Mother by Fate

There was no doubt in his mind that his deception was going to anger Ms. Havens. But surely if she cared half as much about her job as she’d seemed to, she’d agree to help him. What reasonable person wouldn’t?

He was equally confident that he’d never get another personal invite from her again as long as he lived. And couldn’t be distracted by the regret that tried to surface yet again.

Confidence didn’t stop Michael from having a backup plan. He waited long enough for Sara to say the good-nights she’d told him she had to say and then called her back. He watched for her as he did so, on the street outside the thrift shop. Would she be walking or in a vehicle?

“It hasn’t been half an hour yet,” she answered on the first ring.

“I know. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not home, either, so if I’m a minute or two late, don’t think I’m standing you up.” Translation—“I want to know when you’re at your car so I can try to figure out where you’re coming from.”

“I don’t take you for a man who’d call and then not show. I’d have waited.” There was a chuckle in her tone that got to him. He shifted in his seat, pretending not to notice.

“It’s late,” he said. “I didn’t want you out in the dark alone, putting yourself at risk on my count.” Probably a stupid statement based on her understanding of what was transpiring. But not stupid at all. An armed and dangerous woman was on the loose. Because he’d spooked her.

And she knew Sara.

“No need to worry, Michael. I’m used to taking care of myself.”

But how often did she deal with women who’d kill to get their way?

She’d called him Michael. Only Shelley had ever done that. And then she’d stopped. He’d become Mike. Just like he was to everyone else he’d ever known. Mike. Just Mike. Simply Mike...

He’d told Sara his name was Michael.

“So have you left work yet?” He was doing a job. And had to do it to the best of his ability. And when he saw no one in his rearview mirror, he turned in his seat, doing a visual three-sixty.

“Not yet. I’m just getting to my car.”

There were a few cars parked on the street. Vacant cars. Most of the businesses were shut down. An occasional cop drove by. A convenience store on the next block hogged what little traffic there was.

She wasn’t on his street. He didn’t hear any cars starting.

And then he did.

Michael started his SUV. Drove to the corner, keeping an eye in his rearview mirror, as well. He could cover, at most, four streets. Thinking that his range wasn’t going to be good enough, Michael saw a car turn the corner onto a main street one block to his left.

The streetlight showed him a glimpse of light hair that wasn’t blond. The color of honey. Bingo.

Waiting long enough to not become conspicuous on the mostly deserted road, Michael told her he’d see her soon and slowly pulled out. He didn’t follow her, though. He didn’t have to. He knew where she lived.

What he needed to know was where she’d come from.

CHAPTER FIVE

HER CONDO WAS in a gated community. They had twenty-four-hour security. And Sara swam at night regularly enough to be comfortable walking off from her balcony over the small piece of manicured grass to the shrubbery that lined the enclosed pool area. One of the reasons she’d chosen the condo over a single-family home was because it had been poolside.

The comforts of home without the responsibility and maintenance.

She wasn’t disappointed—or surprised—to find that she’d beaten Michael to the pool. He hadn’t said whether he’d intended to swim. But she was in the black one-piece suit she wore at night when she didn’t have to worry about tan lines.

And wondering if he’d been out on a date. Or to dinner with friends. She shook her head. Absolutely none of her business.

Tonight was about taking care of her so that she’d be ready and able to take care of others in the morning. To take care of Nicole. Pray to God she got that chance.

She couldn’t think about Nicole right now. She was off work. Had to have downtime if she was going to be any good to those who relied so heavily upon her.

She knew the drill. Just as she knew it was going to take something pretty substantial to keep her mind off the hunted woman. The new mother whose husband had ripped her child away from her.

Yes, she saw the connection. Knew that she was, in a small way, relating to Nicole heart-to-heart.

Which was another reason she’d come home. Draping her thin black cover-up and towel over a chair near the hot tub, Sara turned on the jets and slowly stepped down into the small steaming pool. The water stung her skin as the heat sent delicious chills over her body.

