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The five reds played outside as six blues got fed. And since Michael was there to help that morning, Ashleigh tended to the cats at the same time.
Which meant that if all went well, they’d be done in time to get to Peanut’s yard sale at the dance studio where she worked. They were raising money for the senior girls’ dance company to go to a competition.
“Don’t forget Maya’s medicine, Daddy,” Mari said as she looked at the card on the poodle’s cage and measured her food according to the color code Michael had designed to help her know what size cup to use. She’d named Maya after a dancer mentor of Peanut’s. The poodle was on antibiotics.
“Thanks for the reminder, squirt,” he said, taking the pill bottle out of his pocket as she bent to the feed bowl. He’d remembered. He always remembered. But didn’t mind a bit that his daughter had a penchant for bossing him around.
Truth was, he was proud of her ability to take control. Her desire to give rather than take. And he loved that he was still on the list of those she cared about the most.
It would change. He knew that. At least in part. He savored every single second that he had with her.
“Can we go to the beach after we stop by to see Peanut?” Mari slid her hand into his as they headed out to whistle for the reds to come in to eat so they could let the blues out.
“We’ll...” His “see” didn’t make it out. Michael’s phone vibrated and the hopeful expression faded from his daughter’s eyes as she dropped his hand and watched him while he talked.
She knew the ropes, that wise little girl of his. He was her daddy. A kennel owner. Until the phone rang and he became Michael Edison, bounty hunter.
And then, for however long it took, she had to let him go.
* * *
IT WASN’T OFTEN that Sara Havens had a moment to spend in the sun. Fact was, in the more than two years of living in the quiet, upscale condominium complex on California’s coast, that August Saturday afternoon was the first time she’d actually been to the pool during daylight hours.
Most of her days were spent counseling women and children who were victims of domestic violence. And when she had a day off, she always managed to fill it with taking care of personal business. Shopping, mostly. For food. Shampoo. Things a woman liked to buy for herself. And cleaning.
She swam late at night—when the balmy Santa Raquel air permitted her to do so without freezing. And, occasionally, she would sit in the hot tub with a glass of wine—also late at night.
The niggling pain pulling at the right side of the back of her neck that morning had driven her out to the pool. Working late, as she had the night before, wasn’t new to her. Or unwelcome. The detour from normal had come in her inability to find peace once she’d come home.
Sara wasn’t a workaholic; she’d simply answered her calling and loved what she did. And she’d found a place where she was needed.
Who didn’t want to be needed?
She had a calming effect on people. An ability to assess their internal struggles and help sort them out.
Last night’s domestic-abuse victim, Nicole Kramer, had been...different. Her genuine desperation had drawn Sara in more than most. The woman was alive only so that she could see her son to safety. Her own life didn’t seem to hold all that much value to her.
Sara valued that life. She’d brought Nicole’s situation home with her. And let it keep her up most of the night.
“You have to understand,” Nicole had said. “In Trevor’s reality, he is a god. He has hundreds of strong, armed and angry young men who will do whatever he tells them to do...”
Sara knew about victims being manipulated to the point of feeling as though their abusers were the rulers of their worlds. But she’d never come up against a victim whose abuser truly was that powerful.
Nor had she ever counseled a victim who not only had low self-esteem due to abuse, but who also valued herself less because of her cultural environment. To white supremacists, women were second-class citizens...
“He has a cop on the LA police force, a dirty cop, who supports the cause. I’m not sure, but I think there are others, too. Trevor gives them information and they protect him. Anytime I do anything that Trevor doesn’t like, there’s another trumped-up charge against me. The charges are always dropped, but only after I’m so beaten and hopeless I comply with Trevor’s demands...”
Nicole had come armed with a flash drive filled with photos that, she said, would verify everything she was telling them.
While Sara had been sitting with Nicole, Lila McDaniels, managing director of the Lemonade Stand, the shelter where they worked, had called the High Risk Team—a newly formed team of professionals who tried to bridge the gap of noncommunication between official reporting agencies in an effort to prevent domestic-violence deaths. Sara was the Stand’s representative on the team. There were police officers, medical personnel, lawyers, child-protection workers and school guidance counselors.
