Secrets of Paternity
Susan Crosby
Almost two decades ago, James Paladin had agreed to be a sperm donor to his best friend's wife.With three conditions:1) Caryn Brenley was not to know who really fathered her child.2) James would stay away, making no contact with his son.3) When the boy turned eighteen, all secrets would be revealed.That time had come.Now a new widow had learned the staggering truth. Now a tough private investigator could finally claim what was his. And now two lonely people had a sudden, startling attraction to battle.
“You Intrigue Me,” James Said.
She did? She was so straightforward, usually, and so…unintriguing. Was it because she was keeping herself mysterious, and therefore, hard to get? “Then I should keep doing what I’m doing,” she said leisurely.
“Ah. It’s the chase that excites you.”
Caryn stared to flirt back, then realized she had no right to. What was she thinking? She gathered up her long-denied, flattered libido and adjusted her body language and tone of voice. “How do I get home from here?”
He barely skipped a beat before giving her directions, then took a step back. His smile disappeared.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she told him.
He nodded.
She felt awful as she pulled away, like a big tease, like a teenager without any life skills. She’d responded to him without thinking it through. She was sinking deeper into a situation she should be avoiding at all costs.
And she was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to stop.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing Silhouette Desire, where this month we have six fabulous novels for you to enjoy. We start things off with Estate Affair by Sara Orwig, the latest installment of the continuing DYNASTIES: THE ASHTONS series. In this upstairs/downstairs-themed story, the Ashtons’ maid falls for an Ashton son and all sorts of scandal follows. And in Maureen Child’s Whatever Reilly Wants…, the second title in the THREE-WAY WAGER series, a sexy marine gets an unexpected surprise when he falls for his suddenly transformed gal pal.
Susan Crosby concludes her BEHIND CLOSED DOORS series with Secrets of Paternity. The secret baby in this book just happens to be eighteen years old…. Hmm, there’s quite the story behind that revelation. The wonderful Emilie Rose presents Scandalous Passion, a sultry tale of a woman desperate to get back some steamy photos from her past lover. Of course, he has a price for returning those pictures, but it’s not money he’s after. The Sultan’s Bed, by Laura Wright, continues the tales of her sheikh heroes with an enigmatic male who is searching for his missing sister and finds a startling attraction to her lovely neighbor. And finally, what was supposed to be just an elevator ride turns into a very passionate encounter, in Blame It on the Blackout by Heidi Betts.
Sit back and enjoy all of the smart, sensual stories Silhouette Desire has to offer.
Happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Senior Editor
Silhouette Desire
Secrets of Paternity
Susan Crosby
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
SUSAN CROSBY
believes in the value of setting goals, but also in the magic of making wishes. A longtime reader of romance novels, Susan earned a B.A. in English while raising her sons. She lives in the central valley of California, the land of wine grapes, asparagus and almonds. Her checkered past includes jobs as a synchronized swimming instructor, personnel interviewer at a toy factory and trucking company manager, but her current occupation as a writer is her all-time favorite.
Susan enjoys writing about people who take a chance on love, sometimes against all odds. She loves warm, strong heroes, good-hearted, self-reliant heroines…and happy endings.
Susan loves to hear from readers. You can visit her at her Web site, www.susancrosby.com.
For those who’ve loved and lost, and somehow carry on, especially Bobbie, Judy, Patt and Ruth.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
One
Caryn Brenley waited until dark before staking out the beautiful home in San Francisco’s upscale Forest Hill area. She might be a rank amateur at such intrigues, but two things she did know: first, she had a better chance of seeing someone arrive home on a weeknight after five o’clock than before it, and second, night provided better cover for someone to sit in a car and observe unnoticed. This late in October, with the switch back to standard time, night came early.
She didn’t have to wait long before a silver van pulled up to the residence she was watching from across the street and down a few houses. The garage door opened and the van disappeared inside. Caryn clenched her steering wheel. Would the driver have to come outside and go up the stairs, or was there access from the garage to inside the house?
Her question was answered quickly when two children, a boy about eight and a girl about five, emerged from the garage followed by a tall, slender woman in a black business suit.
He was married. With children.
It changed everything.
Before the woman and children went into the house, a Mercedes pulled up beside them. The kids jumped up and down and waved. The woman smiled. Again the garage door opened—
A motorcycle pulled up behind Caryn’s Explorer. In her rearview mirror she saw a man in full biker gear climb off the bike and head to the nearest house, the one in front of which Caryn was hiding in plain sight. He grabbed the contents of the mailbox and jogged up the stairs.
She went back to watching the family greet each other, but she focused on the man in the business suit who’d just arrived across the street. Husband. Father. He wasn’t as tall as she would have imagined, although his hair was dark, as she expected. There was no way of checking out his eye color from where she sat, and his dark suit and overcoat didn’t show his physique well.
Now what? She’d come to satisfy her curiosity, to see him for herself. But short of marching up and asking his name, she couldn’t know for sure that he was James Paladin, her son’s biological father.
Maybe she should leave well enough alone—
No. As appealing as that sounded, she couldn’t. Paul made a promise nineteen years ago. He could no longer keep that promise, but he would expect her to. She expected it of herself. That’s why she was here, skulking like the amateur sleuth she was.
The family went into their house together, the man carrying the little girl, her arms wrapped around his neck. She gave him repeated kisses on his cheek.
The fire went out of Caryn. There had to be a more subtle way to get her answers than confronting the man to verify that he was James Paladin—someplace away from his family. Then when she knew for sure, she would tell Kevin. The choice had to be his, a tough decision for an eighteen-year-old, especially one who’d been to hell and back in the past year.
She drummed her fingers on her steering wheel as she considered possibilities, then decided to go home and come up with a solution for another day. Maybe she could come back in the morning, follow him to his work and see if there was a way to determine his identity there. She would have to call in sick, herself. Lose a day’s wages and tips, something she couldn’t afford to do.
Resigned, Caryn started her engine, shifted into Reverse and released the emergency brake just before she spotted the biker hurrying back down the steps. He looked straight at her. She grabbed the map from the seat beside her and buried her face in it, not wanting him to get too close a look, in case she had to stake out James Paladin again.
