Father and Child Reunion

Between the grief she so bravely held in check and her obvious hunger for anything she could learn about her mother’s murderer, she looked desperately in need of a pair of arms. Realizing that he was actually thinking about easing her into his, he shoved his hands into his pockets. Even if he could get past what she’d done to him, his touch could well be unwelcome.

“Are we on the record, or off?”

“None of what you say to me is going anywhere right now. I already told you that.”

“But this doesn’t have anything to do with your story.”

“This isn’t about the story. It’s about why your brother has cut you out of the loop.”

His words seemed to magnify the distress in her eyes. She already looked far too vulnerable. Far too alone.

Balling his hands into fists, Rio took a mental step back, regrouping, reassessing. Any investigative reporter worth his byline knew how important it was to remain objective. And he had been so sure his objectivity was in place where Eve was concerned. Obviously, he’d overestimated himself. With anyone else under such circumstances, he would never have barged in with the steamroller routine. But with her, all he’d wanted to do was get in, get the information he wanted, and get out. All the way across town, he’d reminded himself that whatever it was they’d once shared had ceased to matter the day she’d run off without so much as a goodbye, good luck or go to hell. The visit today was strictly business.

He reminded himself of that again, wanting to believe it this time, and watched her cross her arms. The bright slash of red scarf tangled from elbow to wrist.

“Eve,” he said, his tone quiet. “Why isn’t he talking to you?”

He spoke her name the same way she remembered his saying it when he knew something was on her mind. As if he was prepared to patiently drag it out of her if he had to.

He’d never had to try very hard.

“He’s upset because Mom named me the executor of her estate instead of him. We haven’t agreed on much of anything since we found her will.” She paused, just short of adding that she thought Hal’s feelings were hurt.

“So he’s punishing you by not giving you information?”

It sounded so juvenile when he put it that way.

“Grief affects people in many different ways,” she said defensively, thinking that someone who covered the trials and traumas of life for a living should certainly know that. Her older brother’s pain was as deep as her own. “But it’s not like Mom cut Hal out of the will. All she did was change her executor.”

“When did she do this?”

“Just a few months ago. Her attorney said he was talking to her about some other matters and she brought it up, almost as an afterthought.”

“She never hinted she was thinking about it?”

“She never said a word to me. I keep thinking that she planned to mention it and just didn’t get the chance. There was always so much going on with her, and with Hal’s wedding and everything, it just wasn’t a priority.”

She pushed her hand through her hair, the motion as unsteady as she looked. “She left so much undone, Rio. Every time I turn around, I find some other project she was in the middle of. If it’s not something for the Children’s Center, it’s the women’s shelter. And I’m trying to tie up all those loose ends by guessing how she would have wanted things handled. In the meantime, I’m on the fringes as far as the investigation is concerned. It’s hard not knowing anything.”

It shouldn’t have been so easy to admit all that to him. Nor should it have seemed so natural to stand there letting him see the frustrations she was so careful to shield from everyone else. But then, no one else had ever known her like he had. Even when she hadn’t felt like talking, he’d always been able to draw her out. And he’d always listened.

The knowledge was not only seductive, it was dangerous. And she had to be seriously addled to be going on as she was with Molly en route even as they spoke. Her little girl would be barreling up the steps in a matter of minutes.

“You know, Eve, it’s possible that you know more than you realize.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Are you willing to talk to me to find out?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll do whatever I can to find out who did this to Mom. And I’ll answer your questions.” Praying the bus wouldn’t be early, she glanced nervously toward the door. “I just can’t do it now.”

“Are you expecting someone?”

The man was observant to a fault.

She told him she was and started across the room. “This isn’t a good time to talk.”

“Then, I’ll come by later. Just give me a time.”

“No! No,” she repeated, more quietly. “I’ll meet you tomorrow. In the morning. Is that okay?”

More curious about her reaction than about whoever she was expecting, he lifted his shoulder in a deceptively casual shrug. “Sure. When?”

“Is nine all right?”

