Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion

“Hey, Randi!” Sarah Peeples, movie reviewer for the Clarion, was hurrying toward Randi’s desk. Sarah’s column, “What’s Reel,” was published each Friday and was promoted as “hip and happening.” A tall woman with oversize features, a wild mop of blond curls and a penchant for expensive boots and cheap jewelry, Sarah spent hours watching movies in theaters, on DVDs and tapes. She lived and breathed movies, celebrities and all things Hollywood. Today she was wearing a choker that looked as if it had been tailored for a rottweiler or a dominatrix, boots with pointed toes and silver studs, a gray scoop-necked sweater and a black skirt that opened in the front, slitted high enough to show off just a flash of thigh. “I was beginning to think I might never see you again.”

“Can’t keep a good woman down,” Randi quipped.

“Amen. Where the hell have you been?”

“Montana with my brothers.”

“The hair is new.”

“Necessity rather than fashion.”

“But it works for you. Short and sassy.” Sarah was bobbing her head up and down as if agreeing with herself. “And you look great. How’s the baby?”

“Perfect.”

“And when will I get to meet him?”

“Soon,” Randi hedged. The less she spoke about Joshua, the better. “How’re things around here?”

Sarah rolled her eyes as she rested a hip on Randi’s desk. “Same old, same old. I’ve been bustin’ my butt…well, if you can call it that, rereviewing all the movies that are Oscar contenders.”

“Sounds exhausting,” Randi drawled.

“Okay, so it’s not digging ditches, I know, but it’s work.”

“Has anything strange been going on around here?” Randi asked.

“What do you mean? Everyone who works here is slightly off, right?”

“I guess you’re right.”

Sarah picked up a glass paperweight and fiddled with it. “Now, when are you going to bring the baby into the office and show him off?” Sarah’s grin was wide, her interest sincere. She’d been married three years and desperately wanted a baby. Her husband was holding out for the big promotion that would make a child affordable. Randi figured it might never come.

“When things have calmed down.” She considered confiding in Sarah, but thought better of it. “He and I need to get settled in.”

“Mmm. Then how about pictures?”

“I’ve got a ton of ’em back at the condo. Still packed. I’ll bring them next time, I promise,” she said, then leaned back in her chair. “So fill me in. What’s going on around here?”

Sarah was only too glad to oblige. She offered up everything from office politics, to management changes, to out-and-out gossip. In return, she wanted to know every detail of Randi’s life in Montana, starting with the accident. Finally, she said, “Paterno’s back in town.”

Randi felt the muscles in her back grow taut. “Is he?” Forty-five, twice divorced with a hound-dog face, thick hair beginning to gray and a razor-sharp sense of humor, the freelance photographer had asked Randi out a few years back and they’d dated for a while. It hadn’t worked out for a lot of reasons. The main reason being that, at the time, neither one of them had wanted to commit. Nor had they been in love.

“He’s been asking about you.” Sarah set the paperweight onto the desk again. “You know, unless you’re involved with someone, you might want to give him another chance.”

Randi shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You hiding something from him?”

“What?” Randi asked, searching her friend’s face. “Hiding something? Of course not…Oh, I get it.” She shook her head and sighed. No one knew the identity of her son’s father; not even the man himself. Before she could explain, Sarah’s cell phone beeped.

“Oops. Duty calls,” Sarah said, eyeing the face of the phone as a text message appeared. “New films just arrived. Well, old ones really. I’m doing a classic film noir piece next month and I ordered a bunch of old Peter Lorre, Bette Davis and Alfred Hitchcock tapes to review.” She cast a smile over her shoulder as she hurried off. “Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend? Drop by if you don’t have anything better to do….

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I won’t hold my breath.”

Good thing, Randi thought, as she didn’t seem to have a moment to breathe. She had way too much to do, she thought as she turned on her computer.

And first item on her agenda was finding a way to deal with Kurt Striker.

“…that’s right. All three of ’em are back in Seattle,” Eric Brown was saying, his voice crackling from his cell phone’s connection to that of Striker’s. “What’re the chances of that? Clanton lives here but the other two don’t. Paterno, he’s at least got a place here, but Donahue doesn’t.”