She heard his motorcycle rev but kept her map raised, waiting for him to pull away first. His engine cut out, then a sharp knock on her window startled her, panicked her.
The map went flying. Her foot slipped off the brake. The Explorer rolled backward.
“What the—? Stop!” He banged on the hood. “Hit the—”
She jammed on the brakes. Metal hit metal. Then came silence. Hot, heavy, condemning silence.
Even through her closed window she could hear him swearing, succinctly, menacingly. Her heart thundered, deadening his words.
What had she done? She’d never had an accident. Never had a ticket. And the one time she needed to blend with the surroundings—
She stopped the thought. Took a breath. Then she shoved the jumbled map aside and looked out her window at him. Okay, she thought as her heart thumped a little slower and her hearing returned. Okay. What was done, was done. While she stared at the man, he ripped off his helmet and tunneled his fingers through his dark hair. Eyes, green and direct, drilled her. The angles of his face sharpened beneath a several-days’ growth of dark beard.
She rolled down the window and tried to smile.
Given the driver’s reckless behavior, he expected a teenager. Instead the idiot who’d just creamed the fender of his two-month-old, custom-detailed Screamin’ Eagle Harley—which he’d just gotten out of the shop from a previous accident—was a woman, one closer to his own age of forty-two. He cataloged her, as he always did with people at first meetings: auburn hair, straight, chin length and with bangs. Slender and small boned. He couldn’t judge her height precisely, but average or a little taller. Hesitation hovered in her blue eyes as she said hello, her inflection turning the single word into a question.
He rested his fists against the top of her window frame, not trusting himself not to yell at her and turn her into a quivering mass of contrition. Terrorizing wasn’t his style—most of the time, anyway—but, damn, he’d waited almost a year for that bike. A year. And this was the second time in a month he’d been hit.
Finally he gave her a “stay-put” look and went to assess the damage. Fender bent straight into his tire, just like the last time.
He grabbed a notepad and pen from the saddlebag, copied down the woman’s license plate number, then stared at the asphalt until he was calm enough to talk to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as he approached.
He met her gaze. Turquoise eyes, he noted, not blue. And she wore red lipstick. He hated red lipstick.
“You startled me when you banged on my window. My foot slipped—”
“I knocked,” he said, correcting her. “Not even loudly.” So much for being a Good Samaritan. He’d seen the map and thought she was lost.
He flipped open his notepad to an empty page. “Your tailgate is dented, by the way.”
“Bad?”
“You can see for yourself.”
She didn’t budge. Was she afraid to get out of the car? He looked that intimidating?
“We need to exchange insurance information,” he said.
After a few seconds her body language changed, not in a sexual way but a casual can-we-be-friends pose—except she looked too nervous for it to be real. What was going on?
“Could we just keep this between us,” she said, “instead of involving the insurance companies? I’ll pay cash for the repairs.”
Ah. Afraid of being canceled by her insurance company—or maybe having her license pulled? Should he sanction her game by going along with her? Or would the world be better off without her on the road?
While he debated how to answer her, he peered into her SUV. Spotless. Not a single scrap of paper or water bottle or straw wrapper. She wore a white blouse and black knee-length skirt, like a waitress’s uniform. Not the serial-accident type, at least not at first impression. So, what was her story? A husband who wouldn’t tolerate another accident?
He dropped his gaze to her left hand. No ring. As he looked, she touched her thumb to the vacant spot, as if a ring was still there.
He’d made her wait long enough, he decided. And his silence hadn’t made her tip her hand, anyway. He admired that—grudgingly. He widened his stance and crossed his arms. “You want to pay cash, it’s fine with me.”
Her shoulders dropped, her relief palpable. “How much do you think it will cost?” she asked.
He shoved the notepad and pen toward her. “Why don’t you put down your name, address and phone number. I’ll send you the bill.”
He knew by her expression she wouldn’t write down anything, even though she poised the pen above the paper. After a few seconds, she angled the tip away.
“Could you get an estimate over the phone now?” she asked.
“Doubtful.” He didn’t know why he was stringing her along. He knew the answer, probably to the penny, if the damage was what it had been the last time. He was just reluctant to let her go. Maybe it was the way she wouldn’t back down even though he seemed to terrify her.
“Can you try?”
He was entertained by her discomfort. She obviously wasn’t used to intrigue or she would’ve realized he could track her down through her license plate, whether she gave him her name or not.
He unzipped his jacket, pulled out his cell phone and pressed a button until the right number appeared on the screen. The phone rang twelve times before it was answered. “Yo, Bronco,” James said. “It’s Paladin.”
Her face paled. She busied herself with closing the pad of paper, as if the task was huge, aligning the edges of the tablet precisely, one side then the other, her fingers shaking. He figured he should just tell her what he did for a living—that she didn’t have to be afraid of him.
“Jamey! How’s that baby runnin’?”
“Could be better. There’s been an accident—” He held the phone away as Bronco shouted a few choice words. From her wince, James figured the Harley wrecker had heard them, too.
“Some woman driver hit you?” Bronco asked when he ran out of steam.
“As a matter of fact.” He was glad the woman in question couldn’t hear the sexist statement.
One more curse blasted the airwaves. “What’s the damage?”
“Same as before.”
“Drivable?”
“Not until it’s fixed.”
“I’ll come take a look in a while,” he said with a sigh.
He turned his back on the woman responsible and massaged his forehead. “Got a loaner?” he asked quietly.
“You on a job?”
“Yeah.”
“I can scrounge up something. Won’t be an Eagle. It’ll have some muscle, though.”
“Works for me. Thanks. I’ll see you later.” He snapped the phone shut and tucked it in his pocket before he turned back to face the woman and gave her an amount. “That’s if there’s no structural damage.”
She swallowed. “Plus you won’t have it as transportation.”
“Right.”
She looked at his house as if assessing his net worth. She also seemed to have calmed down. “You don’t have a car?” she asked.
“That’s not the point.”
A small fire flared in her eyes. “Look, I’m not denying my responsibility. I’m sorry you’ll be inconvenienced. I’ll go to the bank right now and bring the cash back to you, then I’ll stop by again in a few days to see if there are further costs. Will that be okay?”
