“I insist,” she said. “Consider it a welcome to Shadow Falls and a thank-you for helping out with the search today.”
“It’s completely unnecessary,” he said.
“I won’t take no for an answer.”
Wendi took the card away, returning in short order with the final receipt. Carrie added a twenty-dollar tip, signed the bottom and handed it back to her. Then she pocketed her card and got to her feet. She swayed just a little and had to grab hold of the edge of the table. She shot Ambrose a quick look and hoped he hadn’t noticed.
He hadn’t. He came around the table and, taking her elbow, walked with her to the front door, opened it for her and looked genuinely sorry the evening was over. “I hope you had a pleasant time,” he said.
“It was very nice,” she lied.
“Next time perhaps you’ll allow me to treat you.”
“If you’re still here the next time I have a hole in my schedule, it’s a deal,” she said. Had schedule sounded like shedule just then? Good God, the rum was hitting harder than she’d thought. She was glad she’d taken the precaution of having Wendi phone Sam to take her home.
“I see.” He said it as if perhaps he did.
“Good night, Ambrose.” She tried to make it sound friendly and kind, but she thought she had probably already hurt the man’s feelings. And while he’d been irritating all evening, she thought her dislike of him and eagerness to get the meal over with might have some other cause.
Another cause with long hair, an unshaven face and a guitar over his shoulder.
“Good night,” Ambrose said, and then walked toward his car.
Just for show, Carrie walked toward her own, but as she did, she scanned the parking lot in search of her son’s Funkmaster, which ought to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. And she didn’t see it.
Upon reaching her own understated, ordinary mini van, she noticed someone leaning on it. The very guy she’d just been thinking about. Just? No, she’d been thinking about him all evening.
Glancing behind her, she saw Ambrose’s car pulling away in the distance. Good, he probably hadn’t seen. No point in hurting his feelings even more. And then she looked at Gabe again. He was coming around the car now, moving toward her.
“Surprised to see me?” he asked.
She nodded, mute, trying to think of something to say. “I thought Sam was coming.”
“Sam dropped me off. I asked him to.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “It sounded to me like you were having a miserable time with our pal Ambrose. I figured the timing was perfect. I’ll look great by comparison, and you’ll be impressed in spite of your dislike of, uh, hippie drifters.”
She smiled a little crookedly. “Drifter hippies,” she corrected, then looked away. “Sam told you I said that, huh?”
He nodded, held out a hand. “Keys?”
She fished them from her purse and placed them into his open hand. As she did, her own hand skimmed his palm, and she felt it right to her toes.
Their eyes met, then slid away. He walked around to the passenger side, opened her door for her and stood back to wave a gallant arm toward the car.
She got in, and he closed the door. A moment later he was behind the wheel, adjusting the seat to accommodate his long legs. He started the engine, turned on the headlights, fastened his seat belt.
She turned his way, her head resting on the seat, and found herself just staring at his profile for a long moment.
He glanced at her. “Feeling good, are you?”
“Mmm-hmm. Totally relaxed. And relieved. Thanks for rescuing me.”
“Anytime,” he said.
“And for being so good to Sam.”
He smiled. “You don’t need to thank me for that, Carrie. He’s a great kid.”
“He really is,” she agreed.
Gabe nodded. “Yeah. And that Sadie…she’s quite the firecracker.”
“You’ve got that right.” She inhaled slowly, then let out her breath. “So I guess I just have one question.”
“Shoot,” he said.
“Why is it you care whether or not I’m impressed with you?”
He met her eyes, but only briefly. “Well, because you’re smart and gorgeous and fascinating, and because I’m male.”
She smiled slowly. “Are you always this direct and honest?”
“I really do strive to be.”
“That’s…refreshing.”
“Glad you think so.”
“I do. And I think I owe you an apology for misjudging you. My son says you’re rich and famous.” She made a face. “Not that that makes any difference. There are plenty of rich and famous people who are total jerks, I’m sure.”
“Rich is a relative term. And open to a wide variety of interpretations.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “So do you consider yourself rich?”
“Beyond my wildest dreams,” he admitted. “But not because I have a mansion or a fancy car or gold-plated faucets in my bathrooms.”
“Do you?” she asked, a bit wide-eyed.
“I don’t even own a house. And you’ve seen what I drive. No. I’m rich because I get to do what I love most for a living. I’m rich because I get to live anywhere I want in this beautiful country of ours. I’m rich because I’m free. I go where I want, stay as long as I want, do what I want, work when I feel like it, and I’m happy most of the time. That’s my definition of being rich.”
She nodded slowly. “I think that’s a damn good definition.”
Gabe could tell she was tipsy. Not drunk. He doubted the respectable doctor would ever allow herself to get beyond control. But he was glad to see that she was relaxed enough for an honest conversation. As he drove her back to her house, he said, “Sam tells me you took in a boarder.”
She nodded, her head resting on the seat back. “I end up with a couple every fall. Didn’t want any this year, but—”
“Why not?”
