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In Hope's Shadow
Janice Kay Johnson


Where does she belong?Now that the "real" daughter of her adoptive parents has returned, Eve Lawson can't help feeling edged out. It's a familiar isolation she sees all too often in her social work caseload. And her unstoppable attraction to divorced cop Ben Kemper only complicates things further.They're on opposite sides of a murder case, but their connection is still stronger than their doubts and fears. Eve is too close to the sexy single dad to walk away without a shattered heart. It's up to Ben to take a risk of his own and show Eve a family and love that will never let her go: his.







Where does she belong?

Now that the “real” daughter of her adoptive parents has returned, Eve Lawson can’t help feeling edged out. It’s a familiar isolation she sees all too often in her social work caseload. And her unstoppable attraction to divorced cop Ben Kemper only complicates things further.

They’re on opposite sides of a murder case, but their connection is still stronger than their doubts and fears. Eve is too close to the sexy single dad to walk away without a shattered heart. It’s up to Ben to take a risk of his own and show Eve a family and love that will never let her go: his.


“I should have asked for your phone number six months ago.”

Eve blinked. “But...we hadn’t met.”

“I saw you on TV. The press conference. I...commented to Seth on what a beauty you were. I kind of wonder now if the Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers weren’t engineered for us to meet.”

“That never occurred to me.” Was it possible Ben liked her looks better than her sister’s? Because of his daughter, she’d assumed his

ex-wife was another blue-eyed blonde, but...maybe not.

“Better late than never,” he murmured, and stepped closer. He tipped her chin up with one big hand, bent and brushed his lips over hers.

The soft contact was tantalizing enough to have her rising on tiptoe to try to sustain it.

“I’ve been thinking about this all evening,” he said huskily, and nipped her bottom lip before stroking it with his tongue.

Eve wrapped her arms around his neck and let her lips part, astonished by her instant, powerful response. His tongue slid over hers, teasing more than commanding. The lighter he kept the kiss, the more she wanted deeper, hotter.


Dear Reader (#ulink_4bb6a4cb-69ee-5776-a6b0-e889f63ac95c),

Sibling rivalry is pretty near universal. And what kid who has siblings doesn’t, at some point, suspect that Mom or Dad loves a sister or brother better?

In Eve’s and Hope’s stories, I created a massive case of sibling rivalry. Ironic since Hope never even suspected she had a sister (until she came home to find she’d been replaced), and Eve was twenty-eight years old when she finally met her “sister.”

And while Eve may have felt petty all those years nursing resentment for the perfect daughter whose disappearance had shattered her adoptive parents’ lives, she had plenty of justification for her feelings.

Parents of abducted children do cling to the belief that their missing son or daughter lives and will someday come home. They try to keep the child alive in their hearts. They create what, to the other daughter, might appear to be a shrine.

And poor Eve, falling in love with a man who ends up replicating some of her deepest fears!

Some emotions can be hard to empathize with, but not this one. Nope, I’m betting you won’t have any trouble understanding Eve’s struggles.

Let me know what you think—I love hearing from readers at jkj@janicekayjohnson.com, or look for me on Facebook.

Janice


In Hope’s Shadow

Janice Kay Johnson






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


An author of more than eighty books for children and adults, USA TODAY bestselling author JANICE KAY JOHNSON is especially well-known for her Mills & Boon Superromance novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter. Visit her online at janicekayjohnson.com (http://janicekayjohnson.com).


Contents

Cover (#ua655b699-7732-5507-9ea7-c78cf3656004)

Back Cover Text (#u70348231-94c7-5e28-be2a-8f081f50782e)

Introduction (#u6d78ef7f-fdf7-5d84-b60a-9ffcd6958f79)

Dear Reader (#u45eee0ca-94fb-558b-83fb-c5d184ce951f)

Title Page (#u6f9cd3ba-c7a7-5deb-9c6a-5b11aff16bc4)

About the Author (#u5d25182c-8e4c-5286-8e1c-e2421bdd77a3)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#u78fc7dfb-f7bc-5eff-8c94-26eb293074d5)

EVE LAWSON WONDERED whether her fellow social service caseworkers ever met with one of their kids on the sidewalk outside a foster home. Especially on a bitterly cold February day.

They’d probably all agree with her that you did whatever was necessary. And the truth was, Joel had looked relieved when she asked him to walk her out to her car.

Hoping her shivers weren’t obvious, Eve wrapped her fleece scarf more snugly around her neck and leaned against the fender of her car, feeling the chill of the metal penetrating even through her wool peacoat.

However alone they were out here, she was unsettlingly aware that they were being watched.

“So what’s going on, Joel?” she asked.

She had been Joel Kekoa’s caseworker for the past three years. He’d been fourteen years old when they’d first met, sullen, hulking and clumsy. The first thing she’d had to do was move him to a new foster home at the request of the previous foster parents, which left him feeling rejected again. Something she understood too well. The one bright spot she’d been able to see then had been his performance in school.

The move had been positive, though. He and the new foster father, Rod Carter, had bonded right away. Joel had seemingly grown into his extra-large body not long after, starring as an offensive guard on the football team these past two years. Eve had gone to a few games to cheer him on. Several major colleges had recruited him, and on signing day he’d committed to the University of Oregon because of their nationally ranked football program. Seventeen now, he was a senior in high school with a solid GPA. In fact, until this morning’s call, she’d felt good enough about Joel to let him slip to the bottom of her list of priorities, which meant she’d done little but check in with him by phone occasionally.

The dynamics in the home had recently changed when Carter married a woman who also had a teenage son. Eve had just met mother and son for the first time, and her antennae were quivering.

Honestly, seeing the boy, Gavin Shaffer, watching them now from the picture window in the living room gave her the creeps. He wasn’t making any effort to be surreptitious, just stood there looking relaxed, faintly amused, possibly smug. Eve had disliked him on sight, rare for a woman who worked with many troubled children and believed they could overcome the odds.

When she first arrived, she had also seen the drapes twitch in the window of the house next door and was uneasily aware that a couple-inch gap had opened when she and Joel walked to the car. The apparently curmudgeonly next-door neighbor, Clement Rowe, was also keeping his eye on them.

Her inner child wanted to stick out her tongue at them both.

Head hanging, Joel shifted from foot to foot at her question. Having not grabbed a coat on his way out the door, he had to be even more miserable than she was, but he didn’t show it. His one concession to a temperature in the thirties was to shove his hands in his jeans pockets.

“Things are kinda tense right now,” he said finally. “I guess you could tell that, huh?”

“I’m disconcerted that Rod couldn’t be here,” she said, sliding away from directly answering.

Joel scowled. “He says I have to listen to Lynne ’cause she’s my foster mom now.”

“How does she feel about that?”

“She doesn’t like me.” The sullenness Eve remembered from years past imbued his voice. “She’s mostly nice in front of Rod. You know. She’s got this supersweet smile while she gets a dig in.”

Having just seen the woman in action, Eve couldn’t help thinking he’d nailed the description. Eve hadn’t liked Lynne Carter nee Shaffer or her son.

“What about Gavin?” she asked, almost reluctantly.

“I don’t know.” Head down, he toed a crack in the sidewalk. “We’re not, like, friends, but he’s been okay.”

“Is he a good student?”

“Yeah, better than me. I can tell he thinks he’s smarter.”

Eve fixed the boy in front of her with a stern look. “I really doubt if he is. You’ve had to overcome some obstacles.”

He shrugged, maybe in acknowledgment, maybe just because he didn’t want to argue. Joel’s biological father hadn’t been abusive so much as neglectful. He had been known to leave his young son alone for days at a time, moved them frequently and not always bothered enrolling him in school. When he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to ten years in the Monroe Correctional Institute, Joel had been placed in foster care and enrolled in the Stimson School District. Then twelve, he had tested years behind his age group. The gains he’d made since were extraordinary.

But she let it go right now. “Does he do sports?”

“He’s on the wrestling team,” Joel mumbled. “Plus, I guess he’s into drama. She says he always gets the leading roles.”

Gavin had had to transfer from Cascade High School in Everett to Stimson when his mother remarried. To be fair, Eve reflected, it had to have been tough to have to move to a new district in his junior year.

All she could think to say was, “I see.” Ugh. Truthfully, she didn’t see much of anything yet. She suspected Lynne did not want to parent this hulking young man who didn’t look anything like her own, gilded boy. As sweetly as she’d tried to speak, there’d been an edge in her voice when she was addressing Joel. Eve hadn’t liked hearing it. She also didn’t like seeing that Joel had regressed some. He seemed to be avoiding meeting her eyes. His sulkiness told her he no longer felt secure, which was dangerous in a boy who’d known so little real security.

But none of this had anything to do with the phone call that had brought her out here this morning.

“Okay,” she said on a sigh. “Tell me about Mr. Rowe.”

“He hates kids.” Joel grimaced. “Actually, I think he hates everyone. But he doesn’t have anything to do with most grown-ups. Some of the kids who live on the block have accidently kicked balls into his yard, stuff like that. He comes out screaming if you set one foot onto his property.” He sneered. “Like the sole of my shoe is going to poison his grass.”

Clement Rowe’s lawn was undeniably superior to his neighbors’. It bore more than a passing resemblance to a putting green at an upscale golf course. Along with kids, Mr. Rowe must particularly hate the neighbor a couple of houses down whose winter-brown lawn was tufted with dandelions.

“Tuesday I was walking with some other guys,” Joel continued. “We were kind of pushing each other, you know, just having fun, and I stumbled into old man Rowe’s flower bed. He roared out, so I stared him in the eye and cut right across his yard to get to my front door. It was like, in your face.”

Eve suspected she might have done the same at his age. She nodded.

“So, he comes over last night, really mad. Somebody had smashed some of his rosebushes.”

Her gaze strayed to the torn, stunted canes of hybrid tea roses. All were evenly spaced in a row and appeared to have been recently pruned, which seemed a little early. February was the month to do it in the Northwest, sure, but this was only the twelfth, and the weather had been bitterly cold until a couple of days ago. Well, the pruning job wasn’t the point, not now. Eve had no idea whether these roses could be salvaged.

“He said it had to be me. And Lynne, she just started telling him she was so sorry and that there’d be consequences for me without even asking me whether I had anything to do with it!” His voice had risen in outrage. “And I didn’t! I swear, Ms. Lawson. He’s a jerk, but it’s like, why would I care that much?”

Eve searched his angry dark eyes and thought she saw sincerity. She could also see that he was braced in anticipation of her disbelief.

Would he have lashed out at the mean old man who regularly yelled at him? Eve didn’t want to think so; she’d have sworn Joel was more mature than that. But she also knew that maturity had been erected on a newly poured foundation that could have been damaged by the recent, drastic changes in his home life.

Still, she nodded. “Okay, Joel. Just stay away from Mr. Rowe’s property. Cross the street if you need to go by.”

His shoulders relaxed. “You believe me?”

Throw the dice. Somebody had to believe in him. “I do. You’re a good kid.” She smiled crookedly. “That’s why I neglect you.”

His broad face lit with a grin. “You mean, if I screw up you’d come see me more often?”

“Yes, but please don’t. I’m running from morning to night already.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t me who called you.” All too quickly, he was back to smoldering.

“It’s okay. I’ve been intending to drop by to meet Rod’s new wife and her son anyway.” She hesitated. “I’m a lot more concerned about your relationship with them than I am with Mr. Rowe’s grumblings.”

He shrugged. She glanced toward Clement Rowe’s house and this time saw fingers pulling the drapes back and a shadow in the opening.

Shivering again, Eve told herself she just didn’t like winter. No ghost had brushed by; she hadn’t just spoken what sounded way too much like famous last words.

* * *

BEN KEMPER SIGHED and leaned back, causing his chair to squeak. “Thank you, I don’t mind waiting on hold.”

Actually, he did, but he’d become resigned. Nobody had told him before his promotion to detective that he would spend more time poring over his computer or on hold—and often both at the same time—than he would out in the field. The chills and thrills of police work were few and far between these days.

The hours, though, those still sucked. The lengthy and erratic hours he worked explained why he was now a divorced man who counted his blessings when he was permitted to have his six-year-old daughter two days out of every fourteen.

Not a minute later, the cell phone lying on his desk rang. The name appearing on the screen was his ex-wife’s. As always, he couldn’t help feeling a spurt of hope. He missed Nicole every day.