She was separating herself from the job. From the victims. She wasn’t one of them. Their journeys were not hers. Hers was to be present to help them whenever she could and then to come home and live a full and rewarding life of her own.

Theoretically.

Lila didn’t. Neither did Lynn, for that matter. The nurse practitioner lived right at the Stand with her husband and four-year-old daughter and infant son. And her husband’s mentally disabled brother who was married to Maddie.

Maddie had had a baby the previous January. And Lynn’s son had been born in April.

She worked as many hours as Sara did.

But she had a full and rewarding life...

The gate clicked.

Sara ducked down, sliding her butt onto a cement seat so that she was covered by water up to her neck.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her nearly naked before. The black tank she had on was far less revealing than the bikini she’d worn that afternoon.

Still, it was night. Late. And she was worried about Nicole. Needing to forget for a little while...

* * *

GETTING PAST THE security at Sara’s condo complex hadn’t been as hard as Michael would have liked. He’d simply waited around the corner for someone to turn in and then followed right behind them through the electronically operated gate. Sure, he was on a surveillance camera, but what reason would anyone have for searching the tape?

He was there for a good cause. Hopefully, after he was done here, Sara would vouch for him.

Nodding at a security guard riding quietly through the complex on a golf cart, he stepped inside the pool area. The suit he’d just changed into in the front seat of his vehicle was a little musty smelling, probably from being sweated in and then locked up in a hot SUV all afternoon. He’d forgotten to provide himself with the luxury of a towel when he’d grabbed the suit out of the laundry that morning.

He heard the rumble of the hot-tub jets before he saw her. Pulling off the short-sleeved shirt he’d worn to scramble under bushes that evening, he dropped it to a chair and sauntered up to the tub, lowering himself to the first step.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” She gave him a glance, almost shyly, like a woman who was entertaining the idea of getting to know a man better. And then smiled.

Did that mean if he wanted to take this to a more personal level, she was interested?

He was tempted. More than he’d been in a very, very long time.

Stepping into the water, Michael cursed his timing. Why now, when he was on a critical hunt, would he suddenly start feeling a hint of potential life again after Shelley?

Steam rose between them and the sound of the water bubbling from the jets blocked out everything else.

She didn’t say anything more. Just watched him. Leaving the next move up to him.

Michael considered the seat across the small pool from her. Considered the fact that she didn’t know they were there on business. He looked at the seat right next to her. Where, beneath the cover of bubbles, he could bump into her. Skin to skin.

And just that quickly he was thrown into an inner battle. A fierce battle. Newly awakening man versus bounty hunter.

Who the ultimate winner would be was nonnegotiable. But Michael took the seat next to her. He closed his eyes. Absorbed the scent of chlorine mixed with woman. The warmth encasing him inside and out. The balmy night air on his face.

He wanted to kiss her.

He was egged on by the idea that she might let him. That his time was best served relaxing, getting some rest before dawn when, at the first ray of light, his search would begin anew. He hoped with new leads from Sara. Direction.

He was acting on the assumption that Nicole Kramer was down for the night. She would know she’d lost him. And she’d take the chance to rest.

“How was your evening?”

Her question came across to him as sounding intimate. And he remembered that she thought they were both home, enjoying a late dip in their mutually owned hot tub.

“Good,” he lied. For someone who believed so much in the truth, he seemed to have become better at fabricating than anything else.

Sara rolled her head sideways from its resting point on the edge of the tub. “What did you do?”

He met her gaze. “Worked.”

“Me, too.” Her sigh seemed to caress his skin.

They had a dangerous woman on the loose. He had to stay focused.

“Tough night?” he asked her. She’d given him the opening. He could find out things about his prey before he came totally clean. Before he had to watch the desire in her eyes turn to dislike.

No woman liked to be duped. Even for a good cause.

“Tough job,” she said. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love my work. I’m just...tired, you know?”