Striker didn’t like it.

“Paterno arrived three days ago and Donahue rolled into town yesterday.”

Just hours before Randi had returned. “Coincidence?” Striker muttered, not believing it for a second as he stood on the sidewalk outside the offices of the Clarion.

There was a bitter laugh on the other end of the line. “If you believe that, I’ve got some real estate in the Mojave—”

“—that you want to sell me. Yeah, I know,” Striker growled angrily. “Clanton lives here. Paterno does business in town. But Donahue…” His jaw tightened. “Can you follow him?”

“Not if you want me to stick around and watch the condo.”

Damn it all. There wasn’t enough manpower for this. Striker and Brown couldn’t be in three places at once. “Just stay put for now. But let me know if anything looks odd to you, anything the least bit suspicious.”

“Got it, but what about the other two guys? Paterno and Clanton?”

“Check ’em out, see what they’re up to, but it’s Donahue who concerns me most. We’ll talk later.” Striker hung up, then called Kelly McCafferty and left a message when she didn’t answer. Angry at the world, he snapped his phone shut. All three of the men with whom Randi had been involved were here. In the city. Great… Just…great. His shoulders were bunched against the cold, his collar turned up and inside he felt a knot of jealousy tightening in his gut.

Jealousy, and even envy for that matter, were emotions Striker detested, the kind of useless feelings he’d avoided, even while he’d been married. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe if he’d felt a little more raw passion, a little more jealousy or anger or empathy during those first few years of marriage, shown his wife that he’d cared about her, maybe then things would have turned out differently…Oh, hell, what was he thinking? He couldn’t change the past. And the accident, that’s how they’d referred to it, the accident had altered everything, created a deep, soul-wrenching, damning void that could never be filled.

And yet last night, when he’d been with Randi… Touched her. Kissed her. Felt her warmth surround him, he’d felt differently. Don’t make too much of it. So you made love to her. So what? Maybe it had just been so long since he’d been with a woman that last night seemed more important than it was.

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Couldn’t forget how right it had felt.

And it had been so wrong.

In an effort to dislodge images of Randi lying naked in front of the fire, staring up at him with those warm eyes, Striker bought coffee from a vendor and resumed his position not far from the door, protected by the awning of an antique bookstore located next door to the Clarion’s offices.

A familiar ache, one he rarely acknowledged, tore through him as he sipped his coffee. Leaning a shoulder against the rough bricks surrounding plate-glass windows etched in gold-leaf lettering, he watched the door of the Clarion’s building through a thin wisp of steam rising from his paper cup. Pedestrians scurried past in trench coats, parkas or sweatshirts, some wearing hats, a few with umbrellas, most bareheaded, their collars turned to the wind and rain that steadily dripped from the edge of the awning.

His cell phone rang and he swung it from his pocket. “Striker.”

“Hi, it’s Kelly.”

For the first time in hours, he smiled as Matt’s wife started rattling off information. The men at the Flying M were still upset about Randi’s leaving. Kelly was working to find a maroon Ford, one that was scraped up and dented from pushing Randi’s vehicle off the road in Glacier Park. Kelly was also double-checking all of the staff who had been on duty the night that Randi was nearly killed in the hospital. So far she’d come up with nothing.

Striker wasn’t surprised.

He hung up knowing nothing more than when he’d taken the call. Whoever was trying to kill Randi was either very smart or damn lucky.

So far.

Cars, vans and trucks, their windows fogged, sped through the old, narrow streets of this part of the city. Striker glared at the doorway of the hotel, drank coffee and scowled as he considered the other men in Randi McCafferty’s life, at least one of whom had bedded her and fathered her son.

Paterno. Clanton. Donahue. Bastards every one of them.

But he was narrowing the field. He’d done some double-checking on the men who had been involved with Randi. It was unlikely that Joe Paterno had fathered the kid. The timing was all wrong. Kurt had looked into Paterno’s travel schedule and records. Paterno had been in Afghanistan around the time the baby had been conceived. There had been rumors that he’d been back in town for a weekend, but Kurt had nearly ruled out the possibility by making a few phone calls to Paterno’s chatty landlady. Unless Paterno hadn’t shown his face at his apartment and holed up for a secret weekend alone with Randi, he hadn’t fathered the kid. Since Randi had been out of town most of the month, it seemed Joe was in the clear.