She slid him a sideways look. “Between Kyle being missing and all the reporters who’ve been in town until recently, digging for any secrets they could find, I thought it best not to talk to strangers.”
He nodded as if he understood. “You have secrets you’re worried about them digging up?”
She swung her head toward him so fast he thought she must have wrenched her neck. “No! Why would you think that?”
He looked at her. “I didn’t think that.” Until now, he thought in silence. “I was just responding to what you said—the press in town digging for secrets, yada, yada.”
She blinked as if her mind were having trouble processing his words. He decided to cut her a little slack, though he wouldn’t forget the clue she’d dropped here tonight. She had a secret. She didn’t like the press digging around town. And he knew what the press had been digging for. Information about Livvy, dead all these years. Information about her baby, the one that might be his. Now why would the local medico be nervous about questions like those?
“So what made you rent out the room when you’d already decided not to?” he asked.
She shrugged. “This lady was a lot easier to turn down on the phone than she was in person.”
“She came to your house?”
Carrie nodded. A red curl dropped onto her nose, and she brushed it away with the back of one hand. “Yeah, just as we were getting ready to meet you at the firehouse. That’s why I didn’t make it.” She shook her head. “She’s really sweet, and all alone, and it just would have been mean to say no.”
“Besides, she doesn’t look like a reporter, right?”
“Right.”
“Then again, who does, huh?”
She shrugged.
“I mean, you accused me of being a reporter when we first met. Do I look like one?”
“No. I mean, not an airbrushed, suit-wearing, hair-styled, talking head sort of reporter, anyway. You look more like an embedded, in the line of fire, risk-taking, rogue type.”
“I
do?”
She nodded. “It’s the hair.”
“The hair?” He ran a hand over his head, from the front to the ponytail in the back.
“This hair, too,” she said, and then he felt her palm on his whiskered cheek and experienced an electrical storm in his pants. Holy shit.
He cleared his throat, sought ways to change the subject, to distract himself, if not her. “Your son is great. You’ve done an incredible job raising him.”
She lifted her brows. “Thank you. I agree completely. Sam’s amazing.”
“Have you done it all on your own?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So then, you were never married…? To his father, I mean.”
She slanted him a look. “I’ve never been married to anyone.”
He studied her face briefly. “So Sam’s father isn’t in your life. Is he in Sam’s?”
“No.”
“Do you even know who he is?”
She widened her eyes. “Are you suggesting I sleep with so many men I can’t keep track?”
“I didn’t mean it like that at all. I just—I mean, do you think you have the right to keep Sam from getting to know his father?”
“You don’t know that I’m keeping Sam from doing anything.”
“That’s true, I don’t know. Are you?”
She looked at him. “I would never do anything to hurt my son. If he wants to know about his father, all he has to do is ask. And he will, when he’s ready. And then I’ll tell him everything I know. But I don’t have to tell you any of it.”
“Everything you know?” he repeated. “That’s an odd way to put it.”
“Why are you asking so many questions about my son?”
He felt a rush of guilt for taking advantage of her slightly inebriated state. Sam looked a little like him, maybe a lot like him, and he had the right birthday, and damn, he sure did have a gorgeous mother, to boot. But that didn’t prove anything. And he thought again that maybe this thing he’d been calling a gut feeling was nothing more than a serious case of wishful thinking gone awry.
Still, her evasiveness made him more suspicious than before. He would definitely be looking into Sam Overton’s records—the public ones, anyway. Sadie’s and Kyle’s, too. The problem was, adoption records weren’t public, so he wasn’t sure his search would tell him much.
He wasn’t worried, though. Nor was he in any big hurry. He was here to find the truth, and he had no doubt he would. He’d waited sixteen years—admittedly without knowing he was waiting—so a few more days or even weeks wouldn’t hurt anything. Impatience wasn’t a trait he much liked. He was relaxed, laid-back, easy. He trusted that things would work out the way they were supposed to. That he’d been led here, that he’d learned about Livvy’s baby at all, seemed to him to be proof of that. He had time. Time to find his child. And time to do so without alienating the most fascinating woman he’d met in years.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I really like Sam, and that’s the truth.” He met her eyes, trying to gauge whether or not she believed him. But he couldn’t tell. “How about some music?” he asked.
She nodded and reached up to hit the button on the CD player. And the minute she did, the smooth, down-home country stylings he had come to detest wafted from the speakers. It was enough to send a ripple of irritation through his calm waters.
He looked at her as the gravel-voiced legend launched into a song about life on the farm. “You really like this stuff?” he asked.
She frowned. “What do you mean? It’s Sammy Gold. Everybody loves Sammy Gold.”
“No, not everybody.”
She blinked and tipped her head to one side. “You don’t like him?”
“I actively hate the man.”
“But why?”
He shook his head as he hit the Stop button to make the music die. The car refilled with tense silence.
“Wait a minute. You’re in the music business. And you actively hate country’s biggest star. There has to be something more to this story.”
“There’s not.” It was, he knew, a bald-faced lie.
