Blue Clouds

by Patricia Rice

  Seth heard the gaping holes in her story, but Bert didn’t. Impatiently, Seth threw aside the ice pack and stood, however shakily. “I have to look in on my son, Bert. He’s been ill, and I don’t want him worrying. I’ll be cautious with any further packages. Get back to me if you hear anything useful.”

  Bert knew a tone of dismissal when he heard one. The look he threw Seth wasn’t a pleasant one, but he jerked on his baseball cap and headed for the door. “Maybe you ought to start thinking about why anyone would want to kill you, Mr. Wyatt,” he said sarcastically as he grabbed the doorknob. “Make a list of suspects. It should keep the police department employed for several years.”

  The door fell off its hinges as he tried to slam it. Glancing down at the shambles, Bert had the grace to look ashamed before he nodded in Pippa’s direction, then stalked off.

  “Doug, out of here,” Seth ordered, not turning around to look at Pippa yet.

  Doug raised an eyebrow but did as told. Seth didn’t miss the concerned look he threw Pippa. Everybody in the whole damned house kept looking at her as if she were the one harmed when he was the one swaying on his feet. What did they think he would do, bite her head off?

  When they were finally alone, Seth turned cautiously so as not to unbalance himself and eyed his currently unbouncy assistant. The smile had disappeared from her eyes, the color from her cheeks. She looked haunted. No wonder all the men around here wanted to wrap her in cotton batting.

  “Sit,” he ordered.

  She glanced around and a wry quirk returned to her lips. Clearing a place on the floor with her toe, she sat on the scorched remains of his hideously expensive Oriental carpet. She looked up at him like a frog on a lily pad.

  “Oh, hell, now I see why men take up drinking.” Too exhausted and battered to seek another solution, Seth leaned over, grabbed her by the armpits, lifted her from the floor, and dropped her into his undamaged recliner.

  She gasped in surprise, her eyes widening into circles that inexplicably pleased him, but she said nothing. Cautiously, Seth tested the corner of his desk. It had once been solid mahogany, an immense acre of wood that had provided a barrier against the world. Even with a hole in its middle, it stood firm. He leaned back against it and crossed his arms. He knew the body language of intimidation well enough. He applied it now.

  “Who do you think sent the package, Pippa? And don’t give me that runaround about the mail. You left home so hurriedly that you didn’t leave a forwarding address. And you were afraid someone might follow you if you sent one in once you had a permanent place to stay. I might even venture to say you blackmailed me into letting you stay here because you liked the isolation. You’re not a person who likes isolation, Pippa Cochran. So spill it. I’ll not have some maniac endangering Chad because of you.”

  She paled even more. She had the translucent skin of a redhead, even if he suspected the red was enhanced. That enhancement was the only color she sported right now. He should be ashamed of himself, but he was too frightened of the consequences to think beyond them. If he hadn’t leaned over to look out the window, he could have had his head blown off. If Pippa had opened the box, she’d be in as many pieces as his computer. The image of her torn and bloody body scattered across his office ripped at his soul.

  “Billy,” she whispered. “I can’t see how it’s possible. It doesn’t make sense. But if it was the package addressed to me...” She looked up at him again. “Do you think, could that package possibly have been blown to bits when yours blew up? Maybe it wasn’t mine that exploded.”

  “It’s possible,” he grudgingly admitted. “Someone could have stolen a label from my publisher. They’d have to know Doug didn’t open those packages though. That’s not very likely.”

  But there was the candy, Seth acknowledged. That had been addressed to him. What if it had been poisoned, as Pippa thought? This Billy person wouldn’t have tried to poison him, would he? If he were the jealous type, he might, Seth conceded. He didn’t mention that to Pippa. She was frightened enough as it was.

  “You and Miss MacGregor and Doug and I are the only people who know I don’t open my packages,” he said, continuing his earlier train of thought.

  She nodded and covered her eyes with her hand. “And stealing a label is pretty elaborate planning, unless your publisher decided to blow you up. I don’t suppose you could have ticked off someone over there?”

  Seth snorted. “I’ve ticked them all off at one time or another, but people don’t generally go around blowing up the goose who lays the golden eggs. That would take a really sick mind.”