Juggling phones, he answered. “Nic.”

“You got a sec?” Nicole asked.

“I’m on hold. I’ll have to call you back if someone comes on.”

“You can’t hang up on whoever it is and call back?”

“It’s important, and I’ve already been waiting for a while.”

“What, I’m not entitled to two minutes of your concentration?” she snapped.

Irritation rose to poison the hope. “I am at work,” he pointed out.

“Like you aren’t always.”

He closed his eyes. “Can we not do this?”

Silence. Finally, “I know you’re supposed to have Rachel tomorrow, but something has come up and we need to change weekends.”

Of course it had. He’d decided last time that he wasn’t taking this shit anymore.

“I’ve already made plans,” he said with a semblance of calm. “This is my weekend, Nicole. You have her the majority of the time. You need to schedule anything that includes Rachel on your days.”

“We agreed we’d be flexible—”

“You’ve abused my willingness too many times. Please have Rachel ready when I pick her up at five tomorrow.” He stabbed his phone to end the call, anger burning beneath his breastbone.

His phone immediately buzzed. Nicole. This time, Ben muted it.

The detective who sat directly in front of him in the bull pen swiveled his chair to look at Ben. Seth Chandler was near Ben’s age of thirty-three. Both worked cases individually, but often partnered. Even when they weren’t conducting an investigation together, they bounced ideas off each other. In the past year, they’d moved toward real friendship. In fact, Seth had invited Ben to bring his daughter to dinner tomorrow night. Seth’s fiancée, Bailey, was arriving for a long weekend. Seth was champing at the bit for her to get her degree in May and move up here from Southern California. They were hanging in there with a long-distance relationship, but Ben imagined it was tough.

Had to beat having no relationship, though, he thought grumpily.

A woman’s voice in his ear pulled his attention back to the moment.

“Uh-huh,” he said, writing fast. He recited back the address and two phone numbers she had just given him as well as a string of dates for insurance claims, then thanked her and hung up. Seth had wandered away to refill his coffee cup, but returned just then.

“That your ex who called?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” Ben growled.

“Wanted to change your weekend again?”

“That was the idea. Funny how ‘change’ always ends up with me losing a weekend with Rachel.”

“It sounded like she backed down this time.”

“I didn’t give her a chance to do anything else. It’s a great weekend for me to have Rachel. I’m not tied up with anything big, so I can concentrate on her. I’m taking her sledding on Saturday. Nic hates to get cold, so she never does anything like that with Rachel.” He hesitated. “You sure you don’t mind me bringing her tomorrow night? If she’ll be the only kid...” As far as he knew, the only other guests were Bailey’s parents.

Seth smiled. “Hey, she’ll get all the attention.” His phone rang and he started to turn around, but then looked over his shoulder. “Forgot to tell you Eve will be there, too. You know, Bailey’s sister.”

Adoptive sister. Without knowing Bailey well and having never met Eve, Ben had heard enough from Seth to know how complicated a relationship the two women had. Bailey—whose birth name was Hope Lawson—had been abducted as a little girl, sexually molested and eventually abandoned by the man who’d taken her. By then she’d forgotten her name and where she came from and went into foster care in California. Seth liked to take up a cold case now and then, and had pursued finding pretty, blonde Hope Lawson, expecting improved DNA technology and databases that allowed law enforcement agencies to communicate better might help him bring the little girl’s body home for her parents to bury. Instead, Hope had walked into the sheriff’s department one day, stunning Seth, her grieving parents—and the woman her parents had adopted several years after her disappearance.

Seth had once told Ben privately that the first words out of Eve’s mouth had been, “The real daughter returns.” Probably said sardonically. And who could blame her for feeling that way? However much the Lawsons loved the girl they adopted, she had to have grown up conscious of the shadow cast by their beloved missing daughter.

Now, staring at the other man’s back, Ben wondered if this was intended to be just a family gathering that happened to include him and Rachel, or whether Seth was trying subtly to hook him up with Eve. Ben remembered, after seeing a press conference on TV about Hope’s miraculous return, telling Seth that he thought Eve was the beauty of the two “sisters.” Had that given Seth the idea?

But he shook his head. No, of course not; if Seth had anything like that in mind, he’d have done it a long time ago. That press conference had taken place last August, six months ago.

Yeah, but the Lawsons had invited Ben to have Thanksgiving with them. He’d declined because Nicole had asked him to join her and their daughter. There’d been a party at Christmas, too, which Ben had gone to but Eve had missed. Supposedly she’d been sick. Ben had wondered idly if she really did feel crappy or was dodging seeing Seth. The two of them had gone out some before Bailey’s reappearance. Eve might still find it tough seeing him crazy in love with another woman.

So...maybe this dinner party was a setup. Maybe Seth was desperate to find her a boyfriend and get her off his conscience.

Ben grunted at that thought, remembering the petite woman he’d seen on television. Heart-shaped face, big, melting dark eyes, masses of dark, curly hair, slender body. Yeah, safe to say Eve Lawson could find her own dates and wouldn’t appreciate any help from a guy she once had a thing with. And what would make Seth think she’d look twice at Ben? Women probably had a type, just like men did, and Ben and Seth were...well, not quite opposites, but certainly didn’t look much alike.

Anyway, if he had a type, it was china-doll-beautiful, blue-eyed blondes.

Uh-huh. If that was true, why had Eve caught his eye instead of Bailey, with her spectacular cheekbones, blue eyes and ash-blond hair?

He didn’t know. Maybe he’d needed an anti-Nicole to spark his interest. He’d definitely reacted to Eve’s appearance back then, and, damn, it was past time he started something that included regular sex. Long-term, though, that he couldn’t see. His commitment to his daughter and, yeah, even Nicole, didn’t leave much leftover.

Might be interesting actually meeting Eve, though, he decided, then had no trouble putting her out of his mind as he studied the notes he’d made a minute before and reached for the phone to dial the first of the two numbers.

* * *

EVE STILL FELT a tiny bit of sting every time she saw Seth and Bailey together, but she knew that had more to do with Bailey aka Hope than it did Seth. It did figure the long-missing Hope had not only returned triumphantly to the joy of her—and Eve’s—parents, but had also snagged the guy Eve had been seeing.

Get over it, she’d told herself a few dozen times, and really she had. Mostly.

As far as she knew, her parents were the only other guests tonight, so she was surprised when the big, dark SUV she’d been following for the last couple blocks parked at the curb in front of Seth’s rambler. Hmm. The silver sedan in the driveway beside her parents’ car was probably a rental Bailey had picked up at the airport. No reason Eve couldn’t block it in. She and Seth probably wouldn’t leave the house all weekend.

Yep, minor sting.

After parking in the driveway and getting out, Eve glanced back to see a man lifting a girl from the backseat of the SUV, laughing up at her as he swung her high before setting her carefully on her feet on the sidewalk.

Her own feet declined to move. So, okay, it was dark, but the streetlight was only half a block away, and unless her eyes were failing her, this guy was absolutely gorgeous. Long, lean and movie-star handsome.

He took the girl’s hand and they started up the driveway to where Eve was planted in their way.

His eyebrows rose as he took her in and drew the girl—had to be his daughter—to a stop. “You must be Eve,” he said, in a voice just gritty enough to be sexy aside from his looks.

“I— Yes. Are you, um, a friend of Seth’s?”

Or, horrors, a relative of the Lawsons she somehow had never met? Because, oh, God, he could have been Bailey’s brother. Blond and beautiful. As was the girl, whose pale blond hair was French-braided and whose face was delicately pretty.

“He didn’t tell you I’d be here? I’m Seth’s partner. A detective with the sheriff’s department,” he added. “Ben Kemper. This is my daughter, Rachel. Rachel, meet Eve Lawson.”

“Hi,” the little girl whispered shyly.

Eve’s smile came easily. “Nice to meet you. And your dad. What say we go in before we all freeze? Looks like my parents are already here.” No way could she ask where Rachel’s mommy was.

“I hear Bailey’s a good cook,” he said behind her, as she started for the porch.

“She is. Lucky for Seth.”

He chuckled. “Yes, it is. If he’s like me, when he’s on his own most of his meals come out of the freezer case at the grocery store.”

“Tut-tut. Haven’t you ever wanted to defy the sexual stereotype?” She smiled again at his daughter, softening her voice. “Would you like to ring the doorbell?”

Rachel would. She lifted a pink gloved hand and pushed the button, then jumped at the sound of a ding-dong within. A moment later Bailey let them all in.

“Eve!” Her pleasure appeared genuine.

Eve leaned in to hug her despite the touch-me-not air that usually only Seth violated. Eve had noticed that even their parents hesitated before embracing their daughter. Bailey had excellent reason to be repelled by most physical contact, but she returned this hug with enthusiasm. Maybe she was getting better at the family thing.

Then she turned her smile on Ben and his daughter. “You must be Rachel. Thank you for coming. Ben talks about you all the time, you know. We’ve all been dying to meet you.”

Sounded as if Ben was quite the buddy. Closer to Seth and Bailey than Eve was.

As she stepped inside, she made a face nobody else would see. There was her inner bitch. Her initial reaction to her adoptive sister’s return had pretty well guaranteed both Bailey and Seth were wary around her. And, really, she was still ambivalent about how good a friend she wanted to be of theirs. Her tie with Bailey was more fictional than anything, considering they were “sisters” who had never met until last summer, when Eve was twenty-eight and Bailey twenty-nine. Why bother even pursuing a relationship so illusory?

Maybe because, despite herself, she liked Bailey? And because they had more in common with each other than either did with their parents?

Eve unwrapped her scarf and unbuttoned her coat. When she started to shrug out of it, she was startled to realize someone was helping. Ben Kemper was apparently a gentleman. He was free because Bailey already had Rachel’s pink fleece gloves in one hand and was tugging on the sleeve of her pouffy purple parka. His fingers were cold, which had to be why a brief touch on her neck sent a shiver through her.

“Thank you. Your daughter’s coat is prettier than mine,” Eve teased.

He laughed, deepening creases in his lean face. Eve was embarrassed at how her body warmed and softened just looking at him. At maybe six feet, he was tall enough to tower over her five foot four—okay, five foot three and a half if she stretched. Classically handsome, Ben had been blessed with perfect bone structure, tousled blond hair that glinted gold in this light, and dark blue eyes.

“I don’t know about that,” he murmured. “I think red is your color.”

Red was undeniably her color. With her dusky skin and black hair, she’d look ridiculous in petal pink or lilac. Admitting as much hadn’t come easily. Like most little girls, she’d wanted everything pink. Which she’d been denied. Because Hope had loved pink, Eve had always believed. Her bedroom, the first she’d ever had all to herself, couldn’t be painted pink, because that’s what color Hope’s was. The room with the closed door, the one kept exactly as it had been the day she disappeared. A shrine.

To this day, Eve didn’t know whether her adoptive mother had steered her to buy clothes in other colors because only Hope was supposed to be able to wear pretty pink and purple, or because Eve really did look better in crimson and orange and yield-sign yellow. She’d seen distress on her mother’s face and quit asking for the forbidden colors.

Mostly, she’d gotten over the desire to be blonde and blue-eyed, too, so she fit in her new family instead of being so obviously adopted.

“Hey.” A couple of faint lines had appeared on Ben’s forehead and she wondered how much he’d seen on her face. Not much, she hoped, unsure why his comment—maybe a compliment?—had sent her back in time. He laid a hand on the small of her back and gave her a gentle nudge toward the living room. With a glance down, she saw that he’d once again taken his daughter’s hand with his free one.

She felt a small burst of pleasure at being part of the threesome, almost as if they were together, before her practical self squelched it. She’d just met these two, and was pretty obviously not Rachel’s mother. Who might simply be tied up tonight, although Eve’s surreptitious glance failed to find a wedding ring on Ben Kemper’s finger.

Seated, neither of her parents seemed to have touched their glasses of wine, set on coasters on the coffee table. Both beamed upon seeing her. Her mother bounced to her feet and hugged her.

“Oh, this is so wonderful! All of us together! And Ben, too.” She turned her happy smile on his daughter. “You must be Rachel. I’m so glad you could come. My, your hair looks pretty like that.”

