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“This is good,” he said. “Strong and hot, just the way I like it.”
“I remember,” she said. “From the wedding.”
The Dalton family had come to LA so he could participate in his sister’s wedding. He’d walked Honey down the aisle and given her into Zack Dalton’s loving arms.
The emotion of the moment had surprised him. But then, his little sis was about the only thing in the world that he loved unconditionally and without reserve.
When Honey had been a baby, their father had been killed in a bar shoot-out. The quiet, gentle man hadn’t been involved but was just in the wrong place at the wrong moment when a couple of punks had run into each other and pulled their pieces, killing three bystanders. Then their mom had died when Honey was three and he was thirteen. They had gone to live with an aunt who hadn’t wanted them.
So much for his family ties.
Roni’s life hadn’t been all that easy, he admitted to himself, pulling out a stool and straddling it. She, too, had been orphaned when a freak avalanche had wiped out her family.
Luckily, her uncle, Nicholas Dalton of Seven Devils Ranch, located near a small town about an hour’s drive north of the city, had taken the kids in and given them a good home. A loving home. Yeah, she’d been lucky.
“So what are you doing in town?” she asked, direct and to the point, as usual.
He’d already considered and discarded several answers to this question. He’d decided on the truth. With her, it was the only way. “Working.”
“In Boise? Since when?”
Adam smiled in resignation. In a city of barely 200,000 population, he hadn’t really thought he could avoid her forever, especially since his sister was married to her cousin. But he’d hoped.
“Since last month. I’ve been in town two weeks. I’m on new assignment. Bank fraud division.”
“Bank fraud,” she repeated blankly.
He didn’t blame her for the incomprehension. He’d been undercover on a police corruption case when they’d met. The white-collar world of offshore corporations, wired money transfers and fake companies was far from rogue cops, drug-trafficking and extortion.
“I recently finished the course work for a degree in business,” he added as if this explained everything.
In a way it did. International crime being what it was, agents proficient in accounting and computer science were more valuable to the bureau on a day-to-day basis than sharpshooters and such.
“And?”
He shrugged. “And I’ve been assigned to this district to investigate corporate fraud.”
“Like, you hack into their computer systems and read their e-mails and see what the executive officers are up to?”
“Hardly,” he replied. “Banks are required by law to report movements of large sums of money under certain conditions—”
“Money laundering,” she interrupted.
“That might figure into it,” he admitted.
“Offshore corporations to hide debt,” she continued.
Her beautiful eyes gleamed with interest now. He suppressed a groan. He didn’t need her meddling any more than he needed the insistent hunger she induced in him. It echoed through him now, a primal drive that couldn’t be denied, although he tried to ignore it.
That kiss in March, when they’d both visited their mutual relatives, had been a mistake, a madness that had buzzed through him and shredded his good intentions, which were to avoid her as much as possible and never, ever so much as touch her hand. So here he was, in her charming home, yesterday’s kiss fresh in his mind.
What was that saying? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Yeah, that was it.
“I can help,” she told him. “I’m really good with a computer. We could put a worm in their program—”
“I have plenty of expertise within the department to call on,” he informed her coolly. “If I need it.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” she said, in as cool a tone as he’d used. She glanced at the wall clock. “It’s time for lunch. Do you want to join me? There’s plenty.”
He knew he shouldn’t. Common sense told him to leave and not look back. He should make it clear he wanted her to stay out of his life and his cases. Instead, he nodded.
“That smells incredibly good,” he said when she set a brimming bowl in front of him.
“Uncle Nick’s specialty.” Her smile was warm. “On Saturday, he’d throw all the leftovers in a pot and make ‘poor-man’s stew.’ With fresh bread, that was our dinner.”
She removed a big skillet of corn bread from the oven, flipped it over on a platter, cut it into wedges, then put it and the butter on the island. She joined him on the matching stool. “Here’s to your health,” she said, picking up her spoon.
He ate three pieces of corn bread and two bowls of stew. “That was the best meal I’ve had since…since I last visited your uncle’s ranch.”
Instead of looking pleased at the compliment to her relative, her mood became pensive.
“What?” he asked, his voice dropping a register and sounding way too intimate in the silent cottage. He cleared his throat.
“Uncle Nick,” she murmured. “Beau says he’s doing fine, but I worry about him. He’s had a couple of spells with his heart this winter. I wish…”
“You wish?” he finally prompted when she was silent for a long minute.
“I wish we could find Tink for him.”
Adam knew that Theresa, or Tink, as she was called, was Nick’s only child and had disappeared at the scene of a car wreck that had killed her mother when the girl was only three and a half. The Dalton patriarch was in his seventies and had always longed to find his missing daughter. Beset with heart problems, his time could be running out.
For a few seconds, he contemplated the older man’s pain at losing his wife and child in that manner, then he shook his head. That was one reason he’d never let himself get too deeply involved with a woman. Emotion was too costly.
“What?” he asked, noting Roni’s sharp stare.
“Maybe you could help. I know, you can help me find Tink, and I’ll help you with your case.” She smiled brightly as if this solved some grand problem in the universe.
“Huh,” he said, putting a damper on that idea.
She gave him a grimace, then her impish grin returned. “You’ll be sorry you turned down such a good offer. I make a hundred dollars an hour as a consultant in my spare time.”
“Bully for you,” he muttered.
She laughed, then refilled his coffee cup. “Let’s go over here where it’s more comfortable.”
He took the leather easy chair while she snuggled into a corner of the sofa, kicked off her loafers and tucked her feet under her. Heat stirred through him. It settled in the lower part of his body, making him hot and wary of lingering in her house.
His usual reaction to her, he admitted. Lust and caution. How was that for a mixed combination?
