Baby By Chance
Baby By Chance
M.J. Rodgers
Susan Carter needs to find a man.Not just any man, but the stranger who fathered her unborn child. In desperation, she turns to David Knight, one of the detectives working for White Knight Investigations. She's sure she'll look bad to David–she doesn't even know the last name of the man she's searching for–but she has no choice. It's the only way to find out about her child's father.David Knight doesn't expect to like every client he has. What surprises him is how much he likes Susan, especially since he knows she's keeping things from him. If she wasn't, wouldn't she tell him about the man who gave her the ring she wears on her left hand?
“I was just thinking about a woman who came by the office.”
David’s father smiled at him and said, “What did she want?”
David wondered whether he should say. Maybe a discussion was what he needed to put everything in order.
“She wanted me to find some guy she had a one-night stand with. Seems she’s carrying his kid.”
“Not exactly an everyday request,” Charles said, “but I don’t see the problem.”
“She made me drag every detail out of her like I was a prosecuting attorney. Even when I explained that she had to be totally honest, she held back crucial information.”
“What was that?”
“She was wearing a wedding band, yet she said nothing about being married. And I gave her plenty of opportunity to spit it out.”
Charles shrugged. “So she was embarrassed or ashamed or both. I’m not saying that dealing with a cheating spouse is pleasant, just part of the job. And there’s nothing that says we have to like a client.”
“But this one didn’t look like someone who should be lying.”
Charles let out a long sigh of understanding. “Ah, so that’s the problem. You do like her.”
Dear Reader,
I love to read about heroines and heroes.
In this world of cranky kids and kitty litter, unbalanced checkbooks and bad-tempered bosses, sagging skin and stretch marks, it’s great to be able to open a Harlequin Superromance novel and find a gal who handles life’s petty concerns with such panache that she inspires you to think your best thoughts, do your noblest deeds and be your finest self.
That’s what I call a heroine.
The guys who win the hearts of these gals have to be special—and they are. Tough, tender and downright tempting, they can melt the polish right off your toenails. I’d like to introduce you to four such men. The Knight brothers are a talented team of investigators whose modern-day armor consists of quick minds, steel bodies and strong integrity. Their motto is When You Need Help, Call On A White Knight. These men are ready to put themselves on the line for what’s right and for the women they love.
That’s what I call a hero.
David Knight’s story is the first in the WHITE KNIGHT INVESTIGATIONS series. David has earned his share of battle scars and is convinced he’s prepared for anything—until he meets Susan, the lovely nature photographer who desperately needs his help in finding the father of her unborn child.
I hope you enjoy David and Susan’s tale. And may love always find the heroine in your heart.
Warmest wishes,
M.J. Rodgers
Baby by Chance
M.J. Rodgers
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Baby by Chance
CONTENTS
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 ONE
SUSAN HAD A HARD TIME believing it had come to this. If someone had told her a week ago that she would be seriously considering hiring a private investigator, she would have laughed.
People came to her for help. She was the sensible, self-reliant one who always handled whatever problem came her way. At least, she had been.
She drove past the White Knight Investigations’ offices every day on her way to work. When You Need Help, Call On A White Knight, the sign said. The promise implicit in that motto never failed to conjure up the romantic image of a tall, stalwart warrior in silver armor charging on his sturdy steed to help some hapless heroine.
A nice fantasy. But the key word here was fantasy.
Even if the King Arthur legends could be believed and men with high ideals had rescued damsels in distress in the sixth century, she knew perfectly well that damsels unlucky or foolish enough to get themselves into distressful situations in the twenty-first century had better be ready to rescue themselves.
Yet knowing all that didn’t stop her from slowing as she approached the White Knight offices this morning. She wanted to believe, because she was in a mess. And she gladly would have traded all the idealistic heroes in history on white horses for the help of one fat, balding modern-day cynic driving a VW Bug—as long as he was a competent and intelligent investigator.
Their number was on the sign. Maybe she’d call for an appointment. Then again, maybe not. She’d gotten herself into a situation that was as embarrassing as hell for herself to accept, much less explain to someone else.
An unexpected light in the office window had Susan turning the steering wheel of her SUV. The offices were always dark at this hour. That light beamed down on her like a special invitation, a message that someone waited for her up there, someone who would listen and would be willing to help.
She maneuvered her vehicle into the parking lot and switched off the engine. She sat behind the wheel for a moment as the drizzle smeared her windshield, uncomfortably aware that levelheaded women didn’t lead their lives by attributing the guiding hand of fate to an unexpected office light. Still, as long as she was here, it probably wouldn’t hurt to go up.
The front door to the office-building complex was open, a bakery shop on the first floor already filling the foyer with the warm aromas of yeast and rising dough. Normally such smells would have been welcome. But today she couldn’t get away from them quickly enough. She dashed for the elevator and punched the button for the top floor where the White Knight offices were located.
The elevator made its journey with an efficient swoosh of gears. When the doors opened, she stepped out on a lovely curved landing. A floor-to-ceiling picture window overlooked the small city of Silver Valley, jewel-like in the early morning light.
As tempted as she was to linger over the dazzling scene, she knew that if she didn’t continue with this sudden impulse, her common sense was going to kick in and have her retreating back to her vehicle.
The light she had seen from the street was spilling out from the reception area of the White Knight offices. Her footsteps made no sound on the thick carpet as she made her way toward it.
She halted in the shadows just outside the open door and peered inside. Her eyes swept over the oak desk, the thick gold carpet, the tasteful assortment of art hanging on the pastel walls, the impressive expanse of windows.
But it was the man facing those windows who claimed her real attention.
He was at least six-three, with shoulders and arms like a logger’s. His full bark-brown hair was cleanly cut at the nape of his neck. A dark green sweater stretched over his muscled back. Tailored black slacks hugged his long legs. One of his huge hands hung casually by his side. The other was holding something in front of him that she couldn’t see.
The solid strength of his body and the calm, innate confidence in his stance put Susan immediately in mind of the sturdy cedar that had stood outside her bedroom window when she was a child. That cedar had borne the weight of her treehouse, weathered the worst of winter’s storms and soaked up the tears shed by her young self.
Her heart filled with sudden hope. Maybe, just maybe, the impulse that had brought her here wouldn’t prove to be so crazy, after all.
DAVID SAVORED HIS COFFEE as he watched the traffic beneath his window. Mornings were always his favorite part of the day; he enjoyed watching the world wake up and get busy, especially in this part of the world.
Western Washington wouldn’t push open its coffin lid of clouds to let in any real sun until summer. He didn’t mind enduring the months of overcast skies ahead. The rain was a familiar companion, and he had learned that there was comfort in the familiar. A man could handle anything when he knew what to expect.
A long, difficult case now hinged on an interview he would conduct with his client’s runaway daughter in a few hours. Getting the girl’s trust was key. He was counting on what he had to show her to help him. But his approach also had to be right. He had come in early so as to plan what he would say to her.
He checked his watch. Barely eight. He had another full hour before the office officially opened and anyone else arrived. Plenty of time to—
“Excuse me.”
David spun around so sharply at the sound of the unexpected voice behind him that coffee splashed out of his cup. He found himself suddenly face-to-face with large, luminous eyes the color of summer clover.
She stood in the doorway, a slim silhouette in a dark business suit with matching, low-heeled pumps. Across her forehead was a curve of shiny, golden-brown bangs. The rest of her hair fell in one long, thick braid to the gentle swell of her right breast. Her cosmetic-free face reflected the pink, creamy glow of youth. She didn’t look a day over twenty-one.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” she said.
Her surprisingly deep and resonant voice vibrated through David like the melody of a forgotten song.
She took a tentative step into the room. “If you have some paper towels, I can try to soak up that stain on the carpet.”
“No,” he said in a tone that was far too abrupt and gruff and had nothing whatsoever to do with her offer to help and everything to do with the unwelcome surprise of her. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because her open, expectant expression quickly faded.
“I’ve obviously come at a bad time,” she said, and turned to leave.
“No,” he heard himself barking again in that same uncivil tone. He took a deep breath. This was foolish. He was a professional. She was a client.
“Come in,” he said, carefully modulating both his manner and tone. “The clerk will see to the carpet when he arrives. I’m David Knight.”
He set his coffee cup on the desk and walked over to extend his hand. He was determined that this woman would see him as he really was—a cool, cordial investigator, in control of himself.
She did not immediately take his hand but instead studied his face. There was a question in her eyes. But whatever she wanted to know, she seemed hesitant to ask. When she finally stepped forward and slipped her hand into his, he was taken aback by the warmth and strength of her clasp.
“I’m Susan Carter.”
Her name didn’t ring a bell. Not that all of the firm’s clients were known to him. But he was surprised that no one had mentioned her over the dinner table the night before. His brothers seldom passed up an opportunity to talk about an attractive woman.
Could she be a special client taken on by his mom or dad?
“Is something wrong, Mr. Knight?”
David realized that while silently asking himself these questions, he’d been unconsciously gripping her hand. He released his hold and retraced his steps to the desk, where he grabbed the telephone.
Didn’t matter whose client she was. What mattered was that he arrange for her to be taken care of so he could get on with what he had to do.
“Who’s handling your case, Ms. Carter? I’ll call and let them know you’re here.”
“There’s no one to call. This is my first visit.”
He dropped the telephone receiver onto the base. So, she had walked in off the street. Did she really think that private investigators had nothing to do but sit in their offices waiting for prospective clients?
“We’re not officially open for business until nine,” he said, maintaining an amicable tone.
“Could someone see me then?”
She’d missed the important point of his message. He tried again. “The clerk will be available to check the schedule when he arrives. But I doubt there’ll be an opening this week.”
Her disappointed response came out in a rush. “Of course. You’re as busy as everyone else. I saw your light while I was driving by and thought—”
Her deep voice ceased abruptly. She had no intention of sharing what she’d thought. He had the sudden conviction that she rarely did. She swallowed hard, squeezing the strap of her shoulder bag in what appeared to be an involuntary movement. “Stupid mistake on my part.”
Her self-effacing tone told him she did not like making mistakes. The firm set to her mouth also said that she was harder on herself than anyone else could be.
“Please, forgive the interruption.” She looked him straight in the eye when she said those words. Hers was a sincere apology, not a polite one.
He saw then what he had missed earlier. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. She was in trouble. She had clearly acted on impulse coming here. If he insisted she make an appointment, she’d probably talk herself out of keeping it. She was turning to go.
“I have a few moments, if you want to tell me how we can help,” David heard someone say in a familiar voice that he tardily recognized as his own.
She halted in mid-stride and turned back. “You’ll see me now?” Her question sounded full of surprise and hope.
In answer, he started toward the door adjacent to the reception room, wondering all the while what the hell he was doing.
“My office is through here. What do you take in your coffee, Ms. Carter?”
SUSAN CRADLED THE WARM cup in her cold hands. She could smell the freshly ground beans, the rich cream, the sweetness of the sugar.
David had prepared her coffee just as she had asked, but she had yet to take a sip. As she tried to get comfortable on the guest chair in his office, she willed her jumpy stomach to settle.
At his request, she’d filled out a card with her address and telephone number. He held that card now as he sat across from her, an immaculate, black marble desk between them. He wore a polite expression of openness and patience. And the way he leaned back in his black leather chair, the thick steam rising from his refilled cup, spoke of a man at ease.
But every nerve in Susan’s body told her he was not.
She found his face more rugged than handsome—bold forehead, bold cheekbones, bold chin. His skin had been weathered by time spent in outdoor pursuits. From the lines across his forehead and around his mouth, she estimated him to be somewhere in his middle thirties.
But his eyes—as chilly a gray as the overcast spring day—his eyes were older, wiser and wary. Every time she looked into them, she had the oddest sensation that it was she who made him most wary.
She could have convinced herself that she was imagining things if she hadn’t seen the unguarded expression on his face when he’d spilled his coffee. David Knight hadn’t just been surprised to see her. He’d been disturbed in some personal way.
Susan normally wasn’t reticent about asking questions, but there was a quality to this man that didn’t invite probing. Even his office was intimidating—heavy, dark furniture, ponderous drapes, a carpet the color of granite, and not a personal photograph anywhere. In a corner display case, a massive Ironman trophy stood solemnly erect on a sturdy glass shelf.
A man who had won one of those grueling competitions was the kind who went all out and pulled no punches.
“Perhaps you’d like to start by telling me about yourself,” he said. Even now, beneath his artfully projected calm and courtesy, she sensed the controlled tension in the man.
“Your business suit implies that you are employed outside the home,” he said.
“I’m a nature photographer,” she replied, relieved to start on a less sensitive subject.
“Freelance?”
“I’m on staff at True Nature magazine.”
One of his thick eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “That’s a top-notch publication.”
His surprise that she worked for such a prestigious magazine did not sit well with Susan. “Thank you. I think so, too,” she said with a politeness that she frequently used to insulate sparks of irritation.
“How long have you been with them?”
“Nine years.”
“That long? I wouldn’t have guessed you had that much experience. May I ask how old you are?”
She deliberately straightened in her chair before answering, the better to emphasize every inch of her five-foot five-inch frame. “I’m thirty-two. As of the eighth of last month.”
“You say that as though daring me to disagree.”
“I realize that most women would be happy to be taken for younger than they are, Mr. Knight. I am not like most women.”
“What are you like?”
His tone carried no inflection, but she felt the subtle, unspoken challenge that lay beneath his words. She could not have explained how he’d conveyed that challenge, but it was as real to her as her own breath.
“I was graduated at the top of my class with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and a B.S. in Wildlife Science,” she said. Try as she might to remain unemotional, she still heard the defensiveness in her voice. “I started out as a copy and caption editor. Each time an opening for photographer came up, I applied. But each time I was turned down while others with less education and experience got the jobs.”
“And why do you think that was?”
She set her untouched coffee down on the table beside her chair. “I don’t think, Mr. Knight, I know. People attribute less competence to a person who looks deceptively young, despite their actual chronological age and abilities. I have had to fight to be taken seriously.”
“So you went to a voice trainer.”
She was silent for a moment, able to do no more than blink. “And just how did you know that?”
“Few women under fifty have a voice as deep as yours.”
He was so calm and reasonable that she was immediately annoyed with herself for having become defensive, and just a mite suspicious that he had pinpointed her sensitive spot and deliberately irritated her so he could see how she’d respond.
“If your youthful looks bother you so much, why don’t you use makeup?”
“I have very uncooperative skin. Makeup just sits on my face like curdled milk. Since the alternative is to look like I’m past my expiration date, I’m stuck with what nature provided.”
“I doubt stuck is the word most people would use,” he said.
She didn’t know whether he was trying to be polite or trying to minimize her concern over her youthful appearance. She suspected the latter. Not surprising. What could a man who looked as formidable as this one know about the difficulties of looking too fragile?
He took a sip of his coffee as he regarded her once again. “So, you finally became a photographer after you completed the voice lessons and got a new boss.”
“Four years ago,” she said, feeling once again oddly off balance by his assessment. “Just how much of that was a guess?”
“I’m not in the habit of guessing, Ms. Carter. First impressions are hard to reverse.”
“Meaning?”
“Even with your new voice, an old boss could still not get past your youthful appearance. It would take a new boss to really see the new you.”
“You appear to have an understanding of human nature.”
He set down his cup and leaned forward in his chair. “I understand that whatever is bothering you is of recent origin and is keeping you from sleeping at night. You would prefer to keep the matter to yourself. You are a very private person, despite the facade of openness you project. You pride yourself on handling things. Coming here to ask for help is out of character for you. You still wish there was some way you could have avoided doing so.”
She stared at him as the dead-on accuracy of everything he’d said sent the nerves of her back quivering. She wasn’t used to someone being able to read her so well.
He casually settled back in his chair. “Don’t let my skills upset you. They’re the reason you’ve come to me.”
“I’m not upset,” she said, and she wasn’t. But she was uneasy.
“The point is, we’re both observers,” he said. “Your expertise is tuned to the sounds and sights of wildlife. Mine is human behavior. Were we out in the wilds, you could probably tell me all about the feeding, mating and migrating rituals of a bird in a tree merely by hearing its call or noting the shape of its wing. Isn’t that true?”
“For most species,” she admitted.
“And I would be duly impressed since I have no such skills. We are both professionals with special talents. Now, tell me how my talents can be put to use in helping you.”
He was right. Instead of being uncomfortable, she should be rejoicing that she had found someone possessing the skills that he had so competently displayed. He had not only eased her into talking, but had also maneuvered her into revealing things about herself and surmised the rest with impressive insight. The time had come for her to put her problem in his hands.
“I need you to find a man.”
David retrieved a pad of paper and a pen from his desk drawer. “His name?”
“Todd.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Address?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked up. “What do you know about Todd?”
“He’s several inches taller than me, about five-ten would be my guess. Light hair, eyes. Slender. Maybe thirty.”
David jotted down a few notes before continuing.
“Why do you want me to find him?”
“I want to learn everything I can about him. We met in a seminar at the local community center six weeks ago as of last Friday, and we didn’t have much time to get acquainted.”
“What kind of seminar?”
She paused before answering. “Self-improvement.”
“What were you trying to improve?”
“Is that really important?”
“I have no preconceived idea of who you are or what you should be, Ms. Carter. I’ll be in and out of your life in as brief a time as possible. This is to your advantage. With me, you don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending anything. I just don’t think that my reason for going to the seminar has any bearing on why I’ve come to you. Look, this is simple. I should have gotten Todd’s address and telephone number before we parted. I didn’t.”
“You haven’t seen Todd again since the night of the seminar?”
“No.”
“What did you and Todd do together that night?”
“We…talked.”
“And after you talked?”
“He walked me to my vehicle.”
David let a moment pass, silently watched her. She knew he was waiting for her to continue. She didn’t.
“A woman doesn’t hire a private investigator to find someone who merely spoke with her and walked her to her vehicle,” he said finally. “Tell me everything that happened.”
She considered his words. Of course he was right. A woman wouldn’t just want to find a man after such a brief interaction. She was going to have to tell him. Although there was something in this man’s quiet self-confidence that made her suspect he already knew what she was going to say.
“We slept together,” she said.
His calm expression didn’t change. She was certain now that he’d already known, maybe from the moment she’d mentioned Todd.
“Todd didn’t offer you his last name.”
“No.”
“Did you offer him yours?”
“No.”
“Do you think that Todd might be trying to find you?”
“No.”
“Does that…distress you?”
“No.”
“And you haven’t tried to find Todd in the intervening six weeks since you met?”
“Last Friday I went back to the community center and asked if they had a list of attendees from the seminar six weeks before. They told me the seminar was open to the public and did not require advanced enrollment, so they had no such list.”
“Did that answer seem reasonable to you?”
“Yes. I just walked in myself.”
He regarded her quietly before asking his next question. “Why do you want me to find Todd for you?”
“Like I said, I want to know more about him.”
“Like what?”
“Anything and everything you can learn.”
“And why is that?”
His questions were focused, like he was following a road map with a definite destination in mind. She had no idea what that destination was and that made her even more nervous.
“I just want to know about him,” she said. “Isn’t it natural to want to know about someone you’ve been intimate with?”
“Ms. Carter, I’m going to need a more direct answer.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. A woman had to make her presence felt in order to be taken seriously. She had learned that maintaining eye contact was an important defense against being summarily dismissed.
“I don’t understand what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say the truth—the whole truth. What exactly do you intend to do with the information that I give to you about Todd?”
“Try to use it to understand what kind of man he is.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying so, but isn’t that something a woman normally does before she sleeps with a man?”
She’d been feeling anything but chipper since the beginning of this conversation. But that last comment made her stomach churn.
“No, Mr. Knight, I won’t forgive you for saying that. I’m not asking for your approval of my actions. I’m asking for your help in finding out about Todd.”
Where there had been only an open expression on David’s face before, suddenly there was a sharp, focused intensity. “And if you like what I find out about Todd, are you going to tell him you’re pregnant with his child?”
She swallowed hard. “That’s a pretty wild assumption.”
“On the contrary,” David said calmly as he leaned back. “It’s the only logical conclusion. You slept with a stranger whose last name you never asked. You haven’t made an attempt to locate him in the intervening six weeks. Now, all of a sudden, you’re willing to hire a private investigator to find out about him. If you’d discovered he’d given you a sexually transmitted disease, you’d want him found so he could be notified. But you only want to find out about him. You’re pregnant. And you believe Todd is the father.”
She sucked in a shaky breath, fighting desperately to quell a rising sense of panic and burgeoning nausea. This private investigator was good, all right—too damn good.
“You’d best understand the ground rules,” he said. “I have a license to consider and, just as importantly, a conscience to answer to. I cannot take on a case without complete honesty from a client.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“Omissions are substantially the same thing. You weren’t planning to tell me about the pregnancy. Do you plan to tell Todd?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, it will depend on what I find out about him?”
“I have a lot of decisions to make. Before I make any about him, I have to have more information.”
“When did you discover you were pregnant?”
“Last Friday.”
“You had no suspicion before that?”
“I thought I had the flu.”
“No missed period?”
“I’ve always been irregular.”
“Why do you think Todd is the father?”
“He’s the only one who could be.”
“Ms. Carter, if there are any other pertinent facts regarding this case that you’re keeping from me, I need to know them now. Am I being clear?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“I have nothing to add.”
“Who else could be the father?”
“No one.”
“Who else knows you’re pregnant?”
“Just the doctor.”
“You’ve told no one else?”
“That’s correct.”
“Is there anyone else who has a right to know?”
“A right to know?” she repeated, wondering at the oddness of that question. “With the possible exception of Todd—and I haven’t decided one way or another about him—no one has a right to know.”
David’s silent scrutiny did nothing but add to the queasiness in her stomach.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Carter. I won’t be able to take your case.”
“Excuse me?”
He rose. “You will not be charged for this morning’s consultation.”
