With This Kiss

by Susan Meier

  He weeded through another eight or ten items in Mark Fegan’s desk and found several old airline tickets. The stubs for Vegas, Miami and Des Moines caught his attention, if only because they demonstrated Mark’s travel choices were eclectic. They also proved Mark had been to those places and would be familiar with them. Even a brief visit would give him a sense of security about any one of them.

  Jericho strode into the front office. “Do you mind if I make copies of these?”

  Without looking up, Rayne shook her head. “Nope. Go ahead.”

  And Jericho relaxed. He had nothing to worry about. He might be attracted to a memory, but he wasn’t attracted to her. And she appeared to have zero interest in him. Sure, they had a little eye contact that morning, but that was a fleeting…something. Fleeting being the operative word. As long as he controlled himself, he would have no problem helping her.

  “I’d also like to make a copy of the note if I can.”

  She glanced up. “Why?”

  “I have a friend who owes me a favor. He has a friend who analyzes handwriting. That guy could tell us if your dad wrote the note under duress.”

  “Under duress?”

  “It’s a long shot, given the way your dad’s personal life was put in order before he left. But I think it might be a good idea to rule out that your dad was taken against his will.”

  She opened the center drawer of her desk and handed the notepad containing her dad’s goodbye explanation to Jericho. “Here.”

  Jericho took it. “I’ll also need a copy of something with a sample of you dad’s normal handwriting.”

  She rummaged through some files on her desk, then pulled out a handwritten instruction sheet and handed that across the desk, too.

  “Okay,” Jericho said, catching her gaze. The look of longing he saw in her eyes caused the electricity that had arced between them earlier to return. The feeling tightened his chest again, stealing his breath, and he nearly cursed. He couldn’t—absolutely couldn’t—be falling for this woman. She was younger than he was. His family hated her family. Hell, her family had out and out persecuted his dad. For all practical intents and purposes he shouldn’t even be helping her.

  “Once I copy this I’m going to the diner for lunch with my dad.” He knew exactly why he’d told her that. He wanted to remind her that they had differences and she shouldn’t look at him with yearning in her eyes and he shouldn’t be responding. “Can I bring something back for you?”

  The expression in her eyes changed. Jericho saw it and he wanted to kick himself. She didn’t have any money. He knew that. Yet he put her in the position where she had to lie or come up with a logical excuse.

  She smiled and held his gaze with eyes that dared him to contradict her when she said, “No thanks. I like walking to my house at noon. It’s good exercise.”

  “So, rumor has it that Mark Fegan ran away because he owed money to a loan shark.”

  Sitting at the diner, finished with his stew, Jericho glanced up at his dad. With salt-and-pepper hair and piercing brown eyes, Ben Capriotti was an impressive man.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “So it’s not true? He doesn’t owe money. There was no note—”

  “Dad, I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “Ah, it’s part of an investigation.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “So you’re not searching for him.”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “Well, what are you saying? I’m the mayor. The guy who was harassed for an entire election year by the guy who is missing. Do you know how this looks for me?”

  “It shouldn’t look like anything. The gossip doesn’t involve you at all. Nobody’s accusing you of running him out of town.” He smiled at his dad. “So, it doesn’t seem as if you have any reason to be concerned.”

  Ben sighed. “I would just like to know what the hell got into that guy that he went after me the way he did.”

  “He was always after you in one way or another.”

  “But not like this. And if it affects my town, I feel I need to know.”

  “Well, suffice it to say, it doesn’t.”

  “So you do know?”

  “Stop, Dad!”

  “Rumor also has it that the paper is closing.”

  Jericho shook his head. His father wasn’t somebody accustomed to taking orders. So there was no point in trying to get him to stop talking. “You know what everybody else knows. Rayne cut back out of necessity…”

  One of Ben’s eyebrows arched. “Rayne? You’re talking an awful lot like a guy who’s a little closer to the enemy than he was this time two days ago.”

  Jericho sighed, not really sure what to say. His dad was right. Two days ago he would have just as soon faced an angry mob than talk with Rayne Fegan. Yet today, when she’d looked at him with her defiant blue eyes, trying to make him believe she was fine, he didn’t know whether to shake her silly or kiss her. And that scared him. His fantasy Rayne was morphing into the real Rayne and that was just plain wrong. The real Rayne was a polecat. She might be down right now, but she most certainly wasn’t out. When she pulled herself up by her bootstraps—and he had no doubt that she would—there was no guarantee she’d even remember he’d helped her, let alone appreciate it.

  “Are you working with her to help her find her dad?”

  “Not officially.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s really not ‘missing.’ He left a note saying he was going. Leaving town is not a crime. But just in case he was the victim of foul play, I copied the note this morning and faxed it to a crime lab in Vegas.”

  His dad gaped at him. “You called in a favor?”

  Jericho drew a breath. He’d certainly hanged himself with that admission. He quickly tried to figure out a way to make it sound like a smaller deal than it was, but he couldn’t think of anything.

