LITMIR.BIZ

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arrived.

      It was a little after five. The sun had set and clouds filled the darkening sky. He zipped his jacket to block some of the biting October wind. He glanced up at Hanna’s window and saw a peek of light behind the drawn curtains blocking his view inside.

      She might not want to reminisce with him, but he possessed some vivid memories of her. Shy and pretty. She’d been a teenager on his family’s Virginia estate and had hidden behind her older, more outgoing sister. The Wilde girls. Back then he’d thought of himself and Hanna as friends. It wasn’t until he was older that he’d realized he’d held the sisters at a distance. He’d all but ignored Hanna, treating her as the child of the “help” and nothing more, just as his father insisted.

      Carter shook his head, hating the reminder of his past and who he’d once been. The same history he’d run from and gotten dragged back into when his brother called him home, asking for help. Now Carter was the one who needed assistance. At the very least, a little information. He couldn’t do much more without that.

      He grabbed his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and called Jackson Richards, the real hub of information at Jameson Industries and one of the few people in the world Carter actually liked and trusted.

      “Hey, I need your help.”

      “Nothing new there. You still working on your top-secret mission for your dad?”

      Carter decided to ignore the question as he listened to Jackson typing in the background. “Ready for the list?”

      “Wait, don’t you have an assistant?”

      “I don’t actually work at the company. I’m happy staying on the Virginia property, far away from the family business.”

      Carter’s preference for the Virginia countryside was a fact his father had once used to drive a wedge between Carter and his brothers. They were the business-minded ones. He was the disappointment. Carter had heard the refrain so often it rang in his ears even now.

      He’d come back to the D.C. area expecting to check in on his brothers and help out with their ongoing fight with their dad about governing interest in the business, then go again. When that didn’t happen he’d settled in to the Virginia estate. It was a small act of defiance against his father, who had kicked him out of that same property almost a year ago and told him never to come back.

      But now he needed some intel. “No one is as good at this stuff as you are.”

      “Flattery won’t work.” Jackson cleared his throat. “For the record, expensive liquor will.”

      “Done. As soon as I get back, I’ll come by with a bottle.” Carter moved out of the glare of the streetlight and leaned against the brick wall of Hanna’s apartment building. Cars buzzed by and people moved around him on the sidewalk, likely on their way to the bars and restaurants two blocks over. “I need all the information you can get me on Hanna and Gena Wilde. Sisters. Their dad used to work for our family at our Virginia estate.”

      “Do you know what you sound like when you say estate like that?”

      “I have an idea.” Carter glanced at his watch and made a quick decision. “You have three hours to gather intel.”

      The typing stopped. “What the hell? I do have a real job, you know.”

      A fair argument but a strange anxious feeling settled inside Carter. He sensed if he didn’t talk to Hanna again soon, this time armed with information, she’d slip away. And he didn’t want to go another ten years without seeing her again.

      The wary blue eyes, almost baby blue. That wavy, shoulder-length, deep auburn hair that he ached to run his fingers through. The way her jeans balanced on her hips, giving him the tiniest glimpse of bare pale stomach as the edge of her long-sleeve T-shirt shifted around. He wanted to know more. To talk with her. To dig and see what had her on edge.

      He guessed he’d trace most of her problems right back to his father. Carter had no idea what had her spooked or what game his father was playing, but something bigger than an envelope was happening here.

      Carter took it out and studied it. No writing or clue to the contents. It was killing him not to rip it open. If he didn’t have an answer in a few days, he would. Until then, he could respect her privacy...but barely.

      Jackson sighed into the phone. “Does this have something to do with your highly problematic father?”

      “Doesn’t everything? Talk to you soon.”

      Carter hung up before Jackson could complain or swear. He glanced up at Hanna’s studio a second time. “It looks like I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

       Two

      Hanna decided to get away. Not forever. Just long enough for the Jamesons to find another target. Her job was a temporary solution anyway. She cleaned houses and businesses. Worked part-time in the coffee shop. She could take time off but she had to do it without pay, which sucked. That choice would be a financial struggle but going round and round with the Jamesons could cost her the equilibrium she’d been fighting to gain ever since her sister’s death.

      For the hundredth time, Hanna wondered if she should have just taken the money Eldrick offered her months ago to stay away from Carter. She’d tried to find Carter back then, and then the stay-away letters started. Then came the bribe.

      The cash would have made rebuilding her life much easier. Saying no just made Eldrick double down on the threats of attorneys and lawsuits if she came near his family or talked about them with anyone. He thought it was her job to keep his family secrets.

      Man, she hated the Jamesons and how they turned everything upside down. Irrational or not, that hate extended to all Jamesons...even, admittedly to a lesser degree, to the one she used to stare at as he played football on the lawn with his brothers. The one who turned her into a babbling fool every time he smiled at her.

      Back then, of course. She was wiser now.

      She dunked the mop in the murky water with a bit too much force. The wheels under the bucket spun around. Before she could catch it, the bucket tumbled and smacked into the coffee counter, sending the dirty water spilling over the sides.

      Apparently, it was going to be that kind of day.

      She sighed as she balanced the mop handle against the edge of the counter and wiped her hands on her faded blue jeans. A tingle at the base of her neck had her glancing up and turning around. The shadow moved in the glass front door of Morning Grind, the coffee shop she cleaned to offset part of the cost of her rent upstairs. Her breath hitched as the face came into view.

      Carter.

      Of course it was.

      It was five in the morning and still dark outside, but she could see every inch of that amazing face. Watch his shoulders lift as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, likely trying to fight off the punishing cold that had settled in early this year, or so the locals told her.

      She should let him freeze. Let him form a big Jameson ice cube right there on the sidewalk.

      So tempting. But that would just give his father a reason to breeze into town, blaming and threatening her about something new.

      She wiped her hands on her jeans again. This time not to dry them off but to beat down the nerves jumping around inside her. A strange mix of wariness and excitement hit her the second Carter pinned her with a crooked smile.

      No wonder her sister had gotten reeled in. If the gossip site stories about him were true, a lot of women had trouble saying no to the guy.

      Maybe the whole turning-otherwise-smart-women-into-giant-puddles-of-goo thing was an inherited skill. A family trait of some sort. If so, she needed to get over the affliction and fast.

      Her hand shook as she turned the lock and opened the door a fraction. “What?”

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