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Shattered? her mind supplied, and she shivered suddenly. It had been two days after their encounter before she’d heard. She’d picked up a day-old Daily News in the Waves, the town’s favorite coffeehouse, and sucked in her breath at the headline: Woman Survives Fall From Cliff Walk! Somehow she’d known what had happened even before she’d read about it. “I heard she had...an accident,” she murmured, picturing for the hundredth time the stumble—a shoelace perhaps coming undone, or Lara catching the tip of a toe. Then the horrified nosedive, the frantic snatch at the brush on the rim, a flailing cartwheel into space, the rocks rushing upward, the ice-cold sea...
The article said the woman had been lucky, unlike others over the years. She’d fallen at half tide, when a few feet of water covered the jagged beach. Luckier still, a lobsterman tending his pots had seen her from his boat, and rowed frantically over in time to save her from drowning.
The woman had a fractured skull, the article went on to note, and broken bones. She’d been rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, where the most critical cases were sent. Her name was being withheld pending notification of relatives.
Like me? Nobody told me!
Checking the date of the paper and counting backward, Gillian deduced the fall had occurred the morning of her encounter with Lara, probably within minutes after they’d passed each other. “Name withheld” was a dead giveaway. It took money and power to keep a person’s name out of the papers, especially when that person was a celebrity.
The newspaper had been circumspect, but still the rumors had made the rounds. Gillian had heard them from the women in her aerobics classes at the YMCA, heard them murmured over cups of coffee at the Waves. It was Lara Corday—you know, that Lara—who’d fallen—
She glanced up as a humming came from somewhere overhead. The crystal pendants on the chandelier trembled and a shard of rainbow danced across the ceiling.
“The elevator,” the man said at her elbow.
At last! Gillian swallowed and glanced desperately around the room. Her mind had gone utterly blank; all her endlessly rehearsed words had flown through the open doors and out to sea. There was a carriage clock on the mantel, she noticed, showing the time as ten-thirty. Half an hour, she kept me waiting.
But why should that surprise her? A woman who’d discarded her newborn baby like a worn-out shoe, who’d apparently made her climb to the top her highest priority—why should a woman like that worry that she kept others waiting? Whose time but her own would she value?
The door opened behind her and Gillian turned, dimly aware of the man beside her turning, as well.
“Darling,” he said warmly, and went to meet the woman framed in the doorway.
So that was his place in this household, Gillian realized at last with an odd jolt of dismay. The boyfriend. A virile courtier to replace the aging husband Lara had outlived. It explained his supreme confidence, his proprietary air. He put a hand to Lara’s elbow and led her into the room.
She barely spared him a glance. Her silvery eyes locked on Gillian, and it was the Cliff Walk encounter all over again. An awareness like a path of silver light, a moonbeam tunnel down which they both drifted, until only a few final feet divided them. “Do I—” Lara Corday smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know you, do I? My memory these days...” She gave a tiny, rueful shrug.
“Maybe you do,” suggested the man at her side. He’d advanced with her, one hand resting at the small of her back. “Newport’s a small town. You bump into everybody once a week or so.” His voice was tender, almost coaxing. His eyes flicked to Gillian and she could feel them bore into her.
Let him stare. It was Lara’s gaze that held her. “I don’t think so,” she answered cautiously. Oh, do you know me? But how could she? One of the few facts Gillian had pried from the lawyer was that Laura Lee Bailey had signed the relinquishment papers two days after Gillian’s birth. You saw me once or twice, maybe—that was it.
“Oh, well.” Lara smiled, dismissing the notion. “I know your name, of course, from your application, Gillian. I assume you and Trace have introduced yourselves?”
“More or less,” he said dryly. “Trace Sutton.” He clicked the heels of his running shoes and gave her a mock-formal nod.
A charmer when he wanted to be. Gillian didn’t trust charm.
Lara touched her elbow. “Come sit down and tell me all about yourself.”
