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Desperation or stupidity, he thought, bending to pet the stray cat, which was twining itself madly around his legs. Maybe both.
He heard the door to the kitchen slam and the sound of running feet—soft footfalls, like a skinny, slightly pregnant woman in athletic shoes might make. He abandoned his feline admirer and straightened just as she rounded the side of the oversize pickup.
She saw him, stopped dead and shrieked.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly, holding his hands out, palms up, and trying to look harmless. Unfortunately, he wasn’t any better at harmless than he was at sensitivity. “I just need to talk to you for a minute. I was hired to find you—”
“I know,” she said, her voice soft and breathless. “But please, please—tell him you couldn’t find me. He—he’s crazy. You don’t know what he’ll do. Or at least give me time to leave town. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
She knew? His brows drew together. According to Carter, she knew nothing about her family. “I can’t lie to a client.” Not much, anyway. “Anyway, he already knows where you are.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, and shivered.
He frowned. “Don’t you have a jacket? It’s too cold out here for a little thing like you.”
The back door slammed again. The footfalls Flynn heard this time were heavy, solid. He grimaced.
“Emma?” The voice was heavy, too. Deep and heavy and obviously male. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Back here, Henry!”
Harmless, Flynn reminded himself. Think harmless. He smiled harmlessly at her. “I’m not here to make trouble for you. I want to tell you about your mother. Your family.”
For the first time, anger flashed in her eyes. “I don’t have any family. I sure don’t have a mother.”
“No, she—”
“You get away from her!”
Emma’s protector had arrived. Not many men were bigger than Flynn, but this one was. He wore a huge, stained apron wrapped around the middle of his three-hundred plus pounds, and brandished a butcher knife the size of a small sword. His face had been badly scarred by acne thirty or more years ago, a condition that the grizzled stubble on his cheeks didn’t quite cover.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Flynn said, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m a private investigator. If you promise not to get excited, I’ll get my license out and prove it.”
The big man took a threatening step forward. The hard desert sunlight gleamed on the steel of his knife. “What d’you mean, excited? You calling me names?”
Flynn sighed. Some days, nothing went right.
“Henry.” His subject put her hand on the man’s arm. “It’s all right.”
“All right? You get so scared you quit, you don’t even give notice, you go tearing out of my place like the devil was on your heels, you say it’s all right? You!” He scowled at Flynn. “I dunno anything about licenses or private investigators. I know you scared Emma. You go away. Now.”
“Listen,” Flynn said to Emma, abandoning the effort to look harmless and settling for determined. He was better at that. “Give me five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to tell you, you can go back to work, or peel out of here in your car—assuming it’s running—or whatever. Five minutes.” He glanced at her mountainous protector. “Alone.”
“No way.” Henry waved his knife.
Emma patted the man on one huge arm. She looked distracted and painfully unsure with those curvy eyebrows of hers trying to frown and managing only to make her look like a perplexed kitten.
She was so damned cute. “Okay, okay,” Flynn said. “This isn’t strictly ethical, but I’ll make you a deal. If, after I talk to you, you’re still worried about my client knowing where you are, I’ll give you eight hours’ head start.” And then he’d find her again.
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Flynn. Flynn Sinclair.”
“That’s Flynn with two n’s?”
“Yeah,” he said, baffled by her interest in spelling.
She chewed on her lip a moment. “That makes your heart number a one—very independent. But your personality number is two, so you’re kind and, ah, reassuring.” She looked at him dubiously, obviously doubting the accuracy of her forecast.
Definitely a flake. A pretty one, but a flake. “That’s me. Kind of reassuring.”
She chewed on that unpainted lip. “I don’t think he would send someone to hurt me. That’s not his style. And you’ve seen this man now, Henry, so you could testify if….” She straightened her shoulders. “All right. Five minutes. But show me that ID of yours first.”
Not a complete flake, he thought as he dug into his pocket again. Checking his ID was a good idea if she thought he might be tempted to conk her on the head as soon as they were alone. And apparently she did. Damn it, his curiosity was getting tangled up with those blasted protective urges.
Flynn flipped his wallet open and held it out, displaying his driver’s license—with the photo that made him look like he belonged on the Ten Most Wanted list—and his investigator’s license. She gave both a careful study, then stepped back so Henry could see them, too.
“You sure this is what you want—to be out here with him?” The mountain glared at Flynn.
“He won’t go away until I listen to him.” She patted a massive arm again. “You’d better get back to the kitchen. Something’s probably burning.”
Henry lumbered off, muttering that he’d leave the door open, just in case, and she’d better not even think about running off in that uniform and with her station in a mess.
