“We’ll come back for your car later. I’ll move it over for you so I can get out,” he said. “Do you think Esther will mind if you leave it here for a couple of hours?”
“No,” she said, distracted from her intention to refuse to go by the question, and feeling a bit silly for having blocked him in, even though he hadn’t said a word about it. He quickly reparked her car and came back.
“Let’s go,” he said, pulling open the passenger door. “You’re lucky I had to clean this out for your grandparents. I’m afraid I tend to toss things when I’m working.”
“You toss cameras?”
He grinned. It was mouthwatering. He was mouthwatering. She smothered a sigh as he answered her.
“Film canisters mostly. And boxes. Food wrappers. Soda cans. I’m a slob, but only temporarily. I clean it out every night, honest.”
In that moment, with that grin and that self-deprecating explanation, she lost the battle she’d been fighting. And when he held the door open for her, she got in.
It’s only dinner, she told herself.
He drove directly to the restaurant, so she supposed he’d seen it before. When the waiter—Mel’s older brother, Mike—approached and asked if they wanted a drink, Kate hesitated. She liked the thought of a relaxing glass of wine after the ups and downs of the day, but she couldn’t help thinking she’d be better off with all her wits about her to deal with this man. And that was just mentally. Physically, she wasn’t sure her wits would be much help. She hadn’t felt this way around a man for a very long time, and she was out of practice dealing with it. In the end she declined and asked for water. Rand ordered, on Mike’s recommendation, a beer from a local microbrewery.
Perusing the menu—although Kate wondered why she bothered, since she almost always had their amazing shrimp scampi—took more time, but once Mike had returned and taken their orders, they were left with no choice but to talk or pointedly avoid speaking to each other. Obviously Rand felt no desire to avoid conversation, because he chatted away easily, about harmless things. And because it was easier—and because she still felt chagrinned at how wrong she’d apparently been about him—she participated.
“It hasn’t rained since I’ve been here,” he said. “Was I misled about the Northwest’s famous weather?”
“You mean infamous, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” he agreed with that grin she’d already decided was deadly.
“No, you weren’t misled. It can rain here for days, even weeks on end. But I find it a small price to pay for the beauty. Besides, I love the rain.”
“You don’t get tired of it?”
“No. I get tired of summer, days on end without rain,” she said.
“Did you miss it when you were off working in Denver?”
“Yes, I did,” she answered.
“Is that why you came home?”
“Partly.” She was beginning to feel a bit pressured by the string of questions.
“That, and to work for Redstone?”
He seemed inordinately interested in Redstone, and that also made her nervous. “Partly,” she repeated.
He studied her for a moment before saying softly, “But mostly for your grandparents.”
It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer, merely shrugged.
He leaned back in the colorful upholstered booth. “You know, most people tend to trust me.”
“I’m sure they do,” she said, still feeling edgy. “But some of us require more than a pretty face.”
He blinked. “You know, if I dissect that completely and ignore the implied insult, I think I might be able to find a compliment in there.”
Kate winced inwardly. It had been insulting, in a way. And she wasn’t usually that kind of person. And she chose to ignore the compliment remark; he had to know what he looked like, and what effect it had. Finally she resorted to a somewhat lame, “I’m sorry. I’m still a little wound up, I guess.”
“Are you apologizing for the insult or the compliment?”
Her gaze shot up to his face. She saw the glint of humor in his eyes, and suddenly she realized the other part of why she was so edgy. She owed him another apology. One that was going to be much more unpleasant.
No point putting it off, she told herself, and plunged ahead. “I owe you a much bigger apology.”
He lifted a brow. “For?”
She should have thought more about how she was going to word this. “I’m very protective of my grandparents,” she began.
“I noticed.” His mouth twisted wryly when he said it, but his tone was gentle.
“When you first moved in, I thought…I was sure….”
“That I was after something from them?” he suggested. “Their life savings, the house maybe?”
“I just couldn’t see why somebody like you would want to stay with people their age, in a tiny place like this.”
“Somebody like me.” He sat back in the booth, again studying her for a long silent moment. She could almost see him processing, remembering. “Today,” he said finally, “you thought I was in on it, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, startled that she sounded almost defiant. What was wrong with her, reacting like this when she’d meant only to apologize?
“In fact,” he said thoughtfully, watching her, “you thought I was up to something like that pigeon drop scam from the beginning, didn’t you?”
She didn’t try to deny it. “Yes, I did.”
“You made a lot of assumptions about me in a big hurry.”
She couldn’t deny the truth of that, either. “Yes.” She lifted her gaze to his face. Met those too-beautiful blue eyes. “For that I apologize, but somehow I don’t think I’m the first one to make assumptions based on your looks.”
For an instant he looked startled, but then a slow smile curved his mouth. “No. No, you’re not. But I confess, I’ve apparently been spoiled. Usually those assumptions are…more positive.”
