Maggie Shayne - Kiss Me, Kill Me

“Surprised to see me?” he asked.

She nodded, mute, trying to think of something to say. “I thought Sam was coming.”

“Sam dropped me off. I asked him to.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It sounded to me like you were having a miserable time with our pal Ambrose. I figured the timing was perfect. I’ll look great by comparison, and you’ll be impressed in spite of your dislike of, uh, hippie drifters.”

She smiled a little crookedly. “Drifter hippies,” she corrected, then looked away. “Sam told you I said that, huh?”

He nodded, held out a hand. “Keys?”

She fished them from her purse and placed them into his open hand. As she did, her own hand skimmed his palm, and she felt it right to her toes.

Their eyes met, then slid away. He walked around to the passenger side, opened her door for her and stood back to wave a gallant arm toward the car.

She got in, and he closed the door. A moment later he was behind the wheel, adjusting the seat to accommodate his long legs. He started the engine, turned on the headlights, fastened his seat belt.

She turned his way, her head resting on the seat, and found herself just staring at his profile for a long moment.

He glanced at her. “Feeling good, are you?”

“Mmm-hmm. Totally relaxed. And relieved. Thanks for rescuing me.”

“Anytime,” he said.

“And for being so good to Sam.”

He smiled. “You don’t need to thank me for that, Carrie. He’s a great kid.”

“He really is,” she agreed.

Gabe nodded. “Yeah. And that Sadie…she’s quite the firecracker.”

“You’ve got that right.” She inhaled slowly, then let out her breath. “So I guess I just have one question.”

“Shoot,” he said.

“Why is it you care whether or not I’m impressed with you?”

He met her eyes, but only briefly. “Well, because you’re smart and gorgeous and fascinating, and because I’m male.”

She smiled slowly. “Are you always this direct and honest?”

“I really do strive to be.”

“That’s…refreshing.”

“Glad you think so.”

“I do. And I think I owe you an apology for misjudging you. My son says you’re rich and famous.” She made a face. “Not that that makes any difference. There are plenty of rich and famous people who are total jerks, I’m sure.”

“Rich is a relative term. And open to a wide variety of interpretations.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “So do you consider yourself rich?”

“Beyond my wildest dreams,” he admitted. “But not because I have a mansion or a fancy car or gold-plated faucets in my bathrooms.”

“Do you?” she asked, a bit wide-eyed.

“I don’t even own a house. And you’ve seen what I drive. No. I’m rich because I get to do what I love most for a living. I’m rich because I get to live anywhere I want in this beautiful country of ours. I’m rich because I’m free. I go where I want, stay as long as I want, do what I want, work when I feel like it, and I’m happy most of the time. That’s my definition of being rich.”

She nodded slowly. “I think that’s a damn good definition.”

Gabe could tell she was tipsy. Not drunk. He doubted the respectable doctor would ever allow herself to get beyond control. But he was glad to see that she was relaxed enough for an honest conversation. As he drove her back to her house, he said, “Sam tells me you took in a boarder.”

She nodded, her head resting on the seat back. “I end up with a couple every fall. Didn’t want any this year, but—”

“Why not?”

She slid him a sideways look. “Between Kyle being missing and all the reporters who’ve been in town until recently, digging for any secrets they could find, I thought it best not to talk to strangers.”

He nodded as if he understood. “You have secrets you’re worried about them digging up?”

She swung her head toward him so fast he thought she must have wrenched her neck. “No! Why would you think that?”

He looked at her. “I didn’t think that.” Until now, he thought in silence. “I was just responding to what you said—the press in town digging for secrets, yada, yada.”

She blinked as if her mind were having trouble processing his words. He decided to cut her a little slack, though he wouldn’t forget the clue she’d dropped here tonight. She had a secret. She didn’t like the press digging around town. And he knew what the press had been digging for. Information about Livvy, dead all these years. Information about her baby, the one that might be his. Now why would the local medico be nervous about questions like those?

“So what made you rent out the room when you’d already decided not to?” he asked.

She shrugged. “This lady was a lot easier to turn down on the phone than she was in person.”

“She came to your house?”

Carrie nodded. A red curl dropped onto her nose, and she brushed it away with the back of one hand. “Yeah, just as we were getting ready to meet you at the firehouse. That’s why I didn’t make it.” She shook her head. “She’s really sweet, and all alone, and it just would have been mean to say no.”

“Besides, she doesn’t look like a reporter, right?”

“Right.”

“Then again, who does, huh?”

She shrugged.

“I mean, you accused me of being a reporter when we first met. Do I look like one?”

“No. I mean, not an airbrushed, suit-wearing, hair-styled, talking head sort of reporter, anyway. You look more like an embedded, in the line of fire, risk-taking, rogue type.”

“I do?”

She nodded. “It’s the hair.”

“The hair?” He ran a hand over his head, from the front to the ponytail in the back.

“This hair, too,” she said, and then he felt her palm on his whiskered cheek and experienced an electrical storm in his pants. Holy shit.

He cleared his throat, sought ways to change the subject, to distract himself, if not her. “Your son is great. You’ve done an incredible job raising him.”

She lifted her brows. “Thank you. I agree completely. Sam’s amazing.”

“Have you done it all on your own?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So then, you were never married…? To his father, I mean.”

She slanted him a look. “I’ve never been married to anyone.”

He studied her face briefly. “So Sam’s father isn’t in your life. Is he in Sam’s?”

“No.”

“Do you even know who he is?”

She widened her eyes. “Are you suggesting I sleep with so many men I can’t keep track?”

“I didn’t mean it like that at all. I just—I mean, do you think you have the right to keep Sam from getting to know his father?”

“You don’t know that I’m keeping Sam from doing anything.”

“That’s true, I don’t know. Are you?”

She looked at him. “I would never do anything to hurt my son. If he wants to know about his father, all he has to do is ask. And he will, when he’s ready. And then I’ll tell him everything I know. But I don’t have to tell you any of it.”

“Everything you know?” he repeated. “That’s an odd way to put it.”

“Why are you asking so many questions about my son?”

He felt a rush of guilt for taking advantage of her slightly inebriated state. Sam looked a little like him, maybe a lot like him, and he had the right birthday, and damn, he sure did have a gorgeous mother, to boot. But that didn’t prove anything. And he thought again that maybe this thing he’d been calling a gut feeling was nothing more than a serious case of wishful thinking gone awry.

Still, her evasiveness made him more suspicious than before. He would definitely be looking into Sam Overton’s records—the public ones, anyway. Sadie’s and Kyle’s, too. The problem was, adoption records weren’t public, so he wasn’t sure his search would tell him much.