She aimed that look straight at him again. It hit its mark.

“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t talking about a physical fatigue?”

“Maybe because I’m not.” Her honesty disarmed him.

Hit him where only his closest friends and family had ever been.

“You want to talk about it?” He wasn’t there to care if she had troubles.

Or to do anything about them.

“I can’t.”

Filled with an uncomfortable urge to help her—this stranger who was nothing to Mari or him—he said, “Anything I can do to help get you through the night? I’d offer you a glass of wine, but I don’t have any.”

He knew why he’d asked for this meeting—but had no real idea why she’d agreed.

Except as a woman who had interest in a man. That was how things got started. You met someone. Found something attractive during the meeting. Asked her out and pursued it from there.

“I have wine, but I don’t want it badly enough to go get it.”

He couldn’t drink. He was working.

“Besides,” she said, before he could get straight to business, “I think the combination of exhaustion, hot water, wine and you would be dangerous.”

Michael found himself fighting the overpowering sense that he had to have this woman. Had to sink himself all the way to her core. To know what that felt like, meeting her at her deepest level.

But his interactions with her thus far had been nothing but lies. As soon as she found out the truth, all the invitation he saw in her eyes would be gone.

“Am I being too forward for you?”

“No! Hell no.” He sat frozen in place, while his penis bounced with the bubbles, reminding him that it was there and had gone without attention for a painfully long time.

“You’ve probably already figured out that I have no idea what I’m doing.” The woman made his situation more difficult with every word she uttered.

She was beautiful. And from what he’d seen, completely unpretentious. None of which mattered.

The fact that he was interested in her, feeling things like regret and concern mixed with the sexual attraction, was what had him off his game.

“Don’t worry. I won’t take advantage of your low moment,” he said, trying desperately to keep them on course.

Or get them there.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her gaze was knowing and clear as she looked at him. “I don’t have as much experience as you would probably expect when it comes to relationships with men.”

He’d never met anyone like her. Innocence and knowing all mixed up together. He had to stop this.

“I don’t have any preconceived notions about your experience.” Not that he’d be opposed to finding out just how experienced she might be. She’d been married after all.

But he had to expose his lies and get on with the job.

“I haven’t been on a date in over a year.”

“I find that hard, if not impossible, to believe.”

“I know, right? I just realized how long it had been this afternoon, and I don’t know if that makes me more pathetic or less.”

“So I’m your first attempt to fix your pathetic dating state based on newly realized self-knowledge?”

“No. I don’t need a man in my life. I just need...”

Sex? Something more? He needed her to finish the sentence.

He hadn’t had a date since Shelley’s murder.

Which made them two thirtysomething adults who had both been...without...for an unnaturally long time.

Making them mutually needy?

“You need a little...diversion?” His voice was low. Rough. It was man-turned-on-in-spite-of-knowing-better.

“Maybe...”

Her eyes were slumberous as she turned her head. And for a split second, he was on this date with her—not a liar manipulating her so he could get what he wanted.

He let the water move him just slightly. His lips met hers. And he felt her moan.

* * *

HIS LIPS DIDN’T just touch hers. They were getting to know her. And Sara wanted more.

She was a woman spending her life alone. By choice now.

But there had to be more to life than women who were afraid of the men they loved. More than men hurting the women who loved them.

Logically she knew there was.

But she’d been separated for so long from the part of life where men loved and honored their women.

“Mmm.” She heard herself. The sound embarrassed her. And she wanted more.

His lips were thicker than hers. Harder, and compelling in their differentness. Her nipples tingled against the tight spandex of her suit.

She needed to escape reality, to know that being with a man still felt good, and he was giving her a way.

He hadn’t touched her other than with his lips. And was turning her on, making her not care about anything but the moment, like never before.

Sara’s breath bubbled in unison with the water holding them.