“Mommy did it.” She cast a glance upward at her father. “Daddy can’t. He says his fingers are too big.”

Ben’s face went particularly blank. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to notice, though, because before Eve could think what to say to counteract what must feel like disparagement, Eve’s father smiled at the little girl.

“I have two daughters, and I never learned to do fancy hairdos, either. Your daddy is right. His fingers probably are too thick.” He waggled his own for her to see. Kirk Lawson’s hands were not only shaped like a block, but oil tended to be embedded deep in any cracks. He owned an auto body shop.

Rachel leaned trustingly against her father. “That’s okay. I like to wear my hair in a ponytail, too, and he can do that.”

Seth, solidly built and brown-haired, appeared from the kitchen. “Hey, glad you could all make it. Rachel, nice to see you. I hear you’re going sledding tomorrow.”

She bounced. “Uh-huh. Daddy says so.”

“That’ll be fun.”

Lucky girl, Eve couldn’t help thinking. She hadn’t had a daddy to do things like that with her until the Lawsons adopted her at nine years old. It had been a long time before she’d been comfortable with her new father, who seemed an alien creature to her. He was such a quiet man, he’d been hard for her to read. Patient, too, though. In a way, she had more faith now in his love than she did in her adoptive mother’s. Karen might not have mourned any more deeply than her husband did for their lost daughter, but unlike him she’d never even tried to hide the ever-present grief. Since Hope’s reappearance, the change in her had been stunning, making Eve doubt how adequately she’d filled the vacuum in that house—or her mother’s heart. In contrast, Kirk’s smiles for his real daughter didn’t seem so different from the ones he gave Eve.

“The daughter we chose,” he had told her last summer, after both their parents had overheard her saying things she shouldn’t have to Bailey.

Before she knew it, she was seated in a rocker and had a glass of red wine in her hand. Ben Kemper sat on a rolling ottoman only a few feet away. Eve’s mother had taken Rachel to the bathroom, and Seth and Bailey were both working on dinner, having turned down all offers to help.

Ben and her father discussed sports briefly, neither sounding all that interested. Then he looked at her. “Seth says you’re a social worker.”

“That’s right. I’m with the Department of Social and Health Services. I supervise kids who are wards of the court.”

He nodded; as a police officer, he’d interacted with social workers on a regular basis. It was probably a surprise they’d never met before. He asked some questions that demonstrated how knowledgeable he was. Eve admitted to occasionally feeling like a hamster trapped on her wheel.

“I run and run and run.” She made a face. “My greatest fear is letting a kid slip off my radar. I’ve heard enough horror stories of what can happen.”

Ben nodded. “I used to worry that I’d missed something when I was trying to decide whether to make an arrest on domestic violence calls. She says she’s fine, she whacked herself in the face when she slipped on the ice going out to her car, yes, she and her husband were arguing but of course he’d never hit her. I leave and think, what if she’s scared to death of him? What if he kills her next time, because I was credulous enough to buy this story she tells me with him standing a few feet away listening?” He shook his head. “But what can you do?”

“Never enough,” she said. “I tell myself I’m human and I will make mistakes, but—”

His crooked grin told her he understood. “But it’s an excuse, and it doesn’t cut it.”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “As it is, I get frustrated because of the limitations on what I can do at my best. Foster homes have to meet a minimum standard, but is that good enough? The people are feeding a girl, keeping her safe, but do they listen to her read? Pay attention to whether she’s doing her homework? Do they even know how to encourage her to excel academically? Often not. The rate of high school graduation for foster kids lags well behind that of kids living with their own parents. Never mind college attendance! And then there are the extras that are often beyond these kids—dance lessons, the rent on a musical instrument, the cost of a prom dress, clothes or things like iPods that let them fit in, the fee required for college applications. Do they ever get to museums? See art house films or documentaries versus the latest blow-’em-up multiplex hit? These kids deserve everything other children take for granted.” Almost hoarse with her passion by the time she finished, she grimaced an apology. “Sorry. I get carried away.”

His blue eyes were unexpectedly warm. She was also aware for the first time that those eyes were shadowed in a way she saw sometimes in her kids—and in her own mirror.

“Don’t apologize. You’re right. I see situations on the job where I wish I could do more, too, and can’t. But what’s the answer?”

She’d had ideas lately, but didn’t have an opportunity to share them. Her mother and Rachel returned, and then they were all called to the dinner table, where conversation was general. Her parents were excited about going to California to see Bailey graduate from USC. Bailey had been plagued again recently by a persistent journalist who wanted to write a follow-up article about her. Seth was clearly pissed about it; probably it didn’t sit well with him that he wouldn’t be there to protect her. To lighten the atmosphere, Eve told a few funny stories from her job, and Ben did the same. Rachel got brave enough to tell them about her kindergarten teacher and this boy in her class who was so wild, he liked to climb up on the table and dance and sometimes he’d start to take his clothes off. Ben cringed at hearing that one. He said something in passing that told her he was divorced. This was obviously his weekend with his daughter.

Eve kept having a feeling of unreality. Why hadn’t Bailey ever mentioned how absolutely gorgeous Seth’s partner was? Surely she wasn’t oblivious. And then there was the glint in his eyes that seemed to be only for her—Eve. As if he was attracted to her. The idea scared as much as tempted her. Men who looked like him were magnets for women. What were the odds he didn’t have a girlfriend—or a woman for every night of the week? Eve had never been loaded with confidence, and knew the last thing she needed was to get involved with a man unlikely to stay interested in her for long.

Oh, and she couldn’t forget he worked with Seth, her sister’s fiancé, which could make the whole thing awkward.

And, wow, was she overthinking this, or what? She’d have rolled her eyes if she could have done it unseen. What was she, twelve years old and signing her name “Eve Kemper” even though the boy hadn’t even asked her to dance yet?

Even so, she couldn’t take her gaze from the tall, sexy man currently smiling at his daughter as he tucked a napkin over her pretty pink shirt so she didn’t spill lemon meringue pie on it.

He won’t call.

But she wanted him to so much, the ache filled her chest. It didn’t help that tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. If he called tomorrow...that might be better than a bouquet.

Not until she was fastening her seat belt preparatory to leaving did it occur to her that she had scarcely noticed Seth tonight, and had felt not the slightest pang when she saw the way he looked at Bailey.

Heaven help her, she’d gotten over any remnants of her crush on Seth Chandler the moment she set eyes on his partner.


CHAPTER TWO (#u78fc7dfb-f7bc-5eff-8c94-26eb293074d5)

RACHEL HAD FUN sledding the next day—for all of about five minutes. No, that was an exaggeration, but not by much. She got cold and whined. She insisted on trying to go down a short hill on her own and fell off the sled, landing face-first in a snowbank. She cried so hard Ben was frantic, sure she’d broken a bone at least. God! Nicole would never let him hear the last of it.

Eventually, Rach settled down enough to admit she’d just been scared, and her mittens were soaked and she’d gotten snow in her boots so her toes were cold, and couldn’t they go home?

Disappointed, Ben said, “Sure,” then struggled with incredulity when not ten minutes down the highway, Rachel declared, “That was fun, Daddy! Can we go again?”

What was he supposed to say? You’ve got to be kidding? An hour’s round-trip drive for five minutes of fun and ten minutes of squalling? Maybe Nicole was right and he didn’t have what it took to be an adequate parent.

But he remembered being a lot more patient than Nicole was the first months of Rachel’s life, when she’d been colicky and content only when being carried against a shoulder. He’d walked miles those nights, gone into work feeling hollow with his eyes burning.

He was just...getting out of practice, that was all. It scared him sometimes, wondering whether his relationship with his daughter would grow increasingly distant with him such a small part of her life.

And what if Nicole remarried, giving Rach a resident daddy? Forcing him to see the woman he’d loved since they were in high school leaning against another man, her smile showing how happy he was making her.

Ben’s stomach clenched at the picture in his head. He knew she was dating; Rachel had said things, and it didn’t seem to occur to Nic that he’d mind. Or that he sometimes imagined—

He cut himself off. He was being stupid. He’d had her, and lost her. He had to get over thinking she’d ever give him another chance.

Since the divorce, he’d taken other women out, even slept with a couple of them. He’d half hoped Nic would hear through the grapevine. If she had, she didn’t care. The past few months, Ben had quit bothering with other women. If she knew that, Nicole didn’t react.

Maybe it was time he asked a woman out because he wanted to. Because he thought he might enjoy her. And, yeah, because his body stirred at the idea of getting naked with her.

By the time he dropped Rachel off on Sunday, he was cursing himself for not finding an opportunity to have asked Eve for her phone number. He called information from his cell phone and was told there was no listing for an Eve Lawson. Probably not a surprise, given her profession—and she likely didn’t even have a landline. He kept his number and address unlisted, too, as did most cops. Of course, he had better resources on the job—but getting a date wasn’t an acceptable reason to use them.

He could call her parents or ask Seth, but didn’t like the idea of setting himself up for humiliation if she turned him down. She’d have voice mail at the local DSHS office...but, man, that wasn’t any way to ask a woman out.

Ben usually carried his own cell phone all the time, but Seth had a tendency to lay his on his desk and leave it when he got coffee or used the john. Monday, Ben bided his time.

“Damn, too much coffee,” Seth grumbled at last, and ambled out.

Ben went to his partner’s desk and half sat on it, waiting until nobody in the bull pen was watching him, then casually reached for the phone, hoping it wasn’t password-protected. Quick, quick. Contacts...what if Seth hadn’t kept Eve’s listing? But why wouldn’t he, when she was Bailey’s sister?

Yes! There it was. Ben committed the number to memory and set the phone down as casually as he’d picked it up, then wandered over to refill his own coffee cup.

Should he call her in the middle of the day, or wait until evening? Evening, he decided. He didn’t want to catch her at a bad moment.

His apartment always felt especially empty and cheerless after he’d had Rachel. He kept thinking he should do something to make the spare bedroom more hers, but he occasionally considered buying a house and hated to waste a lot of effort on a cookie-cutter apartment. After walking in the door at almost seven that evening, he went straight to the kitchen and turned on the oven, then took a pizza from the freezer. He ought to add a vegetable, but decided “ought to” wasn’t enough motivation.

Finally, he took out his phone. Called up Eve’s number, waited as it rang. Once, twice, three times. His tension rose. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Seth if she had a boyfriend? Four.

On the fifth ring, she answered. Her “Hello?” sounded breathless.

“Eve? This is Ben Kemper. We met at Seth’s the other day.”

Silence was his immediate answer. “Ben,” she said finally, sounding cautious. “With the cute little girl. Did she have fun sledding?”

“She got cold really fast. She claimed to have fun, but I don’t know.”

“That’s too bad. I remember the first time I had a chance to go. It was the most fun I’d ever had.”

“Was it the Lawsons who took you?”

“Yes. I mean, before that I tried sliding on cardboard a few times—” She broke off. “I was older than your daughter, though. I mean, when Mom and Dad took me.”

She was adopted. He knew that much, but nothing about the years that came before. Years that might explain why she’d chosen the work she did.

“I’ll try again,” he said. “With Rachel, that is. Maybe buy her some better winter boots and mittens she can leave here.”

“Good idea, except she’ll outgrow them fast.”

Time for a segue into the reason for his call. “Eve, I’m hoping you’ll let me take you to dinner one of these nights.”

Waiting through the ensuing silence, Ben felt about sixteen, asking out the girl he’d had a crush on for the past year. No, longer than that—since middle school. He felt light-headed and realized he was holding his breath. Stupid. It wasn’t as if this mattered so much. It was maybe a little more awkward than usual, because of Eve’s relationship to Seth and Bailey, but—

“I’d like that,” she said simply.

Yes! “I’m free any night,” he admitted. That was him, man about town. “But we can wait until the weekend if that would be better for you.”

“No, as long as I don’t stay out late, a weeknight is fine.”

He wished it wasn’t too late for tonight. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is good.” Did she sound bemused?

Stimson didn’t have a lot of fine dining, but he didn’t want to suggest they drive any distance given that they both probably had to get up early the next morning. “Any chance you like Thai?” he asked.

She did. There might not be a decent Italian restaurant in town, but the Thai one was good. She gave him her address, and they agreed on six. “Just give me a call if you have to be late,” she said, surprising him with her understanding until he remembered she’d dated Seth.

