More Than Meets the Eye
Carla Cassidy
You're the one.Shy, scholarly Dr. Phoebe Jones blushed when sexy private investigator Kevin Cartwright uttered those words. But when the handsome ex-cop explained she was one of four lost siblings he'd been hired to find, she nearly fainted headfirst into his strong, sculpted arms.Yet someone else was also after the beautiful doctor and her heirloom necklace–the key to her mysterious past. Suddenly she and Kevin were posing as lovers as they raced to the ocean to uncover the truth. But Phoebe's passionate response to "make-believe" kisses was anything but pretend…nor was her desire to hear the sworn bachelor say the most magical words of all….
Long ago and far away,
the story goes, there was a world filled with light and laughter and love. But quakes came, shaking the land and hiding it beneath the sea. Slowly the people adapted to their new world—and they thrived. They stayed hidden, but sometimes outsiders spotted them, leading to the legends of the sea.
Yet though the people were peaceful, trouble came about. Should they contact the outer lands? When the last battle began, the king of this land—of Pacifica—sent his four children far away in order to protect them. He didn’t send them alone—they had guardians and talismans for protection.
But the world was harsher than King Okeana expected, and his children were left bereft. The two youngest daughters didn’t remember their homeland, and the oldest daughter and son had memories of anger and loss and pain.
Now, however, it was time for the siblings to be reunited—to come home to reclaim what was lost…if they dared!
More Than Meets the Eye
Carla Cassidy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Carlee,
The newest light in my life. Thank you for being a grandchild whom I can love and spoil and adore—then send home. I love you!
CARLA CASSIDY
is an award-winning author who has written over thirty-five books for Silhouette. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times.
Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Chapter One
A wild-goose chase.
Kevin Cartwright feared that’s exactly what he was indulging in when he entered the automatic doors of the Kansas City Memorial Hospital.
After three years of false leads and dashed hopes, he really didn’t expect this new development to pan out. But the moment he’d seen her on television, he’d known he had to check her out.
“I’m here for an appointment with Dr. Phoebe Jones,” he said to the lobby receptionist.
“Her office is on the fourth floor,” the elderly woman explained. “Take the elevator up then ask at the nurses’ station and they’ll direct you to Dr. Jones’s office.”
A moment later Kevin stood in the elevator and stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. It was only noon, but he’d already been on a plane for five hours. Apparently the good doctor only took appointments during her lunch hour and so he’d had to take a redeye flight to get from Southern California to Kansas City before noon.
He tried to ignore the antiseptic smell that permeated the building, the “hospital” scent evoking in him memories of intense pain and crippling fear.
Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just don’t think about it. There was no way he wanted to fall back into memories of that time so long ago.
He found the nurses’ station on the fourth floor with no problem and was taken to Dr. Jones’s office by one of the nurses.
The office was small, furnished simply with a desk, two chairs, and a wall of bookcases behind the desk. The bookcases held nothing but medical tombs, the desk, a computer, and an appointment book.
There were no personal artifacts, no photos, no vase of flowers…nothing to indicate anything about the woman who belonged to the office.
Even in here, the hospital smell lingered and Kevin felt the unwelcome memories once again trying to intrude. It had been five years ago that he’d last been in a hospital and it vaguely surprised him that the memories were so strong that it felt as if it had only been yesterday.
He consciously shoved them away and focused on the task at hand. She’s got to be the right one, he thought as he sat in the chair opposite the desk.
Adrenaline pumped through him as he anticipated that after three long years, it was possible he’d finally found one of the four people he’d been hired to find.
“Good afternoon.” The soft, feminine voice drifted from the doorway and a second later she stepped into his sight.
“Hello,” he returned, half rising from his seat. His pulse accelerated slightly as he gazed at her.
He told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that she was one sexy-looking woman, but rather because it was possible he was finally going to be successful in partially wrapping up one of his most difficult cases.
Still, she was certainly easy on the eyes.
She waved him back down as she eased into the chair behind her desk. “I’m Dr. Jones and you must be Kevin Cartwright.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He couldn’t see the necklace. Beneath the smock she wore, she had on a green turtleneck that did dazzling things to her green eyes, but hid the necklace that had brought him to her in the first place.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Cartwright?” She opened up an appointment book and stared down. “According to my secretary, you were quite insistent on meeting me today, but you were vague about the purpose for this meeting.”
She tucked a strand of honey-colored hair behind her ear, then looked at him once again. In her eyes he saw a no-nonsense directness. “If you’re from a drug company, I can tell you right now that I don’t do the ordering and so we’d be wasting each other’s time.”
“No, I’m not from any company. I saw the news story about the little boy who lost his arm in a mowing accident. You and your team of doctors made national news with the successful surgery to reattach the limb.”
She nodded. “Michael is a good kid and we were very happy with the success of the operation.”
“It sounds as if Michael is a little fighter.” For the first time since he’d walked into the office, she smiled and Kevin felt the force of that gorgeous smile in the pit of his stomach.
“He certainly is,” she agreed.
“The television screen didn’t do you justice.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but it was what had been going around in his head.
She was thinner than she’d looked on television, although she certainly had curves in all the right places. And there was no way the television screen had been able to capture the intense green of her eyes or the soft golden glow of her shoulder-length hair.