She was already at the door. Rio was right behind her, wondering what had put the sudden tension in her slender shoulders. She was definitely more agitated than she’d been a moment ago, and far more evasive. He’d already noticed how she tended to avoid his eyes. But he wanted to think that was only because she was feeling a little guilty about the way she’d dumped him. Anxious as she was to get rid of him now, however, he couldn’t help thinking she was hiding something.

Whatever it was, he told himself, unless it had to do with Olivia Stuart’s murder, he didn’t care about it.

She opened the door, standing back so he could pass. He didn’t move, though. The doorway was blocked.

“You have company,” he quietly said, and watched with interest as the color drained from her face in the instant before she whirled around.

“You’d think the incompetents at the Herald would hire people with a decent aim, wouldn’t you?” A large woman with a headful of silver waves, silver-rimmed glasses and wearing a peacock blue pantsuit, held out a newspaper. “Yours was in the arborvitae. I found ours in my rosebushes. Yesterday, he missed the fountain by an inch.”

“Millicent,” Eve murmured, her hand leaving her throat to open the screen and reach for the paper the sprinkler had soaked. “Come in.”

“I can’t, dear.” She cast a pleasant smile toward the darkly attractive man by Eve’s shoulder, but just as she opened her mouth to continue, she recognized the reporter who’d interviewed most of the neighbors following Olivia’s death. “Well, Mr. Redtree. I didn’t realize you were here. How nice to see you again.”

A surprisingly easy smile deepened the masculine creases in Rio’s cheeks. “Mrs. Atwell,” he replied, acknowledging her with a nod.

The light in his eyes had color creeping up Millicent’s neck. “Oh, my. What I said about the paper, that doesn’t reflect on you, of course. About the incompetents, I mean. I was talking about the kids who deliver the paper. But you must know that.” Jeweled rings glittering, she waved the matter off, her curiosity overruling embarrassment. “Did I interrupt an interview?”

“I was just leaving.”

“Well, I still won’t keep you.” She turned to Eve. “I’m on my way to a hair appointment and I’m already late. I just wanted to let you know that the cleaning service I use can do the house for you if you’d like. I know your mother wasn’t very happy with the one she’d been using, so you might have better luck with this new company. Should I have someone come over to give you an estimate?”

Looking rushed, yet trying not to, Eve cast a cautious glance toward Rio. He seemed in no rush at all.

“That’s awfully nice of you,” Eve told the woman, wishing Millicent had waited thirty seconds more to show up. That was all the time she and Rio needed to settle where they’d meet and he could leave. “But I’m going to take care of the house myself. If you know of anyone who does exterior windows, though, I’d appreciate their name.”

It was apparent from the slow arch of Millicent’s carefully plucked eyebrows that she regarded Eve’s decision to clean the house herself as somewhat extraordinary. In their social circle, it probably was. But Eve didn’t offer an explanation about why she couldn’t leave the task to strangers. Nor did she mention that she’d done her own cleaning for years. She simply waited for Millicent to tell her she would be happy to give her the name of a man she could call while the knots in her stomach cloned themselves.

“I really must go,” the woman finally said, casting one more glance at the man watching Eve. “I don’t want to lose my appointment.”

Eve didn’t want her to, either. As good a neighbor as Millicent had always been to her family and as kind as she’d been to her and Molly lately, Eve just wanted her to leave. So she thanked her again, then watched the sides of her blue silk jacket flutter behind her as she hurried down the steps.

Rio paid little attention to her departing neighbor. Trying to do the same with Eve, he pulled his keys from his pocket, then skimmed a glance over the delicate contours of her face. She looked tired. And edgy. He could appreciate the latter. Standing close enough to breathe the decidedly provocative perfume she wore had tightened every single muscle in his body.

“Nine’s fine,” he told her, taking up where they’d been interrupted. “Where?”

Eve didn’t miss a beat. “The miner’s memorial in Vanderbilt Park?”

He gave her nod as tight as the muscle in his jaw and trotted down the steps, his long, powerful strides carrying him to the black Durango at the curb. He didn’t care where they met so long as he got what he was after. If he was anything like he used to be, all he cared about was reaching his goal.

