Receptionist Under Cover

by C. J. Carmichael

  “Your voice sounds strange.”

  Oh, she’d known Lindsay would give her a grilling.

  “Does this have something to do with that man you were texting at work the other day?”

  Nadine almost laughed with relief. Finally a question she could answer without lying. “Yes.”

  “Well. That’s moving fast, isn’t it?”

  Nadine had to admit that it was.

  “I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Lindsay said. “But be careful. You can’t always take people at face value.”

  As she was finally able to hang up the phone, Nadine thought that Lindsay didn’t know just how right she was.

  NADINE WISHED HER FATHER could see how economically she’d packed for the trip to Canada. He would have been proud.

  She’d limited herself to one jacket—the Versace convertible down ski jacket she’d worn on the family’s last trip to the Swiss Alps. She’d be wearing that on the plane, of course. In her leather carry-on she’d managed to compress black ski pants and trousers, several turtlenecks—which were warm but didn’t take up as much room as a sweater—and just one dress, which she could vary with an assortment of tights, scarves and jewelry.

  In her briefcase she packed her laptop, phone, camera and the file of notes she’d accumulated so far. She was seriously tempted to also pack her copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating. But that would be a dead giveaway if Patrick happened to see it.

  Finally, she locked up her apartment and took a taxi across the park. She arrived at the office two minutes before the limo. Her father would probably have been more amazed than proud.

  Patrick didn’t seem impressed with her accomplishment, though. She supposed he got ready for trips at a moment’s notice all the time. He gave her a casual hello as he climbed out of the backseat, then took her bag.

  “Thanks. Be careful. It’s heavier than it looks.”

  He raised one eyebrow at her, then picked it up as if it was filled with down feathers. He set it into the trunk next to his carry-on bag which looked beaten—if not tortured.

  “I guess you travel a lot,” she said once they were in the car, heading for LaGuardia. She’d visited many countries with her family, but she imagined her parents’ idea of a vacation differed significantly from the kind of trips Patrick made.

  “It’s my job to travel. It’s been my job for almost twenty years.”

  “Do you ever get tired of being on the road all the time?”

  “I’ve never thought about it, so I guess not.”

  His expression was grim as he turned his gaze to the street ahead of them. She got the feeling that he would have been more comfortable driving than being the passenger.

  She felt uneasy sitting next to him, and wished again that she could have gone on this trip without him. He was far too observant for her liking. She would have to be on her guard every instant of every day.

  Soon they were dropped off at the airport, and since Patrick had their boarding cards downloaded to his BlackBerry, they just had to clear customs then go to the gate. She didn’t realize until they were being seated that they were traveling executive class.

  “How nice,” she said, taking the window seat and stowing her briefcase under the chair in front of her. “I guess when you fly as often as you do, you deserve the little luxuries.”

  “I almost always fly economy,” he corrected her. “But when I ask someone to leave their home to take care of my personal business, then I figure I owe them the courtesy of making the trip as comfortable as I can.”

  “Well, I am comfortable. So thank you.”

  “Good.” He leaned back into his seat and let out a long sigh. Then he turned to her. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a little tense this morning. I’m unbelievably nervous.”

  “That’s totally understandable.”

  “I can’t believe I’m about to meet my son. It could even happen tonight.”

  Nadine felt obliged to lower his expectations. “But it probably won’t be tonight. We have three resorts to check, and no guarantee that he hasn’t changed his mind about working in Canada for the winter. For all we know, he met someone who suggested they apply for a job at Club Med so they could spend the winter on the beach.”

  “Good God.” Patrick sounded appalled by that.

  “There’s something else you need to prepare yourself for,” she added. “We won’t know for certain that Stephen Stone is your son until we get the results from a DNA test.”

  He frowned. “Who said anything about DNA testing?”

  “It’s standard procedure in a case like this,” she assured him.

  He shook his head firmly. “If there was any chance at all that Stephen wasn’t my son, June wouldn’t have written that letter.”

  “You trust her that much?”

  “I do.”

  How very strange, Nadine realized. I’m actually feeling a little jealous of this June. “You must have loved her very much.”

  “I loved her,” he agreed.

  She waited for him to say more and, when he didn’t, sighed with frustration. Then she immediately chided herself.

  Lindsay had talked to her, over and over, about the importance of not getting emotionally involved in a case. And here she was suffering some sort of mild crush on her very first client.

  But that aside, she had to deal with his expectations about this boy. She figured he would probably be willing to offer financial assistance to Stephen even if he wasn’t his biological son.

  “I don’t want to insult June. You obviously thought very highly of her. But you’re paying me to be objective. It strikes me as possible that she might have seen that you’d enjoyed a degree of success, and if she was worried about her son’s future, she might be tempted to capitalize on a past friendship.”

  “But that’s the whole point. We were friends. All she would have had to do is ask. Preferably before she died.”

  “Maybe she felt too many years had drifted by with no contact.”

  “She has only herself to blame for that. Those Christmas cards were the only time I heard from her.”

