Moonlight and Mistletoe
Page 10
Finally, the forest thinned and Shayna stopped. Here, the water was shallow enough to see the pebbles littering the bottom. The gulch was approximately thirty feet wide, and on the other side the mountain looked even steeper.
Brinks charged into the water, but after a few steps, he quickly turned and retreated. “Water can’t be more than forty degrees,” she said, although not necessarily to him. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since before they’d left the cabin.
She took a swig from a canteen then held it out to him. He drank gratefully, trying not to gulp it down like a dying man in a desert.
“The ride back to town shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes from here. I called Mrs. Windsor, who runs the Sheltering Arms Bed and Breakfast, and she’s got one room available. I told her you’d take it. Danny can drop you off. When you contact a wrecker, make sure you call a local service and tell them your car’s in the ditch about a tenth of a mile northeast of the bridge at Shiner’s Gulch.”
After such a long stretch of silence, her words flew fast and furiously, but when she’d said what she needed to say, she locked her lips and turned her gaze to the far bank.
Now that he finally had her contained, he tried again to apologize. “Shayna, I’m sorry about last night.”
“I’ll bet you are. If only Patty had waited another half hour or so, you could have finished the job.”
“Kissing you had nothing to do with the job. That’s the reason I’m sorry. Acting on attraction makes business relationships awkward. It’s a line I’ve never crossed before, but with you, I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Uh-huh. Next thing I know, you’ll be promising to respect me in the morning.”
Before Kyle could finish his apology, Brinks rushed back to the water’s edge and started barking excitedly. He turned to see what had captured the dog’s attention, and at first, he thought he was witnessing a Sasquatch impersonator.
Even from a distance, the man coming down the mountain, dressed in jeans and a tan corduroy jacket, looked as big and sturdy as a tree. As he came closer, Kyle estimated him at six and a half feet. A John Deere ball cap covered his head, but his steely brown eyes glared right through Kyle.
The ride back to town promised to be interesting.
Shayna skipped over to stand beside the dog, waiting for the giant to cross the quickly moving stream.
“Danny!” The minute the man touched dry ground, Shayna launched herself at him and disappeared within the circle of his humongous arms. Holy crap. This guy could send professional wrestlers running home to mama.
Kyle watched Shayna’s face as she embraced the other man. He had to admit he was relieved to see the connection wasn’t romantic.
Eventually Shaq junior put Shayna back on her feet. The minute his arms were empty, Brinks jumped him, the dog’s paws extending only to his waistline. His hand stroked the dog as he eyed Kyle, doing a quick sweep. Kyle had to give the man points for not mentioning his absurd outfit. Still, he couldn’t help but straighten his spine, as if he could stretch himself a bit closer to the six-foot mark.
“This him?” the man asked, not bothering to disguise his distrust.
“Yes. Danny Robertson, Kyle Anderson.” Shayna made the introductions without bothering to look Kyle’s way.
Kyle extended his hand, half expecting the behemoth to crush his fingers in a territorial show of strength.
“Hear the weather caught you by surprise.” The handshake was firm, and Robertson looked him straight in the eye. They were traits Kyle had always considered indicators of an honest man.
“Sure did. I ended up taking a nosedive into the ditch Wednesday night. Fortunately, Shayna and Brinks were kind enough to take me in.” Instinct told Kyle it would be healthier to downplay his attraction to Shayna around Danny Robertson.
“That sounds like our Shayna. Always taking in strays.”
Kyle didn’t miss the insult but opted to let it pass. It had to be at least twenty miles back to town, and he damn sure didn’t want to risk having to walk it. “I appreciate you taking the time to come out and give me a lift back to town.”
“Just you?” Danny swung a curious glance back to Shayna. “I figured you’d be coming, too.”
“Nope. I’m going home to enjoy the peace and quiet.”
“Sure you’re going to be able to make it for the pageant tomorrow?”
“The bridge shouldn’t be a problem by then, but if push comes to shove, you can drive out here and rescue me.”
“Like I said, anything for you, darling.”
“I hate to be pushy,” Kyle interrupted testily. Seeing her flirting with this man was pissing him off. “But you’ve got to get back to work and I’m freezing my ass off out here, so I’m ready whenever you are.”
Not that he was looking forward to following this guy’s mile-long legs up the mountain, but no matter how much his body complained, Kyle would match him stride for stride.
Danny nodded. “Then let’s go.” He bent and swiped his lips across Shayna’s cheek. A flare of jealousy burned through Kyle. Knowing he didn’t have the right, he shook off the feeling and followed Danny Robertson through the stream.
His two pairs of pants and five-hundred-dollar shoes were useless against the icy water.
“I’ll call you tonight,” Danny called out to Shayna.
“Thanks, I really appreciate this.” She smiled and waved at Robertson, then headed back into the thick wall of trees and brush without a single glance in Kyle’s direction.
Once they’d scaled the steep slope, Kyle was relieved to find a mud-covered pickup parked less than half a mile across a flat, grassy field.
They reached the truck and Robertson quickly fired up the heater. “I know Shayna’s a grown woman and has the right to make whatever choices she wants with her life, but just so you know, if you hurt her, you’ll have to deal with me.”
