“I didn’t owe it when I left the table. I paid what I owed.”
Ramsey frowned. “I don’t understand. If you covered your bet, then…”
Jay lifted the bottle again, tilted it, and drank deeply. When he set the beer down, he merely shrugged.
“Jay?” Ramsey leaned in. “What did you do? Where did you get that kind of money to play and stay in the game?”
He turned the bottle with his fingertips and said nothing.
Ramsey cursed under her breath. “You were playing with someone else’s money. That’s it, isn’t it? Whose money, Jay?”
“It was better when you weren’t curious. Remember how it was in our early days together? You didn’t ask so many questions. You were content to leave things be. To leavemebe. Ignorance really was bliss, don’t you think?”
“Whose money?” she asked again.
“Leave it.”
“If you want money from me, then—”
“Leave it!”
Ramsey felt as if he’d pushed her back in her chair. The suddenness of his raised voice startled her. It was as if he’d pulled a trigger. She was suddenly in their kitchen, standing up to him, confronting him about what she’d learned, and the flat of his hand was a blur that she never saw coming. She blinked, gripped the seat of her chair to ground herself in the present. She made herself feel the wooden slats at her back and the curve of wood under her fingertips.
Jay got up from the table and went to the refrigerator. He returned with a bottle of water and set it in front of her. “You look like death. Drink.” When she simply stared at the bottle, he opened it for her, and set it down harder than before. “Drink.”
Ramsey marveled at the steadiness of her hands as she reached for the bottle. She gripped it in both to keep them that way. Raising the bottle, she took a long swallow. It hardly mattered that she drank. When she returned the bottle to the table, her mouth was dry and her throat was still parched. She may as well have been drinking sand.
Jay sat, looked her over, and gestured to her to drink again. He nodded, satisfied, when she did. “Better?”
“Yes.” With some difficulty, she managed to get the single word out.
“Good. You had me worried. You need to relax, Liz. You’re wound way too tight.” He sat down and leaned back, regarding her with a slim smile on his face. “So,” he said. “Tell me about Dudley.”
Ramsey was slow to switch conversational gears. Her mind was foggy. “What?”
“Dudley. The guy who left his jacket. What’s his story?”
“No story,” she said after a moment. “He’s a friend.”
“I knew you’d say that. How good a friend?”
“A friend. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Not your business, Jay.”
“So you are.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Was it his house where you spent the night? I know you didn’t come here.”
“What are you doing? Following me? That’s crazy, Jay.”
“Not as crazy as you trying to avoid me. This town just isn’t that big, Liz. I can pretty much find you anywhere.”
Ramsey managed to suppress a shiver. “You’re going to get yourself shot if you keep trespassing on private property. Neighbors look out for each other around here.”