“No.”
She gave him a long, cool look, which interested him as much as the heated one had.
“You said you were okay with my paying cash.”
“I am. But I’m going with you to the bank.” James wasn’t about to let her out of his sight yet. He wasn’t worried about finding her again, since he had her license plate number, but, well, frankly, she intrigued him—from her red lipstick, to her ringless finger that she continued to use as a touchstone, to her modest skirt and blouse.
“I don’t give rides to strangers.”
Implied in her tone was the fact he looked like part of a biker gang, which was his job at the moment—but she wouldn’t know that unless he chose to tell her. Not yet, he decided.
“You’re welcome to follow me,” she said primly.
He almost laughed. Damn, she was cute with her hackles up. “You won’t give me the slip?”
She went rigid. “I keep my word.”
He’d already figured that out, which is why he found it mystifying that she wouldn’t give him her name and phone number, at least, if not her address and insurance information. She was a contradiction. He liked contradictions.
“I’ll get my car out of the garage and follow you,” he said, backing away. “Don’t leave without me.”
“You’d better hurry. They close in twenty minutes.”
James deliberately chose his BMW convertible instead of the Taurus he kept for surveillance work. Okay, so he was grandstanding a little. He liked the contradiction he was showing her, as well.
Think I’m some kind of gang member, do you? Someone to be afraid to give your phone number to? Well, here’s another side of me. What would you have done if you’d hit the BMW instead, and I’d been wearing a suit and tie, and was clean shaven?
Knowing the answer—or figuring he did—he followed her up the street, uncharacteristically enjoying the fact she was nervous around him, he who usually made the effort to put people at ease.
A little intrigue. Maybe it was just what he needed while he waited to hear from the child he’d never met.
Somehow Caryn had prevented herself from hyperventilating. Had she written down his address wrong? She couldn’t imagine making that kind of mistake, but how else could she have been watching the house across the street? The wrong house.
On top of that confusion, however, James Paladin was a puzzle, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of her bank. A contradiction. A…big problem, frankly. Obviously he was a risk taker, like her late husband, Paul. And a man used to taking charge and giving orders, also Paul’s MO. Paul had ridden a motorcycle—and he’d died in an accident on the bike he cherished a year ago.
She was beginning to see why Paul had chosen James to provide the sperm for Caryn’s artificial insemination almost nineteen years ago. She’d never met him, had only learned of his existence last week, and now they were about to turn each others’ lives upside down. And Kevin’s.
Was he married? Did he have children? She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on his finger, but he also seemed the type to shun public displays of, well, possession, for lack of a better word. He seemed…unpossessable.
She parked the car and turned off the engine, saw him pull in a few spaces away. She wished she could tell him who she was, what their connection was. She couldn’t. If Kevin decided he didn’t want to meet the man responsible for his existence, it was his choice, as per a written agreement between Paul and James made all those years ago. Caryn had found it only last week while cleaning out the paperwork she’d dumped from Paul’s desk into boxes for her move back to San Francisco. Then she’d discovered a letter James had sent last year with his current address—the wrong address, apparently—and his phone number, nothing more.
That note had been mailed a week before Paul’s death to a private mailbox of Paul’s that Caryn hadn’t known existed. That hurt still lingered. How many other secrets had he kept that she hadn’t uncovered yet?
As for the potential relationship between James and her son, she couldn’t intrude. Kevin alone held that key.
She didn’t know whether she wanted James in her life or not. Everything was finally settling down for her. She’d been prepared to have Kevin’s biological father become part of his life—assumed that he wanted to be part of Kevin’s life—but that was before she met the man, when he’d been just words on paper, not a flesh-and-blood person. A man in full biker regalia. A man who made her hormones come out of a long hibernation.
He came up beside her, his sheer size in his boots and leathers making her feel like a background singer to a rock star.
“You don’t need to go inside with me,” she said.
“I have nothing else to do.”
She met his innocent gaze. Up close he was even more attractive, his eyes a lighter green than she’d first thought, his hair not just dark brown but thick and shiny. Only the scruffy beard detracted.
“I won’t walk up to the teller with you,” he added.
He seemed to be enjoying the moment. She didn’t know why she thought that, because he wasn’t smiling, but something lurked in his eyes, some sense of mischief at the absurdity of what they were doing. Cloak-and-dagger stuff. She smiled. She couldn’t help it. Oh, the irony. The first man she’d been even the slightest bit attracted to since Paul died, and he happened to be…well, who he was.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, as they entered the bank just before closing.
The security guard locked the door behind them then stood at his post, letting each person out as they finished their business.
“Just in the nick of time,” she said.
“That’s funny?”
She shrugged. Let him wonder.
He lingered a distance away as she withdrew a huge chunk of her savings and asked the teller for an envelope to put the money in, which she then passed to James. The guard gave him the once-over, his gaze shifting from James to Caryn and back, as if trying to match them as a couple—or perhaps trying to determine if James had coerced her into giving him money.
She smiled at the guard. He unlocked the door to let them through, bade them a good night. James walked with her to her car.
“I’ll need a receipt,” she said to him.
He pulled his pad of paper from his pocket, scrawled something on it, signed it, ripped it off the wire spiral and presented it to her. “How about taking me to my mechanic’s shop in the morning to pick up my loaner?”
“You have no friends?”
“Of course I have friends.”
She studied him. Mischief was back in his eyes. “Take a cab,” she said. “Add the fare to my bill.”
He grinned. She felt her face heat and tried to draw his attention from the fact. “I’m gathering that this wasn’t the first accident you had with your bike.”
He cocked his head. “It’s the second, and very similar.”
“Seems to me you should learn to park your bike differently.”
He laughed, then after a brief hesitation he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a business card, passing it to her. “I’ll see you in a few days, Ms…. Mysterious.”
He walked away. She looked at his card. James Paladin, Investigator, ARC Security & Investigations.
Well. Maybe he wasn’t like Paul, after all.
Two
An hour later Caryn was holding her breath as she waited for her son to say something. Anything.
“I don’t want to meet him,” Kevin muttered at last.