That smile was so open, so engaging, that she couldn’t help smiling back. She no longer doubted her grandparents assessment of him. He really was a nice guy. She quickly buried the realization that the fact made him more dangerous to her equilibrium.
“I’m sure they are,” she said. “It’s just me, Rand, really.”
“You love them very much,” he said simply, graciously, as if that were the only explanation needed. That made her feel another pang of guilt that she had misjudged him.
“They raised me, you know. After my parents took off to wander the world and never came back.”
He drew back slightly. “Took off? I got the idea they had died, many years ago.”
She grimaced. “They might as well have. They decided when I was ten that they weren’t cut out to live an average life. Started asking how anybody could exist without knowing who they really were.”
“Sounds a bit…”
“Immature? Selfish? In the throes of a midlife crisis?” she suggested, hating that after all this time she could still sound bitter.
“All of the above,” Rand said. “I can’t even imagine. My folks are so grounded. They’re the rock we’re all built on. Me, my sister, even my aunts, uncles and cousins gather around them.”
With that simple, heartfelt declaration, he managed to erase any lingering reservations she’d had about him.
“They sound wonderful,” she said.
“They are. Of course, I didn’t appreciate it for a long time. It was amazing how much they learned while I was in college.”
She laughed. He sounded so…normal. So open and honest. She felt foolish for ever having suspected him of anything nefarious.
“I think your grandparents would like them,” he said.
“I’m sure they would. It might hurt them, though.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Why?”
“They’re still trying to figure out where they went wrong with my parents.”
“Ah. Parental Guilt Complex.”
“Is that what i
t is?”
“That’s what my mom calls it. That quirk parents have that makes them forget all about free will and the million outside influences and decide that they’re responsible for everything their kid ever does.”
Kate found herself laughing again. It felt good, noticeably, and she wondered how long it had been since she’d really laughed.
Probably since the first theft, she answered herself silently. And while that problem certainly hadn’t gone away, it was a relief not to have worry about her grandparents piled on top of it.
“Do you have any contact with your parents at all?” he asked.
“Not in several months. But that’s not unusual. They’re down to calling about once a year, and I think they only do it then to let us know they are still alive.”
Rand shook his head. “Once a year? That’s it? To their only daughter?”
“It used to be more. When I was a kid, I’d get a birthday gift from some off-the-wall place, and the occasional postcard. But once I hit eighteen, that stopped.”
“Like they’d shed the last bit of responsibility, now that you were legally an adult?”
Kate drew back slightly, startled. “That’s exactly what I thought. It was as if they’d been waiting all that time with that one last thread holding them back, and they were finally able to cut it.”
He shook his head again. “I can’t imagine. If I hadn’t had my parents to turn to, even when I was mad at them, I don’t know what I would have done. How I would have turned out. Certainly not as well as you have.”
Kate fought the blush she felt trying to heat her cheeks. It was just a simple compliment, she told herself. Don’t react like a teenager.
“I had Gram and Gramps,” she said. “After my parents left we became a family. We had each other, so we barely missed them.”
Rand studied her once more before saying, “And you’ve spent your life trying to make up to your grandparents for what your parents did.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“You’ve made sure you were the kind of child they should have had, haven’t you?”
She’d never thought about it in quite that way, and it stunned her that this man she barely knew—and who barely knew her—had seen it. There was, apparently, a lot more to Rand Singleton than met the eye.
Pleasing as what met the eye was.
By the time dinner arrived, Kate was very much afraid she was well on the way to being as charmed by him as her grandparents were.
Chapter 8
“Melissa Moore and Derek Simon,” Rand said into the phone. “They’re high school kids, juveniles, but get what you can. I’m guessing they’re both sixteen.”
“Got it. Urgent?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Next?”
Rand’s mouth quirked upward. Conversations with Draven were always challenging, but never lengthy. His half smile faded as he realized what the next thing on his mental list was, and how reluctant he was to look behind the door this inquiry might open.
But he had to do it. He’d begun to both like and admire Kate for her devotion to her family and his love for this small community, but that didn’t—couldn’t—matter. It was part of the job, it was an obvious question, and if he didn’t ask it they were going to start wondering. Just because he might not like the answer he got didn’t change the fact that he had to ask the question. He’d put it off long enough.
“Kate Crawford,” he said, not realizing until he said it how grim he was going to sound. He tried for a more casual tone. “I want to know where all that high salary went when she was working for Funding International in Denver.”
“Oh?”
“She seems to be on a short financial string. She had to be making good money for those years she was playing with the big boys, so I want to know why things are so tight now.”
“All right. Rush?”
“No. Thorough’s more important.”
“Take a while then.”
“And run me a Scott Paxton. He’s about fifty, I’d guess. Apparently hasn’t been here all that long.”
“Suspect?”
“Maybe. Works at the gas station. Mad at the world, apparently including Redstone.”
It wasn’t until after he hung up that Rand realized how few places he’d spent any time in where you could say the gas station and everyone would know where you meant. The novelty of this place still hadn’t worn off. He was beginning to think it never would.