I’m taller than she, Gillian realized for the first time, as they. moved toward the two couches that formed an L facing the French doors. By five inches or more. It was a measure of Lara’s presence that she hadn’t noticed till now. I’m too tall, with different hair. My eyes are light brown and hers are gray. Why, we’re nothing alike! What if she’d gotten it wrong somehow? A birth date and a photo—what did they prove? She’d wanted more than paper proof. She’d wanted resemblance, a physical explanation of who and what she was manifest in an earlobe, the shape of a chin, something... Instead all she had was this elusive sense of... connection.
“You said on your résumé that you’re working right now at the YMCA, teaching fitness,” Lara said gently, an actress nudging a forgetful understudy back toward her lines.
“Ah. Yes. I’ve been there since May.” She’d applied for the job the same day she learned of Lara’s accident. Somehow the accident-or perhaps their encounter on the cliffs—had changed her plans. She’d meant to stay in Newport no more than a week. After the accident she could not leave. Not till she learned that Lara was out of danger, she’d told herself.
But one month had slid into the next, and here it was September. “I taught aerobics, tai chi, weight-shaping classes while I worked my way through college. It was a good way to earn money and stay fit.” She’d thought it best to stick to the truth wherever possible. “So when I saw the opening here...” She let her words trail away. I grabbed it. A foothold in your town.
“But I’ve also worked as a secretary, through a temp agency,” she hastened to add, not mentioning she’d been less than a rousing success in the clerical world. What else to say? She should be selling herself, not simply staring. Lara had cut her hair since she saw her last, Gillian realized suddenly—or no, perhaps they’d shaved her head in the hospital. It was boy-short, making her lovely eyes seem enormous. Purple shadows smudged the delicate skin beneath. Her gaze also seemed shadowed, with pain or worry.
“That’s excellent,” Lara said. “I’m looking for someone to deal with my mail and other paperwork, but if you’re athletic, as well—I’m so out of shape—we could train together. An exercise buddy would get me off my duff, get me moving. Can you lay on the guilt? I’m hopelessly lazy!”
“Oh, I can guilt-trip with the best of them.” Gillian laughed. “I learned from an expert—my mom.” Her laughter jammed in her throat, turned to a fit of coughing that brought the tears to her eyes. Mom, how could I?
But it was true. Her adoptive mother, Eleanor Scott—her Real Mother any way you counted—had wielded that parental weapon with surgical deftness. Gillian couldn’t recall a single spanking in all her childhood years. A few well-chosen words of reproach, or one look of loving despair, was all it had taken to make her toe the line. She glanced up to find her own sorrow reflected in Lara’s eyes.
“You love your mother,” she said softly.
“Yes.” Gillian rubbed her lashes. “She died two years ago.” Why am I telling you that? Perhaps because that had started it all. After the funeral they’d found the key to the safe-deposit box. And the letter waiting there for Gillian, which had turned the first twenty-six years of her life into a lie. She wasn’t—never had been—who she thought. So who was she?
Only Lara knew, and in one savage letter she’d closed off all possibility of Gillian’s ever asking.
“I’m sorry,” Lara said. “I understand what it’s like to...miss somebody.”
She was nice! Gillian had expected anything but niceness. How could this woman have written that soul-crunching letter?
She’s an actress, she reminded herself. And a fine one, if winning an Emmy signified anything. Give her a role and presumably she could make it live. But still—
“You went to college. Where?” Trace Sutton cut in briskly. As if he’d heard enough emotional female meandering and it was time for some facts.
“University of Texas at Austin,” she answered in kind. “A double major—art and education.”
“So you should be teaching art in a public school,” he challenged. “Why earn a poor living doing jumping jacks at the Y?”
She could really dislike this man! “I...don’t have the temperament for teaching.” Not at the high-school level anyway, where she’d tried for three years, then resigned. She had no taste for the profession’s disciplinary side, and the paperwork had been a nightmare. “I hope to illustrate children’s books someday.” The truth again, though she’d turned the clock back. She already had three children’s books to her credit, was contracted to finish a fourth by Christmas. That didn’t pay her whole way, but supplemented by the exercise classes, she made do. “For now...” She shrugged. “I’m enjoying traveling around, seeing new parts of the country.”