Damn it, had she slept with Seth? Man, he hoped not. Not only for his sake, he realized, but also for Eve’s and Bailey’s.

He leaned back in his chair, suppressing a grin. He had a date.

* * *

“I ALMOST CALLED you today,” Eve confessed the next evening to Ben. The host, whose English was poor to nonexistent, had seated them in a booth, handed them menus and backed away. Eve didn’t reach for hers.

Neither did Ben. His mouth kicked up at one corner. “Because you couldn’t wait for this evening?”

She huffed, which had him smiling. “Seriously. Something happened today involving one of my kids.”

“Your kids?” He looked startled.

Despite her worry about Joel, Eve giggled at Ben’s expression. “Not literally! I’m sorry. I think of them that way. The kids I supervise.”

“I had this sudden picture of children packed into bunk beds behind closed doors in your apartment.” Amusement laced that slightly gritty voice. “You sternly telling them to hush until you and the nice man were gone.”

“Are you a nice man?” Lord, she was flirting. Where had her ambivalence gone?

“Of course I am.” Giving her a lazy, sexy grin, he nodded at her menu and picked up his own. “We should probably order before we delve into why you needed to call a detective about one of your kids.”

They both decided on jasmine tea and to share an order of spring rolls. He ordered a green curry with chicken, Eve a spicy eggplant in a chili paste.

“Trying to scare me off?” Ben asked drolly.

She blinked, and probably blushed. “Oh, dear. I didn’t think. It probably will, um, give me interesting breath.”

He only laughed, although his eyes were heavy-lidded. “Curry might not taste so good secondhand, either.”

Eve knew she was blushing now. He intended to kiss her. Thank heavens the lighting in here was dim and her skin didn’t show the warmth as obviously as someone much paler would.

“Your kid,” he prompted.

Kid? Then, embarrassed by what must be a blank expression, she said hurriedly, “His name is Joel Kekoa. His dad is Hawaiian and Joel looks it, too.”

“Wait. Does he play football?”

“Yes. You go to games?”

“Sometimes. He’s good.”

“So I’m told. I mean, I’ve seen him play, but I’m not a connoisseur. He’s a senior, and had the fun of being recruited by half a dozen major college programs.”

“Yeah? Which one did he pick?”

“The University of Oregon.”

Ben nodded, then waited for her to continue. He must know that grades weren’t the problem; she wouldn’t have been tempted to call him about anything like that.

So she explained about the grumpy old man next door to Joel’s foster home, and about the smashed rose canes. She surprised herself by also sharing her unease with the new foster mother and her son.

“Then I had a call in the middle of the night from a Deputy Pruitt.”

Ben nodded.

“Somebody threw a rock through the guy’s bedroom window. I guess it just missed him. It was big enough, it could have done some real damage. The deputy says it was thrown hard. It skipped off the bed and smashed into the closet door, scarring it. Mr. Rowe—that’s the neighbor—insists it had to be Joel who threw it. He’s big, athletic, has a good arm, and supposedly was mad because Mr. Rowe complained to the foster parents about the damage to his roses.”

“Was he?”

“No. He was more upset that the stepmom seemed to doubt him when he said he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

She felt—and sounded—troubled. She’d only talked to the deputy on the phone, not in person, but from his tone she’d suspected he was rolling his eyes at her defense of Joel, the obvious culprit.

Their spring rolls arrived, and she spooned dipping sauce to her small plate and took a roll, mumbling, “Ouch,” when she discovered how hot it still was.

Ignoring the food, Ben asked, “Did the kid get arrested?”

She gaped at him. “No! How could anybody prove he’d thrown the rock? There were no witnesses.”

Expression inscrutable, he didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Why me? This doesn’t sound like anything that would normally be referred to a detective.”

Was she imagining his restraint? Or was it that she’d imagined his sympathy the other night when she talked about the plight of foster children?

“Just...to get your take.” She shrugged. “I had the feeling the deputy instantly agreed Joel was guilty. Foster kid, minor feud going on between him and the neighbor.”

“Who do you think threw the rock?”

Annoyed now at his measured tone, she raised her eyebrows. “How would I know? From what Joel said about the neighbor, he’s been at war with every kid that ever walked past his place. Never mind the adults. The last time I was over there, Joel and I were talking at my car, and Mr. Rowe was watching us out the window the whole time. Just a slit between drapes. You know.” For some reason, she didn’t tell him that Gavin had been doing the same, and more openly. She’d begun to regret ever mentioning the incident to Ben.

“Okay,” he said mildly. “I’d have thought you’d go to Seth. You’ve known him longer, and he’s going to be your brother-in-law.”

She made sure her tone was light. “It was impulse, that’s all.” Crazy to feel let down, disappointed because Ben didn’t jump immediately in on her side. “Don’t worry about it,” she added. “It was just that I had you on my mind after you called. If the impulse strikes again, I’ll call Seth. Family discount, right?”

“No.” Ben’s gaze held hers. “Call me, not Seth. Anytime. I mean that.”

Well. Eve had not a clue how to take this.

“You’re right. I probably am more sympathetic than Seth is. He’s good with kids but doesn’t have any of his own, and until Bailey had probably never given a thought to issues foster kids have.”

“And you have?”

“My ex was in foster care by the time I knew her.”

“A good one, I hope.”

“Her last one seemed like it. But sometimes I wondered—” He cut himself off, alarm flashing in those shadowed eyes. “Doesn’t matter,” he said after a minute.

Eve didn’t have any choice but to squelch her curiosity. Pretending she didn’t wish he’d finish that last thought, she said, “So you married your high school girlfriend?”

He seemed almost embarrassed to admit he had. They’d gone their separate ways after his first few months of college, but Eve had the impression that might not have been by his choice. He’d initially taken a job with the busier and more urban King County Sheriff’s Department, which surrounded Seattle, but had run into Nicole again at a party and immediately applied for a job locally.

“Ancient history,” he said then. “What about you? How’d you end up back in Stimson?”

“Oh, once I went to work for DSHS, I asked to be assigned here. I thought my parents needed to have me close. You know their history.”

He nodded. “Hope.”

Always Hope. “They never quit grieving. I think I...softened their grief.”

“I bet you did more than that,” he said gently. “I saw their faces when you walked into the living room the other night. You can’t tell me they don’t love you.”

“No, I’m sure they do. I was really lucky that they took me in. I needed them, and they needed me.”

She let him be satisfied by a simple truth that wasn’t the entire truth. Something way more complex almost always underlay simple, in her experience. But Eve was too ashamed of her unfulfilled longings to air them for him anyway.

No, she told him, she’d never come close to anything as serious as marriage. “Just hasn’t happened,” she said, going for unconcerned.

“What about Seth?”

Surprised by his blunt question, she hesitated. It was good he felt compelled to ask, wasn’t it? Surely the implication was that he wanted to pursue a relationship with her. And, despite her hesitations, she couldn’t remember being as attracted to a man as she was to Ben.

“I liked Seth,” she admitted. “I was more interested than he was, I suspect, but, honestly, we never got past a few casual dinners. A couple of movies.” She lifted one shoulder. “I didn’t take it very well when he dropped me, but I’ll bet you can guess why.”

“Hope. Bailey,” Ben corrected himself.

“Right. It took me a while to realize that what really hurt was being thrown over for her. I guess you can tell I have some unresolved jealousy going on here.”

“I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” The smile in his eyes reassured her. “I saw your mother when she came to see Seth every week. The hurt and hope on her face—” He grimaced. “Poor choice of words. You had to have been left wondering...”

When he didn’t finish, she did. “Whether I came close to filling the hole in their lives left by her disappearance? I didn’t wonder. I knew.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t in your head? Even if the two of you had really been sisters, they’d have mourned for her as much. The one doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other.”

“I do know that.” She averted her face. This wasn’t something she usually shared with anyone. And...she’d been lucky. How many times had she had to remind herself? The Lawsons loved her. They’d given her so much. “I was nine when they adopted me. When your own parents don’t want you, and then you get passed around in foster care, it can’t help but make you doubt yourself. How...lovable you really are.” She hated seeing what might be only sympathy in his expression, but looked a lot like pity. “So my rational self knows you’re right. Doesn’t mean that somewhere deep inside I don’t still wonder.”

“I understand.”

His forehead had crinkled and a momentarily distant look in his eyes made her speculate whether he had better reason to understand than he’d said. There had to be a cause for those shadows she’d noticed.

Instinct told her not to ask, though. Feeling as if she’d bared enough of herself, too, she asked a question about how the detective division worked, and from that point on their conversation avoided anything too personal.

During the mostly quiet drive to her apartment house, Eve regretted saying as much as she had. She hadn’t much liked herself lately. She needed to put the jealousy and resentment and self-doubt behind herself. Telling a guy she liked how petty she could be—and on a first date—should be on her list of top ten don’ts.

Thinking about why she’d shot her big mouth off had to be the reason she felt tense. Although she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the good-night kiss. The one that would be a peck if Ben had changed his mind about her.

He parked in a visitor’s slot at her complex and walked her up, waiting while she unlocked her door. She dropped her handbag on the small table just inside and turned to smile at him.

“I’m glad you suggested this. I had a good time, Ben. Thank you for dinner.”

“I enjoyed myself, too. I should have asked for your phone number six months ago.”

Eve blinked. “But...we hadn’t met.”

“I saw you on TV. The press conference. I...commented to Seth on what a beauty Bailey’s sister was. I kind of wonder now if the Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers weren’t engineered for us to meet.”

“That never occurred to me.” Was it possible he liked her looks better than Bailey’s? Because of his daughter, she’d assumed his ex-wife was another blue-eyed blonde, but...maybe not. Rachel could have taken after him.

“Better late than never,” he murmured, and stepped closer. He tipped her chin up with one big hand, bent, and brushed his lips over hers.

The soft contact was tantalizing enough to have her rising on tiptoe to try to sustain it.

“I’ve been thinking about this all evening,” he said huskily, and nipped her bottom lip before stroking it with his tongue.

Eve wrapped her arms around his neck and let her lips part, astonished by her instant, powerful response. His tongue slid over hers, teasing more than commanding. The lighter he kept the kiss, the more she wanted deeper, hotter.

He groaned suddenly and banded his arms around her to lift her. It was as if he’d abruptly lost patience. Her breasts were flattened against his broad chest and she felt his erection. The thrust of his tongue became rhythmic before he broke away to kiss her jaw, then her throat. Eve let her head fall back, savoring the warm tension of his mouth, the way he rocked his hips as if he couldn’t help himself.

But when he reached her collarbone, he went still before releasing a ragged exhalation and letting her slide down his body. She hadn’t realized he’d lifted her off her feet until they made contact again with the floor. It was lucky his arms stayed around her for a minute; her legs felt shaky, weak. Warmth pooled down low, shocking her with her readiness. She was rarely to never this enthusiastic.

Ben nuzzled her cheek. “I got carried away.”

“I think I did, too,” she said tremulously.

“Good.” He lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes narrowed, the blue deepened. His hair, a dull gold in the subdued light of the hall, was ruffled. By her fingers. “I want to see you again.”

Her teeth closed on her lip to steady it. That made a light flare in his eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

“I’ll call you.” His voice was pure gravel.

“Okay.” Meek woman, and she didn’t even care.

He gave something like a laugh, said, “I don’t think I dare kiss you again,” and released her slowly enough to suggest the same reluctance she felt. He backed into the hall and ordered, “Lock behind me.”

“Yes, Detective.”

He grinned at her teasing, let his gaze run over her one more time and made another inarticulate sound that had her almost unbearably tempted to do the unthinkable—invite him in. After a first date.

But he kept backing up, and she found the strength to say good-night and close her door, turn the dead bolt and put on the chain.

After which she slumped against the door, let out a soft moan and began to smile.

* * *

BEN FROWNED AT his rearview mirror. A logging truck was careening along the highway behind him, closing the distance fast. The narrow, two-lane road wouldn’t allow an opportunity to pass for several more miles. The driver had better not crowd his bumper.

“So.” His passenger cleared his throat. “Looked like you and Eve hit it off.”

Ben flicked a glance at Seth. They were returning from an unproductive interview in the far corner of the county. Ben would have liked to lean on the guy a little harder, but knew they didn’t have enough justification yet.

“Bailey put you up to getting the scoop?” he asked.

