by B. J Daniels
He laughed. “Why not?”
Because you’re some famous journalist who apparently lives hand to mouth. Why was that? Surely he made good money. Or was his job all acclaim and little cash?
Kat put her curiosity about Maximilian’s finances out of her mind as she drove toward Beartooth. She had greater concerns. What if he had found out something damaging about her mother? Something that would also hurt her father? She couldn’t let that happen if she could help it. Her father was going through so much right now already. But if so, how was she going to stop Max from exposing it?
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAX REACHED THE Branding Iron before Kat and ordered them both cheeseburgers, fries and chocolate milk shakes. She walked in just moments after the waitress had brought out their order.
“What is this?” Kat asked, looking at all the food.
“Lunch.”
“After that huge breakfast you put away?”
He grinned at her as she slid into the booth opposite him. “You didn’t do such a bad job of cleaning your plate this morning either, as I recall.”
“I told you, I don’t eat—” she wrinkled her nose as she picked up one of the French fries and dropped it again “—food like this.”
“You can always order a salad.”
She eyed the food as he began to eat with gusto while watching her out of the corner of his eye. He tried not to laugh when she picked up another of the fries and ate it. Apparently she hadn’t had one in a very long time, if the pleasure-filled expression on her face was any indication.
She daintily cut the burger into quarters, picked up a portion and took a bite.
This time he could not hold back the laugh.
“I hate you,” she said and took another bite.
“I still don’t get why you would give up food that you obviously love,” he said, sincerely curious. “My motto is—if it feels good—” he grinned as he held her gaze “—then I do it.”
“I’m sure it is your motto,” she said, her gray eyes going dark as a midnight fog as she narrowed them at him. “I, however, believe in...restraint.”
He laughed. “You really need to let your hair down.”
She touched the knot at the back of her neck, looking uncomfortable. “My hair is curly and unruly. It tends to go wild if...” Her gaze met his. “Not that that it is any of your business.”
Without thinking, he picked up his napkin and reached across the table to wipe at a dab of ketchup at the corner of her lips. She had a full, generous mouth that looked so damned kissable...
Her eyes opened wide, their gazes locking. What passed between them felt way too intimate. He quickly drew back the napkin and concentrated on his meal. He had one hard and fast rule that had served him well: never get involved on the job.
Kat concentrated on her food as well for a few minutes. “So, what did you have to show me?” she asked without looking at him. Her voice sounded strange, making him realize whatever had just happened between them hadn’t been one-sided.
Keep it strictly business, he warned himself. But Kat Hamilton intrigued him. She didn’t keep her hair bound back like that because it was curly. If anyone could afford to have it straightened, it was her. He wanted to peel away the layers of protection she’d wrapped around herself until he reached the heart of her. He’d never been able to resist digging for what made someone tick. And Kat Hamilton definitely had some odd ticks.
He found himself studying her, wanting to strip away more than those layers of protection. He wanted to peel off those oversize clothes, let her hair go wild, introduce her to every pleasure he could think of. He already had a pretty good idea something—or someone—had made her like this. So what would it take to release Kat Hamilton from her self-imposed prison?
“Eat and then I’ll tell you everything,” he said.
The tension he’d felt only moments before eased some as they ate in a companionable silence, both clearly enjoying their food. He couldn’t help but wonder what else besides food Kat Hamilton had deprived herself of—and for how long.
When the waitress came to clear their plates, he noticed that Kat had made short work of her food.
“Enjoy your lunch?” he asked with a grin. “How about a piece of that banana cream pie they just put out?”
She glared at him. “You really are the devil.”
“You have no idea.”
* * *
KAT WATCHED HIM spread out copies of articles systematically on the table after their dishes were cleared. The waitress refilled their coffee cups and brought Max a piece of pie. The café was warm and empty now that the lunch crowd had cleared out.
“I realized that I’d been thinking too small,” Max said. “If I was right and your mother had been up to something else during those university years...then I had to look at the big picture.”
She listened, watching him as he provided her with one set of articles after another. The grinning, joking Max Malone was gone. This man was a deadly serious journalist, and from what she could see, he’d done his homework.
“A newspaper in Los Angeles ran a photo of the group back in 1978,” he was saying. “I talked to someone in archives, and they still have the original,” he said as he picked up all the copies of the articles and started to put them back in a weathered leather satchel that looked as if it had been around the world. From what she knew of Max’s work from the pieces she’d seen online, it probably had.
“Here, you have to try this,” he said reached across with a fork full of banana cream pie.
Without thinking, she took a bite and licked her lips at the creamy, buttery dessert. As she met his gaze, she was struck by the intimacy of the act of him offering her a bite. As if he realized what he’d done, he quickly drew back the fork.
