Scent Of Roses

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“None of your damned business!” Tossing down her napkin, Elizabeth shoved back her chair and stood up.

Zach stood up, too. “Wait a minute. I’m sorry, okay? I just wanted to know if you were involved with anyone.”

“Well, I’m not. Now are you happy?”

He grinned. “Yeah, I am.”

They stood there until people started to stare and she had no choice but to sit back down.

“Where were we?” he asked. “Aside from the fact you’re celibate at the moment.”

The man was outrageous! She had no idea why she found herself biting back a smile. “We were talking about Maria Santiago, and I’ve already said more than I should.”

“She isn’t your patient, is she?”

“Well, no. Not officially. She asked me to sit in on her session with Dr. James as a friend.”

“Then there isn’t a problem. Eat your French fries. They’re getting cold.”

She picked one up and dipped it into the ketchup she had poured on her plate. “Maria refuses to see Dr. James again.”

“I think I can understand that.” Zach oversalted his fries, then picked one up, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed with obvious relish. “According to Raul, Maria made him promise not to tell her husband what’s been going on in the house, but the girl is convinced the ghost is real.”

“Why did Raul tell you all this?”

Zach shrugged. “Like I said, we’ve been talking. I come up a lot on the weekends. We’re trying to get the barn built, you know? Working with the boys gives me a chance to get to know them, try to encourage them. I teach a class on drug and alcohol abuse. I talk about my past and how it’s possible to change your life if you want to bad enough. By the way, I think you’re right about Raul. He seems like a really good kid.”

“And he told you about his sister?”

He nodded, swallowed a bite of ketchup-and-oversalted French fry. “Yeah. He’s really worried about her.”

“What did he say about the ghost?”

“He says he believes her. That’s the reason he talked to me about it. He knows I’m a lawyer. Raul wanted me to speak to my brother, see if there was somewhere else Miguel and Maria could live.”

“I don’t believe this. She actually wants to move out of the house?”

“Apparently so. Whatever’s going on, there’s no way my brother’s going to inconvenience himself because one of his farm workers believes in ghosts.”

A shadow passed over the table. Elizabeth glanced up as a tall blond man approached, and the guilt she’d felt earlier rose up again.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Zach said, his expression going hard.

Carson stopped beside her chair and there wasn’t the least hint of a smile on his face. “I thought you had more sense,” he said, bringing a flush to her cheeks.

Zach shoved to his feet, one hand unconsciously fisting. “Leave her alone, Carson.”

If Elizabeth had ever needed evidence the man had been in prison she saw it now in his face. Hard, cold, dangerous. Even lethal was a word that came to mind.

“She needed to talk to me about one of her cases,” Zach said, “a boy at Teen Vision. That’s why she agreed to come to lunch.”

Carson’s disapproving gaze swung to her. “That right?”

Elizabeth didn’t flinch, though it wasn’t that easy to do. “It doesn’t matter why I’m here. I can to go to lunch with anyone I want, Carson. Even your brother. Just because we’ve been out a couple of times doesn’t give you any say in what I do.”

Carson’s jaw tightened.

Zach seemed surprised she hadn’t gone along with the half-truth he had invented to give her an easy out. She didn’t need his protection. She didn’t really care what Carson thought.

Carson forced a smile. “I suppose that’s true.” His gaze fixed on Zach. “How’s Lisa?” A sarcastic edge crept into his voice, and Zach’s eyes darkened in warning.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen her since I left town last week.”

“If I happen to run into her, I’ll tell her you said hello.” Carson walked away and Elizabeth’s gaze swung to Zach.

“Lisa?”

“Lisa Doyle. We see each other sometimes when I come up on the weekends.”

Lisa Doyle. The name leached the blood from her face. She knew Lisa Doyle. Their enmity went back a long way. “You’re seeing Lisa Doyle?”

“Not exactly. We’re not really involved, if that’s what you mean.”

Elizabeth rose shakily from her chair, her stomach twisted into a knot. “Not really involved? You mean you’re just screwing her. Why am I not surprised?” He was Zachary Harcourt, after all. When he was young, he had used women like Kleenex and tossed them away. She wasn’t about to be treated like one of them.

Opening her purse, she took out her wallet and tossed enough bills on the table to pay for her lunch and a tip.

Zach snatched up the bills and stood up. He thrust the money in her direction. “I invited you to lunch and dammit, I don’t answer to Lisa any more than you answer to Carson.”

“I’m not sleeping with Carson.” Ignoring his outstretched hand, she turned and started walking, but Zach caught her arm.

“Look, I didn’t handle this right. It was a spur-of-the-moment invitation. I didn’t think it would matter. I’m sorry.”

She looked at him and something twisted inside her. “Funny thing is, so am I.”

She shouldn’t have let it bother her. So what if Zach was seeing someone? She’d been dating Carson, hadn’t she? And it was only a friendly lunch.

But Zach had been pressing her for a date for the past two weeks and he hadn’t mentioned that he was involved with someone. That it was Lisa Doyle, the woman who had destroyed her marriage, made her stomach roll with nausea.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she drove back to the office, a memory stirring of the weekend she and Brian had come back to San Pico three years ago to attend her high school class reunion. He’d insisted she go, perhaps because they had been having problems in their marriage. Brian was always working late, even on the weekends, and Elizabeth had begun to grow suspicious.

That night had been glorious, seeing old friends, Brian more solicitous that he had been in months. She had been talking to Gwen and her husband, dancing with some of the guys she’d known in high school. She didn’t even notice when Brian slipped away.

Then the band had taken a break and she couldn’t seem to find him. He’d had a lot to drink and she was worried about him driving the car back to her sister’s house where they were staying. More and more concerned, she walked out in the parking lot in search of him. That’s when she spotted the Lexus—and saw that it was moving, rocking back and forth on its springs.