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“She’s your new neighbor. Stacy and I found her weeding the flower bed in front of the house when we got home.”
“That explains the strange car in the drive over there,” he said. “I didn’t know Ron planned on renting the place while he was gone. He usually doesn’t trust anyone with his stuff.”
“She’s a friend of a friend,” Tai explained.
“She’s sitting the house,” Stacy added, then covered her mouth as she giggled over this.
“A house-sitter, huh?” He swung his daughter off the kitchen stool and into the air. She squealed again, this time in laughter as her baby-fine hair swirled out in a blond pouf. After a couple of spins he stopped, then they rubbed noses. Stacy had seen a movie featuring an Eskimo family and learned this was the way they kissed.
“She’s pretty,” Stacy confided when they were through with the ritual greeting. “Her hair is dark like Tai’s, but her eyes are the color of Mrs. Chong’s.”
Mrs. Chong was a very fat, very green-eyed cat belonging to Mrs. Ling, who owned the local ice-cream shop. Cade and Stacy were frequent customers.
“Do we have enough dinner to invite her over?” he asked the sitter.
“Sure,” Tai answered. “There’s a meatball and green bean casserole, roasted potatoes and salad, all ready. I’ve got to run. I’m memorizing bones this week.”
“I’m memering them, too,” Stacy declared importantly.
“Memorizing,” he automatically corrected. His daughter didn’t let pronunciation get in the way of her expressing herself. “Shall we go over and invite our neighbor to eat with us?”
“Yes, but we don’t have the surprise cake done yet.”
“Maybe she’ll help us finish it.”
“See you tomorrow,” Tai said and headed out.
Cade took her place at the mixing bowl. After he put the cake pans in the oven at Stacy’s direction, he set the timer, then held out his hand. “Let’s go meet our neighbor.”
“I already met her.”
“Good, then you can introduce us.”
They went out the front door and rang the doorbell to the other town house. In a couple of seconds, Cade saw a blurry figure hurrying to the door.
“Come in—oh!” the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen called out gaily as she swung open the door, then visibly started when she saw him.
Although Stacy had warned him their new neighbor was pretty, no words could do justice to that combination of black hair and green eyes, the eyes offset to perfection by a sweep of black lashes.
She was average in height and had the type of lithe slenderness he liked in a woman—a long-legged coltish appearance but curvy in the right places, as revealed by a jade-green outfit made of soft clingy material.
For a second, he was speechless as they stared at each other. Then emotion rippled across her face…shock? pain? anger?…he wasn’t sure.
No, he must be mistaken, for now she was smiling in a polite manner, then warmer as she glanced at Stacy, a question in her eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m Cade Parks, Stacy’s dad. You must be expecting someone….” He let the words trail off into a question.
“No,” she said quickly. “Not really. Uh, I’m Sara Carlton, the new kindergarten teacher at Lakeside. Tai says Stacy will be one of my students when classes start.”
“Sara, come to our house,” Stacy invited. “We’re making a surprise for you.”
“You must call her Miss Carlton,” Cade said.
“Do I have to?” Stacy immediately asked her new teacher.
“Yes, for as long as I’m your teacher.”
Stacy nodded in understanding.
“Tai says there’s enough food for a guest. We would be honored if you would have dinner with us,” Cade told the lovely woman who stood at the door as if guarding the place. “And Stacy has prepared a surprise.”
The neighbor smiled.
Oddly, his heart started thumping. Heat gathered low in his body. Other than casual dates, he hadn’t had time for a woman since his wife died in a car crash two years ago. All his energy had been expended on his child and his work.
“I never could resist a surprise,” the neighbor said. “Let me get my keys.”
Stacy went into the house, although they hadn’t been invited. Cade stepped into the foyer, too.
“Let’s lock the front door,” he called after Sara, liking the way she moved, an almost catlike grace in her form as she stopped by a table where her purse sat. “We can go in through the back.”
When she nodded, he turned the dead bolt on the ornate front door, then followed as Stacy ran in front to walk with her new teacher. His gaze stayed fastened on the alluring sway of her body as she shortened her steps and took his daughter’s hand. Stacy chatted nonstop down the hall, out the back door, onto the shared deck and into their home.
The scent of the baking cake filled the town house, welcoming the three of them inside. “Mmm, is that the surprise I smell?” Sara asked.
“It’s a chocolate cake,” Stacy told her, unable to hold the secret inside anymore.
“My favorite,” Sara said, her eyes going wide. “How did you know?”
Stacy grinned. “Because it’s mine and Daddy’s, too.”
Their laughter flowed over and into him, adding to the intimacy of the moment. Observing their guest as he removed plates from the cabinet, he wondered if they had met before.
He felt as if they had. In another life, perhaps. Perhaps they’d been lovers, separated by some tragic fate, but destined to meet again….
A surge of need so great, it was almost a pain rolled over him. He’d never felt anything like it, not even when he fell for his wife. Rita Lambini was the deb of the season six years ago, a beautiful socialite who’d enchanted him with her smoldering glances and flirty, laughing ways.