“There’s a flight to LA tomorrow afternoon from Bozeman,” he said as if nothing had just happened between them—just like earlier. “Pack light. It’s warm down there. I have a friend who’s letting us use his place on the beach, so you’ll want to bring your swimsuit. It isn’t every day that you get a chance to swim in the Pacific.”
“Wait, what?”
He finished putting the papers into his satchel and looked at her. “Have you been listening to anything I said?”
“You think my mother was part of some radical group that bombed buildings from 1974 to 1979.”
“No, from 1975 to 1979. I don’t think she got involved right away. More than likely she met some man who saw that she was ripe for the picking. She came from a very conservative, well-off family. She was probably more than a little susceptible to someone with big ambitions and change-the-world ideas all in the name of helping the downtrodden.”
Kat shook her head. “You have no idea what my mother was like. You just make assumptions as you go.”
“The photo of the group will prove it. The newspaper has the color photo in archives. All I’ve seen is a bad black-and-white version. We need to see the original. You need to see the original.”
She shook her head. This was all moving too fast. “First off, there is no way my mother was part of this...group. What did you call it?”
“The Prophecy. No doubt they envisioned a different future than the one that befell them since two of them went to prison and the rest scattered, never to be heard from again.”
“Nor can I fly off to California. I don’t fly.”
He laughed. “Of course you don’t.”
“I’m also in the process of preparing for my first photo exhibit. I’ve already put it off several times.”
She’d already put it off several times? He studied her again. Fear of success? Or fear of failure, he wondered. “Your exhibit isn’t until Christmas, and from what I’ve seen, you have more than enough photos.”
“You really don’t
know anything about it,” she snapped. She had a million things to do and resented him making it sound as if her photo exhibit wouldn’t be all that much work. She said as much as calmly as she could.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t important.” He leaned toward her, seeming to take over the space. “I’ve known you how long? Not even forty-eight hours and I know that you have more photographs than you can possibly hang for this show, that you need to stop shooting and worrying. Your artwork is great. Have a little confidence in yourself.”
“I have confidence in myself,” she retorted. Even though it was true she had too many photos and that had become the problem, she still wanted to argue that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
He placed his hand over hers, making her catch her breath at the surprise of his touch—and the jolt that swept through her. “I can understand you being afraid.” Before she would assure him she wasn’t afraid, he continued. “This photo in LA is going to be of your mother. You and I both know you are going to have to see the original or you aren’t going to believe it’s true.”
“You’re wrong.”
He merely looked at her with all that confidence and conceit. “Only one way to prove it.”
She shook off his hand. “Fine. You’re wrong. But if you are planning to trick me, anything I might say is off the record.”
Max smiled. “Fine. I hate to break it to you, though. I am seldom wrong. However,” he added, “for your sake, I almost want to be wrong.”
“Liar.” She got to her feet. She couldn’t remember being this full. Why had she let him goad her into eating all the things she’d given up? She wished she could regret even one bite. Damn this man.
He was leaving her no choice. She did have to see this photo, because if he was right...then none of them had ever really known Sarah Johnson Hamilton. But, she assured herself, he would be wrong this time. She definitely wanted to be there for that.
“I’ll pick you up at the ranch. That is, if you let them know at the gate.”
She could tell that he’d been hoping to find a way to get past the guards at the gate probably since he’d arrived in Montana. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”
He grinned. “Spoilsport. But let’s at least share a car to the airport. Meet me at the gate. We can take my truck.”
“We’ll take my SUV.”
His grin broadened. “Have it your way, but if you don’t bring your swimsuit, you’re going in the ocean clothes and all.”
* * *
SITTING IN FRONT of a fast-food restaurant in White Sulphur Springs, Lynette said, “This is your idea of taking me on a dinner date?”
The sheriff smiled as he handed over her fish burger and fries. She had related to him everything the nurse had shared with her on the way into town. He’d listened, laughed and pulled the SUV over long enough to hug her. It always amazed him how people tended to open up to this woman.
He hadn’t seen her this excited since the news about Sarah’s tattoo. The woman could get a confession faster than a priest. Once people saw a badge they tended to get tight-lipped. Nettie had a way of making them relax. People had confessed the damnedest things to her over the years. He laughed, thinking they needed someone like her down at the sheriff’s office.
He’d known he would need her today and had debated if he was making a mistake by bringing Lynette in on this. But this investigation, if he could call it that, was on his own time and unofficial. Not that he wasn’t aware that this was about the first wife of Senator—and very possibly soon President—Buckmaster Hamilton.
While the FBI hadn’t found any reason to investigate Sarah Hamilton further, Frank had no intentions of stopping.
“So?” Lynette said impatiently as she opened her fish burger wrapper. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure.” She had repeated her conversation with Becca Thorson, no doubt close to verbatim. Along with everything else amazing about his wife, she had an incredible memory when it came to details of conversations.