He pushed away from the kitchen table and stalked to the window overlooking their tiny backyard. Caryn sat quietly, giving him time to let the idea of James Paladin settle. She’d had a week’s advantage on him in that regard, but she was by no means calm or accepting, either.
She’d explained everything she knew—that Paul had chosen James specifically as the sperm donor, that they’d entered into a written agreement which stated that the resulting child, if there was one, would have the right to contact James upon turning eighteen. She told Kevin how she’d found the agreement in Paul’s paperwork, then about the other letter giving James’s current contact information. That was it. Bare bones information. No note saying he still wanted to meet Kevin. No hint at all. Name, correct address—she’d double-checked that—and phone number. Period.
“I don’t have to see him,” Kevin added, his arms crossed, his tone harsh. “The agreement says so.”
“That’s right. Nothing requires you to.”
He shoved his hands through his hair, as James had done earlier. The gesture caught her by surprise. Maybe Kevin had always done that, but it took on more significance now—heredity, not environment.
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” he said, firing a look at her.
“I wish I hadn’t had to.”
His hesitation lasted several beats. “‘Never make a promise you can’t keep, and always keep your promises,’” he said, parroting a lifetime of her own words to him.
It wasn’t only her philosophy but Paul’s, as well. She’d fulfilled her end of the bargain. Now she was free of the technical part of her responsibility. She still had to deal with the results of backing into his Harley—plus if Kevin did at some point decide to meet him, the emotional aspects of the whole business.
She stood, smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. Her fingertips brushed against the outline of the business card in her pocket. “He’s a private investigator, by the way,” she said, giving him the last piece of information, one she thought might interest him too much.
Kevin lifted his head. “Yeah?”
“Will you tell me if you decide to meet him?” she asked, wishing she could hug him as though he were five years old again and make everything better. He’d had a horrible time adjusting to Paul’s death.
“I guess so.”
“You want to stay for dinner?” she asked.
“Nah. Jeremy’s coming over to study. He’s bringing pizza.”
“Okay.” Caryn had bought an old duplex near Kevin’s college. They each had their own two-bedroom unit, his downstairs.
“How’d work go?” he asked.
“Good tips today.”
“Was Venus there?”
“Yes.” She grabbed a glass from the cupboard, turning away from him, keeping her frown to herself. Kevin’s crush on the young waitress who worked with Caryn worried her. He didn’t need another obsession in his life, and Venus was fast becoming one.
“Did she…say anything about me?”
“No.” Caryn kept her voice upbeat and didn’t ask questions.
“Okay.” He started to leave but stopped, his hand on the doorknob. “What does he—” He frowned. “Do I look like him?”
She nodded. The similarities struck her anew. The same facial features, except eye color. And their hands—long fingers and broad palms. Close in height, too, although James had a man’s body, while Kevin was still growing into his.
“Why did Dad choose this guy?”
“I don’t know. I gather they knew each other, but I don’t know what the connection was.”
“Okay.” He banged his open hand against the doorjamb. “Later.”
After the front door shut she tried to find something mindless to do. She opened the refrigerator, stared inside it, then shut the door. She’d lost weight since Paul died, pounds she hadn’t needed to lose. She should fix herself a meal, but she doubted she could eat more than a bite, anyway.
She walked across the slightly warped hardwood floor to where a portable phone hung on the charger base. She picked up the handset. After a minute she carefully returned it to the base. Who could she call? No one. Not until Kevin made a decision to acknowledge James. Until then she couldn’t tell her mother, her brother or even her best friend.
She’d had such hope for this move back to her hometown. Some people thought she was clinging to Kevin, that she’d bought the duplex in order to keep him close instead of turning him loose as an independent adult. Maybe that was partly true. He’d had an even harder time than she had adjusting to Paul’s death, yet he’d decided to attend Paul’s alma mater, to major in criminal justice, like his father.
She worried that Paul’s life philosophy was embedded in Kevin, that he would take as many risks, revel in them, actually. He already had the notion that the accident that ended Paul’s life was intentional, even though law enforcement people from more than one agency had been involved in the investigation, and nothing they found indicated any hint of truth to Kevin’s claim.
Lately Caryn had been wondering the same thing, if not worse.
She took a sip of water, letting go of her worries about Paul and focused on Kevin instead. She’d listened as friends and family advised her to let go of him, that it was time for him to spread his wings—and she’d ignored the advice, because she knew her son better than anyone else did, and she knew he wasn’t ready to be cut loose yet. When he was, she would know. She hoped it would be soon, for both their sakes.
For now, however, her longtime curiosity about the man whose generosity had given her Kevin had been satisfied. He was tall, dark and handsome, and her son clearly resembled him. And the man was capable of keeping his temper under control, as witnessed by his demeanor toward her after she’d run into his bike. He was in a profession that required intelligence, cunning, quick-on-his-feet reaction—and a willingness to take risks, the part of Paul she’d had the hardest time dealing with through the years. With good reason, as she’d discovered.
Had Kevin also wondered about the man? She and Paul had never kept it secret that Kevin had been conceived by artificial insemination. But then, Paul had never mentioned James Paladin and the agreement. She understood, perhaps, why Paul had kept it from Kevin, but why hadn’t he told her? If she hadn’t found the letter of agreement, what would’ve happened? Would James have found Kevin and her instead, and accused them of not biding by the agreement?
If Kevin didn’t contact the man within a certain amount of time, would he come looking? It wouldn’t be too difficult for a competent private investigator to find out where they lived.
Maybe she would have to intervene, after all, if only to say that Kevin didn’t want contact yet.
But she would give Kevin some time first. Just a little time. She hoped James would, too.
That same evening, James’s doorbell rang. His gut clenched as he hurried downstairs and to the front door. Even after a twenty-year career dominated by anticipation, he was surprised at the almost staggering sense of expectation that surged through him every time the phone rang or someone came to the door. But then, this wasn’t work related.
“I come bearing food,” Cassie Miranda said as she shouldered her way past him, trailing a scent of basil and garlic.
He masked his disappointment—or relief, he wasn’t sure—that an eighteen-year-old with maybe his own green eyes wasn’t standing there instead. He wished he knew whether he was waiting for a boy or girl. “Did we have plans, Cass?”
