Her Christmas Surprise (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Kristin Hardy

  “So are you ever going to tell me about this flash of inspiration you had?” Keely asked as Lex swung open the door.

  “The boat. Bradley’s boat.”

  “The All In?”

  “Exactly.” He strode ahead of her through the living room and down the hall. She did her best to ignore the door at the end that led to the master bedroom. Lex didn’t seem to notice.

  “People use things that are important to them for passwords, right? Bradley was crazy for sailing from the time he was a kid. There was the picture of you guys on the boat and there’s a picture of him and my father on it hanging in Pierce’s office.” He pulled out the laptop case. “So I figured the best thing to do was get over here and try it. If I’m right, all our problems are solved.”

  All their problems were solved?

  Not even close, she thought.

  Keely opened the laptop and hit the power button. The machine came on with a hum. “It was nice dancing with you at the gala last night,” she said, wondering if he’d even noticed that they hadn’t kissed hello or touched once since he’d picked her up. There was a weird sort of frenetic energy to him. After all the times she’d felt so connected, she suddenly felt like there was no communication there at all.

  The log-in screen came up. Lex leaned over her, bracing his hands on the desk beside her. Their faces were very nearly side by side as she tabbed down to the password line and keyed in all in.

  “Come on, baby,” he murmured to the computer, his fingers pressing into the desktop.

  Keely pressed Enter.

  And the log-in screen disappeared.

  “Yes!” Lex crowed, arms up.

  The background screen appeared, a photograph of a tropical beach, complete with pale blue water and palm trees.

  “Looks nice on a thirty degree day, doesn’t it?” Keely sighed.

  “You find the files we need on this computer and I’ll send you there,” Lex said, oblivious to the quick glance she shot him.

  With a few clicks of the keys, she brought up the file tree. “Better yet, we could go together,” she said, keeping her tone as light as his. “A reward for hard work. Bradley and I were going to Barbados for our honeymoon. I still have the tickets for the package.”

  Lex was back to leaning over her shoulder. “I thought the guy bought those.”

  She shrugged. “Bradley wasn’t big on organizing. I was sort of the one who took care of it all so everything’s in my name. Fully paid for and transferable.” She hesitated. “Maybe we could take a getaway when this is all over.”

  She held her breath for his response but all he said was, “Let’s hope that’s soon,” and stared at the screen.

  Files were there, that much was certain. The problem was, they only documented the operation. They didn’t do anything to clear her or Olivia. Not that she and Lex didn’t look and look hard. Keely opened spreadsheets, she opened PDFs. She opened text document after text document, even image files. She discovered the full world of Bradley’s secret universe, even a fake identity.

  But she didn’t find the one piece of information she sought.

  “We’re missing something,” Lex said, pacing around the room. “He’s got all kinds of documentation but nothing to really incriminate Skele. Why go to all this trouble and not keep leverage?”

  “Maybe it’s in his e-mail.” Keely opened the e-mail application. “I can’t really imagine anyone putting anything incriminating in e-mail but we might get lucky.”

  The software finished loading and the launch page appeared.

  Bradley was scrupulously neat when it came to his e-mail. He didn’t have the usual tangle of messages in his Inbox or Sent Items. He’d structured a slew of folders, each empty, each with a cryptic name.

  Save for one.

  “Interesting,” Keely murmured.

  “What?” Lex asked, watching her closely.

  “He’s got a VoIP line.”

  “Voype?” Lex echoed.

  She smiled. “V-O-I-P. It stands for voice over Internet protocol.”

  “Pretend I’m someone who spends the bulk of his time in Third World countries and war zones,” Lex said.

  Keely felt the pang. She didn’t have to pretend. She swallowed. “VoIP is telephone service over the Internet. You can skip phone lines altogether, most of the time—the Internet carries the calls. The service can be spotty but it’s incredibly cheap. I have it at my apartment.” She switched to the web browser. “As long as you’ve got a telephone and their little widget, you can make and receive phone calls from anywhere you can hook up your computer.”

  “Without changing the number?”

  She nodded. “You could call me at my 212 Manhattan number and I could actually be in Tuscaloosa. And I could call you from there and you would still see me as calling from the 212 area code.”

  Lex flicked her a quick glance. “He couldn’t be traced.”

  “Not easily, especially if he was using cable modem to get the VoIP service. The account’s under his false identity, so it’s not traceable to him, or even to this house.”

  “Sweet.”

  “There’s another nice little aspect to it all. You can check your voice mail online, as well as by phone.”

  “By text or by sound?”

  “It plays it on your computer. If we can get into his account at the VoIP Web site, we can not only see a detailed log of every incoming and outgoing call, we can get audio files of every message.”

  She was grasping at straws, she knew, but she was damned if she was going to give up. When the VoIP site loaded, she crossed her fingers and clicked on the fill button on the browser to see if it would complete the username and password for her.

  The lines stayed resolutely blank. Unsurprised, she entered Bradley’s e-mail address and all in for the password.

  Username or password incorrect, the screen said.

