“I don’t mind.” Anything to get them away from here.
As they doubled back toward town, Leigh tried not to let Gavin catch her watching the road behind them.
“Is something wrong, Leigh?”
Yes. Her nerves were racing along at a good clip and she couldn’t seem to steady them. “I’m a little edgy, I guess.”
“Does being with me bother you?”
“Of course not!”
He frowned. “Look, I don’t want you scared to death of Ducort, I just want you to be careful.”
“That’s me. Careful.”
She debated telling him about the crawly feeling she’d gotten at The Inn’s bar, but she didn’t want him thinking she jumped at shadows. Bad enough that he thought she was scared of Nolan.
Okay, she was, but she wished he didn’t know that she was. Gavin was confusing her. If only she understood men better—but she’d never been very good when it came to relationships.
The aroma that greeted them as soon as they opened the door of the Italian restaurant restored her mood and reminded her that she hadn’t had lunch, either. Leigh figured she’d have to add an hour of exercise to work off anything she ate here, but she suspected it would be well worth every calorie.
Though the restaurant was small and new, everyone inside seemed to know Gavin by name.
“I eat out a lot,” he explained wryly.
“I gathered.”
Their hope for a real conversation was dashed by a boisterous party of teenagers that was seated nearby shortly after they were served.
“Sorry,” Gavin said.
“Don’t be, this is fabulous pasta.”
“The food is good. Mario and Kiki just opened this place. I think they’re going to do well.”
“Definitely.”
The girls seated nearest them were chattering on about a singer who featured heavily in their fantasies. Their male companions were busy pointing out all his faults. Leigh wondered what Gavin would say if he knew he was the one who had figured most often in her fantasies at that age.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
Startled, she searched for a safe answer. “That I’m glad I’m not that young anymore.”
His expression became somber and remote. “Amen.”
“Don’t,” she said sharply.
“Don’t what?”
Embarrassed, she gazed quickly down at her plate. “Nothing. Sorry.”
“Okay, now I’m intrigued. What did I do that you wanted me to stop?”
Darn it, she always managed to say or do the wrong thing around men she was attracted to. And no matter how much she wanted to deny the truth, she was attracted to Gavin.
“Leigh?”
She shrugged. “For a minute, you had that remote look again.”
“Remote?”
When would she learn not to speak her mind? He wasn’t going to let the subject go. The darn man was nothing if not tenacious.
“When you worked at the gas station I always thought you had old eyes,” she told him, wishing she could just shut up. “You always seemed to be watching everyone while daring the world to see the real you.”
Gavin put down his fork.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. Why can’t I learn to keep quiet?”
His hand reached out and covered hers before she could withdraw it from the table. There was an immediate connection that infused her with warmth.
“Honesty is nothing to apologize for,” he said softly. “I don’t know about the old-eyes part, but the rest of your assessment isn’t far from the truth. I was pretty unreachable after my parents and my older brother died. I resented everyone I came in contact with. It seems stupid now, but I was angry with my family for dying and leaving me alone—as if it had been their choice.”
He released her hand and looked away, but not before she saw the sadness, and the raw core of his vulnerability.
“How did they die?” Gavin had never spoken about his family to anyone as far as she knew. She hadn’t even known he’d had an older brother.
“The usual. A car crash. I was thirteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I. It’s a bad age to lose your family—not that there’s a good age.”
He rubbed his jaw and picked up his fork again, but made no attempt to use it.
“Most people threw in the towel after dealing with me for a while. Looking back, I don’t blame them. I was sullen, quick to anger and good with my fists. I did what I wanted and resented anyone who tried to tell me what I could and couldn’t do.”
“A tough guy, huh?”
He didn’t smile back.
“I had to be tough. I was a loner. Loners are often viewed as prey. I had to prove otherwise, so I did. I’m not sure why Emily and George took me on, but they were the best thing that could have happened to me. They’re special people.”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. And she understood his anger better than he knew.
“I felt wild and angry after my mother disappeared, too,” she admitted. Only, she hadn’t picked fights. She’d picked a dangerous man to go out with instead. “Emily and George were there for Hayley and me as well.”
Leigh had never felt the pull of his eyes more keenly than she did right then. They shared a moment of unspoken understanding before he released her gaze to resume eating. The silence that fell between them was comfortable this time.
Leigh caught two of the young females at the next table sneaking glances at Gavin and whispering. He might not be a rock star, but their appreciation of him as a male was evident.
“What’s the smile for?” Gavin asked.
“Don’t look now, but you’ve picked up a couple of new admirers.”
“Are you trying to make me blush?”
“Could I?” The idea intrigued her.
“If anyone could, it would be you.”
Humor lurked in his expression. Impishly, she grinned.
“You can’t fool me. You must be used to feminine attention. Half the girls in town were fascinated by you, even in your wild days.”
He laid his fork across his mostly empty plate. “Okay. Now you’ve embarrassed me.”