Despite the deceptiveness of his calm expression and tone, there was an undercurrent of disturbance displayed in his blunt movements. Before she could take another breath, he had marched to his office door and swung it open.
He stood expectantly beside it. “Have a pleasant day.”
She felt her face go white with shock. She’d just revealed the most intimate details of her life to this stranger and—what was just as hard—had asked for his help. And he was throwing her out.
Her icy hands gripped the arms of the chair as she rose shakily to her feet. Somehow she got to the door. She didn’t look at him as she slid past. The rush of air as the door closed swiftly behind her was like a blow.
She shut her eyes tightly and fought desperately against the churning, sickening waves. It was no use. She started to run. She barely made it to the bathroom down the hall before she vomited.
As she lay with her cheek pressed against the cold tile floor, she didn’t know what was worse—the morning sickness or the moment of temporary insanity that had led her to the White Knight Investigations’ offices.
But something she did know for certain now. She had gotten herself into this mess, and she was going to have to get herself out of it. There were no white knights on sturdy steeds coming to her rescue.
She had only herself to rely on. And just as she had throughout her life, she would have to find the strength to face whatever came and do whatever had to be done. Alone.
CHAPTER TWO
“OUR CLIENT IS VERY pleased, David,” Charles Knight told his son as he waved a check. “Getting a runaway to voluntarily return to her parents isn’t something we see often. How’d you pull it off?”
Charles sat on the edge of his son’s desk. He was David’s height and still powerfully built at sixty-four, with the finely chiseled features of the men who swung tennis rackets and rode polo ponies in slick magazine ads.
“Her boyfriend convinced our runaway to bail on her family,” David told his dad. “She imagined herself in love and was ready to give up anything for the guy, until I showed her some live-action video of the slimeball getting it on with another girl.”
“Where did that video come from?”
“The guy taped it himself. He gets his kicks filming his conquests of underage girls.”
Charles shook his head. “What are you going to do about him?”
“He’s twenty-one. Jared has all the evidence he needs to make an arrest. I just wanted to be sure our client’s daughter was home safe and out of the fray before the law got involved.”
“Smart of you to bring your brother in on this, David. As always, you have thoroughly thought out every aspect of this case. So, why are you frowning?”
David took the file in front of him and shoved it into his open desk drawer. “Didn’t realize I was.”
“Something on your mind?”
David closed the drawer and looked up at his dad. Those steel-blue eyes had him in their sights. Charles might have the look of a country club man, but David knew his dad had the keen instincts and cunning of a cougar.
“I was just thinking about this woman who came by yesterday morning before the offices were open.”
“You caught a cat burglar?” Charles asked with a smile.
“Probably would have been better if she’d turned out to be one.”
The teasing smile faded from Charles’s lips as he studied his son’s solemn face. “So, what’s this woman’s name?”
“It’s not important.”
“Something about her is. You going to tell me?”
David wondered whether he should. Maybe a discussion was what he needed to help put all the churning images and emotions into a semblance of order.
“She wanted me to find some guy she had a one-night stand with. Seems she’s carrying his kid.”
“Not exactly an everyday request,” Charles said, “but I don’t see the problem.”
“She made me drag every detail out of her like I was some prosecuting attorney grilling a hostile witness. Even when I explained that she had to open up and be totally honest if I was going to help her, she still held back crucial information.”
“What crucial information?”
“She was wearing a wedding band, yet she said nothing about being married. And, believe me, I gave her plenty of opportunity to spit it out.”
Charles shrugged. “So she was embarrassed or ashamed or both. I’m not saying that dealing with a cheating spouse is pleasant, just part of the job. And there’s nothing in the private eye book of rules that says we have to like a client.”
“But this one didn’t look like someone who should be lying through her straight, white teeth.”
Charles let out a long breath. “Ah, so that’s the problem. You do like her.”
David knew there was no point in arguing. He was attracted to Susan, had been from the first moment he saw her. Not even her evasions or the fact that she was married changed that.
He shot up from his chair, feeling suddenly confined and inexplicably cornered. He stomped over to the window and stared out at the gray day.
“For two solid years attractive women have entered and left this office on a regular basis and my heart hasn’t skipped a beat.”
“Something about this woman has changed that. Don’t beat yourself up, David. Had to happen sometime. Your body’s just telling you the time has come to get back in the game.”
“The timing’s lousy. Makes no sense at all that I’d be attracted to her.”
“Hell, son, I’ve yet to hear a logical explanation as to what happens to a man’s normal good sense when he gets around a certain woman. But if you feel that uncomfortable around this one, maybe your brother Richard better take her case.”
“The case isn’t ours.”
“She changed her mind?”
“I turned her down,” he said as he twisted to gaze at the now empty chair where Susan had sat.
“That’s not like you, son.”
David knew that. Only too well.
He turned back to the window, where miles of slick, silver streets and gray forest spread out before him. On the distant horizon the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains gathered what was left of the day’s fading light. But all he saw was the stricken look on Susan’s face when he had all but thrown her out of his office.
“Maybe she didn’t tell me about her husband because he’s some big, mean bastard who beats her,” David said. “Or maybe he’s having sexual problems and can’t perform, and she didn’t want to reveal his weakness.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to make this right.”
Charles walked over to his son and rested his hand briefly on his shoulder. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll do.”
“I’m glad one of us is confident.”
“I know you, David. When you have a destination in mind, nothing gets in your way. You meticulously map out the steps you need to take, and you doggedly follow them until you get there.”
David glanced at his dad. “That used to make you groan when it was my turn to pick the route for a family vacation.”
“Only because your old man is the adventurous sort who likes to set off and see what’s around the bend,” Charles said with his usual hearty flare and no hint of apology. “You have to admit, we came upon a lot of amazing sights when we winged it. Things no amount of planning could have uncovered. Something your mother has never fully appreciated, I might add.”
“You always got us lost,” David said with a growing grin.
“And you always got us there. Using the shortest route. Within the scheduled time frame. Or earlier. Damn showoff.”
David took the punch of pride his father delivered, knowing the spirit in which it was thrown, despite the rocking force of the blow against his upper arm.
Charles checked his watch. “Speaking of time, I’d better get going. Have to swing by Jack’s office to see if he’s completed a background check I asked him to do before I pick up my car at the shop. Got the brakes adjusted today.”
“Need a lift?”
“Thanks, but Jack’s already agreed to drop me off. See you tomorrow.”
After his father left, David resumed his staring out the window.
Might be a good idea to do a background check on Susan Carter and her husband. If he understood their relationship, maybe he’d understand why she had slept with another man.
He really wanted to understand. Susan didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would cheat on a husband.
Still, when it came to attractive women, David knew perfectly well that he had shown himself to be just as blind as the next fool.
SUSAN TRUDGED through the front door of her small town house. The morning sickness was bad enough, but this draining fatigue was something that had begun to plague her all day.
“Hi, Honey, I’m home,” she called out as she kicked the door closed behind her.
There was no response from the quiet house. She figured he must be out in the back. She weaved her way through the jungle of houseplants that were threatening to take over her foyer. She dropped her keys into the smiling jaws of a life-size, brown bear made of wood and slung the strap of her shoulder bag over its head. She turned around to step on the foot of a large, ceramic frog wastebasket.
“Honey?” she called again before she separated the only important piece of mail from the bevy of advertisements in her hands. Sticking the envelope between her teeth, she dropped the junk mail into the frog’s open mouth.
When she released the foot lever, the frog gulped down the junk-mail dinner, a happy rivet emerging from its voice box.
She absently patted the frog’s ceramic head with one hand as she removed the mail from her teeth with the other, slitting open the envelope as she strolled into the living room. The local newspaper had sent her a confirming copy of the ad she had placed in the next edition. She read the wording critically, trying to imagine him picking up the paper and seeing the ad for the first time.
Todd. Susan would like to talk to you about that night you met six weeks ago. Extremely Important! Please write to her at Ad 54.
Short. Attention grabbing. Direct. If Todd read the newspaper, she felt confident that he’d know the ad was for him. She’d much prefer knowing more about Todd before seeing him. But she needed answers, and talking to him seemed to be the only way she was going to get them.
“Honey, where are you?” she called as she stuck the ad copy into her pocket and looked around.
In response, a West Highland White Terrier with one floppy, honey-colored ear came dashing down the stairs.
Susan dropped to a squat and opened her arms. The little terrier hopped off the final step and trotted toward her, dragging a boot in his mouth and wagging his tail with enthusiasm. When he reached her, she gave him a quick rub of welcome.
“How did you get into my closet?” she asked, as she tried to wrestle the boot from his jaws. After a playful tug-of-war, Honey reluctantly relinquished the boot.
As Susan rose, she looked closely at the large size and encrusted mud on the boot’s sole. Not one of hers.
She looked around, noticing what she had missed earlier because of her preoccupation with the ad. Out of place in the tidy room was an empty wineglass. The wine bottle was nowhere in sight.
Uh-oh. Not a good sign.
Her eyes traveled up the spiral staircase, where she spied the boot’s mate on the top step.
She trudged up the stairs with Honey trotting along beside her. She entered the bedroom and spied the empty bottle of wine lying on top of the nightstand.
Honey jumped on the bed and headed for the dented pillow where he had obviously been sleeping when she’d come home. On the other pillow rested a head covered with long, curly black hair.
She circled the bed and plopped down on the edge. She gave the bare foot poking out from the covers a gentle shake.
“Ellie?” she called.
The woman asleep in the bed snored.
“So, what’s the trouble with Ellie?” Susan asked her terrier.
Honey twisted around on his short legs to look at the sleeping woman. He gave his fury round body a mighty shake.
“Don’t know either, huh?” she said. “Guess we better get the coffee on and try to find out.”
ELLIE TREMONT SLUMPED over Susan’s kitchen table, her hands circling a cup of black coffee, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Susan’s best friend had the face of a cherub, the body of a Victoria’s Secret model, and the unerring bad judgment of a Las Vegas gambler when it came to picking men.
“She’s a gourmet cook and knows the season’s statistics of every Seahawks player,” Ellie lamented before punctuating her words with a sob. “How do I compete with a woman like that?”
Susan rested her hand briefly on her friend’s arm. “Love isn’t a competitive sport, El.”
“I got so filthy on the Port Townsend shoot that I had to drop by the apartment to change before going back to the office,” Ellie said. “And what did I find? That woman in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a smirk.”
“That woman did you a favor, El. Always better to find these things out sooner rather than later.”
“Why wasn’t I good enough for Martin?” Ellie said, and let out another moan.
“You were always too good for him,” Susan said. “Remember, this is the guy who thinks a romantic evening is your picking up the pizza and beer and serving him while he sprawls on the couch watching sports on the TV.”
Susan watched Ellie straighten. A good sign. Her friend was listening.
“I’d also lay odds that he’s a lousy lover,” Susan said. “Men who cheat are too self-absorbed to really care about a partner.”
“I should have suspected something when she became his boss,” Ellie said. “Being underneath a woman doing all the work has always been his favorite position.”
Ellie grabbed a tissue, dabbed at her eyes. “I should be glad to be rid of him,” she continued. “He’s nothing but a lazy, cheating, lousy lover!”
“That’s the spirit.”
Ellie smiled. “You’re a good friend.”
“Takes one to know one,” she said, returning the smile.
“Yeah, but you never dump on me the way I’m always dumping on you. Last thing you’d ever do is hook up with the wrong guy. Not that you’ve hooked up with any guy since Paul died. Why would you want to? Paul can never be replaced. He was perfect.”
While Ellie sipped her coffee, Susan stared at the gold band on her finger and all it represented. The courageous, steadfast widow honoring her wonderful, dead husband.
She wondered what Ellie would say if she told her about that insane night with Todd. And the pregnancy. The staid, straight Susan Carter gone mad. Would Ellie even believe her? Probably not. Susan still barely believed that night had happened.
Honey grumbled loudly from beside her chair. When Susan looked down at him he was sitting on his backside, food bowl in his teeth, front paws slicing frantically through the air.
“Oops, sorry, Honey. I forgot the time.”
She slipped out of her chair and headed for the refrigerator. She pulled out a small piece of cooked steak, removed the plastic wrap and dropped the meat into Honey’s waiting bowl. Honey set his bowl down with an audible sigh of doggie relief.
“You did the right thing choosing a dog over a man,” Ellie said, watching Honey happily gnaw on his dinner. “They are a hell of a lot more loyal.”
“Sometimes,” Susan said as she slipped back onto her chair. “And sometimes you come home to find them in bed with your best friend.”
Ellie smiled. “You want to know the truth? Honey’s a better snuggler than Martin ever was. I should get a dog. At least if they stray, you can have them neutered.”
Honey’s head swung toward Ellie, his ears straight up as he made a noise of considerable doggie alarm. He grabbed his steak and ran for the doggie door leading out to the backyard.
“He sure doesn’t miss much,” Ellie said, laughing, as she watched him hop through. “Which reminds me. Did I miss anything at work this afternoon?”
“Nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow.”
“You covered for me,” Ellie guessed.
“Just like you would have covered for me.”
“Except you’ll never need me to.”
“You never know, El.”
“Oh, I know. Even when we were teenagers and my dingbat of a dad and your ditzy mom were screaming mad and taking their frustrations out on both of us, you never let either of them get to you.”
“I’d had a lot of practice dodging insults by then.”
“That’s what I mean, Suz. You know how to tough this stuff out. And you’d sure as hell never move in with the wrong guy and let him treat you like dirt.”
Susan put her hand on her friend’s arm. “Neither would you. That’s why you came here when you found out about Martin’s cheating. You had too much respect for yourself to stay there another minute.”
Ellie sighed. “I get soused on a bottle of wine and somehow you manage to make me feel proud.”
“You should be proud. When you give your word you keep it—not like those bozos you’ve been all too ready to believe. One day you’re going to realize how great you are. When you do, I bet you find a guy who really appreciates you.”
“I’d like to, Suz. I really would. But there are just so few men out there who want to make a commitment and settle down. You were so lucky to find Paul.”
She released Ellie’s arm, realizing her friend had missed the message she had been trying to send. But that was Ellie. She heard the things she wanted to and ignored the rest. Susan suspected she probably did the same thing.
“So, what’s on for you tomorrow?” Ellie asked.
“I’m driving over to the other side of the Sound. One of the staff at Camp Long called to say he saw a red fox bring food to a vixen at a den site. He thinks she might have a new litter. Some good pictures of the pups would make a cute spread in next month’s issue.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving at the crack of dawn?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, long before it cracks. Red foxes hunt at night. If I’m in position at first light, I might get lucky and catch the male returning to the den with a late meal.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Why afraid?” Susan asked.
“I don’t want to go back and move my stuff out of Martin’s apartment tonight. I was hoping I could stay here with you guys.”
“Not a problem if you don’t mind Honey jumping on the couch with you when I leave tomorrow morning. He hates being alone when I go out on an early shoot.”
“I never object to sharing my bed with a warm male,” Ellie said smiling.
“Then, that’s settled. There’s leftover chicken casserole in the refrigerator, twenty-three of our favorite romantic comedies on tape, and Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in the freezer.”
Ellie laughed. “I keep getting my heart broken and you keep pulling the right medicine out of the Susan Carter doctor bag. Tell me, why am I always falling for the wrong guys?”
Susan knew Ellie didn’t really want to hear the honest answer to that question. The only time Susan had ever given her one, her candor had nearly cost her their friendship. Sometimes the most important part of being a friend was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
“A gal can only choose from what comes swimming by,” Susan said as vaguely as she could.
“Which has to mean I’ve been fishing in a piranha pool,” Ellie said, with a sad shake of her head.
Actually, she wasn’t far off.
“At least I didn’t let go of my apartment this time,” Ellie said.
Yes, that was a good thing. Maybe Ellie was getting a little smarter. “You ready for me to heat up that casserole?”
“You can have the casserole,” Ellie said. “Just bring me the ice cream and a spoon.”
THE EARLY MORNING BREEZE was brisk and wet with mist. David hadn’t been able to feel his feet for the past half hour. But as he continued to watch Susan through his binoculars, she remained dead still, lying on her stomach within the photographer’s blind, high in the tree, her telephoto camera lens trained steadfastly on the fox hole on the other side of the clearing.
How she could lie so still he didn’t know.
They had told him up at the lodge that she’d been at the site since before dawn. She wore thick, black sweatpants, a black parka and black hiking boots. But there were no gloves on her hands and no hat to cover her ears. She had to be freezing, and her still position had to be wreaking havoc on her circulation.
“A dedicated professional,” Greg Hall, her editor, had described her, when David had called, identifying himself as a fan of the magazine. In truth, the magazine had been a favorite of David’s for some time. But to make his call credible, he had spent time the day before carefully looking through the local library’s copies of back issues.
Weaving a believable yarn when he needed to was part of a good investigator’s tools. But David soon found he had no reason to stretch the truth. The wildlife photographs packing the greatest punch had Susan’s name prominently displayed in the photo credits.
He’d discovered quite a bit more about her over the past few days from his other sources. Everything he’d learned had been unexpected.
David prided himself on being ready for anything, but since the moment he’d met this woman, she had been giving him one uncomfortable surprise after another. He prided himself on not judging his clients, but he’d sat in judgment on her and had let his unwanted reactions get in the way of his work. He prided himself on not jumping to conclusions, but he’d jumped to a conclusion about her—the wrong one.
David tried to tell himself that he’d made an honest mistake. Young widows whose husbands had been dead nearly three years didn’t normally still wear their wedding rings. But the reality was that he hadn’t acted like the professional he knew himself to be. His behavior reflected badly on him and on his family’s highly regarded firm.
He had thought about leaving a message on Susan’s answering machine at home. He had considered calling her at work. He had ultimately decided against both.
He was not a man for whom apologies came easily, but he did know that the only decent way to deliver an apology was in person. Of course, taking her case wouldn’t be appropriate, even if she still wanted to employ him—which he seriously doubted.
But his brother Richard would be available soon. And he would give her Richard’s card so she could call him.
David would see that she got the help she needed. He knew that was what he had to do to make this right.
But he had to wonder how long she could lie on that flat board, wet and chilled to the bone.
Finally, after what he figured had to be nearly three motionless hours, she started to move. He watched her progress through his binoculars. She first placed her camera in a protective case, then put the case in her backpack. Using a thick rope slung around the tree branch, she slowly lowered the backpack to the ground. Once the backpack was safely there, she began to snake backward toward the sturdy trunk of the tree.
He watched as she wrapped her body around the trunk. He was glad to see there were steel stakes in the bark for hand- and footholds. Still, he found himself tensing as she wobbled from side-to-side during her shaky descent.
She moved slowly. The circulation obviously hadn’t returned to her arms and legs after her long hours of immobility. She was a fool to be coming down before massaging her limbs. She could hurt herself—
His worst fears suddenly took shape before his eyes as her foot missed the final metal stake, her hand slipped off another and she fell to the forest floor.
He dropped the binoculars and took off at a run. The branches whipped against his arms and legs and stung his face. He paid them no heed as he hurried through the thick underbrush. He wasn’t that many yards away but the vegetation slowed his movements.
He was breathing hard when he crashed into the clearing where he’d seen her fall. She was lying on her back, her eyes were closed, her face white. He dropped to his knee beside her, probing for the artery in her neck.
His own blood pounded. He had to concentrate hard to feel her pulse. Finally, a slow rhythmic beat registered against his fingertips. Relief spread through his chest. He watched her eyelashes flutter, then open. A line of puzzlement drew her eyebrows together as she focused on his face.
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
He was happy to note the strength in her voice, but ignored her question as he ran his hands up and down her arms, checking for broken bones.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, flinching beneath his touch.
Once again he ignored her. But when he moved to grasp her right thigh, intending to check her legs, she suddenly sat up and swatted his hands away.
“Watch it, buster.”
David sat back on his heels as he inspected the color flowing into her cheeks. He held back a smile.
“You appear to be all right,” he said, managing to keep all emotion out of his voice.
She rolled onto her side and began to pull herself toward the tree she had so recently dropped from. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“Just a wild guess, but maybe because you fell out of a tree?”
“I didn’t fall. I deliberately let go. It was only a couple of feet, and I knew the soft moss between the Osmanthus would provide a soft landing.”
David didn’t know what Osmanthus was, although he suspected them to be the evergreen shrubs on either side of the mound they were on.
“Why did you let go?”
“Because I wanted to.” She latched onto the tree trunk and struggled to pull herself upright. Her wobbly extremities weren’t cooperating.
“Why didn’t you wait until you had some circulation back in your arms and legs before trying to get down?” he asked.
“Why is any of this your business?”
He was getting uncomfortable watching her determined but unsuccessful attempts to get to her feet. “If you rub your legs, you’ll be able to stand a lot sooner.”
“I know how to take care of myself, thank you. What are you even doing out here?”
“I’m an Eagle Scout trying to earn my merit badge,” he said in frustration. Hell, he was only trying to help.
She looked him straight in the eye in that arresting way of hers. “What, no little old ladies around to help across the street?”
“Only Boy Scouts get merit badges for helping little old ladies across streets. We Eagle Scouts have to contend with cantankerous photographers who insist on dropping out of trees.”
He hadn’t tried to keep the irritation out of his tone this time. He squatted beside her, grasped her legs, and proceeded to give her muscles a brisk massage, no longer caring whether she objected.
She didn’t bat his hands away this time. He could feel her eyes searching his averted face.
“When are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” she asked.
“When are you going to tell me why you didn’t prepare yourself properly to descend that tree?”
When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find that she was glaring at him. The flash of spirit looked good on her. He switched his attention back to her legs. They weren’t bad either, strong and supple beneath his hands. Rubbing them was something less than a chore. Still, he kept his mind strictly on the business of getting the circulation back into them. Well, almost strictly.
“That’s enough,” she said after a moment.
