by Beth Andrews
Penny was bouncing with excitement as they parked the car. There was Ro, looking...oh, dear heaven, she was looking so very pregnant! And Bree, cuddling under Gray’s enveloping arm, and smiling from ear to ear with such warmth it was hard to believe she’d ever been called the Ice Queen.
And there was Ellen, all svelte and elegant in her riding jodhpurs and fur-trimmed jacket. Alec had grown another foot, as well, and would soon be as tall as Dallas. Right now he rode his uncle Mitch’s shoulders, but he wouldn’t be able to get away with that much longer.
Barton had his guitar out, and was singing “Blue Hawaii” softly in the background, though his hands must be freezing in this crystal-ice air.
The minute Max and Penny emerged from the car, they were swarmed, covered in love and hugs and laughter and kisses like a coating of honey. The men slapped each other on the shoulders, and the women cried and kissed, and the kids just laughed at everyone.
Penny hugged Ro an extralong time. “I can’t believe you,” she said, putting her hand on her sister’s small, but unmistakable, baby bump. “Is everything going well?”
“It’s going perfectly,” Ro said, and Penny could see that it was true. She was no longer gaunt and bony. Her face had softened with baby weight, until she looked more like a Madonna than a firebrand.
“Is Mitch all right?”
Rowena nodded. “Oh, yes. Thank God. It was killing Dallas, the not knowing. Of course, we still don’t know much about Bonnie.”
“I wondered whether Dallas would be able to talk him out of going after her,” Penny said, her gaze resting thoughtfully on her brother-in-law, the born protector.
When Mitch had returned, he’d told them all that even he didn’t know where Bonnie was. He simply had awakened one morning, and she was gone. After Penny’s wedding, it had been clear that Mitch had been itching to go back out and try to find her somehow.
“So far, so good,” Rowena said, but her voice sounded somber, and Penny knew Mitch’s heart wasn’t yet resigned to the loss.
Penny nodded. Life was so complex. Amid happiness, fear still had a place at the table. In the middle of security, there was always a kernel of doubt.
But she’d finally stopped dreaming about a day when everything would be sunshine and flowers. She was learning, day by day, to cherish the storm as well as the calm.
Gradually, everyone began to shiver, even with the jackets and gloves. It was mid-December, and far too cold to dawdle outside when the fires indoors called so invitingly. One by one, they began grabbing suitcases and helping to carry them in.
Penny and Max were the last. They stood in the bronzing twilight and let their gazes rest gently on this softly undulating land that was to be their home. The ranch she had left so long ago in agony...
Today she returned in joy.
“You ready?”
Penny nodded. It wasn’t strictly true. Fear was knocking at her heart again. Remember me? Remember me? But she and Max had talked it over, as they lay in each other’s arms under the stars. And they had decided that, today, she would return to Bell River through the front door.
They got all the way to the threshold, and her blood began to run cold. She put her arm on his, and he froze in place. He didn’t push. He would never push. She knew he would wait as long as she needed.
“There’s always tomorrow, sweetheart,” he said softly. “We can go around back today, if you’d rather.”
“No.” She didn’t want to give up. She had thought of this moment so often, and of how triumphant she would feel.... “No. Just give me a minute.”
She stared into the foyer. It had been completely renovated, and no remnant of her mother’s blood, or her mother’s shadow, remained. No remnant, even, of the original structure remained.
So why did she feel so strongly that her mother was waiting for her, just inside the door?
Don’t be afraid, Penelope. I love you very much.
Penny turned quickly, and stared, wide-eyed, at Max. He frowned. “Sweetheart, please. Don’t let it upset you. It doesn’t have to be today.”
“Didn’t you hear that?” She cast her eyes around the area, to see if anyone else stood nearby. Ro, maybe. It might have been Rowena’s voice. She had always sounded a lot like their mother.
But no one was there. And, as Penny looked back into the foyer, she realized that the feeling of her mother’s presence was gone. Entirely gone.
There were no ghosts here anymore. There was no lingering pain.
It was, after all, just a staircase.
And a very beautiful one.
“I’m ready,” she said. She started to take her husband’s hand, so that they could walk together into their new home, but, before she realized what was happening, he scooped her into his arms.
She laughed, breathlessly, and he gazed down at her with so much love in his eyes that she turned to liquid from the inside out. She lifted her face and accepted his slow, deep kiss, letting her heart fill with the honeyed warmth she’d come to depend on.
Even that didn’t frighten her. It was safe to count on Max, because...
Because he was Max. He was a part of her, not some external crutch. He was the other half of her lonely soul, the half she’d been looking for without realizing it, all her life. And she completed him, just as he completed her.
Finally, he lifted his lips. He smiled, and her heart took wings.
“Welcome home, my love.”
And then, with his strong arms firm and sure around her, he carried her easily over the threshold and out of the past.
