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“Sure I still care. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because, as you just said, you’re divorced.”
“That doesn’t automatically make her the villain of the piece. The marriage is what didn’t work, and it wouldn’t say much for my judgment if I chose an outright bitch to be my wife.”
“Are you still in touch with each other?”
“Occasionally. We call each other on birthdays and Christmas—things like that. She checks up on me to make sure I’m not hibernating too long at a stretch. I give her the benefit of my unasked-for advice on the men in her life, take her to lunch when I find myself on her stamping ground.”
“That’s beyond my understanding,” Linda said, marveling at his sanguine outlook. “In my experience, divorce is synonymous with…all the bad things in life.”
Mac surveyed her curiously. “Exactly what is your experience in this field?”
“My parents divorced when I was in my teens. We haven’t heard from my father in years. Are you and your ex-wife still lovers?”
She couldn’t believe she’d actually come out and asked such a question, and would have given anything to withdraw it. He wasn’t impressed by it, either. “What’s it to you, cookie? I thought you came here to enlist my help, not quiz me about my sexual history. Are you done with that plate?”
“Yes, thank you,” she mumbled, still awash in embarrassment. “Dinner was delicious.”
“Nice of you to say so. Did I mention, when we went over the house rules, that the one who doesn’t cook gets to clean up once the meal’s over?”
“You seem to live by a great many rules.”
“I make them up as I go along, especially when I’m saddled with uninvited houseguests.”
“Well, it’s easy enough to be rid of me,” she said, rallying. “All you have to do is agree to help me find my niece, and I’ll leave.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I won’t budge.”
“Then it seems I’m stuck with you either way, since you don’t have any other place to stay tonight.”
Either way? A flicker of hope took hold of her. “Does that mean you’re prepared to take on the case?”
Face unreadable, he swirled the wine in his glass and took his time replying. “It means I’m prepared to consider it. Not, I hasten to add, because I find your powers of persuasion irresistible or because your sister was fool enough to get herself pregnant by a man she didn’t know well enough to trust, but because a young and helpless child is the ultimate victim.”
“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, relief leaving her voice shaking with emotion. “Thank you so much, Mac! You don’t know how grateful I am, or what this will mean to my family. Now, probably the best place to start—”
He cut her off with a decisive gesture, slicing his hand through the air like an ax blade and thumping it down on the table so hard that the plates rattled and the wine danced in the glasses. “Let’s get something straight right off,” he said. “If I take this on, I will be the one to decide on the best place to start. I will be the one who calls the shots. Not you, and not your family. With all due respect to your understandable concern, you are not the ones with the experience or contacts needed to bring that baby back home. But only, as I said, if I decide to pursue the case, something which is by no means certain.”
“What do I have to do to clinch things in my favor?”
He smiled. A dazzling, beautiful smile, which should have reassured her but which inspired instead the tingling sense that accepting favors from him would come with a very high price—one she might never be able to afford. “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out, cookie,” he said, rising from his seat and strolling languidly to the couch at the other end of the room. “Meanwhile, tackle the dishes.”
CHAPTER THREE
LULLED by the crackle of the flames in the hearth, and the muted clatter coming from the kitchen, Mac stretched out his legs and, leaning his head on the back of the couch, contemplated the high cathedral ceiling, and the ramifications of his decision.
He was going to take the case. Not because he liked her—which he did. Not because she was a firebrand and he found himself responding to her energy. And not because of the spark of sexual awareness, which he’d denied to her but which, reluctantly, he admitted to himself. They were the worst reasons in the world to get involved, especially with a situation which promised to be messy at best.
That he might be powerless to repair things also did not escape him. God knew, he didn’t need another infant tragedy on his résumé. One was more than enough.
But maybe…maybe…by returning this missing baby, safe and alive, to her mother’s arms, he might lay the ghost of that other one. Might at last shed the guilt which still haunted his dreams, three years later.
And if he failed a second time?
He closed his eyes, as if by doing so, he could blot out any such possibility. And right away, the same old images, the same old sounds, filled his mind. The cold dread of premonition he’d known before he even opened the trunk of the abandoned car crawled over him again. He saw the pale blue blanket, the tiny foot. Tasted the bitter pill of rage mixed with helplessness. Heard the mother’s wrenching sobs echoing from an empty nursery, the shuddering heartbreak in the father’s voice.
“Are you sleeping?”