“Oh, God, what have I done?” The searing, pain-filled tone reached her first. His words filtered in with the realization that rather than pulling her closer, he’d pushed away from her instead.

It was a new experience for her—having sex stop once it had begun. Not that she’d ever gone in for a one-night stand before. Or for having sex before dating for a while first. But...

The pulse in her private area wasn’t gone. Her nipples still yearned for his touch. And the wounded cry spoke straight to her heart.

“It’s okay, Michael. Whatever it is, it’s okay. Nothing happened here.”

He was sitting across the pool from her. The jets were on a timer and would be shutting down soon.

“It’s not okay.”

She should go. Take care of herself so she’d be ready to face tomorrow. But right now, all she wanted was to sit with a man she’d only known a few hours. Sit with him until he felt better.

What did she know about Michael Edison? That he ran a kennel for rescue animals. And lived in her complex. Certainly not enough to have had such a strong reaction to him.

“Do you want to talk?”

His gaze as he sought hers was raw. Intense. “No. I want to move inside you until neither one of us can form a thought, let alone talk.”

She should have been embarrassed. Maybe offended. Instead, his honesty turned her on.

“But that’s not okay,” she said, repeating his words back to him.

“No.”

By his tone of voice, the strength of it, she’d guess whatever his problem was, it was a big one.

“You said you’re no longer married.”

“I’m not.”

“Is there someone else?”

Just because he was divorced didn’t mean he didn’t have a significant other. He’d been single for three years, he’d said. Plenty enough time to develop something with someone else.

Not enough of something to be living with her, though, she surmised. Michael didn’t strike her as the type of man who’d ever step out on his woman. But then, what did she really know about him?

Other than an instantaneous reaction that was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

“No. I’m not involved with anyone.” Calmer now, he sat with arms spread out on either side of him, resting on the edge of the tub. “I wouldn’t... I haven’t had a real date since...”

“It’s been three years?”

“More or less.”

They were avoiding the issue. Sara was trained to keep the conversation on track. As curious as she was about Michael’s love life, her only business with him was to set this night straight so that it didn’t add to that which was already bound to keep her up into the wee hours of the morning.

And then she needed to get home. To plug in her lavender potpourri, drink some chamomile tea, turn on some soothing music and rest.

The jets turned off. Neither one of them stood.

“I have to talk to you.”

Ominous words. Confusing, too, coming as they were from someone she’d just met.

“So talk.” Feeling exposed in the still water, Sara longed for her towel and wrap but didn’t want to step out of the water, exposing more nakedness, while he sat so close.

Her nipples weren’t screaming anymore.

“I lied to you.”

Fine. At least he’d come clean before anything had happened between them. There was integrity in that. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

“What?” His shock had to be genuine. “Hell no, I’m not married.”

No reason at this point to be glad about that. She’d been lied to.

But she was glad he wasn’t married.

“I lied about living here. I was here this afternoon strictly to meet you.”

A rush of pleasure was followed by caution.

“Don’t worry, the security golf cart just passed again. And besides, if I was out to harm you, I’d have continued with...” He motioned toward her.

She didn’t really think she’d have let things get that far, but as strung out as she was, she might have invited him back to her place. Or thought about going to his.

Suffused with heat again, Sara nodded.

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

Sara jerked upright. “I’m not wanted for anything!”

“I know that.”

She nodded again. What was it with this guy? No one threw her off-kilter so easily.

She was worried sick about Nicole. She’d done her job. But sometimes the job just wasn’t enough. She’d never been face-to-face with the radicalness of Nicole’s situation. It was like something out of the movies.

Sara knew that the only way they were going to be able to have a breakthrough with Nicole—who’d been living her life in an invisible cage—was to give her a safe place to spread her wings. Safe being the operative word.

That safe place had been the Lemonade Stand.

But how did you help a woman like Nicole feel safe?

The desperately determined woman had needed a good night’s rest far more than Sara had.