  Luckily, his dad didn’t wait for an answer. “Jericho, I know you feel that you need to prove yourself. I can also guess that as a detective, finding the missing newspaper editor who just happened to be your dad’s nemesis might appear to be the perfect way to show the whole town that you’re not just smart, you’re also objective. But watch these people. Mark Fegan’s a snake. He was teaching his daughter to be a snake.”

  “She’s also a resident with a dad who left under questionable circumstances. You’re the one who taught me that real men don’t run from hard jobs. I’m only doing what you taught me.”

  “Okay, fine. You might prove yourself to be smart and unbiased if you find him. But you’ll also bring home a guy who will make your life miserable.”

  Jericho laughed. “Once I prove myself, he can’t really make my life miserable.”

  “Oh really?” Ben asked, shifting on the booth seat. “I give him two weeks after you find him before he gets cocky.”

  “So what?”

  “So he can’t do anything to me. I’m elected. I’m in for four years. But you’re an easy mark. He’ll investigate what you did for the past ten years, find every damned mistake you made—including spending several nights in jail—and make you look foolish.”

  “Or prove that I’ve changed.”

  “You’re such an optimist. These people aren’t to be trifled with, Jericho.”

  The whole hell of it was Jericho knew his dad was right. The Fegans had been nothing but trouble. But something kept telling him that he couldn’t desert Rayne. She needed somebody and right now he was the only somebody with the skill and training and connections to help her. He wasn’t doing this to prove himself. He wasn’t doing this to show people he’d changed or that he was smart or even that he could be objective. He was helping Rayne because something in his gut told him he had to.

  He rationalized that his instincts were telling him that because there was nobody else to help her, but when he kept remembering her pretty blue eyes, the way her hair floated around her when she let it down, the way she smiled, h
e knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t looking for Mark Fegan to prove himself or to help a woman who had no one else, he was helping her because he was beginning to like her and that was wrong. Not because the Fegans weren’t trustworthy, as his dad had suggested. But because Jericho was losing his objectivity. Mark Fegan hadn’t broken any laws in the town in which Jericho had jurisdiction. He had a right to leave. Jericho had to keep his wits about him and not go overboard in this search.

  He returned to the newspaper offices and didn’t bother knocking on the old wooden door. “I’m back,” he called, making his way through the maze of boxes in the rear room. Stepping into the office section, he found Rayne busily working at her desk. He didn’t ask her if she’d gone home to have lunch. He wasn’t sure she would tell him the truth anyway.

  Without looking up from her work, she said, “Hey.”

  “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

  For that she did glance up, a puzzled smile on her face. “No.”

  He shrugged. “You never know. Your dad could have called.”

  She returned her attention to work and Jericho returned to Mark Fegan’s office to continue to rifle through the man’s possessions. Unfortunately, over the course of the afternoon he found so many old airline tickets, travel magazines and calendar entries of places Mark Fegan had visited that he knew Rayne’s dad was a frequent traveler. He could go anywhere and fit in.

  At three-thirty his cell phone rang. Glancing at the Caller ID, he saw it was Martha Wissinger from the police station.

  He said, “Yeah, Martha.”

  “You got the oddest fax,” she said without preamble. “It’s from some guy in Vegas. It says, ‘Reviewed note, nothing to lead me to believe it was written under duress. My guess is this guy just walked away.’ And that’s it.”

  Jericho rubbed his hand across his forehead. “That’s what I thought.”

  “So it makes sense?”

  “Yeah, thanks, Martha.”

  “Well, you’re welcome, though I’m not sure what for.”

  Jericho hung up the phone with a resigned sigh, pushed himself out of the chair behind Mark Fegan’s desk and walked out to the main room. “Rayne?”

  Working very hard to school her expression, Rayne glanced up at Jericho. They’d had two “moments” that morning. Two times when their gazes caught and clung for just a second or two too long, and that wasn’t right. She might have been half in love with this man for most of her life, but they weren’t right for each other. Even if they were, their families were feuding. She would not, absolutely would not, let her feelings for him show again. Not just to protect herself. To protect him, too. He had been kind enough to help her. She wouldn’t thank him by putting him in the awkward situation of knowing she had an enormous crush on him.

  “I got the results from the handwriting analysis.”

  “And?”

  “And my friend didn’t think there was anything unusual. It’s his opinion the note was not written under duress.”

  That did not surprise her, and she was also glad that her father apparently hadn’t met with foul play, but her throat was suddenly tight and dry so she only nodded.

  “There’s more not-so-good news.”

  Hearing pity in his voice and hating it, Rayne cleared her throat and forced herself to speak. “You can say bad news. I can handle it.”

  “I found evidence that your dad has been to at least a hundred cities on three continents.”

  She shrugged. “He liked to travel.”

  “That means he’s very comfortable traveling. Comfortable in new places. Not only could he have decided to settle in one of the cities he’s visited, but he would know how to blend in.”

  “So, he’s not going to be found?”

  “Not without a lot of searching.”

  She took a breath. Jericho said nothing.

  Finally she caught his gaze. “And the thing you’re not saying is that you’re done.”

  “I told you I had a little time to devote to helping you. That, if nothing else, we could eliminate the possibility that your dad had met with foul play.”