* * * * *
Look for the next book in Kathleen O’Brien’s
THE SISTERS OF BELL RIVER RANCH series!
Coming in May 2014 from Harlequin Superromance.
Keep reading for an excerpt from SLEEPLESS IN LAS VEGAS by Colleen Collins.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE PHONE RANG, giving Val LeRoy a start. If it rang more than once or twice a day at Diamond Investigations, maybe she’d get used to its high-pitched jangle.
She swallowed the last bite of her lunchtime tuna-with-chutney sandwich while checking the caller ID. No name, but a 219 area code. She had been trying to memorize different area codes—after all, a phone was a private investigator’s most powerful tool. She wasn’t a P.I. yet, but when the day came, she wanted to be a knowledge bank in stilettos.
This incoming call was from...Michigan? No, Indiana. As she reached for the receiver, she noticed a glob of papaya chutney on her fingers.
Another jangling ring.
She didn’t want to sticky up the phone with her gooey fingers, but Jayne Diamond, her boss, insisted Val always answer using the handset, never putting the phone on speaker, to maintain the confidentiality of conversations. Rules, rules, rules. That woman had more than a reform school. Val had to remind herself constantly that being mentored by one of the best investigators in Las Vegas was worth all the restrictions.
Keeping in mind the confidentiality of the call, she glanced through the picture window next to the agency’s front door, which offere
d a view of their business parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Their office was a renovated corner bungalow on a street with other similar bungalows. Not a high-traffic area. Although they sometimes had walk-ins, nobody was headed toward the agency on foot, and the only car in the lot was Jayne’s shiny Mazda Miata.
She glanced at Jayne’s office door. Closed.
Val rapped the speaker button with her knuckle.
“Diamond Investigations,” she answered softly, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk.
“Uh, are you a private investigator?” The man’s voice was low, hesitant.
“Yes.” Technically an apprentice, but Jayne didn’t want her saying that to potential clients. So Val could answer yes to such a question, but the truth was she’d done little else other than screen calls these first few months of her internship.
“I...think my wife’s...having an affair.”
Have mercy, a brokenhearted tale was on its way. She wiped her fingers with the tissue. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name, sir?”
“George. My wife’s name is...Sandy.” He cleared his throat. “She started acting different about four months ago...in April, around our anniversary...doing things like walking into the other room to answer her cell, losing weight, buying new clothes. I suppose I coulda justified some of that, but when she started working later and later...”
Val watched a bright orange angelfish dart around rocks in the aquarium against the far wall, guessing what was coming next—Sandy was traveling to Las Vegas for A, a business trip; B, to visit family; C, to see old friends....
“Anyhoo...” He blew out a puff of breath. “Sandy is flying to Las Vegas later next week—on Friday, August sixteen—for a reunion...some kind of hookup with her cheerleader buddies from high school...”
Or another kind of hookup.
“And...” His voice grew thin. “I was wondering if...”
A P.I. could follow Sandy while she’s in Sin City.
“You could follow her?”
“We offer such services,” she affirmed. Val couldn’t wait for the day when she could just say yes and take on a case. But for now, she only passed on callers’ information to Jayne, who would make the final decision.
“I know the hotel my wife will be at...she mentioned renting a Dodge Charger...”
Ever since meeting her best pal, Cammie, a real-life P.I., a year ago, and hearing her stories about sitting on stakeouts, digging through trash to find evidence, interviewing witnesses to crimes, Val wanted nothing more than to be a private eye, too. But first, she needed to earn a Nevada license, which required logging ten thousand hours of investigative experience. After that, the plan had been for Val to become a student Watson to Cammie’s Sherlock in their own kick-ass, all-girl Las Vegas agency.
Val had to make adjustments to the plan when Cammie found true love and moved to Denver, but she hadn’t given up.
Jayne’s door creaked open, followed by the tap-tap of her sensible heels across the hardwood floor.
Which stopped abruptly at Val’s desk.
“...I could describe what clothes she’ll be bringing, jewelry, too, although...” George sniffed loudly. “I guess she might not be wearing her wedding ring...”
Val looked up at her boss, a trim sixtysomething with cut-glass cheekbones and gray-blue eyes that always seemed to carry within them a withering understanding of the human condition.
Jayne shot one of those withering looks at the phone, back to Val.
Who shrugged apologetically. She could almost hear another “you can’t always do things your way” lecture.
“I had that ring made special for her...” George stifled a sob.
Jayne mouthed a silent “no” while plucking a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of her linen blazer, the same bloodless color as her short, bobbed hair. The blazer used to fit her better before she started losing weight recently.
Jayne jotted something on a notepad on the desk and held it up for Val to read: no infidelity cases.
Val nodded, waiting for George to calm down.