He released her legs and stood. But when he held out his hand to help her up, she ignored the offer and instead grabbed hold of the tree trunk. With what seemed like more will than strength, she pulled herself to her feet. But she wobbled and leaned heavily against the tree for support.
“You’re dizzy,” he said, suddenly understanding.
Her face had lost color, and she rested her head against the trunk. But she delivered her next words with strong, sweet sarcasm. “Such amazing insight.”
“You didn’t eat breakfast, did you,” he demanded more than asked. “I thought you were a professional. You should know better than to begin a long assignment without any food in your stomach.”
“First a private investigator, then an Eagle Scout, and now a mother hen,” she said. “Such versatility.”
“You’re probably dehydrated, as well,” he said, knowing there was no probably about it.
“Don’t you have a wife you could be annoying?”
Despite her continuing attempt to be tough, she looked absolutely terrible. “If I did have a wife, and she pulled some stupid stunt like this, I’d—”
He stopped his tirade as he watched her sink back to the forest floor. Closing the distance between them, he swept her collapsing body into his arms. Her head rolled onto his shoulder as a soft sigh escaped her lips. She had fainted.
Her face was as white as the delicate flowers spraying the front of her jacket. Her bangs were wet with morning mist, and a silky strand of golden-brown hair from her braid tickled his neck.
A full minute passed before David’s heart stopped skipping beats.
What a fool she was. And what a fool he was for giving a damn.
He twisted around and grabbed her backpack. The thing weighed a ton. How did this woman lug around such heavy stuff? He slung the backpack over his shoulder and started down the trail.
SUSAN SLOWLY OPENED her eyes to find herself lying beneath a spectacular blue spruce. The hazy mist of the overcast morning curled through the heavy branches. She didn’t recognize the beautiful tree. She felt a soft, wool fabric beneath her fingertips. She didn’t recognize that, either.
“Don’t try to get up,” David’s voice commanded from behind her.
His voice she did recognize. Her memory came back with a bang. She’d gotten dizzy while descending from the blind. She’d let go of the steel stakes to drop onto the soft mound of moss beneath the tree. While lying there, trying to get her equilibrium back, David Knight had suddenly appeared to pester her.
Pushing herself to a sitting position, she fought the immediate dizziness brought on by her abrupt movement. When the earth and sky finally resumed their correct positions, she discovered that the red plaid blanket beneath her was next to a brown dirt road.
“I told you not to get up,” David said, scowling at her. He stood a few feet away, beside a silver Ford truck with an F250 logo on the side. He was pouring steaming, dark liquid from a thermos into a cup.
She glanced around her. This certainly wasn’t the clearing with the fox den. This place didn’t look familiar at all, and neither did that silver truck.
“How did I get here?” she asked.
He put the thermos down on the truckbed and walked toward her, carrying the cup. “You fainted.”
Had she? Odd. She’d never fainted before in her life. But maybe not so surprising. She had certainly been dizzy enough.
“You carried me here?”
He reached her, dropped to a squat and held out the cup. “Drink this.”
One whiff told her that he was offering her hot chocolate. She shook her head and leaned back. “No, thanks.”
He scowled at her. “If you don’t get something in your stomach soon, you’ll faint again.”
She scowled back. “The last thing I need is something in my stomach.”
He held out the cup again. “Trust me. You’ll feel better.”
“Trust me. I’ll puke.”
He pulled back the cup and regarded her closely. For a moment she could have sworn she saw something like discomfort flash across his face. But then his frown was back and she figured she was imagining things.
“Morning sickness?” he asked.
She nodded. “Nothing passes these lips until noon, and sometimes even then it has a round-trip ticket.”
He plopped down on the blanket beside her. “So that’s why you haven’t eaten.”
“And I had begun to think you’d lost all your detective skills.”
He sent her another scowl before turning his head away to stare at the line of trees along the dirt road. He was good at that scowling thing. Must have had a lot of practice.
As he sipped the hot chocolate he’d poured for her, she tested out her limbs and found them to be a little tender but otherwise okay. She looked around once again, trying to get her bearings. Where was east, west? Would have been a lot easier to determine if the sun were out. But then, it so rarely was.
“How far are we from where I was shooting?” she asked.
“About a mile and a half. If you’re worried about your camera, I put your backpack in the truck.”
A mile and a half. That was a long way to carry a one-hundred fifteen pound woman and forty pounds of her camera equipment. Looked as though his muscles weren’t just for show.
His concern for her welfare actually seemed genuine. He’d even been thoughtful enough to bring along her equipment. Maybe there was a heart hidden somewhere inside that hard chest, after all.
She studied the bold lines of his profile. Nice, straight, well-shaped nose. Full, well-defined lips. Not bad, actually. Maybe not a handsome face, but definitely not quite as forbidding as her first impression.
He turned his head and his eyes met hers.
“Feeling any better?”
“Some,” she admitted. “Thanks for being concerned about me.”
He looked quickly away. “Forget it.”
He was uncomfortable with her thanking him. What had she done to rub this man the wrong way?
“Time you answered my question,” she said, happy to hear herself sounding calm, reasonable. “What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER THREE
THERE WERE A LOT of things David knew he should say to Susan. Number one was the apology he owed her. But admitting he’d been wrong suddenly did not seem like such a good idea, not with her sitting so close to him, looking directly into his eyes in that bold way of hers.
This was not the time for him to be admitting to any kind of weakness.
“I came to talk to you,” he said simply. He stared at the bushes that lined the road, although he couldn’t have described them if he tried.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“I’m a private investigator, remember?”
She was quiet for a moment, but he could feel her studying his face. He wondered what she saw, then reminded himself not knowing was a lot safer.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.
He dug into his pocket. But he didn’t retrieve his brother’s business card. Instead he pulled out the ad from the personal column he’d clipped out of the paper. “This isn’t going to flush out Todd.”
She gave the clipping of the ad he handed her a brief glance before stuffing it in the pocket of her parka and getting to her feet.
“What I do or don’t do to contact Todd is my business, Mr. Knight. Now that we’ve closed that subject, what direction do I take to get to the lodge from here?”
He squinted up at her. She had delivered those last two sentences with enough frost to freeze a man, and she still had the guts to look him directly in the eye. She had a backbone.
He pointed. “The lodge is a mile that way.” He raised his other hand and pointed in the opposite direction. “Your SUV is a mile that way. Makes more sense to head for your SUV.”
“Aren’t you just full of helpful suggestions this morning.”
Her sarcasm was delivered so sweetly he almost smiled. “I thought you were a sensible woman,” he said with a shrug. “My mistake.”
She stared down at him. “Do you know what a nature photographer’s most valuable asset is?”
He didn’t see the connection to his comment but he gave the answer a try. “A good eye?”
“An obliging bladder.”
He blinked at her in surprise.
“Unfortunately, there’s something about being pregnant that can transform the most obliging bladder into a most unobliging one,” she said.
He knew his flippant comment about her being a sensible woman had goaded her into explaining. She smiled down on him with ill-concealed satisfaction, confident that her explanation was going to make him feel sheepish.
She wasn’t wrong.
He gulped down the last of the hot chocolate. “I’ll drive you over.”
THE CAMP LONG LODGE had a rustic, airy feel with its high ceilings, tall windows, a stone fireplace and hardwood floors.
As David waited for Susan, he stood on the outskirts of a large group gathered around a naturalist who was pointing to a map that showed the route they would take on their upcoming hike.
The naturalist was a knockout—a big, bosomy brunette who was making several of the men in the crowd openly drool. The effect was calculated. She had on thick eye makeup and painted lips the same deep red that adorned her long nails. She wore blue jeans and a red sweater, both a size too small.
David took the scene in like the clinician he had been once and the man of indifference he had become.
Then he saw Susan emerge from the lodge’s rest room. No painted lips and no painted nails. She carried her parka over her arm. The turtleneck she had worn underneath was faded cotton, quite loose, and in a pale shade of natural pink.
He watched her approach. There was a sweet grace to the sway of her shoulders and hips, as though she walked to music she alone could hear. The mid-morning light fell through the tall windows, turning her long, braided hair into a rainbow of shimmering browns and gold.
There was nothing calculated about her. Just a natural sensuality that took his breath away.
Still, only an idiot in his position would do anything about an attraction to a woman in her position. He was no idiot.
She stopped in front of him. “You didn’t have to wait.”
The naturalist was raising her voice to get the attention of the group. David took Susan’s arm to move them out of earshot. The worn cotton of her top proved to be soft and yielding.
But there was a muscled arm beneath, which quickly pulled away. She did not like to be touched. At least, not by him.
“Thought you might like a ride to your SUV,” he offered.
“The walk will do me good.”
He shrugged, careful to convey nothing but nonchalance. “Suit yourself. But if you faint again, you could break an arm. Might even land on your camera.”
The way she had so carefully tended to her camera before attempting to descend from the tree told him that hurting her camera would rank right up there with hurting an arm. Her quick change of mind didn’t surprise him.
“On second thought, Mr. Knight, I would appreciate that ride.”
They stepped out of the lodge to find the mist had lifted. The air was still chilly. When she swung the parka around her shoulders, he grabbed the sleeves to help her put her arms through. But he was careful to touch only her jacket this time.
They didn’t talk on the drive. Once they reached her vehicle, he circled around his truck to open the door for her. He held out his hand. She didn’t take it or attempt to get out.
“You didn’t come here just to tell me my personal ad wasn’t going to work, did you?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted, dropping his hand.
She held onto the door frame as she slipped off the seat. She stood before him and raised her eyes to his expectantly.
David knew the time had come to apologize for rejecting her case without explanation and to hand her his brother’s business card. But he also knew that he wasn’t going to do either of those things.
“I’ll find out about Todd for you.”
He turned around and headed toward her dark-green SUV. He opened the passenger door, slipped her backpack off his shoulders and laid it on the seat. By the time he’d closed the passenger door, she’d walked to the driver’s side.
But the question still hadn’t left her eyes. “Why?”
“You do want me to find out about him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I meant why did you change your mind?”
“I have a case to finish up today, but after that, my schedule will be free. What time will you be home tonight?”
“Around six, I guess, but—”
“I’ll be by at seven.”
He whirled away from her then and quickly closed the distance to his truck. He purposely did not give her a chance to respond. He slipped behind the wheel and drove off, not once looking back.
On the long drive around Puget Sound to Silver Valley, David congratulated himself on the solid logic behind his decision. Handing Susan’s case off to Richard made no sense.
Today he and his brother, Jared, a detective in the Sheriff’s Department, would see that the bastard who seduced, videotaped and then dumped his underage teenage victims was arrested.
But after he wrapped up that last loose end, he had a clear schedule. Richard would still be tied up on his current case for another week. David already had knowledge of Susan and her request.
Handling Susan’s case was the professional thing for David to do.
Besides, his dad was right. His attraction to Susan was simply a sign that he was ready to get off his self-imposed celibacy bench and back into the game. Of course, playing any games with her still remained out of the question.
She was a vulnerable, pregnant woman in need of his help. He would never take advantage of a woman in such a situation. Besides, now she was his client. The number one rule for a private investigator was never to get personally involved with a client.
David was a man who knew how to follow the rules.
SUSAN WAS RELIEVED that David had agreed to find Todd for her. He was obviously a very good investigator. But she also couldn’t help feeling annoyed.
David was coming to her home tonight. She did not invite men to her home, and she had not invited him. He had invited himself.
This was a business arrangement she had entered into with him. She didn’t want him invading her private space. But her subsequent call to his office that day had not been successful in changing the arrangement.
A male clerk had informed her—in cordial if clipped tones—that David was not in, was not expected to come in and could not be reached.
Her mood hadn’t improved when she’d discovered that she’d only gotten two marginally good shots out of the long morning shoot. On top of that, heavy traffic caused her to be late getting home. She was irritated and frustrated when she pulled her car into the garage just after six-thirty.
She stomped out of the garage and sprinted up the few steps to the entrance to her town house. She worked long hours and looked forward to unwinding in the evenings.
Only tonight, David was coming by at seven, less than half an hour away. That was the time when she and Honey were normally having their dinner. Surely, David didn’t expect her to fix him something? He might. There was no telling with that man. He was so damn hard to figure out. She opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hi, Honey, I’m home.”
He barked happily, his white fur a whirl of moving light in the dark entry. He flew into her outstretched arms with all the unbridled love that only a cherished pet could put into a homecoming. All Susan’s irritation fled the instant she hugged his exuberant little body, and he washed her cheeks with his warm tongue.
Without Honey, these past few years would have been unbearably bleak. She would always be grateful for that day he came into her life, and her heart.
As she stood and switched on the light, she saw with sudden dismay that Honey’s paws and nose were thick with mud. He was up to his old tricks, digging holes in the backyard. He’d gotten the mud all over her, as well. A thick glob was hanging from her bangs.
She sighed. That was love for you. So damn messy. And what was this affinity males had for mud?
She dropped her shoulder bag and keys onto the brown bear figurine and picked up the squirming terrier. “Shower time for us both, little guy,” she said as she carried him up the stairs.
She would be lucky if she even had Honey dried by seven, much less herself. She hated being late, even if she wasn’t the one who’d set the schedule. Of course, men were seldom on time. David might not even show up until eight.
But whenever he did show, one thing was for sure. If he came around expecting food from her tonight, she’d hand him a bag of dog kibble.
DAVID RANG SUSAN’S doorbell at exactly seven. He knew she was home. He’d already glanced through the window of her garage and had seen her green SUV inside. Lights shone through the glass panels above the front door of her town house. A dog barked from somewhere within.
David let a minute go by before pressing the doorbell again.
Almost immediately the door flew open and a small, white terrier charged out. Since David had two dogs of his own, he was well versed in the proper etiquette when entering their territory. He stood still and let himself be sniffed. The dog efficiently circled his legs, wagged his tail happily and let out a welcoming bark. David leaned down to give him a pat.
The dog was a cute little guy and openly affectionate, if a little damp. He rubbed his head against David’s hand, obviously expecting a lot more than just a passing pat. David indulged him, rubbing his ears and back and getting a blissful little moan in response.
“You’re making a mistake,” Susan said. “He’s not going to let you alone for a minute now.”
David turned his head. The first thing he saw from his crouched position was her bare feet. Slowly his gaze followed the lovely curved bone of her ankles, long shins and cute knees. But when he got to the middle of the firm flesh on her slim thighs, the edge of a white terry-cloth robe suddenly intruded to spoil the rest of the view.
The robe was securely fastened around her waist and drawn closely over her chest. A white towel covered her hair. She was not happy he was here. The firm set to her mouth made that very clear. But as her eyes followed his hand still stroking her dog, there was a softness in her expression that he had not seen before.
She stepped back for him to enter. “Honey will have to entertain you while I get dressed.”
David stepped through the jungle of her entryway, the dog trotting happily at his heels. He noted the shiny hardwood floors, the large bear that held her shoulder bag and keys, the whimsical frog wastebasket.
When she stepped past him to close the door, he caught a whiff of her freshly washed skin and hair. He reminded himself that the sudden tightening of his stomach muscles was normal, natural, nothing to be concerned about.
“The living room is that way,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
She padded across the bare wood floor and easily sprinted up the spiral staircase to the second floor. She was lithe and agile and displayed none of the physical clumsiness that had plagued her that morning. He felt reassured. He didn’t want to worry about her, but he had.
He’d decided to meet with her at her home because he wanted to get a deeper sense of who she was. Understanding a client was important. A woman’s home often reflected her more strongly than any other aspect of her life. Especially a woman who lived alone.
He already knew of her struggle to be taken as a serious professional, her hard-held independence, her deep need for privacy. Still, he had a feeling there was a lot more to know.
David thought he’d prepared himself for whatever he’d find, but when he entered her living room, he hadn’t expected to be walking into a shrine. From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered in dramatic, larger-than-life photographs of wildlife, giving him the impression that he’d been transported into the wilderness.
A majestic eagle soared over a diamond-blue waterfall. An elk herd fed on dewy grass in the dawn light. Furry bobcats ran across snow-covered forests. White-tailed deer glided through golden meadows. A brown bear lunged at pink-bellied salmon leaping up an emerald stream. The room vibrated with movement, with wild beauty, with life.
He barely noticed the furnishings. A nondescript couch and chair, a coffee table and several throw rugs—all in muted greens, grays and umber. Nothing distracted the eye from the dramatic scenes on the walls.
And that was when he knew. This was the living room of a woman with a deep respect, reverence and love for nature. Those beautiful pictures were not an extension of her work. Her work was an extension of herself.
SUSAN SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that David would be one of those rare men who actually showed up when he said he would. She rubbed her wet hair with the towel, well aware the effort was futile. An hour under the blow dryer would be required to dry the long strands in the humid air. She didn’t have that kind of time.
She settled for rubbing the moisture out of her bangs, and swept the rest into a golden scarf, tied turban-style around her head. She pulled a pair of clean black sweats out of her closet and hurriedly put them on.
Just because he was in dark-blue slacks and the collar and cuffs of a dress shirt peeked out of his blue sweater, there was no reason for her to dress up.
Damn, he did look good, though.
Still, this was her home. She had a right to be comfortable. She was not going to change anything just because he had the bad manners to invite himself over. But instead of reaching for her comfy, beat-up slippers as she normally would have, she opted instead for a pair of socks and her new walking shoes.
When she came down the stairs a couple of minutes later, she found David sitting on the couch with Honey beside him. His face was turned toward the dog, so she couldn’t read his expression. But there was a relaxed set to his shoulders and his long legs were comfortably stretched out in front of him. He was stroking Honey.
She stood at the edge of the living room silently watching them. She wanted to be put out with David, but she found that difficult. He was being so nice and attentive to Honey. A man who liked her beloved pet couldn’t be all bad.
“Is he a good watchdog?” David asked, obviously aware she was standing there although he hadn’t taken his eyes off Honey.
She stepped into the room. “I doubt he’d do anything to a burglar except beg for attention.”
He glanced up at her, the look on his face almost friendly. The edge of his lip twitched. Was that the beginning of a smile?
She waited expectantly, suddenly very curious to see what a smile would do to his face. But none was forthcoming.
“He’s munching on my fingers,” David said. “I think he’s hungry.”
“We eat at this time,” she said, happy for the opportunity to bring up the subject.
“Then, you’d best eat,” he said, not a hint of apology in his voice.
“Come on, Honey,” she called, shaking her head. “Go get your dinner bowl.”
Honey didn’t have to be told a second time. He barked his excitement as he flew off the couch. She followed the dog into the kitchen. She heard David enter a moment later as she was taking Honey’s meal out of the refrigerator. She unwrapped the steak and placed it in the bowl Honey held in his mouth. Honey expertly lowered the bowl to the kitchen floor and dug in.
“Steak for dinner,” David said. “Honey’s a lucky dog.”
“He’s a loved one,” Susan said, staring down at the ball of fur.
“That’s what I meant,” he said. “Get your coat. You can take your pick of Italian, Chinese or a steakhouse. They’re all within a twenty-minute drive.”
“I’m not dressed to go out,” she said, looking up in surprise.
His impressive height and massive shoulders dwarfed her small kitchen. The overhead light played through the thick, rich brown of his hair.
“You look fine to me.”
There was absolutely no readable expression on his calm face, but his voice told her he meant those words.
She knew then that he had intended to take her out to dinner all along. Damn. She wished he had said something. She would have dried her hair and worn something suitable. How thoroughly annoying this man could be.
She looked away from him and turned toward a cupboard.
“I was going to have some soup and a salad,” she said. “There’s enough for two if you’re hungry.”
She fiddled with the dishes and waited through the stretching silence, slightly appalled at the sudden impulse that had her inviting him to share a dinner with her here.
“I’ll make the salad,” he said.
He hadn’t offered. He’d told her. She did not appreciate the caveman approach. A spark of annoyance skittered across nerve endings she recognized were already taut. A small, reasonable voice inside her tried to suggest that he might have offered to make the salad as a way of being helpful. But she didn’t really want to listen to that voice at the moment.
She felt him move behind her to the refrigerator. Felt the cool air as he opened the door. Felt the impressive breadth of him that blocked a lot of that cool air. He was crowding her, and she didn’t like to be crowded.
But what Susan really didn’t like was her sudden suspicion that David might actually be a considerate man. She hadn’t been prepared for that. The possibility threw her off balance in a most unexpected and disconcerting way.
SOUP AND SALAD, she’d said. Sounded simple enough to David. But as he was fast discovering, nothing about Susan was simple.
She’d added sliced apples, pears, grapes and then finely chopped almonds, walnuts and pecans to the assortment of greens he’d put into salad bowls. Instead of salad dressing, she topped off the blend with sharp, shredded cheddar. The combination turned out to be both unusual and quite delicious.
She’d put chicken broth to simmer on the stove. Then she’d chopped an assortment of springtime vegetables into the broth—asparagus tips, onions, garlic, snow peas, spin-ach—and added tender juicy chunks of freshly cooked chicken seasoned with ginger and ground pepper. The flavors blended well and tasted great with the warm corn bread she served right out of the oven.
David had planned from the beginning to take her out to dinner. He hadn’t dreamed she’d offer to make him a meal. But he was glad she had. And not just because the meal had turned out to be superior to what they could have gotten at a restaurant.
Watching her prepare the food, he’d discovered her penchant for neatness and for organization. Every inch of her small kitchen served a specific and useful function. He’d discovered some of her preferences, as well. Fresh fruits and vegetables were clearly major players in her diet. She was concerned about what she put in her body. He’d discovered her attention to detail in the way she sifted and measured and made sure quantities were correct. She was not a careless woman.
They had eaten at her country-style, cloth-covered kitchen table. Her town house had a small formal dining room, but he was certain she rarely ate there, because few photographs adorned the walls. Every inch of the kitchen was covered with them.
The photographs in the living room had told him a lot about her. These told him more. They were all of baby animals—a doe nursing her new speckled fawn, a mother bear playing with her twin cubs, a tiny hummingbird flittering protectively over her hatchlings. And whereas the living room scenes had been full of the bold vibrancy of wildlife, these were filled with the warm, cherished charm of new life.