Not that he was going to be staying long enough for that to be an issue, of course.
He sat thinking for a moment, in this room that had once been Dorothy and Walt Crawford’s. The room Walt could no longer climb the stairs to get to. Then he picked up his cell phone again and pushed another speed dial button. It rang twice before a woman answered.
“Sam?”
“Hey, what’s up? I thought you were in the north woods somewhere.”
Samantha Gamble’s voice was light and cheerful, as it had been with steady regularity since her marriage to Redstone’s resident genius, Ian Gamble. They were a pair no one in their right mind would think would work, yet they did; they were one of the happiest couples Rand had ever seen.
“I am. I need some info.”
“Whatever I can do, you know that.”
“Actually, not you. Ian.”
“Oh.” If Sam was startled, it didn’t show. “Well, he’s right here. Hang on.”
A few moments later her husband was there, and he wasn’t as adept at hiding his surprise that his wife’s usual partner on cases wanted to speak to him instead of her.
“Rand?”
“Hi, Ian. I just need to ask you about something you were working on a while back.”
“Well, sure.” Ian still sounded puzzled, but willing enough to help.
“Didn’t you say something once about one of your polymers being adapted for use in artificial joints?”
“Yes,” Ian said, now in what Rand had come to call his inventor’s voice. It was the only time, other than when he spoke of Sam, that his voice held such passion. “It’s in the final stages of FDA approval.”
“What joints?”
“Hips and knees. It’ll last years longer than the best thing out there now. Plus it stays malleable long enough for a very easy insertion. It sets up in the body afterward, making the surgery shorter and less traumatic. People will be up and around in hours.”
“Any ETA on the approval?”
“Within six months, we hope.”
“Anybody up here going to be qualified with it?”
“You’re near Seattle?”
“Yes.”
And no, Rand added silently, thinking with a grin of how different this rural area was from the city on the other side of Puget Sound. Many people here said “other side” as if the words were capitalized, indicating another world.
“I think so. I think some people at the University of Washington are already involved. I could check.”
“Do that, would you?”
“Sure. Anything else?”
“That’ll do it. Thanks Ian.”
“Any time. Here’s Sam again.”
“What’s up with that?” she asked when she came back on the phone.
“Just somebody up here that might benefit from your husband’s genius.”
“He is that,” Sam said. She sounded happier than he’d ever heard since he’d known her. It made no sense that one of Redstone’s best security agents and a man who was sometimes called the absentminded professor would fit so well, but they did.
“Getting personally involved?” she asked. Obviously she meant the inquiry about Ian’s project, but the first thing that popped into his head was Kate.
“No,” he said quickly. Apparently too quickly, because he knew the instant she spoke that he’d triggered Sam’s finely tuned radar.
“Rand Singleton! You know better than to get personally involved,” she admonished.
To quash the tempting image
s her words conjured up, Rand decided to go ahead and make the obvious point. “Are you the pot, or the kettle?”
“Exactly my point,” Sam said. “Look what happened to me.”
The next sounds he heard were a thump and an exaggerated yelp from Sam; obviously Ian had thrown something at her. After that Sam laughed and hung up so quickly Rand had little doubt what was about to happen in the Gamble household. With a sigh he disconnected. He didn’t begrudge his partner—and friend—her newfound happiness, she’d certainly paid her dues and then some, but sometimes he felt oddly lonely, like a kid whose best friend suddenly didn’t have time for him anymore.
And that thought made him feel as if he were being childish, so he told himself to get over it. It wasn’t as if he was really foolish enough to get involved with someone when he was on a case, let alone a prime suspect in that case. Of course, Sam had known better too, and now look at her.
Yeah, she’s deliriously happy, he thought glumly.
“And nobody deserves it more than her,” he told himself aloud and rather sternly. Besides, she’d been guarding Ian—he hadn’t been a suspect.
He stuck his cell phone in the charger and trotted downstairs. Dorothy had promised a meat loaf he would never forget tonight, and he could already smell it up here. When he got to the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks; Kate was setting the dining room table. When he ate with the Crawfords they usually sat at the small kitchen table that was set up for two but could squeeze three. So obviously Kate was staying for dinner.
He found himself smiling before he realized it was happening. When he caught himself, he assured himself that it was simply that the more time he spent with her the more chance he had at determining what, if anything, she had to do with the thefts. It would help his investigation if he could presume on their newly made peace and get closer to her. In a strictly business sense, of course. If he could think about business at all with her walking around in those jeans and that floaty, gauzy-looking yellow top that made her eyes glow golden and was already driving him crazy the way it blew over her body.
The meat loaf was as promised, hearty fare with a bit of a kick. Rand had just made a mental note to ask Dorothy what was in it, for his mother, when the teasing started. Walt had been talking about removing the tree out back, a big maple that was dying, when Dorothy started to chuckle.
In His Sights Page 7