“Unfortunately,” she said gently, “we’re currently not accepting infidelity cases.”
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which the hum of the aquarium pump filled the room, Val added, “Let me give you the number of another P.I. who might be able to help you.”
After looking up the information on her computer, she gave him the number and ended the call.
Then she rolled her gaze up to Jayne’s.
“You cannot always do things your way,” the older woman began, arching a pale eyebrow. “Although I admire your strength of will and creativity—” she glanced at Val’s purple-streaked black hair, which today she’d knotted into a loose chignon “—you have a habit of forgetting that investigations are not always about autonomy. Often you must work closely with people. Even if you disagree with them or believe you have a more advantageous idea, it would behoove you to treat others’ suggestions with respect.”
Sometimes she wondered why Jayne always made it sound as though Val were interacting unbehoovingly with some nameless third party and not Jayne herself. But then, her boss had a way of distancing herself, as though she was always observing the world rather than living in it.
“Yes, indeed,” Val agreed, “I knew better than to put that call on speaker. Although, if you don’t mind my adding a side note, nobody was in the room with me, so it wasn’t like I was broadcasting the poor man’s broken heart to strangers.”
A look that might pass for amusement flittered across the older woman’s face. “Sometimes I wonder if we should post my rules alongside your side notes.”
The older woman reminded Val of the English actress Helen Mirren—formidable, sophisticated, articulate. But whereas the actress had played her share of industrial-strength women in the movies, Jayne was the real deal. In a Las Vegas Sun interview three months ago, a reporter had referred to her as “one of the best sleuths in Sin City,” and that “a new P.I. earning Jayne’s Diamond Grade designation is like a restaurant earning a Michelin star rating.”
After reading that Sun article, there was only one P.I. Val wanted to be her mentor—Jayne Diamond.
Who now stood in front of her, lips pursed in thought. “What else is on your mind?”
“Well, these landline phones are—” older than dirt “—quite antiquated. Plus, cradling a jumbo-size receiver under my chin while taking notes, looking up information on the computer and talking is like juggling pancakes—hard to keep a grip on everything. It would make so much more sense if we used cell phones.”
“Cell phones have speakers, too. The point is not landline versus mobile, it is about confidentiality.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Jayne.”
“Yes, Jayne.”
“Also...” She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “I’ve reached the conclusion that Diamond Investigations needs to reduce the number of cases it accepts. Starting today, we no longer accept infidelity cases, except if they are part of an investigation that we are already conducting for a law firm.”
“But...I thought infidelity investigations were steady business for a P.I. agency. Although, of course, we don’t accept honey traps.”
When she realized she wanted to be a private eye, Val started religiously watching the reality TV show Honey Catchers to learn about the business. It featured hot-looking private eyes, male and female, whom people hired to set “honey traps” to test their lovers’ fidelity. The P.I., dressed in some sexy outfit rigged with a covert camera, would “accidentally” run into the lover, usually at a bar, and strike up a conversation. Eventually, the P.I. asked for a phone number, a date or even got a little frisky on the spot.
Afterward, the P.I. would show the video to the client. Honey Catcher
s never showed lovers turning down phone numbers or sexual advances. Which made for a lot of high drama at the end of the shows as the cheated upon confronted the cheater.
“Infidelity investigations can be lucrative, certainly, but we have never conducted honey traps.”
“I know...it’s just that I don’t see the harm in accepting those cases as long as we keep them legal...” Something in Jayne’s face—exhaustion? Distress?—gave Val pause. “We don’t need to do a mentoring session right now if you’re tired.”
Jayne eased into one of the high-back wooden guest chairs that faced Val’s desk. Through the window blinds, hazy sunlight striped the side of her face, highlighting fine lines around her mouth and eyes. “These moments always count, dear.”
She couldn’t think of a single time that Jayne had uttered an endearment, for Val or anyone else.
“Legal,” Jayne repeated. She reflected on that for a moment. “Some agencies seem to believe that inducing the behavior a P.I. should be attempting to objectively document is acceptable. It is not. If a law enforcement officer behaved in such a manner, it would be called entrapment.”
“On some reality cop shows, I’ve seen female cops dress like hookers and lure men, who are then arrested for soliciting prostitution.”
“But those men, when they withdraw their billfolds to pay, exhibit prior predispositions. Honey traps are not telling of the subject’s predisposition. A lawyer could easily attack such frivolous evidence in court.”
As Jayne pushed a wisp of hair off her forehead, Val noticed her hand shook slightly. But she knew not to ask questions because Jayne didn’t like to talk about herself.
Val had learned that well in June, the first time she walked into Diamond Investigations. She had barely shut the door before Jayne made it clear that Val had already broken a rule—clearly stated on the agency website—that people seeking internships were to mail their résumés, not show up in person. Besides, she had curtly added, she was on her way out.