The smile that had momentarily lifted the corners of her lush lips disappeared abruptly at his words. “What is it you want, Mr. Cartwright?” She glanced at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. “I have another surgery scheduled in exactly fifteen minutes.”
“I think you’re the woman I’ve been looking for,” he explained.
The coolness on her pretty features intensified. “Is that some sort of a pick-up line?” She grasped the phone and he knew he was mere seconds from being escorted out of the place by security.
“No! Of course not,” he protested, realizing how it sounded to her. First he tells her the television screen didn’t do her justice, then he tells her she’s the girl he’s been looking for…she probably thought he was some sort of crazed stalker. “What I meant to say is that I think you are one of the people I’ve been trying to find for the past three years. I’m a private investigator, Dr. Jones, and three years ago a man contacted me and hired me to find four siblings.”
“Siblings?” For the first time her eyes lit with interest.
He nodded. “Three sisters and a brother.”
She sat back in her chair and gazed at him intently. “And you think it’s possible that I might be one of those siblings?”
“Yes, I think it’s possible. I know the woman I’m looking for has the first name of Phoebe.” But, he’d also been told that the people he sought would probably live near the ocean, and Kansas City, Missouri, couldn’t be farther away from an ocean.
A dainty frown appeared between her perfectly arched pale eyebrows. “But, Phoebe isn’t such an odd name. There must be hundreds…thousands of women named Phoebe,” she protested, then looked at her watch once again. “And I really don’t have time to get into this right now.”
She stood and he stood as well. He hadn’t been able to ask her about the necklace and that was the key to discovering if she was the Phoebe he was looking for.
“Look, could we meet later this evening to discuss this further?” He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “We could meet some place public, and if you think I’m wasting your time, you’d be free to walk away.”
She glanced at her watch once again, then looked back at him. “All right,” she agreed, although he could see the skepticism in her eyes. “There’s a little café called Myrtle’s not far from here. I’ll meet you there at seven.”
“What’s the address of this Myrtle’s?” he asked.
She smiled tightly. “You’re a private investigator, Mr. Cartwright, I’m sure you can manage to find it somehow.” With these words, she turned and disappeared out of the office.
Kevin stared after her, wondering just how difficult the doctor was going to be. As he left the office and stepped into the elevator, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a large chunk of gold nugget. The nugget had been his latest payment for his time and expenses.
He walked across the hospital lobby, then exited into the bright midday sunshine. He drew a deep breath of the early spring-scented air, grateful to leave the hospital and all its memory-stirring odors behind.
As he strode across the parking lot to his rental car, he worried the nugget between his fingers, his thoughts filled with the man who had given it to him.
Loucan. A strange name for a strange man. Initially when Kevin had been contacted by him and told that Loucan wanted to hire him to find four siblings, Kevin had thought nothing about it.
He’d been involved in finding people before—adopted children seeking their biological parents, parents wanting to find children. It was a large part of what he did as a private investigator.
But this case had been strange from the very beginning. Loucan had initially contacted him by phone and they had set up a meeting at a restaurant on the wharf in Santa Barbara.
The tall, powerfully built man had retained Kevin’s services and had paid him with a handful of high-quality pearls. Since that time three years before, Kevin had met with Loucan several times a year and each time had been paid with perfect pearls, old gold coins, or gold nuggets.
Instantly, Kevin’s ex-cop nose had smelled a mystery, but it was a mystery he had yet to crack. If Phoebe Jones had the necklace he’d thought he had spotted her wearing in the news report, then she was a piece of the puzzle.
He shoved the nugget back into his pocket, then got into his red rental car. At the moment, the biggest mystery he had to solve was to discover exactly where Myrtle’s Café was located.
Phoebe stood beneath a hot shower spray in her bathroom, hoping the steamy water would wash away at least a little bit of her exhaustion.
Her morning had begun before five, when an emergency appendectomy had needed to be done. That had set the tone for the hectic day. Besides the three surgeries that had been planned well in advance, she’d had three more emergency surgeries to undergo.
Still, the exhaustion was nothing new. Working at an inner-city hospital, it was no secret that all the doctors and nurses were overworked and underpaid. The only thing that compensated for that was the incredible sense of satisfaction her work brought to her.
She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a fluffy blue towel. Drying off, she thought of the man who had been in her office at noon that day.
Kevin Cartwright. He was a devilishly handsome man, his light-brown hair a perfect foil for his deep blue eyes. In the first instant of seeing him sitting across from her desk, she’d felt an immediate magnetic pull toward him.
But now she wasn’t sure if it had been the man himself or the sweet possibility of his words that had drawn her to him.
Family. Was it possible she might have family members somewhere out there? She had given up hope of ever finding any a long time ago.
And now this good-looking stranger had appeared in her office and spoken a magic word…siblings. Sisters and a brother—it would be so wonderful.
She padded out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where she had carefully laid out the clothes she was going to put on.
As she dressed, she steadfastly shoved thoughts of the possibility of finding family members aside, afraid to get her hopes up only to have them dashed once again.
It took her only a few minutes to pull on a pair of tan slacks and a green and tan flowered blouse. She ran a brush quickly through her shoulder-length blond hair, touched a dab of pink lipstick to her lips, then grabbed her purse and left her apartment.
