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The good manners and etiquette instilled in her from the cradle dictated that she stride to the table and pour iced tea into the waiting crystal glasses. His fingers brushed hers as he accepted the glass. Their gazes met, held. For a moment, neither of them moved.
That tingling was back in the pit of her stomach, stronger than ever. She didn’t know why she glanced at his knuckles. His hands were large, his fingers long, his knuckles bony, especially the first two. She reached out with her other hand, covering the hard ridge of the largest one with her finger. “So these broken bones healed.”
He drew his hand away from hers very slowly and took a sip from the glass. Ice jangled, his Adam’s apple bobbled slightly as he swallowed. A bead of perspiration trailed down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. He seemed nervous.
Or was it something else?
Running a hand through his hair, he peered into the courtyard and said, “I was sure your parents were going to send me to another foster home before I even unpacked my bags.”
Amber decided she must have been imagining his unease. “You said Peter Bradenton threw the first punch.”
“I lied.”
“I know.”
He spun around. “You knew?”
She’d never heard more surprise or disbelief in two little words. He wasn’t smiling now, and yet something was still happening to her, something delicious and exciting and fun.
He said, “How long have you known?”
“I saw the fight from my bedroom window.”
Tripp was looking at her, his expression one of total dismay.
“Then why didn’t you tell your father the truth?”
She sashayed closer. “If I’d done that, you wouldn’t have spent all these years trying to make it up to him. Guilt is a great motivator. Besides, he knew.”
“You just said you didn’t tell him.”
She pulled a face. “I didn’t have to. He always knew when any of us lied. Besides, Peter Bradenton had it coming. He was always trying to put people in their places. In your place wasn’t where you wanted to be.”
“You were what, nine years old, and you knew that?”
She batted her eyelashes. “Girls mature faster than boys.” She watched in fascination as his lips parted and his eyes went from very wide to narrow slits. He wasn’t immune to her charms. He looked as surprised about that as she was.
She remembered the fight between Tripp and Peter Bradenton, and the chaos it caused. The Colton rule was: No fighting. Period. They could argue all they wanted, and had, but her parents simply did not allow fighting. Tripp was the only foster child to come through the ranks who broke the rule. And he did it the first week he was here. Her mother had heard the commotion and had come running. Without saying a word, she’d separated them. Still silent, she’d gotten Peter a towel for his bleeding nose, and Tripp an icepack for his hand. She sent Peter home, and Tripp to the stables to tell Joe. Amber had followed from a distance. When her dad had confronted Tripp about lying, she’d slunk out of the shadows and backed up Tripp’s story, saying that Peter took the first swing. She’d shaken beneath her father’s probing stare. In the end, he’d told Tripp to have Meredith take him to the doctor for X rays, and then sent them both back up to the house.
Tripp hadn’t said a word until they were well away from the stables. She’d expected a thank-you. Instead, he’d shoved his hair behind his ears, his lips curling with contempt as he said, “I don’t need anybody doing me any favors, least of all a scrawny, spoiled little rich girl like you.”
She’d stuck her nose in the air and informed him that his name should have been Chip, not Tripp. He’d stared at her, and she’d held his gaze despite the fact that she was half his size. Back then she hadn’t known they were rich and she wasn’t spoiled, no matter what he said. Even then she’d known what really mattered, and it wasn’t something a person could buy. What truly mattered was trust, love and loyalty. Everything else faded away without them.
Amber looked around the courtyard today. The garden, with all its demanding tea roses and ornamental shrubs and bushes had faded, too, as if it too was lacking what it truly needed.
“What have you been doing out here?”
His question brought her back to their earlier conversation. Swirling the iced tea she had yet to taste, she said, “I went for a swim. Then I watched the clouds.”
“You watch clouds? Like a meteorologist?”
She shook her head. “Nothing that interesting. It was a game we used to play when we were kids.”
Tripp looked around the garden, with its pool and fountain and women with nothing better to do than stretch out and catch a nap. Places like this were made for lounging. He didn’t have enough hours in a day to accomplish everything he needed to do, let alone the time to watch clouds and play games. Or wait, for that matter. His receptionist liked to say that Tripp became a doctor because it enabled him to be the one keeping others waiting, instead of the other way around.
He glanced at the house where he was supposed to meet with Joe. Maybe Tripp wasn’t the most patient man on the planet, but the real reason he’d become a pediatrician was tied up with this house, and the people who’d taken him in all those years ago.