When he was gone, Flynn looked into a pair of wary blue eyes. Poor kitten. How best to start? “Thirty-two years ago, a desperate young woman left two babies in front of the sheriff’s office in Dry Creek, Nevada.”
Her brows almost managed a real frown this time. “Wait a minute. Two babies?”
“A boy and girl.”
“You’re not talking about me, then.”
Yes, he was. “The young woman’s name was Miranda Fortune.” He waited, but she didn’t react. Maybe she hadn’t heard of the Fortunes. They were well-known in Texas, but that was one of the few western states Emma hadn’t lived in. “She was only seventeen, dead broke and estranged from her family. Miranda is your mother, Emma. And she wants very badly to meet you.”
He wouldn’t have thought a face like hers could look stony. But it did. “So you say, but your client is a man, not a woman. You said he already knew where I was.”
“My client is Lloyd Carter, Miranda’s ex-husband.”
The rest of her face still wasn’t giving much away, but something uncertain moved behind the blue of her eyes. She blinked once, slowly. “My…father?”
“No.” He spoke as gently as he could. “Miranda didn’t meet Carter until several months after you were born. I don’t know who your father was.”
She swallowed. “This man—this Carter—are you sure he’s who he says he is?”
Flynn had been putting some things together. Emma had gotten pregnant while she was living in San Diego. She’d left town in a big hurry, changed her name and was running scared. Scared of the man who got her pregnant? Afraid of a custody battle—or of the man himself? “I check out all my clients. Carter’s on the slimy side of handsome, but he’s definitely who he claims to be.”
She was stiff all over—her shoulders, her back, her expression. “How old is he? What does he look like?”
“He looks like a two-bit actor—weathered face, lots of smile lines, good cap job on his teeth. Wiry, fairly fit for his age—which is fifty-three, despite what he claims. Dark hair, gray eyes.”
Tension sighed out of her, leaving the slim shoulders slumped. “That’s not Steven.”
“Who’s Steven?”
She made a vague gesture. “Never mind. You say he hired you to find me? Was he acting for his ex-wife?”
“More or less.” Mostly less, but the situation was complicated. Flynn didn’t think this was the time to go into details.
She was looking dazed now. “So she’s alive. I’ve wondered…but it doesn’t really change anything.”
“Of course it does. Maybe your mother didn’t do right by you when you were a baby, but she wasn’t much more than a child herself then. She’s got a bucketful of regrets now, and the money to do something about them. I’m to make whatever arrangements are necessary to get you to come to her for a visit—or to stay, if you like. She’s living in Texas now, close to her family.” He paused. “Your family, too. The Fortunes.”
“Well…” She didn’t think about it long before shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t…this is awfully sudden.” Her smile crept out shyly. “She could write to me if she wants, though. You can tell her my address.”
Appealing to sentiment hadn’t worked. Flynn was conscious of feeling disappointed in her, which was absurd. He switched tactics smoothly. He’d hit her where it counted with most people: the wallet. “One thing I haven’t mentioned. The Fortunes are rich. Not your garden variety rich, either. Buying-small-countries rich.”
“Oh. Yes, I think I’ve heard of them,” she said vaguely, as if it weren’t important. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to gossip columns and such.”
“Miranda wants to settle some money on you.”
That got a reaction, but not the one he expected. Instead of greed lighting a spark in her eyes, impatience made her snappish. “I don’t need her money. I do just fine on my own.”
He glanced at the car beside them. Three bald tires and peeling paint didn’t equal “doing just fine” to him. “Maybe so. But what’s fine for you might not be fine for that baby you’re expecting.”
Her chin tilted up. “I can take care of my baby. And myself. And now,” she said, haughty as a duchess, “if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to work.” She turned away.
Yeah, that’s one great ass, he thought as she walked away from him and several million dollars. Pretty face, too, in spite of those smudges beneath her eyes, and what a smile she’s got. Pity she’s a flake.
He had one last thing to try. “Maybe you forgot what I said about there being two babies,” he called out. “Are you at all interested in meeting your brother, Emma?”
She stopped and turned slowly to face him. “You’re just saying that to get me to…a brother? I don’t…do I really have a brother?”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it so badly he could taste her yearning in the air between them. This was the reaction he’d expected when he’d told her about her mother. He walked up to her and said quietly, “His name is Justin. He’s your twin. I found him, too. Last week I told him about you and your mother, and he’s making arrangements to fly there to meet her. He’s expecting to see you there, too.”
“He’s in Texas?”
“He will be, in another day or two.”