When they finished eating, David helped her clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. “I have a few things I’d like to go over,” he said.
“All right,” she agreed as she led the way back into the living room. She took a seat on the chair. He sat across from her on the couch. Honey hopped up beside him and nudged his hand, clearly communicating his desire for more petting.
David gave in to the demands of the little terrier, unable to resist. But even as he looked at the dog snuggling against him, the woman sitting so silently across from him claimed his thoughts. He was more confused than ever by her and by the reason she had come to him.
She was not the kind of woman to casually have a fling with a stranger. Everything about her told him that. And yet, she had. He had to know why.
Susan watched Honey stretch out beside David, legs in the air, total trust shining out of his big brown eyes. David’s large hand gently rubbed the terrier’s tummy. The little dog sighed with delight. The expression on David’s face as he looked at Honey was that of a man fast becoming wrapped around the charming paws of a pooch.
She decided she could forgive David a lot when she saw that look. Maybe even forgive him for his intrusion into her home tonight.
“Your husband died two years and ten months ago,” he said, breaking the silence. “You went to the community center six weeks ago to attend a bereavement seminar, not one on self-improvement.”
So, he had checked up on her. Seemed odd he had done so after having turned down her case, and odder still that he was now willing to help her. There was so much about this man that was confusing.
But his voice had been surprisingly gentle when he made that statement. And so was his hand on Honey’s tummy.
“Being able to deal effectively with grief is a form of self-improvement,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.
His immediate response told her she had failed. “I’m not trying to corner you. I’m trying to understand. I’m well aware that losing a loved one can be devastating. Did attending the seminar help?”
She looked down at the gold band on her finger. “No.”
“Tell me how he died.”
“How will that help?”
“I’m not sure that it will. But I’d like you to tell me.”
There was a sincerity in his tone that caught her off guard. He really did sound as though he wanted to know. Yet when she looked up, she found his attention still focused on the dog, his hand stroking Honey’s tummy in a soft, circular motion that was almost hypnotic.
“Paul was a fireman,” she began. “He was a courageous man, dedicated to saving lives. He worked long hours. When he came home that day, he was very tired. But there was a game on TV he wanted to watch, so he decided to stay up for a while.”
The images from the past were clear. She saw Paul as he’d plopped on the couch in his striped boxer shorts, a beer in his hand. He had grinned at her over his bare shoulder, and she’d seen the familiar light stubble on his chin, his blond hair—as always—in need of a trim.
“I put some wash in the dryer, kissed him goodbye and went off to do the grocery shopping,” she continued. “When I got home, I found the block surrounded by fire engines and the house…Paul…everything was gone.”
She didn’t remember much of that part. Probably better that she didn’t.
“How did the fire start?” David asked.
“I’m not sure. Paul had fallen asleep on the couch. They found…him there.”
What was left of him. They had spared her the details—something for which she would always be grateful. She stared down at her walking shoes, concentrated on the gold and white stripes on the sides.
“I didn’t mean to bring it all back,” David said.
She looked up to find him watching her. His face was full of understanding. Strange she had thought his eyes cold. They were looking at her with the same warmth that was in his voice.
“Did you get grief counseling after his death?” he asked.
“I’ve never been one to go to other people for help. I was certain I could handle the grief, and I did. I accepted Paul’s death. I got on with my life. Everything was going well. But, then, a few months ago, the dreams started.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Vivid,” she said. “I know people are supposed to dream every night. I suppose I must. But I’ve never remembered my dreams before.”
“What happens in these dreams?”
“Paul and I do everyday things together. I bring lemonade out to him while he’s digging the trench for our sprinkler system, and he suddenly tackles me, and we’re rolling in the mud laughing. Or we’re on a scary roller coaster together, and I’m holding on tightly and screaming my head off. Or we’re building sand castles on the beach just like we did on our honeymoon. I see him so clearly that when I wake up, I expect him to be beside me.”
“But he’s not,” David said after a moment of silence.
She stared at one of her favorite photographs—the one of the eagle soaring over the waterfall, powerful wings shimmering with sunlight, proud head rising above all the cares of the world.
“I faced the pain. I faced the grief. I put them both behind me. Only now the dreams have come, and I don’t know why.”
“What did they suggest you do at the seminar?” David asked.
“We were supposed to write a goodbye letter.”
“How far did you get?”
Dearest Paul— Why am I dreaming about you?
“Not very far,” she admitted. “I was staring at those empty white pages while everyone around me was scribbling away. I knew I was getting nowhere. I got up to leave and collided with Todd.”
“He was sitting beside you?”
She shook her head. “He was on the end of the row in the back. I was hurrying up the aisle toward the exit. I didn’t see him getting up to leave, and I ran into him. Literally.”
“And you two left together.”
“He suggested we walk to this bar that was a couple of blocks away, to get a drink. Sounded like a good idea at the time.”
“Do you remember the name of the bar?”
“No, most of the letters on the neon sign were burned out. All I remember clearly is that the waitress was sweet and the music was sad.”
“So you had a drink,” he said in that same soothing voice that had become so easy to respond to.
“I don’t even like alcohol,” she said, sighing in remembrance. “I hate the taste and the stuff kills brain cells. I’ve always figured I needed every one of mine. The last drink I had before that night was a sip of champagne at my wedding.”
“But that night you drank more than a sip.”
“Oh yeah. After four Screwdrivers, I was feeling no pain. Of course, that was the whole idea. I told Todd about losing Paul. He told me about losing his mother. She had died a couple of months before, in a plane crash. They’d been very close. He hadn’t been able to write the goodbye letter to her, either. Hearing that made me feel a lot less like a failure. I really liked him for telling me.”
“Enough to become intimate with him?”
“Hardly. Sex was the last thing on my mind. That only happened because…”
Dear heavens, how could she explain to David what she still didn’t understand herself? Why did she want to? She normally didn’t care what men thought of her. But for some reason, she was beginning to care what David thought.
“Whatever you can tell me will help,” he said.
“He walked me back to the community center sometime after eleven,” she said, doubting any of what she had to say would really help. “The lot was deserted except for my vehicle. Todd told me he’d arrived late for the seminar and had parked on a side street somewhere. Neither of us was in any condition to drive home. He offered to use his cell phone to call me a cab. But I couldn’t leave my vehicle parked there overnight. All my camera equipment was inside. I couldn’t risk someone breaking in and stealing something.”
“So you spent the night in your SUV?”
She nodded. “I always carry a sleeping bag. Part of a nature photographer’s essential equipment. Todd helped me to unroll the bag, and I was out like the proverbial light as soon as I lay my head down. Next thing I knew I was having one of those vivid dreams of Paul. I could feel him beside me. He was snoring away.”
She paused, clasped the wedding band on her finger, stared at it in the room’s soft lamplight.
“You can tell me what happened,” he said.
There was something so soothing and accepting in his voice that she suddenly believed she could.
“When Paul snored, I would kiss his cheek so he’d wake up, roll onto his side and go back to sleep. But when I kissed him that night, he woke up and kissed me back. Then he started to make love to me.”
“But it wasn’t Paul,” David said quietly. “When did you know?”
She wanted to say afterward. She wished she could say afterward. But she had done something for which she was ashamed, and she wasn’t going to make herself feel even more ashamed by lying.
“I was still pretty smashed. But at one point I sensed something was different, opened my eyes and saw Todd’s face. I realized then that he must have passed out beside me. When I kissed him, he must have awakened and thought…”
“That you wanted him,” David supplied when her voice faded.
She gave a long exhale. “Todd kept whispering my name over and over. I closed my eyes and let it happen.”
“And in the morning?”
“When I awoke, Todd was gone, much to my relief. I don’t think I could have faced him. Because the truth is, I don’t know why I slept with him.”
“Hard to know why we do things sometimes.”
She looked up to see he was watching her, that calm acceptance still on his face. He was telling her that he wasn’t judging her. She appreciated that, more than she could say. But she was judging herself.
“I’ve always known why I’ve done things,” she said. “I may not always have been thrilled with the reason, but at least I’ve known. Now, not knowing…not knowing is very unsettling. I can’t tell you how unsettling.”
“You don’t have to even try,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ve been there. Thank you for dinner and for your honesty.”
“You’re leaving?” she said, surprised.
He nodded. “I know what I asked of you tonight wasn’t easy to give. But what you’ve told me has been important, and will help me to find out about Todd. I hope that will be worth the pain you went through. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He headed toward the front door. She followed. When he paused to lean down and give Honey one last head pat, she smiled. David was turning out to be quite nice and not nearly as unapproachable as she’d imagined.
Maybe now was the time to ask the question that had plagued her since she first saw him in the White Knight offices.
“What bothers you about me?”
David straightened. “What do you mean?”
“When we first met,” she said, “I could tell you didn’t like me.”
He stared down at her. They were barely a foot apart. She was suddenly very aware of him.
“There is nothing about you that I don’t like,” he said in a soft whisper. “Good night.”
He pulled open the door, stepped out into the dark night and shut the door behind him.
The breath whooshed out of Susan’s lungs as she stood facing that closed door, stunned to her toes. She could barely believe what her senses were telling her. David had just said there was nothing about her he didn’t like. She’d seen the truth of his words in his eyes, heard that truth in his voice.
He was attracted to her.
She felt a sharp quickening of her pulse and an undeniable response deep inside her—a response she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID LAY IN BED that night thinking over what Susan had told him. When he’d checked into her background and discovered her husband had died, he’d visited the fire station where Paul Carter had worked. A memorial picture of him hung on the wall. Paul was blond, five-ten, slender, with light eyes. That was exactly how Susan had described Todd.
She’d gone to the seminar seeking closure to some unresolved issue that had her dreaming of her dead husband. Instead of a resolution, she had found herself under the lethal influences of a terrible sense of failure and a potent dose of alcohol. And there was Todd, a sympathetic, fellow sufferer, looking enough like Paul to pull all the right heartstrings.
David could understand why Susan had let him make love to her. But what he still wasn’t clear about was Todd’s motives. Was he really grieving? Or was he an opportunist who had seen her pain, plied her with alcohol, and, then, when she was most vulnerable, taken advantage of her?
A man who took advantage of a vulnerable woman was scum. If he found out that Todd had done that to Susan—
David punched his pillow and turned onto his other side. No. No matter what he found out, he wasn’t going to get physical with the guy. This was just a case like any other. She was just a client. And David was a civilized, educated man in full control of his impulses. All his impulses.
When she had asked him what he didn’t like about her, he’d been very tempted to show her how much he liked everything about her. But he’d held back and left without laying so much as a finger on her.
Even if he had stood too close to her and gazed into her eyes a little too long.
David punched his pillow again and turned to his other side. That had been a mistake. He wished he just liked the way she looked. The way she sounded. The way she moved. The way she smelled.
But he also liked the way she spoke her mind and refused to back down when she believed she was right. The way she took such pride in her work. The way she took such loving care of her pet and her home.
David threw the pillow to the bottom of the bed, let out a frustrated breath, rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. No matter what he liked about her, pursuing Susan was simply not an option.
Time to take his brother, Jack, up on one of his double-date offers. Jack’s sojourn into show biz had left him rubbing shoulders, as well as more interesting body parts, with some of the most beautiful women on the TV screen. As David’s dad had so accurately pointed out to him a couple of days before, his body was telling him to get back in the game. With one of Jack’s women, a man didn’t have to worry about holding back.
Tomorrow morning David would concentrate on getting a lead on Todd. Thanks to Susan’s openness and honesty, he had some clues to follow.
Tomorrow night he’d let Jack introduce him to someone who wasn’t a client, who wasn’t still mourning her dead husband, and who wasn’t going to want to see his face over the breakfast table the next morning.
He might be ready to get back in the dating game, but the rules were definitely going to be different. This time around, he wasn’t going to look for emotional entanglements of any kind.
“COME ON, SUSAN,” Paul said, dragging her toward the roller coaster. “It’ll be fun!”
Susan looked up at the big, bright neon sign in front of them that said Death Ride. Nope, this didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.
“Paul, a roller-coaster ride isn’t my idea of a good time. I have this inner-ear problem. I get car sick on a bumpy road.”
“Suz, you’ve got to come with me,” he coaxed. “This ride is the absolute best. A real adrenaline rush.”
She planted her feet. “My adrenaline is rushing at the right speed, thank you.”
“Is it?” he said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. “Maybe I’d better do a quick check.” He bent down to nuzzle her neck. She closed her eyes and leaned into him.
The next thing she knew, he had scooped her into his arms, planted her on the seat and hopped in beside her. The safety harness swooped down to lock them in place.
“That was pretty damn sneaky, Paul Carter,” she complained as she looked over at the satisfied grin on his face.
He laughed. “You’re a sucker for that neck-nuzzling trick.”
The loaded cars had begun to creep up the track toward the top. Susan’s stomach gave a nervous twitch. There was no getting out now. Not that she had a particular problem with this part. But she had seen roller coasters operate. She knew there was a downside.
A real downside. Their car reached the top. Within seconds they were barreling toward the earth at sixty miles per hour, taking hairpin turns that rattled her eye sockets and careening around neck-yanking loops that had Susan clutching the safety harness in pure terror. Her head was pounding, and her stomach was churning, ready to erupt.
But when she looked over at Paul, he was grinning, his face flushed, so happy and so full of life.
Susan awoke and instinctively reached for Paul. But her hand rested on a ball of fur. Then she remembered.
Paul was gone.
Why was this happening to her? She had faced the loss of the wonderful man she had married. She had allowed herself to feel the pain of his passing. She had accepted the need to get on with her life. She had gotten on with her life. Why was she having these vivid dreams of Paul?
SUSAN WAS AT HER light table carefully looking through the negatives of her morning shoot, when Barry Eckhouse interrupted her concentration.
“I picked up your prints from the darkroom while I was getting mine,” he said.
She sent him a look of gratitude as she took the prints from his outstretched hand. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for these. Thanks, Barry. I’ll hug you later.”
“That makes three hundred and seventy-two hugs you owe me.”
She knew Barry wasn’t really keeping score, nor did he expect to collect. They had been promising each other hugs for years.
He was a good-looking guy who wore the “I’m so bored I’m cool” expression that only he and the guys on the cover of GQ seemed able to pull off.
He was also one of her favorite people. Because of his strong urging and recommendation three months before, Greg had promoted Susan to one of the three coveted senior photographer slots. Barry had never said a word about having stood up for her, which was one of the things she liked most about him.
She took a moment to glance at the prints he’d handed to her. “I requested these two days ago. Why is the darkroom always so backed up?”
“Their turnover is worse than a Burger King,” he said. “They got another new trainee today. Can’t wait to see how long before this one disappears. Speaking of disappearing, have you seen Ellie? I stopped by her cubicle to deliver her prints, but she wasn’t there. Matter of fact, I haven’t seen her all day.”
“She’s probably in the coffee room making an espresso.”
“Which can only mean she’s broken up with her latest loser,” Barry said, shaking his head.
Susan concentrated on shifting through the prints, saying nothing.
“Relax, you didn’t give anything away. I know that Ellie always hogs the espresso machine for days after one of her lovers screws her over.”
She should have known Barry would figure that out. He was smart and observant. When she had first seen Barry looking at Ellie, she’d thought he had a thing for her friend. But however attractive Barry thought Ellie, he was always so negative when he spoke about her that Susan had given up hoping for a romance between them.
“Be nice to Ellie,” she told him. “She’s going through a rough time.”
“She’s always going through a rough time,” he said, the disgust thick in his voice, “because she always asks for it.”
“Of course, you’ve never made a mistake in the romance department,” she said with light sarcasm, knowing perfectly well just how bad a mistake he’d made in the selection of his ex-wife, who everyone at the office called “the psycho.”
Not that he wasn’t absolutely right about Ellie, of course. But Susan was loyal to a lovelorn friend.
“Not fair,” Barry protested. “I was barely twenty-five when the psycho did her number on me. Did I tell you she violated the restraining order her third ex-husband got on her?”
“That the one in Texas?”
“No, Florida. Her second husband filed the restraining order on her in Texas. Anyway, she picked the lock on her third husband’s house after he’d gone to work and spray painted everything black. She’s a genius at lock-picking. Her old man is still doing time for a decade of breaking-and-entering raps.”
“Now, remind me again what awful thing her third ex-husband did to deserve this?” Susan asked.
“He married her, against all my warnings, I might add, just like husband number two. Not that I totally blame them. The psycho’s got legs that go on forever and these big blue eyes and full lips—”
“So what you’re telling me,” she interrupted, not caring to hear any more about his ex-wife’s physical attributes, “is that a man doesn’t really care if a woman is psychotic as long as she’s sexy.”
He shrugged. “No one said we were the smarter sex. But I have learned from my mistake, unlike Ellie.”
Barry quickly looked around, then leaned closer. “You’re her best friend, Susan,” he whispered. “I know you can spot these losers she keeps getting involved with. Why aren’t you setting her straight?”
“Only time I ever tried to set Ellie straight, as you call it,” she whispered back, “I ended up hurting her feelings, and she didn’t talk to me for two months.”
“You tried to warn her about that married guy she was mixed up with a few years back, didn’t you?” he asked, his face alight with the revelation.
Susan didn’t answer. She’d already said more than she should have.
He straightened and resumed his normal tone. “So that’s why things were so strained between you two then. And all the time I thought you were fighting over me.”
“Don’t you wish,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re concerned about Ellie. Why don’t you ask her out?”
“Hell, no,” he said with feeling. “I told you. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Ellie’s no psycho.”
“Yeah, but she’s got another serious problem. Incredibly bad taste in men.” With that Barry waved and left.
She knew he was right. Put Ellie in a pitching boat in heavy seas and she could not only instantly determine the precise knots that two dolphins were swimming and how many feet away they were, but also the exact F-stop, shutter speed and fill-in flash required to perfectly capture them on film.
But put Ellie in a room full of eligible men, and her brain would inevitably malfunction and she’d pair up with the worst possible choice.
Susan’s thoughts were interrupted when her telephone rang. She picked it up and answered distractedly. “Susan Carter.”
“David Knight.”
She sat straight up in her chair, every cell in her body vibrating to attention.
“I…uh…” Oh, that was erudite, Susan. Could you sound any more brain dead?
“Can you talk?” David asked.
“Apparently not,” she said with a small chuckle.
“That wasn’t a jab at your verbal skills, Ms. Carter. I was attempting to ascertain if you were in a private place that would enable you to discuss personal matters freely.”
He was cordial, but clearly all business. The gentle warmth that had imbued his voice the night before was nowhere in evidence.
She had thought a lot about David after he left her home, and those thoughts had been disturbing. Her preoccupation with them seemed kind of foolish now, in light of his formal manner. Maybe she’d been so tired after her long day that she’d imagined what she’d seen in his eyes. Maybe she had imagined her response, as well.
“Ms. Carter, did you hear my question?”
“Sorry. My mind was on something else. Just a minute.”
The four-foot partitions around her cubicle did nothing to mask conversations. She rose from her chair and stretched so as to camouflage her real reason for getting up, which was to see who was sitting on the other sides. As she had suspected, all around her cubicle were fellow employees frantically clicking their computer keys, getting articles and captions ready for the next issue.
“The answer to your question is, not really,” she said into the phone as she sat back down and scooted her chair closer to her desk.
“Probably just as well we meet. I’d like to show you something. Can you be outside the front of your building in five minutes?”
She checked her watch. Four-thirty already? She needed the rest of her contact sheets from the guys in the darkroom. She also needed to select and crop the photos that would have to be printed. “Will this be a quick meeting?”
“Should be. I’ll drive by and pick you up. Bring your coat and umbrella. The rain is coming down cold and hard.”
Before she could respond, the dial tone blared in her ear. She shook her head as she hung up the phone. David was back to his all-business self, all right.
She was relieved. This was not the time to be getting sidetracked by a man.
Grabbing her shoulder bag, coat and umbrella, she made a dash for the rest room before heading down to the lobby. Exactly five minutes later, his silver truck slid alongside the curb in the front of the building. She used her umbrella as a shield as she dashed for the truck.
He had the passenger door open by the time she got there. She hopped in sideways and pulled the umbrella closed, dropping it to the floor once she was settled on the seat. The moment she’d closed the passenger door and buckled up, the truck was rolling.
“Are you always so punctual?” she asked as she looked over at him.
He wore a brown leather jacket over a silver-blue dress shirt, brown dress slacks, and leather boots polished so brightly she could see the chrome beneath the brake pedal reflected in them.
His eyes remained on the road when he answered. “Promptness is simply a part of keeping one’s word.”
“What do you say to all the people who accuse you of being too rigid because you live your life by the clock?”
“Probably the same thing you say to such people.”
She wasn’t surprised that David had surmised she also was a “promptness freak,” as so many of her friends liked to call her. Not after all the other things he’d been able to deduce about her.
“Okay, Mr. Detective, tell me what I say to those people.”
“You say you’ll be somewhere at a particular time, and you are there at that time, because you care about them and wouldn’t think of wasting their valuable time by making them wait for you.”
She chuckled. “Well, I may not have said that before, but I’m certainly going to say it from now on. Where are we going?”
“Someplace private where you can look at a picture and answer a few questions.”
The private place proved to be a parking facility located next to a nearby park. The heavy rain had driven away the park’s occupants, leaving the garage empty. David selected a space on the upper level with a view of the gray landscape but far enough within the structure’s overlapping roof that the rain wouldn’t pound on the truck.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/m-j-rodgers/baby-by-chance/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
M.J. Rodgers
Susan Carter needs to find a man.Not just any man, but the stranger who fathered her unborn child. In desperation, she turns to David Knight, one of the detectives working for White Knight Investigations. She's sure she'll look bad to David–she doesn't even know the last name of the man she's searching for–but she has no choice. It's the only way to find out about her child's father.David Knight doesn't expect to like every client he has. What surprises him is how much he likes Susan, especially since he knows she's keeping things from him. If she wasn't, wouldn't she tell him about the man who gave her the ring she wears on her left hand?
