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“I make them up as I go along, especially when I’m saddled with uninvited houseguests.”
“Well, it’s easy enough to be rid of me,” she said, rallying. “All you have to do is agree to help me find my niece, and I’ll leave.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I won’t budge.”
“Then it seems I’m stuck with you either way, since you don’t have any other place to stay tonight.”
Either way? A flicker of hope took hold of her. “Does that mean you’re prepared to take on the case?”
Face unreadable, he swirled the wine in his glass and took his time replying. “It means I’m prepared to consider it. Not, I hasten to add, because I find your powers of persuasion irresistible or because your sister was fool enough to get herself pregnant by a man she didn’t know well enough to trust, but because a young and helpless child is the ultimate victim.”
“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, relief leaving her voice shaking with emotion. “Thank you so much, Mac! You don’t know how grateful I am, or what this will mean to my family. Now, probably the best place to start—”
He cut her off with a decisive gesture, slicing his hand through the air like an ax blade and thumping it down on the table so hard that the plates rattled and the wine danced in the glasses. “Let’s get something straight right off,” he said. “If I take this on, I will be the one to decide on the best place to start. I will be the one who calls the shots. Not you, and not your family. With all due respect to your understandable concern, you are not the ones with the experience or contacts needed to bring that baby back home. But only, as I said, if I decide to pursue the case, something which is by no means certain.”
“What do I have to do to clinch things in my favor?”
He smiled. A dazzling, beautiful smile, which should have reassured her but which inspired instead the tingling sense that accepting favors from him would come with a very high price—one she might never be able to afford. “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out, cookie,” he said, rising from his seat and strolling languidly to the couch at the other end of the room. “Meanwhile, tackle the dishes.”
CHAPTER THREE
LULLED by the crackle of the flames in the hearth, and the muted clatter coming from the kitchen, Mac stretched out his legs and, leaning his head on the back of the couch, contemplated the high cathedral ceiling, and the ramifications of his decision.
He was going to take the case. Not because he liked her—which he did. Not because she was a firebrand and he found himself responding to her energy. And not because of the spark of sexual awareness, which he’d denied to her but which, reluctantly, he admitted to himself. They were the worst reasons in the world to get involved, especially with a situation which promised to be messy at best.
That he might be powerless to repair things also did not escape him. God knew, he didn’t need another infant tragedy on his résumé. One was more than enough.
But maybe…maybe…by returning this missing baby, safe and alive, to her mother’s arms, he might lay the ghost of that other one. Might at last shed the guilt which still haunted his dreams, three years later.
And if he failed a second time?
He closed his eyes, as if by doing so, he could blot out any such possibility. And right away, the same old images, the same old sounds, filled his mind. The cold dread of premonition he’d known before he even opened the trunk of the abandoned car crawled over him again. He saw the pale blue blanket, the tiny foot. Tasted the bitter pill of rage mixed with helplessness. Heard the mother’s wrenching sobs echoing from an empty nursery, the shuddering heartbreak in the father’s voice.
“Are you sleeping?”
She startled him, stepping softly to where he sprawled on the couch, but he took care not to let it show. Already, the old instinct to reveal nothing of himself, while at the same time gleaning everything from those around him, had clicked into action.
“With all the racket you’re making?” he said, easing himself upright with deceptive indolence. “Hardly! I was trying to decide if I should let you sleep in your car, as you so rashly threatened to do, or if I should play the gentleman and offer you my bed—without me in it, of course.”
She stood beside the coffee table, a dish towel tied around her waist. “You’ll play the gentleman,” she said, her smile disturbingly sweet. “Of course.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’ve got you figured out.”
“Don’t try to second-guess me, cookie. I’m not that easy to read. And don’t tell me you’ve finished cleaning up the kitchen already.”
“Down to the very last spoon,” she said. “Would you like to inspect?”
“I’ll take your word for it. Do you know how to make a decent pot of coffee?”
“I can try,” she said, docile as a lamb. “Provided you give me instructions.”
“Eight measures of extra-fine grind to six cups of water. Coffee’s in the freezer, coffeemaker on the counter next to the sink. And use filtered water.”
“Cream with it?”
“Black.”
“Very good, sir.” She bobbed a curtsy, holding out the dish towel like a crinoline. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” he said. “Disappear and get on with it before I change my mind and show you the door. You’re beginning to irritate the hell out of me.”
With another bobbing curtsy, she scuttled off. A log rolled dangerously close to the front of the hearth, shooting sparks in all directions. Lunging to his feet, he toed it back in place and added another chunk of fir to keep it anchored. Then, since he was up anyway, he went to the liquor cabinet and selected a bottle of Courvoisier, lured to indulge himself by the rich aroma of espresso filtering from the kitchen.
“At least you’re good for something,” he acknowledged, tasting the contents of the demitasse she passed to him a few minutes later. “Will you join me in a brandy?”
“Thank you, yes. But just a small one. It’s been a very long day and I don’t want to pass out on you again.”
He poured an inch into a snifter and gave it to her. “I’ve been going over a few things in my mind,” he said, running his fingertips over his jaw.
She sat motionless at the other end of the couch, the snifter held between her hands, her eyes huge in her face. Unusual color, those eyes. Strangely clear, like blue topaz, and made all the more arresting by her long, dark lashes.
“Are you a natural blond?” he inquired.
Her mouth fell open. “That’s what you’ve been sitting here thinking about?”
“No. It just occurred to me to wonder.”
“I’m a natural blond. Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
“Not a bit.” He took a mouthful of the brandy and rolled it around his palate. Good stuff, Courvoisier. Fine way to end a meal. “You can still sleep in my bed tonight. Alone, since you’re not my type.”
“Praise the Lord!”
“And I’ll help you find your missing niece.”
At that, the sassy starch went out of her. She sagged against the sofa cushions, her relief manifest. “If you do that,” she said, “there’s nothing I won’t do for you in return.”
“Be careful what you promise.”
“I mean it,” she insisted, her eyes shining with unshed tears.