He’d expected some form of territory marking, but the country boy’s simple, straightforward warning gave him pause.
Crap. Dodging an overprotective, big-brother wannabe would make a difficult situation impossible. Not to mention the roadblock Robertson could represent if he supported Shayna’s decision to fight Walker’s wishes.
For the sixth time in less that an hour, Shayna paced a circle around her den. She’d insisted Kyle leave, had in fact escorted him off the mountain, and yet, ever since her return from Hunter’s Pass, the cabin felt too big, too quiet, too empty.
Unbelievable. The man had spent less than forty-eight hours here. His imprint shouldn’t be so strong.
But it was.
She’d found his discarded tie in the spare room. The silk fabric still carried a hint of his wonderful warm leather scent.
She’d turned his leftovers into an awesome sandwich.
She’d had to shut the door to his room so that Brinks would stop wandering in there and whining.
When the phone rang late that afternoon, she pounced on it like a dog after a chew toy. Pathetic. She’d never been so unhappy with her own company.
“Hello?”
“Hey, darling. Did you make it back up the pass in one piece?” Judging by the background noise, Danny was still at work.
“I sure did.” She muted the game show she hadn’t been paying any attention to. “Thanks again for coming out and picking Kyle up. I know it was a huge inconvenience, especially on such a busy day.”
“No problem. Around this place, they’re all busy days.”
“Did you get him dropped off okay?”
“Safe and sound.” Danny had never been much of a talker, but this was ridiculous. Still, she refused to press the subject any further. Sending him back to town had been her idea. Pumping Danny for information like an infatuated teenager would make her look like a fool.
“Well, thanks again. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“You bet. Call if you need any help getting into town.”
“Will do,” she promised before hanging up.
“Arghhh!” Her aggravated growl captured Brinks’s attention. The dog, who’d been smart enough to nap the day away after all their hiking, popped to his feet and ran to the door. Taking the hint, she yanked her hat and coat off the hook by the door and took the dog out into the moonlit front yard.
She had to assume that Kyle had kept his word and not mentioned his reason for being in town, because if he’d let the truth slip, Danny would’ve used up a month’s supply of words in order to give her the third degree.
Feeling somewhat reassured, she called Brinks back and headed back inside. Before she’d even gotten her coat off, the phone rang again.
“Girlfriend, you’ve got some explaining to do.” Lindy didn’t even wait for Shayna’s hello. “Omitting facts is practically the same thing as lying.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to upset you. Knowing you, you’d have hiked up here and chaperoned.”
“Are you kidding? It was freezing out there. I’d have sent Travis instead.”
Shayna laughed and relaxed into the couch. Gosh, it was great to have such good friends.
“Seriously, though,” Lindy said. “What happened up there?”
“The stubborn fool followed me home to discuss the legal agreement Dr. Walker hired him to deliver, then on his way back to town, his car crashed into the ditch. He was banged up a little, and since the icy weather had us trapped, I let him stay in the spare room.”
“Did he behave?”
“For the most part. He even cooked Thanksgiving dinner.”
“He cooks? Amazing. So why’d you send him packing? Were you tempted to jump his bones?”
Shayna threw her free hand over her eyes. This was the drawback to good friends. Too good at reading between the lines.
“It just got too awkward, being around a stranger 24/7.”
“Uh-huh, I bet.” Lindy paused, but Shayna bit her tongue. Some things were too private even for the best of friends. The silence stretched for ten or fifteen seconds before Lindy wisely changed the subject. “So what’s the deal with Dr. Walker?”
Different subject, yes, but still not something Shayna wanted to discuss tonight. “It’s very complicated, too complicated for a phone call. How about I stop by tomorrow before the pageant for leftovers and tell you all about it?”
“Deal,” Lindy agreed. “Promise you’re okay?”
The love and concern in Lindy’s voice nearly choked Shayna up. Daddy might be gone, but that didn’t mean she had no family left.
“I promise.” She thumbed off the phone and sat up, staring blindly at the silent television. Actually she was looking forward to talking face-to-face with Lindy and Travis about the can of worms Kyle had opened. Even more than Chester Warfield, Shayna was anxious to hear Travis’s take on the situation.
As the oldest son of one of Atlanta’s wealthiest families, Travis knew all about the twisted thought processes of the superrich. If anyone could advise her on redirecting Steven Walker’s interest elsewhere, it would be Travis.
As for dealing with Kyle “Snake-In-The-Grass” Anderson, she’d have to figure that out for herself.
Chapter Nine
Saturday morning, Kyle kick-started his day with a carb overload in the Sheltering Arms communal dining room, but the boisterous crowd failed to distract him from his thoughts of Shayna and the way she’d dismissed him yesterday.
How the hell had such a simple job gotten so screwed up?
He’d been making progress before Patty’s phone call. Okay, so immediately before her call, the progress he’d been making hadn’t had a damn thing to do with the job, but before that, he had started making headway.
She’d begun opening up, had even shared vital information with him, and despite her lack of trust in him as a lawyer, he was sure she’d begun to like him as a man.