“I was just thinking about a woman who came by the office.”
David’s father smiled at him and said, “What did she want?”
David wondered whether he should say. Maybe a discussion was what he needed to put everything in order.
“She wanted me to find some guy she had a one-night stand with. Seems she’s carrying his kid.”
“Not exactly an everyday request,” Charles said, “but I don’t see the problem.”
“She made me drag every detail out of her like I was a prosecuting attorney. Even when I explained that she had to be totally honest, she held back crucial information.”
“What was that?”
“She was wearing a wedding band, yet she said nothing about being married. And I gave her plenty of opportunity to spit it out.”
Charles shrugged. “So she was embarrassed or ashamed or both. I’m not saying that dealing with a cheating spouse is pleasant, just part of the job. And there’s nothing that says we have to like a client.”
“But this one didn’t look like someone who should be lying.”
Charles let out a long sigh of understanding. “Ah, so that’s the problem. You do like her.”
Dear Reader,
I love to read about heroines and heroes.
In this world of cranky kids and kitty litter, unbalanced checkbooks and bad-tempered bosses, sagging skin and stretch marks, it’s great to be able to open a Harlequin Superromance novel and find a gal who handles life’s petty concerns with such panache that she inspires you to think your best thoughts, do your noblest deeds and be your finest self.
That’s what I call a heroine.
The guys who win the hearts of these gals have to be special—and they are. Tough, tender and downright tempting, they can melt the polish right off your toenails. I’d like to introduce you to four such men. The Knight brothers are a talented team of investigators whose modern-day armor consists of quick minds, steel bodies and strong integrity. Their motto is When You Need Help, Call On A White Knight. These men are ready to put themselves on the line for what’s right and for the women they love.
That’s what I call a hero.
David Knight’s story is the first in the WHITE KNIGHT INVESTIGATIONS series. David has earned his share of battle scars and is convinced he’s prepared for anything—until he meets Susan, the lovely nature photographer who desperately needs his help in finding the father of her unborn child.
I hope you enjoy David and Susan’s tale. And may love always find the heroine in your heart.
Warmest wishes,
M.J. Rodgers
Baby by Chance
M.J. Rodgers
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Baby by Chance
CONTENTS
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 ONE
SUSAN HAD A HARD TIME believing it had come to this. If someone had told her a week ago that she would be seriously considering hiring a private investigator, she would have laughed.
People came to her for help. She was the sensible, self-reliant one who always handled whatever problem came her way. At least, she had been.
She drove past the White Knight Investigations’ offices every day on her way to work. When You Need Help, Call On A White Knight, the sign said. The promise implicit in that motto never failed to conjure up the romantic image of a tall, stalwart warrior in silver armor charging on his sturdy steed to help some hapless heroine.
A nice fantasy. But the key word here was fantasy.
Even if the King Arthur legends could be believed and men with high ideals had rescued damsels in distress in the sixth century, she knew perfectly well that damsels unlucky or foolish enough to get themselves into distressful situations in the twenty-first century had better be ready to rescue themselves.
Yet knowing all that didn’t stop her from slowing as she approached the White Knight offices this morning. She wanted to believe, because she was in a mess. And she gladly would have traded all the idealistic heroes in history on white horses for the help of one fat, balding modern-day cynic driving a VW Bug—as long as he was a competent and intelligent investigator.
Their number was on the sign. Maybe she’d call for an appointment. Then again, maybe not. She’d gotten herself into a situation that was as embarrassing as hell for herself to accept, much less explain to someone else.
An unexpected light in the office window had Susan turning the steering wheel of her SUV. The offices were always dark at this hour. That light beamed down on her like a special invitation, a message that someone waited for her up there, someone who would listen and would be willing to help.
She maneuvered her vehicle into the parking lot and switched off the engine. She sat behind the wheel for a moment as the drizzle smeared her windshield, uncomfortably aware that levelheaded women didn’t lead their lives by attributing the guiding hand of fate to an unexpected office light. Still, as long as she was here, it probably wouldn’t hurt to go up.
The front door to the office-building complex was open, a bakery shop on the first floor already filling the foyer with the warm aromas of yeast and rising dough. Normally such smells would have been welcome. But today she couldn’t get away from them quickly enough. She dashed for the elevator and punched the button for the top floor where the White Knight offices were located.
The elevator made its journey with an efficient swoosh of gears. When the doors opened, she stepped out on a lovely curved landing. A floor-to-ceiling picture window overlooked the small city of Silver Valley, jewel-like in the early morning light.
As tempted as she was to linger over the dazzling scene, she knew that if she didn’t continue with this sudden impulse, her common sense was going to kick in and have her retreating back to her vehicle.
The light she had seen from the street was spilling out from the reception area of the White Knight offices. Her footsteps made no sound on the thick carpet as she made her way toward it.
She halted in the shadows just outside the open door and peered inside. Her eyes swept over the oak desk, the thick gold carpet, the tasteful assortment of art hanging on the pastel walls, the impressive expanse of windows.
But it was the man facing those windows who claimed her real attention.
He was at least six-three, with shoulders and arms like a logger’s. His full bark-brown hair was cleanly cut at the nape of his neck. A dark green sweater stretched over his muscled back. Tailored black slacks hugged his long legs. One of his huge hands hung casually by his side. The other was holding something in front of him that she couldn’t see.
The solid strength of his body and the calm, innate confidence in his stance put Susan immediately in mind of the sturdy cedar that had stood outside her bedroom window when she was a child. That cedar had borne the weight of her treehouse, weathered the worst of winter’s storms and soaked up the tears shed by her young self.
Her heart filled with sudden hope. Maybe, just maybe, the impulse that had brought her here wouldn’t prove to be so crazy, after all.
DAVID SAVORED HIS COFFEE as he watched the traffic beneath his window. Mornings were always his favorite part of the day; he enjoyed watching the world wake up and get busy, especially in this part of the world.
Western Washington wouldn’t push open its coffin lid of clouds to let in any real sun until summer. He didn’t mind enduring the months of overcast skies ahead. The rain was a familiar companion, and he had learned that there was comfort in the familiar. A man could handle anything when he knew what to expect.
A long, difficult case now hinged on an interview he would conduct with his client’s runaway daughter in a few hours. Getting the girl’s trust was key. He was counting on what he had to show her to help him. But his approach also had to be right. He had come in early so as to plan what he would say to her.
He checked his watch. Barely eight. He had another full hour before the office officially opened and anyone else arrived. Plenty of time to—
“Excuse me.”
David spun around so sharply at the sound of the unexpected voice behind him that coffee splashed out of his cup. He found himself suddenly face-to-face with large, luminous eyes the color of summer clover.
She stood in the doorway, a slim silhouette in a dark business suit with matching, low-heeled pumps. Across her forehead was a curve of shiny, golden-brown bangs. The rest of her hair fell in one long, thick braid to the gentle swell of her right breast. Her cosmetic-free face reflected the pink, creamy glow of youth. She didn’t look a day over twenty-one.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” she said.
Her surprisingly deep and resonant voice vibrated through David like the melody of a forgotten song.
She took a tentative step into the room. “If you have some paper towels, I can try to soak up that stain on the carpet.”
“No,” he said in a tone that was far too abrupt and gruff and had nothing whatsoever to do with her offer to help and everything to do with the unwelcome surprise of her. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because her open, expectant expression quickly faded.
“I’ve obviously come at a bad time,” she said, and turned to leave.
“No,” he heard himself barking again in that same uncivil tone. He took a deep breath. This was foolish. He was a professional. She was a client.
“Come in,” he said, carefully modulating both his manner and tone. “The clerk will see to the carpet when he arrives. I’m David Knight.”
He set his coffee cup on the desk and walked over to extend his hand. He was determined that this woman would see him as he really was—a cool, cordial investigator, in control of himself.
She did not immediately take his hand but instead studied his face. There was a question in her eyes. But whatever she wanted to know, she seemed hesitant to ask. When she finally stepped forward and slipped her hand into his, he was taken aback by the warmth and strength of her clasp.
“I’m Susan Carter.”
Her name didn’t ring a bell. Not that all of the firm’s clients were known to him. But he was surprised that no one had mentioned her over the dinner table the night before. His brothers seldom passed up an opportunity to talk about an attractive woman.
Could she be a special client taken on by his mom or dad?
“Is something wrong, Mr. Knight?”
David realized that while silently asking himself these questions, he’d been unconsciously gripping her hand. He released his hold and retraced his steps to the desk, where he grabbed the telephone.
Didn’t matter whose client she was. What mattered was that he arrange for her to be taken care of so he could get on with what he had to do.
“Who’s handling your case, Ms. Carter? I’ll call and let them know you’re here.”
“There’s no one to call. This is my first visit.”
He dropped the telephone receiver onto the base. So, she had walked in off the street. Did she really think that private investigators had nothing to do but sit in their offices waiting for prospective clients?
“We’re not officially open for business until nine,” he said, maintaining an amicable tone.
“Could someone see me then?”
She’d missed the important point of his message. He tried again. “The clerk will be available to check the schedule when he arrives. But I doubt there’ll be an opening this week.”
Her disappointed response came out in a rush. “Of course. You’re as busy as everyone else. I saw your light while I was driving by and thought—”
Her deep voice ceased abruptly. She had no intention of sharing what she’d thought. He had the sudden conviction that she rarely did. She swallowed hard, squeezing the strap of her shoulder bag in what appeared to be an involuntary movement. “Stupid mistake on my part.”
Her self-effacing tone told him she did not like making mistakes. The firm set to her mouth also said that she was harder on herself than anyone else could be.
“Please, forgive the interruption.” She looked him straight in the eye when she said those words. Hers was a sincere apology, not a polite one.
He saw then what he had missed earlier. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. She was in trouble. She had clearly acted on impulse coming here. If he insisted she make an appointment, she’d probably talk herself out of keeping it. She was turning to go.
“I have a few moments, if you want to tell me how we can help,” David heard someone say in a familiar voice that he tardily recognized as his own.
She halted in mid-stride and turned back. “You’ll see me now?” Her question sounded full of surprise and hope.
In answer, he started toward the door adjacent to the reception room, wondering all the while what the hell he was doing.
“My office is through here. What do you take in your coffee, Ms. Carter?”
SUSAN CRADLED THE WARM cup in her cold hands. She could smell the freshly ground beans, the rich cream, the sweetness of the sugar.
David had prepared her coffee just as she had asked, but she had yet to take a sip. As she tried to get comfortable on the guest chair in his office, she willed her jumpy stomach to settle.
At his request, she’d filled out a card with her address and telephone number. He held that card now as he sat across from her, an immaculate, black marble desk between them. He wore a polite expression of openness and patience. And the way he leaned back in his black leather chair, the thick steam rising from his refilled cup, spoke of a man at ease.
But every nerve in Susan’s body told her he was not.
She found his face more rugged than handsome—bold forehead, bold cheekbones, bold chin. His skin had been weathered by time spent in outdoor pursuits. From the lines across his forehead and around his mouth, she estimated him to be somewhere in his middle thirties.
But his eyes—as chilly a gray as the overcast spring day—his eyes were older, wiser and wary. Every time she looked into them, she had the oddest sensation that it was she who made him most wary.
She could have convinced herself that she was imagining things if she hadn’t seen the unguarded expression on his face when he’d spilled his coffee. David Knight hadn’t just been surprised to see her. He’d been disturbed in some personal way.
Susan normally wasn’t reticent about asking questions, but there was a quality to this man that didn’t invite probing. Even his office was intimidating—heavy, dark furniture, ponderous drapes, a carpet the color of granite, and not a personal photograph anywhere. In a corner display case, a massive Ironman trophy stood solemnly erect on a sturdy glass shelf.
A man who had won one of those grueling competitions was the kind who went all out and pulled no punches.
“Perhaps you’d like to start by telling me about yourself,” he said. Even now, beneath his artfully projected calm and courtesy, she sensed the controlled tension in the man.
“Your business suit implies that you are employed outside the home,” he said.
“I’m a nature photographer,” she replied, relieved to start on a less sensitive subject.
“Freelance?”
“I’m on staff at True Nature magazine.”
One of his thick eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “That’s a top-notch publication.”
His surprise that she worked for such a prestigious magazine did not sit well with Susan. “Thank you. I think so, too,” she said with a politeness that she frequently used to insulate sparks of irritation.
“How long have you been with them?”
“Nine years.”
“That long? I wouldn’t have guessed you had that much experience. May I ask how old you are?”
She deliberately straightened in her chair before answering, the better to emphasize every inch of her five-foot five-inch frame. “I’m thirty-two. As of the eighth of last month.”
“You say that as though daring me to disagree.”
“I realize that most women would be happy to be taken for younger than they are, Mr. Knight. I am not like most women.”
“What are you like?”
His tone carried no inflection, but she felt the subtle, unspoken challenge that lay beneath his words. She could not have explained how he’d conveyed that challenge, but it was as real to her as her own breath.
“I was graduated at the top of my class with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and a B.S. in Wildlife Science,” she said. Try as she might to remain unemotional, she still heard the defensiveness in her voice. “I started out as a copy and caption editor. Each time an opening for photographer came up, I applied. But each time I was turned down while others with less education and experience got the jobs.”
“And why do you think that was?”
She set her untouched coffee down on the table beside her chair. “I don’t think, Mr. Knight, I know. People attribute less competence to a person who looks deceptively young, despite their actual chronological age and abilities. I have had to fight to be taken seriously.”
“So you went to a voice trainer.”
She was silent for a moment, able to do no more than blink. “And just how did you know that?”
“Few women under fifty have a voice as deep as yours.”
He was so calm and reasonable that she was immediately annoyed with herself for having become defensive, and just a mite suspicious that he had pinpointed her sensitive spot and deliberately irritated her so he could see how she’d respond.
“If your youthful looks bother you so much, why don’t you use makeup?”
“I have very uncooperative skin. Makeup just sits on my face like curdled milk. Since the alternative is to look like I’m past my expiration date, I’m stuck with what nature provided.”
“I doubt stuck is the word most people would use,” he said.
She didn’t know whether he was trying to be polite or trying to minimize her concern over her youthful appearance. She suspected the latter. Not surprising. What could a man who looked as formidable as this one know about the difficulties of looking too fragile?
He took a sip of his coffee as he regarded her once again. “So, you finally became a photographer after you completed the voice lessons and got a new boss.”
“Four years ago,” she said, feeling once again oddly off balance by his assessment. “Just how much of that was a guess?”
“I’m not in the habit of guessing, Ms. Carter. First impressions are hard to reverse.”
“Meaning?”
“Even with your new voice, an old boss could still not get past your youthful appearance. It would take a new boss to really see the new you.”
“You appear to have an understanding of human nature.”
He set down his cup and leaned forward in his chair. “I understand that whatever is bothering you is of recent origin and is keeping you from sleeping at night. You would prefer to keep the matter to yourself. You are a very private person, despite the facade of openness you project. You pride yourself on handling things. Coming here to ask for help is out of character for you. You still wish there was some way you could have avoided doing so.”
She stared at him as the dead-on accuracy of everything he’d said sent the nerves of her back quivering. She wasn’t used to someone being able to read her so well.
He casually settled back in his chair. “Don’t let my skills upset you. They’re the reason you’ve come to me.”
“I’m not upset,” she said, and she wasn’t. But she was uneasy.
“The point is, we’re both observers,” he said. “Your expertise is tuned to the sounds and sights of wildlife. Mine is human behavior. Were we out in the wilds, you could probably tell me all about the feeding, mating and migrating rituals of a bird in a tree merely by hearing its call or noting the shape of its wing. Isn’t that true?”
“For most species,” she admitted.
“And I would be duly impressed since I have no such skills. We are both professionals with special talents. Now, tell me how my talents can be put to use in helping you.”
He was right. Instead of being uncomfortable, she should be rejoicing that she had found someone possessing the skills that he had so competently displayed. He had not only eased her into talking, but had also maneuvered her into revealing things about herself and surmised the rest with impressive insight. The time had come for her to put her problem in his hands.
“I need you to find a man.”
David retrieved a pad of paper and a pen from his desk drawer. “His name?”
“Todd.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Address?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked up. “What do you know about Todd?”
“He’s several inches taller than me, about five-ten would be my guess. Light hair, eyes. Slender. Maybe thirty.”
David jotted down a few notes before continuing.
“Why do you want me to find him?”
“I want to learn everything I can about him. We met in a seminar at the local community center six weeks ago as of last Friday, and we didn’t have much time to get acquainted.”
“What kind of seminar?”
She paused before answering. “Self-improvement.”
“What were you trying to improve?”
“Is that really important?”
“I have no preconceived idea of who you are or what you should be, Ms. Carter. I’ll be in and out of your life in as brief a time as possible. This is to your advantage. With me, you don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending anything. I just don’t think that my reason for going to the seminar has any bearing on why I’ve come to you. Look, this is simple. I should have gotten Todd’s address and telephone number before we parted. I didn’t.”
“You haven’t seen Todd again since the night of the seminar?”
“No.”
“What did you and Todd do together that night?”
“We…talked.”
“And after you talked?”
“He walked me to my vehicle.”
David let a moment pass, silently watched her. She knew he was waiting for her to continue. She didn’t.
“A woman doesn’t hire a private investigator to find someone who merely spoke with her and walked her to her vehicle,” he said finally. “Tell me everything that happened.”
She considered his words. Of course he was right. A woman wouldn’t just want to find a man after such a brief interaction. She was going to have to tell him. Although there was something in this man’s quiet self-confidence that made her suspect he already knew what she was going to say.
“We slept together,” she said.
His calm expression didn’t change. She was certain now that he’d already known, maybe from the moment she’d mentioned Todd.
“Todd didn’t offer you his last name.”
“No.”
“Did you offer him yours?”
“No.”
“Do you think that Todd might be trying to find you?”
“No.”
“Does that…distress you?”
“No.”
“And you haven’t tried to find Todd in the intervening six weeks since you met?”
“Last Friday I went back to the community center and asked if they had a list of attendees from the seminar six weeks before. They told me the seminar was open to the public and did not require advanced enrollment, so they had no such list.”
“Did that answer seem reasonable to you?”
“Yes. I just walked in myself.”
He regarded her quietly before asking his next question. “Why do you want me to find Todd for you?”
“Like I said, I want to know more about him.”
“Like what?”
“Anything and everything you can learn.”
“And why is that?”
His questions were focused, like he was following a road map with a definite destination in mind. She had no idea what that destination was and that made her even more nervous.
“I just want to know about him,” she said. “Isn’t it natural to want to know about someone you’ve been intimate with?”
“Ms. Carter, I’m going to need a more direct answer.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. A woman had to make her presence felt in order to be taken seriously. She had learned that maintaining eye contact was an important defense against being summarily dismissed.
“I don’t understand what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say the truth—the whole truth. What exactly do you intend to do with the information that I give to you about Todd?”
“Try to use it to understand what kind of man he is.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying so, but isn’t that something a woman normally does before she sleeps with a man?”
She’d been feeling anything but chipper since the beginning of this conversation. But that last comment made her stomach churn.
“No, Mr. Knight, I won’t forgive you for saying that. I’m not asking for your approval of my actions. I’m asking for your help in finding out about Todd.”
Where there had been only an open expression on David’s face before, suddenly there was a sharp, focused intensity. “And if you like what I find out about Todd, are you going to tell him you’re pregnant with his child?”
She swallowed hard. “That’s a pretty wild assumption.”
“On the contrary,” David said calmly as he leaned back. “It’s the only logical conclusion. You slept with a stranger whose last name you never asked. You haven’t made an attempt to locate him in the intervening six weeks. Now, all of a sudden, you’re willing to hire a private investigator to find out about him. If you’d discovered he’d given you a sexually transmitted disease, you’d want him found so he could be notified. But you only want to find out about him. You’re pregnant. And you believe Todd is the father.”
She sucked in a shaky breath, fighting desperately to quell a rising sense of panic and burgeoning nausea. This private investigator was good, all right—too damn good.
“You’d best understand the ground rules,” he said. “I have a license to consider and, just as importantly, a conscience to answer to. I cannot take on a case without complete honesty from a client.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“Omissions are substantially the same thing. You weren’t planning to tell me about the pregnancy. Do you plan to tell Todd?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, it will depend on what I find out about him?”
“I have a lot of decisions to make. Before I make any about him, I have to have more information.”
“When did you discover you were pregnant?”
“Last Friday.”
“You had no suspicion before that?”
“I thought I had the flu.”
“No missed period?”
“I’ve always been irregular.”
“Why do you think Todd is the father?”
“He’s the only one who could be.”
“Ms. Carter, if there are any other pertinent facts regarding this case that you’re keeping from me, I need to know them now. Am I being clear?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“I have nothing to add.”
“Who else could be the father?”
“No one.”
“Who else knows you’re pregnant?”
“Just the doctor.”
“You’ve told no one else?”
“That’s correct.”
“Is there anyone else who has a right to know?”
“A right to know?” she repeated, wondering at the oddness of that question. “With the possible exception of Todd—and I haven’t decided one way or another about him—no one has a right to know.”
David’s silent scrutiny did nothing but add to the queasiness in her stomach.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Carter. I won’t be able to take your case.”
“Excuse me?”
He rose. “You will not be charged for this morning’s consultation.”
Despite the deceptiveness of his calm expression and tone, there was an undercurrent of disturbance displayed in his blunt movements. Before she could take another breath, he had marched to his office door and swung it open.
He stood expectantly beside it. “Have a pleasant day.”
She felt her face go white with shock. She’d just revealed the most intimate details of her life to this stranger and—what was just as hard—had asked for his help. And he was throwing her out.