Moments later she was out on the sidewalk headed toward Myrtle’s. She’d moved into her apartment building when she’d been a resident at the hospital and money, or lack thereof, had been an issue.
The apartment building was not only walking distance to the hospital, but also to the café she frequented on a regular basis and a public library.
Even after her residency had ended and money woes had eased, she’d never considered moving from the small apartment building. She liked keeping things the way they were.
It was fifteen minutes before seven when she entered Myrtle’s Café and took her usual seat by the window. From this vantage point she could see Kevin as he arrived.
“Hi, Dr. Jones,” Camilla greeted her with a friendly smile as she poured Phoebe a glass of iced tea. “Long day?”
Phoebe smiled at the attractive older woman. “They’re all long days.”
“The usual?” Camilla asked.
“Yes, but could you wait to place the order? I’m meeting somebody.”
One of Camilla’s gray eyebrows danced upward. “Somebody of the male persuasion?”
“Yes, but it isn’t what you think,” Phoebe hurriedly said.
Camilla frowned in disappointment. “It’s never what I think, and it’s not right, a pretty young woman like you eating alone every night.”
Phoebe smiled. “I don’t mind. Most evenings I’m too tired to make good conversation with anyone.”
“And I think you are selling yourself short, Dr. Jones,” Camilla replied, then excused herself to hurry to another table.
Phoebe took a sip of her iced tea and gazed out the window. Camilla was constantly harping on her to get a life. What Camilla didn’t understand was Phoebe had a life…a safe, comfortable life that revolved around her work.
There had been enough chaos in her life in the first eighteen years to last a lifetime.
Still, that didn’t stop her pulse from accelerating slightly as she saw Kevin across the street. As she watched, he crossed the street, sauntering with a kind of loose-hipped gait she couldn’t help but admire.
Although his legs were long and lean in his tight jeans, his upper body was muscular beneath the short-sleeved polo shirt. His bulging biceps peeked out just beneath the sleeves of the dark-blue cotton shirt.
As she watched, he paused just outside the front door of the café and quickly raked a hand through his light-brown hair, as if wanting to make certain he looked all right for his meeting with her.
Phoebe reached up and started to smooth her own hair, then jerked her hands back down as she realized what she was doing.
This meeting with Kevin Cartwright wasn’t a date. She simply wanted any information he might be able to give her about the possibility of her having siblings.
He walked through the café front door, bringing with him an energy that seemed to electrify the entire establishment. She’d noticed that earlier about him…the energy that seemed to emanate from him.
He gazed around the café, then he found her and a smile curved the corners of his lips. He had a devastating smile. It transformed him from a handsome man into a sexy devil.
“I see you found it,” she said as he slid into the chair opposite her at the small table.
“I’m not just a private investigator, I’m a good private investigator,” he said and flashed her another of his seductive grins.
At that moment Camilla stopped at the table. “Evening,” she said, then winked broadly at Phoebe, as if to indicate she approved of the way Kevin looked. “The specials this evening are meat loaf and barbecue chicken.”
Kevin looked at Phoebe expectantly.
“I already ordered,” she explained.
“She always gets the same thing,” Camilla said.
“Then I’d just like a cheeseburger and fries,” Kevin said as he handed Camilla back the menu. “And a cup of coffee to drink.”
As Camilla hurried away, Kevin returned his attention to Phoebe, gazing at her without speaking for a long moment. She picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip, her mouth unaccountably dry. She suddenly realized she was nervous.
She told herself it had nothing to do with Kevin, but rather with the information he might give her, information that might unite her with members of her family.
She set her glass back down and looked at him. “All right, Mr. Cartwright, tell me again what brought you to me.”
“Please, make it Kevin,” he replied. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. She felt her cheeks pinken beneath his obvious appraisal. “You’re very pretty,” he finally said.
Her cheeks grew hotter. “Do you always speak your mind so freely?”
His grin widened. “Always, but I’ve made you uncomfortable and I apologize.”
She nodded stiffly, although she didn’t think he sounded apologetic in the least. Suddenly he irritated her with his sexy smile and broad chest, with his flirting long-lashed eyes and five-o’clock shadow of whiskers.
“Mr. Cartwright, I’m a busy woman and I don’t have time for nonsense. Now, you mentioned this afternoon that somebody had hired you to find a woman named Phoebe. What makes you think I’m the one you’re searching for?”
He shrugged, his smile fading away. “When I saw you on the news report, you looked to be around the right age of the woman I’m seeking.”
“I’m around twenty-seven.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Around twenty-seven?”
Their conversation came to a halt as Camilla arrived at their table with their orders. She served Phoebe’s salad and soup first, then gave Kevin his cheeseburger, fries and coffee.
“You said you were around twenty-seven,” he reminded her the moment Camilla had left them alone once again.
She nodded and broke apart the whole-wheat roll that had come with her salad. “I was raised in foster care and no birth certificate was ever found for me. Child protective services thought I was about two when I went into the system.”
Kevin chewed a bite of cheeseburger and chased it with a sip of coffee. “How did you get into the system?” he asked.
“From what I was told, I was brought to a hospital severely ill. The woman who brought me in was also sick and later died. She was never identified.” Phoebe stared down at her vegetable soup, fighting against the sadness that always threatened to overwhelm her when she thought of her past.