Leaving Brodie Clanton, the snake of a lawyer, and Sam Donahue, a rough-around-the-edges cowboy; a man whose shady reputation was as black as his hat. Again jealousy cut through him. Clanton was so damn slick, a rich lawyer and a ladies’ man. It galled Striker to think of Randi sleeping with a guy who could barely start a sentence without mentioning that his grandfather had been a judge.

A-number-one jerk if ever there had been one, Clanton had avoided walking down the aisle so far, the confirmed-bachelor type who was often seen squiring around pseudocelebrities when they blew into town. He was into the stock market, expensive cars and young women, the kind of things a man could trade in easily. Clanton had been in town around the time Joshua had been conceived, but, with a little digging into credit card receipts, Striker had determined that Randi, at that time, had been in and out of Seattle herself. She’d never traveled as far as Afghanistan or, presumably, into Paterno’s arms, but she’d been chasing a story with the rodeo circuit, where Sam Donahue was known for breaking broncs and women’s hearts.

If Striker had been a betting man, he would have fingered Donahue as the baby’s daddy. Twice married, Donahue had cheated on both his wives, leaving number one for a younger woman who’d grown up in Grand Hope, Montana, Randi’s hometown. And now he just coincidentally had shown up here. A day before Randi.

Striker’s jaw tightened so hard it hurt.

DNA would be the only true answer, of course, unless he forced the truth from Randi’s lips. Gorgeous lips. Even when she was angry. Her mouth would twist into a furious pout that Striker found incredibly sexy. Which was just plain nuts. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let his mind wander down that seductively dark path. No matter how attractive Randi McCafferty was, he was being paid to protect her, not seduce her. He couldn’t let it happen again.

He felt a bit of hardening beneath his fly and swore under his breath. He shouldn’t get an erection just thinking of the woman…Hell, this was no time. None whatsoever for ridiculous fantasies. He had a job to do. And he’d better do it quickly before there was another unexplained “accident,” before someone else got hurt. Or before the would-be murderer got lucky and this time someone was killed.

Six

She pushed open the revolving glass doors and found him just where she’d expected him, on a rain-washed Seattle street, looking damnably rough-and-tumble and sexy as ever. Obviously waiting for her. Great. Just what she didn’t need, an invitation to trouble in disreputable jeans and a beat-up jacket.

Yep. Kurt Striker in all his damn-convention attitude was waiting.

Her stupid pulse quickened at the sight of him, but she quickly tamped down any emotional reaction she felt for the man. Yes, he was way too attractive in his tight jeans, leather jacket and rough-hewn features. His face was red with the cold, his hair windblown and damp as he leaned a hip against the bricks of a small shop, his eyes trained on the main door of the building. He was holding a paper cup of coffee, which he tossed into a nearby trash can when he spotted her.

Why did she have a thing for dangerous, sensual types? What was wrong with her? Never once in her life had she been attracted to the boy next door, nor to the affable, respectable, dedicated man who worked nine to five, nor the warm, cuddly football-watching couch potato who would love her to the end of time and never once forget an anniversary. The very men she lauded in her column. The men she advised women to give second glances. The salt-of-the-earth, give-you-the-shirt-off-his-back kind of guy who washed his car and the dog on Saturdays, the guy who wore the same flannel shirt that he’d had since college—the regular Joe of the world. One of the good guys.

Maybe, she thought, crossing the street, that was why she could give out advice to the women and men who were forever falling for the wrong kind. Because she was one of them and, she realized, skirting a puddle as she jaywalked to the parking lot where Striker was posed, she knew the pitfalls of hot-wired attraction. She bore the burn marks and scars to prove it.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, clicking her Jeep’s keyless remote. “You just don’t seem to get it, do you? I don’t want you here.”

“We’ve been through this.”

“And I have a feeling we’ll go through it a dozen more times before you get the message.” She opened the car door, but he was quick, slamming it shut with the flat of his hand.