  “Maybe she needed to move on. Or maybe she was worried you would find out about your son.”

  “Yeah. She seemed pretty determined to keep that secret. I suppose I should feel grateful that she allowed me to pursue my dream career. But somehow all I feel is resentment.”

  “It’s only natural that you’d wonder about the road not taken. You know…a wife and kids…”

  “…and a beautiful home in Brooklyn Heights? Not my dream. At least it never was.” He turned to look at her in that special way of his that made her feel as if he was seeing her inner thoughts.

  “Is personal counseling included with your fees?” he asked.

  She felt herself blush. “Sorry. I should mind my own business, huh?”

  “I have a feeling that’s something you wouldn’t be very good at. And I’m not suggesting that’s bad. It’s probably your curiosity about people that led you to this career.”

  His smile changed, shifted into something intimate. She swallowed and realized she was breaking Lindsay’s rule again. No emotions. No personal involvement.

  Heavens, this was so much harder than she’d expected.

  PATRICK THOUGHT THE P.I. HE’D hired was the most feminine woman he’d ever met. Maybe it was because he was used to being with women who had similar interests to him. Women who enjoyed extreme sports, who climbed mountains, who skied out-of-bounds searching for that perfect, untouched bowl of powder.

  The women he knew, the women he dated, had rough hands and sun-beaten skin—like him. They didn’t wear heels because they were too impractical. The same went for makeup and perfume. They dressed in Dri-Fit because it was comfortable and fleece because it was warm.

  They talked about their sports, and the weather, their training regimes and…all too often…their injuries.

  Nadine was nothing like those women and definitely not his
type. But she kept drawing his eye and making him smile.

  He couldn’t believe how slender her fingers were, or how gracefully her hands moved when she talked. Her teeth were perfectly white, and her eyelashes curled in the most adorable way.

  And the way she dressed…

  A few times when he’d been flicking through channels on TV, he watched bits of Sex and the City. He’d never met anyone who dressed like those women, until Nadine. Just look at what she had on for this trip. Fur-lined boots with heels, jeans so blue he’d swear they’d never been washed, and a ski jacket that looked way better than any ski jacket he’d ever seen before.

  Every detail about her fascinated him, and he had to keep reminding himself that she was a legitimate P.I., a woman with her feet on the ground, who worked hard for her living. A woman who deserved his professional respect, not his secret, lustful desire.

  In Toronto they changed planes and once again they were seated in executive class, with Nadine by the window. For this longer leg of their trip, he pulled out his laptop and started organizing his notes for the revisions.

  Nadine opened her laptop, too. He noticed she was making case notes—his case notes—and he was tempted to ask if he could read them.

  Then she switched documents and a map popped on the screen. He leaned over for a look, but a whiff of her softly sweet perfume momentarily distracted him. Damn, she smelled good.

  “We’ll go to Sunshine first,” she said, clearly thinking he was looking at the map. “It’s about a two-hour drive from the airport.”

  “We don’t have any rooms booked,” he realized belatedly.

  “Don’t worry. The season hasn’t really kicked off yet. We shouldn’t have a problem getting something. They have units right on the ski hill. That’s probably the smartest place to stay, though we will need to leave the car in the parking lot and take a gondola.”

  “How long do you think you’ll need in each place?”

  “One day, tops. Maybe less.”

  “Okay. Should be a short trip, then.”

  “Really short if we get lucky and find Stephen at the first ski hill.” She smiled at him hopefully, and he actually got the sensation of something fluttering in his gut.

  Was it nerves about the possibility that he might meet his son as early as tomorrow?

  Or was it excitement at the idea of spending the next few days with this intriguing woman?

  JUST BEFORE LANDING, the pilot came on the intercom to tell them it was snowing in Calgary. A chorus of groans rose up from the passengers. Nadine wondered anxiously about the roads.

  Sure enough, once they’d deplaned and picked up the Subaru Patrick had reserved for their trip, visibility was getting to be an issue.

  “I’ve driven in worse than this,” Patrick assured her, but as they left the city lights behind, Nadine was spooked by the utter darkness around her. It was only six-thirty, but at this time of year, this far north, the sun was long gone.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I wouldn’t mind a few streetlamps and neon signs.”

  “You’re in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, sweetheart, and those words are blasphemy here.”

  Maybe so, but between the blackness of the night and the hypnotic pummeling of snowflakes, there were times she couldn’t see the lines on the highway. Meanwhile cars were still traveling at speeds exceeding the posted 110 kilometers per hour limit.

  She glanced sideways at Patrick. Though she could only see his profile, he seemed calm. She watched his hands on the wheel and thought how capable they appeared. And suddenly she wasn’t nervous anymore. Not about the roads, anyway.

  “Would you like music?”

  They discovered they both enjoyed jazz and she found a public radio station that was playing something by Diana Krall. She didn’t know the name of the song, but she would recognize that smooth contralto anywhere.

  The atmosphere in the car was cozy and warm. Nadine reclined comfortably and glanced again at Patrick. He seemed as at home here as he had in New York City. She suspected he was that sort of man—able to fit in wherever he went.

