A small smile tugged at his mouth and an amused gleam appeared in his dark eyes. The hard-ass FBI agent had been replaced by the sexy hottie she’d met once or twice since Special Agent Dean Taggert had come to town. The one who made her forget the uniform and remember the woman wearing it. “You asking me on a date, Sheriff?”

She snorted, sensing that teasing didn’t come easily to this man, especially while he was on the job. Maybe he needed a break from the tension as much as she did.

“Could be.”

“Your timing is interesting.”

“Yours sucks.”

One brow shot up.

“I mean, you’ve been here a couple of days already and you still haven’t worked your way up to making the first move.”

He laughed out loud, a low, masculine sound. “We’re just going to skip the part where we gradually get to know each other and feel our way around to determining if we’re interested in more, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Blunt.”

“I never learned to be any other way.” In for a penny, as they said. “Besides, like I said yesterday, we both know we’re interested. I was going to be all female and let you take it from there.” Her good humor fading a bit, she admitted, “But to tell you the truth, this case has me a little rattled. I’m finding it hard to stay completely aloof. And, honestly, I could use some company after hours.”

She didn’t up the ante, didn’t say she could use some company in the long, empty nights when the bad dreams and her own need for physical connection kept her from any real rest. She wasn’t trying to fool herself. Stacey had no doubt she wanted to go to bed with the man sitting beside her. But there was only so much even the bluntest of women could say to a guy she had known for only a few days.

“I’ve been wondering if you were going to make this personal.” He reached over and touched the tips of his fingers to a strand of her hair, which had loosened from its bun and fallen to her cheek. Rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, he murmured, “I know better, but still, part of me wanted you to.”

“You know better?”

“I am in no shape to get involved with anybody.”

“You’re preaching to the choir here, Special Agent Taggert. I’m not looking for any kind of long-term involvement.” Especially involvement with somebody like him, who would leave here soon and continue making his way through the bloody world he inhabited. The one that had briefly invaded her little corner of the universe, and which she wanted gone just as soon as they nailed the bastard they were after.

“I’m so far out of practice with this game, I don’t remember the rules.”

“Rules aren’t laws. They’re sometimes made to be broken,” she said, a tiny shiver coursing through her. It had nothing to do with the chilled air pouring from the vents in the dashboard and everything to do with the way his fingertips oh-so-gently brushed her cheek before he slowly pulled them away. “Besides, I don’t feel like playing games.”

“Me, either.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m bad at this, Stacey. I never even noticed my wife falling out of love with me.”

“Jeez, I didn’t ask you to marry me; I asked you to come over for a beer,” she said with a forced chuckle. This needed to stay light and easy, for both their sakes. He was one year off a divorce. She was two years out of the worst period of her life. He was saturated in death and violence. She’d moved back here specifically to escape that darkness. No way did they have anything that could resemble long term.

Simple. No strings. That was all either of them could afford.

She knew all that. But she still opened her dumb mouth. “Have you fallen out of love with her?”

He thought about it, staring out the windshield. “Yeah. I guess I had long before we split up. I just didn’t realize it until she forced the issue. The divorce didn’t bother me much. The custody, though, that’s pure hell.”

“I’m sure.”

As if wanting to scare her off, to make one more effort to put up barriers for her protection, he admitted, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone else.”

Been with-as in, had sex with. The tension in the close confines of the car shot up a notch. Or a hundred notches. She felt the warmth of his strong body, heard the slow breaths that seemed as deliberately cautious as her own. Smelled the clean scent of soap and an earthier one of pure masculinity that encompassed him from head to toe.