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“Look at that,” he muttered. “She’s practically a kid herself, and she’s trapped. Bad enough to deal with one of them in diapers. But two of them at the same time? Never!”
It was in the coffee bar afterwards that she heard everything she wished she’d dragged out of him before his strong arms had raised her out of that snow-filled ditch, and certainly before those blue eyes had impacted hers. But she was hearing it all now. How the ski slopes of Colorado had been an excuse to put distance between himself and his family. How he’d broken up with a woman back in Denver because she’d suddenly started talking about her biological clock ticking.
“But don’t you expect to ever have children of your own one day?” she had asked him, and was stung by his reaction.
“Hell, no. I’m not father material.”
“Even though you come from a big family? Don’t they matter?”
Yeah, sure, he guessed he loved his family, but not when they were always in his face. Not when they were smothering him, thank you.
He had sounded so resentful, almost bitter, that he had shocked her. And he had opened her eyes. Opened them wide and clear. Whatever the magic of their togetherness, whatever compelling emotion she had convinced herself they had invested in each other, Karen had badly misjudged him. Because other than incredible sex, she and Devlin Hawke had absolutely nothing in common. Why, he had thrown away the very thing she longed for!
Get out now, her head warned her, before it’s too late. But her heart feared it might already be too late. She was halfway in love with him by then. Probably even more than halfway. Yet, feeling as he did, there could be no hope of their relationship going anywhere—at least not in any direction she wanted.
It cost her a great deal of pain and effort to part from him, but Karen knew if she lingered in Aspen she would eventually pay an even greater price. She didn’t try to explain her departure to him. What was the point? Determined to avoid an agonizing scene, she left him as pleasantly as possible and flew back to Minneapolis where she grieved for weeks.
And in the end she met and married the man who seemed to want everything Devlin Hawke hadn’t. Now, ironically, she was turning to Devlin to help her find that man. She was a desperate mother. There was no one else.
“LET ME GET THIS CLEAR,” Devlin said. “You have a daughter, and you’re convinced her father has taken off with her somewhere, and you want to hire me to find them.”
“Yes.”
Karen, tense with expectation, waited for him to ask her Livie’s age. He didn’t, at least not then. He was silent for a moment, absorbing her information. She watched his face in the glow of the late afternoon sun that poured through the window of the plant-filled kitchen where they sat. His good-looking features registered no expression. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She could only pray that he wouldn’t react like Mildred Gustafsson and the police officer, that he would determine her concern was a legitimate one. She trusted him to believe her. It was why she had called him.
“All right,” he finally said, “let’s start with some possibilities.”
“Like what?”
“Like supposing this is an innocent holiday.”
“But it’s not.”
“But if it were,” he persisted, “where would he have gone with her? Is there some favorite vacation spot, family or friends out of town they could be visiting?”
She shook her head emphatically. “No, nothing like that. Don’t you think I would have made every effort to contact them if there were? Devlin,” she pleaded with him, “there’s something very wrong. I just know there is.”
“Convince me,” he challenged her.
“Michael has…well, he’s been a stranger lately.” She went on to tell him how her husband had become remote and indifferent to her and how, after repeated efforts to reach him, she had concluded that a divorce was unavoidable.
One of Devlin’s eyebrows lifted when she mentioned her decision to part from Michael, but his only reference to it was an indirect, “Did the two of you have any major quarrel before you left for Atlanta? Couples sometimes punish each other by using the kids as weapons.”
“No, he wasn’t angry. He was just distant. Except, underneath that detachment…”
“What?” Devlin encouraged her.
“I’m not sure. He was hard to read, but there could have been—oh, a kind of intenseness is the word for it, I guess. Like something was happening with him, or about to happen.”
“Could be there’s an explanation for that. Could be that—” He broke off, tugging at his collar and glancing around the kitchen. “Do you think we could have a window open? It’s warm in here.”
“I’m sorry. The air-conditioning doesn’t seem to be working.” Getting to her feet, she crossed to the nearest window. It resisted her effort when she tried to raise it. “It’s stuck, I’m afraid.”
“Here, let me.” Leaving the table where they had been seated, he joined her at the window.
She moved aside so that he could get at the sash. “It’s probably swollen shut from disuse. We never open any of the windows. It’s because of Livie,” she explained. “She has asthma. The doctor recommended filtered air in the house and no pets. Even her toys are allergen-free.”
