Father And Child Reunion Part 2 (36 Hours Serieal Book 6.2)

by Christine Flynn

  “You won’t be neglecting a duty, Eve. Honest.”

  He turned from the gratitude she couldn’t hide, introducing himself to the suddenly wary mechanic and suggesting that perhaps he’d confused the make of the car with something else when he’d assessed its condition. It was immediately apparent that Rio knew what he was doing. It was apparent, too, that he wasn’t going to let anyone take advantage of the “little lady.”

  Within the minute the man lost interest in bargaining. Since he wasn’t going to walk away with a steal, he also lost interest in the car. That meant Eve still had a car to sell. So Rio suggested she put an ad in the paper for the following weekend, then told her he would handle the people who came by to look at it. A minute later, having waved to Molly, who was watching from the front window, he was on his way to an interview. In the past week, he told Eve, three students had been arrested in drug-related incidents, and he was meeting with the high school principal to find out why the problem was getting worse.

  What he didn’t say was that he’d come by only to help her with the car. What Eve didn’t understand was why he’d done that.

  Three days later, she was still wondering about it.

  True to his word, Rio arrived Saturday morning to handle the half-dozen callers who’d responded to the ad. He and Molly handled them, that was. While Eve cleaned out storage cupboards in the garage, father and daughter talked and kicked tires with the prospective buyers. When it came time for a test drive, Rio sent Molly in to Eve or off for a ride on her bike. Then Molly would head right back to him immediately upon his return. The bond developing between them was obvious. Just as obvious to Eve was how careful Rio was to keep physical distance between her and himself.

  She already knew that he regarded what had happened in the kitchen the other night as a mistake, something that would not be repeated. But she didn’t understand why he’d decided to help her. When someone wasn’t looking at the car, he helped her in the garage with the heavy stuff. And the next day, after the car had finally been sold, he stuck around to help her carry everything from the attic to the garage.

  They worked amazingly well together, and by avoiding the subjects of their situation and her brother, the time he spent with them gave Eve the most peace she’d felt in two months. It was only when Molly wasn’t right with them that the deliberate distance he kept between them became noticeable.

  Rio seemed to ignore the strain. Eve tried, but she really wanted him to take her in his arms again. Just for a little while. None of the difficulties she was dealing with could intrude when he held her.

  The thought was as appealing as it was dangerous. It also resurrected all manner of impossible dreams. Watching him with the child who was clearly coming to adore him, those dreams begged to be indulged. She couldn’t allow herself to do that, though. She had no idea how to reach past the emotional armor he wore so well; how to reach the man she wanted so badly to understand. The only person who seemed able to do that was Molly—and he had yet to bring up anything specific about the role he would play in her life.

  Had Eve not been so reluctant to upset the fragile truce they were operating under, she would have raised the issue herself. She didn’t want to be bumping shoulders with Rio while they jockeyed for their respective positions in Molly’s life. Whatever he wanted to do would only mean more changes for her, though, and sharing Molly could get very difficult—even though the sharing had started happening all by itself.

  * * *

  “So how was the fishing, Rio?” Lettie Meyers, the Herald’s soon-to-retire assistant editor, leaned a heavy hip on the edge of Rio’s desk and straightened the bow over the gap in her blouse. “If it’s any good, I might dig out a pole myself.”

  “I didn’t go fishing.”

  “You must have worked on your cabin, then.”

  “I didn’t do that, either.”

  Penciled auburn eyebrows merged. “You’re kidding. You took the weekend off. What else would you have done?”

  There was no insult in the question. Not coming from Lettie. She was the only person Rio knew who, like him, divided her life into two modes: work and relax. The fact that it was usually a ninety-ten split was something they both overlooked.

  “I was helping a friend.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Rio. You don’t waste time bending an ear. How’s the Stuart investigation coming?”

  “Not.”

  “Did you get stats for that highway development article?”

  “Done.”

  Rio snapped up the lid on his double espresso. The scent of roasted caffeine was teasing his nostrils when Lettie hoisted herself from his desk and patted his shoulder.

  “Good. I always know I can count on you. Don’t forget to check your E-mail. You’ve got a meeting with Kleinfelter at one.”

  Kleinfelter was the editor-in-chief. “What about?”

  Lettie’s heavily made-up brown eyes shifted first left, then right, to see who else was around at seven-thirty on a Monday morning. Finding no one as dedicated—or as unencumbered—as they were, she took a step forward. They were alone, but she lowered her voice, anyway. Every reporter knew that walls had ears.

  “He wants to talk to you about taking over my job. I told him you can’t have it, though. Not until you tell me where that secret fishing hole of yours is.” She gave him another pat on the shoulder, the motherly gesture a true sign of acceptance from a woman who had once hired him only to meet a minority quota.

  “By the way, you’d better knock off that stuff,” she added, pointing to the steaming cardboard cup. “You’ve got thirty plus years ahead of you in this business. You’ll have ulcers enough without melting your stomach lining on purpose.”

  Patting at her short gray hair, she threaded her way through the maze of desks on her way to the fridge in the lounge. That was where she kept the milk she took her antacids with. The chocolate bars to kill the taste were kept in her bottom desk drawer.