“So you wouldn’t plan to keep this job long,” Sutton suggested gently. Drifter, his eyes jeered.
He really, really didn’t want Lara to hire her. Why? “On the contrary.” She gave him a look of limpid sincerity. “I’ve fallen in love with Newport. If I could find an interesting job that allowed me to stay here...”
“Then I doubt this position would suit you. Lara lives in New York whenever she’s acting.”
“But that won’t be for months, probably not this year at all,” Lara interjected. “They’ve written me out of this season’s scripts. My doctor doesn’t think I’m quite ready to—” Her shrug was apologetic, as if she’d willfully chosen her horrific fall in a fit of selfishness. Then she brightened. “Still, all this fan mail keeps pouring in, piling up in corners, and I really need to get back in shape, so when do you think you could start, Gillian?”
Trace Sutton coughed and bumped Lara’s shoulder.
She bit her lip. “If I decide to hire you,” she added like a good child reciting a lesson. A tinge of pink brightened her pale cheeks.
“I could start right away,” Gillian said promptly, refusing to even glance at the overbearing brute. “That is, if you don’t mind my juggling this job around my aerobics classes for a few weeks till the Y can find a replacement. I think I could swap some of my day classes with a woman who teaches nights and—”
“That sounds perfectly satisfactory.” Lara laid a slim hand on Trace’s arm as he stirred again. “Gillian, is there a phone number on your résumé I can reach you at? Good,” she continued decisively when Gillian nodded. “Then may I call you later today with my decision? I’m afraid it’s time for my physical therapy session at the hospital.”
“Of course.” But Gillian knew the verdict already. A lover’s word carried all the weight in the world. She searched her mind for something to prolong the interview, but short of crying I’m your daughter! You really ought to give me a chance this time! she could think of nothing to do.
Except swear to herself she would never ever forgive Trace Sutton for wrecking her best, probably her only, chance to learn the truth about her origins. Inwardly raging, she maintained a stony silence as he escorted her not only out of the house but all the way down the long, curving driveway to the front gates of the estate. What did he think—she might hide in the bushes, then pop out at Lara’s car when it passed?
“I figured you’d appreciate a boost over,” he said gravely as they arrived at the gates, an eighteen-foot barricade of ornately curlicued wrought iron topped off with vicious spikes.
He could joke while he snatched a job away from her? Maybe he didn’t realize what this meant to her, but still, for all Sutton knew she might desperately need employment. Terminally selfish, that’s what he was! All she could conclude was that he wanted Lara to himself. No doubt he’d make sure she hired some grim-faced old bag who typed a hundred and fifty words a minute.
“Or if you don’t want to climb,” Sutton continued when she refused to smile, “you walk between this electric eye and that one.” He nodded at two knee-high metal posts implanted at intervals along the driveway. “They decide you must be a car heading out and-voilà.” The gates swung majestically open. “Goodbye, Gillian,” he added gently. “And...don’t get your hopes up.”
“I—” She spun and stalked off, tears of rage gathering in her eyes. So close, so close! All but for that selfish... brute.
CHAPTER THREE
HANDS JAMMED IN HIS pockets, a reluctant smile quirking his lips, Trace Sutton watched her go.
Most people tightened up with rage. Gillian swung off on those long, long legs like a woman on a mission—a tiger to shoot or a city to sack. As if she’d just heard about a summer sale on silver platters. She needs one for my head, he acknowledged ruefully.
He leaned against the bars of the gates to keep her in sight as long as possible and crossed his arms. After a moment he noticed he was rubbing his right forearm. It still tingled where he’d snugged it around her waist. With a grimace, he shoved his hands back into his pockets.
She hadn’t been toting; he was reasonably certain of that. A weapon tucked in her waistband had been the logical assumption since she’d worn a loose, gauzy overblouse that hid the top of her skirt. But his lightning frisk had found no gun, no knife—only vibrant, willowy slenderness, a feminine shape that fit his arms as though molded to his personal specifications.
