He shrugged. “If you’re attracted to him, why not just sleep with him and get it over with?”
Disbelief turned to shock. “You want me to sleep with this man?”
“I’m merely suggesting that sex with him might help purge the attraction from your system. As long as you’re discreet about it, of course.”
Riane folded her arms across her chest as she stared at the man she’d been involved with for the past three years. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
“I’m only being practical, Riane. I don’t expect you to take a vow of chastity when we’re not sleeping together.”
“Obviously, you haven’t,” she said, feeling unaccountably bitter.
Stuart sighed. “Why are you making an issue out of this?”
“Because it should be an issue. Damn it, Stuart, not five minutes ago we were talking about getting engaged. I thought that meant, on some basic level, you cared about and respected me.”
“I do,” he said solemnly.
“But you’re sleeping with other women.”
“I’m hardly being promiscuous.”
“One other woman is too many,” Riane said.
He sighed again. “I want to marry you.”
She shook her head sadly as all her hopes and dreams for the future tumbled like a house of cards around her. “I want to be with someone who wants to be with me. Not because I fit his image of the woman he wants as his wife, but because of the person I am.”
“Is that why you think Logan is with you?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Joel.”
Stuart slipped a manila folder out of his briefcase and offered it to her.
Riane eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that?”
“It’s the information my sources uncovered about Logan,” he said. “Take a look at this, and then tell me he doesn’t have an ulterior motive for wanting to be with you.”
She took the folder and tossed it onto the desk. “Why are you so preoccupied with Joel?”
Stuart nodded toward the discarded folder. “Read it,” he said again. “After you’ve checked it out, you’ll reevaluate your position.”
She tucked the file into the desk drawer without opening the cover. She couldn’t deny a certain amount of curiosity, especially since Stuart seemed convinced that the information he’d obtained would alter her feelings for Joel. She wouldn’t play those games. If there was something she needed to know, she’d wait for Joel to tell her.
Joel had never before suffered pangs of conscience. Then again, he’d never before made the mistake of mixing business with pleasure. And he was starting to feel uneasy about his deception; starting to acknowledge that his feelings for Riane were growing.
It would be smart, he knew, to call in his partner—to have Mike take over this part of the investigation. But he didn’t want to be smart, he wanted to be with Riane. Which meant that he needed to tell her the truth about his trip to West Virginia.
And he couldn’t put it off any longer.
When he’d returned to his room after his picnic with Riane, he’d found a complimentary copy of the local weekly paper, the Mapleview Mirror, on the table in his room. It had given a fair amount of coverage to last weekend’s charity ball, including several photos. Joel cringed when he saw the picture of him and Riane, although the caption beneath the photo referred to him only as an “unknown guest.”
Still, the picture was clear and it reminded him that spending time with Riane was detrimental to his anonymity. He didn’t want to live in a media circus again, but he also didn’t want Riane finding out about his investigation from anyone else.
So it was that he found himself standing back on her doorstep several hours after he’d left her there. He’d passed Stuart’s car on its way out, so it was safe to assume that Riane was still up. And alone.
“It’s after eleven o’clock,” Riane said when she opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I was on my way to bed.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“Funny, Logan.”
He grinned. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Right now you’re trying my patience.”
“Give me ten minutes, sweetheart,” he cajoled.
She sighed. “Ten minutes,” she agreed, stepping away from the door so he could enter. “As long as you promise to leave when your time’s up.”
“Scout’s honor.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You were a Scout?”
“No.” He followed her into the den, enjoying the gentle sway of her hips in the clingy yellow dress she was wearing.
“But I do keep my promises.”
She turned to face him, folding her arms across her chest. She probably didn’t realize how the movement thrust her breasts together, providing a delectable view of cleavage above the low V-neckline of her dress. “The clock’s ticking,” she said.
He’d been rehearsing the words throughout the ride across town. But now he was nervous. He knew she would be angry, she might even hate him, but he couldn’t continue to deceive her.
Before he could tell her what had driven him to her door, however, the ring of a cell phone intruded. Hers this time.
Frowning, Riane dug the device out of her purse.
“Is this going to cut into my ten minutes?” Joel asked.
Riane ignored him and connected the call. “Hello?”
He turned away to give her some privacy for her conversation. He moved over to the bookcase, studying the photos aligned on the top shelf. Riane as a child in her school uniform, her lips curved in a mischievous smile, her deep brown eyes sparkling at the camera. Riane in a prom dress, several years later, absolutely stunning in the shimmering gold gown that only hinted at curves she now possessed. Riane graduating from Harvard, proud and happy and breathtaking. Riane and her parents, all formally attired, a beautiful and cohesive family unit.
Or were they?
Uneasiness stirred as he reviewed his conversation with Mike. He had so many questions, too few answers.
