LITMIR.BIZ

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she knew we were different?”

      “We were infants,” Cassie argued. “How could she possibly have known?”

      Hawk brushed one thumb over his sister’s ashen cheek. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

      Chapter 2

      “Hey, there’s someone here to see you.”

      Sheryl looked up from her chore as Cory stuck his head into the room. She never knew what color her young part-time helper’s hair would be. This week it was black. And spiked. Odd appearance aside, the teenager was wonderful with animals. Sheryl’s patients didn’t seem to mind what his hairstyle was like. They also didn’t mind that his pants usually hung so loose on his narrow hips they looked like they were about to fall to the floor.

      “A drop-in?” she asked.

      “Not exactly. He’s an inspector or something. He has a clipboard and a business card. I told him he could wait in your office.”

      Sheryl’s heart sank. Just what she needed! There was bound to be something in this old building that wasn’t up to code. “I’ll be right there.”

      “He’s kinda nice lookin’, for an old guy,” Cory added with a grin. “Maybe you shouldn’t leave him waiting too long.” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

      “Not you, too!”

      “Not me, too, what?” Cory asked, almost pulling off the innocent expression. “I’m just trying to, you know, fix you up. You’re hot, for an older woman. If you weren’t too old for me, I’d definitely ask you out.”

      She’d never imagined that she’d be “too old” at twenty-six. “Cory, do you like your job?”

      “Sure!”

      “Then I suggest you shut up.”

      Cory locked his lips with nimble fingers and watched her work. Silently.

      Sheryl finished with the small dog on the table, then handed it over to Cory for grooming.

      Her offices were located in an old building. True, the place needed some work, but the rooms were spacious and the hallway was wide, and some of the interior walls were red brick, giving the place a solid and homey feel. In addition to the equipment necessary for her practice, she’d livened the place up with plants and hung framed pictures—photographs and drawings of animals—down the long hallway. The clinic wasn’t home yet, but it was certainly beginning to feel that way.

      The man who waited in her office was indeed “kinda nice lookin’.” But he didn’t look at all like a building inspector. Did men who worked for the state of North Carolina dress in black, wear their hair in a short ponytail and sport a gold earring in one ear? She didn’t think so.

      “Dr. Eldanis.” The man, who hadn’t been waiting in a chair but was perusing her bookshelves, offered his hand for a quick shake. “Tony Carpenter, North Carolina Department of Structural Safety. I need to ask a few questions and take a look around the building, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

      “Sure,” she said, seeing this intrusion as an annoyance that came with owning an old building.

      “You’ve been here how long?” he asked.

      “Three months.”

      He nodded curtly. “And the building was empty for several years before you bought it, correct?”

      Sheryl cocked her head and studied the man’s face for a moment through narrowed eyes. “Yes. The building was empty for quite some time. Don’t you have this information in your files?”

      He gave her a practiced and disarming smile. “The database is woefully out of date, I’m afraid. I always find it best to cover everything pertinent when I conduct an inspection.”

      Sheryl no longer trusted disarming smiles. In fact, they put her on edge.

      Over the next several minutes, Mr. Carpenter asked a few questions about the condition of the building. He made a couple of quickly scribbled notations on the paper on his clipboard, and while he certainly wasn’t nervous, he was definitely wound a bit too tight.

      There was something about the way he glanced around her office that made Sheryl suspect that he was a little bit too interested.

      “Did the previous residents leave any materials behind?” he asked, finally laying his eyes on her again. “I understand that several years ago there was a fertility clinic at this location.”

      “Yes.” Sheryl crossed her arms across her chest. “That was quite a long time ago, Mr. Carpenter.”

      There was that smile again. “Call me Tony.”

      Oh, I don’t think so. “A few years after the clinic closed, a doctor’s office opened here. After that the building stood empty for more than five years before I bought it.”

      “I see,” he said, making a notation. “And you didn’t come across anything out of the ordinary when you moved in? Sometimes businesses will leave files and materials behind in their haste to leave.”

      Sheryl backed slightly away from the so-called inspector. Why wasn’t he asking questions about the plumbing and the electrical? Why didn’t he want to know if the roof leaked when it rained, or where she stored her fire extinguishers? And why was this inspector working on a Saturday morning? It just didn’t add up.

      The fertility clinic he seemed to be so interested in had been closed for close to thirty years.

      “Can I see your ID, please?” she asked him.

      “I showed your assistant….”

      “I’d like to see it myself.”

      The man with the ponytail reached into his pocket and withdrew a business card. Sure enough, it read Tony Carpenter, North Carolina Department of Structural Safety. Looked to Sheryl as if the card had been printed up on a computer. A very good computer but still… She could print up a card declaring herself a queen, but that wouldn’t make it so.

      “Wait right here,” she said with a smile of her own. “I just remembered I have a phone call I need to make. I’ll be right back, Tony.” She left the room as casually as possible, then once the door was closed behind her she hurried down the hallway to the lobby. She snagged the phone on the front desk. Every instinct told her that the man in her office was not who he said he was. If she was wrong, she’d be embarrassed. But if she was right…

      Wyatt had a small police force. They weren’t exactly NYPD but they did their best, considering that most of the officers were younger than Sheryl and the chief was a good ol’ boy who had grown up here and was trusted not because he was good at his job but because everyone knew him from way back.

      Sheryl asked for a policeman to be dispatched to the clinic and then hurried back to her office. She might need to stall the so-called inspector for a few minutes, since law enforcement response was erratic at best. She burst into the office, ready to answer any question the ponytailed man might have.

      Her office was empty.

      It was a two-day trip by pickup truck from Greenlaurel, Texas, to Wyatt, North Carolina. Two full days, with a few hours’ sleep at a hotel in Tennessee along the way.

      Hawk was tired, he was cranky, and with every mile that had passed he’d wondered if this impulsive trip was a mistake. Cassie needed him, the horses he’d left behind needed him.

      But the odd woman’s words kept echoing in his head. She said the answers to his questions could be found in the past. What if Cassie’s new health problem was genetic? What if the address in Wyatt somehow led to their birth mother? It was a long shot, but he had to do something.

      Cassie would be in good hands during his absence, and so would the horses he trained and cared for. The Donovan Ranch was a good-size organization, not a two-man operation.

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