Roscoe turned suddenly.
“No!” Millie and Scott said in unison.
Roscoe snorted, looked at JT and then toward Lila for help. When nobody moved to share their wine, he sneezed, farted, and dropped onto his belly.
“I think he did that on purpose,” JT mused.
“Definitely,” Millie agreed. “Lila, I’ll take a look at your floor as soon as I can.” There was something wounded about the young woman, and Millie couldn’t help but wonder about her taciturn brother’s obvious distrust of the pretty brunette.
JT ate quietly as he always did. He finished his second piece and then looked up. “Mills, by the way, the clouds are parting if you wanted to look at the stars tonight.”
It had been so long since she’d had a chance to look at the stars. She caught her breath. “I didn’t know that. It looked to me like another storm was coming in.”
He shook his head. “It’ll pass. It’ll be clear about ten tonight. Just thought I’d let you know.”
“You like the stars?” Scott asked.
Some of the best times in her life had been sleeping beneath the stars with her brother around a campfire. He’d spent hours teaching her about the constellations, and she’d retrofitted a special telescope just for him. “Yes. We have a telescope.”
“Don’t tell me.” Scott lifted a hand. “One that you tweaked?”
“Of course.” She grinned. “I have star-tracking software on the telescope. It’s pretty cool.”
Scott’s gaze warmed, and in response, her body heated wildly. “I have no doubt,” he said.
JT, as usual, had been mostly silent through dinner. Finally, he focused on Scott. “What happened to your face and your knuckles?”
Millie looked closer. She hadn’t really noticed, but a slight bruise darkened the area beneath Scott’s left eye. The contusion would turn purple by the next day. She angled her head to study his neck to see three more bruises. Somehow she hadn’t seen him get punched, but he had taken a fist or two.
“I had a run-in with Silas Baker and his brother Lonnie,” Scott said easily.
JT sat back, his shoulders seeming to widen. “You had a run-in with the Bakers?” He looked Scott over, his gaze appraising. “You’re still standing. How are they?”
“Unconscious.” Scott shrugged.
JT just stared at him, but a new glint entered his eyes. Was that admiration or respect? Either way, it was an expression Millie wasn’t used to seeing in her brother’s eyes for any man she brought home. “Where are you from, Lila?” she asked, trying to defuse some of the tension.
Lila coughed and took a drink of her wine. “Denver. I was merely passing through town and chose to stay awhile.”
“Really?” Millie asked. Now that was odd. Knowing her great-aunt, she’d taken Lila in instantly without asking a question.
“You don’t sound like you’re from Denver,” JT said gruffly.
Lila jolted. “Well, I am.”
Interesting. Sometimes people didn’t want to talk about their past, and Millie understood that. She wished she hadn’t dated Clay Baker all through high school.
JT looked at her. “Do we know who killed Baker yet?”
“No, and bloodwork revealed no evidence of drugs in my system, though I’m certain somebody did drug me.” She still couldn’t remember a thing, and she lacked injuries.
“You were definitely drugged.” JT agreed with her silent contemplation. “Or you’d remember the entire evening.”
“I know.”
Scott finished his pizza and put his napkin on his plate. “Do you have any idea who’d want to kill Clay Baker?”
JT’s gaze narrowed. “Pretty much anybody who ever met the asshole, if you ask me. I haven’t been around for a couple of years, so I wouldn’t know the gossip. I did hear earlier today at the hardware store that the brothers were in some sort of dustup over the family business.”
