Wealth brought privileges and expectation in equal measure, and Landry had always understood that. What she couldn’t understand was how her mother could live a life so devoid of warmth and kindness.
Or love.
She turned down the last corridor toward the stairs and came to a stop at the top, thoughts of her family and their low expectations vanishing as if they’d never been.
Derek Winchester stood in the great hall, a phone pressed to his ear, and she gave herself a moment to look her fill. The same impression she’d gotten this morning of subtle strength and power was still there, but she let others swirl and form around it. He was tall and whipcord lean, but the strength in those broad shoulders was more than evident.
His coloring was dark—darker than she’d realized in the sun—and she placed his ancestry as holding some, if not all, Native American. Unbidden, an image of him on horseback filled her mind’s eye, roaming the High Plains and protecting his family from harm.
Protecting what was his.
She fought the fanciful notion and continued on down the stairs, already on the descent before he could catch her staring at him. Landry fought the slight hitch in her chest when she cleared the last stair and came to stand next to him.
And she refused to give an inch by relaxing the haughty demeanor that she swirled around herself like a cloak. “Do you have a suit jacket?”
“In the car.”
“And a tie?”
“Right next to the jacket.”
“Then let’s get them and go.”
Twenty minutes later they were on their way toward San Diego in her BMW. Unwilling to ruin her hair, she left the top up all while cursing herself for the choice. She should have selected her large SUV instead of the tight confines of the two-seater.
Serious mistake.
Derek’s large body filled up those confines and she could swear she felt the heat rising off the edge of his shoulders, branding her with its intensity.
“What event are we going to?”
Landry filled him in on the work of her favorite charity, the project’s focus on children an ongoing highlight in her life. Although she’d let several of her other commitments lapse over the last few months since her father’s death, she’d refused to cut ties with the bright and able-bodied leaders who worked tirelessly to ensure that the children of Southern California had enough basic necessities to not only survive, but blossom.
Weekend camps, tutoring and days out simply enjoying their youth were a mainstay of the organization, and in the past three years she’d seen the children who took part begin to thrive.
“Sounds like a special group. Why is the governor attending?”
“He promised some additional funding if we met certain testing criteria, and the children in the program exceeded every goal set for them.”
“You’re proud of them.”
“Absolutely.” The response was out, warm and friendly, without a trace of her “haughty demeanor” cloak.
“Everyone needs a champion. Those children are lucky to have you on their side.”
Whether it was the close confines or something more, Landry didn’t know, but she sensed something underneath his words. Treading carefully despite the curiosity that ran hot in her veins, she nodded and kept her tone neutral. “All children deserve that.”
“Even if there are too many who don’t get that opportunity. Or a chance to shine.”
And there it was.
That subtle suggestion of something indefinable. Of something more.
“You speak from experience?”
“My work revolves around missing-persons cases. There aren’t nearly as many happy endings as there should be. Or beginnings, for that matter.”
The urge to remain distant was strong, but something long dead inside her sparked back to life. “It sounds like a taxing profession.”
“At times. But it’s also one I’m good at. Your aunt was a part of that.” She shifted into another lane, the sign for their exit coming up, and he continued on. “I was on her protection detail, but she saw something in me. She knew I had ambitions beyond security, and when a job opened on the FBI’s missing-persons team she gave me a glowing recommendation.”
“You must have impressed her. Kate Adair doesn’t do ‘glowing’ lightly.”
“She’s a special woman.”
Landry risked a glance at him as she slowed for her exit ramp. His face was set in hard lines as he stared straight ahead, his gaze set on something only he could see. Once more, the realization that something hovered just under the surface tugged at her.
The hotel came up on her right, and she pulled into the valet station. Two valets rushed to open their doors, the man on her left all smiles as he gave her his hand. “Welcome back, Miss Adair.”
“Thank you, Michael.”
Landry didn’t miss Derek’s widened eyes over the top of the car or the assessing gaze that accompanied his perusal. Annoyance speared through her at the speculation she saw there—and the surprise that she’d know the name of a hotel employee.
Whatever he thought—or whatever she believed she’d seen—vanished under a facade that was all business as he rounded the front of the car. With swift movements, he took her hand. “Come on, darling.”
Heat traveled up her arm, zinging from her fingers to her wrist to her elbow before beelining straight for her belly. She kept her expression bright and her smile wide, even as she clamped down on her back teeth. “What do you think you’re doing?”
His grip tightened, his smile equally fierce as another set of employees opened the hotel’s double front doors. “Why, escorting you, of course.”
“I hardly think this is necessary.”
“Of course it’s necessary. People see what they want to see, and we’ve got something for them to talk about. You’re showing off your new love, whom you can’t bear to be parted from.”
While she’d later admit to herself she had no excuse, in that moment she could no more stop herself than she could have voluntarily stopped breathing. The combative imp that liked to plant itself on her shoulder—the one that regularly whispered she needed to push against convention and what was expected of her—couldn’t resist putting her earlier impressions into words.
“So it’s all about distraction, then.”
The rich scent of lilies filled the air around them, dripping from the six-foot vases that filled the lobby of the hotel, a vivid counterpoint to the foul stench of her father’s murder that had seemingly clung to her—to all of them—for the past two months.
“Distraction?” Derek’s eyebrows rose over the almost-black depths of his eyes.
“Of course. It helps hide the secrets. Like a sleight of hand, it focuses attention elsewhere.”
“Are you suggesting you’re hiding a secret?”
“No. But I think you are.”
Landry had to give him credit, he held it together, his poker face firmly intact. If she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have even noticed that slight tightening of his jaw that gave him away.
“Everybody’s got a few, you know. But in this case, I’d say your secrets are more present. Recent, even,” she said.
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“Oh, no?” Landry waited a beat or two—her father had taught her the effectiveness of the approach—and watched as his attention caught, then held on her. “Then what is a big, bad FBI agent doing here on babysitting duty?”
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
ISBN-13: 9781460379721
Cavanaugh Fortune
Copyright © 2015 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
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