He looked over at her as he dug his double cheeseburger and onion rings out of the greasy paper sack. “I don’t have to remind you that all of this is just between you and me, do I?”
She waved a hand through the air in answer. “You think it was the senator who took her to the funny farm, don’t you?”
Lynette worked on assumption and rumor. In his line of work, he needed that little thing called proof. “The nurse didn’t give much of a description,” he said noncommittally.
“It was winter. He would have been bundled up, was probably even wearing a hat. The nurse said he was big, and Buckmaster is definitely that.”
It made sense, just as Russell had speculated. Russell Murdock had come to him with what at the time had been a crazy theory about not just brain wiping. Russell believed Sarah had been taken to a clinic or hospital by her husband that night after she’d crashed into the icy river.
He had to admit, it made sense. After what they believed to be a failed suicide attempt, Sarah would have called someone she trusted. But would she have trusted her husband? If only they knew why she’d tried to kill herself.
“Come on, Frank. The timing is right. It had to be Sarah.”
Frank shook his head. “All this is speculation without proof. Also, whoever the woman was, according to your nurse, she seemed to know the doctor.”
“Is there any way to find out if Sarah had been admitted to the loony bin before that night?”
“Patient-doctor confidentiality, so probably not.”
“Wouldn’t the senator know?” Lynette asked.
That was one conversation he wasn’t looking forward to—if it ever came to that. The senator had been on the campaign trail and busy in Washington. Frank had heard he was back at the ranch for a few days, but without any proof...
“Even if she was the woman who was admitted that night, it doesn’t mean this Dr. Venable wiped her brain. He couldn’t erase memories she hadn’t made yet. And even if he could wipe away whatever memory led her to suicide, it doesn’t explain the past twenty-two years.”
“Unless he got his hands on her again,” Lynette said. “You haven’t been able to find him?”
“I had Dillon looking for him, but I pulled him off this. I don’t want it to be an official investigation. He has better things to do than chase this anyway.”
His wife didn’t seem to be listening. “This brain wiping is interesting, but there could be a simpler explanation.”
He grinned over at her. “That Sarah Hamilton is lying.”
Lynette laughed. “You and I make a pretty good team, Frank Curry.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
* * *
KAT AND MAX were able to get two first-class seats on a jet to Los Angeles, thanks to Max reserving them the day before.
“You were that sure I was going with you?” she asked as she produced her credit card.
“Nope. I figured if I had another first-class seat, I could find someone who wanted to share it with me.”
She shook her head at his apparent arrogance and conceit. “Who are you really?”
He took a step back and swung his arms wide. “What you see is what you get,” he said, a twinkle in his blue eyes.
Those were the same words she’d used about herself. She didn’t believe it any more than she figured he had. How much of what this man told her could she believe? One moment he was self-deprecating, the next he was so arrogant it made her teeth ache. One moment he was joking and grinning, the next he was all business.
“I did some research on you,” she said once they were seated and the flight attendant had brought her a glass of sparkling water and him a beer.
She took a sip of her water and gave him a challenging look. “You didn’t tell me you’d been writing fo
r quite a while.”
“You didn’t ask. Anyway, writers are the most boring people in the world.” He shrugged. “If we aren’t writing, we’re thinking about writing.”
“Is that why you’ve never married?”
Max seemed to freeze for a moment. He took a drink of his beer before he looked over at her. “Who says I’ve never married?”
She glanced at his left hand. No ring. No faded spot where there had been a ring. Nowhere in the research she’d done was there anything about a wife. Nor had there been one standing next to him when he’d received his awards. “Are you married?”
“Would it make a difference?” His blue eyes shone with either amusement or irritation. He shot her the grin he used against her whenever he felt uncomfortable, she realized.
“Stop doing whatever it is you’re doing right now,” she snapped, keeping her voice down.
He looked away and took a deep breath, letting it out before he answered. “I was married.” He turned to her again. “I’m not anymore. End of story.”
She lifted a brow, thinking about all the traveling that Max would have had to do to write all the stories he’d written beginning when he was twenty-two. What wife would have wanted to be married to a freelance journalist who was gone all the time?
But she couldn’t help being curious. Maybe Max was the one who had ended the marriage. Too many interesting women to meet on the stories he did. Or maybe it had been the woman who’d found someone else while he was off gallivanting and that’s why he didn’t want to talk about it.
“I take it marriage didn’t suit you?” she said, thinking he shouldn’t get to dig into other people’s secrets if he didn’t want his own dug up.
He looked straight ahead, his voice sounding strange. “Marriage suited me just fine. It was the best two years of my life.”
When she realized he wasn’t going to say any more, she started to ask what had happened, when he cut her off.