Given her skirt, there was only one other place Gillian might be packing. He’d pictured himself smoothing his hands up the inside of her long, honey-colored thighs—strictly searching for a shiv or a gun taped in place, of course. But try as he might, he hadn’t come up with an excuse for doing it that the lady would buy.
Except that I’m an oaf and she thinks that already.
Far down the street, he noticed, she reached a corner and turned left. Which checked out. That was the most logical route back to the address she’d given on her résumé.
He’d thought it was too damned convenient to Woodwind when he’d first noted her street. But Newport had a layout unlike most cities, where the rich lived on one side of town and the poor on the other. Situated on a long, meandering ridge that encircled a harbor, Newport divided its social classes not by horizontal miles but vertically. The “summer cottages” built at the height of the Gilded Age graced the top of the ridge, while the bungalows and triple deckers that had once housed the Irish maids, the gardeners and cooks and stable hands who had serviced those mansions occupied the lower slopes.
So in itself the proximity of Gillian Mahler’s place to Woodwind was no grounds for suspicion. Still... “Something doesn’t fit,” he murmured aloud. She’d looked like a winner to him, and that didn’t jibe with the profile.
But looks and manner aside, there was the fact that she’d drifted here from afar. And she lacked a steady, full-time job.
Which describes just about every kid in the city, he reminded himself. Newport had a well-earned reputation as a good-time town. The young swarmed here from all over the country, even from abroad, to work the summer jobs at the hotels, restaurants and bars. After hours they partied the night away, then spent their mornings drowsily perfecting their tans at the beach, before it was back to work again.
So explain away Gillian’s rootlessness and still he had that look she’d given him when he’d stopped Lara from hiring her. If looks could kill. And rage was definitely part of the profile.
Maybe she just needed the job. He squared his shoulders, shrugging off that twinge of guilt. He had one goal here and one goal alone, and nothing would deflect him from it.
So, put her on the shortlist?
His list was damned short. Twenty-seven applicants so far and he had only three candidates, losers all, but not one he’d bet his money on.
So, Gillian? Profiling was hardly an exact science. And those emotions he’d sensed once Lara had joined them... They’d raised the short hairs on the back of his neck.
Powerful, inappropriate emotions were definitely part of the profile—though oddly, he couldn’t quite swear which woman had been transmitting.
Or both? Did I miss something? Or add something that wasn’t there? Usually he trusted his instincts in these matters. This time, something seemed to be jamming the signals.
An image of long graceful legs, of smoldering lioness eyes, drifted across his mind. Trace grimaced. He didn’t like to think of sexual attraction crossing his wires, but he’d seen it happen to so many men in his business he’d be a fool to consider himself invulnerable.
And a greater fool to let it interfere with his job.
Well, the solution to that problem was easy. Keep her at a distance.
But put her on the shortlist, he decided also, and headed up the driveway. Maybe even the top of his shortlist.
LARA HAD GONE UPSTAIRS, Trace found when he returned to the mansion. He took the steps two at a time—she really did have a physiotherapy appointment within the hour. He entered her unlocked bedroom without knocking, then paused. “Lara?”
His pulse jumped a notch when she didn’t answer. His eyes swept the big sunny suite, half bedroom, half sitting room, then the balcony beyond, with its magnificent view of the sea. Nothing out of order. Nothing smashed or overturned. Lucy, the downstairs maid, had told him Lara was up here, but maybe she’d—
He sensed a presence and turned to find her standing in the doorway to her dressing room. Silent and unsmiling, she gazed at him for a moment, then withdrew.
So...he had offended her. She’d been so docile and subdued since her fall, he’d grown used to taking the lead. Surprised when she’d gone her own way during the interview this morning, maybe he’d brought her back into line a little too smartly.
“We need to leave in ten minutes,” he said, coming to stand in her dressing-room doorway, wondering whether to apologize or let it ride. The little room, lined with mirrors and louvered doors that hid her wardrobe of stunning simplicity, was empty. Lara had retreated all the way into her bathroom, a room that by unspoken agreement was off bounds to him. But the door was open and today wasn’t just any day, since they so rarely disagreed.