“No, she’d have no reason not to go straight to the source herself.”

Eve, he meant.

“Do they talk?”

“They seem to be getting better at it.”

The warmth Ben had seen between the two women had seemed genuine, enough so he’d been a little surprised last night when Eve admitted to also feeling jealousy.

“Eve came across as welcoming at the press conference last year.”

“For her parents’ benefit.”

The remark made Ben feel conflicted. To give himself a moment, he checked the rearview mirror again. The truck loomed, still not slowing down. A sonorous horn sounded. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“What?” Seth turned. “If he rides our tail, let’s ticket him.”

“Works for me.” Ben moved his shoulders in an effort to relax tension that had come out of nowhere. “Eve and I had dinner last night,” he said abruptly.

“Hey.” Seth sounded pleased. “Why didn’t you say something?”

The driver of the logging truck either surrendered to common sense or noticed that he was closing on a police car, because he slowed and dropped back.

“Seemed a little awkward when you were seeing her not that long ago.”

“I’ve told you before, there wasn’t much to it.” Seth seemed to brood for a minute. “I’d have probably quit calling her a lot sooner if not for Karen.”

Ben raised his eyebrows.

“Seemed like every damn week when she came in, she’d say something about Eve. I’d think, yeah, she was fun, why not?”

“Then why not?” Ben asked.

“No chemistry. It’s either there or it’s not.”

Ben grunted his agreement. He’d met beautiful women who left him cold.

“I kissed her good-night politely. Never got past that,” his partner added.

Ben relaxed a little more. Eve had implied as much, but he wasn’t sure she’d have told him if she’d slept with Seth. Good God! Imagine if she had, and then he’d fallen for her adoptive sister. Things were bad enough as it was.

His partner nodded acknowledgment, and, men being men, they let the subject drop, reverting instead to the current investigation of an unnecessarily brutal jewelry store holdup. Fortunately, no customers had been in the store. The owner had tried to flee out the back to get help, leaving his assistant behind the counter, but one of the two masked men had caught him and beaten the shit out of him while the other pepper-sprayed the assistant. They’d smashed glass cases and left with sackfuls of gold pieces set with diamonds and other precious stones.

The store was new this last year, in a strip mall of businesses that were higher end than usual for Stimson and environs. Some years back, the city had annexed a whole lot of land, but opposition from an organized group of homeowners had kept them from including an area that had since seen extensive development including half a dozen condominium complexes. Lots of new people and businesses meant a swell in crime and a headache for county law enforcement.

A jewelry store heist, though, that was unexpected. Jewelry could be hard to unload for anything close to value. The men had worn heavy boots, dirty jeans and hooded sweatshirts as well as black ski masks, which didn’t sound like members of a sophisticated ring. Even more telling, they had fled in a white van that belonged to a local electrical company. Reported stolen that morning, it was found abandoned half an hour after the heist beside an often deserted road leading to the county’s solid waste transfer station. Interestingly, the thieves had left the key in the ignition, which Ben thought was remarkably considerate.

It also happened that Ramstad Electrical Inc. had recently fired an employee named Ken Hardison who was reportedly disgruntled. He’d been assigned that particular van and could easily have copied or even kept a key.

Ken Hardison had been home when Ben and Seth came knocking on his door, but had proved to be surly and unwilling to say much more than, “If you found my fingerprints, it’s because I did the wiring on that store.”

“Is that why you think we’re here?” Seth had asked blandly.

“Why else would you be?” He’d glowered at them. “I never stole anything in my life.”

His girlfriend had left him after he’d apparently taken his rage at being fired out on her, following a couple of previous accusations of domestic violence. Sweet-natured, he was not.

Ben really wanted to talk to the girlfriend, but they had as yet failed to locate her. Who could blame her for going into hiding? He just hoped she hadn’t left the area.

Ben parked outside the sheriff’s department headquarters and was reaching for his door handle when he thought of something. “You ever deal with Eve on the job?”

Seth already had his door open, but didn’t get out. “Sure, that’s how we met. Don’t let her fool you. Some of her ‘kids’ are juvenile delinquents. I arrested one of them for setting a fire at the high school.”

“I remember that. Eve was his caseworker?”

“Yep. She was disappointed in him, but also way more understanding than I was.” He grinned. “We had some spirited debates. I was actually kind of surprised she agreed to go out with me after that. Why’d you ask?”

Ben waited until they were walking across the parking lot to answer. “She’s having some issues with another of her kids. Thinks he’s good as gold.”

“Sounds like Eve,” Seth said tolerantly. “She’s deeply committed to those kids.”

“She has the right background for her job.”

“I’d say so. Gives her a bias, too, though.”

“She admitted the arsonist was guilty, though?”

“Yeah, that wasn’t the issue. Her goal was to see him get help instead of time in lockup.”

“Did she win?”

Ben thought the other detective looked embarrassed.

“Pretty much. He did thirty days in juvie, then went to a group home for intensive counseling. When I asked, she told me Friday that he’s doing really well. So, hell, maybe she was right and I was wrong. Kid was only fourteen.”

Ben laughed. He had no trouble picturing Eve Lawson firing up in defense of a troubled boy. He’d seen a hint of that passion when she talked about how inadequate the foster care system was despite the best efforts of everyone who worked in it.

And, damn, he’d felt her passion when he kissed her. His intention had been to keep it light, but when his touch seemed to ignite her, he’d had a hell of a time making himself back off and leave.

The chemistry was there, no question. She intrigued him, too. That was one complicated woman. He’d thought about her all day and had every intention of calling her as he’d said.

He was still bothered by her ties to Seth, however. With Eve being Bailey’s sister, Ben had a feeling Seth wouldn’t like anyone hurting her.

Ben mulled over the idea of sounding her out on whether she had her eye out for an engagement ring or was open to something less serious. He could do it subtly. The idea of screwing up a solid partnership on the job because of a woman didn’t sit well with him.

Back when he was with Nicole...well, that would have been different.

Might still be, he admitted, if she needed him.

He let out a harsh breath. Nic wouldn’t turn to him if she was facing life imprisonment. Far as he could tell, what she mostly felt was resentment because she was stuck dealing with him where Rachel was concerned. He was clearly alone in feeling any lingering...he didn’t want to call it love. Okay, then: fondness. Memory of what they’d shared. Regret.

A year and a half had passed since their split, and all he seemed to awaken in her these days was annoyance. No more delusions, he told himself.

It was good he had Eve on his mind. Complications or not, he’d definitely call her tonight.


CHAPTER THREE (#u78fc7dfb-f7bc-5eff-8c94-26eb293074d5)

HAVING SPOTTED BEN alone at a booth at the back of the diner, Eve waved off the hostess and hurried to join him. He had seen her immediately, and before she reached him slid out of the booth to stand. He’d probably put in as long a day as she had, but that didn’t keep him from looking sexy. The badge and weapon he wore added an element of danger to the rangy, broad-shouldered physique and fallen-angel face. She wasn’t the only one who noticed. Several women diners had turned their heads to stare.

“Eve.” It was as if no one else was there. “You’re wet.”

She surveyed him. “You’re not.”

“It wasn’t raining when I got here.”

“Well, it is now,” she said unnecessarily. She shed her raincoat with his help and laid it and her handbag on the bench seat, sliding in after them.

Ben resumed his seat, facing her. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d requested the booth in the back corner; Seth had always done that, too. Nor that Ben preferred to have his back to the wall and be able to sweep the entire room with an assessing gaze. It must be a cop thing, and was fine by her. She didn’t want to see anyone, and would be just as happy at the moment if no one she knew spotted her.

“Thank you for suggesting this. What a day.”

“Bad?” he asked. Although she suspected he remained aware on some level of every single person in the café, his gaze stayed intent on her alone. Did he know how seductive that was?

“No, just long.” Distressing, too. She hadn’t liked what she’d read between the lines at her last home visit and would need to reassess that placement. Sad to say, things like that weren’t out of the ordinary. She didn’t need to talk about it. “I hope you didn’t mind eating so late,” Eve added. She’d had to call him this afternoon and ask to push dinner back a couple of hours or do it another night.

“I had plenty to do.” This smile was humorless. “Filling a couple of hours is never a problem.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is. Bailey said you and Seth are working on that jewelry store robbery.”

“We are,” he agreed.

“But no arrests?”

“Unfortunately.” He hesitated. “Between you and me, we’re pretty sure we know who did it. Backing up our suspicions isn’t going as well.”

“I’m amazed you got that far,” she admitted. “With them wearing ski masks—” Seeing the way his gaze flicked past her, she turned her head to see the waitress approaching. “Oh, dear. I should decide what I want to eat, shouldn’t I?”

Having eaten here a few hundred times before, Eve barely had to open the menu. The salads were tasteless, so she mentally shrugged and went with a teriyaki chicken sandwich and fries. Ben ordered a burger and fries.

Once they were alone again, he told her a little more about the investigation and the people they’d talked to, mentioning the domestic abuse police reports and the missing girlfriend.

“She has a kid, too, so I can’t blame her for doing her best to disappear. It’s more of a surprise that women stick so long with a creep like that, especially when they have a child to think about.”

“Has Child Protective Services been involved?” Eve asked. “After a couple police visits, they might have been called to evaluate the safety of the child. If so, she may have thought she had to keep them informed about where she is.”

Expression arrested, Ben said, “I didn’t think of that. Good idea.”

Pleased, she nonetheless wrinkled her nose. “CPS, now, that’s a job I wouldn’t want. If I’m afraid of something bad happening because I let a child slip through the cracks, it’s a thousand times worse for them. Too often, they’re investigating really horrific situations. You know how hard it is to be sure you’re making the right call. More often than not, kids will deny abuse.”

“Because whatever family they have feels safer than unknown alternatives.”

She nodded, then smiled her thanks when the waitress brought drinks. “I’m glad you suggested this,” she said. “I don’t think I’d have been up to fine dining tonight.” She should have detoured to the restroom to brush her hair and fix her makeup, but there wasn’t a lot of point since she’d have had to walk right past him first, and he’d have gotten a good look at the real end-of-day Eve.

“You ever think about having a family of your own?” he asked. “It would be tough, putting in these kind of hours.”

The question sounded casual, but surprised her anyway. And—okay—made her feel a little giddy even though this was only a second date. Was he really asking whether she intended to have children?

No—wait. He might just be concerned about his daughter, assuming they were to get any more involved. Even so, that suggested he was thinking ahead, which was a good sign.

“Eventually, I would like to have a family,” she said. “And you’re right. When—if—that happens, I’d want to cut back to part-time or find an alternative. I know what it’s like not to be important to your own parents.” Hating the suddenly raw sound to her voice, seeing a shift in his expression, she gave a small shrug. “I think your Rachel is lucky. She seems so confident, and you’re good with her.”

His jaw tightened. “The divorce hit her hard.”

“Probably, but once she’s sure she can still count on both you and her mother, she’ll be fine.”

He looked hard at her. Didn’t he believe her? No—probably all he wanted to know was whether she was being sincere or was only trying to allay his worries.

Eve was glad that their food arrived before she felt compelled to start babbling. After spreading the napkin on her lap, she was tempted to change the subject altogether, but reminded herself he was the one to start talking about family and children.

“Do you miss her?” she asked.

His startled gaze flew to hers. “Nicole?” Then his expression was shuttered. “You mean Rachel. Yeah, I do. Every day. And Nicole...” He frowned and didn’t finish.

Eve knew better than to say anything.

“She keeps making plans on my weekend, figuring it won’t matter to anyone if we do a switch.”

“But it does.” A lump rose in Eve’s throat. “To you and Rachel both.”

Again he studied her with that unnerving intensity. “Why do you include Rachel? It’s always something fun Nicole has come up with. Another kid’s birthday party—and, no, I know she has no control over when Rachel’s friends schedule their parties. A play, a chance to go roller-skating. I sound like a jerk if I say no.”

“In the short term, Rachel wants to do something fun. But she also needs consistency. To be able to count on her time with you. Consistency, rules and routine form a...a foundation for kids. They need their parents to say, ‘This is how things will go,’ and stick to it.” She made a face. “And here’s the woman with no parenting experience lecturing you. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You do know what happens when things go wrong and how to turn them around for a kid. In comparison, I suspect most parents do nothing but bumble along, hoping they aren’t screwing up.”

