Don't Mess With Texas by Christie Craig

“I like her. She speaks her mind.”
    “Which one? The greeting card woman or Annie Oakley over there?” Tony motioned to Nikki’s grandmother.
    “Both.” Dallas recalled his conversation with Nikki earlier when he’d had to twist her arm to get her to agree to accept his help. Nikki must have inherited some of her grandmother’s “Maxine” gutsiness. Perhaps a little lower voltage of that personality trait, but it was there. Which explained the reason he found Nikki so damn attractive. Beautiful faces and sexy bodies were a dime a dozen. Spunk wrapped up in a beautiful package, however, was a rare find. He didn’t just lust after Nikki—he liked her.
    And wasn’t that what had happened with his ex-wife?Sexy, sultry, and sassy, Serena stole his heart on their first date. Yup, he really needed to tread lightly where Nikki was concerned.
    “She called me a bastard,” Tony said.
    “You are.” Dallas glanced at his brother’s pinched expression. “Not that it’s always your fault. It comes with the job.” Looking back at the crowd, Dallas noticed the way Mrs. Littlemore kept glancing over at Nikki. “Besides, she’s just looking out for her granddaughter.”
    Another frown pulled at Dallas’s lips when he saw Nikki lean back in her chair as if exhausted. He wished her grandmother would do more than visually check in. Nikki needed to be carted off and tucked into bed. And before Dallas was tempted to do it himself.
    The memory of picking her up and carrying her back to her hospital bed in the ER filled his head—again. He sure as hell hadn’t meant to cop a feel of her bare ass. It didn’t stop him from remembering how it had felt—round, soft—a perfect fit into his palm. If that made him a lowlife piece of shit, stamp the label on him now. Because about every two minutes he found himself savoring the memory.
    “Don’t let looks fool you,” Tony said under his breath.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dallas’s gaze lingered on Nikki.
    “She has a record.”
    Dallas’s attention shot to his brother and then ricocheted back to Nikki, sitting in the hard hospital chair, looking as innocent as a newly hatched butterfly. “Nikki Hunt has a record?”

 
    D ALLAS STARED AT his brother. “What did Nikki do?”
    Tony shook his head. “Not Nikki,” he whispered. “She came back clean. Annie Oakley has a record.”
    Dallas relaxed. Okay… he could almost believe that. Almost. “For what, calling a cop a bastard?”
    “Nope. Arrested for possession of an illegal substance. Caught trying to buy some pot.”
    Dallas studied Mrs. Littlemore. “Okay, I’ll admit that’s surprising. But I still like her.”
    Tony frowned. “I don’t think she’s the one you like, brother. And I’m not sure you want to go there.”
    His brother’s attitude scraped across Dallas’s last nerve. “You really think Nikki had something to do with her husband’s murder?”
    “If I
really
thought that, she’d be accessorizing those blue scrubs with a pair of handcuffs.”
    “Then what’s your point?” Hell, Dallas already knew Nikki was hands-off for him, but he didn’t like anyone telling him what he could or couldn’t do. Especially his big brother, who always thought he knew best.
    “My point is, where there’s smoke there’s fire. And right now there’s a lot of smoke blowing around Nikki Hunt. She may not be responsible for her husband’s death, but before this thing’s over with, I have a feeling she’s not going to come out of it looking as innocent as she is going in. Plus…” Tony motioned to the grandmother again and chuckled. “I hear the crazy gene is hereditary.”
    It was the chuckle that pushed Dallas over the edge. He spoke low, but the hard edge of his voice rang out. “Guess what else is hereditary? The judgmental stick-up-your-ass gene that you got from our ol’ man. You’re forgetting there was a hell a lot of smoke around me not too long ago.”
    Tony flinched. “I