LITMIR.BIZ

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slid his arm away from her fingers on the pretext of scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t worry about me, Claire. Worry about Maura and the rest of my family and about the Thornes.” He quickly changed the subject. “So who’s next on your list, if not Ma or Katherine Thorne for the Angel of Hope?”

      She decided to let him think he was distracting her, although she wanted to inform him she would worry about him whether he liked it or not. “I don’t know. I’m running out of possibilities.”

      “What if it’s a whole group of people? Some kind of loosely structured consortium?”

      She laughed. “A what?”

      “What if you’ve got more than one Angel of Hope? An alliance of do-gooders? It could be all of them. Ma and Katherine, maybe even your mother. I could see Angie and her husband joining in.”

      She considered the idea. “Okay, that’s an option. Maybe whoever gave Caroline her car was only the one who started it all, then others joined it.”

      “I like it. So, really, the Angel of Hope could be anyone. And everyone.”

      They lapsed into an easy sort of silence while she mulled the likelihood of that. It did fit. She had always considered it a little unlikely that one person could be orchestrating everything.

      How would such a group work? Would they act independently or gather for a vote on who to help? While the rain clicked against the windows and the wind howled in the eaves of the old house and the fire simmered in the grate, she imagined the scene. A group of mysterious do-gooders gathered in a room somewhere drinking coffee and discussing the troubles of the people in Hope’s Crossing like the court of Zeus on Olympus.

      She smiled a little at the image and opened her mouth to share it with Riley when she noticed his eyes were closed—really closed this time.

      His hand had stopped moving on Chester’s fur and his chest was rising and falling in a steady, even rhythm.

      “Riley?” she whispered. Her only answer was Chester’s snuffly breathing.

      Definitely sleeping this time. Poor man. He had all but admitted he was struggling to deal with his niece’s death. She wished there was some way she could ease his pain. No basket of goodies or envelope full of cash could fix this. Even the Angel of Hope—or angels, as the case may be—wouldn’t have any magic cure.

      Nor should there be, she thought. Some pain was simply meant to be endured.

      Riley looked a different person in the circle of light cast by the lamp at his elbow. When her children slept, they looked peaceful and sweet, but Riley somehow looked much more like the rowdy rascal he’d been as a boy than the contained adult he’d become.

      What would it be like to have the freedom to kiss that hard mouth? To dip her fingers in that thick, wavy hair and brush her lips against his ear…

      She pressed a hand to her trembling stomach. What on earth was the matter with her? This was Riley! She had no business entertaining those sorts of thoughts about him. Besides the age difference…her thoughts trailed off. Okay, three years didn’t seem like a big deal when she was thirty-six and he was thirty-three. But she could still remember him so vividly as a nine-year-old pest, driving her and Alex crazy.

      She let out a breath. He wasn’t that pest anymore. He was a man, tough and muscled, dangerously attractive. And she was a divorced mother whose love life consisted of watching lush, sweeping movies made out of Jane Austen books with a box of tissues and a bowl of popcorn.

      The pain pills in her system must be messing with her. Sure, she knew they caused drowsiness and could lead to stomach upset. She found it more than a little disturbing that the prescription label hadn’t once mentioned as a possible side effect inappropriate sexual urges—toward completely inappropriate individuals.

      A smart woman would wake him up and send him home where he could stretch out on his own bed and take all that…maleness…with him.

      She opened her mouth to do just that and then closed it again. He had looked so very tired when he came in. If he was comfortable and could rest, it seemed cruel to wake him and send him out into the cold rain.

      Hadn’t she just been thinking that she wished she knew some way to offer solace? Maybe a few hours’ rest were just what he needed.

      “Riley?” she whispered again, giving one more try.

      He released a long sigh of a breath and seemed to settle deeper into the easy chair. Even though she had a strong feeling she would live to regret this, she didn’t have the heart to wake him. Instead, she picked up another soft throw from the back of the sofa and carefully arranged it over him.

      She would have done the same thing for Macy and Owen, she told herself as she settled back onto the sofa and tucked her own blanket around her aching leg. She was only being kind to an old friend. The gesture had nothing to do with the crazy, foolish part of her that liked having him there while the storm raged outside and the fire sizzled softly in the grate.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      HE HAD SOME HALF-ASSED dream that he was back in Oakland, deep undercover, his hair shaggy and long and always in the way, the two-day stubble uncomfortable and itchy, wearing clothes that stank of vodka and God only knows what else.

      He was hanging with Oscar Ayala, a major player in the Catorce gang’s drug distribution network. Loud Latino music played over the rockin’ stereo in Oscar’s crib, its steady, incessant norteño rhythm making his head spin.

      They were close, so close to dismantling the network. For six months, he’d been playing the part of a midlevel distributor. He had seen horrible things. Done horrible things. A few more weeks and the interagency task force would be ready to move in—if he could only keep his precarious position as confidant to Oscar Ayala. That position was in serious jeopardy because of one reason—Oscar’s chica, Gabriela, a hot little number from Venezuela who had set her slumberous eyes on Riley.

      He’d been discouraging her furtive advances for weeks, but it was getting harder and harder to tactfully keep away from her. Her influence on Ayala was powerful and while Riley couldn’t let the man think he was screwing his girl, he also couldn’t afford to have a scorned Gabriela whispering trash about him to the dealer he was trying to bring down.

      He was in the kitchen pouring drinks, the music pounding, when she cornered him and, apparently tired of playing coy, took the direct route with a determined hand to his crotch.

      “Oscar passed out. Now’s our chance,” she murmured in the dream/memory and wrapped herself around him like a boa constrictor. She kissed him, her mouth hard and practiced.

      Short of telling her he was gay—which she could probably tell was a lie by his stupid body’s natural response to suddenly finding a lithe, soft female body pressing against all his most sensitive parts after months when he’d been too busy playing a damn role for any kind of social life—he couldn’t come up with a single way to get out of the situation.

      He was just about to try the gay card anyway when the worst happened. He heard a roar from the doorway and looked up to see Oscar, the prison tats on his face even more menacing than normal.

      “He attacked me,” the bitch cried out in rapid-fire Spanish. “I just came in for another drink and the next thing I knew, he grabbed me. I was trying to get away, baby.”

      Riley had stood there for just a moment too long, his brain stalled out, then Oscar lunged into the room, whipping out his Glock.

      “Puta,” he snarled and before Riley could say anything, he fired into Gabriela’s head from six feet away, splattering blood and brain matter all over Riley.

      In the dream, the moment moved frame by frame in slow motion, much as it had felt in real life.

      “She’s

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