“I have a brother. A twin brother.” Wonder filled her eyes.
“A fraternal twin.” Amusement lightened his voice. “Obviously.”
She hugged her arms around herself tightly. “All right. I’ll go.”
One
April: San Antonio
There were thirteen different lip colors on the dressing table in front of Emma. Four were pencils, three were tubes, four more were in little pots and two of them looked like a kindergartner’s crayons. She even had accessories for them: a teensy brush and two sizes of sharpeners.
Emma generally owned one or two lipsticks that she forgot to use. What was she doing with thirteen lip colors that needed their own accessories?
“Emma?” The voice that drifted up the stairs was raised enough to be heard, but fell far short of being a yell. Miranda Fortune never did anything as crude as yelling. “Are you almost ready?”
That’s how she’d ended up with thirteen lip colors. Emma sighed. “Almost!”
Which was almost true. She had her dress on. She just had to do her hair and her makeup and find some shoes, and she’d be ready…ready for a party she didn’t want to attend.
Emma grimaced and reached for one of the crayon-type lipsticks. It was appropriate; she felt like a kindergartner playing with makeup as she drew an outline on her lips with a purply-red crayon and then colored it in.
She wasn’t exactly dreading the party. She didn’t expect to fit in, but she was used to that. And her brother would be there. Two brothers, actually—she had a half brother, too, and a half sister. But it was her twin she thought of. Justin.
She smiled at her reflection, noticed the dimple in her left cheek and smiled wider. Her brother had a smile just like hers, dimple and all. The first time she’d seen him smile she’d laughed in delight. Not that she got to see his smile often—or him, either. This was his second trip to Texas, though, his second trip to see her. And Miranda, of course. Justin Bond was a very successful businessman based in Pittsburgh; he was always busy, usually too serious and very private.
But when he did smile, the sun came out. Oh, how she was looking forward to seeing him again!
Flynn Sinclair might be there, too.
Anticipation took on another note, a deeper, less certain chord that resonated in places Emma didn’t want to notice.
She heard the light tread on the stairs and tensed. Stay with your breath, she told herself, and focused on the slow in and out of her breathing the way the monk at the temple in Taos had taught her.
Her muscles were relaxed again by the time Miranda spoke from the doorway. “Kane and Allison are here to take us to the ranch.”
Kane Fortune was Miranda’s son from her marriage to Lloyd Carter. He’d taken the Fortune name soon after Miranda moved back to Texas. Emma hadn’t felt the immediate connection with Kane she’d experienced with her twin. Mostly she felt wary. “I may have exaggerated about being ready,” she said cheerfully without turning around. “But it will only take two shakes to finish up. There’s not much that can be done with this mop of mine.”
There were two women in Emma’s mirror: one with dark, frantically curly hair, one with smooth blond hair swept into a perfect chignon. Miranda Fortune was sleek, blond and lovely, impossibly elegant tonight in diamonds and a long sweep of black silk.
“Oh, my.” Emma spun around on the small stool. “Don’t you look gorgeous!”
Miranda’s lips turned up in a surprised smile. “Thank you. You look wonderful, too. Don’t worry about Kane. He won’t mind waiting a few minutes.”
Emma had her doubts about that, but she kept them to herself.
“Oh, do stand up and let me see how the dress looks!”
Emma’s dress was yet another compromise in a long line of compromises she’d made in the eight weeks since she came here. She was holding firm about the important thing, though. She wouldn’t let Miranda settle any money on her. A small trust fund for the baby, sure. That was fine. But Emma didn’t want to be rich. She didn’t know how to be rich. Who would she be if she had tons of money she hadn’t earned herself? No one she knew.
The dress was pretty, though. Miranda had wanted to take her to one of the expensive shops she patronized; Emma had wanted to go to a factory outlet store she’d discovered. In the end, they’d found this one on the fifty-percent-off rack at an upscale department store. It was more colorful than elegant, which suited Emma.
The layers of tissue-thin gauze swished pleasantly around her ankles when she stood. She grinned and patted her tummy. “I look like a cross between a hippie and a hippo—one of those dancing hippos in Fantasia, maybe.” And nothing at all like the polished woman standing in front of her.
“You look beautiful.”
The words were simply spoken and obviously sincere. Emma flushed. “Well—thank you.” A sharp jab from inside made her grin. “Elmo is more excited about this party than I am.”
“Elmo?” Both elegant eyebrows rose. “I hope that’s a joke. Yesterday you called the baby Abigail.”
Emma shrugged. “Elmo, Abigail, Zeke, Penelope—I haven’t made up my mind.”
