by MJ Rodgers
Her eyes rose to his as she fingered that large, ugly locket again. “I don’t think you’d understand, Matt.”
“My IQ hasn’t dropped so low that Charlene’s taken to watering me every morning.”
“I didn’t mean intellectually. I meant emotionally. Tony was the first boy who ever kissed me. It was a…real special kiss. I’ve never forgotten it And lately I’ve thought a lot about him.”
“All this urgency because this Tony was a good kisser?”
Matt knew his tone was way too gruff again. He couldn’t seem to help it. He was mad at this guy for kissing her. And he was mad at Jamie for liking it so much. And he was mostly mad at himself for caring about any of it.
“Matt, just find Tony for me. As quickly as you can. Please.”
She dropped her eyes again as her fingers fiddled with the edges of the check.
Damn. He wished she hadn’t said please. He exhaled his anger with a resigned sigh. This was real important to her. And because it was, he knew he would do what she asked. Whatever she asked. No matter what it cost him. God help him.
“Make the check out for a hundred,” he said, his tone even gruffer this time. “I’ll put you on the show tonight. With luck, you’ll be kissing your Tony again by week’s end.”
And I’ll be wishing I’d just put a bullet to my brain.
“I thought your show was a local cable one. How will putting me on help to find Tony if he’s moved out of state?”
“Someone in our broadcast area might recognize the Lagarrigues’ names and give us a lead as to where they’ve gone.”
“I see.”
“Plus, the show’s being picked up by other cable affiliates throughout the south and west now. Tonight the affiliates west of the Pecos will broadcast the show. Tuesday night’s show can be picked up as far east and south as Florida. If we don’t get any calls after tonight, we’ll try again tomorrow.”
She finished writing the check and held it up to him. “Much obliged, Matt.”
He said nothing, didn’t even look at her, just took the check. He was surprised to note she was still using her married name. Matt had assumed that independent streak of Jamie’s would have had her reclaiming her maiden name right after the divorce.
“Something wrong with the check?”
Matt realized he’d been staring at it a mite too long. He slipped it into his pocket and latched on to a less revealing topic. “You’re living in one of those townhomes on Klondike.”
“Just moved in. I’m a biogeologist now, attached to a research team over at the university. We spent this winter studying the effects of climatic changes at the coast’s national wildlife refuge.”
She didn’t have to tell him. Thanks to Liz, Matt already knew all about Jamie’s job and her new townhome.
“Are you relieved to learn the check won’t bounce?” she asked.
Since he had no intention of cashing it, that hardly mattered to him. However, as she was wearing an amused smile, he knew her question wasn’t a serious one.
“I’ll need you to be at the studio by nine tonight,” he said.
“You can fit me on the show so soon? I thought you’d have your programming planned for weeks in advance.”
He did, but he had no intention of telling her what kind of grief he was going to be putting Randy, his assistant producer, through by getting her on.
“Cable’s a lot more flexible than national programming,” he said instead, as though that should explain it. “We’ll end the program with your story. ‘Sweetspring, Texas gal gets her first kiss. Now fifteen years later she’s searching for the man whose lips have spoiled her for any other.’“
A small frown appeared on her brow. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention Sweetspring.”
“Why? It would help viewers to know he was there fifteen years ago.”
“Please, Matt, just leave it out. His name and the name of his folks should be sufficient to identify Tony. Will I have to learn any lines to say in front of the camera?”
“No, I’ll do all the talking. We’ll run your face next to Tony’s two pictures—”
“Two pictures?”
“I have a computer program that will age him fifteen years, so that folks can recognize how he’ll look today.”
“You mean something like what the police use?”
“Exactly like what the police use. Hold on there a minute, and I’ll show you.”
Matt fed Tony Lagarrigue’s photo into the computer scanner on the top of his desk. Tony’s likeness appeared on the computer’s monitor.
Matt manipulated the keys until Tony’s face filled the screen. He entered Tony’s age at fifteen. Then, he hit a few additional keys, instructing the software to show how Tony’s face would have aged in the intervening fifteen years.
Tony’s boyish cheeks and chin disappeared. His face took on a broader look, his nose larger, his eyes deeper set, his forehead narrower, his hair closer to his head.
As far as Matt was concerned, he still looked too damn good. Matt was so engrossed with the changes taking place on the screen that he didn’t immediately notice Jamie now stood beside him.
She leaned over his shoulder to get a better look. Her soft, fragrant hair brushed his cheek.
Before he knew what hit him, the warm, honeyed scent of her had already seeped through his senses and brought every male cell in his body to sizzling attention.
Matt pushed back from the desk and propelled himself to his feet. He retreated until the windows would let him go no farther.
The blood was pumping in his ears. The perspiration was leaking out his pores. His muscles were so tense they hurt.
For the next few seconds all he could concentrate on was trying to rein in his runaway reactions and hoping like hell that Jamie hadn’t noticed his odd behavior.
He needn’t have worried. Jamie didn’t even look at him. Her attention was captured by the computer-aged face of her long-lost love that filled the monitor.
“So that’s what Tony looks like now,” she mused, mostly to herself. “I wonder what he’ll think when he sees me?”