  “It would take a really sick mind to send a bomb,” she murmured.

  He had the ridiculous urge to gather her in his arms as he would Chad, to hold her in his lap and comfort her. But he couldn’t get involved. She was the cuckoo in his nest, and he had to protect his family. “Who’s Billy?”

  She shook her head, keeping her eyes covered. Then with sudden decision, she dropped her hand and stared at him. Her eyes were enormous, unfathomable green lakes against her pinched skin, but he resisted their pull.

  “My ex-fiancé. He beat me to a pulp the day before I left town.”

  Seth tried not to let the sickness flood over him at her blunt admission, but it was there anyway, all those years of helplessness, of getting his teeth kicked in, his ribs bruised, his head pounded. Applying those images to this soft woman in front of him... Horror gripped him as he remembered the makeup she’d worn so thickly when she’d first arrived. He realized now that she seldom wore any cosmetics but lipstick. How many bruises had she carried that day?

  He could deal with this. He’d learned how to deal with violence. It had taken years of training, mental and physical, but he could do it. Steeling himself, Seth questioned her coldly, pulling out all the details of her brutalized kitten, her decimated home, and her vandalized car. If the sickness gnawed at his guts, he didn’t let it show. He would have to verify what she told him. People lied for strange reasons. He never trusted anyone.

  But if Pippa told the truth... He would have this Billy the Cop crucified.

  Seth argued with his conscience, but he couldn’t hold himself back any longer. Pippa had nursed his son as tenderly as if she’d been Chad’s mother. Better. She had loved him last night and given herself without strings or regret. He couldn’t believe her guilty of anything but loving the wrong man.

  Feeling a pang of regret at the realization, Seth reached over and pulled Pippa from the chair. Wrapping her in his arms, he held her until she stopped shaking. She didn’t weep, oddly enough, just rested her head against his shoulder and let him hold her. He supposed that was weakness enough for a woman like Pippa. All these weeks, she’d been smiling and tending his tempers and loving his son, and she’d been hiding this black devastation from them all.

  “All right, I’ll put someone on looking for this jerk,” Seth heard himself telling her. He didn’t want any freaking maniacs sneaking around the place. “I don’t want you leaving the grounds unless you’ve got me or Doug with you. You’re not to open any of the mail. Doug knows how to handle that. Have you ever thought of taking self-defense courses? I can teach you some basics.”

  Her fingers dug into his shirt. He could almost feel her gathering the strength to push away from him. He didn’t want her to move. He kind of liked pretending he was the big strong male who would protect the helpless little female. He didn’t get that chance very often. Most of the time, he felt like fishbait with women. But she would hate the feeling of helplessness. He understood that much. He’d been there too often himself.

  She took a deep breath and stepped back. Boldly, she met his eyes. “I’d better leave. I can’t take the chance that Billy might hurt Chad.”

  The blow hurt worse than Seth had thought possible.

  “You’re not going anywhere. Chad needs you here, and I won’t let you hurt him by deserting him now. I’ll decide what’s best for my son. I’ll expect you in the exercise room after lu
nch, when he takes his nap. If there’s any chance of that chickenshit coming near you, I’ll show you how to kick his nuts into orbit. I promise you, he won’t ever hurt you again.”

  Amazingly, Pippa seemed agreeable. He’d expected rebellion. He’d expected her to tell him to go to hell. Instead, color returned to her cheeks, a sparkle appeared in her eyes, and she nodded with a grin of relief on her delectable lips. He could almost see her imagination grinding out the image of kicking Billy the Cop where it hurt.

  What she didn’t know was that he’d do it first. And a damned sight harder than a hundred-pound weakling could manage.

  Chapter 23

  “Hell; Wyatt, I’ll have to hire three more agents if you put me on any more cases. You want to list your priorities, here?”

  Dirk scuffled through the debris beyond the yellow police tape, knocking aside larger chunks to examine smaller pieces. He leaned over to snag a shard of paper, examined it, and shoved it into his pocket.