  She did feel safe with him, though. In a physical sense, anyway. On another level, she knew she could never completely let down her guard around him. This was a work assignment, and if she wanted to be a professional, she had to remember to be sharp and observant at all times.

  Another one of Lindsay and Nathan’s lessons.

  Still, there wasn’t much to observe in the car. Other than Patrick.

  “Did you grow up in Manhattan?”

  He shifted slightly in his seat, as if her words had interrupted his inner musings. “No. Upper State.”

  “In one of those lovely little towns with a pretty white church and houses with picket fences and friendly neighbors?” She had an idealized conception of small-town living, she knew, based on shows like the Gilmore Girls.

  “Some of the houses had picket fences. Not ours, though.”

  She wondered if she imagined his tone had turned grim. “Did you have brothers and sisters?”

  “Nope. Just me and my mom.” He turned for a brief look at her. “My dad split when I was real young.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you still see him?”

  “He moved to Boston, got a better job and a younger wife. They had two kids of their own and whenever I went to visit, that three-thousand square foot home of theirs felt mighty small. So gradually more and more time began lapsing between my invitations to visit.”

  On his behalf she resented that word invitation. A child shouldn’t have to wait to be invited to spend time with his father. “Were you close to your mom?”

  “Very. Which made it all the harder to see how she lived, compared to Dad’s new wife. Mom worked two jobs, volunteered at my school, grew all our vegetables in a plot she rented from a neighbor. I never saw her relaxing, she claimed she didn’t know how.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “One of Mom’s favorite sayings was that you should hope for fairness, but when it doesn’t happen, be prepared to fight. We didn’t have much money, but she always found enough for us to have fun. It’s thanks to my mom’s sacrifices that I learned to ski.”

  “You’re speaking about her in the past tense.”

  “She passed away several years ago.”

  “And you still miss her.”

  “Sure. She was my only family.”

  No mention of his father, she noticed.

  “If I have a regret, it’s that my book sales were just starting to take off when my mother got sick. If she could have lived another year, I might have been able to do something nice for her. Maybe even buy her a house.”

  “Seeing you happy and successful was probably all she really cared about.” She hesitated, knowing she shouldn’t probe, but in the end couldn’t help herself. “How about your father? Is he still alive?”

  Patrick’s mouth hardened again. “Yeah. He sent flowers to Mom’s funeral. Big deal, huh? I phoned him later and asked why he bothered when he hadn’t helped her any when she was alive. We haven’t spoken since.”

  Suddenly Nadine had a little more appreciation for why he resented not being told about his son. His father had been largely absent from his life. Now, inadvertently, he’d done the same to his own child.

  “I’m prepared for Stephen to be angry,” he said, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Even though I had no way of knowing he existed, from his point of view, I was an absent father. I know how that hurts when you’re a kid.”

  “I wonder why June made the choice that she did?”

  “Yeah. I wish I’d had a chance to ask her that question in person. I’m guessing she came to regret her decision later. That’s probably why she chose to tell me the news in a letter after her death, rather than when she was still alive.”

  In a way it had been a cowardly choice. But who was she to judge? Her life, by almost all standards, had been privileged, easy, happy. She’d had no difficult choices to
make, no defining moments that tested her wisdom and courage.

  “What about you, Nadine? Are your parents still together?”

  Nadine tensed. That was the danger in asking about his life. She had to be prepared for him to ask the same questions of her. She thought carefully before answering. “I couldn’t imagine them without one another. They’re definitely a matched set.”

  “Well, you’re lucky then.”

  “Yes.” In many, many ways she’d been born lucky. And yet with that she carried this mantle of guilt. Why should she have so much, and others so little? She hadn’t earned any of her family’s money herself. Yet, she enjoyed all the benefits. The imbalance had never sat right with her.

  “I want to work,” she’d told her parents when she finished university. “In a real job. I want to be hired for myself, not because I’m a Waverly.”

  They couldn’t understand her thinking. When she did manage to find a job working for Lindsay, they thought she was only doing it to hurt them.

  “Any siblings?”

  “I’m an only child, too.”

  Patrick slowed. They were nearing the gates to Banff National Park. He’d brought a GPS with him, and Nadine checked the remaining time for their trip. One more hour to go.

  What would they find when they arrived at Sunshine Village?

  Her stomach tightened. Would Patrick’s son be there?

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE NEXT MORNING, NADINE stretched in her king-size bed. She was in a cozily decorated room at the Mountain Lodge at Sunshine Village and bright light streamed in from a window that overlooked the main ski hill.

  As she thought about the day ahead, she started to feel uncomfortably nervous. Last night she and Patrick had agreed that they would both do their own things today—he would write, she would try to find his son. Then, at three o’clock, they would meet up at the Lookout Bistro.

  Nadine had decided that she would check with administration first. Too nervous to eat anything, she dressed quickly, then went in search of the human relations department. She found the office in a state of chaos. Lots of young people were lined up, filling out forms, asking questions.