“Lara?” He stopped in the doorway to her bathroom. She stood brushing her hair before her mirror, a gesture that would have expressed her irritation beautifully four months ago, when those silvery locks had been a foot longer. In her imagination, they probably swirled around her shoulders still.
In reality, short as her hair was now, it stood up in silky tufts, then fell softly as the brush passed. She looked like an outraged downy fledgling. He had to work not to smile. “We’d better go.”
“I wanted that one, Trace,” she said with fierce determination, staring at herself in the beveled glass.
“You know it’s not in the plan.” He desperately needed a second person to spell him. Backup hadn’t been a problem those first two months after her fall, while she’d stayed in the nursing home. He’d brought in three capable private-duty nurses and alerted them to the danger. Whenever he’d left her bedside, he’d known she was in good hands and he could rest easy.
But these past two months back at Woodwind... There was too much ground here. Too many people for one man to cover. Even for a low-profile assignment, this was ridiculous, as he’d tried to tell her from the start.
A typical shift in his business was twelve hours. He was doing twenty-four, day after day after day. His concern wasn’t exhaustion so much as growing stale. No one could live at the pinnacle of alertness without stand-down time.
“So let’s change the plan,” Lara muttered.
Trace breathed in, held for a count of three, breathed out. A centering exercise in karate: achieve serenity first, then take action. “What was wrong with number seven?” he asked finally. “Liz Galloway?”
Galloway wasn’t a member of his own security firm, Brickhouse, Inc., but she’d come with the highest recommendations. To maintain her cover, she’d applied for the job in the same way as all the genuine applicants.
The brush paused midstroke. “She...intimidated me.”
Trace snorted. “Don’t be silly.” Lara was one of the bravest people he’d ever met, man or woman. The pain she’d endured without whimpering, those first few weeks after her fall... He remembered looking down at those big haunted eyes set in that swath of bandages and wishing she would cry out, complain, weep—anything but lie there bleakly accepting, as if pain were only her due.
“I’m not! I felt as if she was measuring my neck for a collar and leash. As if she’d expect me to heel every time we went out for a walk. Well, no, thank you. It’s bad enough having you—” Lara stopped, carefully set the brush aside. Reached for a bottle of lotion and fidgeted with the cap.
“Having me...?” he prompted mildly, though he knew what she’d say. It was the perennial problem between bodyguards and their clients, almost always the reason a bodyguard’s contract was terminated prematurely. Along with protection came loss of freedom. Spontaneity. Privacy. Once the client’s original fear diminished, resentment inevitably followed.
“Having you living on top of me,” Lara mumbled without meeting his eyes. “If I was stuck with Liz, as well, I think I’d go...” She shrugged. “Nuts.”
“I’m sorry. I try to not cramp your style.” Yet the requirements of the detail made it all but impossible. He was here under cover, and only one role allowed him to plausibly stay by her side day and night.
“Oh, Trace, I didn’t mean it that way! You’ve been—” She turned and smiled up at him. “I’m very lucky to have you—I can’t believe how lucky. But if I can’t have my privacy, at least I want to be...comfortable with the people around me. And besides,” she hurried on as he opened his mouth to argue, “we agreed that whoever was hired, she’d have to really function as my personal assistant. Liz Galloway just didn’t have the—the warmth or the tact the job requires. Some of those fan letters are so silly, the people who write them so—so desperately needy... The job takes somebody with sensitivity. A sense of humor.”
“Ouch, poor Liz!” But he could see what Lara meant. The ex-policewoman wouldn’t score high on the warm-and-fuzzy scale. “All right, then. I’ll see if I can find somebody else.” Inwardly he groaned. Female BGs were rare, and therefore in demand, and of the few available not just anyone would do. He’d hire only the best for Lara. And for himself. A partner he couldn’t trust was less than useless, endangered everyone. ,
Laura shook her head. “Don’t bother, Trace. I want her. Gillian.”
“Out of twenty-seven women you’ve interviewed, why her?” The one who worried him most.
Laura shrugged. “I don’t know. She...” She shrugged again. “I liked her.”