She startled him, stepping softly to where he sprawled on the couch, but he took care not to let it show. Already, the old instinct to reveal nothing of himself, while at the same time gleaning everything from those around him, had clicked into action.
“With all the racket you’re making?” he said, easing himself upright with deceptive indolence. “Hardly! I was trying to decide if I should let you sleep in your car, as you so rashly threatened to do, or if I should play the gentleman and offer you my bed—without me in it, of course.”
She stood beside the coffee table, a dish towel tied around her waist. “You’ll play the gentleman,” she said, her smile disturbingly sweet. “Of course.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’ve got you figured out.”
“Don’t try to second-guess me, cookie. I’m not that easy to read. And don’t tell me you’ve finished cleaning up the kitchen already.”
“Down to the very last spoon,” she said. “Would you like to inspect?”
“I’ll take your word for it. Do you know how to make a decent pot of coffee?”
“I can try,” she said, docile as a lamb. “Provided you give me instructions.”
“Eight measures of extra-fine grind to six cups of water. Coffee’s in the freezer, coffeemaker on the counter next to the sink. And use filtered water.”
“Cream with it?”
“Black.”
“Very good, sir.” She bobbed a curtsy, holding out the dish towel like a crinoline. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” he said. “Disappear and get on with it before I change my mind and show you the door. You’re beginning to irritate the hell out of me.”
With another bobbing curtsy, she scuttled off. A log rolled dangerously close to the front of the hearth, shooting sparks in all directions. Lunging to his feet, he toed it back in place and added another chunk of fir to keep it anchored. Then, since he was up anyway, he went to the liquor cabinet and selected a bottle of Courvoisier, lured to indulge himself by the rich aroma of espresso filtering from the kitchen.
“At least you’re good for something,” he acknowledged, tasting the contents of the demitasse she passed to him a few minutes later. “Will you join me in a brandy?”
“Thank you, yes. But just a small one. It’s been a very long day and I don’t want to pass out on you again.”
He poured an inch into a snifter and gave it to her. “I’ve been going over a few things in my mind,” he said, running his fingertips over his jaw.
She sat motionless at the other end of the couch, the snifter held between her hands, her eyes huge in her face. Unusual color, those eyes. Strangely clear, like blue topaz, and made all the more arresting by her long, dark lashes.
“Are you a natural blond?” he inquired.
Her mouth fell open. “That’s what you’ve been sitting here thinking about?”
“No. It just occurred to me to wonder.”
“I’m a natural blond. Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
“Not a bit.” He took a mouthful of the brandy and rolled it around his palate. Good stuff, Courvoisier. Fine way to end a meal. “You can still sleep in my bed tonight. Alone, since you’re not my type.”
“Praise the Lord!”
“And I’ll help you find your missing niece.”
At that, the sassy starch went out of her. She sagged against the sofa cushions, her relief manifest. “If you do that,” she said, “there’s nothing I won’t do for you in return.”
“Be careful what you promise.”
“I mean it,” she insisted, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Anything I can do for you, just ask.”
“For now, a refill on the coffee will suffice. Consider it a down payment.”
Her hand shook slightly as she poured, but she kept her tears in check. “We should discuss financial arrangements,” she said, obviously focusing on the practical to avoid giving in to the emotional.
“Money isn’t an issue. I’m taking on this crusade for personal reasons.”
“Nevertheless, if there are expenses, I’m the one who should pay them.”
“Whatever.” He shrugged. “We’ll start in the morning, when you’re more rested. But be warned: you’ll have to be patient. I’m no miracle worker. This might take some time.”
Her face fell. “Oh, I hope not, Mac! It’s been seven weeks already. Kirk Thayer could be anywhere by now.”
“And hopefully feeling secure enough that he’s stopped running.” Against his better judgment, he reached for her hand. It felt small and warm and soft in his. Like a curled up flower. “If we’re going to work together on this, you’re going to have to trust me, cookie.”
The tears glimmered again. “I know,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“And I’m not offering any guarantees. Remember that.”
“I will.” She sniffed delicately. “If you’re really going to let me stay here tonight, I should bring in my bag from the car.”
“I’ll change the bed linen while you do that.”
“No, please don’t. I can sleep perfectly well on the couch.”
“I’ll change the bed linen,” he repeated, emphasizing each word distinctly.
She backed off at once. “Yes. All right. Whatever you say. And thank you.”