But the truth was, Nicole wasn’t ever going to rest while Toby was in the hands of a man who’d kill another man based solely on the color of his skin. And then hold his son at a family barbecue and teach him to pray.

There was no actual proof that Trevor had actually committed murder. Not yet. The LAPD was working on that. Based on testimony Nicole had given them the day before.

Neither could the other woman save her son if she was dead. That was the key point that Sara had thought she and Nicole understood together. Nicole hadn’t been able to save her son on her own. She needed their help.

Had their help.

So why had she run?

“I’m after a runner.” As he had at the pool earlier that day, Michael paused for long moments between speaking. And then gave her short sentences.

Because he was choosing his words carefully. She understood that now.

“And you think I know him? Why not just say so?”

“I didn’t know who you were, what you did or how you might be associated.” He was meeting her gaze head-on still.

Sara dissected his words anyway. His actions were driven by a motivation known only to him. The man had a goal. And he’d admitted he’d lied to reach that goal.

“I’m guessing that since you’re back, I didn’t lead you to him.” Had to be one of their victim’s abusers. Nothing else made sense. Outside those she knew through the Lemonade Stand, and her family, Sara didn’t “associate” much.

Clearly. As evidenced by this little disaster.

“Yes and no.”

She sat up again. Protective radar on alert. “I did lead you to him?” She couldn’t fathom how, but... “Is one of my clients in danger?”

No matter, at the moment, how he knew any of her clients were her clients...

She might have made a fool of herself this day, but she absolutely had not led this man to the Lemonade Stand.

Unless he’d hung around all afternoon...followed her to work...

Climbing over the edge of the hot tub rather than wasting time on the stairs, Sara grabbed her towel and wrap, putting the latter on without drying first. “I need you to tell me who’s in danger.”

“Hold on.” One hand up, Michael stepped out of the pool as well, dripping in his wet trunks. “No one’s in immediate danger. I hope. At least not one of your clients. Not from anything I’m involved in. You can rest assured about that. If you’ll just give me a few minutes of your time, I’ll explain everything. You have my word on that.”

His look was direct, as always.

“Forgive me if your word doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight with me at the moment.” She said the words, even though she wasn’t sure they were completely true. They should be true. She wanted them to be true. Nothing else made sense.

He acknowledged her statement with a nod.

“You’re sure none of my clients are in immediate danger?” She spoke carefully now, ensuring that she didn’t give him anything that might inadvertently tell him something he’d come back to find.

“I’m sure.”

She’d hear him out, because not to do so would be stupid. She didn’t even know who they were talking about. Or what, if anything, he really knew.

And then she would call Sanchez. And Tammy. And Lila, too, just because she always kept the managing director informed. The members of the High Risk Team were there for anyone who might be in danger. This was their job. It was what they did.

“Let me see your bounty hunter’s license.”

“It’s in my car. In my wallet. In the back pocket of my jeans.”

“Go get it. And get dressed while you’re at it. I’m going to do the same and I’ll meet you back here.”

“How long do you need?”

“Five minutes.”

She wasn’t giving him any more time than it took for him to tell her who he was after. And then she wanted him gone.

Before she did something stupid like start remembering that, for a few short hours, she’d had a bit of a crush.

CHAPTER SIX

HE’D LOST HER TRUST. Her good regard. He’d lost any hope of making love with the beautiful counselor. Michael’s goal was in sight.

And he felt like shit.

Worse than shit.

He could sleep with shit.

He couldn’t sleep if he knew a desperate runner was on the loose in his hometown.

Sara was already at the pool when he made it back. She was sitting by a security light at a table looking all business in a short-sleeved white button-up shirt and dark-colored jeans. Her honey-colored hair was pulled up in some kind of bun.

If she’d hoped to make herself appear less sexy with that stern expression, no makeup and sloppy hair, she’d failed miserably.

Her smartphone lay on the table less than an inch from her fingers. She held her back straight, her shoulders stiff.