“When did you get this place?” he asked as the silence became heavy with tension. Or maybe it was just him.
She seemed perfectly at ease as she blew gently over the surface of the hot coffee. “A month ago. I often jogged through this neighborhood and saw it as soon as it came on the market. I decided I’d rather have a house of my own, so I sold the condo and bought this.”
“With the increase in home prices, that was probably a wise move.”
“Will you be looking for a place to buy?”
“No.”
“You needn’t look as if a home is a ball and chain. It could be a good investment, even for someone who moves around fairly often. And you get tax breaks. My brother has preached home ownership as long as I can remember.”
Adam assumed she referred to Seth, who was an attorney and the oldest of her siblings. Her other brother was a doctor. One of her cousins was a deputy sheriff—he’d told Greg the truth when he’d said he’d worked with Roni’s cousin—while two others were ranchers. The five Dalton males and Roni, the lone female of the six orphans taken in by their uncle, had pitched in to build a resort in the mountains beside a small lake. If all went well, it was supposed to open this summer.
He realized that, with his sister married to the deputy, he knew a lot about the Dalton family. Their ancestors had been on the ranch for well over a hundred years. First Family of Idaho and all that. One cousin was married to a senator’s daughter. The senator was running for governor and would likely be elected in November.
For himself, he knew his family history only to his parents. All the grandparents had died before or shortly after his birth. Where their people had come from, he hadn’t a clue, except they were European for the most part with a little Hispanic and possibly Native American brought in from his mother’s grandmother.
Giving himself a mental shake, he wondered what the heck was wrong with him today. A glance at Roni gave him a hint. Each time he came into contact with her he ended up frustrated and angry.
Because he wanted her.
“What is it?” she suddenly asked.
“What is what?” he countered.
“Heavy sigh. Grim face. I know you aren’t involved with a woman. So, did someone just shoot your dog?”
“How do you know I’m not involved with a woman?” he demanded, irked at her certainty.
“Honey said you didn’t allow anyone to get too close. Your sister worries about your being all alone in the cold, cruel world.”
“My sister should take care of herself and not worry about me,” he muttered.
Roni smiled. “Then you know she’s expecting.”
The news stunned him.
She studied him. “You didn’t know. Well, no one told me it was a secret. She announced it last Sunday when we had dinner at the ranch. If you visited more often, then you would catch up on the news.”
A baby. His little sister. He’d looked after her since she was three years old. It felt odd that she was now involved in a major life change with no input from him.
Roni continued, her eyes dreamy the way women’s went when talking about babies and all that. “With Beau having a son, then Travis and Alison having their baby in March and now Zack and Honey expecting, Uncle Nick is in heaven. He’s hot after the rest of us to settle down and start families.”
Other than his sister’s nuptials, Adam had avoided the rash of Dalton marriages the past year by dint of his work. Roni’s two brothers had married only a few months ago.
“Must be something in the water,” he said, irritated by this whole conversation.
The youngest Dalton orphan laughed in delight. “That’s what I told Uncle Nick. I said I was bringing my own bottled water with me to the ranch in the future.”
“Good thinking,” Adam told her sardonically.
She gave him a shrewd glance. “Uncle Nick said if I got pregnant without being married the man would answer to him.”
“And to your brothers and cousins.”
“Yes. They all agreed they would straighten things out for me.”
Her laughter became a sigh as she lapsed into introspection. Women made him nervous when they talked of babies and marriage. He had no time for it, and he always made that clear at the beginning of a relationship.
Relationship? Other than one six-month, on-again, off-again entanglement, at the end of which he’d been accused of indifference, he hadn’t seen a woman socially for…mmm, two years?
Yep, it had been at least that long. Once he’d started working on the police corruption case in LA, he’d been in deep cover. He hadn’t even communicated with his sister except under the most secret of coded messages.
Even that precaution had failed.
The thugs had sent hit men looking for her in order to flush him out. She could have been killed—
He put a halt to his morbid thoughts. All had ended well with the case wrapped up, the hit men and the bad cops behind bars and his life in the open again. Investigating corporate crime was mostly an office job, nine to five and weekends free.
Free.
That suited him just fine and that was the way he intended to stay. Women always wanted more—more time, more commitment, more of everything. He’d learned to keep things on a light note.
“Anyway,” he said, eager to finish the conversation and get out of the cozy bungalow, “I just wanted to let you know I’m too busy to be involved with you in any capacity.”
There, that should make things clear to her.
Her dark, delicately arched eyebrows rose as she gave him a lofty perusal.
“Get over yourself,” she advised.
Chapter Two
T he following Friday Roni surveyed the outfits she’d selected, decided they would have to do, and closed her suitcase. If she hadn’t accepted Scott’s invitation a month ago to spend a leisurely weekend at the Masterson family estate, she would have preferred to stay home.
Ah well, it might do her good to get out of the house and away from the city for the weekend. After months of near total absorption, she’d finished her part of the current project and turned over the files to her boss that morning.
Reaching a goal usually gave her a lift, but not this time. She was drained mentally and physically, having driven herself to exhaustion the past week to bring the software learning program in on time.
Hearing the doorbell, she quickly slipped into a denim jacket, glanced around to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything, then grabbed her suitcase and headed for the door.
“Hello. I hope we’re ahead of the traffic,” she said to the handsome young scion of one of the richest families in the area.
“I’m afraid not. It’s already backed up on the freeway. I drove the back streets to get here. It was faster.” Scott Masterson smiled, took the luggage and held the screen door while she secured the dead bolt. “Ready?” he said when she turned to him.
“Ready.”
His car was a top-of-the-line model. Leather seats. Heated, of course. If she could figure out the buttons on the side of the seat, she thought she could probably get a massage, too. Scott caught her amused smile and smiled back.