She looked around. “Do you have company?”
“No.”
“Heath is in Seattle. I got lonely.”
He shut the door and followed her to the kitchen. “You’ve been engaged for three weeks and you’ve forgotten how to eat alone?”
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
James knew why Cassie was there, and it had nothing to do with her fiancé being out of town. In the almost-year that James and Cassie had worked as investigators at ARC Security & Investigations, they, along with their boss, Quinn Gerard, had forged a friendship rare for such independent souls. They were the only people he’d told about what was happening in his life, what he was waiting for.
“Any word?” she asked as she pulled plates from his cupboard.
“Nothing.”
“Give them time.” Her long, golden-brown braid swung along her lower back as she reached for a couple of wineglasses.
He grabbed a bottle of Merlot. “Maybe Paul decided to ignore our agreement.”
“From everything you’ve told me about Paul Brenley, I don’t think you need to worry about him going back on his word.” Cassie stopped dishing up the food and set her hands on the counter, leaning toward him. “Let’s focus on your biggest worry—what if the kid doesn’t want to meet you?”
He plunked down a tub of grated parmesan cheese next to the plates. “Yeah, so? That’s normal.”
“My point exactly, Jamey. And if you don’t hear from them, you only have to track down the Brenley family and get the answers yourself. An easy thing for you, unless they’re in witness protection or something.” She flashed him a teasing smile then went back to serving generous portions of ravioli. “In fact, I can’t believe you haven’t tried.”
“I agreed to no contact, and I’ve stuck by it. I don’t want to take advantage of my resources unless I have to. We’re jaded enough from this business, Cass. Maybe my agreement with Paul was only slightly more than a handshake, but I want to believe he would honor it.” Like the Harley wrecker this afternoon, he thought. He wasn’t going to track her down, but let her prove him right—that most people were trustworthy.
“Speaking of being jaded,” she said, “how was your date last night?”
He’d put the woman out of his mind already. Not very complimentary, he supposed, but he didn’t date for fun anymore. Every woman was a potential wife and mother, now that he was looking to settle down. “It was okay,” he said.
“How old was this one?”
He gave her a cool look.
“That young, huh?” she asked innocently.
“Need I remind you that your fiancé is eleven years older than you.”
“Yeah. Eleven. Not twenty.”
“My date wasn’t that young.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Oh, okay. Only seventeen years’ difference. Jamey, Jamey, Jamey. I know dating a P.I. can make a woman starry-eyed for some odd reason, but, really, what do you want with someone that young?”
Babies, he thought. A home. “Energy,” he said instead with a grin, to which Cassie heaved a huge sigh.
James made it through the evening without telling Cassie about his incident that afternoon with the Harley wrecker, knowing he wasn’t ready to deal with Cass’s potential interrogation, even though she would like the fact the woman was closer to his own age. Is she attractive? Cass would ask. Yes, and although she looked as if a strong wind could blow her away, her personality wasn’t subtle. He thought about the empty place on her ring finger. Divorced? Widowed? While there was a certain vulnerability to her, he hadn’t seen weakness.
Is she smart? Oh, yeah. He’d especially liked how she’d told him to take a cab and add the cost to her bill.
But the question he was likely avoiding most from Cassie: What is she hiding? That he didn’t know, but it seemed tied more to her not giving him her name than insurance issues.
The encounter had jarred his life—in a good way—at a time he needed jarring.
After Cassie left around ten o’clock, James sat down at his computer, found he couldn’t concentrate, and so he wandered into his backyard. The size of his house and the denseness of foliage blocked most of the street noise and city sounds. The birds slept. A year ago he couldn’t have pictured himself living in a place like this, a four-bedroom, stately manor house with room for a family. While he’d been born and raised in San Francisco, and the city had continued to be home base during his twenty years as a bounty hunter, he’d lived in a small, cheap apartment when he wasn’t out of town—since his divorce, anyway.
When his father died last year and James decided he’d had enough of life on the road, he’d looked at high-rise condos and lofts, but this house had lured him with unspoken promise, even the yard. This summer he’d planted a small vegetable garden. Next year he would do more. The yard was a work in progress.
As was his life. Gone were the days of tracking down fugitives, at least on a daily basis. He’d signed on with ARC because investigation was what he knew, and even though he still worked more than forty-hour weeks, the clientele had gone way upscale.
He wanted a personal life-change, as well. Home and hearth, although maybe not in the traditional sense. He wouldn’t mind if the woman came with children already, except that he would like to have one of his own, too, if it wasn’t too late.
One of his own. He had one of his own. He just hadn’t had a hand in raising that one. But maybe they could have a relationship, anyway. A friendship. Extended family. Would Paul encourage that? And his wife, Caryn, whom James had never met—would she feel threatened by James’s intrusion into their lives? Had they found a way to provide a sibling or two for the first child?
There were plenty of times he’d questioned whether meeting the child was a good idea, given the potential complications to everyone involved, but James would never break his word, never go back on a promise.
It was the lack of control that was hardest for him. He had no control whatsoever.
All he could do was wait.
Three
In a family-friendly neighborhood like his, James expected a lot of trick-or-treaters, but the sheer numbers amazed him. Time after time he answered the door, dropped candy into a paper bag or plastic pumpkin or pillowcase, shut the door and started to walk away, only to hear the bell ring again.
He gave up trying to do anything but give out candy, deciding to sit on his front steps, about four up from the bottom. It was already dark but still early in the evening, a magical time when the littlest kids were brought around by parents who either coaxed them to approach or dragged them away because they were too talkative and curious.
James enjoyed them all. It was his first Halloween in his home, in a real neighborhood, for more years than he could remember. The costumes ranged from store-bought to homemade to thrown together. Pirates swaggered, princesses pirouetted. Some things never changed.
The trick-or-treaters got older as the hour grew later, kids traveling in groups but without adult supervision. They more or less grunted, shoved their bags into range, grunted again then kept going. When the crowds thinned to one or two kids every five minutes or so, he decided to go inside. He stood just as a young man approached and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
“No costume, no candy,” James said lightly. The kid hadn’t bothered to don a hat or even carry a prop, unless he considered his black leather jacket and sunglasses, two hours after sunset, a costume.
