It was her turn to laugh. “No kidding? But don’t you think it’s something your girlfriend would probably know?”

Girlfriend. Right. Jesus… “Three tours,” he said, trying to keep the gruffness out of his voice. “One in Iraq, two in Afghanistan.”

Nodding slowly, she said, “That must have been…”

Grady swore he could see the shimmer of tears puddling in her baby blues before she blinked them away, and he shifted uncomfortably. “A long way from Seattle, yes,” he said, then winced internally at the flippancy in his voice.

“That’s where you grew up?”

“Yep.” Until the car accident had brought him to Credence.

“Burl said this is a bad time of year for you. Did something happen while you were deployed?”

He suppressed a snort. Lots of shit happened while he was deployed. But that wasn’t what Burl had meant, and he really wished his uncle hadn’t said anything. Sure, it had been vague enough, but Grady didn’t really like people up in his business. Too many people in Credence had known his business when he’d come here as an orphan at seventeen, and he’d vowed to never feel that exposed again.

A man had his pride, damn it.

Opening his mouth to answer, he halted as she leaned in a little, proving she was the touchy-feely type by sliding her hand onto his forearm. “Sorry, forget that—it’s really none of my business.”

Grady forced himself to concentrate on what she’d said as her hand slid away. She’d given him a get-out-of-jail-free card, and he’d take it. “What about you? Are you New York born and bred?”

“Yes, sir.” She gave him a little mock salute that would have seen her do pushups all day in basic training, but it did funny things to his breathing. Made him think about her in nothing but one of his old khaki army T-shirts, saluting him as she rode his dick.

Fucking hell. Not helping, Grady.

“And you’re an art forger,” he said conversationally, like she wasn’t still riding him somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

“Well, technically I’m a reproduction artist, but yeah…forging, faking, making copies of other people’s art is what I do.”

“And people actually pay you to do that?”

She smiled at him as she leaned closer in a conspiratorial fashion. “They do. They pay me a lot of money.”

Yeah, he remembered her mentioning that, but he lost his train of thought for a second as the V-neck of her sweater gaped a little and the creamy curve of her cleavage flashed like a neon sign in his peripheral vision. Her peach-cobbler scent combined with the bourbon on her breath to become an unholy turn-on.

“And who are these people?” he asked, yanking his brain out of his pants. “And why? People who can’t afford an original but like to pretend they can?”