Chapter Two
“Who you looking for?” the little girl asked Jamie as they sat together in the TV studio waiting room.
The little girl wearing the name tag of Sarita looked about ten to Jamie. Her brown hair was tied back with a pink ribbon that matched the color of her dress. Her legs dangled off the chair, her feet making circles in the air. Her question to a stranger possessed that kind of self-assurance that only wellloved children could project.
“I’m looking for a boy who kissed me,” Jamie answered.
Sarita scrunched up her nose. The idea of kissing a boy was apparently not something Sarita had on her agenda for any time soon.
“Who are you looking for?” Jamie asked.
“Another mama. Mine died.”
Jamie rested her hand briefly on the little girl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sarita.”
Sarita said nothing for a moment, just pointed her toes and made some extra large air circles with her shoes. “My mama was a real good mama. But she wasn’t my first mama. My first mama had to give me up.”
“Why?”
“I was just a little baby. She was kinda young. She didn’t have any money. She was sad to give me away. My second mama and daddy were glad because they got to adopt me. Only my second mama is dead now. So I got to find my first one.”
A story of love and loss and a lot of pain-all relayed in the concise, precise vocabulary of a child.
Rather than simplifying the great emotional upheaval inherent in such a story, Sarita’s brief statements brought their images even more clearly to Jamie’s heart.
“How does your daddy feel about your wanting to find your first mama?” Jamie asked.
“He’s not too happy. But he wants to make me feel better about my mama dying.”
“He must be feeling kind of bad, too.”
Sarita’s large brown eyes turned dire
ctly to Jamie. “He cries. I never saw my daddy cry before mama died. I don’t want him to cry any more.”
Jamie started to suspect that wasn’t all Sarita wanted for her daddy.
“Sarita, when you find your first mama, are you hoping that maybe she and your daddy will…get together?”
Sarita stared hard at the toes of her shoes.
“My daddy’s real good-looking. And he’s nice. It could happen.” Sarita looked up again at Jamie. “Couldn’t it?”
There was such hope on her face. But the odds of that long shot were pretty astronomical. Jamie wished with all her heart that she could give Sarita the assurance she wanted so badly. But lying to a child was not something Jamie could bring herself to do. Nor could she dash the hopes of any little girl. When she was a little girl, sometimes hope was all she had.
Jamie leaned over and gave Sarita a hug, letting that be her response. When the little girl’s arms came around her and returned that hug, a lump stuck in the middle of Jamie’s throat.
“It’s time, Sarita,” Matt’s gravelly drawl said.
Jamie released Sarita, looking up in surprise to find Matt standing before them. He moved real quiet and quick for a man the size of a mountain.
Matt’s gaze was focused on Sarita. His rough features had softened into one of those rare, appealing half smiles of his. He held out his hand to the little girl. Jamie was amazed to see Sarita scoot off the chair and take his hand without hesitation. She had never pictured Matt charming a child before.
At the door, Sarita paused to turn around. Jamie and she exchanged waves. Then Sarita and Matt were gone.
Jamie redirected her attention to the TV monitor mounted on the wall in the waiting room. A taped commercial for a sale at a local store was just finishing. A moment later Matt was introducing Sarita and telling his TV audience about her quest to find her birth mama. Jamie studied his face.
Matt didn’t have Cade’s fine-chiseled features and ready smile. His craggy countenance was far too rough-hewn and rugged looking. His gravelly drawl was downright riveting.
But it was the strength in his face and the intensity in his eyes that seemed to leap right out at her. On the TV screen it was evident enough. In person, Matt Bonner made Jamie’s nerves positively dance up a storm.
She’d never forget the first day they met. She’d been standing on his mama’s porch out at the ranch, soaking up some rays, when suddenly his huge six-feet-six shadow had simply blocked out the sun.
She’d turned to see shoulders as broad as the Texas plains,
dark blond hair, thick like mottled eagle feathers, skin creased and weathered like a clay furnace. And steel-gray eyes, assessing her from beneath the brim of a low-riding Stetson.
Cade had talked a lot about his big brother, Matt. But nothing he said had prepared Jamie for the impact of the man himself.
In those few seconds before Cade stepped forward to introduce them, Jamie hadn’t even dared to draw in a breath.
And in that regard, things hadn’t changed a whole lot in the past five years. The fact that he was executive producer of this show and geared his P.I. practice to finding lost loves never ceased to amaze her. Such pursuits seemed so tame for him.
Matt Bonner struck her as the kind of man born to be on the back of a bucking bronco or wrestling a bull to the ground with his bare hands.
And yet, she had just witnessed him charming a little girl with his smile. The incongruity of the two impressions filled Jamie with a familiar confusion. Not for the first time she wondered who, exactly, was Matt Bonner? If there was a key to him, he kept it well hidden.
She knew all about keeping things hidden. She’d been doing it all her life. Secrets were sometimes absolutely necessary to survival.
But there were some things that needed to be told. She fingered the heavy, old locket that she had polished and now wore constantly around her neck.
She had to find Tony Lagarrigue. He’d left more behind in Sweetspring than he ever knew.