“There has to be. Do you know Sammy Gold?”
“No.”
“Ever met him?”
“No.”
“Ever written a song for him?”
“No.”
She drew her brows tightly together, tilting her head to one side. “But you must have a reason. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would resent someone for their success.”
“No, I’m definitely not that kind of guy.”
“So did you try to sell a song to him, and did he reject it and maybe insult your skill as a writer?”
He made a face and looked at her. “You’re weaving together some pretty far-fetched scenarios, but I guess it’s understandable, you being a woman who’s had several drinks.”
“Four. Four is not several.”
“Four. And what kind of drinks were these?”
“Rum and Coke. Diet Coke, that is.”
“Well, that shouldn’t render you too sloppy, then.”
“I’m not sloppy at all.”
She reached out and pressed the button again, and once more Sammy Gold’s voice and simple handful of guitar chords filled the car.
The more he sang about home and family, about values and morality and being a one-woman man, the more Gabe hated him. The man was a liar, was what he was. He didn’t value family at all.
He certainly didn’t value his own son.
Gabe knew that for a fact. Because in his entire life the man had never once even bothered to come out and meet him. Or even spoken to him by phone. His checks came like clockwork—and they were big checks, sent on the condition that no one ever breathe a word about the fact that Sammy Gold had fathered a bastard son with a gold digger.
Gabe’s mom had been living high on Sammy Gold’s dime for as long as he could remember. In contrast, since reaching the age of eighteen, Gabe had never spent a nickel of the man’s money. Nor did he intend to.
No, he had no use for Sammy Gold.
Reaching up, he hit the button again.
Carrie looked at him, thinned her lips and said, “I was really starting to like you.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “But now I don’t know. You’re all nosy about my love life, and you detest my favorite singer. So…”
“Maybe I’m all nosy about your love life because I’m starting to like you, too. You ever think of that?”
“No.” She widened her eyes and blinked at the air in front of her face. “No, I haven’t. Is that true?”
He pulled the car into the driveway and shut it off, then turned in his seat to meet her eyes. “That I’m starting to like you? Yeah, it’s true.”
“Well then…maybe I can forgive your taste in music.”
“I hope so.”
“If you’ll tell me why.”
“Let’s see how this goes. And then maybe I’ll tell you why.”
“Then there is a reason why you hate him! I knew it!”
He nodded, then leaned closer and kissed her on the lips, lightly, slightly, but their mouths clung for a suspended moment, and she tasted damn good and a little bit like rum.
He pulled back.
She stayed where she was, eyes closed, and whispered, “Wow.”
“That good, huh?” he asked.
“No. I mean, yes. It’s just that I never thought—”
“Never thought what?”
She opened her eyes. “I never thought I’d kiss a hippie drifter.” Then she smiled broadly and, turning, opened her door and got out.
He got out, too, and came around the car to hand her the keys. “Drifter hippie,” he corrected.
She laughed, and it was beautiful to his ears. Looking up at him, she said, “Don’t you dare tell Sammy we kissed.”
“Okay.”
“Even if we do it again,” she added softly.
“Oh. Are we going to do it again?”
“Then I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me, too.
“We could do it right now, if you want.”
“No way. Sam would see and read too much into it, and—”
“I know. You’re right.”
She nodded, but he could see the confusion in her face, in her eyes. “I’m gonna head out then,” he said.
“Oh, you’re not coming inside? I thought we were having dessert.”
He met her eyes. “It’s late. I think it’s best if I leave.”
She nodded but clearly didn’t understand. He thought about telling her that if he didn’t leave now, he wasn’t going to want to leave at all. But then he decided it would be counterproductive. He had to find out the truth about Sam.
And it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to let the tender feelings starting to germinate way down deep take root.
She was still standing there, still staring at him. Everything in him wanted to bend down and kiss her good-night. It would be long, and slow, and it would be potent. He knew it. Just thinking about it was potent. But it would also be a roadblock to his goals.
His number one priority here was to find out if Samuel Overton might possibly, by some wild trick of fate, be his son. And the more time he spent with the kid, not to mention his bewitching mother, the more he found himself beginning to hope he was.
Carrie lowered her eyes at the same time, and her disappointment was palpable.
Gabe felt a knot in his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You really had your heart set on dessert, didn’t you?”
She lifted her head. “Don’t be silly. Besides, I had dessert—a dessert drink, anyway—with Ambrose.”
“He was that charming, was he?”
“He was that insistent,” she said. “Go on, go. It’s fine.”
The door above them opened, and Sam shouted down, “Hey, Gabe, you’re coming back up, aren’t you? I need you to show me that transition again.”
Gabe looked from Sam to his mom, met her eyes, saw the hope she was trying to conceal. “Yeah, pal. I’ll be right up,” he called without looking away.
And then he watched Carrie’s beautiful face turn from hopeful to delighted, and was a little bit puzzled by it. Or maybe he was just reading the reflection of his own feelings in her eyes.
Kiss Me, Kill Me Page 7