Sara turned her head on the lounge chair. She had to clear her mind. To relax. Or she wasn’t going to be any good to anyone.
She gave herself up to the sun’s relaxing warmth. Mmm. The rays touched the bare skin of her back, sliding over her bikini-clad butt to her thighs. She focused on the heat, willing it to relax muscles that were determined to remain at strict attention. Ready for action.
She listened to the sound of the ocean, of waves gently washing to shore. The privacy wall between her and the vastness beyond the affluent complex in which she lived muted the sounds from the beach below.
Her upper back and shoulders weren’t nearly hot enough yet. She’d opted for the easy-to-undo pink-and-green bikini top for one reason only. The straps, both at the neck and around her back, were easy to undo. She didn’t need any more pressure on muscles already stressed beyond anything she’d ever felt.
Focus. She repeated the word. Willing her pores to open and soak in the vitamin D being offered, as best they could with the high-level SPF she’d smeared all over herself.
Accept the heat. Accept the help...
Metal scraped against cement. Sara’s eyes flew open. The small private pool boasted eight luxury pool loungers—one of which she was lying on. The other heretofore-unoccupied seven were spread out on either side of her. The one to her far right was no longer empty.
Sara closed her eyes as quickly as she’d opened them.
Damn. She’d hoped to have the pool to herself. Though she’d known it to be unlikely on a warm Saturday afternoon. Still, it was August. Beach weather. There’d been the possibility that everyone else would opt for the private beach just a few yards and a long stone staircase away.
Sara feigned sleep.
It was no good.
The nebulous peace she’d been seeking had been invaded. She’d started to relax, to give herself up to the healing energy of the sun’s heat, but every time the stranger moved, she was catapulted back to the netted fabric of her chair. When her nerves started to crawl around inside her and lying motionless was more painful than not, Sara gave up, reached behind her to fasten the straps at her back and neck, turned over and sat up.
The thirtysomething, dark-haired, bare-chested source of her irritability glanced her way. But left her alone.
He was a stranger to her, as were a good many of the owners with whom she shared common ground. She appreciated his respectful distance.
But...what was he doing? Usually when someone sunbathed they didn’t just sit straight up like that. And if that someone was a guy and he wasn’t reading, or drinking and socializing, if he didn’t have kids to watch, or women to ogle, he laid back and closed his eyes.
She knew these things. Human nature was her business.
“Have you lived here long?” The sexy tenor of his voice broke the silence.
“Two years in this complex. Three in Santa Raquel. You?” Might as well talk. It was better than sitting there thinking about Nicole. Wondering what effect she could have on a woman running from her white-supremacist husband.
Her question garnered no more than a shake of the handsome stranger’s head.
“Are you a guest?” Sara didn’t typically socialize with men at pools. In her current life—working in a secured shelter filled with damaged women—she rarely dealt with men at all.
This whole day was turning into an aberration. She couldn’t find her calm. Was lying at the pool. And encouraging a man to get to know her better.
No. He was shaking his head again.
“You’re an owner, then,” she ventured, coming to the only other conclusion available. There were only two ways to gain entrance to the pool. As an owner. Or as the guest of an owner.
Part of the exclusivity of Sara’s community was that it didn’t allow units to be rented out. Her brother, a financial guru in LA, had made certain of that stipulation before he’d reluctantly agreed to quit badgering Sara over her choice to live in a condominium complex rather than in a far too big luxury mansion like everyone else in the family did. She’d owned her place for over a year at that point—and had known without his help that property values would remain steadier if rentals weren’t allowed.
The man had fallen silent. He was clearly a man of few words.
Nice. Sometimes the best company—at least for someone like her, who spent her days, and a lot of her nights, listening to other people talk about their problems—was the silent type.
Sometimes, but not that afternoon. Sara was restless.
She needed to rest.
He wasn’t wearing a ring.
She didn’t care. Hadn’t needed to know. It was just what she did—notice all of the little things about people. They were the “tells.”
His were telling her something she wasn’t prepared to hear.
It didn’t matter that he might be available. She wasn’t looking.
Men tended to feel a bit intimidated by her job—as if they feared she’d see some sign of aggression in them, or assumed she went around assessing all men and spotting abusive tendencies. Her last date had had a problem taking a backseat to her work. But when a battered woman showed up at the shelter, you bet she was going to leave a dinner date to tend to her.