So much had happened that fateful night he took her to the dance. How might her life have changed if Tony hadn’t moved away so soon afterward? Would he have stood beside her in those dark days that followed? Was Tony’s absence behind this empty feeling she carried inside her, as though something vital was missing from her life?
She wasn’t going to let this question be something she wondered about anymore. If Tony was meant to be part of her future, she was going to find him and find out. Now.
The door to the waiting room opened. A technician stuck his head inside.
“Ms. Bonner, you’re up next,” he said.
Butterflies batted the lining of Jamie’s stomach as she followed the technician out onto the stage.
While the camera refocused on Matt and he repeated the station’s telephone number for viewers to call with information, Sarita left the stage to join a tall, smiling man with chestnut hair and sad eyes. Her daddy.
He looked real nice to Jamie. It must feel good to help folks like him and Sarita. But she’d hate to be the one to have to disappoint them. She wondered how Matt handled that part.
The studio lights blinded Jamie. The technician quickly powdered the shiny spots beneath her eyes before scooting away.
Jamie had watched Matt’s show several times. It was informal. She knew Matt was going to do all of the talking for her segment.
Nonetheless, the butterfly in her stomach now had the wingspan of a red-tailed hawk.
She concentrated on her surroundings. The studio was quite small and simple with two stuffed conversation chairs facing each other, a couple of microphones dangling overhead and a dark blue curtain behind.
It had looked a lot larger and more plush on TV. But then everything about life had a tendency to look a lot larger and more plush on TV.
Except when her eyes settled on Matt Bonner. That man was like Texas itself. You had to see him in person in order to fully understand what big meant.
Jamie’s eyes wandered to the three cameras trained on the stage. That seemed like a lot for a cable show.
She could make out a control booth in the back. Quite a few people appeared to be involved in this production. There was a professionalism about it that she hadn’t expected.
Matt introduced her spot. She stared into the camera as she had been instructed and listened to Matt talking about the teenage girl who had been swept off her feet by the boy who had taken her to her first dance in a small Texas town.
Jamie knew that her image along with that of Tony’s young face and his aged face would accompany Matt’s words.
It was all over in sixty seconds.
Jamie rose to shake Matt’s hand and thank him. But she wasn’t quick enough. He was already off the stage, clapping the crew members on the back and giving them a hearty “well done.”
Jamie watched him, reminded of all the times she had walked into a room out at the ranch only to see Matt quickly leaving it.
In the whole of the three years she and Cade had been married, Matt had remained aloof and distant and had avoided every overture she’d made to be friends.
She should have gotten the message by now that it wasn’t going to happen. So why did she keep hoping it would change?
Jamie retraced her steps to the waiting room to collect her handbag. She was beginning to wonder if she had done the right thing by going on the show. If one of her fellow researchers at the university found out, she’d be in for a hard time. She could take the inevitable ribbing, but she didn’t want to have to deflect their questions about Tony. There were some things that were just too personal to discuss.
“There’s a call for you.”
Jamie whirled around at the sound of Matt’s voice. Once again she hadn’t heard him come into the room.
“No one knows I’m here,” Jamie said.
“The caller’s responding to the broadcast.”
“Oh, of course,” Jamie said, feeling as dense as a hitching post. “I didn’t think we’d get a react
ion so soon. Is it someone who knows about Tony?”
“The caller won’t say. But he asked for you by your maiden name.”
Jamie’s stomach fluttered. “My maiden name?”
“Since we only identified you by your first name on the show, it could be someone who knows you from your days in Sweetspring.”
“Did you said it was a he?”
“Either a man or a woman trying to disguise her voice.”
“Where can I take the call?”
“Pick up that phone over there and punch five. The switchboard will transfer it.”
Jamie rushed over to the phone sitting on the table and tried to control the flapping in her stomach.
Could it be him? After all this time? She snatched up the receiver and punched in the five with a shaky finger. She waited through a couple of clicks, her heart picking up extra beats with each one.
“Hello,” she said.
The other end of the telephone line was quiet for a moment before a voice asked, “Is this Jamie Lee?”
There was something about that deep, breathy voice that brought Jamie’s spine ramrod straight.
“Yes, yes! Who is this?”
“Tony Lagarrigue doesn’t want to see you, Jamie Lee. And he doesn’t appreciate your broadcasting his name and face all over the television waves.”
“Do you know Tony? Can you tell me where to find him?”
“You don’t appear to be getting the message. So let me spell it out. Back off. You just forget you ever heard of Tony Lagarrigue.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who is in a position to affect your future health and welfare. You’d better think twice before you go placing them in jeopardy. Again.”
Dial tone blared in Jamie’s ear.
Matt watched all the excited animation that Jamie had been displaying visibly drain from her profile. She dropped the receiver as though it were burning her hand.
Matt’s stomach churned as he started toward her. “Who was it?”
Jamie did a slow half turn and met his advance. “It wasn’t Tony.”
“Who was it?” he repeated, taking another step toward her.
“It wasn’t anyone who knew Tony,” she said, sidestepping him, heading for her handbag. As soon as she collected it, she started toward the door.