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“Some woman driver hit you?” Bronco asked when he ran out of steam.
“As a matter of fact.” He was glad the woman in question couldn’t hear the sexist statement.
One more curse blasted the airwaves. “What’s the damage?”
“Same as before.”
“Drivable?”
“Not until it’s fixed.”
“I’ll come take a look in a while,” he said with a sigh.
He turned his back on the woman responsible and massaged his forehead. “Got a loaner?” he asked quietly.
“You on a job?”
“Yeah.”
“I can scrounge up something. Won’t be an Eagle. It’ll have some muscle, though.”
“Works for me. Thanks. I’ll see you later.” He snapped the phone shut and tucked it in his pocket before he turned back to face the woman and gave her an amount. “That’s if there’s no structural damage.”
She swallowed. “Plus you won’t have it as transportation.”
“Right.”
She looked at his house as if assessing his net worth. She also seemed to have calmed down. “You don’t have a car?” she asked.
“That’s not the point.”
A small fire flared in her eyes. “Look, I’m not denying my responsibility. I’m sorry you’ll be inconvenienced. I’ll go to the bank right now and bring the cash back to you, then I’ll stop by again in a few days to see if there are further costs. Will that be okay?”
“No.”
She gave him a long, cool look, which interested him as much as the heated one had.
“You said you were okay with my paying cash.”
“I am. But I’m going with you to the bank.” James wasn’t about to let her out of his sight yet. He wasn’t worried about finding her again, since he had her license plate number, but, well, frankly, she intrigued him—from her red lipstick, to her ringless finger that she continued to use as a touchstone, to her modest skirt and blouse.
“I don’t give rides to strangers.”
Implied in her tone was the fact he looked like part of a biker gang, which was his job at the moment—but she wouldn’t know that unless he chose to tell her. Not yet, he decided.
“You’re welcome to follow me,” she said primly.
He almost laughed. Damn, she was cute with her hackles up. “You won’t give me the slip?”
She went rigid. “I keep my word.”
He’d already figured that out, which is why he found it mystifying that she wouldn’t give him her name and phone number, at least, if not her address and insurance information. She was a contradiction. He liked contradictions.
“I’ll get my car out of the garage and follow you,” he said, backing away. “Don’t leave without me.”
“You’d better hurry. They close in twenty minutes.”
James deliberately chose his BMW convertible instead of the Taurus he kept for surveillance work. Okay, so he was grandstanding a little. He liked the contradiction he was showing her, as well.
Think I’m some kind of gang member, do you? Someone to be afraid to give your phone number to? Well, here’s another side of me. What would you have done if you’d hit the BMW instead, and I’d been wearing a suit and tie, and was clean shaven?
Knowing the answer—or figuring he did—he followed her up the street, uncharacteristically enjoying the fact she was nervous around him, he who usually made the effort to put people at ease.
A little intrigue. Maybe it was just what he needed while he waited to hear from the child he’d never met.
Somehow Caryn had prevented herself from hyperventilating. Had she written down his address wrong? She couldn’t imagine making that kind of mistake, but how else could she have been watching the house across the street? The wrong house.
On top of that confusion, however, James Paladin was a puzzle, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of her bank. A contradiction. A…big problem, frankly. Obviously he was a risk taker, like her late husband, Paul. And a man used to taking charge and giving orders, also Paul’s MO. Paul had ridden a motorcycle—and he’d died in an accident on the bike he cherished a year ago.
She was beginning to see why Paul had chosen James to provide the sperm for Caryn’s artificial insemination almost nineteen years ago. She’d never met him, had only learned of his existence last week, and now they were about to turn each others’ lives upside down. And Kevin’s.
Was he married? Did he have children? She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on his finger, but he also seemed the type to shun public displays of, well, possession, for lack of a better word. He seemed…unpossessable.
She parked the car and turned off the engine, saw him pull in a few spaces away. She wished she could tell him who she was, what their connection was. She couldn’t. If Kevin decided he didn’t want to meet the man responsible for his existence, it was his choice, as per a written agreement between Paul and James made all those years ago. Caryn had found it only last week while cleaning out the paperwork she’d dumped from Paul’s desk into boxes for her move back to San Francisco. Then she’d discovered a letter James had sent last year with his current address—the wrong address, apparently—and his phone number, nothing more.
That note had been mailed a week before Paul’s death to a private mailbox of Paul’s that Caryn hadn’t known existed. That hurt still lingered. How many other secrets had he kept that she hadn’t uncovered yet?
As for the potential relationship between James and her son, she couldn’t intrude. Kevin alone held that key.
She didn’t know whether she wanted James in her life or not. Everything was finally settling down for her. She’d been prepared to have Kevin’s biological father become part of his life—assumed that he wanted to be part of Kevin’s life—but that was before she met the man, when he’d been just words on paper, not a flesh-and-blood person. A man in full biker regalia. A man who made her hormones come out of a long hibernation.
He came up beside her, his sheer size in his boots and leathers making her feel like a background singer to a rock star.
“You don’t need to go inside with me,” she said.
“I have nothing else to do.”
She met his innocent gaze. Up close he was even more attractive, his eyes a lighter green than she’d first thought, his hair not just dark brown but thick and shiny. Only the scruffy beard detracted.
“I won’t walk up to the teller with you,” he added.
He seemed to be enjoying the moment. She didn’t know why she thought that, because he wasn’t smiling, but something lurked in his eyes, some sense of mischief at the absurdity of what they were doing. Cloak-and-dagger stuff. She smiled. She couldn’t help it. Oh, the irony. The first man she’d been even the slightest bit attracted to since Paul died, and he happened to be…well, who he was.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, as they entered the bank just before closing.
The security guard locked the door behind them then stood at his post, letting each person out as they finished their business.