“Ha. You didn’t really think all those girls needed to stop by for gas every day?”
His lips quirked. “Now that you mention it, I did notice a lot of gas tanks being topped off back then. I just didn’t realize it was my looks drawing them in.”
“Now who’s teasing?”
“Only a little.” His expression turned serious. “I wish I could say I noticed you in particular, Leigh, but—”
“I never was much for flirting,” she said quickly. “And I’ve never liked being part of a crowd. Besides, I was a little young for you to have noticed.”
“Yes,” he said sadly, “you were.”
And she knew they were both remembering the night she hadn’t been too young for making wild abandoned love on the side of the road.
“If the police had known I seduced a minor that night they would have kept me in jail.”
“You knew?”
He shook his head. “Not until Emily told me later. She said you and Hayley skipped kindergarten and started first grade a year ahead of the other children your age because you were so intelligent.”
“Not really. It’s just that my mother tutored us from an early age,” Leigh explained. She didn’t add that being a year younger than all their classmates had been a social challenge. They’d gone to great pains to conceal their true age in high school. And that led her thoughts right back to the night she and Gavin had made love. It was a memory she still couldn’t face, so she was extremely grateful for the waiter’s timely interruption.
They decided against any of the temptingly fabulous desserts he suggested and were soon back in Gavin’s car, heading for Heartskeep.
“I just remembered something,” she said. “Didn’t you used to smoke?”
Gavin nodded
. “It got to be too expensive. Besides, I decided the habit didn’t go with my new image.”
“Good.”
“I thought you’d approve.”
Leigh settled back. They drove several miles in comfortable silence.
“I tried to call you after you saved my butt that day,” Gavin said without warning.
Leigh shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about those events. She didn’t even want to think about them. But his words had created a question that demanded an answer.
“To apologize?”
“No,” he said, to her intense relief. “Although I probably would have gotten around to it. Actually, I was steamed by what you’d said to me outside the police station.”
She’d told him to grow up, she recalled, mortified.
“At the same time, I couldn’t believe you came down to the police station all by yourself and faced down that blustering fool of a police chief.”
Leigh stared at his profile. She wished she still had her long hair to play with. She needed something to do with her hands. They were clenched together tightly in her lap.
“You humbled me that morning, Leigh. I didn’t like the feeling. And I resented being indebted to you.”
“You preferred being a noble martyr?”
He sent her a sharp look and nearly veered off the road. Then he laughed. The deep, rumbly sound was so unexpected it immediately eased the pressure in her chest.
“You do have the most uncanny way of seeing to the heart of things, don’t you? Do you know I became a lawyer because of you?”
“What?”
“It’s true. What you said that day nibbled away at me. I’d been going to college with no real goal in mind. Heck, I never expected to graduate from high school let alone go on and get a degree, so I didn’t have much of a sense of purpose. I only went because Emily and George expected me to go.”
She could understand that. They had offered him stability and a home when he was in desperate need of both. He would have wanted to please them if he could.
“When George told me Marcus had driven you and your sister to school early, I decided I might as well go back early too. With Mr. Wickert dead, I didn’t have a job to go to anymore. And since I had nothing else to do once I got there, I met with an adviser. She had me take one of those aptitude tests. I’ve got to tell you, when lawyer showed up on the results, I had a good laugh. But I kept thinking what an interesting irony it would be. Two classes later, I was hooked.”
For once, she didn’t know what to say.
Gavin lowered his voice. “This is going to sound like some corny pickup line, but I never forgot you, Leigh.”
Her lungs forgot how to breathe.
“You changed my life in more ways than you’ll ever know.”
She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to think about that night, but she didn’t know how to change the direction this conversation had taken.
“You thought I was Hayley,” she whispered. And that still had the power to hurt.
“Actually, I had no idea who you were at first. George and Emily often mentioned you, of course, but I’m afraid I always linked you and your sister in my mind as ‘the twins.’ You were alone that night. In the dark, with your hair all piled on top of your head, you looked bold and sexy as all get out. And a whole lot older than seventeen.”
Leigh felt a heated blush crawl up her neck. Gavin smiled at her gently. “It was an older crowd, remember? I wasn’t expecting to see someone like you there.”
A little girl who’d been playing dress up with the adults.
“And while it pains me to admit it,” he continued, “the truth is, I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to your face. The outfit you were wearing was…well, I still remember how you looked.”
Like a woman who knew the score instead of a scared kid.
“And how brazenly I acted,” she said in remembered shame.
His gaze swung to her face. “That was the drug, Leigh. If I’d known—”
“You wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole. I know.” Oncoming headlights suddenly blinded her. “Gavin! Look out!”
A bright red pickup truck with dark, tinted windows barreled around a sharp bend in the road. Without warning, it crossed the center line and came straight at them. Gavin wrenched the steering wheel hard right. At the last possible second, the truck veered away and sped off. Gavin brought the car to a jolting stop on the side of the road amid a cloud of dust.