The clatter of dropped silverware broke into his thoughts, derailing him from thoughts of how she felt about him—and responded to him—as a man. He glanced up from his plate, only to encounter frowns from several of his breakfast companions. He inserted a more neutral expression and quickly finished his meal.
She may have waylaid his efforts by kicking him out of her home and refusing to listen to reason, but he still had a job to do. Excusing himself, he went upstairs to retrieve his briefcase.
Dressed in an off-the-rack suit he’d purchased yesterday, he left the boarding house and walked the six blocks into downtown Land’s Cross. He’d discovered an Internet café inside the small bookstore downtown, where he could check his e-mail and access the Internet.
He needed to follow up on the information Amanda had sent him Wednesday. Shayna had assured him that forging her duplicate birth certificate was the only illegal thing Miller had ever done, but if Kyle simply took her word for it, he’d be shirking his duty. Regardless of his personal feelings about Steven Walker, the man was his client and deserved Kyle’s best effort. That meant following every lead to its conclusion.
He needed to dig a little deeper into Miller’s background to see if any other criminal activity popped up. After all, very few law-abiding citizens knew how to locate a forger. His conscience cringed at his mercenary line of thinking. What if his investigation into Shayna’s dad uncovered something horrific? Sexual abuse? Drug use? A criminal history?
Confronting information like that about the father she loved would devastate Shayna. Was he willing to completely destroy her in order to satisfy a power-hungry client? To achieve a goal he wasn’t sure he still desired?
Of course, if she would simply agree to Walker’s terms, then whatever other skeletons James Miller may have would remain hidden.
And he could get off this damned ethical fence he’d been straddling. His feelings for Shayna made it difficult to execute his job swiftly and dispassionately. He’d never close this case and move on with his career if he continued to worry about seeing that wounded look in Shayna’s amber eyes rather than doing whatever it took to accomplish his client’s goal.
After ordering a large black coffee and settling into a red-and-beige striped couch, he fired up his laptop and accessed his e-mail. Despite the holiday weekend, he had more than two dozen messages. His clients knew he rarely took time off.
He had work piling up in California, and even though his partnership hinged on this case, if he ignored his other clients, he wouldn’t deserve the promotion. Partners were expected to juggle large and small cases. Time to prove he had what it took to earn a spot on the letterhead.
He fired off about a dozen directives for Amanda to handle Monday and called a few of his more agitated clients. Once he’d dealt with all the critical issues, he typed up a carefully worded report for Roscoe, alerting his boss to the delay in the case as well as his return to the West Coast.
Correspondence complete, he opened his computer file on the Walker case and began updating it. He paraphrased his “interviews” with Shayna, recording the details behind James Miller’s forging of her birth certificate with special care. Amanda had reported cold, hard facts. It was Shayna’s personal insight that gave the details power. He wanted to make sure his records were accurate, but at the same time, he didn’t want Walker to be able to use Shayna’s words against her.
After saving and closing the file, he logged in to the firm’s specialized search engine. The database provided personal, legal and governmental information most people thought was completely private.
It didn’t take him long to confirm Shayna’s assurances about James Miller’s character. The man was practically a Boy Scout. He’d received a grand total of two parking tickets over the course of his fifty-seven-year life, served jury duty three times and filed his income taxes faithfully.
A quick review of his returns showed that he�
��d never taken advantage of the child tax credit, so while Shayna’s dad apparently didn’t mind a little white lie to the school board, he wasn’t willing to intentionally defraud the IRS. He’d have to pass that along to Shayna. It couldn’t hurt for her to be prepared for whatever legal battles his client might stir up.
Damn it. That was exactly the kind of biased thinking he needed to avoid.
A musical chime from his computer alerted him to a fresh batch of e-mails. Several people had already responded to his earlier messages, but only one was red flagged: Roscoe’s. He wasn’t surprised that his boss was working on a holiday.
He double clicked it. When does she meet with her attorney? Walker is threatening a trip to Tennessee.
Damn. Considering his daughter’s high level of disdain for him, Walker’s presence would erase what little progress Kyle had managed to achieve. If Walker showed up now, their win-win would become a lose-lose.
He had to find a way to make sure that didn’t happen.
By noon Saturday, Shayna was more stir-crazy than the year she’d been cooped up with the chicken pox for four straight days. She called city hall to check on the sand truck’s progress and found out Shiner’s Gulch was at least two hours down the list.
Frustrated by the familiar inconvenience, she called Lindy and canceled their lunch plans. If the bridge didn’t open before three, she’d be hard-pressed to get herself dressed and ready and delivered to the Knights of Columbus Hall by four-thirty.
Hoping to calm her nerves, she treated herself to a warm soak in the tub before shaving her legs and washing her hair. Now that the time had come, she was suddenly nervous about serving as Ms. Noel. With Walker’s request hanging over her head, maybe now wasn’t the best time for her to be so visible.
But she couldn’t back out. The kids and the community were counting on her. Besides, if she didn’t give the festival her best, then Walker won.
Ninety minutes later, she was plucked, coiffed, lotioned, powdered, sprayed and spiffed to within an inch of insanity. Thank goodness she’d never been one of those gals who dressed to the nines every day.