“I’m Kevin,” the boy said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Kevin Brenley. Are you James Paladin?”
It was a blow to the abdomen—pain and joy jumbled together, wreaking havoc. Kevin. He had a son. Kevin. How had he doubted for a second that he wanted to meet the boy?
He found his voice. “Yes, I’m James.” Their connection was purely biological, but he was there, looking scared and slightly hostile and handsome. James put out his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
The boy hesitated a few seconds, shook his hand, then jammed his own back in his pocket.
James tamped down his inner turbulence. “Would you like to come inside?” he asked. He’d faced an escaped murderer with less uncertainty about what to do next.
“Can we just sit here?”
“Sure.” James gestured to the spot beside him, resisted smiling when Kevin sat on the step above, as far away as he could get. Damn. What did you say to a boy you had fathered but never seen? How much inane chitchat had to be spoken before anything important could be said? Did he even have the right to ask questions of this young man who had yet to remove his sunglasses?
James was surprised Kevin had come on his own, although grateful that he had. Having Paul there, too, might have been even more awkward. “How is Paul?”
“My father died a year ago.”
James looked away, sadness rushing in. He closed his eyes. His throat tightened. He hadn’t seen Paul in almost nineteen years, but he could see his face, hear his voice. “I’m sorry. Very sorry.”
“Thanks.” Kevin shoved his sunglasses on top of his head. His jaw twitched. “I’m not here looking for a father to replace him.”
Kevin was angry. James understood that. His father was dead, and James lived. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. “I wouldn’t expect to take his place. He raised you.”
“I heard you’re a P.I.”
Surprise zipped through him. “How’d you find that out?”
“From my mom. Last week she found the agreement between you and Dad. She checked you out.”
Smart woman, not to let her son go blindly into a situation. But James wondered what she would’ve done if he hadn’t passed muster. “I hope to meet her sometime.”
One side of Kevin’s mouth lifted. “My mom’s kinda unpredictable.”
“Okay.” James didn’t know what else to say. Did unpredictable mean crazy? Would she be a problem? “Does she know you’re here?”
“No. And we’re going to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because she wouldn’t approve.”
Which made no sense to James. “But you said she checked me out, and obviously she gave you my name and address. That sounds like approval to me.”
“She was keeping Dad’s promise, that’s all.”
“I see. But you’re here. Why?”
“Because there’s something you can do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Help me find my father’s killer.”
Stunned, James studied the boy, noting his fury and pain. “Killer?”
Kevin nodded once, sharply. “The cops say it was an accident. I know better.”
A group of trick-or-treaters approached. James divided the remainder of his candy among them, tossing a handful into each bag.
“Cool!” a couple of them said before running off. “Thanks!”
James stood. “Let’s go inside,” he said to Kevin.
After a moment Kevin stood, too. James saw his own DNA in the boy, not like looking in a mirror, but as if Kevin had stepped out of James’s high school yearbook. Did Kevin see it? Did it make him uncomfortable? James and Paul had shared some similarities, but not like this.
He turned off the porch light to discourage more trick-or-treaters, then watched Kevin look around his house, wondering what he thought of it. Sometimes the echoing quiet overwhelmed James.
“You live here alone?” Kevin asked, his hands shoved in his pockets again.
“Yes.” He gestured toward the living room.
“Got any kids?”
Just you. “No.”
“How come?”
“Until last year I worked as a bounty hunter. I wasn’t home much. Didn’t seem fair to a family to be gone so much.”
He hesitated a few seconds. “My dad was gone a lot, too.”
“What did he do?”
“Stuntman.”
James sat in an overstuffed chair, deciding he would seem less intimidating sitting down. Kevin moved slowly around the room, stopping to look at an item, then moving on.
“Hollywood type?” James asked.
“Yeah.”
“Seems like his death would’ve made news.”
Kevin picked up a piece of yellow quartz that sat on the mantel and examined it. “It did.”
“Maybe I was out of the country. Where’d you live?”
“In Southern California, in the Valley. Near Sylmar. We had a small ranch.”
“With horses?”
“Yeah. Can’t be an all-around stuntman if you can’t ride.” His tone of voice implied that James was being stupid for asking.
“I suppose not. You ride?”
“Of course.”
Of course. “Your mom, too?”
Kevin faced him squarely. “Will you help me?”
So, no more chitchat. Kevin didn’t care about James beyond what he could do for him, but it was enough for now. “Tell me what you know.”
The boy drew himself up. Obviously, even a year later, he had trouble talking about the accident.
“Dad was riding his bike down the canyon road. It was raining. He and the bike went over the side.”
“Why do you think it was intentional?”
“My dad was careful. Supercareful. He checked every stunt ten times. And he knew every inch of that road. No way that could’ve happened. No way.”
“Even though it was raining?”
“He would’ve been supercautious.”
The determination in his voice was convincing. “Yet the police think otherwise.”
“The police didn’t know my dad.” He planted his feet and crossed his arms. “Look, if you don’t want to help me, just say so.”
“Had he been acting differently, Kevin? Do you have something concrete to go on?”
“Yes. Different. I don’t know how to describe it. Just different.”
“In what way?”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Not there. I know that doesn’t make sense. He was there, around, but he wasn’t there. Like he was distracted all the time.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
“Sort of. I asked him if something was wrong, but he said no. He was just tired.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
Kevin shook his head. “I let it go, because I thought I would just give him some time. He told me everything. I figured he’d tell me this, too.”
Not everything, apparently. Layered over the boy’s obvious grief was belligerence, probably to hide how much he hurt. James’s decision was easy. He would help Kevin—because if he didn’t, Kevin would probably disappear from his life as quickly as he’d come into it, but also because James needed to help Kevin end his pain, or find a way to live with it, if he could. If Kevin would let him.
James also understood Kevin’s urgency for justice.
“I’ll investigate it,” James told him.
“You don’t sound like you believe me.”
“I believe you knew your dad better than anyone, except your mom, probably. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“Are you good?”
“Yes.”
Kevin stared at him. Wariness dulled his eyes, and he looked ready to flee at any moment. Finally he moved his shoulders, more an involuntary gesture of relief than an adolescent I-don’t-care shrug. James figured he cared a whole lot.