“Quit thanking me. Once is enough.” He removed her untouched drink and set it on the coffee table. “Go get your stuff.”
She made it as far as the front door, then stopped and looked back at him, uncertainty in every line of her slender body. “Mac? You won’t change your mind and lock me out?”
“I don’t go back on my word,” he told her curtly, refusing to let her vulnerability touch him. “I’ll open the garage for you. Bring your car down and park it with mine, then come in through the side door next to the laundry room.”
The wind had dropped. Above the tall evergreens edging the side of his driveway, a million stars spattered the sky. The roar of the surf had died to a low murmur, which rolled through the otherwise quiet night like a lullaby.
Before climbing into her car, she stopped and inhaled deeply, letting the cold, clean air fill her lungs and sweep her soul with relief. He was going to help her, and even though he’d said he might not succeed, she knew that he would. He was that kind of man.
A personal crusade, he’d called it, which described perfectly what he’d promised to undertake because, in her view, he was a modern-day knight. Brave, fearless, honorable—and driven. He would allow nothing to come between him and his objective. She knew that, too. With absolute certainty.
As promised, he’d raised the doors to the big triple garage. The space between his massive four-wheel-drive truck and sleek Jaguar convertible was just wide enough for her to slide her little two-seater hatchback between them.
“I checked the kitchen and you do good work,” he told her, when she let herself into the house again. “Keeping you around might turn out to be a smarter move than I first thought.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d want anyone staying here, if it means you have to move out of your bedroom,” she said, noting the quilt and extra pillows he’d piled on the fireside chair. “It bothers me that I’m inconveniencing you like this.”
“I’ve survived a lot worse than sleeping on an eight-foot-long couch,” he said. “This is nothing compared to spending the night on a stakeout in an unmarked patrol car. And what makes you think I necessarily sleep alone every time I have a houseguest? How do you know tonight’s not the exception to the rule?”
She didn’t, any more than she needed to be reminded he was no monk. One glance into those eyes, at that mouth, was enough to feel the simmering sensuality of the man. “I’m sure you have your share of female admirers,” she said, sounding as stiff-necked as a dried-up old schoolmarm.
“Don’t pout,” he ordered. “And don’t try to tell me you haven’t shared your bed with some guy or other before now. No normal woman gets to be twenty-eight these days, and still be as sexually innocent as the day she was born.”
“Well, I guess that puts me in my place, then,” she said. “Color me not normal and glad of it!”
He stopped in the process of spreading the quilt over the cushions and flung her an astonished stare. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Wrong! As wrong as your outdated notion that today’s woman can’t wait to leap into bed with the first man who crosses her path. Quite a lot of us prefer to wait until the right man shows up.”
“Hold out for marriage, you mean?”
“Yes,” she said, deciding he didn’t need to know that the only reason she remained a virgin was by default. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Theoretically not,” he replied, beaming cheerfully. “But in practice, I have to say I prefer—”
She had no wish to hear. Bad enough that his grin left her weak at the knees, without having him make further inroads on her moral fortitude. She hadn’t defended her virginity against Alberto Tartaglia’s failed seduction to surrender it now to someone who found it laughably outdated. “Never mind! It’s none of my business.”
“Not interested, huh?”
“Not in the least. The only thing I care about right now is a hot bath and getting some sleep, so if you’ll show me where—”
“Down there.” He pointed to a curving stairwell. “You can’t miss it.”
Indeed not! Rather than the conventional arrangement found in other homes, his bedroom was a mirror image of the main story; a wide, spacious open area, with one entire wall of windows facing the sea, and a king-size bed positioned in the middle of the floor so that its occupant could look out at the view.
The only difference was that, whereas the kitchen was separated from the more formal living and dining areas by an open archway on the main floor, the en suite bathroom attached to his bedroom did at least offer the privacy of a door.
Laying her open suitcase on a bench at the foot of the bed, she took out her toiletries, a nightgown, and a light cotton robe. He’d left clean towels folded on the deck of the big soaker tub, a bar of soap, and half a jar of expensive bath crystals. Not his, she was sure—he didn’t strike her as the type to wallow in gardenia-scented water—which probably meant they belonged to one of his lady loves.
“Thanks, but no thanks!” she muttered, and decided to take a shower instead. It seemed altogether less intimate. And keeping her association with him strictly impersonal, she decided, as the hot water streamed over her travel-weary body, was the only sensible route to take. It made everything so much less complicated.
