LITMIR.BIZ

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Since their merchandise was tainted by the drug trade, it had been seized. The day Angela had been arraigned, the bank had called in the loan that had secured the purchase of all that merchandise.

      And now it was all her problem.

      Rachel’s daily refrain echoed in her head. What in the world had Angela been thinking? Even Angela herself hadn’t been able to answer. All Rachel knew was that Angela had plea-bargained the charges against her and provided the names that had led Agent Micah McLeod to the bigger fish he had really been after.

      But was that bigger fish now after her?

      Rachel’s hands grew clammy with the memory of the rock shattering the window and bringing her out of a restless sleep. Since she no longer had the e-mail or the letter with their simple, one-line demands—I want my $500,000—the police had no reason to think the rock was anything more than a prank. She had told them about the notes, immediately knowing how lame her story sounded.

      “Call us,” the investigating officer had told her, “if another note comes.” A month had passed since then, and until Micah McLeod had showed up yesterday afternoon, she had hoped the police were right about the rock and notes being a prank.

      The fear was back, and she hated it.

      Think about today, she told herself. Today would be a good day because of the appointment she had after work. Jane Clark, one of her best—and wealthiest—clients from the antique shop, had a referral for Rachel. The whispered promise of returning to the work that she loved sang through her. Today, she reminded herself, was a new day.

      After a half-hour on the road, Rachel parked her car behind one of the hotels that lined I-70. She went through the service entrance, clocked in and went to work for the first of her three jobs—this one as a maid.

      She was so used to being invisible that she didn’t even look twice when a man came out of one of the rooms and approached her. His steps slowed, and she looked up.

      Micah McLeod, his dark-brown eyes steady on her.

      Her heart gave a familiar lurch—it always did when she saw him. She didn’t want to notice that he looked good, but he did. He wore jeans, a Western-style shirt, cowboy boots and a Stetson with the ease of a man who had grown up in the clothes rather than adopting them like some packaged country-music singer. She knew under his hat was a full head of hair, the dark strands liberally streaked with gray.

      She forced herself to look away and wished he would walk right past her, somehow knowing that he wouldn’t. He came to a halt next to her cart, blocking her way back into the room she was cleaning.

      “What in the world are you doing here?” he asked.

      “Working.” She stuffed the linens she had just stripped off a bed into the hamper at the bottom of the cart.

      “Working,” he repeated. “Why?”

      A sharp retort was at the tip of her tongue when she noticed one of the hotel managers at the end of the hall. Jason Laird, a young man fresh out of college. His pretentious attitude grated more often than not, and he had made it clear maids were to be seen and not heard.

      “For the usual reasons,” she said managing to keep annoyance out of her voice as Jason came closer. “Is there something you need?”

      “Not anything you can give me here.” Micah turned around to see who she was watching.

      “Good morning, sir,” Jason said to Micah. “Is everything okay?”

      “Fine,” he responded.

      “Enjoy your stay.” Jason raised an eyebrow at her and cocked his head toward the room she was cleaning, his unspoken message as clear as a command. Get back to work.

      Rachel pulled clean sheets from her cart while Micah stood there watching her as though she were some exotic species he was studying in a zoo. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said as she brushed past him.

      He followed her into the room. “If you’re going to work in a hotel, why not turn your house into a bed-and-breakfast like you once talked about?”

      The suggestion frayed her temper. How could he know so much about her hopes and dreams when she had clearly known nothing about his? Once he had told her about a ranch in Wyoming, his description of a home so vivid she had imagined living there. Like everything else last spring, that had most likely been a lie, too.

      She snapped a clean sheet open and it floated across the mattress. Efficiently, she tucked the sheet around the mattress and did her best to ignore Micah’s large presence.

      He simply stood there, waiting with the patience that was so much a part of him. She finished making the bed and did a visual scan of the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. All that was left was to vacuum.

      When she retrieved the vacuum cleaner from the hallway, he blocked her way back into the room.

      “Rachel, talk to me. Why are you working here?”

      “Because I need the job.”

      He moved to the side so she could enter the room, then followed her. “This is the best job you could get?”

      Mentally counting to ten, she plugged in the vacuum. “There’s nothing wrong with this job.”

      “Okay, maybe that was out of line, but you’re the most capable person I know. I’ve never known anyone smarter than you. You could have gone back into banking or—”

      “So why would I stoop so low?” she interrupted, turning around to face him, last spring’s events so much at the surface she trembled. “Have you ever stuck around after your investigations are concluded to see what happened next? Or is it just on to your next assignment with your carefully taken notes so when you get called back to testify you remember the…how did you put it? Oh, yes…the pertinent facts of the case.”

      He took off his hat and thumbed the brim before looking at her. “I remember everything, Rachel. And I regret—”

      “Regret doesn’t feed my children,” she said, the last tenuous thread on her temper shredding. “And as for going back to work at the bank, nobody would hire me to be a teller, much less a financial analyst—not after learning my business partner had been convicted of money-laundering.”

      “That was Angela London, not you.”

      “And weren’t you the man who once told me that the quality of a man’s character can be measured in the friends he has?”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “No doubt.” She looked up then, and met his gaze. “Go away, Micah McLeod. If I never see you or talk to you or—” She swallowed the lump in her throat and willed the tears burning her eyes to go away.

      “What’s going on?” Jason Laird stood in the doorway.

      “Nothing,” Micah said. “I’m leaving.” He slipped past Jason who watched with his arms folded over his chest.

      “You come with me,” Jason said to Rachel. “Right now.”

      She knew what was coming, but like so much else over the last few months, being chewed out for talking to a guest was one more thing to be endured.

      “Your services are no longer needed,” Jason said as soon as he sat himself down behind his desk.

      “You’re firing me?” She had expected to be bawled out—not dismissed.

      “You know the rules about contact with guests,” he said, “and your behavior toward our guest just now is completely unacceptable.”

      Locking her jaw so her chin wouldn’t tremble, Rachel stared at a point beyond Jason’s shoulder while he finished dressing her down. Fifteen minutes later she clocked out and left the motel. It wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m.

      She got in her car and sat there a moment, feeling her debts weighing her down and the empty light on the

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