“A few days. That’s all.”
“Then she didn’t tell you before she—” He paused, and a spasm of some emotion she couldn’t identify twisted his mouth. “Before she committed suicide?”
“No. She never said a word.” A portion of her anger was directed at Tina for exactly that. Why would Tina have believed she needed to hide her son’s parentage behind lies and secrecy?
“She always refused to reveal the name of Alex’s father. I probably wouldn’t have believed her if she had told me.”
He nodded slowly, then rose to one of the four arched windows in the room overlooking the gardens and Lake Washington. He was silent, contemplating the night for several moments, then he turned back to her. “I didn’t know about the boy until a month ago when Tina wrote me unexpectedly. I swear, I didn’t know. If I’d had the first idea, you can be sure I would have taken care of her.”
His words sent an ominous shiver rippling down her spine. I would have taken care of her. He could mean something benign, innocent. But they could also mean something far more sinister.
“Didn’t you ever wonder about the…timing? You have an affair with her and nine months later she has a son. Didn’t that ever strike you as extremely coincidental? I know you have to have seen Alex when you’ve come to Harbor View. He spent a great deal of his life there. Surely you had to…to wonder.”
“I do remember seeing him a few times. I always thought he was a beautiful child but I never put the pieces together. I’ll admit, the thought might have crossed my mind a time or two but the boy always seemed small to me. The time frame didn’t fit. Foolish of me, I can see that now, but I didn’t know how old he was. Besides, I always assumed Tina would have told me if he was my son.”
Ah, and here was another big element of the picture that simply didn’t fit. “Tina was not a vindictive woman. That was never her way. I don’t understand why she would keep you from your own son.”
He faced the window again. In the reflection, she could see sadness and regret on his features. “I’ve wondered that same thing since learning about the boy. I’m afraid I am wholly to blame. We only saw each other for a few weeks. A few wonderful weeks.”
The reflected Andrew pursed his mouth, then sighed heavily. “Then I’m afraid I ended things rather abruptly and with unnecessary cruelness, only because we ran into a colleague of mine at a little restaurant in the city.”
“Why?”
“Pride. Stupidity. I worried too much about appearances. How would it look for a superior court justice to be running around with someone like Tina?”
“Someone like Tina?” She heard the coldness in her voice but couldn’t help it. She would not sit in this richly appointed library and listen to him cast aspersions on a woman who worked hard at any job she could find to support her son.
He didn’t appear to notice her chilly tone. “Yes. Someone like her. Someone beautiful and vivacious and the same age as my own daughter.”
She relaxed her fingers. He didn’t sound condescending. If she wasn’t mistaken, she would almost think he had feelings for Tina. “Anyone with sense would think you were a lucky man.”
“I was.” He turned to face her, and she was stunned by the raw emotion in his blue eyes. “No man had ever been luckier than me. And I threw it away because of stupid, vainglorious pride. I couldn’t bear thinking my colleagues might believe I had hit some midlife crisis, that I was searching for eternal youth with a woman like Tina, someone from an entirely different world. I was stupid and I’ve paid for it.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He was silent for several moments, then turned to her again, and his features were once more the composed Andrew she had known all her life, not some agonized stranger. “How is my son?”
It took her a few beats to realize he meant Alex. “Fine. He misses his mother and doesn’t quite understand that she won’t be coming home again but he’s…adjusting.”
“Tina said in her correspondence that he needed surgery. That’s the only reason she finally told me the truth after all these years and asked for my help. Is he, that is, does the surgery have anything to do with his…hearing impairment?”
He didn’t know? Could he actually have written out a six-figure check without any idea why?
“Before she…died, Tina apparently was making plans for him to get a cochlear implant.”
“A cochlear implant? Will that help him hear?”
“Somewhat. It’s certainly not guaranteed to work, but it might.”
“Are you going to continue with the surgery?”
“Luisa and I haven’t made a decision yet. We’re still trying to…to adjust, as well.”
A terrible thought slammed into her, and she hitched in a breath at the impact. What if Andrew decided to fight for custody of the child? Tina had named her guardian of Alex but surely, as his father, Andrew would have some rights to him. He could be preparing legal action right now….
Andrew interrupted her thoughts. “You love him, don’t you?”
She thought of her feelings for Tina’s sweet little boy with his bright smile and funny curiosity. Oh, yes, she loved him. If Andrew decided to take the child, it would utterly destroy her.
She wished she could find the right words to tell him all that was in her heart, but once more they slipped from her grasp like slick soap. “Yes,” she finally whispered. “Fiercely.”
He nodded with a small smile. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like some sort of relationship with him. It doesn’t have to be father-son. I’m afraid I’m not one for playing catch in the backyard but I thought perhaps I could be a…a sort of honorary grandfather. If Luisa doesn’t mind.”
She gazed at him, almost dizzy with relief. That didn’t sound like a man eager to take on a small child with a hearing impairment. “No. I’m…I’m sure we can work something out.”
“Good. And of course I will make financial arrangements for him.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said stiffly.
