Darlene Gardner - An Honorable Man

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A rugged stranger asking questions…Sierra Whitmore figures the guy is just a journalist doing his job. That's before the reserved doctor gives in to the powerful attraction simmering between them. Before she discovers the real reason Ben Nash came to Indigo Springs.Uncovering the truth behind his mother's death seems to be Ben's driving mission. But when his quest unearths a secret in Sierra's own family, how can she ask this passionate, honorable man to choose between her and justice? Or maybe Ben has already made his choice. Especially if he knows that exposing the past could cost him his future…with Sierra.

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She advanced, trying to slow down her steps. Missy must have heard him wrong. Ben Nash wasn’t waiting to see Sierra’s brother: he was here to see her. She felt her smile break free.

“This is a surprise.” She stemmed the desire to walk into his arms and stopped a few feet shy of him. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”

That was a strange thing to say. Did he honestly believe she’d hold it against him that he’d been secretly planning to seek her out? But how had he found her? “I know I didn’t tell you I was a doctor.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said. “In a town this small, people talk.”

For one of the first times in her life, she was glad gossip was a favorite pastime among the locals in Indigo Springs. Otherwise, she might not have had the pleasure of seeing Ben again. Or the chance to find out where what they’d started last night would lead.

“I won’t get off work until about one o’clock.” She couldn’t ask Ryan to take her patient load. They were far too busy on Saturday mornings for one doctor. “Then I’m completely free for the rest of the day.”

“I might not be. I’m here on business,” he said, something else that didn’t make sense.

“Business?” She cocked her head, regarding him quizzically. “What kind of business?”

“I’m a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune.” He cleared his throat, the strong column contracting. “I have reason to believe Dr. Ryan Whitmore can help me with a story.”

Missy hadn’t misunderstood why Ben had showed up in the office this morning.

Sierra had.

The knowledge slammed into her at the same time the front door swung open to admit her brother, who almost never used the back entrance. He stopped his tuneless whistling, ran a hand through his fair head of wind-tousled hair and gave them an eye-crinkling smile. Since Ryan had married Annie in February, he did a lot of smiling.

“Good morning, sis.” A born extrovert, he strode across the room, stretching out a hand to Ben. “Ryan Whitmore. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Sierra heard Ben’s quick intake of breath before he stood and shook her brother’s hand. “Ben Nash from the Pittsburgh Tribune.”

Sierra choked back her disappointment. “Ben’s here to talk to you.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Ben was gazing at Ryan with open skepticism. “I was expecting Ryan Whitmore to be a much older man.”

“I was named after our father,” Ryan said. “He died two years ago.”

Ben rubbed the back of his neck as Sierra tried to figure out what was going on. Why had a Pittsburgh reporter come to Indigo Springs to talk to a dead man? And why hadn’t he told her who he was last night?

“What is this about?” Ryan asked before she could form the question.

“I’m following up on a lead that your father might have information about a woman who died in Indigo Springs,” he said.

Yet Ben had failed to tell her any of this the night before. Their “chance” meeting and his invitation to get together suddenly didn’t seem accidental. She crossed her arms over her heaving stomach.

The door swung open again. Art Czerbiak, who always insisted on the first appointment of the morning, shuffled through. What was left of the elderly man’s gray hair was in disarray from the April wind. He muttered a gruff good-morning and took a seat at the far end of the room, then regarded them with interest. Missy was also watching them closely, not even trying to disguise her stares.

“The waiting room isn’t the best place to have this conversation,” Ben said quietly.

“No.” Sierra directed her comment to Ben in an equally soft voice. “The best time would have been last night when you were trying to pull one over on me.”

“That’s not what I did,” Ben protested.

Ryan looked from Sierra to Ben, a puzzled expression on his face, then placed a hand at the small of Sierra’s back. She wondered if he could feel her shaking.

“Ben’s right,” Ryan said. “We should take this to my office.”

Sierra pivoted and led the way, determinedly keeping her head high and her chin up, the pleasure leaking out of a morning that had started with such promise.

This was exactly why she took so few chances.

The ones she did take tended to backfire.

THE WHITMORE SIBLINGS regarded Ben with widely different expressions after the three of them retreated to a generic room at the end of a long hall. Curiosity emanated from Ryan while Sierra’s lips had flatlined and her eyes had gone steely. Her brother leaned against the edge of a sleek, black desk, his legs crossed at the ankles. Sierra remained standing.

“Now tell us what this is all about,” she demanded. The hair she’d worn long and loose the night before was tied back from her face. A shapeless white lab coat covered her clothes. It was as though the soft, vulnerable woman he’d kissed had never existed.

He blamed himself for that.

He’d gone about the early part of his investigation all wrong, rushing off to Indigo Springs before conducting any of the background work that was usually the foundation of his reporting.

“Yesterday morning I received an e-mail suggesting your father might know something about the death of Allison Blaine,” he said.

“Allison Blaine,” Ryan repeated, then shook his head. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She died quite a while ago.” Ben struggled to keep his voice free of the emotion that threatened to clog his throat. “In a fall from a cliff.”

“I remember something like that.” Sierra’s brows drew together. “She was a tourist, right? It seems like the town organized a search. Didn’t a fisherman find her body?”

“That’s about the extent of it,” Ben said.

“But wasn’t that, like, twenty years ago?” Sierra asked.

The date of the day that had forever altered his life was carved into Ben’s mind like an engraving. The anniversary of his mother’s death would be in three months. “Nineteen.”

“I don’t understand.” Sierra shook her head. “Why are you looking into this now, after all this time? And what does our father have to do with it?”

Ben moistened his lips. “I already told you about the e-mail.”

“You haven’t told us what was in it,” Ryan pointed out.

Do you know what really happened to your mother?

Ben didn’t repeat the question aloud. His personal involvement had already clouded his usually clear judgment. If he could treat this like any other story, he’d have a much better chance of uncovering the truth. That meant not telling the Whitmores or anyone else in town he was Allison Blaine’s son.

“The e-mail asked why Dr. Ryan Whitmore wasn’t questioned about her death.” He relayed the substance of the message, substituting “questioned” for “investigated.”

“What!” Sierra cried. “Why would he be? Wasn’t her death an accident?”

“It was ruled an accident,” Ben clarified. “The e-mail casts doubt on that.”

“Who sent this e-mail?” Sierra asked sharply.

“I don’t know yet. The only fact I have is that it originated from Indigo Springs.” Ben explained how the newspaper’s IT department had tracked the e-mail to one of the public-access computers at the library.

“Let me get this straight,” Sierra said tightly, her posture as rigid as her words. She moved closer to her silent brother, as though to demonstrate they were a united front. “You came here today to accuse our father of God only knows what because of some anonymous e-mail.”

“I’m following a lead,” he said. “I’m not accusing your father of anything.”

“Before you cast stones, you should know he was a very good man with a spotless reputation.” Color infused Sierra’s cheeks even though she didn’t raise her voice. “You know the festival the town is holding next weekend? He’ll be honored for his civic work. The town is renaming the park Whitmore Memorial Park.”

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