Eve laughed. “That’s mostly what social workers do, too, you know.”

His swift grin chased the shadows from his eyes and made her heart squeeze. “Don’t disillusion me.”

“Okay.”

He took a big bite, and she followed suit. A minute later, he said, “It was the hours that did my marriage in.”

Eve frowned and set down her sandwich. “Really?”

“You sound surprised. You must have read that cops have a really high divorce rate.”

“Well, sure I have, but I doubt the hours you put in are the main reason.”

“Women get tired of not being able to count on their husband being home for dinner or special occasions. Nicole claimed she felt like a single parent anyway. I think it’s not so much the long hours as that they’re erratic.”

“So are mine!”

“And you’ve never had a guy you were seeing think you ought to put him first?”

“If a man so much as suggested I should ditch some child’s problem to be on time for our dinner date, I’m the one who’d lose interest,” she said with spirit. “The kids I was dealing with at the end of the day today—they had to come first, if only temporarily.”

“People don’t always get that.”

He meant his wife didn’t get that. “You were a deputy when you got married.”

Ben looked wary. “I was.”

“You must have dated for a while first. Maybe lived together?”

This so wasn’t her business, Eve realized belatedly, but the whole idea made her mad. Love shouldn’t be conditional. What good would it be, then? All too often, she saw the damage done to children because parents or teachers or foster parents couldn’t love or accept them with their flaws. And wasn’t this the same thing, in a way? Ben’s ex-wife had loved him...until an aspect of who he was irritated her.

“We might have gotten married too soon,” Ben said, sounding constrained. “I was the one to push for it. Once I saw her again...” He shrugged.

He didn’t have to finish. He’d known his Nicole was the one. That’s what he was thinking.

And Eve was painfully jealous. Her fault for pursuing the subject of his ex-wife, but maybe it was just as well to know up front how things stood. What were the odds he’d ever feel so much for another woman?

Bailey didn’t have to wonder; she’d seen the difference. For Seth, Bailey would be the one-and-only instead of the fill-in Ben was probably looking for.

Ignoring the tight feeling in her chest, as if her rib cage had shrunk, Eve made herself say, “What from I’ve read, cops have other issues that affect their marriages. Alcoholism, chronic anger that may have to do with PTSD, a controlling nature to start with, a tendency to shut down around anyone but coworkers, the necessity of living with the awful things you see.”

He let out a sound that he might have intended as a laugh, but lacked all humor. “Gee, thanks. I feel like a real prize now.”

Eve made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about you. At least, not from what I’ve seen so far. You have talked to me about what you’re working on. A little bit about frustrations and doubts. You listen to me. You don’t seem to be a heavy drinker—”

“I’m not.”

She nodded. “My point is, the fact that you work lousy hours shouldn’t be enough to end a marriage. You do an important job, one I assume you find fulfilling. What were you supposed to do, quit that job and start doing something you hate just so you could sit down for dinner at six o’clock every night?”

There was a silence long enough to give Eve the idea she’d gone somewhere she shouldn’t have. Oh, God. What was she thinking? Listening when a guy criticized his ex was fine if tiresome; jumping in feetfirst herself, not so smart.

“You’re saying that Nic drawing a line in the sand over the hours I worked was...a diversion.” Ben’s tone was flat. “No, an excuse.”

“I don’t know her at all.” Her embarrassment came out in awkwardness. Eve couldn’t make herself meet his eyes. “So, no, I’m not saying that. There’s no reason you’d tell me the problems you had in your marriage. It’s just...” Oh, great, she couldn’t stop while she was ahead! Now what?

“It’s just?” He had plainly lost interest in his dinner. And probably her, too.

Well, so be it, she thought in defiance.

So she finished what she’d meant to say. “If a couple isn’t going to stick together, especially when they have kids, the problems should be deep and wide, not...not something trivial.”

“Trivial,” he repeated.

What was that saying? In for a penny?

“Marriages succeed even when one spouse is deployed for six months out of every year. Being late to dinner on a regular basis because you’re dealing with the tragedies other people suffer? That’s nothing.”

His face had become unreadable. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d moved. He didn’t want to give anything away, which most likely meant she’d hurt him.

And, gee, why would that be? Because, knowing absolutely nothing about his marriage beyond his casual mention that the hours he’d worked had been a problem, she’d decided—and told him—his wife must not really have loved him. Alternative: he’d taken her little speech to mean he must have problems that had impacted his marriage.

Way to go, Eve. She’d become a self-righteous know-it-all. What a shock no guy had yet fallen to his knees in front of her to declare she was the one for him!

She stared down at her plate, uncomfortably aware she probably looked like a turtle trying to shrink into its shell. Her cheeks heated until they must be flaming red. Ben didn’t say a word.

Finally she couldn’t let the silence go on. She took a deep breath and raised her chin, to find him still inspecting her, as if deciding whether she was a poisonous kind of spider he should crush or a garden-variety kind he might let crawl off and hide in a crack.

“I need to go,” she said, snatching up her napkin and dropping it on the table and then grabbing coat and handbag. Even as she slid out of the booth, she added, “I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

At last, his expression changed. “Eve. What are you...?”

“Good night.” And she fled, walking faster and faster until she was nearly running once she made it outside.

For no reason. When she reached her car, parked half a block away, and looked back, she saw that Ben hadn’t followed her.

And why would he?

* * *

WHAT THE HELL?

Stunned, Ben watched Eve hurry away without once looking back. He’d reacted slowly enough, he had barely gotten to his feet when the restaurant door swung closed behind her. Even if he thought he could catch her, he couldn’t leave without paying since the bill Eve had dropped on the table wouldn’t cover the total.

At last he slid back into the booth, where his remaining French fries didn’t look all that appealing anymore. Eve had hardly touched her meal.

How had their dinner date blown up in his face so fast? So, okay, he hadn’t liked Eve’s analysis of his breakup with Nicole, even if she’d been coming out strongly in his favor. Maybe it was habit, too many years of leaping automatically to defend Nic, but at least he hadn’t argued. In fact, he’d have sworn he’d locked down his emotions. On the job, he had plenty of practice at that. But, obviously, Eve had seen enough on his face to send her running. That made him feel like shit, even if he was still roiling inside over what she’d had to say.

Your wife didn’t love you or she’d have understood you’re doing the job you need to do. That’s what Eve had been trying to make him see.

Great guy that he was, he’d wanted to slam her for it.

Frowning into space, he brooded over his own irrationality. A beautiful woman had tried to tell him the divorce wasn’t his fault. She’d even made it sound as if she thought law enforcement was a calling, that he accomplished something noble. And him, he’d been furious because she implied that Nicole had been—was—shallow.

Or did this tightness in his chest have another cause? Maybe he couldn’t deal with the possibility that Nic never really had loved him.

No point in wasting time thinking about that anyway. What difference did it make now? The divorce had been signed, sealed and delivered over a year ago.

Except, if it didn’t matter, why was he so bothered? Ben rubbed his breastbone with the heel of his hand. Easy answer: no man liked thinking he’d been a fool.

Maybe his hesitation where Eve was concerned had been right on. He could call, apologize for whatever he’d done that had upset her and consider himself lucky they hadn’t gotten in any deeper before the crash. Because, damn, did he want to be psychoanalyzed every time they went out?

He made a sound. Yep, like Eve would agree to another fun evening with him.

Troubled, he signaled the waitress for the bill, lied and said Eve had been called away to explain their mostly uneaten meals, and went home.

There, he decided to call her right away and get it over with. No surprise, she didn’t answer.

“Eve, I don’t know what you thought, but I wasn’t mad. You had nothing to apologize for. I’m, uh, still a little touchy where the divorce is concerned. I guess you could tell. It’s my fault for bringing it up, though. I appreciate what you were trying to do—” Did he? “—and I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I’m the one who feels like a jerk because you didn’t get a chance to eat dinner, and after a tough day.” He hesitated, knowing he’d be cut off soon, unable to think of the right way to end this. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he finished hastily, and was left standing there holding his phone thinking, Wait. Call her?

* * *

EVE WAS TOO chagrined to answer when Ben’s number came up on her phone. Her behavior was inexcusable.

At home, she took a long hot shower and changed into sweats and fuzzy socks before making herself a cup of tea and sitting down to stare at her phone as if it was a crystal ball.

With a sigh, she called voice mail, put in her password and braced herself for Ben’s voice.

Eve, I don’t know what you thought, but I wasn’t mad.

Uh-huh. Sure.

By the end of his message, bewildered was a really good description of her state of mind. He felt bad? He was going to call her tomorrow?

She listened a second time, paying attention to his intonation, to that hesitation near the end.

Oh, God—what if he did call? Her stern inner voice told her: Be a grown-up, even if you haven’t been acting like one lately, that’s what. Smooth things over so it won’t be awkward if you run into him at Bailey’s in the future.

Eve made a face. Okay, it was good advice. And yes, that’s what she’d do. If nothing else, it was entirely possible she’d end up encountering him through work, the way she had met Seth in the first place.

What she’d say if Ben asked her out again remained undecided when she went to bed with a book.

Her morning was devoted to figuring out where to put the two kids she’d decided urgently had to be moved, then making the calls so it could happen. She drove nearly half an hour out to the tiny town of Lowell so that she could talk to the foster mom who’d been angry enough at a five-year-old and an eight-year-old to feed them nothing but bread and water for several days even as the rest of the family sat down to their usual meals. Eve packed the poor kids’ minimal possessions and called the school to let them know she would be picking the children up at the end of the day. She let the social worker who’d assessed the foster home know what had happened, making sure she didn’t sound critical. They all made mistakes. The home had looked decent, the kids had been well dressed, and if Eve hadn’t discovered what happened, she wouldn’t have seen any red flags, either. She was still bemused at how the idea her version of discipline might be inappropriate had shocked the foster mom, although she’d flushed when Eve asked if she had ever put her own children on a diet of bread and water. Clearly, the answer was no.

Whether the kids would be able to stay more than temporarily in the new foster home was an open question. Constant changes were really damaging to children’s sense of security, but there was no way Eve would have been able to leave them where they were.

She was briefly back at her desk in a cubicle at the DSHS offices when her mobile phone rang and she saw Ben’s name. Oh, boy.

I’m going to demonstrate my maturity, remember?

“Ben,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for calling.”

The little silence told her she’d taken him aback.

“Did you get my message?”

“Yes, it was nice of you to call. I really am sorry I behaved so poorly. I don’t know what got into me, lecturing you as if I know anything at all about your marriage. You just...touched a hot button of mine, I’m afraid, and I was tired enough to let loose. And then what did I do but flee the scene of my crime.” She tried to inject a note of humor into her voice. “So you’re definitely not the one who should be apologizing. I am.”

“No,” he said, a little extra gravel in his voice. “I meant that apology. I guess I’m a typical man, blanking out emotions. What you said made sense. It left me feeling a lot of contradictory things I had trouble working through.”

Eve bowed her head and massaged her forehead. “I am sorry,” she said softly. “I swear I’ll keep my mouth shut the next time we run into each other at Seth and Bailey’s, if we do. Okay?”

Another silence had her going still.

“I was kind of hoping we could put this behind us and try again,” Ben said, just enough uncertainty in his voice to bring her head up.

“You must have women circling all the time,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I’m pretty messed up. I guess I don’t understand why you’d want to bother.”

“I’m not who you think I am,” Ben said. “Most women react to who I am on the outside. I kind of had the sense you saw a little deeper.”

Once again, he’d made her feel ashamed of herself. He was right. The truth was, she wouldn’t have been interested in him at all if his head-turning looks said all that much about his character. Gorgeous men tended to be full of themselves. For whatever reason, Ben wasn’t.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m...making assumptions.”

“Damn it, you’re a beautiful woman! You must know that.”

People had told her so, but when she looked in the mirror, filters kept her from seeing herself the way other people claimed to.

“Is that why you asked me out?” she had to ask.

Each pause left her wishing she could see his face.

“Partly. Sure. I reacted to your looks. But I reacted to your looks when I saw you on TV last summer, too, and I didn’t do anything about it because I didn’t know you. It was meeting you, seeing—” He stopped.

“Seeing what?” Eve whispered.

“Self-doubt. Kindness. The way you move, your smile, your laugh.”