“Okay. Wait right there, Adam, I’m on my way.”
She disconnected the call, already moving toward the door, as if she’d forgotten Joel was even in the room. Her easy dismissal annoyed him, probably more so because he now knew she’d been summoned away by another man.
He stepped into her path. “Who’s Adam?”
“I don’t have time for this, Joel. I have to go.”
“It’s after eleven o’clock,” he reminded her. “I’m not letting you run off in the middle of the night with no idea where you’re going.”
“Then you can come with me,” she offered.
Riane was grateful for Joel’s company on what she knew could only be an ill-fated mission. She’d been to Adam’s neighborhood once before, in the middle of the day, and that had been a scary enough experience. She’d have to be insane to venture there alone in the darkness of night.
She was also grateful for Joel’s silence. He said little as they made their way across the city to the impoverished east end, and most of the questions he asked were in the nature of directions. While Joel was driving, Riane made a few phone calls.
“Turn right at the next light.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Joel asked.
“As soon as I know,” she told him. “There.” She gestured to a run-down apartment building in front of which a crowd of spectators had gathered along with three police cruisers, a paramedics truck and an ambulance.
Joel’s car wasn’t completely stopped at the curb when Riane unfastened her seat belt and pushed open the door. She plunged into the crowd and up the broken sidewalk that led to the entranceway of the building. She didn’t see the faded and chipped brick, the boarded-up windows, the peeling paint on the trim. She was only thinking about Adam.
The exterior door was propped open by a rock, t
he narrow hallway inside dimly lit and thick with the scents of old garbage and—she felt her stomach lurch—something even less pleasant that she was probably better off not trying to identify.
Her heels clicked loudly on the metal stairs as she made her way up to the third floor. With each step, the air grew thicker, the nauseating scent stronger. She heard Joel’s footsteps behind her, but didn’t wait.
The door to apartment 3A was open and—she exhaled a shaky sigh of relief—Adam was still there. Staring at her mutinously through the tears in his eyes, but there. Handcuffed, she noted with shocked disbelief, to the leg of a scarred coffee table.
She turned to the uniformed officer seated on the battered sofa, idly thumbing through an outdated fashion magazine. “You cuffed him?”
He glanced up, shrugged unapologetically. “It was the only way I could be sure to hold on to him.”
“He’s a child.” Joel’s voice came from directly behind her now, and he sounded equally stunned.
“He’s slippery and he’s fast and he’s got a helluva kick,” the officer said defensively, rubbing a hand over his shin.
Riane turned her attention to the child. “You kicked him?”
Adam didn’t give any indication that he’d even heard her. She knew that he viewed her phone call to the police as a betrayal. He didn’t trust anyone in uniform, and although she knew he had valid reasons for this distrust, she thought he at least trusted her enough to know that she’d never put him in any danger.
“Ever heard of assaulting an officer?” she tried again.
Adam continued to ignore her.
“You Quinlan?” the cop asked Riane.
She nodded, her attention still focused on Adam, and dug into her purse for identification. She passed him her driver’s license.
“The lady from social services is on her way with some papers,” he said, returning her ID. “Do you think you can handle him until she gets here?”
Riane nodded again.
The cop bent over to unlock the cuffs. As soon as he was freed, Adam backed away, into the corner of the room, rubbing the red mark around one slender wrist where he’d strained against the metal enclosure. His gaze darted from Riane to Joel and back again.
“You called the cops,” the child said accusingly.
Riane knelt down in front of him, mindless of the skirt of her Carolina Herrera dress. “I had to, Adam.”
“Why?”
“Because if there was any chance that your mom was still alive—” she’d seen the body bag they’d loaded into the back of the ambulance, so she knew she wasn’t “—I had to get someone here fast to help her.”
“But you said you were coming.”
“And I did.”
“Who’s that?” he demanded, glancing warily at Joel again.
“He’s a—” Riane hesitated, not sure how to answer the question “—a friend,” she said at last.
“Another cop,” Adam said derisively.
Riane had to hold back a smile. She should have guessed that Adam would peg Joel so quickly, probably even more quickly than she herself had done. “He says he’s not,” she confided.
Adam snorted.
“I’m a private investigator,” Joel said, stepping farther into the room.
Adam instinctively moved closer to Riane. “What’s he doing here?”
“He’s not here to take you away,” Riane promised the child.
She could tell he wanted to stay angry with her, but there were too many emotions competing inside him. Too much horror and heartbreak for a six-year-old to handle. He blinked, fighting for control, but the first tear spilled over, tracked its way slowly down his cheek.
Riane held her arms open, and after a brief hesitation Adam launched himself at her, desperate for contact, for comfort. She folded her arms around him, her own eyes filling with moisture as his rail-thin shoulders trembled against her. She lifted him off the ground effortlessly—he didn’t weigh half as much as a six-year-old should—and moved to the dirty sofa the cop had abandoned, cradling the child in her lap.