  “They’re all top priority. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve probably got half a dozen divorce cases and who knows what else you’re playing with on the side. Drop them. Get on these. Who’s to say there isn’t some connection?” Seth clenched his fists as he watched his private investigator shuffling through the remains of his office. His privacy had been invaded to hell and back. What did it matter that one more stranger poked through the shattered pieces of the only haven he’d known? “If I wasn’t drunk the night of the accident, then it could very well have been caused by someone trying to kill me.”

  Dirk’s sharp blade of a nose came up, but it was the piercing gaze of his dark eyes that had caused Seth to hire him in the first place. Dirk could look right through a man and see the crawling worms in his innards.

  “Seems like they waited a mighty long time to finish the job,” Dirk drawled. “Got any thoughts on why?”

  Actually, he’d had very few coherent thoughts lately. When he wasn’t worrying over Chad, cursing his deadline, and imagining a certain red-haired witch sprawled across his bed, his mind checked out. A self-defense mechanism of some sort, Seth figured. He didn’t want to imagine who would want to kill him. The memory of Pippa’s wild idea about poisoned candy suddenly replayed across his mind’s eye.

  Dirk caught whatever tic gave the thought away. “Spill it, Wyatt. If you want me to do my job, I’ve got to know it all.”

  Seth explained about Durwood’s reaction to the gift box of candy. Dirk nodded but didn’t take notes. As Seth finished, Dirk leaned back against the desk. “Looks to me like the same people keep popping up here. The same ones who put the bomb on the desk could have put the candy there. Let me talk to your assistant.”

  “No.” Seth paced the outer office, beyond the fallen door where he wouldn’t kick debris and dust. “Leave her out of this. Just find her renegade boyfriend and nail him to the wall.”

  “He could be out fishing somewhere and know nothing about nothing.” Dirk watched him. “I already pegged you as a wimp with women. She bats her pretty lashes, and you defend her until death. Send her down here and let me at her. For all you know, she planted the bomb.”

  Dirk was right. Pippa was the cuckoo in his nest, as he’d admitted earlier. But he wouldn’t believe her guilty of anything but faulty judgment. Hell, he knew all about that himself. At least Natalie didn’t go around cutting the throats of cats and wrecking his cars.

  Wrecking his cars. Surely not Natalie? No, that wouldn’t make sense. She would have known Chad was in the car the day of the accident. She wouldn’t have hurt Chad. Natalie might be a bitch, but she’d never been a bad mother, not in an evil sense, anyway. She’d just always been wrapped too tight around herself.

  “After that crack, I ought to let you at her,” Seth muttered. “But I want to be there for the performance.”

  Dirk scowled, which made the beak of his nose more distinctive. “She’s not likely to talk while waving her fanny in your face.”

  Raising a wicked eyebrow, Seth leaned over and punched the intercom on Pippa’s desk. She would be working in her makeshift office in Chad’s room. When she answered, he ordered her down to his office.

  “I’ve almost beat Chad’s score on Monster House. Can’t it wait?” Her impatience rang loud and clear through the machine.

  Leaning against the desk, Seth watched his private investigator’s expression with sardonic amusement. He hit the intercom again. “Now, Pippa,” he commanded in his most authoritative tone, the one that had his CEOs leaping through hoops.

  “You’re mad because I’ve beaten your score,” the feminine voice taunted before the intercom clicked off.

  Seth crossed his arms and lifted his eyebrows. “Any more wisecracks before she gets down here?”

  “Run like hell,” Dirk remarked as he sorted through the varying pieces of debris he’d picked up from Seth’s floor.

  “Wimp,” Seth returned as the impatient click-clack of Pippa’s shoes hit the stairs.

  She burst into the room, her thick bob bouncing against the pink of her cheeks as her inquisitive gaze darted from him to Dirk. She didn’t have an extensive wardrobe, Seth had already noted, and today she wore the green dress with that annoying halter top she insisted on buttoning to the neck. Seth admired the pale curve of her shoulders and tried to recall how she looked without the protective covering of her clothes. The memory was hazy. He needed to do something about that.

  “You called?” she asked with a slightly wry tone that should have annoyed the devil out of him. Instead, he welcomed the acid as he glanced in Dirk’s direction.

