From Boss to Bridegroom

by Victoria Pade

  “That he lived a different sort of life than we do and so we couldn’t be together. I know later on he’ll want to know more than that, but for now he accepts it. I can see that he wonders why his father wouldn’t choose him over anything else, but for the most part I don’t believe it eats on him. I think he’s pretty well-adjusted, pretty happy with just me.”

  “And you’re very protective of him. Especially when it comes to letting men in.”

  Lucy laughed. “Of course. Protecting Max is my number-one job.”

  Rand set his glass on the coffee table beside hers and when he settled back again he stretched an arm along the sofa back.

  Lucy had been aware of how little distance separated them but now it seemed like even less, and she wasn’t sure if his arm running just behind her shoulders was the cause or if he’d actually moved closer.

  Then he gave her one of those devilish smiles and said, “I could have used some of that protection yesterday.”

  “How so?” she asked, confused.

  “You deserted me with Shelley Whitson. That was like throwing me to the wolves.”

  “Oh, sure. All men need to be protected from supermodels.”

  “Maybe not all men need to be protected from all supermodels, but I needed protection from Shelley. And what did you do? You abandoned me in my time of need. And me in a weakened condition, too. I’m lucky to be alive to talk about it.”

  Clearly he was trying to lighten the serious tone left by the recounting of her disastrous romantic past. But it was working because Lucy couldn’t suppress a smile. Or the lightness that came to her heart at the thought that he hadn’t been thrilled to be with the supermodel.

  “How did you survive?” she asked, playing along.

  “Only by my wits, since I wasn’t up for any fancy footwork. But it was a close call. She was angling to get up here and when I tried to beg off by saying I’d hurt my back she offered to act as my private nurse.”

  “And you didn’t let her?”

  “No, I didn’t let her,” he said as if the very thought was repulsive. “There was only one person I wanted up here and she had just dived into her car and sped off as if she were escaping a mugger.”

  “So you were mad at me today,” she concluded, more to herself than to him, thinking that explained the mood that had prevailed all day and into the evening.

  “I wouldn’t say I was mad. Perturbed, maybe. But I can’t seem to even stay perturbed with you for long.” He was looking into her eyes and his voice had gone quiet and extremely deep. “I can’t seem to stay any way with you that I know I should be staying.”

  She didn’t know exactly what that meant, but when he took a strand of her hair between his fingers, she was hard-pressed to think much about it.

  “You’re doing something to me that I don’t quite understand,” he admitted then. “Something no other woman has ever done to me.”

  “I’m just sitting here,” she pointed out, although her voice was unintentionally breathy.

  “And even that’s enough.”

  He wasn’t making it easy for her to recall why she’d convinced herself not to enter into situations like this with him again.

  “I’m trying to fight it,” he confided. “But I’m getting nowhere.”

  That she understood. All too well. “I know,” she nearly whispered. “I’m doing the same thing.”

  “Maybe we should stop fighting it.”

  “I’m afraid of where it might go if we do,” she confessed quietly.

  “We could take it just one step at a time. Carefully. Do a little exploring to see what’s really going on here. Like research.”

  He said that with a half smile that made Lucy smile in return. “Research?” she repeated as if it were the worst line she’d ever heard.

  He chuckled, a deep rumbling in his throat. Then he kissed her, just a peck, and said, “What would you call it?”

  “Playing with fire,” she answered without having to think about it.

  “But playing with fire leads inevitably to getting burned. Research just leads to knowledge and understanding.”

  “Is that what you want? Knowledge and understanding?”

  He kissed her again, slightly longer this time, before he said, “Knowledge and understanding of what’s going on between us, yes. Is that so bad?”

  Bad? At that moment Lucy couldn’t think of anything bad about being with him on that overstuffed leather couch with his arm resting across her shoulders now, his other hand toying with her hair, his mouth dipping down to kiss hers every few minutes.

  But what she said was, “I don’t know.”

  “I think we should find out.”

  “I don’t know,” she repeated just as his mouth covered hers again. Only this time the kiss wasn’t merely playful. It wasn’t merely a brief peck. It was a genuine kiss.

  And of all the things Lucy didn’t know, the one thing she did know was that she wanted that kiss. Oh, how she wanted that kiss! She wanted to feel his arms wrapped around her, his hand caressing her face, his lips parting over hers as hers parted, too.

  All other thoughts faded into the background like twilight shadows and she lost herself in that kiss. Or maybe she gave herself over to it, because she was kissing him every bit as fervently as he was kissing her, meeting his tongue with hers when it came to call, sliding her arms around him so she could fill her hands with the hard muscles of his back that seemed no worse for wear now.

  She definitely wasn’t thinking about anything but that moment. About anything but the sensations alive in her. About anything but the yearnings that were rapidly awakening.

  Yearnings to feel his hands on more of her body. Yearnings that brought her nipples to life, knotting them against his chest. Yearnings to be free of clothes, to feel flesh pressed to flesh, to learn the taste, the texture of every inch of him. To have him know her the same way…

  They must have been of like minds because as Rand went on kissing her—hungry, openmouthed kisses—the hand that had cupped her face journeyed downward, barely brushing across her breast before coming to rest on her naked side where the cropped sweater had risen to expose her skin.