Self-doubt was first on his list? she thought incredulously. How ironic that she’d been drawn to the same quality in him. Or maybe that wasn’t quite right to describe what she’d seen in him. She’d thought of it as the shadows in his eyes. Buried pain, hurt, a constraint that didn’t match his outward perfection. And...the gentle way he touched his daughter, the love in his eyes when he looked at her.

“That...might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she told him, in a voice that didn’t sound quite like hers.

“Does that mean you’re willing to give it another shot?”

Her sinuses burned and a smile trembled on her lips. “Yes. I’d love to give it another shot. If...if you mean it.”

He cleared his throat, and his voice still came out husky. “I do.”

The brief discussion about when and where they’d see each other again felt mundane compared to what had come before.

Friday night, they agreed finally. Dinner again. Possibly a movie, depending on what was playing at the four-screen theater in town.

Of course, all she did in the intervening day was get more and more nervous about seeing him again. She wished they could have had lunch that day. Or at least dinner. She hadn’t suggested it, though, and neither had he.

They ended up driving to Mount Vernon, a county over, and eating at an Italian restaurant on the main street that paralleled the Skagit River, then walking the block to the restored Lincoln Theatre with its single screen to see a foreign film that had been recommended to Eve.

Dinner was pleasant, but she thought they were both being so careful with each other, neither said anything important. At the theater, they chose seats on the aisle. He helped with her coat before shrugging out of his own parka.

At least, sitting side by side, their shoulders touched. Making yet more careful conversation, Eve focused on his big hands resting on his thighs. With his long fingers, they could have been a pianist’s hands, or an artist’s. Her heart gave a bump as she wondered what they’d feel like on her. As if reacting to her thought, his right hand flexed, curling into a fist before straightening. She looked up to see he was watching her. Reading her mind?

They stared at each other, Eve caught feeling unguarded. She couldn’t remember ever having such an intense physical reaction to a man.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, and she jerked to see a couple laden with popcorn and drinks waiting to get by to empty seats.

The moment broken, Ben murmured an apology and he and Eve both stood to let them by. Eve straightened her coat on the back of the seat and sat down again, then sneaked a glance at Ben. This time, his expression was wry.

“Guess this isn’t the place to say I like the way you look at me.”

Oh, boy. “Um, probably not,” she managed.

He laughed, lifted his arm and draped it around her. “So, how do you feel about cuddling at the movies?”

Smiling, Eve shifted closer. “Definitely positive.”

His breath warm on her ear, he murmured, “Good.” And then, as the lights dimmed, “Ah. Here we go.”

Now, if only she could concentrate well enough to read the subtitles.


CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4bb6a4cb-69ee-5776-a6b0-e889f63ac95c)

“SO WE’RE GOING to rerun this dinner, huh?” Eve teased, as she slid into the booth across from Ben at the diner.

He had hesitated to suggest eating here, but, damn it, there weren’t that many decent choices in town that didn’t have white tablecloths and require more time and effort than he and Eve could spare on a working night. Monday night they’d gone out for pizza and a couple games of pool. Turned out she knew how to wield a cue and had a good eye for trajectory. Her chortle of satisfaction had compensated his male ego after he lost two out of three games. When he’d called her at work Tuesday to ask if they could have dinner again Wednesday, his options were limited.

So he’d crossed his fingers and said, “What about the café?” and she’d agreed, but sounded distracted enough he hadn’t been sure she’d thought it through.

Now he agreed, tongue in cheek, “There’s that saying about getting back in the saddle right away.”

Eve wriggled a little and wrinkled her nose at him. “Now that you mention it, the seats do feel a little like a saddle, and they’re not padded much better, either.”

“The place could do with some updating,” he conceded. “Ah...maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “The food’s good, it’s quiet enough to talk and nine times out of ten you can snag the back booth.”

Ben gave a crooked smile. “You noticed, huh?”

“You and Seth,” she said, and bent to study the menu.

Did she have to remind him she’d dated his partner? Then he had an unwelcome thought. Was she a cop groupie?

“You gone out with a cop before?” he asked casually.

“Hmm?” She glanced up. “Oh. No.” An impish grin flashed. “And I was so annoyed at Seth by the time he asked, I couldn’t figure out why I’d agreed.”

Ben relaxed and laid one arm along the padded back. “He said something about that. Admitted he might have been wrong and you were right about that kid, too.”

“Did he?” Humor gave her a tiny dimple in one cheek even when she was suppressing a smile, like now. “Funny thing, he never told me that.”

Ben couldn’t help grinning. “What man likes to admit he’s wrong?”

Her gaze became more searching. “You don’t, either?”

“Not my favorite thing to do.” For some reason, he flashed to his divorce. Was that why he couldn’t let go? Because admitting he’d been wrong really meant admitting he and Nicole shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, and he wasn’t willing to do that?

He flicked the thought away. “Here comes our waitress. You made up your mind?”

Eve closed the menu. “I’m going to try again with the same meal.”

“Since you didn’t get to eat it last time,” he said slowly.

“Since I was an idiot.” She smiled at the middle-aged waitress and gave her order. Ben did the same.

When they were alone again, he asked about her day. It sounded a lot like his, the way she described it. Apparently reports figured as largely in her job as they did in his. That and driving from one end of the county to the other, too often finding the person he’d gone to talk to had forgotten he was coming or decided to dodge him. He mentioned a couple of obscure back roads, and she knew them both, laughingly telling him one was a speed trap and she was too smart for it.

“Yeah, that dip makes a good place to tuck a patrol car out of sight, plus teenagers love to build up speed and try for some air there.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t speed.”

“I don’t speed,” she said obediently. Rolled her eyes and added, “Anymore.”

“There’ve been a couple of ugly accidents on that same road in just the past year or so.”

“I know. And really I don’t. I was as stupid as any other teenager, but I’ve outgrown that kind of defiance.”

Their food came and they kept talking, sharing more tidbits from their jobs, likes and dislikes, a book he’d recently read, foods they detested, the concept of diving in the cold waters around the San Juan Islands, something he’d done a few weeks back with friends.

“In the middle of the winter?”

Laughing at her horror, he said, “You don’t get cold when you’re wearing a wet suit. The only kinda miserable moment is when you have to peel it off on deck.”

“Ugh,” was her conclusion. “Now, snorkeling in the Caribbean I could go for.”

He’d done that, too—on his honeymoon. He figured it was just as well not to say so.

And, wouldn’t you know, that was when his phone buzzed and he glanced to see he had a text from Nicole asking him to call when he had a minute. That sounded tentative for her, which had him on edge. Was something wrong? She’d have said if it was an emergency, he told himself, and put his phone away without comment. Eve’s gaze had followed it, though, and her expression was enigmatic.

For something to say, he asked her whether anything had come of the grumpy neighbor’s complaints about the Kekoa boy.

“Unfortunately, there’s been another incident,” Eve said, expression perturbed. “The foster dad called today. Mr. Rowe’s car was keyed. Apparently he usually parks in the garage, but he’d intended to go out later, so... Whoever did it was smart enough to stop with one side—the side Mr. Rowe couldn’t see from his front window.”

“Calculated.”

“What crossed my mind was malice aforethought.”

“The definition of first degree.”

She shivered. “It happened about when the boys got home after school. Gavin drove—he has his own car—and Joel took the school bus.”

“Not a real friendly relationship there,” Ben mused.

“No. Not outwardly hostile, either, but—” She chose not to finish.

“The neighbor call the police?”

“Yes.” Eve looked even unhappier. “Officer Pruitt again. He confronted Joel instead of making any effort to knock on doors and find out whether anybody else had seen it happen.”

As far as Ben knew, Ed Pruitt was a competent police officer. Either he wasn’t ambitious, had scored poorly on the tests that led to advancement or liked being first responder. Whatever the reason, he had stayed in uniform through his career and had just passed his twenty-fifth year on the job.

“You sure he didn’t?” Ben asked. “Or is that what the boy told you?”

“Well...” She frowned at him. “You’re right. Pruitt is leaning hard on Joel for no other reason than because Mr. Rowe doesn’t like him, though.”

“Cops do get tunnel vision sometimes, just like anyone else,” Ben said mildly.

“Are you implying I have, too?”

He didn’t think she’d appreciate being told she looked cute when she bristled.

“Nope. Just saying we’re not perfect, hard as we try.” One side of his mouth quirked up. “Well, I might have achieved that exalted state, but...”

Eve’s laugh erased her wariness. “Right. A perfect detective would have arrested the guys who hit that jewelry store, wouldn’t he have?”

His smile turned into a grimace. “That’s a low blow.”

She laughed again. He liked the sound, a merry ripple that was almost a giggle.

He picked up the dessert menu, tucked behind the catsup and salt and pepper shakers. “Pie?” he asked, even though he also felt an itch to call Nic and find out what was up. He could make an excuse and go to the john....

“I couldn’t.” Eve looked down at her empty plate ruefully. “I missed lunch, so I was starved, but I still don’t know how I stuffed all that in.”

He’d kind of wondered that himself, but he’d noticed that Eve rarely completely relaxed. She fidgeted, she tapped her foot, she paid attention to everything going on around her. Energy hummed through her. He’d be willing to bet she burned more calories than average for her size and weight.

He’d also really like to find out how it felt to go to bed with a woman whose engine never idled. He doubted she’d be passive. The thought was enough to make him shift a little uncomfortably.

She noticed, but only said, “I’d love a cup of coffee, though. I’ll watch you eat. And maybe steal a bite or two, depending on what you order.”

Damn it, Nicole could wait.

Ben went for cherry pie a la mode, and she stole more than a couple of bites. Sharing with her was fun, and it gave him an excuse to prolong the evening. Since they’d met here, like last time, and Eve would be driving herself home, her inviting him in wasn’t going to happen. A good-night kiss would have to be hasty, given that it was raining, weather that was more common than not in western Washington at this time of year.

While they waited for the waitress to return with change, Ben braced himself for Eve to take offense, but had to say, “This is my weekend with Rachel.” That sounded kind of bald, so he added, “If you want to think about Sunday night after she’s gone...”

If her expression changed, he couldn’t tell. “Oh, I usually have Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad.” Her tone was pleasant. “Do you have any special plans?”

“Maybe a movie Saturday.” Rachel liked to bake, too, so he’d bought some shaped cookie cutters and sprinkles and what have you so they could have some fun with sugar cookies. He was a little embarrassed to admit that. Plus...damn it, he couldn’t help picturing Eve with them, that rippling laugh delighting Rachel as much as it did him.

But letting her get to know Rachel better implied something he didn’t intend. He didn’t want his daughter to become attached to one after another of the women in his life.

As Eve walked out of the café ahead of him, he tried to decide if she’d understood the signal he’d sent by not suggesting she join him and Rachel this weekend, or whether she just thought he was being cautious about jumping in too quickly.

If he were smart, he’d come right out and say, “I’m not looking for anything long-term,” but he couldn’t seem to make himself do that, and he knew why: he wanted Eve, and he’d never have her if he was that blunt.

What if he hurt her, a woman who’d been hurt by too many people?

The worry made shame curl in his belly.

He kissed her good-night anyway, even though cold rain ran down his neck while he was doing it.

But he dialed Nic’s number even as he walked to his own car.

* * *

“YOU THINK THEIR haul is stashed under one of their beds?” Seth asked, frustration adding an edge to his tone.

Frustration Ben shared. Neither of them knew where to go next with this, and new crimes were pulling them away. The amount of time they could give to investigating the jewelry store heist was diminishing.

“Why not?” he said. “They must know we’re not even close to getting a warrant.”

The frustration still simmering, he ran a background search on a guy he liked for a more conventional holdup at a corner grocery store and gas station. The perpetrator had kept his head down and his face shielded by a hoodie, but watching the footage from the surveillance camera, Ben kept thinking, I’ve seen this guy before. His stature, the way he moved, the dart of his hand as he snatched the money... The name had come to Ben in the middle of the night, a lightbulb bursting on.

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured now, when he saw that Henry James Whitmore—otherwise known as Whit—had been picked up a couple more times since Ben had last collared him. In fact, Whit had been released from a six-month lockup three weeks ago.

Ben shook his head. Some people never learned.

His phone rang and he reached for it absently. The number looked familiar, but didn’t belong to anyone he knew well.