“Why don’t you and I start over,” he suggested, forcing a smile, his arm effectively cutting off her ability to climb into the Jeep. “I’ll take you to dinner—there’s a nice little Irish pub around the corner—and you can fill me in on your life before you got to Montana.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Like hell.” His smile slid away. “It’s time you leveled with me. I’m sick to the back teeth of the clamped-lip routine. I need to find out who’s been trying to hurt you and your brothers. If you weren’t so damn arrogant to think this is just about you, that I’m only digging into all this to bother you, then you’d realize that you’re the key to all the trouble that’s been happening at the Flying M. It’s not just your problem, lady. If you remember, Thorne’s plane went down—”

“That was because of bad weather. It was an accident.”

“And he was flying in that storm to get back to Montana because of you and the baby, wasn’t he? And what about the fire in the stable? God, woman, Slade nearly lost his life. The fire was ruled arson and it’s a little too convenient for me to believe that it was coincidence, okay?”

“Drop it, Striker,” she warned, whirling on him.

“No way.”

“Why do you think I left the ranch?” she demanded.

“I think you left because of me.”

That stopped her short. Standing in the dripping rain with his gaze centered directly on hers, she nearly lost it. “Because of you?”

“And last night.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“The timing is right.”

Dear Lord. Her stomach twisted. “Let’s get something straight, shall we? I left Montana so that the ‘accidents’ at the Flying M would stop and my brothers and their families would be safe. Whoever is behind this is after me.”

“So you think you’re what? Drawing the fire away from your family?”

“Yes.”

“What about you? Your kid?”

“I can take care of myself. And my baby.”

“Well, you’ve done a pretty piss-poor job of it so far,” he said, his skin ruddy with the cold, his eyes flashing angrily.

“And you think that confiding in you would help? I don’t even know anything about you other than Slade seems to think you’re okay.”

“You know a helluva lot more than that,” he said, and she swallowed against the urge to slap him.

“If you’re talking about last night…”

“Then what? Go on.”

“I can’t. Not here. And…and besides, that’s not the kind of knowing I was talking about. So don’t try to bait me, okay?”

His jaw slid to one side and his eyes narrowed. “Fair enough and you’re right. You don’t know me, but maybe it’s time. Let’s go. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” His grin was about as warm as the Yukon in winter. “I’ll buy dinner.”

Before she could argue, he grabbed the crook of her arm and propelled her around the corner, down two blocks and toward a staircase that led down a flight to a subterranean bar and restaurant. He helped her to a booth in the back before she finally yanked her arm away. “Where’d you learn your manners? At the Cro-Magnon School of Etiquette?”

“Graduated cum laude.” One eyebrow cocked disarmingly.

She chuckled and bit back another hot retort. Goading him was getting her nowhere fast. But at least he had a sense of humor and could laugh at himself. Besides which, she was starved. Her stomach started making all sorts of vile noises at the smells emanating from the kitchen.

Kurt ordered an ale, and she, deciding a drink wouldn’t hurt, did the same. “Okay, okay, so you’ve made your point,” she said when he leaned back in the booth and stared at her. “You take your job seriously. You’re not going away. Whatever my brothers are paying you is worth putting up with me and my bad attitude, right?”

He let it slide as the waitress, a reed-thin woman with curly red hair tied into a single plait, reappeared with two frosty glasses, twin dinner menus and a bowl of peanuts. She slid all onto the table, then ambled toward a table where a patron was wagging his finger frantically to get her attention.

The place was dim and decorated with leatherlike cushions, mahogany wood aged to near black, a scarred wooden floor and a ceiling of tooled-metal tiles. It smelled of beer and ale, with the hint of cigar smoke barely noticeable over the tang of food grilling behind the counter. Two men were playing darts in a corner and the click of billiard balls emanated from an archway leading to other rooms. Conversation was light, patrons at the long, battered bar tuned in to a muted Sonics basketball game.

“I’m going to check on the baby.” She reached into her bag, retrieved her cell phone and punched out Sharon Okano’s number.

Sharon picked up on the second ring and was quick to reassure her that Joshua was fine. He’d already eaten, been bathed and was in his footed jammies, currently fas cinated by a mobile Sharon had erected over his playpen.