  At least this time around they didn’t have to run in circles to get the password. She clicked on the “Forgot your password?” link. Confidently, she entered the first initial and last name of Bradley’s false identity, along with the e-mail address and clicked Submit.

  Error: Username or e-mail address incorrect.

  This, she hadn’t expected. The password was supposed to be the hard part. “Trust Bradley to make it difficult,” she said, typing first name, last initial.

  Error: Username or e-mail address incorrect. Over the next fifteen minutes, she tried his real name, his parents’ names, the boat, the company, every combination and permutation she could think of. Always with the same result.

  Error: Username or e-mail address incorrect.

  If she saw it one more time, she was going to scream.

  “Dammit.” Lex slapped his hand on the desktop and began to pace again, practically vibrating with frustration. “I thought we were home free. We’d get you and Mom off the hook, we could get the laptop to Stockton so he can nail his case and we could all finally get back to our lives.”

  We could all finally get back to our lives.

  And there it was, out in the open.

  “Is that what happens?” Keely asked quietly. “We stay out of jail and you fly away?”

  Lex turned to her. “When I get another assignment.”

  She knew it, she knew that was the unspoken agreement and yet something in her had to try. Something in her couldn’t give up.

  Lex let out a slow breath. “Keely, look, you know I came here to clear my mother’s name.”

  “And I guess I was just entertainment along the way.” Her voice sounded far away to her own ears.

  “No.” He looked at her steadily. “You weren’t. You’re not. But…I can’t stay here. I just can’t. And I don’t know where I’m going to end up next—or how long I’ll be there.”

  “So you just ride on the wind.” Unable to sit still, she rose and went to the window. “And I guess if I start to feel anything for you, that’s just my problem.”

  “I’m not trying to h
urt you.”

  “But you’re sure as hell doing a good job, aren’t you?” She turned back to him, eyes bright.

  “I just don’t see how it makes sense for us to try to keep this going when I’m going to be all over the place, probably for months at a time.”

  “There’s a way if you want to. You could do something crazy like stay.”

  Lex closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, I can’t. Believe me, I can’t.”

  “You can’t or you don’t want to? It really comes down to the same thing, doesn’t it?” And it was killing her, killing her. “So I guess we stick with the program, then—we find the files, Olivia and I get to stay out of jail, thanks to your heroic efforts and you get to ride off into the sunset. Except that part’s ahead of schedule, isn’t it?” Her voice sharpened. “You’re already gone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Last night at the gala, when we were dancing. I saw it in your face. You were there and then mentally you were just…gone. Like you went away in your head. Like today. We haven’t even brushed hands, we haven’t even touched.”

  Temper flickered in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I thought we were focusing on keeping your butt out of jail.”

  “Sure, because then you can go.”

  “And why the hell not?” he snapped. “I had a nice happy career before all this happened, Keely. A life and an interesting job that kept me thousands of miles away from here, which is just where I wanted to be. That’s me—that’s the way I am. You want a guy who’s going to stick around? What you’re looking for isn’t me. I can’t step into Bradley’s shoes.”

  “I don’t want you to be Bradley,” she said furiously.

  “Sure you do.” He stalked across the room. “Everybody does. My mom wants someone to sit on the Alexander board, manage her finances, escort her to events, be her company at breakfast. You want that sturdy, dependable lover, a guy you can substitute on your honeymoon trip. Settle in and maybe rearrange some flowers when we get back. Sorry, I can’t do this.”

  “I want a lover?” she repeated incredulously. “You were the one who pushed this, you were the one who made it happen. What happened Lex, did you scare yourself?” she demanded. “Is this all too real for you? Oh, I forgot, you’re the guy without connections, the one who walked away from his family, his home.”

  “Dammit, I’m sick to death of everyone trying to tell me about where my home is and what I owe to my family,” he exploded. “Everybody’s grabbing at me to stay—you, my mother, Darlene, Flaherty. I’m not some domesticated animal you can strap to a waterwheel and lead around in circles. I’m not my father, I’m not Bradley. I can’t replace him or put a ring on your finger and make it all better, or be the guy that he wasn’t.”

  “I’m not looking for a replacement for Bradley,” she said hotly. “I didn’t love Bradley. I love you.”

  He turned from her, closed his eyes. “Oh, God, Keely, don’t do that. It just makes it worse.”

  Keely felt the blood drain from her face. And that quickly, the anger dissipated into a frozen mist. “It’s not your choice,” she said, strangely calm. “You can’t keep people from caring for you, Lex. You can tell yourself that you cruise through life without connections all you want. You’re lying to yourself. And you’re lying to yourself if you try to say it makes you happy. Now, where’s that iPod you said you saw?”

  She went to rummage for it on the coffee table, knowing she had to concentrate on finding the familiar blue player, on something, or go mad.

  “Keely?”

  She looked up and saw Lex holding out the player. “We have to—”

  “Thank you.” She cut him off and pushed gently past him, heading for the door. “Now, I think we’ve done all we can do here. I’d appreciate it if you’d take me home.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She didn’t cry. Instead, she was eerily calm. She might have felt absolutely frozen inside but she didn’t cry. Not while they packed away the computer, not during the silent drive home. Not even when he pulled up before her parents’ house and turned to her.