“Are you all right?” he demanded. His knuckles were white where they clenched the steering wheel.
Quaking all over, Leigh managed to nod.
“Did you get a look at the driver?”
She shook her head. All she’d seen was that bright red hood bearing down on them.
“He must have been drunk.”
Slowly, Gavin released his grip on the steering wheel. There wasn’t another car in sight on the two-lane road.
“Maybe.”
Like an avalanche, fear tumbled inside her. His tone was all wrong. “You don’t think—”
“That it was Ducort?” His features were darkly forbidding. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
She reached for his arm. His skin was reassuringly warm beneath her cold fingers. “How?”
Gavin covered her trembling hand with his. “It’s okay. I won’t go over to his place to wait for him this time. The bar association frowns on lawyers taking the law into their own hands. I have a few sources I can call. I’ll see if I can find out what vehicles he owns or has access to.”
“And if it was him?”
“We’ll deal with the situation appropriately then. It will be okay.”
Leigh was only partly appeased. Her heart was still racing when they turned up the rutted lane to Heartskeep. The work crew was long gone, but Gavin drove around back anyhow. Bram’s truck was no longer parked there. Leigh remembered that he and Hayley had plans for the evening. The only car sitting out back was a rather battered old station wagon that she didn’t recognize.
Before Gavin could bring the car to a stop, the rear door to the house flew open. Mrs. Norwhich raced outside, her expression terrified.
Gavin was out of the car before Leigh could find the release for her seat belt. The older woman ran to him, her features distorted by fear as she cast a glance over her shoulder.
“Someone’s in the house! I was just getting the last of my stuff when I heard a noise in the kitchen. Someone closed the pantry door! They’re still in there!”
“Stay here with Leigh,” Gavin told the distraught woman.
“Gavin, no!”
Gavin ignored Leigh’s cry and entered the kitchen. The room was large and spacious. Two of the walls were mostly windows. Ahead and to his left were two closed doors that immediately drew his attention. He headed for the nearest one.
“That’s the laundry room.”
He whirled to find Leigh at his back. Mrs. Norwhich hovered behind her.
“Wait outside.”
“No!”
Arguing wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He could see that in the way she held her head. Instead, he pointed at the closed door next to the laundry.
“That the pantry?”
“No. That’s a bathroom. The pantry is in the middle over there. Gavin, what if he’s armed?”
“Then he’d better be ready to commit murder.”
Gavin flung open the door. “Empty,” he announced.
“It can’t be. I saw that door closing!” Mrs. Norwhich protested.
Gavin didn’t doubt her. Her distress was obvious. The door next to the pantry was a closet filled with cleaning equipment. No one hid in there, either. The bathroom and laundry room proved equally empty.
“Gavin, you can’t search the whole house,” Leigh protested. “Do you have any idea how big this place is? Most of the bedrooms share adjoining bathrooms. If someone is in here, they could elude you indefinitely.”
“Telephone?�
�
“On the wall over there,” she replied, pointing. “But the police won’t come all the way out here.”
“They’ll come,” he stated flatly.
“Fine. By the time they do, whoever it is will be long gone.”
“We’ll report the break-in anyhow.”
She shook her head as he reached for the telephone. The prowler couldn’t have been Nolan. Not if he was the one who’d run them off the road. He couldn’t have doubled back fast enough to beat them here.
Two officers did respond, and surprisingly fast considering how far Heartskeep was from town. The officers kept them waiting in the kitchen while they searched through the house.
“Front door’s unlocked,” the spokesman said. “He probably went out that way, but the doors to your attic and basement are locked. You folks have the key?”
Mrs. Norwhich shook her head. “My passkey doesn’t work on those doors.”
“No one could have used those doors. Grandpa always kept them locked. You need an old-fashioned skeleton key to open them,” Leigh told them.
“We can break down the doors if you want,” the officer told them.
“No. You’re probably right. He must have gone out the front door.”
Gavin tended to agree, and Mrs. Norwhich nodded fervent agreement.
“What’s in the basement?” the second officer asked.
“The furnace,” Leigh told him. “It’s the only thing down there. And Grandpa used the attic for storage. It’s full of old furniture and that sort of thing.”
“All right then, do you want to have a look around the house to see if anything’s missing?”
“I’m not sure I’d know. I haven’t actually lived here for several years,” Leigh told him.
“Don’t look at me,” Mrs. Norwhich protested when they turned to her. “I only do the cooking and the laundry. I tend to this area of the house. The missus hired someone else to clean the rest.”
Since neither Leigh nor Mrs. Norwhich knew the contents of the house well enough to ascertain if anything had been taken, the officers claimed there wasn’t much they could do except file a report. Frustrated, Gavin listened to their advice about getting the alarm system reactivated. He made a mental note to see that the job was given priority in the morning.
The Second Sister Page 7