He leaned forward, so close that she could smell the scent of him, a spicy cologne tempered by spring sunshine and a hint of maleness. “So, you don’t know if her name was Trealla?”
“Trealla…” The name rolled off her tongue, unfamiliar and yet somehow not totally alien. “I don’t know…I really don’t remember anything about my early childhood.”
He popped a fry into his mouth and once again stared at her unabashedly. “There’s one way for me to know if you’re the woman I’m looking for,” he said after a long moment of silence.
“And what’s that?”
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “The woman I’m searching for has in her possession a piece of metal that looks like this.” He unfolded the paper and shoved it over to her.
With trembling fingers, Phoebe picked up the paper and stared at the object drawn there. It was a fourth of a pie shape, with intricate designs that were as familiar to Phoebe as the sound of her own heartbeat.
Instantly her hand grabbed her chest, fingers fumbling for the charm that hung on the silver chain and nestled between her breasts.
She pulled the charm from its resting place and half rose, leaning across the table to show him. Her heart crashed frantically against her ribs. “I’m the one you’ve been looking for, Kevin. You’ve found the right woman.”
Chapter Two
As Kevin compared the drawing on the paper to the actual piece of metal on the chain around her neck, a wave of excitement swept through him. The drawing on the paper perfectly matched the charm she wore.
He’d found her. After all his years of searching, after all the false leads and dashed hopes, he’d finally found one of the four he’d been hired to find.
In his exuberant high spirits, he reached across the small table and grabbed her hands in his. “We’ve got to get you to Southern California,” he exclaimed.
“Whoa…wait.” She pulled her hands from his, a touch of wariness…and something else in her sea-green eyes. She fumbled with her napkin in her lap, her eyes downcast. When she finally looked up at him again, her eyes sparkled overbrightly, as if she were on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice slightly husky. “You have to understand, I long ago gave up on ever finding any of my family. I thought I was all alone in the world. I—I’m a little bit afraid to get my hopes up.”
In that instant Kevin had the ridiculous impulse to reach out and pull her to his chest, tell her that he would see to it that she was never alone in the world again.
He’d always been a sucker for vulnerable women.
However, a return visit to the hospital that afternoon had given him enough information to believe that Dr. Phoebe Jones was anything but vulnerable.
A loner, controlling, brusque, devoted, a rigid professional…those were just some of the terms her colleagues had used to describe her.
Still, there was no denying the well of emotions that now shone from her eyes, emotions that touched his heart. “You’re smart not to get your hopes up yet,” he said and speared a fry with his fork. “I’ve found you, but I haven’t found the other three yet.”
She shoved her barely eaten salad aside. “Tell me about the man who hired you. Is it possible he’s my father?”
Her beautiful spring-colored eyes held his gaze intently and he wished he could tell her that it was a possibility, but he couldn’t. “No, Loucan is far too young to be your father. He’s about my age…around thirty-four or so.”
“Loucan? Loucan what?”
“Just Loucan,” Kevin replied, then frowned. One of the most frustrating things about this particular job was the fact that he hadn’t been able to discover a thing about the man who had hired him. “Anyway, like I told you before, he hired me to find you and bring you to Santa Barbara.”
Her face paled slightly. “I left California eleven years ago when I was sixteen and I swore I’d never go back.”
“Loucan made it clear to me that he wanted you to come to him, and if not you, then I was to bring your necklace to him.”
Her fingers clutched around the necklace. “I’m not about to give up the only thing I’ve had since my childhood to a man I haven’t met. I don’t know this Loucan, and I don’t know you.”
Kevin grinned. “I can’t tell you much about Loucan, but I can tell you that I’m a good guy. I like children and animals and I only snore when sleeping on my back.”
He was pleased to see a hint of a smile tug at her lips. “I certainly can’t make a decision to take off for California based on whether you snore or not,” she replied.
He leaned forward. “But, you have to admit that you’re curious. I mean, maybe this Loucan is another brother, or a cousin. Can you really walk away from the opportunity to find out?”
He felt slightly guilty as he tried to decide if he wanted her to go to California to find her family, or if his sole reason for getting her there was the promise of an enormous payoff from Loucan.
“I don’t know.” She looked troubled. “I need some time to digest all this. I’m certainly not going to make a decision right now.”
“Fair enough,” he replied.
For the next few minutes they ate in silence. Despite the odors of cooking food that filled the café, Kevin could smell Phoebe’s perfume, a soft, floral scent he found incredibly attractive.
In fact, he found everything about Dr. Phoebe Jones attractive, from the shiny strands of her blond hair, to her intensely green eyes. She ate with a precision he found fascinating, all her bites of salad carefully cut with a fork and a knife. She then pushed her salad away and began eating her soup.
“You mentioned you left California when you were sixteen,” he said, breaking the silence that had grown to uncomfortable proportions between them.
She daintily dabbed her mouth with her napkin and nodded. “I graduated from high school when I was sixteen and petitioned the court for an order of emancipation. I had several scholarship offers for college and decided to come here and attend Kansas University, then transferred to KU med school and finished my residency at the hospital a little over a year ago.”
“Quite an accomplishment for somebody so young,” he observed.
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I knew from the time I was young that I wanted to be a doctor. I just didn’t let anything or anyone distract me from my ultimate goal.”
“Any particular reason why you chose the medical field?” He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly wanted to know everything about her, what made her tick, what things she liked, what experiences had made her who she was.