Joel felt his heart lodge somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as he watched Riane settle back into the old sofa with Adam, oblivious to the fact that his tears and snot were staining the front of her designer dress. And in that moment he finally understood how dedicated she was. Not to the ideology of her camp, but to the children who needed it—and her—so desperately. And he realized how truly incredible she was.
He took an instinctive step back, as if to protect himself from the unwanted feelings that stirred to life inside him.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
The child’s tentative question reminded Joel that there were more immediate problems than his conflicting emotions about Riane.
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Riane said gently.
“Are they going to take me away again?” He looked at her, eyes wide, terrified.
Again? Joel wondered.
“They won’t take you away,” she said firmly.
“But now that my mom’s—”
“They won’t take you away,” she said again. “I promise.”
And that promise was enough for the child, apparently, because he nodded his head, snuggled against Riane’s shoulder, and promptly fell asleep.
“You have no business making promises you can’t keep,” Joel told her, careful to keep his voice low enough so as not to disturb the sleeping child.
“I don’t.”
“The cop said social services has already been contacted.”
“I know. I contacted them.”
“There’s a procedure they have to follow in these situations,” Joel told her. He’d thought, because of her work through the camp, that she’d have some kind of understanding of the system. Apparently not. “The procedure generally involves placement in a group or foster home pending review—”
“I’m aware of the procedure,” Riane interrupted. “I also know that Adam’s mother has a sister. He’ll stay with me until she can be found.”
“You’re going to take the kid home with you?” He couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice.
“I’m going to take him home,” Riane confirmed.
Joel just shook his head, certain she was in for a wake-up call when the authorities got there.
He was wrong.
Chapter 7
A s Joel watched Riane tuck the child into bed in one of the numerous spare rooms of the Quinlan mansion, he knew he should have expected that she would somehow manage to skirt the rules that applied to the rest of the world. She was, after all, a Rutherford.
Strangely, though, the thought didn’t bother him as much as it might have a week earlier. Oh, there was no doubt that Riane had used her political connections to get her own way in this case, but how could he resent that when she’d obviously done so to help this child?
He glanced at his watch as he followed Riane down the stairs. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. “I need to get some sleep.”
“I can make up another one of the guest rooms,” Riane offered.
Tempted as he was to stay close at hand—to ensure she didn’t run off on any other crazy missions—her proximity wreaked havoc on his hormones. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and still he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and spend hours making slow, sweet love with her. Which, considering the frightened child sleeping upstairs, wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
So he shook his head in response to her invitation. They’d both be better off if he went back to his hotel, far out of reach of temptation.
Yet he was reluctant to go. “How long have you known Adam?”
“Long enough to know that he’s better off here than in an emergency intake shelter.”
He didn’t blame her for sounding defensive. He’d made it clear that he doubted the wisdom of her actions tonight, but he was curious about her relationship with this child. “I wasn’t questioning your motives…”
“I’m just trying to understand your connection to him.”
“He’s been coming to my camp for the past three years,” she told him. “That makes him my responsibility.”
“Three years? But he’s only six.”
Riane nodded. “We usually don’t take children younger than five, but we make exceptions when circumstances warrant it.”
“What were his circumstances?”
“Adam’s social worker contacted me after reading an article about the camp,” she explained. “She was desperate for anything to get him out of his home for a few weeks. A lot of children who go there are abused—physically, emotionally, sexually. Adam wasn’t abused in any traditional sense, but he was horribly neglected.
“At three years of age he was still confined to a playpen for most of the day. He didn’t walk, he could barely speak. He was undernourished, understimulated, barely functioning.”
“Why the hell didn’t the social worker put him in a foster home?”
“She wanted to. But it’s hard to prove neglect, harder still when the parent knows her social assistance will be cut off if she loses the child. Every time the worker visited the home, the mother was there. She might not have been feeding Adam three meals a day, but there was food in the refrigerator. He was clothed, if not always adequately.”
“Why did the mother let him come to the camp?”
“Because it was only supposed to be for two weeks, and it wouldn’t affect her assistance. But when the two week period was over, his mother couldn’t be found.”
“So he stayed,” Joel guessed.
Riane nodded. “For almost two months.”
“Is that when she finally came for him?”
“She didn’t come for him. Near the end of Adam’s third week there, the police picked her up on Queen Street, already higher than a kite, trying to score more drugs.”
“What happened?”
“We got her into rehab.”
“There’s usually an extensive waiting list for beds in the publicly funded facilities,” Joel commented. “You were lucky to find one available.”
Riane glanced away. “I sent her to Newhaven,” she admitted, naming an exclusive private clinic.
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