  “And you’re convinced that possibility has been eliminated.”

  “Very convinced.”

  “And you’re done?”

  He nodded and she saw it again. The damned pity. Only two hours before this they’d shared a chemistry strong enough that she’d felt the need to come up with a plan for protecting him, but now it was gone and in its place was condescension.

  Anger bubbled up inside her. She hadn’t forgotten that he’d just gone to lunch with his dad, though she had for some unknown reason believed he wasn’t going to be a puppet, doing his father the mayor’s bidding.

  “Well, how do you like that. You come in here this morning like a knight in shining armor, acting all big and bad like you’re going to figure this thing out, but after one hour with your dad you’re suddenly done.”

  “I didn’t come in his morning thinking I would ‘figure this thing out.’ I wanted to make sure we weren’t dismissing this too easily.”

  “But you wouldn’t do it officially. Only unofficially.”

  He closed his eyes, as if completely frustrated. “I would think that my taking personal time to help you would mean something. I can’t do anything about the fact that the evidence points to your dad leaving. He didn’t just walk away from a debt to a loan shark. He also walked away from a business that was failing. A business he probably felt he couldn’t save. Lots of men would have walked away for a lot less.”

  “He doesn’t know that he can come home!”

  “He would if he’d pick up the phone. Any time he wants to he can call.”

  The room became unbearably quiet as Jericho grabbed his hat and headed for the hall leading to the back room. When he reached the threshold, he stopped and faced her. “By the way, you’re welcome.”

  Rayne swallowed as the slamming door shook her office. Well, she wouldn’t be wasting any more lunch hours wondering how she could protect him from their chemistry.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning Rayne walked into the diner with five cents over the exact amount of money for a cup of coffee. She strode to the counter. “Good morning, Elaine.”

  Elaine turned from the order window. “Hello, sugar. What’ll it be?”

  “Just coffee.”

  “I have some delicious sweet rolls.”

  Rayne smiled. “You know I’m dieting.”

  Elaine huffed out a breath. “Kids. In my day a little bit of meat on the bones was a good thing.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rayne said with a laugh. “I’m not hungry anyway.”

  “Suit yourself,” Elaine said, handing the takeout cup of coffee to Rayne. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Rayne smiled and said, “See you tomorrow,” though she knew there was no way in hell she could come back the next day. Even if she got a check or two in the mail, she wouldn’t be able to draw on them until two days after they were deposited. That was the second thing she’d discovered after she’d taken over the newspaper. A check had arrived, looking like a blessing, but when she tried to get even fifty dollars cash, the teller had told her that there was a note on the account that all checks were to be held. So she had this coffee in her hand, five cans of soup, some macaroni, and the precious half can of coffee grains she kept in the office in case she got a visitor. Every day she didn’t get a check was another day she’d be hungry.

  Pushing open the door, she walked out into the cold morning just in time to see Jericho Capriotti opening the door of the borough building. She wanted to be angry with him for giving up on finding her dad, but she couldn’t be. Jericho had sacrificed his day off to check into her dad leaving and he’d discovered what Rayne already knew to be true. Her dad was an avid traveler, so familiar with the country that he could go anywhere with an assumed name and blend in. She couldn’t even be angry with Jericho for reminding her that her dad could call any
time he wanted. The truth was the truth. Her dad could call, if he wanted to. Apparently, he didn’t want to.

  But that was exactly why she was upset with him and why she was going to do some serious thinking that morning. If he really didn’t want to come back, then maybe she was making a mistake keeping the paper open. She had no money. No food. No grub stake to get her set up in another town. It was time to quit pretending that her dad would return if he knew the loan shark had been paid. She needed to update her résumé and begin looking for another job. If she didn’t soon do something, she could find herself in Calhoun Corners starving forever.

  Unless her dad’s accounts began to pay. Then there would be money enough to run the paper and money enough to keep up the expenses on her house. She would be the publisher of a newspaper. Small, sure. But it was still a voice, a forum. She would be an entrepreneur.

  And as for her dad…

  Staying gave her dad the option and opportunity to come home. Maybe not this year, but next year or the year after, he might wake up one morning and realize what he’d thrown away and come home. If he did, she wanted to be here because no matter what he had done, she missed him. He was her dad.

  Even as she thought that, an angry voice inside reminded her that he’d kept her in the dark about his troubles and left her behind. When the chips were down, she had without a moment’s hesitation taken every cent of her savings and bailed him out. But he hadn’t even had the consideration to ask her if she wanted to come with him when he was disappearing for good.

  To him, Rayne had been dispensable, just as she had been to her mother.

  She took a breath, then rummaged for her key to the newspaper office. The other side of the story could be that her dad might not have involved her because he hadn’t wanted her to use her own money to bail him out. But even if he suspected she would use her savings to pay the debt after he was gone, he’d left her his house to replace at least part of it. The house was old and small and definitely in need of remodeling, but selling it would give her the money to return to Baltimore. Even Jericho had said that her dad signing over the house was proof he wanted to protect her.