  Remembering, he spun back around. “Don’t sit down without looking in your chair,” he called after her. “Some kids were trying to raise money for baseball equipment. I thought of you.”

  “What kind did you bring me?”

  “I think they’re almond.”

  The wrinkles around her mouth deepened with her suppressed smile. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

  “If I were trying to bribe you, I’d tell you where my fishing hole is.”

  Rio knew she didn’t really want to know. It just bugged her that he was never specific about where he went when he felt the need to get away for a while. Until he’d decided to build himself a cabin, all he ever said was that he was going fishing. He’d never bothered to mention that he didn’t own a single pole, reel or hook.

  With a grin, he turned back to his desk. The smile was gone long before he reached for his coffee. From what Lettie had just said, it looked as if he was about to move another step closer to his goal. Assistant Editor would look very nice on his résumé. And that’s all he was working for—to beef up the résumé that would get him onto a paper in some distant city.

  Yet, as he checked his schedule of meetings and appointments for the day, he couldn’t feel pleased about the potential move up. Not just because an editorial position would mean he’d no longer be out chasing stories. There was actually some appeal to that. His reluctance existed because to count on anything before it was a done deal was to make a date with disappointment. Rio had learned the hard way to take nothing for granted. Ever.

  It was that hard-learned lesson that had him jogging up the steps of the library when it opened at ten o’clock.

  * * *

  Grand Springs’ main library was on the hill near Grand Springs University. Because the university was small, it pooled its resources with the community to provide a facility that served the students and the public better than either could have been served alone. It even boasted a modest law library downstairs near the archives.

  He needed to talk to
Eve about Molly. Before he did, he needed to know his legal rights.

  The murmur of voices drifted toward him as he moved between the high rows of heavy tomes and headed for the tables near the computers. Terry Sanchez, one of the librarians, was leaning over the broad shoulder of a fair-haired man sitting at a terminal. Very pretty, and very pregnant, she wiggled her fingers at Rio when she saw him, smiled and turned back to the man she was helping. The guy looked vaguely familiar, but, preoccupied, Rio didn’t bother to wonder why.

  Blocking their quiet voices, Rio sat down two terminals over and keyed in “Colorado statutes.” He could have looked up the statutes on his laptop. For research beyond them, though, he needed the library’s access codes to legal search engines. He had friends at the courthouse who probably could have answered his questions. He could have called on the Herald’s attorney, for that matter. But he preferred to keep his business to himself. He wasn’t sure how to explain his relationship with Eve to anyone, anyway. He wasn’t so sure he could explain it to himself.

  They were no longer friends. Not as they’d once been. But they weren’t strangers to each other anymore, either. He wasn’t even completely sure how he felt about her—though he was well aware of her ambivalence toward him. She wore every emotion on her sleeve. In the space of an hour he had seen her pout, laugh, tease and frown, all with the same intensity. He’d never known anyone like her, anyone so open and honest with her feelings. Or anyone so blindly accepting of people. Maybe that was why he’d felt such freedom with her before. Why, after six long years, he sometimes felt it with her now. But he didn’t trust the feeling any more than he trusted the attraction that had him feeling as tense and twitchy as a caged bear.

  He wanted her. He couldn’t have denied that if he’d tried. He couldn’t get within three feet of her without wanting to be inside her. Her scent, the sound of her voice, the way she moved, anything and everything about her seemed destined to drive him slowly out of his mind. If he ever got her near a bed without Molly around, he knew it would take every ounce of willpower he possessed not to back her onto it—which was precisely why he hadn’t let himself be alone with her.

  Concentrate, he muttered to himself, and forced his attention to the index.

  Keys clicked as he searched for the section he wanted. It might be getting harder all the time to keep his hands to himself, but he couldn’t let physical need override his common sense. Eve had walked out on him once before. Though he didn’t think she’d leave before she finished what she’d come here to do, there was really nothing to prevent her from walking away again.

  But Molly was another matter. He wasn’t about to let his daughter disappear from his life. That was why he needed to know what his legal rights were before he got serious about discussing joint custody with Eve. Just in case she opposed the idea.

  Before he talked to Eve, though, he needed to talk to his family. Molly was part of his life, his family, and his mother needed to know she had another grandchild.

  “Copies of the Denver papers might help. Their back issues are all online. Maybe go there next,” he heard Terry say just as he figured out that the first thing he needed to do was legally establish paternity.

  Hating how cold and impersonal the legalities sounded, Rio logged out. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this. He knew Eve wasn’t. Abandoning the thought for now, since there were other matters to attend to first, anyway, he watched the friendly librarian walk away, claimed the spot she had vacated and extended his hand to the man frowning at the print on the screen. “Martin Smith, right?”

  Six feet three inches of lean muscle rose from the chair. The frown had disappeared, revealing little beyond curiosity in his intense blue eyes.

  “I suppose,” he replied, accepting Rio’s handshake. A scar, faded from red to pink, slashed the right side of his forehead. Even without it, the man had a faintly dangerous air about him. “Do I know you?”