  Shards of light erupted within her at that more intimate touch, surging through her with a whole new array of wants, of needs.

  She sent the message with an arch of her back, with a deep inhalation that nudged her breasts more insistently into his pectorals.

  Rand was nothing if not astute. He deepened their kiss at the same moment his hand coursed upward, finding the little nothing of a bra she’d worn today.

  But even sheer lace was too much to have between them and when he insinuated his hand beneath it to fully clasp her bare breast, Lucy couldn’t help the moan of pleasure that escaped her throat.

  An irresistible urge took hold of her and she pulled Rand’s shirt from his waistband, plunging her own hands under the softened chambray to the hot silk of his honed back, his shoulders, his chest.

  The snaps that closed his shirtfront popped under her vigor and she rid them both of the garment as if it were nothing but a hindrance. Which was exactly what her own clothes felt like—iron-plated armor that served no purpose but to keep her from the pure, uninhibited freedom she craved.

  His hand at her breast was working miracles, raising her desires to a fevered pitch with talented fingers that traced and teased and pinched and rolled her nipples into a frenzy of longing.

  His mouth left hers then and somehow she was lying back on the sofa as he eased her sweater and bra upward so he could see what he’d only felt before.

  “Beautiful,” he breathed as he did just what she’d been dying for him to do—he took her breast into his mouth, into that warm, moist, magical place where his teeth gently tugged and his tongue circled and flicked her nipple and things burst to life in Lucy that she hadn’t felt in so, so long.

  But something about the thought of just how long it had been since she’d been driven nearly insane with wanting
reminded her of what they’d talked about earlier. It reminded her of times gone by, of how a moment like this could change so much. It reminded her of another man, a man who might not have fraternized with supermodels but who had also lived a life she didn’t fit into.

  Stop before you get hurt, a little voice in the back of her mind shrieked at her, quelling just enough of the emotions, of the desires, of the needs that were rushing through her to let the warning register.

  “Wait! Stop!” she heard herself say suddenly, as if from a distance.

  It didn’t take more than that for Rand to do as she’d asked, though. To stop and meet her eyes with his.

  “Lucy?”

  “This is more than one step at a time. We—we aren’t being careful,” she said in a voice that sounded as strained as she felt.

  Rand laughed slightly, wryly, then kissed her once more and sat up. “Fair enough.”

  Lucy sat up, too, adjusting her clothes and trying not to look at the splendor of his naked torso because her hands actually ached to be pressed to his steely pectorals, to slide off his wide, straight shoulders to his bountiful biceps.

  “I guess I’m as bad as a hormonal teenage boy with you,” he said.

  “Me, too. I mean I’m as bad as a hormonal teenage girl.” Lucy hated blundering through the words but she was still reeling from the effects of what had just happened between them, still struggling to find some control.

  “It’s late,” she said then. “I should get home.”

  Rand didn’t respond immediately to that and she thought he was working to regain control, too. In the end he must have accomplished it because he said, “I’d like to try to persuade you to stay but I won’t. I’ll behave myself and just walk you down to your car.”

  “No,” she said, more quickly, more loudly, more frantically than she wanted to. But she knew if he walked her down to her car he’d kiss her again. And she also knew that one more kiss was all it would take to restart what had been so difficult to end. “It’s better if I just go,” she said to explain herself. “You’re too tempting.”

  That made him laugh again, a sound Lucy liked much too much. So much she decided she’d better get to her feet, get some distance between them, or she still might succumb to the man’s charms.

  “Can I at least walk you to the door?” Rand asked as he stood, too.

  “No. Just stay where you are,” she commanded. “I can let myself out. Otherwise I might not get out at all.”

  In fact she knew that even if she stayed there devouring the sight of him any longer she might not have the wherewithal to go.

  So she muttered a quick, “Good night,” and headed for the entryway.

  “Lucy?”

  Rand had followed her as far as the doorway that connected his office with foyer and he stood leaning one shoulder against the wall there, his massively muscled arms crossed over his still-bare chest.

  Lucy grabbed her coat off the hall tree and shrugged it on. “Don’t say anything,” she cautioned, feeling her will weakening even as she buttoned her coat.

  “I just wanted to say thanks.”

  “Sure,” she said, snatching her purse from the hall tree, too.

  Then she escaped his apartment and the essence of him that seemed to be beckoning her back.

  It was only as she drove home, working hard to cool off, that she wondered what he’d been thanking her for.

  Had it been for the help on the Turnenbill case?

  Or had it been for what they’d done on the couch?

  Or maybe it had been for ending things before they’d gone too far.

  She was still so churned up inside that she knew she was never going to be able to sleep tonight, and if Rand felt anything even close to what she was feeling, she doubted he’d be thanking her for that.

  Eight

  Joe Colton was sitting at the breakfast table the next morning when a FedEx envelope was delivered. Overnight mail deliveries were an almost everyday occurrence at Hacienda del Alegria, but somehow this one set him on edge. He wasn’t currently doing business with anyone in Colorado.

  Emily was his first thought. Something to do with Emily.