“Want to try?” Amber asked.
He looked at her blankly. “Try what?”
“See that cloud over there?”
He peered at the horizon. He saw a lot of clouds. “Which one?”
“The one shaped like Smoky the Bear.”
He squinted at the distant sky. The description didn’t help.
“Look.”
He was looking, dammit.
“There. To the right of the line formed by a jet’s exhaust.”
Tilting his head at an angle to match hers, he said, “That tall cloud over there?”
“Yes.” She sounded breathless. “Do you see it? The one that looks like Smoky the Bear?”
He looked down at her, and forgot what he’d been doing. Her eyes were green, her lashes long. Her hair was mussed, a riot of golden tangles around her face and neck. Her mouth was pretty, her lips full and slightly pouty. Heat stirred inside him. He was tempted to kiss her, here and now. As a gust of wind fluttered her soft white beach cover-up, pressing it against her body, the heat moved lower.
“A bear?” He cleared his throat. What the hell had happened to his voice? Forcing his eyes back to the clouds, he said, “I don’t see any bear. Joe DiMaggio, maybe.”
He was vaguely aware that she’d eased closer. He misjudged just how close; the next time he moved, his arm brushed something incredibly soft. He glanced down again and stepped back as if he’d touched fire.
His beeper sounded and he jumped again. This time he swore under his breath, and reached for the pager. Reading the display, he said, “I need to call the hospital in Ukiah.”
She motioned to the cordless lying on a low table, then watched as he picked it up. After punching several numbers, he spoke in low tones. Replacing the phone to the table, he said, “I have to meet a patient at the hospital in Ukiah.”
He was halfway to the house when she called, “What do you want me to tell my father?”
He turned around. Amber wished she were close enough to get a good look at the expression in his dark brown eyes.
“Tell him I’ll call him later.”
“I’ll tell him. It was good to see you again, Tripp.”
“You, too.”
She smiled. As if it required a conscious effort, he broke eye contact and slowly resumed his retreat. Rather than leave via the house, he changed directions, veering toward the side yard. Less than a minute later, she heard his car start on the other side of the house.
What in the world had just happened?
She stared at her iced tea. Closing her eyes, she placed the cold glass against her forehead.
She’d reacted to the sight and sound and touch of Tripp Calhoun. And he’d reacted to her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so breathless without doing a thing. Her entire body felt sensitized. If she were to jump in the pool right now, she would sizzle all over.
A door opened, and Inez bustled outside. “Your father is off the phone.” The other woman looked all around. “Where’s Tripp?”
Amber’s vision remained fixed on the path Tripp had taken. “Something came up. An emergency at the hospital. He had to leave.”
Inez made no reply.
Amber could feel Inez’s penetrating gaze. “What is it?” Amber asked.
Turning her hand over, Inez said, “He left his watch inside. Did he say when he will return?”
“No. I’m afraid he didn’t.” Amber reached for the watch. “I’ll be sure he gets it, Inez.”
“That is a good idea, I think.” Inez turned away before Amber could decide what to make of the dark-haired woman’s beaming smile.
Amber strode to the shaded side of the pool. Bending down, she gently shook her friend. “Claire, wake up.”
A pair of baby-blue eyes fluttered open. “I don’t want to wake up. I was dreaming about this amazing, ruggedly attractive, dark-haired man.”
Amber smiled. “It wasn’t a dream, Claire. Believe me. Come on. I have to go to Ukiah.”
Claire sat up languidly. “Ukiah, really?” she said, pushing her straight, coffee-colored hair away from her face. “Could you drop me off at the gallery first? You can fill me in on the way.”
Half an hour later Amber pulled her car into the alley behind Claire’s art gallery in Prosperino. Claire opened her door and climbed out, then leaned down to say goodbye through the open window. Behind her, Amber noticed a door opening on the second story of a building in the distance. Something about the woman descending the stairs seemed familiar. Very familiar.
“Amber, is something wrong?” Claire asked.
Amber didn’t take her eyes off the woman, whose hair was hidden beneath a scarf, her eyes behind dark glasses, until she’d disappeared around the corner. “I thought I just saw my mother.”
Claire turned to look behind her, but the woman was gone. “Your mother, here?” Claire asked incredulously.