  “We met at the hospital a couple of months ago. I’m Rio Redtree. A reporter with the Herald.” Martin Smith wasn’t the man’s real name. That was just the name the hospital had stuck on him because the staff had needed to call him something other than “the amnesia case.” The man had suffered a head injury the night of the storm and hadn’t been able to remember anything since. When the hospital had tried to help him locate family, the newspaper had run a request for help identifying him.

  “I didn’t know you were still around.”

  “Don’t know where else to go.” His shrug might have appeared philosophical had it not been for the tension in it. “I thought looking through old newspapers might trigger something.”

  His tone was flat, as if he didn’t expect anything to come from his efforts. But Rio sensed a quiet sort of desperation in him, masked though it was by a kind of ironclad control he knew all too well. The only thing a person truly had any power over was himself. When that control was threatened, as it certainly would be not knowing who he was, a man’s hold over himself would became that much more imperative.

  That Martin Smith appeared almost afraid to discover who he was prompted Rio to ignore his inclination to simply leave the man to his task. If he was afraid to discover who he was, might that be because he was afraid to discover what he’d done?

  The man was a stranger. No one had ever seen him before the night of the storm—which also happened to be the night Olivia had been murdered. But the speculation had no sooner formed than Rio remembered that Stone had already talked to this guy—and that, at the time of Olivia’s attack, “Martin” had been stuck on the side of a mountain. Two local citizens, Sean and Cassandra Frame, had seen him there. Aside from that, if there was any credence to Jessica Hanson’s visions of Olivia’s murder, there was no way on God’s green earth that Martin Smith could ever be mistaken for a woman.

  Every time Rio thought he had a lead, the trail evaporated before it even started to take off. Still, long after he had wished Martin luck and returned to the newspaper office, an idea nagged in the back of his mind. Mud slides had trapped the Frames on the mountain. Those same slides had made passage in or out of town impossible for days. Their little airport had been closed, too. So whoever had killed Olivia couldn’t have left town. It was always possible that whoever had done it lived in town and was still right there. For the first few days, at least, the killer could well have been right under their noses.

  He felt about as much hope of discovering anything of value pursuing the idea as Martin did poking around newspapers for a hint of his past, but when something started nagging at Rio, he couldn’t let it go.

  * * *

  “I know it’s late, but your lights were on.”

  He should have called first. Even before Eve stepped back to let him in, Rio could tell that his timing was lousy. She looked as pale as snow, and there was a telltale sheen to her eyes.

  “If this isn’t a good time…”

  “It’s fine.” True to form, she straightened her shoulders and made herself smile. “Actually, I could use the break. Some of the boxes we brought down from the attic were full of pictures,” she said, self-consciously stuffing a tissue into the pocket of her short denim jumper. “I was just going through them.”

  “By yourself?”

  Eve lifted her shoulder in a dismissing shrug. She didn’t know if he was aware of the concern behind his frown, but it was definitely undermining her efforts to maintain her composure. “Molly helped before she went to bed.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She knew that. She also knew that standing there wondering if he would ever put his arms around her again wasn’t helping her effort, either. “I asked Hal if he wanted to go through them with me,” she told him, heading into the dining room. “But he didn’t have time. All I’m doing is dividing them up.” She motioned to the clear plastic photo boxes on the table. “I’d forgotten how fanatical Mom was about getting every occasion on film.”

  Shaking her head as if she’d just remembered something, sh
e glanced back at him. “I’m sorry. Is there something you wanted?”

  The light of the brass chandelier bounced off the crystal in the mahogany-and-glass china cupboard, the glint of pure white light reminding Rio of the telltale brightness in her eyes moments ago. He’d undoubtedly caught her fighting memories as she’d sorted through photographs of birthdays and holidays and whatever else her family had celebrated, but already she’d pulled herself together. Anyone seeing her now might think she only looked tired.

  “There is. But this might not be a good time to talk about it.”

  With anyone else, considering the seriousness of the matter, he would have forced himself past his natural reluctance to intrude on her pain. It was a battle he constantly fought when faced with certain types of stories, which was why he went after facts rather than what his editor euphemistically referred to as “human interest.” He’d quit his job before he’d shove a recorder in a victim’s face to ask how she felt while she watched her house burn. But he would ask if she knew how the fire had started.

  That he was willing to wait for a better time to talk to Eve might have worried him a little, had she not suddenly looked so uneasy.

  “You want to talk about Molly.”

  “No. No,” he repeated. “Not now. We need to talk about her, but that can wait. I wanted to talk to you about the people you saw when you were here in June.”

  She didn’t understand what he was getting at. She told him that, too, sinking onto a chair at the table and pushing aside the pictures someone had taken at an office party. “What about them?”

  Since she expressed more interest than reluctance, Rio pulled out the chair next to her, sat down with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between them, and proceeded to explain his theory about the killer being in town for the first few days following her mom’s death. He wanted to know if she’d seen anyone who’d appeared suspicious, or if anyone she hadn’t recognized had come by the house. He’d asked her that question before about the people at the house and the hospital the night her mom had been taken there. But what about visitors afterward?