“I was very sickly as a child. It seemed that my body didn’t have the normal immunities to fight illness. All the childhood diseases hit me really hard and I spent much of my early years in hospitals for one reason or another.”
She looked down at her salad, but not before he thought he saw a whisper of pain in her eyes. When she looked back at him, whatever he thought he’d seen was gone. “But enough about me,” she said. “What about you? What made you decide to become a private investigator?”
“I heard it was a job that paid well for a small amount of work.” It was his stock answer to anyone who asked him about his career choice. He never told anyone that it was a job he had taken when his life had been shattered and all his dreams had been destroyed.
“Are you from California?” she asked.
“Not originally. I was born and raised in Chicago and lived there until about five years ago when I moved to Los Angeles.”
“What made you move?”
He grinned. “The promise of sun and surf and women in bikinis.”
She eyed him intently. “Are you always so flippant?”
“Always. Life is too short to take anything too seriously.”
“Life is too short not to take everything seriously,” she countered.
She was gorgeous, and something about her filled him with a tension, but they obviously had nothing in common, he realized. All she was to him was a case that he wanted to see through to the end.
“Is there some way I can get in touch with you,” she asked, breaking into his thoughts. “I really need some time to think about all this.” She touched her lips with her napkin and placed the napkin next to her salad bowl.
“I’m staying at the Allis Plaza Hotel,” he replied and motioned to the waitress. “But I’ll walk you home.”
“That’s not necessary,” she replied, again a touch of wariness in her eyes.
“Phoebe, if you’re worried about me walking you home and discovering where you live, I already know where you live. Remember, I’m a private investigator.”
“So, what else do you know about me?” she asked, but at that moment the waitress returned to their table.
Phoebe fought with him over the check, but relented and let him pay when he reminded her he had an expense account. Then, together they left the café and stepped out into the deepening shadows of falling night.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him as they walked leisurely along the deserted sidewalk. “What else have you managed to dig up about me besides my address?”
“You don’t socialize with any co-workers. You’re highly respected for your skills as a surgeon, but nobody seems to know much about you as a person. As far as your neighbors are concerned, you never have visitors in your home.”
“You spoke with my neighbors?” she asked, a touch of outrage in her voice.
“It’s what I do,” he said without apology. “I use whatever means necessary to find out things about people. I speak to neighbors, go through garbage, stake out places. You were exceptionally easy to find out about because you are such a creature of habit.”
“And that’s bad?”
“That’s terrible if somebody is going to plan to perpetrate a crime against you. It makes you predictable.”
“Well, I like my life just fine, thank you,” she exclaimed with a touch of self-righteous anger. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk to any more of my neighbors or co-workers and if you kept your nose out of my garbage. If you want or need to know something about me or my life, ask me.”
“It’s a deal,” he agreed easily as they came to her apartment building.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said.
“No problem.” He followed her through the door and into the lobby that held nothing but two elevators. He punched the up button on one of them, then smiled at her. “I’ll see you up. I always see ladies to their front doors.”
The elevator door opened and the two of them stepped inside. The scent that he’d noticed coming from her in the café was more pronounced in the small confines of the elevator and again Kevin felt an energy well up inside him.
This time he recognized it for what it was…an intense physical attraction. Although he didn’t know her at all, made it a habit never to get involved with any of his cases, something about her made him think of tangled sheets and hot kisses.
“So, are you going to call this Loucan and tell him you found me?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I figured I’d wait to contact him until you’ve decided what to do.” The elevator doors whooshed open and together they stepped out into a narrow hallway.
They walked down the hall and stopped in front of apartment 505. She fumbled in her purse and pulled out her keys and quickly unlocked the door, then turned back to him. “If I did agree to go to California, it would take a couple of days for me to arrange for somebody else to take care of my current patients and for me to clear my schedule.”
“Loucan has waited three years for me to find you. I’m sure he can wait a little while longer.” He fought the impulse to reach out and touch the smooth skin of her cheek, stroke a silky strand of her hair.
Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Call me when you’ve made a decision,” he said. “Good night, Phoebe.”
“Good night, Kevin.”
He’d just turned to walk away when he heard her gasp. It wasn’t the gasp of a woman happy to be home, but rather it was a gasp rife with surprise…with fear.
He whirled around and flew through her apartment door. Immediately he saw what had made her gasp. The place was wrecked and she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who would live in such utter chaos.
“You creep!” Without warning she picked up a sofa cushion from the floor and flung it at him. “Was this your plan? You meet me at Myrtle’s and while you’re buying my dinner your accomplice comes in here and robs me blind?” Her eyes flashed with temper and her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped as he pulled his gun from his ankle holster. “Call 911 and don’t leave this room.” He didn’t wait for her to reply, but moved deeper into the apartment, wanting to make certain no perpetrator was still inside.
He checked the cabinets and pantry in the kitchen, the closet and shower in the bathroom, then moved into the bedroom.
The room was a vision in blues and peaches, but the dresser drawers had been emptied on the floor and a jewelry box on the top of the dresser had been upended.
Confirming that there was nobody in any of the rooms, he returned to the living room, where Phoebe stood in the middle of the mess looking shell-shocked.
“Did you call the police?” he asked as he put his gun away.
She nodded. “They should be here any minute.”