  But then since her disappearance his daughter was always on his mind, and anything out of the ordinary raised hope that it had something to do with her.

  “What’s that?”

  Joe was in the process of tearing open the envelope when Meredith came into the dining room.

  “It’s an envelope with a Colorado postmark. Do we know anyone in Colorado?”

  Before his wife could answer, Joe had the envelope open and had pulled out a piece of plain white paper with only a few nondescript lines of black typeface on it.

  “This says Emily is all right,” he said excitedly as he read the missive.

  “Is it from her?” Meredith demanded, not sounding as relieved as Joe was.

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. There’s no signature. It only says that Emily is fine. That she wasn’t kidnapped. That she’s safe, unharmed and healthy. That we shouldn’t worry about her.”

  Meredith made a derisive sound. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Joe looked up from the paper he’d read and reread already. “Why doesn’t it make sense?” he asked, wondering if he would ever become accustomed to the abrasive turn his wife’s personality had taken in that long-ago car accident.

  “It just doesn’t make sense, that’s all. She must have been kidnapped. Why would she leave? Why would there have been a ransom note?”

  “Why would she or someone else send word letting us know she’s all right if she had been kidnapped?” Joe countered. “It must be true.”

  “Well, I don’t think it is. I think it’s some kind of hoax.”

  “Let’s let the FBI decide that. I’ll get it to them and see what they make of it. But I don’t see why anyone would bother with a hoax like this. It seems to me that someone is trying to reassure us. To put our minds to rest.”

  “Believe what you like,” Meredith said with her nose in the air. “But I don’t buy it.”

  Meredith left the dining room then, as abruptly as she’d entered it, seeking privacy and a place to vent. The only place possible to do that was far away from the ranch, far away from the watchful eyes she always felt following her every move. When she’d driven far enough away, she stopped at a roadside pay phone and dialed the number she knew by heart.

  “She’s alive and well and maybe in Colorado,” Meredith growled into the phone in answer to Silas Pike’s hello.

  “Mrs. Colton? Is that you?” he said after a moment of apparently trying to put a name with the voice.

  But the woman known as Meredith didn’t bother to confirm who she was. Instead she said, “I hired you to get rid of that twit Emily once and for all. I expect you to make good on that.”

  “Just tell me where to find her and I’d be happy to.”

  “I can’t tell you where to find her, you imbecile. I only know that an anonymous note just arrived here from Colorado saying she’s all right. But I don’t want her to be all right. I want her disposed of. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Colorado’s a big place. How’m I supposed to find her with nothing more to go on than that?”

  “That’s your problem. Just do your job and do it right this time.”

  “I was feeling very disheartened and then last night I had a wonderful dream.”

  At the same moment that Joe Colton was headed to the FBI with the note about his adopted daughter, across the country in Mississippi, Louise Smith was meeting with Dr. Martha Wilkes, her therapist.

  “Tell me about your dream,” Dr. Wilkes urged.

  “I was in a beautiful garden courtyard. There were bright flowers and tall trees—palm trees—like a tropical paradise. And there was a man, with dark hair. I couldn’t see his face, so I don’t know who he was. But he embraced me. Fleetingly, but it was so comforting. So comforting that when I woke up this morning my spirits were lifted and I felt as if
I could go on, despite this being so difficult.”

  “Therapy, you mean?”

  “Therapy, yes.” That and knowing she was actually Patsy Portman. “And everything else, too. Knowing I actually killed a man, even though I can’t remember it. That I’m a criminal. That I’ve been to prison.”

  “I can understand how troubling it is to learn about yourself, especially when you have no memory of any of it. But it’s all in the past. Try to keep that in mind.”

  “Having a sister I wouldn’t even know existed if we hadn’t discovered that fact on the prison records isn’t in the past.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that since we talked last time. I wonder if you should put some effort into finding your sister. Perhaps meeting her.”

  Louise hesitated. “I’ve thought about that,” she finally admitted. “But I don’t think I should do it yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m still trying to piece together who I am. But knowing I’m a murderess has a big impact. How do I know my sister wants contact with a murderess? Maybe I don’t have the right to inflict that on her.”

  “But you’ve paid for your crime.”

  “Still. Until I can be clear about everything about myself, I don’t want to face a sister I have no memory of. A sister I’ve apparently been estranged from since there were no records of her visiting me in jail, no letters from her in my belongings, since she hasn’t tried to contact me in all the time since my release. Maybe when I get myself together and can present the kind of person she might want in a sister, maybe then I can find her.”

  “So denying yourself the sister you know is out there somewhere is your self-imposed penance?”

  Louise thought about that before she said, “I guess in a way it is. Or maybe it’s incentive to keep working to improve myself so I can be worthy of being in my sister’s life again.”

  “This is your life, Lucy Lowry,” Lucy said to herself as she stood in the open freezer door that evening. “Saturday night and you’re looking at a frozen dinner and a stack of old movies.”

  She’d taken Max to the home of one of his new friends for a sleepover and that meant she was on her own, a rare occasion. Despite the facetious tone of her voice, she wasn’t unhappy about it. A few leisurely hours to herself, watching movies Max would never sit through, catering to herself for a change, was a nice break.