  His P.I. was still piecing together scraps of paper on the console and had scarcely noticed Pippa’s entrance. Stupid man. Maybe he ought to look into hiring someone else. Anyone who didn’t notice Pippa Cochran had to be blind.

  “Mr. Ridgewood has a few questions for you,” Seth replied without inflection.

  Pippa’s eyes widened, but she entered the room without hesitation. Seth noticed with interest that she chose to lean against the desk, next to him. One glance at the situation and she’d already sided with him. He didn’t have the arrogance to think she sought his protection. Not Pippa. She’d just chosen an adversarial stance against Dirk.

  “Is he from the police?” she asked.

  “Dirk’s my hired investigator. You can tell him anything.”

  “Hired investigator?” Interest danced in her eyes as she inspected Dirk. “Does he hire you often?”

  “Often enough,” Dirk replied bleakly, looking up from his puzzle. His eyebrows lifted with the first indication of surprise he’d expressed since entering.

  Obviously, Pippa wasn’t precisely what Dirk had expected. Had he thought she would be another long-legged, tanned, blond California beauty like Tracey?

  “Do you think you’re more likely to find the bomber than the police?” Pippa continued her interrogation.

  “I’m privy to more information than the police,” Dirk answered stiffly. “Now, if you would just answer a few questions for me...”

  “Oh, well, if you really want to hear answers, we’d better find someplace more comfortable. Would you like some tea? I’ve taught Nana how to make a mean pot of iced tea, just the way my mama made it.”

  Seth watched in fascination as Pippa led his hard-nosed detective by that selfsame nose. She had Dirk ensconced in a rattan chair by the swimming pool, sipping iced tea, before either of them knew what hit them.

  “Wimp,” Seth murmured contentedly as he lounged in his chair, sipping tea and watching Pippa rearrange the sun umbrella to her satisfaction.

  Dirk grunted and glared at his gently clinking glass. “I don’t even like this stuff. How do you stand it?”

  “The tea or the manipulation?” Seth asked with amusement. “Want to ask her if she planted that bomb?”

  “Hell, from what I can tell, she’s more capable of it than all those other losers you’ve got me investigating. Maybe you ought to hire her for this job.”

  Pippa sl
ipped into the chair on the opposite side of the round glass table. “Did Seth tell you about the candy? George couldn’t analyze it, so he sent it to a lab. We haven’t received the results yet.”

  Seth laughed aloud. Dirk glowered.

  “Are you gonna let me do my job, or you want to do it for me?” Dirk demanded.

  “I don’t have time,” Pippa replied blithely. “I have to get back to Chad. Shall I call George and tell him you’re stopping by to pick up the rest of the candy? I assume you know someone who can get faster results. Do you have any idea why anyone would want to kill Seth?”

  Seth watched as Dirk eventually reclaimed control of the conversation. Pippa’s replies to his questions were succinct, intelligent, and blunt. At Dirk’s insinuation that she might be involved, she didn’t pout, cry, or throw things. She cut him off at the knees, turned the question around, and shoved it down Dirk’s throat. Seth admired the performance. He still wanted to hold her and kiss away those red spots of anger on her cheeks, as if she might need the reassurance.

  “I think you’ve said enough, Dirk,” Seth finally intruded. “We have every reason to believe Pippa is in as much danger as I am, if not more. Fortunately, we know precisely who would want to harm her. Pippa isn’t as inclined toward making enemies as I am.”

  Dirk unfolded his lean form from the patio chair. He nodded his acknowledgment in Pippa’s direction. “If you’ll call your pharmacist friend, Miss Cochran, I’ll stop by and pick up that candy.”

  “You’ll let us know what you find out,” Pippa responded, reaching for the cordless phone.

  Seth noticed she didn’t ask but ordered Dirk, as if he were her employee. To hell with administrative assistant. The hospital should have made her CEO. She’d have slapped the place back into line soon enough. Maybe he ought to put her in charge of running his printing companies.

  She wouldn’t take the position, Seth realized. Her heart was in nursing. Pippa would rather run herself ragged over a little boy than hop on a plane in a power suit and negotiate billion-dollar deals. He’d never met anyone like that before. The country would fall apart if everyone thought like Pippa Cochran.