“To me it is.” He paused and returned to the matching armchair next to her and rested a hand on her fingers gripping the armrest. “I’m terribly sorry about this, Elizabeth. I can tell you’ve been hurt by all of this.”
“I only wish Tina hadn’t kept so many secrets from me. We were friends. She should have told me.”
“In her own way, I suppose, Tina had as much stiff pride as I did. I tried to reach her a few times after ending things but she wouldn’t even consider forgiving me. I gave up after a while, once I realized it was probably for the best, that the differences between us were just too great. Now I wish I’d tried a little harder.”
She thought of Beau and her words to him the evening before, on the Mari.
We might have heat between us but that’s all. We have very little in common. We’re two very different people from two very different worlds.
Was she wrong? Could she tell him the truth about herself without him despising her? He cared about her, she knew he did. If she doubted it, all she had to remember was that tender, soul-shattering kiss outside on the terrace earlier.
Her love for him flashed through her again, pure and rich and so bright it hurt to even think about it. Did she have the courage to act on her feelings?
She didn’t want to end up like Andrew, alone with his regrets.
“So tell me about your young man.”
How had he so accurately guessed what she was thinking? She felt color climb her cheeks.
Andrew laughed softly. “I believe you’re blushing. Is that a good sign?”
“Beau is a…a friend.”
Andrew smiled. “I sense he’s more than that.”
“No. Not really.”
“But you would like him to be?”
She sighed at his persistence. When he set his mind to it, Andrew could meddle like a maiden aunt. “I…enjoy being with him, and he’s wonderful with Alex. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
And he can hear every word we�
�re saying, she thought, but of course she couldn’t say it. The idea of Beau sitting somewhere close by, listening to Andrew probe into their relationship was beyond mortifying.
To her chagrin, Andrew didn’t pick up her broad hint to drop the subject. “I watched the two of you at dinner,” he said. “I’m sure you weren’t aware, my dear, but you were glowing in a way I’ve never seen before, even during your engagement. For that alone, I like him. You deserve to be happy. You have had far too little love in your life.”
She’d never been tempted before to tell her godfather to please—for the love of God and all that was holy—just shut up, but she nearly did now.
“Is that your new Pollock?” she asked instead, doggedly trying to redirect the conversation. “It’s very striking.”
He gave her a look that told her he was too sharp not to know what she was doing, but to her vast, eternal relief, he allowed himself to be distracted before Beau could hear any more about her pathetic love life.
* * *
He could listen to her talk all day.
Out on the terrace again, just outside the library doors where he could bust through if necessary, Beau adjusted his ear piece and let Elizabeth’s low, musical voice wash over him.
In an odd, probably twisted way, he found it incredibly sexy to hear her talking in his head.
But then, he found everything about her sexy, from the way she tucked her hair behind her ear to the tiny birthmark just at her jawline to the way her smile transformed her cool beauty into someone sweet and winsome and enchanting.
He reeled in his wayward thoughts and tried to steer his attention back to the conversation.
They were talking about Alex now. He still had a hard time imagining that cute kid being sired by the stiff, formal judge, but if nothing else, at least they had established that fact by this little chat.
The judge hadn’t tried to hide his relationship with Tina from Elizabeth. But then, what choice did he have when confronted with the letter?
Beau wished to heaven he could see the man’s face, study his mannerisms. People had to be real cold-blooded bastards to lie without revealing it in some way by their body language. A twitch, a shift in position, a flatness to their eyes. Something almost always gave it away. He hated only having the man’s muted voice in his ear to go by.
The conversation shifted again, and it took him a minute to realize they were talking about him now.
The judge was saying something about watching them at dinner. “I’m sure you weren’t aware, my dear,” Beau heard him say, “but you were glowing in a way I’ve never seen before, even during your engagement.”
Beau blinked at that one. Engagement? She’d been engaged and she’d never told him? What happened? And what the hell else had she kept from him?
He was still reeling when he realized someone else had joined him on the terrace.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing out here by yourself?” With excruciatingly lousy timing, Leigh Sheffield, drink in hand, spoke at the same time as Elizabeth. Try as he might, he didn’t catch what she said.
He growled to himself but managed—barely—to keep from snapping at Leigh to leave him alone. Instead he pasted on a polite smile. “I’m just enjoying the quiet for a few moments. I’m not much for big parties.”
“I’m not either. I prefer more—” she paused delicately “—intimate engagements.”
He didn’t know how to respond to the blatant—and unwanted—invitation in her eyes without sounding rude so he chose not to answer.
After a few beats, she went on in a slightly cooler voice. “Where’s Elizabeth? She hasn’t moved twelve inches from your side all night.”
“I like her there,” he muttered, trying hard not to feel like a day-old fishhead caught in the middle of a catfight. “But your father stole her away from me for a few moments. I’m sure she’ll be back any minute now.”
He thought he saw anger flash in her green eyes for just a moment, but it was quickly veiled. “She and Daddy are always going off for little chats. If not for the age difference between them, one might start to wonder exactly what they’re always going off to chat about.”