Her icy hands gripped the arms of the chair as she rose shakily to her feet. Somehow she got to the door. She didn’t look at him as she slid past. The rush of air as the door closed swiftly behind her was like a blow.
She shut her eyes tightly and fought desperately against the churning, sickening waves. It was no use. She started to run. She barely made it to the bathroom down the hall before she vomited.
As she lay with her cheek pressed against the cold tile floor, she didn’t know what was worse—the morning sickness or the moment of temporary insanity that had led her to the White Knight Investigations’ offices.
But something she did know for certain now. She had gotten herself into this mess, and she was going to have to get herself out of it. There were no white knights on sturdy steeds coming to her rescue.
She had only herself to rely on. And just as she had throughout her life, she would have to find the strength to face whatever came and do whatever had to be done. Alone.
CHAPTER TWO
“OUR CLIENT IS VERY pleased, David,” Charles Knight told his son as he waved a check. “Getting a runaway to voluntarily return to her parents isn’t something we see often. How’d you pull it off?”
Charles sat on the edge of his son’s desk. He was David’s height and still powerfully built at sixty-four, with the finely chiseled features of the men who swung tennis rackets and rode polo ponies in slick magazine ads.
“Her boyfriend convinced our runaway to bail on her family,” David told his dad. “She imagined herself in love and was ready to give up anything for the guy, until I showed her some live-action video of the slimeball getting it on with another girl.”
“Where did that video come from?”
“The guy taped it himself. He gets his kicks filming his conquests of underage girls.”
Charles shook his head. “What are you going to do about him?”
“He’s twenty-one. Jared has all the evidence he needs to make an arrest. I just wanted to be sure our client’s daughter was home safe and out of the fray before the law got involved.”
“Smart of you to bring your brother in on this, David. As always, you have thoroughly thought out every aspect of this case. So, why are you frowning?”
David took the file in front of him and shoved it into his open desk drawer. “Didn’t realize I was.”
“Something on your mind?”
David closed the drawer and looked up at his dad. Those steel-blue eyes had him in their sights. Charles might have the look of a country club man, but David knew his dad had the keen instincts and cunning of a cougar.
“I was just thinking about this woman who came by yesterday morning before the offices were open.”
“You caught a cat burglar?” Charles asked with a smile.
“Probably would have been better if she’d turned out to be one.”
The teasing smile faded from Charles’s lips as he studied his son’s solemn face. “So, what’s this woman’s name?”
“It’s not important.”
“Something about her is. You going to tell me?”
David wondered whether he should. Maybe a discussion was what he needed to help put all the churning images and emotions into a semblance of order.
“She wanted me to find some guy she had a one-night stand with. Seems she’s carrying his kid.”
“Not exactly an everyday request,” Charles said, “but I don’t see the problem.”
“She made me drag every detail out of her like I was some prosecuting attorney grilling a hostile witness. Even when I explained that she had to open up and be totally honest if I was going to help her, she still held back crucial information.”
“What crucial information?”
“She was wearing a wedding band, yet she said nothing about being married. And, believe me, I gave her plenty of opportunity to spit it out.”
Charles shrugged. “So she was embarrassed or ashamed or both. I’m not saying that dealing with a cheating spouse is pleasant, just part of the job. And there’s nothing in the private eye book of rules that says we have to like a client.”
“But this one didn’t look like someone who should be lying through her straight, white teeth.”
Charles let out a long breath. “Ah, so that’s the problem. You do like her.”
David knew there was no point in arguing. He was attracted to Susan, had been from the first moment he saw her. Not even her evasions or the fact that she was married changed that.
He shot up from his chair, feeling suddenly confined and inexplicably cornered. He stomped over to the window and stared out at the gray day.
“For two solid years attractive women have entered and left this office on a regular basis and my heart hasn’t skipped a beat.”
“Something about this woman has changed that. Don’t beat yourself up, David. Had to happen sometime. Your body’s just telling you the time has come to get back in the game.”
“The timing’s lousy. Makes no sense at all that I’d be attracted to her.”
“Hell, son, I’ve yet to hear a logical explanation as to what happens to a man’s normal good sense when he gets around a certain woman. But if you feel that uncomfortable around this one, maybe your brother Richard better take her case.”
“The case isn’t ours.”
“She changed her mind?”
“I turned her down,” he said as he twisted to gaze at the now empty chair where Susan had sat.
“That’s not like you, son.”
David knew that. Only too well.
He turned back to the window, where miles of slick, silver streets and gray forest spread out before him. On the distant horizon the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains gathered what was left of the day’s fading light. But all he saw was the stricken look on Susan’s face when he had all but thrown her out of his office.
“Maybe she didn’t tell me about her husband because he’s some big, mean bastard who beats her,” David said. “Or maybe he’s having sexual problems and can’t perform, and she didn’t want to reveal his weakness.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to make this right.”
Charles walked over to his son and rested his hand briefly on his shoulder. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll do.”
“I’m glad one of us is confident.”
“I know you, David. When you have a destination in mind, nothing gets in your way. You meticulously map out the steps you need to take, and you doggedly follow them until you get there.”
David glanced at his dad. “That used to make you groan when it was my turn to pick the route for a family vacation.”
“Only because your old man is the adventurous sort who likes to set off and see what’s around the bend,” Charles said with his usual hearty flare and no hint of apology. “You have to admit, we came upon a lot of amazing sights when we winged it. Things no amount of planning could have uncovered. Something your mother has never fully appreciated, I might add.”
“You always got us lost,” David said with a growing grin.
“And you always got us there. Using the shortest route. Within the scheduled time frame. Or earlier. Damn showoff.”
David took the punch of pride his father delivered, knowing the spirit in which it was thrown, despite the rocking force of the blow against his upper arm.
Charles checked his watch. “Speaking of time, I’d better get going. Have to swing by Jack’s office to see if he’s completed a background check I asked him to do before I pick up my car at the shop. Got the brakes adjusted today.”
“Need a lift?”
“Thanks, but Jack’s already agreed to drop me off. See you tomorrow.”
After his father left, David resumed his staring out the window.
Might be a good idea to do a background check on Susan Carter and her husband. If he understood their relationship, maybe he’d understand why she had slept with another man.
He really wanted to understand. Susan didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would cheat on a husband.
Still, when it came to attractive women, David knew perfectly well that he had shown himself to be just as blind as the next fool.
SUSAN TRUDGED through the front door of her small town house. The morning sickness was bad enough, but this draining fatigue was something that had begun to plague her all day.
“Hi, Honey, I’m home,” she called out as she kicked the door closed behind her.
There was no response from the quiet house. She figured he must be out in the back. She weaved her way through the jungle of houseplants that were threatening to take over her foyer. She dropped her keys into the smiling jaws of a life-size, brown bear made of wood and slung the strap of her shoulder bag over its head. She turned around to step on the foot of a large, ceramic frog wastebasket.
“Honey?” she called again before she separated the only important piece of mail from the bevy of advertisements in her hands. Sticking the envelope between her teeth, she dropped the junk mail into the frog’s open mouth.
When she released the foot lever, the frog gulped down the junk-mail dinner, a happy rivet emerging from its voice box.
She absently patted the frog’s ceramic head with one hand as she removed the mail from her teeth with the other, slitting open the envelope as she strolled into the living room. The local newspaper had sent her a confirming copy of the ad she had placed in the next edition. She read the wording critically, trying to imagine him picking up the paper and seeing the ad for the first time.
Todd. Susan would like to talk to you about that night you met six weeks ago. Extremely Important! Please write to her at Ad 54.
Short. Attention grabbing. Direct. If Todd read the newspaper, she felt confident that he’d know the ad was for him. She’d much prefer knowing more about Todd before seeing him. But she needed answers, and talking to him seemed to be the only way she was going to get them.
“Honey, where are you?” she called as she stuck the ad copy into her pocket and looked around.
In response, a West Highland White Terrier with one floppy, honey-colored ear came dashing down the stairs.
Susan dropped to a squat and opened her arms. The little terrier hopped off the final step and trotted toward her, dragging a boot in his mouth and wagging his tail with enthusiasm. When he reached her, she gave him a quick rub of welcome.
“How did you get into my closet?” she asked, as she tried to wrestle the boot from his jaws. After a playful tug-of-war, Honey reluctantly relinquished the boot.
As Susan rose, she looked closely at the large size and encrusted mud on the boot’s sole. Not one of hers.
She looked around, noticing what she had missed earlier because of her preoccupation with the ad. Out of place in the tidy room was an empty wineglass. The wine bottle was nowhere in sight.
Uh-oh. Not a good sign.
Her eyes traveled up the spiral staircase, where she spied the boot’s mate on the top step.
She trudged up the stairs with Honey trotting along beside her. She entered the bedroom and spied the empty bottle of wine lying on top of the nightstand.
Honey jumped on the bed and headed for the dented pillow where he had obviously been sleeping when she’d come home. On the other pillow rested a head covered with long, curly black hair.
She circled the bed and plopped down on the edge. She gave the bare foot poking out from the covers a gentle shake.
“Ellie?” she called.
The woman asleep in the bed snored.
“So, what’s the trouble with Ellie?” Susan asked her terrier.
Honey twisted around on his short legs to look at the sleeping woman. He gave his fury round body a mighty shake.
“Don’t know either, huh?” she said. “Guess we better get the coffee on and try to find out.”
ELLIE TREMONT SLUMPED over Susan’s kitchen table, her hands circling a cup of black coffee, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Susan’s best friend had the face of a cherub, the body of a Victoria’s Secret model, and the unerring bad judgment of a Las Vegas gambler when it came to picking men.
“She’s a gourmet cook and knows the season’s statistics of every Seahawks player,” Ellie lamented before punctuating her words with a sob. “How do I compete with a woman like that?”
Susan rested her hand briefly on her friend’s arm. “Love isn’t a competitive sport, El.”
“I got so filthy on the Port Townsend shoot that I had to drop by the apartment to change before going back to the office,” Ellie said. “And what did I find? That woman in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a smirk.”
“That woman did you a favor, El. Always better to find these things out sooner rather than later.”
“Why wasn’t I good enough for Martin?” Ellie said, and let out another moan.
“You were always too good for him,” Susan said. “Remember, this is the guy who thinks a romantic evening is your picking up the pizza and beer and serving him while he sprawls on the couch watching sports on the TV.”
Susan watched Ellie straighten. A good sign. Her friend was listening.
“I’d also lay odds that he’s a lousy lover,” Susan said. “Men who cheat are too self-absorbed to really care about a partner.”
“I should have suspected something when she became his boss,” Ellie said. “Being underneath a woman doing all the work has always been his favorite position.”
Ellie grabbed a tissue, dabbed at her eyes. “I should be glad to be rid of him,” she continued. “He’s nothing but a lazy, cheating, lousy lover!”
“That’s the spirit.”
Ellie smiled. “You’re a good friend.”
“Takes one to know one,” she said, returning the smile.
“Yeah, but you never dump on me the way I’m always dumping on you. Last thing you’d ever do is hook up with the wrong guy. Not that you’ve hooked up with any guy since Paul died. Why would you want to? Paul can never be replaced. He was perfect.”
While Ellie sipped her coffee, Susan stared at the gold band on her finger and all it represented. The courageous, steadfast widow honoring her wonderful, dead husband.
She wondered what Ellie would say if she told her about that insane night with Todd. And the pregnancy. The staid, straight Susan Carter gone mad. Would Ellie even believe her? Probably not. Susan still barely believed that night had happened.
Honey grumbled loudly from beside her chair. When Susan looked down at him he was sitting on his backside, food bowl in his teeth, front paws slicing frantically through the air.
“Oops, sorry, Honey. I forgot the time.”
She slipped out of her chair and headed for the refrigerator. She pulled out a small piece of cooked steak, removed the plastic wrap and dropped the meat into Honey’s waiting bowl. Honey set his bowl down with an audible sigh of doggie relief.
“You did the right thing choosing a dog over a man,” Ellie said, watching Honey happily gnaw on his dinner. “They are a hell of a lot more loyal.”
“Sometimes,” Susan said as she slipped back onto her chair. “And sometimes you come home to find them in bed with your best friend.”
Ellie smiled. “You want to know the truth? Honey’s a better snuggler than Martin ever was. I should get a dog. At least if they stray, you can have them neutered.”
Honey’s head swung toward Ellie, his ears straight up as he made a noise of considerable doggie alarm. He grabbed his steak and ran for the doggie door leading out to the backyard.
“He sure doesn’t miss much,” Ellie said, laughing, as she watched him hop through. “Which reminds me. Did I miss anything at work this afternoon?”
“Nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow.”
“You covered for me,” Ellie guessed.
“Just like you would have covered for me.”
“Except you’ll never need me to.”
“You never know, El.”
“Oh, I know. Even when we were teenagers and my dingbat of a dad and your ditzy mom were screaming mad and taking their frustrations out on both of us, you never let either of them get to you.”
“I’d had a lot of practice dodging insults by then.”
“That’s what I mean, Suz. You know how to tough this stuff out. And you’d sure as hell never move in with the wrong guy and let him treat you like dirt.”
Susan put her hand on her friend’s arm. “Neither would you. That’s why you came here when you found out about Martin’s cheating. You had too much respect for yourself to stay there another minute.”
Ellie sighed. “I get soused on a bottle of wine and somehow you manage to make me feel proud.”
“You should be proud. When you give your word you keep it—not like those bozos you’ve been all too ready to believe. One day you’re going to realize how great you are. When you do, I bet you find a guy who really appreciates you.”
“I’d like to, Suz. I really would. But there are just so few men out there who want to make a commitment and settle down. You were so lucky to find Paul.”
She released Ellie’s arm, realizing her friend had missed the message she had been trying to send. But that was Ellie. She heard the things she wanted to and ignored the rest. Susan suspected she probably did the same thing.
“So, what’s on for you tomorrow?” Ellie asked.
“I’m driving over to the other side of the Sound. One of the staff at Camp Long called to say he saw a red fox bring food to a vixen at a den site. He thinks she might have a new litter. Some good pictures of the pups would make a cute spread in next month’s issue.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving at the crack of dawn?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, long before it cracks. Red foxes hunt at night. If I’m in position at first light, I might get lucky and catch the male returning to the den with a late meal.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Why afraid?” Susan asked.
“I don’t want to go back and move my stuff out of Martin’s apartment tonight. I was hoping I could stay here with you guys.”
“Not a problem if you don’t mind Honey jumping on the couch with you when I leave tomorrow morning. He hates being alone when I go out on an early shoot.”
“I never object to sharing my bed with a warm male,” Ellie said smiling.
“Then, that’s settled. There’s leftover chicken casserole in the refrigerator, twenty-three of our favorite romantic comedies on tape, and Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in the freezer.”
Ellie laughed. “I keep getting my heart broken and you keep pulling the right medicine out of the Susan Carter doctor bag. Tell me, why am I always falling for the wrong guys?”
Susan knew Ellie didn’t really want to hear the honest answer to that question. The only time Susan had ever given her one, her candor had nearly cost her their friendship. Sometimes the most important part of being a friend was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
“A gal can only choose from what comes swimming by,” Susan said as vaguely as she could.
“Which has to mean I’ve been fishing in a piranha pool,” Ellie said, with a sad shake of her head.
Actually, she wasn’t far off.
“At least I didn’t let go of my apartment this time,” Ellie said.
Yes, that was a good thing. Maybe Ellie was getting a little smarter. “You ready for me to heat up that casserole?”
“You can have the casserole,” Ellie said. “Just bring me the ice cream and a spoon.”
THE EARLY MORNING BREEZE was brisk and wet with mist. David hadn’t been able to feel his feet for the past half hour. But as he continued to watch Susan through his binoculars, she remained dead still, lying on her stomach within the photographer’s blind, high in the tree, her telephoto camera lens trained steadfastly on the fox hole on the other side of the clearing.
How she could lie so still he didn’t know.
They had told him up at the lodge that she’d been at the site since before dawn. She wore thick, black sweatpants, a black parka and black hiking boots. But there were no gloves on her hands and no hat to cover her ears. She had to be freezing, and her still position had to be wreaking havoc on her circulation.
“A dedicated professional,” Greg Hall, her editor, had described her, when David had called, identifying himself as a fan of the magazine. In truth, the magazine had been a favorite of David’s for some time. But to make his call credible, he had spent time the day before carefully looking through the local library’s copies of back issues.
Weaving a believable yarn when he needed to was part of a good investigator’s tools. But David soon found he had no reason to stretch the truth. The wildlife photographs packing the greatest punch had Susan’s name prominently displayed in the photo credits.
He’d discovered quite a bit more about her over the past few days from his other sources. Everything he’d learned had been unexpected.
David prided himself on being ready for anything, but since the moment he’d met this woman, she had been giving him one uncomfortable surprise after another. He prided himself on not judging his clients, but he’d sat in judgment on her and had let his unwanted reactions get in the way of his work. He prided himself on not jumping to conclusions, but he’d jumped to a conclusion about her—the wrong one.
David tried to tell himself that he’d made an honest mistake. Young widows whose husbands had been dead nearly three years didn’t normally still wear their wedding rings. But the reality was that he hadn’t acted like the professional he knew himself to be. His behavior reflected badly on him and on his family’s highly regarded firm.
He had thought about leaving a message on Susan’s answering machine at home. He had considered calling her at work. He had ultimately decided against both.
He was not a man for whom apologies came easily, but he did know that the only decent way to deliver an apology was in person. Of course, taking her case wouldn’t be appropriate, even if she still wanted to employ him—which he seriously doubted.
But his brother Richard would be available soon. And he would give her Richard’s card so she could call him.
David would see that she got the help she needed. He knew that was what he had to do to make this right.
But he had to wonder how long she could lie on that flat board, wet and chilled to the bone.
Finally, after what he figured had to be nearly three motionless hours, she started to move. He watched her progress through his binoculars. She first placed her camera in a protective case, then put the case in her backpack. Using a thick rope slung around the tree branch, she slowly lowered the backpack to the ground. Once the backpack was safely there, she began to snake backward toward the sturdy trunk of the tree.
He watched as she wrapped her body around the trunk. He was glad to see there were steel stakes in the bark for hand- and footholds. Still, he found himself tensing as she wobbled from side-to-side during her shaky descent.
She moved slowly. The circulation obviously hadn’t returned to her arms and legs after her long hours of immobility. She was a fool to be coming down before massaging her limbs. She could hurt herself—
His worst fears suddenly took shape before his eyes as her foot missed the final metal stake, her hand slipped off another and she fell to the forest floor.
He dropped the binoculars and took off at a run. The branches whipped against his arms and legs and stung his face. He paid them no heed as he hurried through the thick underbrush. He wasn’t that many yards away but the vegetation slowed his movements.
He was breathing hard when he crashed into the clearing where he’d seen her fall. She was lying on her back, her eyes were closed, her face white. He dropped to his knee beside her, probing for the artery in her neck.
His own blood pounded. He had to concentrate hard to feel her pulse. Finally, a slow rhythmic beat registered against his fingertips. Relief spread through his chest. He watched her eyelashes flutter, then open. A line of puzzlement drew her eyebrows together as she focused on his face.
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
He was happy to note the strength in her voice, but ignored her question as he ran his hands up and down her arms, checking for broken bones.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, flinching beneath his touch.
Once again he ignored her. But when he moved to grasp her right thigh, intending to check her legs, she suddenly sat up and swatted his hands away.
“Watch it, buster.”
David sat back on his heels as he inspected the color flowing into her cheeks. He held back a smile.
“You appear to be all right,” he said, managing to keep all emotion out of his voice.
She rolled onto her side and began to pull herself toward the tree she had so recently dropped from. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“Just a wild guess, but maybe because you fell out of a tree?”
“I didn’t fall. I deliberately let go. It was only a couple of feet, and I knew the soft moss between the Osmanthus would provide a soft landing.”
David didn’t know what Osmanthus was, although he suspected them to be the evergreen shrubs on either side of the mound they were on.
“Why did you let go?”
“Because I wanted to.” She latched onto the tree trunk and struggled to pull herself upright. Her wobbly extremities weren’t cooperating.
“Why didn’t you wait until you had some circulation back in your arms and legs before trying to get down?” he asked.
“Why is any of this your business?”
He was getting uncomfortable watching her determined but unsuccessful attempts to get to her feet. “If you rub your legs, you’ll be able to stand a lot sooner.”
“I know how to take care of myself, thank you. What are you even doing out here?”
“I’m an Eagle Scout trying to earn my merit badge,” he said in frustration. Hell, he was only trying to help.
She looked him straight in the eye in that arresting way of hers. “What, no little old ladies around to help across the street?”
“Only Boy Scouts get merit badges for helping little old ladies across streets. We Eagle Scouts have to contend with cantankerous photographers who insist on dropping out of trees.”
He hadn’t tried to keep the irritation out of his tone this time. He squatted beside her, grasped her legs, and proceeded to give her muscles a brisk massage, no longer caring whether she objected.
She didn’t bat his hands away this time. He could feel her eyes searching his averted face.
“When are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” she asked.
“When are you going to tell me why you didn’t prepare yourself properly to descend that tree?”
When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find that she was glaring at him. The flash of spirit looked good on her. He switched his attention back to her legs. They weren’t bad either, strong and supple beneath his hands. Rubbing them was something less than a chore. Still, he kept his mind strictly on the business of getting the circulation back into them. Well, almost strictly.
“That’s enough,” she said after a moment.
He released her legs and stood. But when he held out his hand to help her up, she ignored the offer and instead grabbed hold of the tree trunk. With what seemed like more will than strength, she pulled herself to her feet. But she wobbled and leaned heavily against the tree for support.
“You’re dizzy,” he said, suddenly understanding.
Her face had lost color, and she rested her head against the trunk. But she delivered her next words with strong, sweet sarcasm. “Such amazing insight.”