That hadn’t lasted long.
In less than six months, the enchantment was gone, leaving the bitter knowledge that she’d married him for the money he’d inherit one day. He’d wanted out of the marriage, but she’d been pregnant by then.
Recalling his own past, with his mother in a Swiss sanitarium due to health reasons and his father only interested in the diamond business, Cade had known he couldn’t leave his child fatherless. So he’d stuck it out until Stacy was born.
Watching his daughter come into the world, he’d felt nothing but love at first sight. And it had stayed that way.
Rita, knowing she now had a weapon, had fought the divorce and threatened a lengthy custody battle. She’d even hinted she would accuse him of child abuse if he tried to kick her out.
He still felt guilty over the relief her death had brought. She’d been returning from one of her many social affairs…a few drinks and the winding, fog-slick coastal road coupled with fast driving had ended at a curve with a fifty-foot cliff on the other side. Rita had crashed through the barrier and gone over the edge—
“Daddy!” Stacy tugged at his arm.
He realized she’d been speaking to him. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“We’re ready. Sar—Miss Carlton and I set the table.”
Seeing those green eyes watching him with a curious expression in their depths, he shrugged off the past and smiled at the other two. “Good job.”
The timer buzzed just then. He removed the cake layers from the oven and put in three dinner rolls to brown while they started on the salad course.
“Is this your first teaching position?” he asked when they were seated.
“Uh, no. I taught for almost five years in Denver.”
“So what brought you to San Francisco?”
Her hesitation was noticeable. “I have friends here,” she said. “They arranged things for me.”
Disappointment hit him. “A boyfriend?”
She glanced at him, then shook her head. “A fellow teacher, actually. She’s a friend of a friend of the artist who owns the other town house.”
“Miss Hanson,” Stacy informed her father.
“Yes. Rachel and my…”
Again the pause, as if she wasn’t sure if she should disclose this much, Cade noted.
“Rachel and my brother thought I needed to get away.”
“From Denver?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Why?” He realized he sounded like a lawyer before the court, trying to wring information from a witness.
“My…my mother died after a long illness. In the winter. She loved the spring in Colorado and the wildflowers. She used to say flowers and children were the only consolations life offered.”
This last part was said with such sadness, Cade felt like a heel for making her speak of it. “I’ve caused you pain,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” Her smile bloomed once more. “I thought it was time for a change, too. Meeting Stacy today convinced me this move was the right thing.”
Again he had an overwhelming sensation of déjà vu, as if they’d talked like this before, as if they’d shared secrets, laughed together. It was damned odd.
“The rolls are ready,” Stacy announced.
Cade served the rest of the meal, then they opened a can of chocolate icing and finished the cake. “Let’s sing Happy Birthday,” Stacy requested.
“It isn’t anyone’s birthday,” he reminded his daughter.
“Mine was back in the spring,” Sara told them. “No one made me a cake, so this can be a belated one.”
He thought of all she didn’t say—her grief over her mother, the loneliness in those eyes, the fragile quality that brought out something protective in him.
“Great,” he said. “Stacy, start us off.”
Stacy began. “Happy birthday to you…”
He joined in, harmonizing with her childish soprano. Their guest looked at him in surprise. He smiled, pleased that he’d managed to break through the reserve that surrounded her.
“How old are you?” Stacy demanded while he cut the cake, then served their guest first.
“Twenty-nine.”
“Stace, you’re not supposed to ask a woman her age,” he chided.
“Why?” she asked.
“Yes, why?” Sara echoed.
He pretended to think. “Darned if I know,” he finally said. “Someone told me it was rude, that women don’t like admitting how old they are.”
“We don’t mind being old, do we, Sar—Miss Carlton?”
“Not at all. Age makes one wiser, I’ve heard.”
A full, unforced smile appeared on her sensuous lips. Cade couldn’t take his gaze from them. “I’ve seen that smile before,” he said. “Where have we met?”
Sara was unprepared for the question or his intent perusal. After twenty-five years, she hadn’t expected him to make any connection to her at all. She tried to maintain the smile, but it was impossible.
“Long ago,” she said in a low voice, “we were in kindergarten together. You and I and your twin sister, Emily. Here, in San Francisco.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Yes,” he said after a thoughtful silence. “Sara Carlton. Yes. That explains the eyes. And the smile. I knew I’d seen them somewhere. I had a terrible crush on you. Then one day you left without a word. I was heartbroken.”
“We moved away.”
He nodded. “I remember. Your father died. A boating accident or something,” Cade said.
Or something, Sara echoed to herself, that something being the murder of her father by his. She bit the words back with an effort. She hated subterfuge and lies, but in this case it was necessary.
“A hard year for you,” he murmured. “For everyone,” he added on an introspective note.
His smile was sad as well as sympathetic. She knew his mother had been sent away “for health reasons” later that same year.
She rejected pity for him and his family. After all, she was here for revenge….
No, it was justice she sought. She was here to see that Walter Parks paid for his crime.
Chapter Two