For about half a second he thought maybe Leigh’s implication had been inadvertent, then he realized grimly that she knew exactly what she was saying. She wanted him to jump to the conclusion that Andrew and Elizabeth shared more than a paternal relationship.
He swallowed disgust, both at the quick mental picture of Elizabeth in Andrew’s arms and at the kind of warped mind the man’s daughter must have to conjure up such an idea.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said, using his best hard-ass cop voice.
It didn’t seem to faze Ms. Sheffield. She leaned in closer to him and answered in a low, conspiratorial voice. “I’m only saying our little Lizzie is not exactly the most scintillating conversationalist, as I’m sure you know. But she and Daddy somehow can always find something to talk about.”
He couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response, and he suddenly realized the voices in his head had stopped. While Leigh had been busy spreading her poison, either he had lost the transmission or Andrew and Elizabeth had parted ways.
Or were engaged in activities other than talking.
No. No chance in hell. Elizabeth wouldn’t have kissed him with such aching sweetness and then turned around to kiss Andrew Sheffield the same way.
“Beau? Where are you?” Elizabeth’s soft voice whispered through his earpiece, so erotic it was almost as if he could feel the warmth of her breath swirling around his ear. “I’m still in the library. Andrew just left. I’m not sure whether to…to come find you or wait here for you.”
He was severely tempted to just turn on his heel and leave his hostess so he could find Elizabeth but he couldn’t quite overcome a childhood spent having Southern manners drilled into him. “Will you excuse me, ma’am?” He gave another fake smile. “I just remembered I’m supposed to meet Elizabeth right about now.”
He did walk away before she could question him further. He could have walked straight into the library from the outside doors but he didn’t want her following him, so he walked around to a different door and quickly made his way to the library.
The carved oak door into the room was open and he found her inside gazing at the artificial fire in the grate while her fingers aimlessly twisted the copy of the letter they had found in Tina Hidalgo’s safe-deposit box. The door squeaked slightly as he pushed it open and she looked up, her expression melting into relief. “You heard me, then.”
“Yeah. I heard everything perfectly.” Well, almost everything.
A sudden flush climbed her cheeks and he cursed Leigh Sheffield again for making him miss Elizabeth’s response to the judge’s questioning about him.
“Did I ask the…the right questions?”
“You did good, sweetheart.”
She smiled a little, just as he’d hoped, then the smile slid away. “What do you think? Did he sound guilty to you?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I couldn’t really tell. But we didn’t expect a confession.”
“I know. But I was hoping for something more…concrete, I guess. We don’t know any more now than we did before I spoke with him.”
She sounded so dejected that he gave in to his sudden compelling need to touch her by reaching for her hand and rubbing a thumb across her fingers, right down to her short fingernails. Despite the overly warm room, her skin was cool, as usual, and he wanted to bring some heat to it.
He had never considered himself a touchy-feely kind of guy. Sure, he was a red-blooded American male with all the normal needs, but he’d never been one who particularly cared for all that mushy stuff like hand holding and soft petting.
So why was it he couldn’t get within ten feet of the woman without this compelling need for some kind of physical contact between them?
He didn’t take the time to analyze it now and instead focu
sed on answering her. “We do know more than we did before you talked to him. We know for sure he was the one who wrote the letter, that he and Tina had an affair and why it ended. We know Alex is his kid and that he didn’t know until several weeks ago.”
Under his fingers, Elizabeth curled her hand into a small fist. “I suppose you’re right.” She paused. “Beau, I think he genuinely cared for her. I think he’s devastated by her death, and I just can’t imagine it’s at all possible that he would kill her. I think he loved her.”
The conviction in her voice made him blink. “How did you get that from your conversation?”
“You didn’t see him, you only heard abstract voices. When he talked about her he looked…shattered.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“He did. You should have seen the look in his eyes, Beau. I have never seen him like that. If he had such strong feelings, why did he let so much come between them?”
“Like he said, Judge Andrew Sheffield and an exotic dancer like Tina didn’t have all that much in common. Maybe he figured they were from two different planets whose orbits just happened to collide for a brief instant.” Just like a cop and an heiress, he thought bitterly.
“What do we do now? Are we…are there any other leads to pursue?”
If he ruled the judge out because of one overheard conversation, he wouldn’t be much of a detective. He wanted to take a run at Sheffield himself but that would have to wait for a few days.
“We don’t have to figure it out right now. We’re in the middle of a party and we can’t hide out here all night.”
As much as he might like to.
“I don’t really want to stay now. Now that I’ve spoken with Andrew, we have no reason to stay. Can we…would you mind terribly if we left?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage to survive my disappointment,” he murmured dryly.
CHAPTER 14
The ride between the Sheffield mansion on Mercer Island and his own little house in the ’burbs seemed much shorter on the flip side.
Even though time passed quickly, Beau found himself edgy, uncomfortable. Maybe he was a control freak, but he decided he wasn’t all that crazy about having someone else drive him around. He much preferred being the one behind the wheel.
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