“You didn’t eat breakfast, did you,” he demanded more than asked. “I thought you were a professional. You should know better than to begin a long assignment without any food in your stomach.”
“First a private investigator, then an Eagle Scout, and now a mother hen,” she said. “Such versatility.”
“You’re probably dehydrated, as well,” he said, knowing there was no probably about it.
“Don’t you have a wife you could be annoying?”
Despite her continuing attempt to be tough, she looked absolutely terrible. “If I did have a wife, and she pulled some stupid stunt like this, I’d—”
He stopped his tirade as he watched her sink back to the forest floor. Closing the distance between them, he swept her collapsing body into his arms. Her head rolled onto his shoulder as a soft sigh escaped her lips. She had fainted.
Her face was as white as the delicate flowers spraying the front of her jacket. Her bangs were wet with morning mist, and a silky strand of golden-brown hair from her braid tickled his neck.
A full minute passed before David’s heart stopped skipping beats.
What a fool she was. And what a fool he was for giving a damn.
He twisted around and grabbed her backpack. The thing weighed a ton. How did this woman lug around such heavy stuff? He slung the backpack over his shoulder and started down the trail.
SUSAN SLOWLY OPENED her eyes to find herself lying beneath a spectacular blue spruce. The hazy mist of the overcast morning curled through the heavy branches. She didn’t recognize the beautiful tree. She felt a soft, wool fabric beneath her fingertips. She didn’t recognize that, either.
“Don’t try to get up,” David’s voice commanded from behind her.
His voice she did recognize. Her memory came back with a bang. She’d gotten dizzy while descending from the blind. She’d let go of the steel stakes to drop onto the soft mound of moss beneath the tree. While lying there, trying to get her equilibrium back, David Knight had suddenly appeared to pester her.
Pushing herself to a sitting position, she fought the immediate dizziness brought on by her abrupt movement. When the earth and sky finally resumed their correct positions, she discovered that the red plaid blanket beneath her was next to a brown dirt road.
“I told you not to get up,” David said, scowling at her. He stood a few feet away, beside a silver Ford truck with an F250 logo on the side. He was pouring steaming, dark liquid from a thermos into a cup.
She glanced around her. This certainly wasn’t the clearing with the fox den. This place didn’t look familiar at all, and neither did that silver truck.
“How did I get here?” she asked.
He put the thermos down on the truckbed and walked toward her, carrying the cup. “You fainted.”
Had she? Odd. She’d never fainted before in her life. But maybe not so surprising. She had certainly been dizzy enough.
“You carried me here?”
He reached her, dropped to a squat and held out the cup. “Drink this.”
One whiff told her that he was offering her hot chocolate. She shook her head and leaned back. “No, thanks.”
He scowled at her. “If you don’t get something in your stomach soon, you’ll faint again.”
She scowled back. “The last thing I need is something in my stomach.”
He held out the cup again. “Trust me. You’ll feel better.”
“Trust me. I’ll puke.”
He pulled back the cup and regarded her closely. For a moment she could have sworn she saw something like discomfort flash across his face. But then his frown was back and she figured she was imagining things.
“Morning sickness?” he asked.
She nodded. “Nothing passes these lips until noon, and sometimes even then it has a round-trip ticket.”
He plopped down on the blanket beside her. “So that’s why you haven’t eaten.”
“And I had begun to think you’d lost all your detective skills.”
He sent her another scowl before turning his head away to stare at the line of trees along the dirt road. He was good at that scowling thing. Must have had a lot of practice.
As he sipped the hot chocolate he’d poured for her, she tested out her limbs and found them to be a little tender but otherwise okay. She looked around once again, trying to get her bearings. Where was east, west? Would have been a lot easier to determine if the sun were out. But then, it so rarely was.
“How far are we from where I was shooting?” she asked.
“About a mile and a half. If you’re worried about your camera, I put your backpack in the truck.”
A mile and a half. That was a long way to carry a one-hundred fifteen pound woman and forty pounds of her camera equipment. Looked as though his muscles weren’t just for show.
His concern for her welfare actually seemed genuine. He’d even been thoughtful enough to bring along her equipment. Maybe there was a heart hidden somewhere inside that hard chest, after all.
She studied the bold lines of his profile. Nice, straight, well-shaped nose. Full, well-defined lips. Not bad, actually. Maybe not a handsome face, but definitely not quite as forbidding as her first impression.
He turned his head and his eyes met hers.
“Feeling any better?”
“Some,” she admitted. “Thanks for being concerned about me.”
He looked quickly away. “Forget it.”
He was uncomfortable with her thanking him. What had she done to rub this man the wrong way?
“Time you answered my question,” she said, happy to hear herself sounding calm, reasonable. “What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER THREE
THERE WERE A LOT of things David knew he should say to Susan. Number one was the apology he owed her. But admitting he’d been wrong suddenly did not seem like such a good idea, not with her sitting so close to him, looking directly into his eyes in that bold way of hers.
This was not the time for him to be admitting to any kind of weakness.
“I came to talk to you,” he said simply. He stared at the bushes that lined the road, although he couldn’t have described them if he tried.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“I’m a private investigator, remember?”
She was quiet for a moment, but he could feel her studying his face. He wondered what she saw, then reminded himself not knowing was a lot safer.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.
He dug into his pocket. But he didn’t retrieve his brother’s business card. Instead he pulled out the ad from the personal column he’d clipped out of the paper. “This isn’t going to flush out Todd.”
She gave the clipping of the ad he handed her a brief glance before stuffing it in the pocket of her parka and getting to her feet.
“What I do or don’t do to contact Todd is my business, Mr. Knight. Now that we’ve closed that subject, what direction do I take to get to the lodge from here?”
He squinted up at her. She had delivered those last two sentences with enough frost to freeze a man, and she still had the guts to look him directly in the eye. She had a backbone.
He pointed. “The lodge is a mile that way.” He raised his other hand and pointed in the opposite direction. “Your SUV is a mile that way. Makes more sense to head for your SUV.”
“Aren’t you just full of helpful suggestions this morning.”
Her sarcasm was delivered so sweetly he almost smiled. “I thought you were a sensible woman,” he said with a shrug. “My mistake.”
She stared down at him. “Do you know what a nature photographer’s most valuable asset is?”
He didn’t see the connection to his comment but he gave the answer a try. “A good eye?”
“An obliging bladder.”
He blinked at her in surprise.
“Unfortunately, there’s something about being pregnant that can transform the most obliging bladder into a most unobliging one,” she said.
He knew his flippant comment about her being a sensible woman had goaded her into explaining. She smiled down on him with ill-concealed satisfaction, confident that her explanation was going to make him feel sheepish.
She wasn’t wrong.
He gulped down the last of the hot chocolate. “I’ll drive you over.”
THE CAMP LONG LODGE had a rustic, airy feel with its high ceilings, tall windows, a stone fireplace and hardwood floors.
As David waited for Susan, he stood on the outskirts of a large group gathered around a naturalist who was pointing to a map that showed the route they would take on their upcoming hike.
The naturalist was a knockout—a big, bosomy brunette who was making several of the men in the crowd openly drool. The effect was calculated. She had on thick eye makeup and painted lips the same deep red that adorned her long nails. She wore blue jeans and a red sweater, both a size too small.
David took the scene in like the clinician he had been once and the man of indifference he had become.
Then he saw Susan emerge from the lodge’s rest room. No painted lips and no painted nails. She carried her parka over her arm. The turtleneck she had worn underneath was faded cotton, quite loose, and in a pale shade of natural pink.
He watched her approach. There was a sweet grace to the sway of her shoulders and hips, as though she walked to music she alone could hear. The mid-morning light fell through the tall windows, turning her long, braided hair into a rainbow of shimmering browns and gold.
There was nothing calculated about her. Just a natural sensuality that took his breath away.
Still, only an idiot in his position would do anything about an attraction to a woman in her position. He was no idiot.
She stopped in front of him. “You didn’t have to wait.”
The naturalist was raising her voice to get the attention of the group. David took Susan’s arm to move them out of earshot. The worn cotton of her top proved to be soft and yielding.
But there was a muscled arm beneath, which quickly pulled away. She did not like to be touched. At least, not by him.
“Thought you might like a ride to your SUV,” he offered.
“The walk will do me good.”
He shrugged, careful to convey nothing but nonchalance. “Suit yourself. But if you faint again, you could break an arm. Might even land on your camera.”
The way she had so carefully tended to her camera before attempting to descend from the tree told him that hurting her camera would rank right up there with hurting an arm. Her quick change of mind didn’t surprise him.
“On second thought, Mr. Knight, I would appreciate that ride.”
They stepped out of the lodge to find the mist had lifted. The air was still chilly. When she swung the parka around her shoulders, he grabbed the sleeves to help her put her arms through. But he was careful to touch only her jacket this time.
They didn’t talk on the drive. Once they reached her vehicle, he circled around his truck to open the door for her. He held out his hand. She didn’t take it or attempt to get out.
“You didn’t come here just to tell me my personal ad wasn’t going to work, did you?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted, dropping his hand.
She held onto the door frame as she slipped off the seat. She stood before him and raised her eyes to his expectantly.
David knew the time had come to apologize for rejecting her case without explanation and to hand her his brother’s business card. But he also knew that he wasn’t going to do either of those things.
“I’ll find out about Todd for you.”
He turned around and headed toward her dark-green SUV. He opened the passenger door, slipped her backpack off his shoulders and laid it on the seat. By the time he’d closed the passenger door, she’d walked to the driver’s side.
But the question still hadn’t left her eyes. “Why?”
“You do want me to find out about him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I meant why did you change your mind?”
“I have a case to finish up today, but after that, my schedule will be free. What time will you be home tonight?”
“Around six, I guess, but—”
“I’ll be by at seven.”
He whirled away from her then and quickly closed the distance to his truck. He purposely did not give her a chance to respond. He slipped behind the wheel and drove off, not once looking back.
On the long drive around Puget Sound to Silver Valley, David congratulated himself on the solid logic behind his decision. Handing Susan’s case off to Richard made no sense.
Today he and his brother, Jared, a detective in the Sheriff’s Department, would see that the bastard who seduced, videotaped and then dumped his underage teenage victims was arrested.
But after he wrapped up that last loose end, he had a clear schedule. Richard would still be tied up on his current case for another week. David already had knowledge of Susan and her request.
Handling Susan’s case was the professional thing for David to do.
Besides, his dad was right. His attraction to Susan was simply a sign that he was ready to get off his self-imposed celibacy bench and back into the game. Of course, playing any games with her still remained out of the question.
She was a vulnerable, pregnant woman in need of his help. He would never take advantage of a woman in such a situation. Besides, now she was his client. The number one rule for a private investigator was never to get personally involved with a client.
David was a man who knew how to follow the rules.
SUSAN WAS RELIEVED that David had agreed to find Todd for her. He was obviously a very good investigator. But she also couldn’t help feeling annoyed.
David was coming to her home tonight. She did not invite men to her home, and she had not invited him. He had invited himself.
This was a business arrangement she had entered into with him. She didn’t want him invading her private space. But her subsequent call to his office that day had not been successful in changing the arrangement.
A male clerk had informed her—in cordial if clipped tones—that David was not in, was not expected to come in and could not be reached.
Her mood hadn’t improved when she’d discovered that she’d only gotten two marginally good shots out of the long morning shoot. On top of that, heavy traffic caused her to be late getting home. She was irritated and frustrated when she pulled her car into the garage just after six-thirty.
She stomped out of the garage and sprinted up the few steps to the entrance to her town house. She worked long hours and looked forward to unwinding in the evenings.
Only tonight, David was coming by at seven, less than half an hour away. That was the time when she and Honey were normally having their dinner. Surely, David didn’t expect her to fix him something? He might. There was no telling with that man. He was so damn hard to figure out. She opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hi, Honey, I’m home.”
He barked happily, his white fur a whirl of moving light in the dark entry. He flew into her outstretched arms with all the unbridled love that only a cherished pet could put into a homecoming. All Susan’s irritation fled the instant she hugged his exuberant little body, and he washed her cheeks with his warm tongue.
Without Honey, these past few years would have been unbearably bleak. She would always be grateful for that day he came into her life, and her heart.
As she stood and switched on the light, she saw with sudden dismay that Honey’s paws and nose were thick with mud. He was up to his old tricks, digging holes in the backyard. He’d gotten the mud all over her, as well. A thick glob was hanging from her bangs.
She sighed. That was love for you. So damn messy. And what was this affinity males had for mud?
She dropped her shoulder bag and keys onto the brown bear figurine and picked up the squirming terrier. “Shower time for us both, little guy,” she said as she carried him up the stairs.
She would be lucky if she even had Honey dried by seven, much less herself. She hated being late, even if she wasn’t the one who’d set the schedule. Of course, men were seldom on time. David might not even show up until eight.
But whenever he did show, one thing was for sure. If he came around expecting food from her tonight, she’d hand him a bag of dog kibble.
DAVID RANG SUSAN’S doorbell at exactly seven. He knew she was home. He’d already glanced through the window of her garage and had seen her green SUV inside. Lights shone through the glass panels above the front door of her town house. A dog barked from somewhere within.
David let a minute go by before pressing the doorbell again.
Almost immediately the door flew open and a small, white terrier charged out. Since David had two dogs of his own, he was well versed in the proper etiquette when entering their territory. He stood still and let himself be sniffed. The dog efficiently circled his legs, wagged his tail happily and let out a welcoming bark. David leaned down to give him a pat.
The dog was a cute little guy and openly affectionate, if a little damp. He rubbed his head against David’s hand, obviously expecting a lot more than just a passing pat. David indulged him, rubbing his ears and back and getting a blissful little moan in response.
“You’re making a mistake,” Susan said. “He’s not going to let you alone for a minute now.”
David turned his head. The first thing he saw from his crouched position was her bare feet. Slowly his gaze followed the lovely curved bone of her ankles, long shins and cute knees. But when he got to the middle of the firm flesh on her slim thighs, the edge of a white terry-cloth robe suddenly intruded to spoil the rest of the view.
The robe was securely fastened around her waist and drawn closely over her chest. A white towel covered her hair. She was not happy he was here. The firm set to her mouth made that very clear. But as her eyes followed his hand still stroking her dog, there was a softness in her expression that he had not seen before.
She stepped back for him to enter. “Honey will have to entertain you while I get dressed.”
David stepped through the jungle of her entryway, the dog trotting happily at his heels. He noted the shiny hardwood floors, the large bear that held her shoulder bag and keys, the whimsical frog wastebasket.
When she stepped past him to close the door, he caught a whiff of her freshly washed skin and hair. He reminded himself that the sudden tightening of his stomach muscles was normal, natural, nothing to be concerned about.
“The living room is that way,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
She padded across the bare wood floor and easily sprinted up the spiral staircase to the second floor. She was lithe and agile and displayed none of the physical clumsiness that had plagued her that morning. He felt reassured. He didn’t want to worry about her, but he had.
He’d decided to meet with her at her home because he wanted to get a deeper sense of who she was. Understanding a client was important. A woman’s home often reflected her more strongly than any other aspect of her life. Especially a woman who lived alone.
He already knew of her struggle to be taken as a serious professional, her hard-held independence, her deep need for privacy. Still, he had a feeling there was a lot more to know.
David thought he’d prepared himself for whatever he’d find, but when he entered her living room, he hadn’t expected to be walking into a shrine. From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered in dramatic, larger-than-life photographs of wildlife, giving him the impression that he’d been transported into the wilderness.
A majestic eagle soared over a diamond-blue waterfall. An elk herd fed on dewy grass in the dawn light. Furry bobcats ran across snow-covered forests. White-tailed deer glided through golden meadows. A brown bear lunged at pink-bellied salmon leaping up an emerald stream. The room vibrated with movement, with wild beauty, with life.
He barely noticed the furnishings. A nondescript couch and chair, a coffee table and several throw rugs—all in muted greens, grays and umber. Nothing distracted the eye from the dramatic scenes on the walls.
And that was when he knew. This was the living room of a woman with a deep respect, reverence and love for nature. Those beautiful pictures were not an extension of her work. Her work was an extension of herself.
SUSAN SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that David would be one of those rare men who actually showed up when he said he would. She rubbed her wet hair with the towel, well aware the effort was futile. An hour under the blow dryer would be required to dry the long strands in the humid air. She didn’t have that kind of time.
She settled for rubbing the moisture out of her bangs, and swept the rest into a golden scarf, tied turban-style around her head. She pulled a pair of clean black sweats out of her closet and hurriedly put them on.
Just because he was in dark-blue slacks and the collar and cuffs of a dress shirt peeked out of his blue sweater, there was no reason for her to dress up.
Damn, he did look good, though.
Still, this was her home. She had a right to be comfortable. She was not going to change anything just because he had the bad manners to invite himself over. But instead of reaching for her comfy, beat-up slippers as she normally would have, she opted instead for a pair of socks and her new walking shoes.
When she came down the stairs a couple of minutes later, she found David sitting on the couch with Honey beside him. His face was turned toward the dog, so she couldn’t read his expression. But there was a relaxed set to his shoulders and his long legs were comfortably stretched out in front of him. He was stroking Honey.
She stood at the edge of the living room silently watching them. She wanted to be put out with David, but she found that difficult. He was being so nice and attentive to Honey. A man who liked her beloved pet couldn’t be all bad.
“Is he a good watchdog?” David asked, obviously aware she was standing there although he hadn’t taken his eyes off Honey.
She stepped into the room. “I doubt he’d do anything to a burglar except beg for attention.”
He glanced up at her, the look on his face almost friendly. The edge of his lip twitched. Was that the beginning of a smile?
She waited expectantly, suddenly very curious to see what a smile would do to his face. But none was forthcoming.
“He’s munching on my fingers,” David said. “I think he’s hungry.”
“We eat at this time,” she said, happy for the opportunity to bring up the subject.
“Then, you’d best eat,” he said, not a hint of apology in his voice.
“Come on, Honey,” she called, shaking her head. “Go get your dinner bowl.”
Honey didn’t have to be told a second time. He barked his excitement as he flew off the couch. She followed the dog into the kitchen. She heard David enter a moment later as she was taking Honey’s meal out of the refrigerator. She unwrapped the steak and placed it in the bowl Honey held in his mouth. Honey expertly lowered the bowl to the kitchen floor and dug in.
“Steak for dinner,” David said. “Honey’s a lucky dog.”
“He’s a loved one,” Susan said, staring down at the ball of fur.
“That’s what I meant,” he said. “Get your coat. You can take your pick of Italian, Chinese or a steakhouse. They’re all within a twenty-minute drive.”
“I’m not dressed to go out,” she said, looking up in surprise.
His impressive height and massive shoulders dwarfed her small kitchen. The overhead light played through the thick, rich brown of his hair.
“You look fine to me.”
There was absolutely no readable expression on his calm face, but his voice told her he meant those words.
She knew then that he had intended to take her out to dinner all along. Damn. She wished he had said something. She would have dried her hair and worn something suitable. How thoroughly annoying this man could be.
She looked away from him and turned toward a cupboard.
“I was going to have some soup and a salad,” she said. “There’s enough for two if you’re hungry.”
She fiddled with the dishes and waited through the stretching silence, slightly appalled at the sudden impulse that had her inviting him to share a dinner with her here.
“I’ll make the salad,” he said.
He hadn’t offered. He’d told her. She did not appreciate the caveman approach. A spark of annoyance skittered across nerve endings she recognized were already taut. A small, reasonable voice inside her tried to suggest that he might have offered to make the salad as a way of being helpful. But she didn’t really want to listen to that voice at the moment.
She felt him move behind her to the refrigerator. Felt the cool air as he opened the door. Felt the impressive breadth of him that blocked a lot of that cool air. He was crowding her, and she didn’t like to be crowded.
But what Susan really didn’t like was her sudden suspicion that David might actually be a considerate man. She hadn’t been prepared for that. The possibility threw her off balance in a most unexpected and disconcerting way.
SOUP AND SALAD, she’d said. Sounded simple enough to David. But as he was fast discovering, nothing about Susan was simple.
She’d added sliced apples, pears, grapes and then finely chopped almonds, walnuts and pecans to the assortment of greens he’d put into salad bowls. Instead of salad dressing, she topped off the blend with sharp, shredded cheddar. The combination turned out to be both unusual and quite delicious.
She’d put chicken broth to simmer on the stove. Then she’d chopped an assortment of springtime vegetables into the broth—asparagus tips, onions, garlic, snow peas, spin-ach—and added tender juicy chunks of freshly cooked chicken seasoned with ginger and ground pepper. The flavors blended well and tasted great with the warm corn bread she served right out of the oven.
David had planned from the beginning to take her out to dinner. He hadn’t dreamed she’d offer to make him a meal. But he was glad she had. And not just because the meal had turned out to be superior to what they could have gotten at a restaurant.
Watching her prepare the food, he’d discovered her penchant for neatness and for organization. Every inch of her small kitchen served a specific and useful function. He’d discovered some of her preferences, as well. Fresh fruits and vegetables were clearly major players in her diet. She was concerned about what she put in her body. He’d discovered her attention to detail in the way she sifted and measured and made sure quantities were correct. She was not a careless woman.
They had eaten at her country-style, cloth-covered kitchen table. Her town house had a small formal dining room, but he was certain she rarely ate there, because few photographs adorned the walls. Every inch of the kitchen was covered with them.
The photographs in the living room had told him a lot about her. These told him more. They were all of baby animals—a doe nursing her new speckled fawn, a mother bear playing with her twin cubs, a tiny hummingbird flittering protectively over her hatchlings. And whereas the living room scenes had been full of the bold vibrancy of wildlife, these were filled with the warm, cherished charm of new life.
When they finished eating, David helped her clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. “I have a few things I’d like to go over,” he said.