“Phoebe, I swear I had absolutely nothing to do with this,” he said. He walked over to where she stood and placed his hands on her shoulders. He realized she was trembling. “You must believe me,” he said.
She stepped away from him and he dropped his hands to his sides. She sighed, her gaze darting around the room. “I’m not sure why, but I do believe you.”
Relief flooded through him. “While we wait for the police to arrive, you might want to look around and see if anything has been stolen. But try not to touch anything.”
He watched as she walked around the room, a frown marring her forehead. By the time the police arrived, she had discerned that nothing had been taken.
Kevin wasn’t surprised. His gut instinct told him this hadn’t been a random burglary. Instead, it looked as if a frantic search had been conducted.
While Phoebe spoke with the officers, making out a report, Kevin’s mind raced with possibilities. Was it merely a coincidence that he had found her today and her place had been searched this evening? Or, was it something more sinister? In finding Phoebe, had he also found her for somebody else?
It was after eleven when the police left and Phoebe shooed Kevin out the door. He’d offered several times to stay and help her straighten up the mess, but she’d declined. She needed time alone…time to assimilate the craziness of the day.
First there had been Kevin, with his amazing story of a man in California trying to find her, then the break-in. She felt as if she was in overdrive and what she needed more than anything was a good night’s sleep.
But, there was no way she could give into sleep until her apartment was put back into some sort of order. Chaos made her nuts.
As she worked, she thought of everything that Kevin had told her. The thought that someplace out there she had a brother and sisters, pulled forth old emotions of want and need that she had spent years trying to repress.
As a child she’d been hungry for family, but by the time she’d reached twelve and with no family coming forth to claim her, she’d shoved away her hunger and focused instead on getting where she wanted to be, alone.
The idea of returning to California evoked in her an enormous dread. Her years spent there had not been happy ones.
But could she forget about a man named Loucan who might have knowledge about her mother and father, about any siblings she might have?
It was after one in the morning when she finally fell into bed, exhausted but comforted by the fact that her apartment was relatively back to normal.
Still, sleep remained elusive, her thoughts haunted by the knowledge that somebody had been in her private space, somebody had violated her home.
What had they wanted? If it had been a simple burglary why hadn’t her television disappeared? Her stereo equipment or her computer? As far as she could tell, absolutely nothing had been stolen.
She fell asleep with questions nagging at her and awakened at six the next morning, gasping for air and covered with a light veil of perspiration.
The dream. It had been a while since she’d had the recurrent nightmare that had plagued her all her life. But, the moment consciousness claimed her, she knew she’d just suffered it again.
She didn’t move from the bed for long moments, instead waited for the last vestiges of the dream to leave and her heartbeat to return to normal.
Eventually when she pulled herself from the tangle of sheets, she refused to dwell on the nightmare images and headed directly for the shower, hoping a cascade of hot water would effectively banish any lingering bad feeling the dream might have left behind.
Standing beneath the hot spray of water, her thoughts immediately turned to Kevin Cartwright. She wasn’t sure what she thought about him. Granted, she found him very attractive, but she was certain they couldn’t be less alike.
She was devoted to her work and he seemed rather irreverent about his. In fact, he’d seemed pretty irreverent about everything. Despite that, as crazy as it sounded, she trusted him.
And for just a moment when the police had left and the two of them had been standing in her living room, she’d desperately wished he would wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against his broad chest.
The wish had been nothing more than a crazy impulse brought on by the trauma of the home invasion. Definitely not likely to happen again, she thought moments later as she dressed in a pale-blue uniform.
She’d been taking care of herself since she’d been very young. As a foster child, she’d learned early on that she had nobody to depend on but herself. She learned to rock herself when she needed comforting, whisper to herself when she was lonely, and wrap her arms around herself when she desperately needed a hug. And the handsome Kevin Cartwright wasn’t about to change old habits.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon as she left her apartment. She stepped out on the sidewalk and drew in a deep, cleansing breath.
She loved early mornings, when the air smelled crisp and clean and the streets were just starting to fill with people hurrying to work.
She took only a few steps, then halted as she spied Kevin getting out of a small red car parked at the curb. He looked rumpled and stiff and the slight five-o’clock shadow she’d noticed at dinner the night before had grown to full scruffy whiskered proportions.
What was he doing here? With the memory of her wanting him to hold her still fresh in her mind, his appearance irritated her. She eyed him coolly as he approached.
“Morning,” he said, his voice slightly husky. He winced. “Is it always this bright in the mornings?”
“I gather you aren’t normally an early riser,” she replied dryly.
“Sure, I am. Early afternoon.” He grinned and with his hair tousled and his growth of beard, and a sleepy cast to his eyes, Phoebe instantly knew what he would look like in bed. And the mental image that appeared in her head of him naked and between crisp white sheets was heart-stoppingly appealing and it only served to increase her irritation.
“You look like you slept in your car,” she exclaimed.
He grinned, that half-crooked, devilish smile that set her on edge. “I did. It beats the price of a hotel room.”
She scowled. “I told you, Kevin, that I needed some time to think and that means I need time away from you.”
“No problem,” he said and raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. “If my presence bothers you, I won’t walk with you, I’ll just saunter along behind you,” he said, then grinned. “Besides, you’ve got a nice back view.”