“Is it serious?”
“She has had some bad attacks. None lately, thank heaven.”
“Maybe she’s growing out of it. Kids do.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because I suffered from asthma myself as a kid, and I grew out of it.”
“Oh.”
“There.” With one sharp tug, he lifted the sash. When he turned away from the window and faced her, his expression was sober. “What I was about to say around this business of your husband’s remoteness….”
“Yes?”
“It doesn’t surprise me. Karen, I’ve heard this before. I heard it from his other wife. She described the same behavior occurring just before he walked out on her. And if it is a pattern, I think you have to face the fact that he may have been getting ready to leave you like he left my client in Denver.”
“But if that’s true, why would he want Livie with him? He’s her father, yes, and he cares about her, but she’s never been vital to him.”
“I don’t know. People living secret lives aren’t predictable. And if your husband committed bigamy, and we know he did, then he is living a secret life.”
Karen’s shoulders sagged under the intolerable weight of a situation that was no longer just a strong possibility to her but an absolute conviction. “Dear God, he means to disappear, as he did before, and if Livie vanishes with him—Devlin, what if I never see her again? You have to find her for me!” she appealed to him urgently. “You have to promise—”
“Easy,” he said, placing a steadying hand on her arm.
She could feel the tears of desperation welling in her eyes, could feel herself coming apart. “I can’t bear this!”
It was an understandable reaction when he took her in his arms and rocked her slowly in an effort to soothe her. It felt familiar, and it felt right being held against the solid, secure wall of his chest. As though she belonged there. And even when his arms tightened around her, she didn’t resist. There was nothing wrong in accepting comfort that was offered in a moment of despair. Even if there had been, how could she be unfaithful when she no longer had a husband to be faithful to?
“You were going to ask him for a divorce,” Devlin probed, as if reading her. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“There was nothing left to save,” she murmured.
“No doubts about your decision? No guilt?”
“Before you told me I wasn’t legally married to Michael? Yes, I suppose then I was feeling some of both. But not now when he’s deceived me! Not after he’s taken Livie!”
She realized too late that her fierce admission could easily be misunderstood. That Devlin could define it as a kind of invitation. Whatever the impetus, the innocent embrace turned into something intimate and dangerous.
There was a sensual quality now in the way his splayed hands shifted against her back, his fingers stroking down her spine, then moving around her rib cage and up to the sides of her breasts. Karen felt her flesh sear under his slow caresses. She could hear his breathing quicken with his arousal, could scent his strong, masculine aroma.
A few seconds more and she would be tasting him. His mouth would be on hers, devouring her in one of those deep, prolonged kisses she remembered so vividly from almost four years ago. But it was not his intention that shocked her. It was her longing for it.
The whole thing must have shocked Devlin as well because he suddenly released her, almost shoving her away. They stared at each other, silently sharing the same thought.
This is a mistake. This must not happen again.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Your kid is gone, you’re sick with worry, and I go and—” He raked a hand through his dark hair. “Look,” he said, “this isn’t going to work. There are other P.I.s, and they’re right here in the Twin Cities. I’ll check them out, phone you with a recommendation.”
He started to back away toward the side door to the driveway. Karen knew he was probably right, that it would be safer for both her and Devlin if she used another investigator. Safer for them, perhaps, but not safer for Livie. She needed someone absolutely committed to recovering her daughter. And only Devlin Hawke had a reason for moving heaven and earth to find Livie. Maybe.
It was time to find out if he did. Time to give him the truth, whatever the risk. His hand was reaching for the doorknob when she stopped him.
“Devlin, don’t go! You can’t go!”
He gazed at her, impatient to make his escape. “Karen, this is no good. It’ll only lead to trouble for us if I stay and work with you. You saw that just now. You know it’s true.”
“You have to help me find Livie,” she insisted. “It—it’s your responsibility.”
He frowned at her, his hand now on the knob directly behind him. “And just how do you figure that?”
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t know how to tell him what he needed to hear. He was still frowning at her.
“You’ve been holding something back. What is it?”
As usual, the expression on her face must be giving her away, she thought. And he would be shrewd about reading people’s expressions. As a P.I., he would have to be. He waited, and still she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. She simply didn’t know where to begin a revelation that was so potentially explosive. His shoulders lifting in a little shrug, he turned to go. But she couldn’t let him walk out that door! Desperation inspired her with the opening she sought.