“I’ll need a little more information,” James said, standing. “Let me get a pad of paper. Can I get you something to eat or drink while I’m up?”
“Not hungry.”
The doorbell rang. James ignored it, assuming it was trick-or-treaters. He grabbed a pad from his office, convinced Kevin to sit down, then James wrote down more details—exactly where and when the accident occurred. Which police agencies were involved. More exact descriptions of Paul’s out-of-character behavior.
“I can start with this,” James said. “Give me a couple of days to do some preliminary digging. Do you want me to call you?”
Kevin swallowed hard then nodded.
James pretended not to see how much his help meant to Kevin. “What’s your phone number and address?”
Kevin gave him a telephone number only. “It’s my cell.”
It was twice in a week that someone was afraid to give James personal information. An image of the Harley wrecker flashed in his mind. She’d had the same sort of wariness in her eyes as Kevin.
“I gotta go,” Kevin said, pushing himself up. He hadn’t taken off his jacket, and now he dropped his sunglasses back into place—before he headed out into the night.
James didn’t want him to go, but he understood that if he wanted a relationship with this young man, he’d better take it slowly. He’d been handed a golden opportunity to get to know Kevin. He wouldn’t squander it because he rushed it.
James extended his hand. Kevin clasped it. “Thanks,” he mumbled, then he headed for the door, his strides long and quick. The door shut behind him with a rattle of glass. His footsteps down the stairs were heavy and fast, drifting out of earshot within seconds.
Silence crash landed louder than ever before in the big house James loved. He hadn’t realized just how empty it was, not truly. It made him hunger to fill it up now. Right now.
He grabbed a beer and headed into his office. He would look up newspaper articles about Paul’s death first. But when he pulled up a chair to the computer, he just sat there, thinking about Paul, about how they met, and what had happened between them to make James indebted to him.
He needed to tell someone. Not his mother, not yet. Not until the relationship settled. Quinn was in Los Angeles helping the other ARC owners on a big case. That left Cassie. He called her home number and got her answering machine. He hung up, debating whether to call her cell, which would be on, but he didn’t want to interrupt her night with her fiancé. They weren’t at home, so they must be out having fun somewhere.
The doorbell rang. As before, he ignored it. It rang again. Fifteen seconds later, again. Irritated he headed to the front door. When he was a kid, an unlit porch light meant “do not disturb.” He didn’t have candy left to give out.
He yanked open the door, intending to give an etiquette lesson to the trick-or-treater. No costumed kid stood there, however, but the Harley wrecker, not decked out in a costume but in blue jeans and a red sweater.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, looking ready to flee, probably because he was scowling.
“No.” He was surprised by the jolt of reaction that whipped through him. “No, please. Come in.”
“Um. No, thank you. I’m sorry for dropping by so late, but I saw your light on. I just wanted to know about the estimate on the repairs. If I owe you more money.”
Maybe it was because he was already high on adrenaline from meeting Kevin that his heart started beating louder. That was part of it, he supposed, but more likely it was because he found her appealing. He liked that she was a woman of her word, that she’d shown up when she said she would, proving that such people did exist. He also liked the wary look in her eyes, similar, in fact, to Kevin’s expression, even the same shade of blue—
“Mr. Paladin?” she said, taking a step back, her expression even warier.
“Would you like to have dinner?” he asked. He needed to talk to someone about what had just happened. He had a feeling she would sympathize or cheer or give him good advice on how to handle the situation. Maybe she even had teenagers herself.
“With you?” she asked.
He smiled at the shock in her voice. “I can’t really invite you to go out with anyone else, can I?”
“No, thank you,” she said firmly. “Do I owe you more money?”
He was disappointed but not surprised at her turndown. “My mechanic hasn’t given me an answer. If you’ll leave your name and number this time, I’ll give you a call when I know.”
“I’ll come back.” She went down the stairs.
James watched her until she was out of sight, admiring the sway of her rear in her formfitting jeans. Although slender, she wasn’t lacking curves in all the right places.
He wondered why he found her so intriguing, especially since she didn’t flirt, and talked to him only as a person intent on doing business. In fact she’d looked at him at one point as if he’d had the plague. Physically she tempted him, but that wasn’t all there was to it.
Deciding to ignore his disappointment, he fastened on his leather chaps, changed his shoes to boots, grabbed his jacket and helmet and headed out of the house. He needed company and he wanted a drink. He would find both—and do a little work at the same time.
Her nerves shot, Caryn sat in her car to unwind. About the time she would’ve driven away, she saw James come down the stairs, get on the motorcycle parked out front—his loaner, she guessed—and take off.
She followed him. She wasn’t even sure why, except that she was leaving at the same time and—
No. That wasn’t the truth. The truth was that she was fascinated by him. He’d obviously done well for himself, if his house was any indicator. He looked really good dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, too. Like a normal person—except for the scruffy beard. Not like a biker, a risk taker, an adventurer. Like Paul.
Caryn wished she could show James a picture of Kevin, to talk about her wonderful son, to thank the man for his generosity in making Kevin’s life possible. To ask why he’d done it. But she couldn’t. Kevin had to make the overture, and he didn’t seem inclined to do so yet.
She’d been tempted—too tempted—to go to dinner with James. She was already withholding information from him—for good reason—but anything more could be interpreted as lies. If Kevin ever contacted him, and she and James met officially, it could be disastrous with lies between them. So far everything she’d done was forgivable, under the circumstances.
She let a car get between hers and his motorcycle, hoping he hadn’t spotted her. She wanted to know where he was headed after she’d turned him down.
The adventure of following him revved her up. She smiled at the excitement clamoring inside her. It was the last thing she needed, really, this adrenaline rush, this risky scenario. She’d just gotten her life together after Paul’s death. She didn’t need this kind of complication.
If only James didn’t push so many of her hot buttons—like the fantasy of finally meeting him, and the deep-down wish for Kevin to have a father again, a male influence, an anchor.
And then there was that other hot button—a year without intimacy. Her body had come back to life with a vengeance, just by being near him.
