“I was framed!” Blue’s shoulder banged against the door of the Vanquish as he took a curve too fast. She was so angry she wanted to hit something, starting with him for not being as indignant as she was. “Since when have you heard of anybody being thrown in jail for driving without a license? Especially somebody who has a perfectly valid license.”

“Which you didn’t have on you at the time.”

“But which I could have produced if they’d given me half a chance.”

The police hadn’t questioned Blue’s statement that Riley was a family friend visiting the farm, and while Blue had been seething in her cell, Riley was sipping a Coke and watching Jerry Springer on the waiting room television. Still, it had been one more scary experience for the eleven-year-old, and April had driven her back to the farm as soon as the police turned over the Saab’s keys.

“This whole thing was totally bogus.” Blue glared across the passenger seat at Dean, whose blue-gray eyes had turned the exact color of an ocean storm.

He wheeled around another curve. “You had no license, and you were driving an out-of-state car registered to someone else. How does that constitute being framed?”

“I swear to God, all those fashion magazines have destroyed your brain. Think about it. Ten minutes after I went head to head with Nita Garrison, the police pulled me over with a lame excuse about random seat belt checks. How do you explain that?”

He switched from anger to condescension. “So what you’re saying is that you got into a fight with an old lady, who then forced the police to arrest you?”

“You haven’t met her,” she countered. “Nita Garrison is mean to the bone, and she has the town in her pocket.”

“You’re a walking catastrophe. Ever since I picked you up on—”

“Stop making such a big deal out of it. You’re a professional football player. You have to have spent some time in jail yourself.”

He bristled. “I have never been in jail.”

“Dude. The NFL won’t let you on the field if you haven’t been arrested at least twice for assault and battery—double points if you beat up a wife or girlfriend.”

“You’re not even mildly amusing.”

Probably not, but she’d made herself feel better.

“Start at the beginning,” he said, “and tell me exactly what happened with the old lady.”

Blue described their encounter in detail. When she finished, he was silent for a few moments before he spoke. “Nita Garrison was way out of line, but don’t you think you could have been a little more tactful?”

Blue bristled all over again. “No. Riley doesn’t have a lot of people standing up for her. Or any, for that matter. It was time to fix that.”