“I’ll be by to see him as soon as I can,” Randi said.

“He’ll be fine.”

“I know. I just can’t wait to hold him a minute.” Randi clicked off and tried to quell the dull ache that seemed forever with her when she was apart from her child. It was weird, really. Before Joshua’s birth she had been free and easy, didn’t have a clue what a dramatic change was in store for her. But from the moment she’d awoken from her coma and learned she’d borne a son, she could barely stand to be away from him, even for a few hours.

As for being with him and holding him, the next few weeks promised to be torture on that score. Until she was certain he was safe with her. She slid the phone into her purse and turned to Kurt, who was studying her intently over the rim of his mug. Great. Dealing with him wasn’t going to be easy, either. Even if she didn’t factor in that she’d made love to him like a wanton in the wee hours of this very morning.

They ordered. Two baskets of fish and chips complete with sides of coleslaw and a second beer, even though they weren’t quite finished with the first, were dropped in front of them.

“Why are you keeping your kid’s paternity a secret?” Kurt finally asked. “What does it matter?”

“I prefer he didn’t know.”

“Why not? Seems as if he has a right.”

“Being a sperm donor isn’t the same as being a father.” Her stomach was screaming for food but the conversation was about to kill her appetite.

“Maybe he should be the judge of that.”

“Maybe you should keep your nose in your own business.” She took a long swallow from her drink and the guys at the bar gave up a shout as one of the players hit a three pointer.

“Your brothers made it my business.”

“My brothers can’t run my life. Much as they’d like to.”

“I think you’re afraid,” he accused, and she felt the tightening of the muscles of her neck, the urge to defend herself.

“Of what?” she asked, but he didn’t answer as the waitress appeared and slid their baskets onto the plank table, then offered up bottles of vinegar and ketchup. Only when they were alone again did Randi repeat herself. “You think I’m afraid of what?”

“Why don’t you tell me. It’s just odd, you know, for a woman not to tell the father of her child that he’s a daddy. Goes against the grain. Usually the mother wants financial support. Emotional support. That kind of thing.”

“I’m not usual,” she said, and thought he whispered “Amen” under his breath, though she couldn’t be certain as he covered up his comment with a long swallow of ale. She noticed the movement of his throat—dark with a bit of beard shadow as he swallowed—and something deep inside her, something dusky and wholly feminine, reacted. She drew her eyes away and told herself she was being a fool. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man, over a year now, but that didn’t give her the right to ogle men like Kurt Striker nor imagine what it would feel like for him to touch her again, to kiss her, to press hot, insistent lips against the curve of her neck and push her sweater off her shoulder…

She caught herself and realized that he was watching her face, looking for her reaction. As if he could read her mind. To her horror she felt herself blush.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

She shook her head, pretended interest in her meal by shaking vinegar over her fries. “Wouldn’t sell ’em for a penny, or a nickel, or a thousand dollars.”

“So tell me about the book,” he suggested.

“The book?”

“The one you’re writing. Another one of your secrets.”

How could one man be so irritating? She ate in silence for a second and glowered across the table at him. “It’s not a secret. I just didn’t want to tell anyone about it until it was finished.”

“You were on your way to the Flying M to finish it when you were forced off the road at Glacier National Park, right?” He dredged a piece of fish in tartar sauce.

She nodded.

“Think that’s just a coincidence?”

“No one knew I was going to Montana to write a book. Even the people at work thought I was just taking my maternity leave—which I was. I was planning to combine the two.”

“Juanita at the ranch knew about it.” He’d polished off one crispy lump of halibut and was working on a second.

“Of course she did. I already explained, it really wasn’t a secret.”

“If you say so.” He ate in silence for a minute, but she didn’t feel any respite, knew he was forming his next question, and sure enough, it came, hard and fast. “Tell me, Randi,” he said, “who do you think wants to kill you?”

“I’ve been through this dozens of times with the police.”

“Humor me.” He was nearly finished with his food and she’d barely started. But her appetite had crumpled into nothing. She picked at her coleslaw. “Who are your worst enemies? You know, anyone who has a cause—just or not—for wanting you dead.”