“Just in the nick of time,” she said.
“That’s funny?”
She shrugged. Let him wonder.
He lingered a distance away as she withdrew a huge chunk of her savings and asked the teller for an envelope to put the money in, which she then passed to James. The guard gave him the once-over, his gaze shifting from James to Caryn and back, as if trying to match them as a couple—or perhaps trying to determine if James had coerced her into giving him money.
She smiled at the guard. He unlocked the door to let them through, bade them a good night. James walked with her to her car.
“I’ll need a receipt,” she said to him.
He pulled his pad of paper from his pocket, scrawled something on it, signed it, ripped it off the wire spiral and presented it to her. “How about taking me to my mechanic’s shop in the morning to pick up my loaner?”
“You have no friends?”
“Of course I have friends.”
She studied him. Mischief was back in his eyes. “Take a cab,” she said. “Add the fare to my bill.”
He grinned. She felt her face heat and tried to draw his attention from the fact. “I’m gathering that this wasn’t the first accident you had with your bike.”
He cocked his head. “It’s the second, and very similar.”
“Seems to me you should learn to park your bike differently.”
He laughed, then after a brief hesitation he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a business card, passing it to her. “I’ll see you in a few days, Ms…. Mysterious.”
He walked away. She looked at his card. James Paladin, Investigator, ARC Security & Investigations.
Well. Maybe he wasn’t like Paul, after all.
Two
An hour later Caryn was holding her breath as she waited for her son to say something. Anything.
“I don’t want to meet him,” Kevin muttered at last.
He pushed away from the kitchen table and stalked to the window overlooking their tiny backyard. Caryn sat quietly, giving him time to let the idea of James Paladin settle. She’d had a week’s advantage on him in that regard, but she was by no means calm or accepting, either.
She’d explained everything she knew—that Paul had chosen James specifically as the sperm donor, that they’d entered into a written agreement which stated that the resulting child, if there was one, would have the right to contact James upon turning eighteen. She told Kevin how she’d found the agreement in Paul’s paperwork, then about the other letter giving James’s current contact information. That was it. Bare bones information. No note saying he still wanted to meet Kevin. No hint at all. Name, correct address—she’d double-checked that—and phone number. Period.
“I don’t have to see him,” Kevin added, his arms crossed, his tone harsh. “The agreement says so.”
“That’s right. Nothing requires you to.”
He shoved his hands through his hair, as James had done earlier. The gesture caught her by surprise. Maybe Kevin had always done that, but it took on more significance now—heredity, not environment.
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” he said, firing a look at her.
“I wish I hadn’t had to.”
His hesitation lasted several beats. “‘Never make a promise you can’t keep, and always keep your promises,’” he said, parroting a lifetime of her own words to him.
It wasn’t only her philosophy but Paul’s, as well. She’d fulfilled her end of the bargain. Now she was free of the technical part of her responsibility. She still had to deal with the results of backing into his Harley—plus if Kevin did at some point decide to meet him, the emotional aspects of the whole business.
She stood, smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. Her fingertips brushed against the outline of the business card in her pocket. “He’s a private investigator, by the way,” she said, giving him the last piece of information, one she thought might interest him too much.
Kevin lifted his head. “Yeah?”
“Will you tell me if you decide to meet him?” she asked, wishing she could hug him as though he were five years old again and make everything better. He’d had a horrible time adjusting to Paul’s death.
“I guess so.”
“You want to stay for dinner?” she asked.
“Nah. Jeremy’s coming over to study. He’s bringing pizza.”
“Okay.” Caryn had bought an old duplex near Kevin’s college. They each had their own two-bedroom unit, his downstairs.
“How’d work go?” he asked.
“Good tips today.”
“Was Venus there?”
“Yes.” She grabbed a glass from the cupboard, turning away from him, keeping her frown to herself. Kevin’s crush on the young waitress who worked with Caryn worried her. He didn’t need another obsession in his life, and Venus was fast becoming one.
“Did she…say anything about me?”
“No.” Caryn kept her voice upbeat and didn’t ask questions.
“Okay.” He started to leave but stopped, his hand on the doorknob. “What does he—” He frowned. “Do I look like him?”
She nodded. The similarities struck her anew. The same facial features, except eye color. And their hands—long fingers and broad palms. Close in height, too, although James had a man’s body, while Kevin was still growing into his.
“Why did Dad choose this guy?”
“I don’t know. I gather they knew each other, but I don’t know what the connection was.”
“Okay.” He banged his open hand against the doorjamb. “Later.”
After the front door shut she tried to find something mindless to do. She opened the refrigerator, stared inside it, then shut the door. She’d lost weight since Paul died, pounds she hadn’t needed to lose. She should fix herself a meal, but she doubted she could eat more than a bite, anyway.
She walked across the slightly warped hardwood floor to where a portable phone hung on the charger base. She picked up the handset. After a minute she carefully returned it to the base. Who could she call? No one. Not until Kevin made a decision to acknowledge James. Until then she couldn’t tell her mother, her brother or even her best friend.
She’d had such hope for this move back to her hometown. Some people thought she was clinging to Kevin, that she’d bought the duplex in order to keep him close instead of turning him loose as an independent adult. Maybe that was partly true. He’d had an even harder time than she had adjusting to Paul’s death, yet he’d decided to attend Paul’s alma mater, to major in criminal justice, like his father.
She worried that Paul’s life philosophy was embedded in Kevin, that he would take as many risks, revel in them, actually. He already had the notion that the accident that ended Paul’s life was intentional, even though law enforcement people from more than one agency had been involved in the investigation, and nothing they found indicated any hint of truth to Kevin’s claim.
Lately Caryn had been wondering the same thing, if not worse.