  “So what happens now?”

  Keely studied the glove-compartment latch. “We’re running out of things to check and time’s running out on us. Let’s give it until after Christmas. If we haven’t found the password by then, we turn the laptop over to Stockton and let him take it from there.”

  “What if they don’t find anything to exonerate you?”

  She gave a humorless smile. “Then we hire good lawyers. That’s one place connections come in handy.”

  He winced. “Keely—”

  “No.” She opened the door. “I think we’ve talked enough for one day, Lex. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “But I—”

  “No.” And she got out.

  She might have sworn she could hear the shattering of her heart as she walked away, but her eyes were dry, and her eyes were dry when she walked into the house to find her mother at the dining table.

  “How did everything go?” Jeannie asked.

  Keely’s throat tightened. How could she possibly answer that? “It was a bust. We didn’t find what we were hoping for.” She’d hoped for love and instead she’d found a man whose life was built around avoiding it. She’d fallen for two Alexander brothers. One, the good brother, had proven to be bad through and through. The other, the bad brother, had turned out to be good.

  And she had lost them both, one by walking away, the other by wanting him to stay.

  “I think I’m going to take a swim,” Keely said quickly but something had gone funny with her voice.

  Jeannie rose slowly from the table and put a hand to Keely’s cheek. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Everything,” Keely said.

  And then, finally, she did cry.

  The darkroom had always been his place. Even during the crazy times growing up, it had been a sanctuary. There, among the safe light and the tongs and trays, he could warp time and space. He could walk in and hours could bleed away while he played with different exposures and papers, with dodging and burning, until the image in his mind emerged. It was his own form of meditation. No matter what was bothering him, when he stepped into the darkroom, it went away. Things might have gone to hell with Keely, he might be getting covered in icicles every time he walked near Olivia, but the darkroom would make it all okay.

  Except that this time around, it wasn’t working. Lex stood in the rental darkroom trying to think about how he wanted the prints to look and all he could see was Keely, that soft, vulnerable mouth and that gut-shot look on her face at the end. Because it was the end, he knew it.

  He’d wanted, God, he’d wanted more than anything to wipe that look away. Unfortunately, the one thing that would do it was impossible. There was no point in asking why she couldn’t understand because there was no way she could unless she was standing in his shoes. It was ridiculous to think about trying to keep something going between them. It wasn’t fair to her. That was the only reason.

  Not because it scared the hell out of him.

  He glanced down at the tray of developer in his hand and cursed as he saw the blotches on the prints. Once again, he’d gotten distracted. He’d been at it for over an hour without getting a single print that was usable by his standards. He just couldn’t make it work.

  Like things with him and Keely.

  His cell phone rang and he flipped it open, happy for an excuse to stop.

  “Alexander.”

  “And what are you up to this fine day, me bhoyo,” asked Flaherty.

  “Developing prints. You remember me, Flaherty, the photographer?”

  “Ah, that I do. Though barely. It’s been a week since I talked to you.”

  “’Zat right?” Lex aligned a sheet of linen paper on the enlarger.

  “Did it ever occur to you to call me?”

  “You said take some time and think about it. I’m thinking.”

  “For a week?”


  With one hand, he pressed the button that exposed the paper. “I’m a virtuoso thinker. Take’s time to do these things right.”

  “I’ll say. So what did you decide?”

  “Did I say I’d made a decision?” He slid the print into the bath of developer and checked his watch.

  Flaherty snorted. “If I know you, you made a decision within fifteen minutes of me telling you about it.”

  Actually, for about the first time in his life, Lex hadn’t. Habit screamed for him to turn the spot down but he couldn’t quite do it. How was it that after so miserably bollixing things up with Keely in the name of his freedom, the idea of spending a year stateside could suddenly be so appealing?

  “Tell you what, Flaherty.” He sloshed the developer around. “I’ll come into town next week and we can talk about it some more, start getting more specific.”

  “Does that mean yes?” Flaherty asked eagerly.

  “Not yet,” Lex said, “but it’s a start.”

  Keely stroked down the length of the pool, feeling the water move over her body. She swam a lot these days; something about the activity and the soothing flow of the water made her feel less like screaming. And it was the one place she could weep without anyone asking questions.

  Her parents did their best to be sympathetic without hovering. Lydia’s brand of sympathy ran more to ropes and gelding with dull knives, but in the interest of wearing her New Year’s dress versus being in prison, she’d agreed not to do anything drastic. But Keely didn’t have a place of her own to curl up in misery. Oh, she could go to her apartment, but all she’d face there would be memories of Lex. Anyway, it was best not to give into it any more than she had to. She was still working at the shop. She needed to keep things on an even keel.

  And hide the fact that her heart was broken to pieces.

  It was a funny thing about heartbreak. When you were shattered inside, it was hard to care about much of anything. The issues that had troubled her for weeks somehow seemed minor. She couldn’t muster up the emotional energy to worry about Bradley or Stockton or any of the trouble at her doorstep. The only thing that mattered was the loss and emptiness that made the days endless.