“Devlin, wait! There’s something I have to show you!”
To her relief, his hand fell away from the knob. He even drifted toward her again a few steps. “All right, show me.”
She reached for her purse. “I told you at Dream Makers that I don’t carry a photograph of Michael,” she explained quickly, extracting her wallet and flipping it open. “But I do carry a photo of Livie.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, impatient again. “Karen, if you think showing me a picture of your kid is going to move me to—”
“Just look, will you?”
She came forward to where he stood, extending the open wallet. He took it and glanced down at the photograph inside the clear plastic sleeve while she watched his face, waiting for some sign of awareness. There was none. Not yet.
“Her hair wasn’t curled for the picture,” she said, trying to help him. “It’s naturally wavy, and even darker than it looks here. And her eyes—you can’t tell in this—but her eyes are a dark blue.”
“Uh-huh.”
He wasn’t interested. He hadn’t seen.
“Not like Michael’s blond hair and gray eyes,” she said, striving to encourage his recognition.
This time there was a flicker of suspicion on his face. He looked up, catching her gaze. “How old is your daughter?”
“She’s small for her age. I sometimes wonder if the asthma—”
“How old?” he demanded gruffly.
“Livie just turned three.”
“Which means she was born before you married Michael Ramey two and a half years ago.”
“Michael is her stepfather, Devlin,” she told him softly. “Not her natural father. He adopted her after we were married.”
Devlin’s gaze dropped again to the picture in his hand. He stared at it for a long time, a muscle twitching in his square jaw. And while she waited, she clasped her hands together below her breasts in that familiar pose she unconsciously adopted in moments of intense anxiety.
When she thought she couldn’t endure another second of his silent scrutiny, he lifted his gaze. There was disbelief in his eyes. “It isn’t possible. We took precautions.”
“Yes, and sometimes even the most careful precautions fail.”
“Are you sure that she’s mi—”
“Don’t say it,” she cut him off, her anger stirring, “because there was no one else!” Did he think she was so devious, so unprincipled that she would lie about his being Livie’s birth father just to enlist his help in finding her?
Uttering a savage obscenity, he snapped the wallet shut and slapped it down on the counter beside him. An action which could have been rejection or simply rage. Then he looked at her with those stormy blue eyes, his face rigid with accusation while fear swelled inside her.
She could bear his anger. If he never forgave her, she would understand and accept it. What terrified her was the possibility that he would utterly deny his daughter or, just as bad, surprise her by demanding rights she wasn’t prepared to surrender.
“And just when,” he growled, “were you planning to tell me about her? Or, if I hadn’t turned you down just now, would you have ever told me at all?”
“How could I tell you before now? You made it altogether clear back in Aspen that you wanted no part of fatherhood.”
“After knowing me only a month, how the hell could you be so certain exactly what I wanted or didn’t want?”
“Six weeks,” she corrected him. “We were together for six weeks.”
“Yeah, well, that makes it even worse.”
“It was long enough to realize that the responsibility of parenthood horrified you.”
Like it might have horrified the man who had fathered her, Karen thought. The man who had never been there for her. Had he learned of her existence and rejected her, leaving her mother a single parent? The possibility had haunted Karen her entire life. It was why she had turned to Michael Ramey to provide a father for Livie.
“I wasn’t the one who ran away from Aspen,” Devlin reminded her bitterly. “That was you, Karen. Remember?”
“Yes, I know. And I should have contacted you when I got back here and learned I was pregnant, but…”
“What?”
“Weeks had passed by then. And there’d been nothing but silence. You hadn’t made any effort to reach me, so I could only suppose you didn’t care.”
“And that’s reason enough not to inform me I was going to be a father?”
“No, it wasn’t. I admit that. And it wasn’t morally right to let all this time pass without ever telling you about Livie. But I wanted things to be perfect for her, not her life getting split between Colorado and Minnesota. No complications like that. Just one solid home, one family and one father who cared. It was a mistake, and I’m paying for it now.”
“I’ll tell you another mistake you made,” Devlin informed her, his voice hard and unforgiving. “You went and assumed that, if you told me now about my kid, there’d be no way I could refuse to go out there with you looking for her. You were wrong.”