She had no idea why he felt the need to be here at all. Rather than ask him, she whirled around and headed for the hospital, painfully conscious of him walking several paces behind her.
From the moment he’d appeared in her office the day before, she felt as if her life had spun crazily out of control, and she didn’t like it. She knew she had to make a decision about going to California, but she found rational thought next to impossible when Kevin was around.
She was a devoted doctor, in control of her surroundings. She was strong and independent, but when with Kevin, he somehow reminded her that she was a woman besides being a doctor.
She rounded a corner next to an abandoned building, her thoughts filled with Kevin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement as somebody shot out of the shadows and grabbed her.
The attack was so swift, so unexpected, she didn’t have time to scream, she didn’t have time to do anything. She fell to the sidewalk. Pain. It shot through her as he followed her down to the ground, his weight crashing on top of her, forcing her breath from her lungs.
His breath was hot and fetid and his hands ripped and tore at the skin of her neck. She fought him, trying to scratch his face and knee him in the stomach.
His face was a contorted mask of rage as he grappled with her. Somewhere in the back of her terror-laden mind, she catalogued his features, knowing somehow it was important that she remember what he look like.
“Hey!”
Phoebe nearly sobbed in relief as she heard Kevin’s shout. The man on top of her jumped up and took off running as Kevin raced to her side.
“Phoebe, are you all right?” He knelt down beside her and helped her to a sitting position.
She shook her head. “He…he came out of the building and just jumped on me.” She rubbed her neck and felt the welts his fingernails had caused. Her hip ached where she had hit the ground with such force.
“You’re hurt,” he said, his blue eyes filled with anger. He started to scoop her up in his arms, but she stopped him.
“No, really, I’m fine. I’m just sore.” And scared beyond any fear she had ever experienced before.
He looked at her for a long moment. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
She forced a smile. “I’m a doctor, I’d know if I was really hurt.”
He stood and carefully helped her to her feet and when he pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t fight him. Instead, she leaned into his strength and closed her eyes for just a moment.
“I was afraid something like this might happen,” he murmured, as if speaking more to himself than to her.
She stepped away from him and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I was hoping that last night’s break-in at your place was just a coincidence.”
“But now you don’t think it was?” A new fear iced the blood in her veins as she saw the worry that darkened his eyes.
“No, I don’t think it was,” he said. His gaze held hers intently. “I think maybe I wasn’t the only one looking for you, and in finding you, I’ve brought danger into your life.”
Chapter Three
Kevin sat on a stone bench just outside the hospital’s main entrance, waiting for Phoebe to exit the building. Dusk was falling and she’d called him on his cell phone moments before to let him know she was on her way out.
After the attack on her that morning, he’d tried to talk her into going back to her apartment and not working that day, but she’d insisted otherwise.
However, she had agreed to call the police, and she and Kevin and one of Kansas City’s finest had sat in her office as she’d given an account of the attack and a description of her attacker. They had agreed not to tell the police what had brought Kevin to Phoebe in the first place. Kevin was afraid it would only complicate matters.
Kevin had given a description of the car the attacker had jumped into at the end of the block, a car that had apparently been waiting for him.
After the officer had left, Phoebe had shooed Kevin away, insisting that what she needed more than anything was to get back to work.
Reluctantly he’d left her, assuming she would be safe surrounded by co-workers, then he had spent much of the day trying to get answers. Unfortunately, he’d managed to gain very few.
Even though he’d been relatively certain that Phoebe would be safe that day at work, when she walked out of the building he was glad to see her, although she looked stressed and exhausted.
“Bad day?” he asked.
“No worse than usual,” she said as he guided her toward where his car was parked in the lot.
He frowned as he noted the red marks that still marred the creamy skin of her throat. “Did you put something on those?” he asked.
“Yes, I used half a bottle of antiseptic and I used heat and ice on my hip, which is now sporting a bruise the size of a large grapefruit.”
Kevin frowned, momentarily feeling like a heel as he was gifted with a mental flash of a long shapely leg. He opened the passenger door for her and she slid in, wincing slightly.
Frustration, along with a healthy dose of anger swept through him as he thought of the attack on her. If only he’d been following her more closely, if only he hadn’t allowed her to get out of his sight for a single moment.
After he’d left her apartment the night before, he’d had a bad feeling in his gut, a feeling that had prompted him to sleep in the car outside of her building.
“Other than the obvious, are you feeling all right?”
She nodded. “A little jumpy, but okay.” She glanced at him curiously. “You didn’t sleep in your car last night because you wanted to save money on a hotel bill, did you? You thought something might happen, didn’t you?”
“My instincts told me it was possible, but I was hoping my instincts were wrong.”
He got into the driver seat and put the key into the ignition, then turned to face her once again. “I’ve spent the day trying to figure out what in the heck is going on.”
She looked at him, her expression vulnerable, her gaze intent. “And what have you figured out?”
He started the engine, then gazed at her once again. “I wish I could tell you exactly what is happening and why, but I can’t.”
“That man this morning…I think he was after my necklace.” She fumbled with the chain inside her smock and grasped the charm in her palm.
“That’s the conclusion I reached the minute I saw the scratches on your neck,” he said. “And I think it’s possible whoever broke into your apartment last night was also looking for the necklace.” He pulled out of the parking space and headed toward her apartment building.
