In Your Wildest Dreams Read Online Free PDF

chere. Just servin’ up drinks, that’s all.”
    “Why? Why would you go from being a cop to being a bartender?”
    If you’d been anywhere near this city two years ago, you’d know. But since she’d clearly missed all the newspaper articles and TV spots, he wasn’t about to dredge up his past. “Nosy little girl, aren’t you?”
    “I came down here to ask questions,” she said with a shrug.
    He looked away, planting his gaze on the painting above the couch a few feet away. “But I’m not lost, chere. Not the person you came to find.”
    Silence blanketed the small, lush room and he regretted bringing her in here. It was too intimate a space and he found himself wanting to kiss her again. He hadn’t planned that part of it, and he remained surprised that it had felt so good, that stopping had been so hard. His game of coercing the truth from her had been a mistake. He didn’t want to want her—or anyone. He just wanted to go home.
    “Maybe you could help me?”
    Her hopeful words drew his eyes back to hers. “help you how?”
    “Help me find Tina.” She suddenly sounded full of fresh optimism.
    “How the hell you think I’d do that?”
    “Well, you used to be a cop. And you seem to know your way around the escort industry pretty well. Surely there are people you could ask, places we could search.”
    “whoa there, chere. What’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about all of a sudden? I don’t even know you.”
    She sighed. “But I need help and I’m desperate. And…I could pay you.” Her eyes lit with the idea and she reached immediately for her purse. “How much do you want? I can give you what I have now, and more later. However much you want to charge.”
    Ironic. Now she was trying to pay him for something he didn’t intend to sell, either. “No thanks, beb. I don’t want your money, and frankly, I don’t wanna get involved in your problems.”
    She looked crushed. He felt it in his heart, like a little dart sticking there.
    Damn it. Why wouldn’t people leave him alone? Of course, he’d started this—but he’d made his point with her and was ready to call it a night. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I got enough troubles of my own, okay?”
    She didn’t respond, only kept sitting there looking like the world had just come to an end, making the dart in his chest dig a little deeper.
    “Take my advice and go home to Chicago, Stephanie Grant. This is no place for a woman like you.” Jake got to his feet and walked out of the room, through the outer bar area, and exited onto the steps descending into the enclosed courtyard. The night air hit him like a brick—for a September evening, it felt more like early August.
    But he didn’t really mind the heat—he’d grown up with it. At the moment, it was just something to feel. Something to fight, something to wallow in, something to think about as he walked home—something other than Miss Chardonnay and those blue, blue eyes.
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Somewhere in the distance, a siren split the night. As usual on his walk, he hadn’t seen a soul since passing some partyers near Bourbon. As he moved up the sidewalk deep into dark, quiet streets, it was just him and the ghosts. That’s what Becky used to say, the reason she never felt comfortable in the Quarter late at night. ‘Too many ghosts.’ Jake didn’t believe in ghosts, but he could almost believe he felt them tonight, too, peeking over balconies and lurking in hidden doorways. Once he even looked over his shoulder.
    Because he was losing his mind, apparently. Knock it off already, he scolded himself. What a night. Must be screwing with his brain.
    Despite the ghosts and the heat, he was still thinking about Stephanie Grant.
    He could have helped her. If he’d cared—about her search for her sister, about the worry haunting her gaze. But he didn’t. He might have cared about Miss Chardonnay’s fate enough to let her know she was playing a dangerous game, and he hoped