Glancing the stranger’s way, Sara tried to get a read on him. What kind of man was he? Other than quiet. Respectful of her privacy. Her space—he’d chosen the lounger farthest away from her.
He lacked nothing in the attractiveness department.
The thought made her uncomfortable, though why it should, she didn’t know. She was busy. Not dead.
How long had it been since her last date?
It had been the interrupted dinner date. They’d been on the terrace of La Mange, a coastal restaurant between Santa Raquel and Santa Monica, and it had been warm outside. Definitely summer...
So that made it, what? A year ago? At least.
Wow.
The delicious-looking stranger was still sitting there, his arms at his sides, wide-awake, glancing her way now and then. Accessible was how she translated his body language. “Are you new to the area?”
“No. I grew up in Santa Raquel.”
A native. She envied him.
“You’ve lived here all your life?”
“I left to go to college and lived in Santa Monica for several years after that.”
“And now you’re back.”
“Yep.”
No ring. Recently moved home. A breakup, she surmised.
Living in an adult-only complex. No children.
Hot and still looking at her.
Nice.
* * *
HE HAD HER INTEREST. Michael Edison allowed himself a satisfied inner smile as he relaxed back to reel in his prey. The involuntary thought bothered him.
He wasn’t reeling her in. He wasn’t like that. Studying the crystal-clean kidney-shaped pool before him, with the waterfall cascading over boulders at one end, he had a sudden vision of Mari there. She’d be climbing the boulders in no time, just to show him she could.
And then jumping off them—in spite of his admonition to get down—to make the biggest splash a sixty-pound body could make in that glistening pool.
She was who she was because he was teaching his daughter to face her fears lest she become prey to them. His mother never ceased to point out this fact to him. Each and every time Mari did something the slightest bit dangerous. Taking another year off his life while she was at it.
Several more minutes of silence passed, and Michael knew it was time for him to make his move. Lest she think that he wasn’t interested.
He did what he did—lying and conniving when necessary to get access to bail jumpers—for Mari. He was keeping the world a safer place in the hope that she’d never again come face to face with a bogeyman in the dark of the night who was as real and dangerous as any monster one could conjure up.
“There’s no ring on your finger,” he said. Because he’d seen her gaze linger rather pointedly on his hands. He already knew that she wasn’t married. That she lived alone in the upscale complex. He knew she’d owned the place for two years.
“Not anymore.” That quiet tone again. Every time she opened her mouth it struck him anew. Made him think of a meadow where breezes blew soft and cool.
“Were you married or just engaged?” He already knew that, too, but asked anyway. Because if this meet had been genuine, he’d have asked.
“Married.” The answer didn’t surprise him. The few questions he’d asked in the right places on the street the day before when he’d seen her with his mark had given him what he needed to find the rest on the internet.
“Me, too.” Number one rule in getting information out of someone. You had to give some to get some.
“But not anymore?” He liked the way she was looking at him. Kind of hopeful, as though she wanted him to be single.
Not part of the plan. Her hope. Or him feeling glad that she was hoping.
He sat there in the swim trunks he’d dug out of the laundry after his phone call that morning and quickly washed in the big sink at the kennel, contemplating his next move. The guy he’d hired to watch Sara Havens had interrupted feeding time with his call saying that she’d headed down to the pool in her complex, five miles from where he and Mari lived. Michael had one goal: to find out what he needed to know as quickly as possible. The flirtation was carefully calculated. It wasn’t real.
“Nope, I’m not married anymore,” he said lightly. But for once in his life he was tempted to say more.
He wasn’t the type to bare his soul. Most particularly when it came to talking about Shelley.
“Was the breakup recent?”
“Three years.” The same time she’d been in Santa Raquel. Chosen deliberately for that reason. To give them more in common. In reality, Shelley had been dead for four. Which was why her daughter didn’t remember her.
“Your choice or hers?”
He hated sympathy. Detested it. But wanted to be honest with this woman with her unfussy dark blond hair, no makeup and a body that tempted him like he couldn’t remember ever being tempted.
He watched her. Was she a witch? Doing some kind of voodoo on him?
The thought was preposterous.