“But, why? What does the necklace mean? It’s been with me for as long as I can remember. Why would somebody be after it now?”
Kevin tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Like I told you this morning right after the attack, I think maybe I brought this to your doorstep. When I found you, I found the necklace for somebody else.”
“Who is this Loucan who hired you?” she asked as she tucked the necklace once again into her smock. “How do we know he isn’t the one behind all this?”
Kevin didn’t answer until he’d parked his car at the curb in front of her building. He shut off the engine, then turned to face her. “I don’t think Loucan had anything to do with the attacks on you. I hadn’t contacted him to let him know I’d found you when these attacks occurred.” He gestured toward the building. “Can we finish this conversation inside your place?”
She hesitated only a moment, then nodded. “Of course.”
Kevin had a feeling she was a person who didn’t particularly like to share her personal space. He knew from her neighbors that she didn’t have visitors and even though she’d agreed to allow him in, the agreement had been given with a bit of reluctance.
As they rode up in the elevator, she released a deep sigh. “Why is it I get the feeling that what happened last night and what happened this morning is just the beginning?”
He wished he could tell her she was overreacting, but he couldn’t, nor was he going to give her any false assurances that her life would now return to normal. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that your feeling is wrong.”
They stepped out of the elevator and entered her apartment. He was vaguely surprised to see that all the mess of the night before was gone. And just as he’d suspected, she seemed to be an immaculate housekeeper.
“You must have been up half the night cleaning up,” he said, gazing around the room with interest.
Now that the clutter was gone, he could see that the room was decorated in warm colors of dark blue and burgundy, but there was a certain sterility.
Again he was struck by the fact that there were no personal artifacts, no pictures, or knickknacks sitting around. The furniture was tasteful, the place was clean, but it could have belonged to anyone.
“I had trouble sleeping until the mess was cleaned up,” she replied and motioned him toward the sofa. “Please, make yourself at home.”
“I’d have trouble realizing somebody had searched my place,” he said. “It always looks pretty much like yours did last night.”
“So, not only are you a good private investigator, you’re telling me you’re also a slob?”
He grinned. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m telling you.”
She self-consciously ran a hand down the pants of her uniform. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to change clothes real quick.”
He nodded and took a seat on the sofa. “Go do what you need to do. I’m fine right here.”
She disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Kevin settled back on the sofa, fighting against a wave of exhaustion that momentarily threatened to overtake him.
He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. The confines of an economy rental car weren’t exactly conducive to comfort, and in any case, he’d been too wound up to sleep and had wanted to keep an eye on things.
He sat up straight as she re-entered the room, clad in a pair of gray sweatpants and a moss-green T-shirt that made her eyes appear a darker, deeper green. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked as she walked into the kitchen area. “Maybe some coffee?”
“Coffee sounds wonderful,” he responded. “How long have you lived here?”
“I’ve been here for the past three years,” she said as she made the coffee.
“It isn’t exactly the kind of place you’d expect a successful surgeon to be living in.”
She flashed him a quick smile. “I’m comfortable here and really haven’t seen the need to move. I’m walking distance to the hospital and spend most of my time there anyway.”
He liked that about her, that she apparently made personal decisions based on what made her comfortable rather than worrying about presenting a picture of affluence.
As the scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the room, they spoke for a few minutes about the neighborhood and Kansas City in general.
It wasn’t until they were both seated on the sofa with coffee cups in hand that they got back to the matter at hand.
“You mentioned earlier that you don’t think this Loucan is behind the attacks on me,” she said.
He took a sip of the strong coffee and nodded. “Loucan only knew that I was following a lead when I left California yesterday morning. I didn’t tell him where exactly I was headed and I hadn’t yet contacted him to tell him I’d found you.”
“Did you contact him today?”
“Yeah, I called him right after I left you at the hospital this morning. I’ve been given an additional assignment where you are concerned.”
Her eyes blinked in surprise. “And what’s that?”
“Not only am I supposed to get you to Santa Barbara, but I’m to get you there safe and sound. Loucan doesn’t want anything happening to you or to your necklace.”
She set her cup down on a coaster on the coffee table, a frown dancing between her eyebrows. “What is so important about my necklace?”
“I wish I could tell you,” he replied. He set his cup down as well. “Do you mind if I look at it?”
She hesitated a long moment, then pulled the charm from her blouse, removed the chain from her neck and handed it to him.
Kevin studied the charm closely. There was no question about it, it was an odd piece. “Do you know what the symbols and strange writing on it means?”
She shook her head, her pretty blond hair swirling momentarily around her shoulders. “Not a clue.”
“You mentioned that the charm had been with you for years.”
“Apparently it was around my neck when I was first brought into the hospital. Through the years I’ve simply bought longer chains to put it on.”
“It’s amazing you’ve kept it all these years,” he said as he returned it to her.
She gazed down at the charm in her hand, giving him a view of her beautifully long lashes. She looked back up at him, her expression unreadable. “It was the most important possession I had, the only thing I owned that I believed might have been given to me by some member of my family.” She pulled the chain back over her head. “So, who do you think wants it and why?”
“I can’t begin to guess the why,” he said truthfully. “And specifically I don’t know the who. I tried to get answers out of Loucan, but he insisted that he would try to explain everything to us when we get to California.”
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