“Just so you’re prepared, my friend is a bit...odd,” Blake said when the wine had been delivered, sampled and approved. He grinned as he spoke, letting her know that he was intentionally repeating his earlier warning about Spider.
Tara made a face. “At least we’re meeting in nicer surroundings this time.”
Blake smiled, then narrowed his eyes. “Here’s Perry now.”
The man was tall and quite thin, with shaggy, sandy hair and deep-set eyes. He wore a short-sleeved black shirt, black jeans and scuffed black boots. Something about him made Tara’s mental warning systems sound...the systems she’d developed during her years working with the IRS.
She’d met more than a few con men in her life. And her gut instinct told her that she was about to meet another one.
Blake stood and stuck out his right hand. The other man gripped it warmly. It was obvious that there was a bond between them.
The men exchanged rapid greetings, indulged in a few moments of conversation that seemed to consist primarily of obscure references and impossible-tofollow half sentences, then turned to Tara.
“Tara, this is Perry.” Blake didn’t add surnames, but seemed to think his introduction sufficient.
Tara held out her right hand. Perry lifted it to his lips, the gesture reminding her of Blake, though her reaction to it was entirely different. If she’d had her purse with her, she’d have pulled it a bit closer to her.
“Blake told me he had a lady friend with him, but he didn’t mention how beautiful she was,” Perry drawled in the accent of the deepest South. An accent Tara knew well from her childhood in tiny Honoria, Georgia. She’d made a halfhearted effort to lessen her own while she’d studied at Harvard, having learned early on that a Southern accent was often mistaken for an intellectual deficiency.
She murmured something noncommittal in response to his balderdash and glanced at Blake for a due about how to handle the guy.
“Have a seat, Perry,” Blake said. “Would you like some wine? Are you hungry?”
Draping his long frame into a chair, Perry gave Blake a lazy, one-sided grin. “Son, you know I’m always hungry. I’ll just about eat anything that don’t bite me first.”
He seemed determined to prove his words when he placed his order. It was all Tara could do not to react when Perry practically read the entire menu to the young man who waited on their table. He began with a large appetizer, moved on to soup, ordered an entrée with several side dishes, and then announced that he would choose his dessert later. From the way Blake winced each time Perry made another extravagant selection, Tara assumed that her partner would be picking up the check.
Perry, it turned out, wasn’t one to talk while he ate. He gave his entire concentration to his meal, leaving small talk to Blake and Tara while he shoveled food into his thin body with an enthusiasm that left Tara amazed. Apparently aware of his friend’s habits, Blake didn’t even try to engage the other man in serious conversation until Perry’s plates had been emptied, dessert served and coffee poured. Only then did Perry seem to relax enough to be talkative.
“So, Perry, how’ve you been?” Blake asked.
“Fair to middlin’.”
“Still working the circuit?”
“Now and again.”
“Circuit?” Tara looked curiously from Blake to Perry. “Rodeo?”
Perry chuckled. “Not exactly.”
Blake cleared his throat.
Her earlier suspicions kicking in again, Tara frowned.
“I’m what some folks might call a grifter, ma’am,” Perry said unapologetically.
“A con man,” she said with a sigh.
“That’s another term for it,” he agreed.
“Tara,” Blake murmured, “is a lawyer.”
Perry’s eyebrows rose in interest. “Yeah? I’ve had some dealings with lawyers. You might say we’re in the same line of work, I reckon.”
Tara’s eyes widened. She was getting rather tired of Blake’s questionable friends casting aspersions on her profession. “I would certainly not say that.”
Blake’s grin made her long to kick his shin beneath the table.