“Detective Kemper, this is Julie Silveira from Child Protective Services. I heard from Michelle Baker.”

“Did you?” he said softly. Something in his voice had Seth swiveling his chair to look at him. “Thank you for calling.”

A minute later, he hung up, his grin triumphant. “Ken Hardison’s girlfriend just surfaced. She says she’ll talk to us.”

Seth was already rising to his feet. “Now?”

“Sounds like. I have an address.”

She’d been hiding out at a friend’s house in Everett, an hour’s drive away.

Michelle Baker turned out to be painfully thin, with lanky, dull hair and the physical mannerisms of someone who had become conditioned to try to appear deferential—or maybe she was going for invisible, if only subconsciously.

“He always said he’d never let me go,” she said after she’d looked nervously up and down the street before letting them in the front door of the run-down place a few blocks from the community college. “I’d have liked to stay with my sister, but—” her shrug had a defeated quality “—he’s been knocking on her door every day or two since I took off. I told her to be careful.”

He asked about her child, and Michelle said she was napping. “He never hit Courtney,” she said, “but that last time, she saw what he did to me and I just didn’t know what to tell her.”

They refused coffee and talked briefly about measures she could take to protect herself, but Ben could tell she wasn’t convinced, and he couldn’t blame her. Hardison’s history suggested he was just the kind of guy to be enraged by a restraining order.

She looked from Seth to Ben, her confusion apparent. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? ’Cause I never got two detectives before when I complained.”

“No. I’m sorry.” Ben cleared his throat. She seemed more comfortable talking to him than to Seth, which wasn’t unusual. Seth’s rougher face and bulkier build were intimidating to a certain kind of witness. “We’re not usually involved in domestic violence calls.” Until they escalated into homicide, of course, but he wasn’t about to say that. He explained that Ken’s name had come up in the course of their investigation into a recent robbery, and they were hoping she’d be willing to tell them if she’d heard him making plans.

“Um... I heard some stuff.” She ducked her head, hiding her face behind her hair. “I shoulda told somebody,” she said softly. “I felt bad when I saw about it on TV. I mean, them hurting that guy.” She looked up. “He didn’t die, did he?”

“Why don’t you tell us what you heard before I answer any questions,” Ben said gently.

“That jewelry store,” she said, looking surprised. “That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it?”

He smiled at her. “Yes, it is.”

After agreeing to be recorded, she began, “See, he was real mad about getting fired.”

At the end, Ben asked if she’d be willing to testify in court as to what she’d heard. When she hesitated, he told her honestly he couldn’t guarantee Hardison would be convicted, but if he was, he’d be put away for a good, long time given how brutal the assault had been on the store owner and how serious his injuries.

Her face firmed and she squared her shoulders. “I’ll do that. After he hurt me so many times, he don’t deserve any loyalty from me.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Ben smiled at her as he rose to his feet. “You’ve been an excellent witness, Ms. Baker.” He extracted a promise from her to inform him of any moves, and told her he’d keep her informed. Seth thanked her, too, then grinned at Ben as they walked to their car.

“I have Dietz on speed dial,” he said.

Jennifer Dietz was the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney they’d been working with on this investigation.

“Call her,” Ben agreed.

* * *

NICOLE CROSSED HER arms and adopted a combative stance as she waited with Ben for Rachel to rush to her room to grab her rolling pink suitcase. “What if you get called in to work?” she asked. “Tell me you have somebody responsible to watch over Rach until I can pick her up.”

They’d only had this same conversation twenty or thirty times. Had she dredged it up again because he’d been incautious enough during their phone conversation Wednesday to mention being out for dinner? Dumb to let it slip, given that Nic had been friendly, wanting to talk about an issue she had with Rachel’s teacher.

Now he unclenched his jaw enough to allow him to speak. “You’ve met Mrs. Chaffee. She’s watched Rachel a couple times before. Rachel likes her.”

“What if she’s not home?”

He kept his voice low, but wasn’t able to strip it entirely of anger. “I haven’t yet left my daughter alone, and I won’t. She’s as safe with me as she is with you.”

“Daddy?” Speaking from right behind her mother, Rachel sounded uncertain. He hadn’t heard her returning.

“Hey, kiddo.” Tilting his head to see past Nicole, he smiled at his little girl. “You sure you have everything?”

“Uh-huh. Bye, Mommy.” She submitted to a hug from her mother, then took Ben’s hand and trotted down the porch steps happily with him.

His last glimpse was of Nicole still standing in the doorway, even from a distance radiating hostility.

He tried to call up a recollection of the last time there’d been warmth between them and failed. Passion, yes, but it had been forever since he and Nicole had had fun talking over dinner, or since she’d asked about his day and seemed to care. And, yeah, he had asked about her day, and cared.

He heard his own voice. You’re saying that Nic drawing a line in the sand over the hours I worked was...a diversion. He rejected the thought between one blink and the next. No, there’d been love, all right. He just wished he knew what had killed her love for him.

“So, pumpkin, how was school?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror to see Rach, and listened to her chatter.

She worked her way around to negotiating mode. “Can we have pizza, Daddy? You said—”

“We’re not going out tonight,” he told her firmly. “If you want pizza tomorrow after the movie, that’s what we’ll have. Tonight, I’m making tacos, which I know you like.”

She giggled. Which made him remember Eve’s laugh, but, no, he wasn’t going there.

“And for dessert,” he added, “we’re making cookies.”

“Can we make chocolate chip?” she begged.

“Nope, we’re doing cutout cookies like people make for Christmas, except we can make hearts and trees and unicorns and all kinds of shapes instead of reindeer and stars.”

Her face brightened. “With frosting?”

“And sprinkles.”

“That will be fun,” she decided, and bounced in her booster seat.

Unfortunately, he’d overestimated her attention span. She happily cut out enough cookies to fill one cookie sheet, “helped” him spread frosting once they’d come out of the oven and decorated about two cookies before asking if she could watch a movie now.

If she’d chosen How to Train Your Dragon 1 or 2, or even The Lego Movie, he might have joined her. But Frozen? He swore she watched it every time she came, and he knew she had it at home, too.

So he put the DVD in for her, poured her a glass of milk, gave her a couple of cookies and set himself to cutting out, baking and decorating a couple of dozen more. Slapping on frosting, he wondered how different it might have gone if Eve had been here. He bet she could have made decorating cookies fun.

* * *

ROD CARTER FINALLY agreed to meet with Eve on Saturday morning. It wasn’t as if she’d had any more interesting offers for the weekend. So why not work? she thought wryly. In an attempt not to think about Ben and Rachel and what they were doing, she turned her mind to Joel, who had sounded scared the last time they talked.

She had suggested a coffee shop, wanting to separate Rod from his wife and also be able to talk without either Joel or Gavin overhearing. She was already seated in a comfortable, upholstered chair with her chai, staking out a reasonably private corner, when he arrived ten minutes late.

“Sorry,” he said, when he joined her after getting his coffee. “Ah, Lynne wanted me to say how sorry she is that things aren’t so good with Joel. She’s really trying, you know.”

His discomfiture suggested he didn’t believe that, but Eve decided to steer away from challenging the statement right away.

“I’m sorry you weren’t there to talk the last couple times I’ve come out. You know Joel a lot better than your wife does.”

Lines deepened in his forehead. “I thought I did.”

“I gather Mr. Rowe is a difficult neighbor.” Eve sipped her tea.

Rod grunted. “You could say that.”

“Do you know who besides Joel has annoyed him?”

“Who hasn’t?” he muttered. “He reamed me out a month or so ago when some dog knocked over my garbage can and I wasn’t out there early enough in the morning to pick up all the crap.”

“Gavin?”

“Oh, Gavin has his car souped up and Rowe bitches about the racket.” He brooded briefly. “There’s no pleasing him. Guess he was never young.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a teenager in the neighborhood he likes.”

“Or a kid of any size. Trick-or-treaters don’t knock on his door, I can tell you that,” Rod said with feeling.

Time to lay it out. “Do you have any reason to believe Joel would be pulling these tricks on Mr. Rowe?”

He tried to meet her eyes and couldn’t. “It’s not me who is accusing Joel! It’s that son of a bitch next door.”

“Your wife seemed to be taking the accusations as fact.”

“She’s just pacifying the old man. Letting him think we’re dealing with it.”

“So you don’t believe Joel retaliated against him?”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to. Lynne...”

Eve waited him out.

“I’ve been working long hours lately.” He was a PUD lineman, and during winter in a wooded county, outages occurred with every windstorm.

Eve nodded her understanding.

“Lynne sees more of the boys than I do. Joel...he seems to resent her some, or at least she thinks so. He’s been a lot quieter lately. Kinda withdrawn. I thought he and Gavin would hit it off, but Joel hasn’t acted interested.”

Eve let herself look surprised. “He didn’t say anything like that to me.”

At last Rod met her eyes. “Would he?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I think he would. He’s been pretty open with me.”

Rod looked away again. Wondering what Joel had told her?

“It’s just teenage pranks.” Once again, he didn’t sound as if he quite believed what he was saying.

“Mr. Rowe could have been badly hurt by the rock through the window. That showed a degree of malice.”

Aforethought, she added silently.

He shifted in his chair, took a drink of his coffee, twitched a little. “Eve, I don’t know what I can tell you.”

They discussed Joel’s school performance, which was still excellent, his decision to go with the University of Oregon, Gavin’s adjustment to a new high school.

“He already has a girlfriend,” he said with a chuckle. “One of the cheerleaders, wouldn’t you know. Cute little thing.”

Eve hoped Joel hadn’t had his eye on that same cute little thing. She wouldn’t put it past Gavin to target a girl just because Joel liked her. Then she felt the smallest bit guilty about the antipathy she felt for a sixteen-year-old boy she really didn’t know that well.

She gave up shortly thereafter and let Rod make a hasty escape. Although she’d finished her tea, she sat where she was for a few more minutes, thinking. No great ideas came to mind. Her best hope was that the tricks had come to an end. As annoyed as she was at Officer Pruitt, his interest must surely be making the perpetrator nervous. He—and she couldn’t help seeing Gavin’s smug face—might not have believed Clement Rowe would call the police. Nothing had happened since Tuesday. Five days. That was good, right?

* * *

“IS SOMETHING UP?” Eve’s mother asked after passing her the butter. “We haven’t heard much from you lately. Or seen you.”

Her dad didn’t comment. A quiet man, he only continued eating, although Eve had no doubt he was paying attention.

She cast her mind back. In fact, the last time she’d seen her parents had been the Friday night at Seth’s when she’d met Ben for the first time.

“Just busy,” she said, and told them a little about Joel’s troubles. She’d bragged about him before, so they looked surprised.

“But he sounds like such a nice boy!” her mother exclaimed. “Surely no one really believes he’d try to hurt an old man.”

“I don’t. His foster father isn’t being as supportive as I’d like, though.”

“Boy has a lot to lose,” her dad remarked.

“I keep thinking that, too,” she agreed. “A few months from now, he’ll be gone. Doing something like this, he’d be risking his full ride to college. He’s too smart to do that, even if he had a nasty streak, which I swear he doesn’t.”

Eve talked a little more about her work, hoping to divert her mother from her curiosity about what had been occupying Eve’s time. For some reason, she didn’t want to talk about Ben. Maybe she was afraid to jinx the tentative beginning they’d made.

But she should have known Mom better than that. Into the first pause, she said, “You’re surely not working twenty-four hours a day.”

“Well, not quite. I actually did work yesterday.” She hesitated, conceding defeat. “I’ve started seeing someone. A guy, I mean. We’ve had dinner four or five times, seen a movie.” She shrugged. Silence answered her.

“Goodness,” her mother finally said. “Is this anyone we know?”

Damn. They did know Ben. No way she could lie.

“Ben Kemper, Seth’s partner. The man who came to Seth’s for dinner that night, with his little girl. That’s where we met.”

Her mother had gone very still. “Yes, of course I remember meeting him.”

“His little girl is so cute.”

“Yes.”

Dad watched Eve with a somber expression.

“Is something wrong?” she finally asked. “Did you not like him? Or you’ve heard something about him—?”

“Not at all. I’m just wondering why you didn’t mention him. You must have known we’d be interested.”

Oh, wonderful. She’d hurt their feelings. These days, her specialty.




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