She realized he was driving, not in circles exactly, but as if trying to lose her. After a few more turns and cutbacks he pulled up in front of a loud and seedy bar where the street was full of parked motorcycles, some mean-looking ones.
She realized she was lost. Didn’t have a clue where she was or how to get home from there. Worst of all, he’d spotted her. It was ridiculous of her to even try driving past him when he stared right into her car.
She slowed to a stop. He came up alongside her driver’s window, pulled off his helmet.
“Change your mind?” he asked.
“About what?”
“Having dinner with me.”
“No.”
“Why were you following me?”
“I don’t know.”
His brows lifted.
“Okay. Frankly, I was curious. Beyond that, I don’t have a clue. Honestly. I saw you pull out, and I just…followed. And now I’m lost because you were trying to lose me, and I was focused on staying with you instead of on where I was.”
“If I’d wanted to lose you, I would have,” he said blandly.
Of course. She should’ve known that. “You were playing a game with me?”
“I was seeing if you were following me. You were.” He leaned an arm against the top of her car. “The invitation holds, Mysterious.”
She glanced at the bar as another bike pulled up. A beefy man helped a woman climb off it. Both of them had tattoos down their arms and around their necks.
“Not here,” he said with a quick, contagious grin.
“I’ll bet that smile works, most of the time,” she said, relaxing. He hadn’t done anything to intimidate her, even if she’d felt intimidated at times. But that was her problem, not his.
“You intrigue me,” he said.
She did? She was so straightforward, usually, and so…unintriguing. Was it because she was keeping herself mysterious, and therefore, hard to get? Instead of telling him he was ridiculous, that she was the least intriguing person on earth, she smiled. “Then I should keep doing what I’m doing,” she said leisurely.
“Ah. It’s the chase that excites you.”
She started to flirt back, then realized she had no right to. What was she thinking? She gathered up her long-denied, flattered libido and adjusted her body language and tone of voice. “How do I get back to Market?”
He barely skipped a beat before giving her directions, then he took a step back. His smile disappeared.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she said.
He nodded.
She felt awful as she pulled away, like a big tease, like a teenager without any life skills. She’d responded to him without thinking it through. She was sinking deeper into a situation she should be avoiding at all costs.
And she was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to stop.
Four
James’s usual way of doing business was to put together a binder containing copies of his research and phone log to give to the client as the investigation progressed. For purely selfish reasons, he did none of it for Kevin, deciding that the boy might just take the materials and run. Instead he would have to come in and stay awhile to hear the results of James’s initial inquiry. If nothing else, it would give them some time together. Maybe it wouldn’t only be about business.
It was Tuesday afternoon, three days since Kevin had appeared in his life. James had lived in a kind of fog, focusing enough to work, but easily distracted, not only because of Kevin but also Mysterious.
He wasn’t sure what to think of her. She’d followed him, flirted with him, then shut him down. Not a woman who knew her own mind at all. Unpredictable…
Which is what Kevin had called his mother, too. Apparently it was the watchword for the modern woman. But he preferred unpredictable to the expected, anyway.
James had called Kevin’s cell phone a while ago, had caught him leaving his last class of the day. He was on his way.
Deciding that the way to a teenage boy’s heart was through his stomach, James set bowls of salsa and chips on the kitchen counter, deciding the kitchen would be a less intimidating place to talk than in the living room.
He wandered to the front window to watch for Kevin’s arrival. Anxiety ate away at him. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this. No matter what he did or said, Kevin could perceive him as trying too hard or not hard enough, or whatever else was within the realm of possibility in a teenager’s mind.
He wondered why Kevin didn’t want his mother to know they’d met, but he was grateful she’d considered Paul’s promise sacred. Realistically, however, how long did Kevin think he could keep it from his mother?
Kevin came into sight, hands shoved in his pockets, sunglasses in place, a Dodgers cap on his head. Where had he parked? There were empty spots in front of the house, but he was on foot. The bigger question, though—should James open the door before Kevin reached it or wait for him to knock? He hated that he didn’t know how to behave with Kevin. Would Kevin want to know how anxious James was to see him—or would he think James’s expectations were too high?
He decided to let the boy ring the bell, then opened the door almost instantly. “How’s it going?” James asked, heading toward the kitchen, letting Kevin follow.
“Okay.”
“I figured you might be hungry.” He pointed toward the snacks. “What do you drink?”
“Orange juice.”
Hiding a smile, James opened the refrigerator and grabbed the juice, shutting the door on six different brands of soda he’d bought, hoping that one was Kevin’s favorite. He poured a tall glass, was pleased that Kevin was already eating the chips and salsa, which seemed an odd combination with orange juice.
“You going to college full-time?” James asked.
“Eighteen units.”
“What’s your major?”
“Criminal justice.” His gaze strayed to the folder James had left on the counter. “You find out anything?”
Criminal justice. Same as Paul and me. James didn’t sit in the chair next to Kevin, but left an empty seat between them. “I found out a lot, but I doubt it’s anything you don’t already know.”
The doorbell rang. James excused himself. “I’m expecting a package,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
It was a package, all right, but not the one he expected. This one was about five feet seven, reed slender and dressed in her waitress garb of white blouse and black skirt. “Mysterious,” he said as coolly as he could. She’d irritated him the other night with her flirtation game, or whatever it was, but he couldn’t seem to convince his tap-dancing hormones that he should stay detached.
“Hi. I happened to be in the neighborhood.” She smiled nervously.
“I’ve got company. Could you come back in a while?”
Impatience flickered in her eyes. “How much time do you need to give me an answer? Yes, I owe you more money, and how much—or, no, I don’t.”
He could give her an answer. He didn’t want to. Not yet. Obviously there was something between them. He needed to know why she was resisting exploring their attraction. “I—”
“You followed me?”
Kevin stormed up beside James, but the shouted words were directed to the Harley wrecker.
“Kevin!” Her eyes went from Kevin to James and back again. “I didn’t. I didn’t know you were—”
“I told you, Mom! I told you. I have to find my father’s killer.”
Mom? Well, everything made sense to James now. Or maybe not everything, but a lot. One thing was crystal clear, however. Kevin’s accusation of his mother following him was way off base. James could see her genuine shock that Kevin was there.
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