“All right,” she agreed as she led the way back into the living room. She took a seat on the chair. He sat across from her on the couch. Honey hopped up beside him and nudged his hand, clearly communicating his desire for more petting.
David gave in to the demands of the little terrier, unable to resist. But even as he looked at the dog snuggling against him, the woman sitting so silently across from him claimed his thoughts. He was more confused than ever by her and by the reason she had come to him.
She was not the kind of woman to casually have a fling with a stranger. Everything about her told him that. And yet, she had. He had to know why.
Susan watched Honey stretch out beside David, legs in the air, total trust shining out of his big brown eyes. David’s large hand gently rubbed the terrier’s tummy. The little dog sighed with delight. The expression on David’s face as he looked at Honey was that of a man fast becoming wrapped around the charming paws of a pooch.
She decided she could forgive David a lot when she saw that look. Maybe even forgive him for his intrusion into her home tonight.
“Your husband died two years and ten months ago,” he said, breaking the silence. “You went to the community center six weeks ago to attend a bereavement seminar, not one on self-improvement.”
So, he had checked up on her. Seemed odd he had done so after having turned down her case, and odder still that he was now willing to help her. There was so much about this man that was confusing.
But his voice had been surprisingly gentle when he made that statement. And so was his hand on Honey’s tummy.
“Being able to deal effectively with grief is a form of self-improvement,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.
His immediate response told her she had failed. “I’m not trying to corner you. I’m trying to understand. I’m well aware that losing a loved one can be devastating. Did attending the seminar help?”
She looked down at the gold band on her finger. “No.”
“Tell me how he died.”
“How will that help?”
“I’m not sure that it will. But I’d like you to tell me.”
There was a sincerity in his tone that caught her off guard. He really did sound as though he wanted to know. Yet when she looked up, she found his attention still focused on the dog, his hand stroking Honey’s tummy in a soft, circular motion that was almost hypnotic.
“Paul was a fireman,” she began. “He was a courageous man, dedicated to saving lives. He worked long hours. When he came home that day, he was very tired. But there was a game on TV he wanted to watch, so he decided to stay up for a while.”
The images from the past were clear. She saw Paul as he’d plopped on the couch in his striped boxer shorts, a beer in his hand. He had grinned at her over his bare shoulder, and she’d seen the familiar light stubble on his chin, his blond hair—as always—in need of a trim.
“I put some wash in the dryer, kissed him goodbye and went off to do the grocery shopping,” she continued. “When I got home, I found the block surrounded by fire engines and the house…Paul…everything was gone.”
She didn’t remember much of that part. Probably better that she didn’t.
“How did the fire start?” David asked.
“I’m not sure. Paul had fallen asleep on the couch. They found…him there.”
What was left of him. They had spared her the details—something for which she would always be grateful. She stared down at her walking shoes, concentrated on the gold and white stripes on the sides.
“I didn’t mean to bring it all back,” David said.
She looked up to find him watching her. His face was full of understanding. Strange she had thought his eyes cold. They were looking at her with the same warmth that was in his voice.
“Did you get grief counseling after his death?” he asked.
“I’ve never been one to go to other people for help. I was certain I could handle the grief, and I did. I accepted Paul’s death. I got on with my life. Everything was going well. But, then, a few months ago, the dreams started.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Vivid,” she said. “I know people are supposed to dream every night. I suppose I must. But I’ve never remembered my dreams before.”
“What happens in these dreams?”
“Paul and I do everyday things together. I bring lemonade out to him while he’s digging the trench for our sprinkler system, and he suddenly tackles me, and we’re rolling in the mud laughing. Or we’re on a scary roller coaster together, and I’m holding on tightly and screaming my head off. Or we’re building sand castles on the beach just like we did on our honeymoon. I see him so clearly that when I wake up, I expect him to be beside me.”
“But he’s not,” David said after a moment of silence.
She stared at one of her favorite photographs—the one of the eagle soaring over the waterfall, powerful wings shimmering with sunlight, proud head rising above all the cares of the world.
“I faced the pain. I faced the grief. I put them both behind me. Only now the dreams have come, and I don’t know why.”
“What did they suggest you do at the seminar?” David asked.
“We were supposed to write a goodbye letter.”
“How far did you get?”
Dearest Paul— Why am I dreaming about you?
“Not very far,” she admitted. “I was staring at those empty white pages while everyone around me was scribbling away. I knew I was getting nowhere. I got up to leave and collided with Todd.”
“He was sitting beside you?”
She shook her head. “He was on the end of the row in the back. I was hurrying up the aisle toward the exit. I didn’t see him getting up to leave, and I ran into him. Literally.”
“And you two left together.”
“He suggested we walk to this bar that was a couple of blocks away, to get a drink. Sounded like a good idea at the time.”
“Do you remember the name of the bar?”
“No, most of the letters on the neon sign were burned out. All I remember clearly is that the waitress was sweet and the music was sad.”
“So you had a drink,” he said in that same soothing voice that had become so easy to respond to.
“I don’t even like alcohol,” she said, sighing in remembrance. “I hate the taste and the stuff kills brain cells. I’ve always figured I needed every one of mine. The last drink I had before that night was a sip of champagne at my wedding.”
“But that night you drank more than a sip.”
“Oh yeah. After four Screwdrivers, I was feeling no pain. Of course, that was the whole idea. I told Todd about losing Paul. He told me about losing his mother. She had died a couple of months before, in a plane crash. They’d been very close. He hadn’t been able to write the goodbye letter to her, either. Hearing that made me feel a lot less like a failure. I really liked him for telling me.”
“Enough to become intimate with him?”
“Hardly. Sex was the last thing on my mind. That only happened because…”
Dear heavens, how could she explain to David what she still didn’t understand herself? Why did she want to? She normally didn’t care what men thought of her. But for some reason, she was beginning to care what David thought.
“Whatever you can tell me will help,” he said.
“He walked me back to the community center sometime after eleven,” she said, doubting any of what she had to say would really help. “The lot was deserted except for my vehicle. Todd told me he’d arrived late for the seminar and had parked on a side street somewhere. Neither of us was in any condition to drive home. He offered to use his cell phone to call me a cab. But I couldn’t leave my vehicle parked there overnight. All my camera equipment was inside. I couldn’t risk someone breaking in and stealing something.”
“So you spent the night in your SUV?”
She nodded. “I always carry a sleeping bag. Part of a nature photographer’s essential equipment. Todd helped me to unroll the bag, and I was out like the proverbial light as soon as I lay my head down. Next thing I knew I was having one of those vivid dreams of Paul. I could feel him beside me. He was snoring away.”
She paused, clasped the wedding band on her finger, stared at it in the room’s soft lamplight.
“You can tell me what happened,” he said.
There was something so soothing and accepting in his voice that she suddenly believed she could.
“When Paul snored, I would kiss his cheek so he’d wake up, roll onto his side and go back to sleep. But when I kissed him that night, he woke up and kissed me back. Then he started to make love to me.”
“But it wasn’t Paul,” David said quietly. “When did you know?”
She wanted to say afterward. She wished she could say afterward. But she had done something for which she was ashamed, and she wasn’t going to make herself feel even more ashamed by lying.
“I was still pretty smashed. But at one point I sensed something was different, opened my eyes and saw Todd’s face. I realized then that he must have passed out beside me. When I kissed him, he must have awakened and thought…”
“That you wanted him,” David supplied when her voice faded.
She gave a long exhale. “Todd kept whispering my name over and over. I closed my eyes and let it happen.”
“And in the morning?”
“When I awoke, Todd was gone, much to my relief. I don’t think I could have faced him. Because the truth is, I don’t know why I slept with him.”
“Hard to know why we do things sometimes.”
She looked up to see he was watching her, that calm acceptance still on his face. He was telling her that he wasn’t judging her. She appreciated that, more than she could say. But she was judging herself.
“I’ve always known why I’ve done things,” she said. “I may not always have been thrilled with the reason, but at least I’ve known. Now, not knowing…not knowing is very unsettling. I can’t tell you how unsettling.”
“You don’t have to even try,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ve been there. Thank you for dinner and for your honesty.”
“You’re leaving?” she said, surprised.
He nodded. “I know what I asked of you tonight wasn’t easy to give. But what you’ve told me has been important, and will help me to find out about Todd. I hope that will be worth the pain you went through. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He headed toward the front door. She followed. When he paused to lean down and give Honey one last head pat, she smiled. David was turning out to be quite nice and not nearly as unapproachable as she’d imagined.
Maybe now was the time to ask the question that had plagued her since she first saw him in the White Knight offices.
“What bothers you about me?”
David straightened. “What do you mean?”
“When we first met,” she said, “I could tell you didn’t like me.”
He stared down at her. They were barely a foot apart. She was suddenly very aware of him.
“There is nothing about you that I don’t like,” he said in a soft whisper. “Good night.”
He pulled open the door, stepped out into the dark night and shut the door behind him.
The breath whooshed out of Susan’s lungs as she stood facing that closed door, stunned to her toes. She could barely believe what her senses were telling her. David had just said there was nothing about her he didn’t like. She’d seen the truth of his words in his eyes, heard that truth in his voice.
He was attracted to her.
She felt a sharp quickening of her pulse and an undeniable response deep inside her—a response she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAVID LAY IN BED that night thinking over what Susan had told him. When he’d checked into her background and discovered her husband had died, he’d visited the fire station where Paul Carter had worked. A memorial picture of him hung on the wall. Paul was blond, five-ten, slender, with light eyes. That was exactly how Susan had described Todd.
She’d gone to the seminar seeking closure to some unresolved issue that had her dreaming of her dead husband. Instead of a resolution, she had found herself under the lethal influences of a terrible sense of failure and a potent dose of alcohol. And there was Todd, a sympathetic, fellow sufferer, looking enough like Paul to pull all the right heartstrings.
David could understand why Susan had let him make love to her. But what he still wasn’t clear about was Todd’s motives. Was he really grieving? Or was he an opportunist who had seen her pain, plied her with alcohol, and, then, when she was most vulnerable, taken advantage of her?
A man who took advantage of a vulnerable woman was scum. If he found out that Todd had done that to Susan—
David punched his pillow and turned onto his other side. No. No matter what he found out, he wasn’t going to get physical with the guy. This was just a case like any other. She was just a client. And David was a civilized, educated man in full control of his impulses. All his impulses.
When she had asked him what he didn’t like about her, he’d been very tempted to show her how much he liked everything about her. But he’d held back and left without laying so much as a finger on her.
Even if he had stood too close to her and gazed into her eyes a little too long.
David punched his pillow again and turned to his other side. That had been a mistake. He wished he just liked the way she looked. The way she sounded. The way she moved. The way she smelled.
But he also liked the way she spoke her mind and refused to back down when she believed she was right. The way she took such pride in her work. The way she took such loving care of her pet and her home.
David threw the pillow to the bottom of the bed, let out a frustrated breath, rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. No matter what he liked about her, pursuing Susan was simply not an option.
Time to take his brother, Jack, up on one of his double-date offers. Jack’s sojourn into show biz had left him rubbing shoulders, as well as more interesting body parts, with some of the most beautiful women on the TV screen. As David’s dad had so accurately pointed out to him a couple of days before, his body was telling him to get back in the game. With one of Jack’s women, a man didn’t have to worry about holding back.
Tomorrow morning David would concentrate on getting a lead on Todd. Thanks to Susan’s openness and honesty, he had some clues to follow.
Tomorrow night he’d let Jack introduce him to someone who wasn’t a client, who wasn’t still mourning her dead husband, and who wasn’t going to want to see his face over the breakfast table the next morning.
He might be ready to get back in the dating game, but the rules were definitely going to be different. This time around, he wasn’t going to look for emotional entanglements of any kind.
“COME ON, SUSAN,” Paul said, dragging her toward the roller coaster. “It’ll be fun!”
Susan looked up at the big, bright neon sign in front of them that said Death Ride. Nope, this didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.
“Paul, a roller-coaster ride isn’t my idea of a good time. I have this inner-ear problem. I get car sick on a bumpy road.”
“Suz, you’ve got to come with me,” he coaxed. “This ride is the absolute best. A real adrenaline rush.”
She planted her feet. “My adrenaline is rushing at the right speed, thank you.”
“Is it?” he said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. “Maybe I’d better do a quick check.” He bent down to nuzzle her neck. She closed her eyes and leaned into him.
The next thing she knew, he had scooped her into his arms, planted her on the seat and hopped in beside her. The safety harness swooped down to lock them in place.
“That was pretty damn sneaky, Paul Carter,” she complained as she looked over at the satisfied grin on his face.
He laughed. “You’re a sucker for that neck-nuzzling trick.”
The loaded cars had begun to creep up the track toward the top. Susan’s stomach gave a nervous twitch. There was no getting out now. Not that she had a particular problem with this part. But she had seen roller coasters operate. She knew there was a downside.
A real downside. Their car reached the top. Within seconds they were barreling toward the earth at sixty miles per hour, taking hairpin turns that rattled her eye sockets and careening around neck-yanking loops that had Susan clutching the safety harness in pure terror. Her head was pounding, and her stomach was churning, ready to erupt.
But when she looked over at Paul, he was grinning, his face flushed, so happy and so full of life.
Susan awoke and instinctively reached for Paul. But her hand rested on a ball of fur. Then she remembered.
Paul was gone.
Why was this happening to her? She had faced the loss of the wonderful man she had married. She had allowed herself to feel the pain of his passing. She had accepted the need to get on with her life. She had gotten on with her life. Why was she having these vivid dreams of Paul?
SUSAN WAS AT HER light table carefully looking through the negatives of her morning shoot, when Barry Eckhouse interrupted her concentration.
“I picked up your prints from the darkroom while I was getting mine,” he said.
She sent him a look of gratitude as she took the prints from his outstretched hand. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for these. Thanks, Barry. I’ll hug you later.”
“That makes three hundred and seventy-two hugs you owe me.”
She knew Barry wasn’t really keeping score, nor did he expect to collect. They had been promising each other hugs for years.
He was a good-looking guy who wore the “I’m so bored I’m cool” expression that only he and the guys on the cover of GQ seemed able to pull off.
He was also one of her favorite people. Because of his strong urging and recommendation three months before, Greg had promoted Susan to one of the three coveted senior photographer slots. Barry had never said a word about having stood up for her, which was one of the things she liked most about him.
She took a moment to glance at the prints he’d handed to her. “I requested these two days ago. Why is the darkroom always so backed up?”
“Their turnover is worse than a Burger King,” he said. “They got another new trainee today. Can’t wait to see how long before this one disappears. Speaking of disappearing, have you seen Ellie? I stopped by her cubicle to deliver her prints, but she wasn’t there. Matter of fact, I haven’t seen her all day.”
“She’s probably in the coffee room making an espresso.”
“Which can only mean she’s broken up with her latest loser,” Barry said, shaking his head.
Susan concentrated on shifting through the prints, saying nothing.
“Relax, you didn’t give anything away. I know that Ellie always hogs the espresso machine for days after one of her lovers screws her over.”
She should have known Barry would figure that out. He was smart and observant. When she had first seen Barry looking at Ellie, she’d thought he had a thing for her friend. But however attractive Barry thought Ellie, he was always so negative when he spoke about her that Susan had given up hoping for a romance between them.
“Be nice to Ellie,” she told him. “She’s going through a rough time.”
“She’s always going through a rough time,” he said, the disgust thick in his voice, “because she always asks for it.”
“Of course, you’ve never made a mistake in the romance department,” she said with light sarcasm, knowing perfectly well just how bad a mistake he’d made in the selection of his ex-wife, who everyone at the office called “the psycho.”
Not that he wasn’t absolutely right about Ellie, of course. But Susan was loyal to a lovelorn friend.
“Not fair,” Barry protested. “I was barely twenty-five when the psycho did her number on me. Did I tell you she violated the restraining order her third ex-husband got on her?”
“That the one in Texas?”
“No, Florida. Her second husband filed the restraining order on her in Texas. Anyway, she picked the lock on her third husband’s house after he’d gone to work and spray painted everything black. She’s a genius at lock-picking. Her old man is still doing time for a decade of breaking-and-entering raps.”
“Now, remind me again what awful thing her third ex-husband did to deserve this?” Susan asked.
“He married her, against all my warnings, I might add, just like husband number two. Not that I totally blame them. The psycho’s got legs that go on forever and these big blue eyes and full lips—”
“So what you’re telling me,” she interrupted, not caring to hear any more about his ex-wife’s physical attributes, “is that a man doesn’t really care if a woman is psychotic as long as she’s sexy.”
He shrugged. “No one said we were the smarter sex. But I have learned from my mistake, unlike Ellie.”
Barry quickly looked around, then leaned closer. “You’re her best friend, Susan,” he whispered. “I know you can spot these losers she keeps getting involved with. Why aren’t you setting her straight?”
“Only time I ever tried to set Ellie straight, as you call it,” she whispered back, “I ended up hurting her feelings, and she didn’t talk to me for two months.”
“You tried to warn her about that married guy she was mixed up with a few years back, didn’t you?” he asked, his face alight with the revelation.
Susan didn’t answer. She’d already said more than she should have.
He straightened and resumed his normal tone. “So that’s why things were so strained between you two then. And all the time I thought you were fighting over me.”
“Don’t you wish,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re concerned about Ellie. Why don’t you ask her out?”
“Hell, no,” he said with feeling. “I told you. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Ellie’s no psycho.”
“Yeah, but she’s got another serious problem. Incredibly bad taste in men.” With that Barry waved and left.
She knew he was right. Put Ellie in a pitching boat in heavy seas and she could not only instantly determine the precise knots that two dolphins were swimming and how many feet away they were, but also the exact F-stop, shutter speed and fill-in flash required to perfectly capture them on film.
But put Ellie in a room full of eligible men, and her brain would inevitably malfunction and she’d pair up with the worst possible choice.
Susan’s thoughts were interrupted when her telephone rang. She picked it up and answered distractedly. “Susan Carter.”
“David Knight.”
She sat straight up in her chair, every cell in her body vibrating to attention.
“I…uh…” Oh, that was erudite, Susan. Could you sound any more brain dead?
“Can you talk?” David asked.
“Apparently not,” she said with a small chuckle.
“That wasn’t a jab at your verbal skills, Ms. Carter. I was attempting to ascertain if you were in a private place that would enable you to discuss personal matters freely.”
He was cordial, but clearly all business. The gentle warmth that had imbued his voice the night before was nowhere in evidence.
She had thought a lot about David after he left her home, and those thoughts had been disturbing. Her preoccupation with them seemed kind of foolish now, in light of his formal manner. Maybe she’d been so tired after her long day that she’d imagined what she’d seen in his eyes. Maybe she had imagined her response, as well.
“Ms. Carter, did you hear my question?”
“Sorry. My mind was on something else. Just a minute.”
The four-foot partitions around her cubicle did nothing to mask conversations. She rose from her chair and stretched so as to camouflage her real reason for getting up, which was to see who was sitting on the other sides. As she had suspected, all around her cubicle were fellow employees frantically clicking their computer keys, getting articles and captions ready for the next issue.
“The answer to your question is, not really,” she said into the phone as she sat back down and scooted her chair closer to her desk.
“Probably just as well we meet. I’d like to show you something. Can you be outside the front of your building in five minutes?”
She checked her watch. Four-thirty already? She needed the rest of her contact sheets from the guys in the darkroom. She also needed to select and crop the photos that would have to be printed. “Will this be a quick meeting?”
“Should be. I’ll drive by and pick you up. Bring your coat and umbrella. The rain is coming down cold and hard.”
Before she could respond, the dial tone blared in her ear. She shook her head as she hung up the phone. David was back to his all-business self, all right.
She was relieved. This was not the time to be getting sidetracked by a man.
Grabbing her shoulder bag, coat and umbrella, she made a dash for the rest room before heading down to the lobby. Exactly five minutes later, his silver truck slid alongside the curb in the front of the building. She used her umbrella as a shield as she dashed for the truck.
He had the passenger door open by the time she got there. She hopped in sideways and pulled the umbrella closed, dropping it to the floor once she was settled on the seat. The moment she’d closed the passenger door and buckled up, the truck was rolling.
“Are you always so punctual?” she asked as she looked over at him.
He wore a brown leather jacket over a silver-blue dress shirt, brown dress slacks, and leather boots polished so brightly she could see the chrome beneath the brake pedal reflected in them.
His eyes remained on the road when he answered. “Promptness is simply a part of keeping one’s word.”
“What do you say to all the people who accuse you of being too rigid because you live your life by the clock?”
“Probably the same thing you say to such people.”
She wasn’t surprised that David had surmised she also was a “promptness freak,” as so many of her friends liked to call her. Not after all the other things he’d been able to deduce about her.
“Okay, Mr. Detective, tell me what I say to those people.”
“You say you’ll be somewhere at a particular time, and you are there at that time, because you care about them and wouldn’t think of wasting their valuable time by making them wait for you.”
She chuckled. “Well, I may not have said that before, but I’m certainly going to say it from now on. Where are we going?”
“Someplace private where you can look at a picture and answer a few questions.”
The private place proved to be a parking facility located next to a nearby park. The heavy rain had driven away the park’s occupants, leaving the garage empty. David selected a space on the upper level with a view of the gray landscape but far enough within the structure’s overlapping roof that the rain wouldn’t pound on the truck.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/m-j-rodgers/baby-by-chance/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
M.J. Rodgers
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: Susan Carter needs to find a man.Not just any man, but the stranger who fathered her unborn child. In desperation, she turns to David Knight, one of the detectives working for White Knight Investigations. She′s sure she′ll look bad to David–she doesn′t even know the last name of the man she′s searching for–but she has no choice. It′s the only way to find out about her child′s father.David Knight doesn′t expect to like every client he has. What surprises him is how much he likes Susan, especially since he knows she′s keeping things from him. If she wasn′t, wouldn′t she tell him about the man who gave her the ring she wears on her left hand?