“I know.” Amber couldn’t imagine her mother lowering herself enough to visit the art district of Prosperino. It must have been somebody else. For the sake of curiosity, she pointed to the building in the distance. “Is that a business or an apartment?”
Claire shuddered. “I guess you could call it a business. A shady private investigator rents the upstairs office. I can imagine your mother there as easily as I can imagine her strolling the streets in the red-light district.”
“Prosperino doesn’t have a red-light district.”
“I’m thinking about starting one.”
“Claire.”
Claire winked. “Now, don’t you have someplace to go and some ruggedly attractive man to see?”
Amber shook her head, nodded, and finally smiled. While Claire strolled into the second of the two art studios she’d opened a few months ago, Amber put her car in gear.
The engine purred like a contented tiger. Her mother had given her the shiny little sports car for her last birthday. It was red. She didn’t even like red. Before the car accident, Meredith Colton had known that.
What would her mother have been doing visiting a shady private investigator in Prosperino, when she’d made such a point these past ten years of finding fault with everything about the town? It must have been someone else.
Amber glanced at the sky. The clouds had thinned, forming a haze, the one shaped like Smoky the Bear blurring with all the others. Joe Dimaggio, indeed. Tripp’s smile, stark and white, shimmered across her mind.
What was it with men and baseball players?
Her last boyfriend had been a Giants fan. He’d enjoyed using baseball metaphors to describe their relationship. He’d spent the biggest share of their dates trying to get past first base. The night he’d presented her with a three-carat diamond, he’d expected a grand-slam home run. The ring had been pretty, but it wasn’t home run material. And neither was he. She’d turned down his proposal. Last she’d heard he was pursuing some other rich girl down in San Francisco.
Amber thought about Tripp. Until his arm had brushed the outer swell of her breast, she’d thought she was the only one aware of the attraction between them. Gracious, he probably wasn’t even admitting that he’d felt any such thing.
Whether he admitted it or not, she knew he had.
She touched the watch in her pocket and smiled. This was better than a vacation.
She wasn’t bored anymore.
Two
A blast of hot air hit Amber the moment she opened her car door. Taking a deep breath, she placed a steadying hand on her queasy stomach and climbed slowly to her feet. It had been cool and foggy along the coast when she’d left Prosperino, which just went to show that the locals were right. There really were three seasons in this part of California, often all in the same day.
She rotated a kink from between her shoulder blades then stepped away from her car. The drive to Ukiah seemed like forever. Though it was only forty-five miles, it was like her father always said: “Prosperino is near a lot of places, but you can’t get there from here.” Joe Colton compensated by flying whenever possible. Not Amber. She’d reached the brink of motion sickness negotiating the twenty-five mile stretch of Highway 101 that wound around cliffs and up and down hills over the coastal mountains. Flying would have done her in. Thank goodness the road that ran north and south on this side of the mountains was straighter and mostly four-lane.
She took a shaky step, popped a breath mint into her mouth and peeled off her jacket. So this, she thought as she looked around, her heels clicking over the paved parking lot, was where Tripp worked. He was going to be so surprised to see her.
The streets of Ukiah were lined with beautiful old Victorian houses. The sprawling hospital was old, too, but it looked as if it had been remodeled in recent years. Double doors slid open as she approached the building. Folding her jacket over one arm, she peered around the lobby trying to decide where to go from here.
Across the waiting room, a short, heavyset nurse with broad shoulders and a hairstyle that resembled an army helmet stood behind a high counter.
“Hello,” Amber said, sauntering closer.
Clutching a pen between thick fingers, the gray-haired nurse looked at Amber over the tops of the reading glasses perched low on her broad nose. “May I help you?”
Amber put on her friendliest smile. “I’d like to see Dr. Calhoun.”
The only things that moved on the stern-faced nurse were the brown eyes giving Amber a thorough once-over. “He isn’t taking appointments this afternoon.”
Amber eased closer and smiled conspiratorially. “That’s okay. I don’t have an appointment.”
She knew the blunder for what it was the second it was out. Nurse Proctor—that was what her name badge said—turned her attention back to the chart. Amber was dismissed.
Obviously, Nurse Proctor didn’t know that Amber wasn’t easily dismissed. “I won’t take up much of his time,” she said, trying on an even bigger smile.
The nurse’s eyes remained fixed on the chart.
Amber tried another tack. “I know he’s here because he told me he was coming here in answer to an emergency call.”