Eve was trembling when she stepped out onto the porch behind him and watched him pull away. The relief she felt that the bus hadn’t yet arrived was enormous. But she didn’t feel any sense of reprieve. As she lifted her face to the warm breeze and tried to calm her mind, she felt only a growing sense of apprehension—and a vague sense of loss that made no sense at all, considering how long it had been since she’d seen him. But then, her relationship with Rio Redtree hadn’t been based on common sense, anyway.

She had no trouble at all recalling the very first time she’d laid eyes on him, and she still couldn’t help but think that he never should have noticed her at all. She’d been a lowly freshman with a nose for art books and an outstanding ability to blend in with the scenery. Ever since she’d skipped fifth grade, she’d been the youngest kid in her class, and the smallest. That first day at Grand Springs University, among all the older college students, she’d felt totally out of place. But whether or not a heart-stoppingly handsome, slightly dangerous-looking upperclassman with a long black ponytail should have noticed her, Rio had singled her out of a hundred Spanish class students and sat down behind her. She could still remember the hair on her neck standing straight up when he’d leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

His voice had mesmerized her as surely as his words. Low, husky and as soothing as the sound of wind deep in a forest, his voice had seemed to flow over her, through her. He’d told her to not look so scared, that the first week was always the hardest. She would be fine.

She’d turned around and met his beautiful black eyes. He hadn’t smiled at her. He’d merely given her a nod to affirm what he’d said and slid back in his chair. Rio had somehow known exactly what she’d needed to hear that day. He’d seemed to possess some indefinable sixth sense for knowing when someone was feeling lost, or when they were vulnerable, or when they needed help. But she’d soon discovered a reticence about him that held him back from those very situations. It was as if he didn’t want to get involved at all. Yet, when no else did what needed to be done, he always stepped in.

That he’d so selflessly put her at ease was what had drawn her to him from that very first day. In a matter of weeks, she’d been drawn by other things as well. His patience. His insights. His persistence. He could always get her to open up, even when she didn’t think she wanted to. Once she started talking, he listened as if every word she said actually mattered to him.

As isolated as she’d felt at that time, having someone she could share her thoughts and feelings with had meant the world to her. The kids her own age had still been in high school, and because she had looked as young as she was and still lived at home, she never meshed with the college crowd. She hadn’t fit in much of anywhere that year. When she told Rio that, he told her he didn’t fit anywhere, either.

She never understood why he felt that way. When she asked him, he changed the subject and never answered. What he would talk about, though, was what was going on around them, because he was curious about everything, and about his dreams, his plans. By the end of that term, not a school day passed that they weren’t together. He had become her friend, her confidant. He’d even been the first person she’d wanted to tell when one of her drawings had placed in a school competition. She remembered running all the way across campus in the pouring rain, and when she’d flung herself into his arms, laughing, his eyes had gone from smiling to smoldering in the time it took him to lower her to the ground. He’d kissed her then. That first time. And after he’d done it again, he asked her if she had any idea what she did to him and what would happen if they didn’t stop.

She’d already been in love with him. Madly. And she still remembered exactly what she’d said. She told him she thought she did, but since she wasn’t positive, he’d have to teach her.

So he had. But not until she discovered she was pregnant did she realize that, at seventeen, she wasn’t ready for a commitment he wouldn’t want, anyway. By then, she’d learned that his plans didn’t include children. Ever. But not until she tried to contact him after Molly was born did she realize how much she didn’t know about him.

A bright white bus turned the corner, its windows reflecting patterns of sunlight and trees on its way to where she stood on the sidewalk. As it stopped in front of her to open its doors with a whoosh of air, she didn’t know which unnerved her more. The fact that she had known so little about Rio when she’d left six years ago. Or that she knew so much less about him now.

Chapter Two

Vanderbilt Park was a rectangular oasis of evergreens and rustling aspens, meandering paths and flowering gardens. The hospital complex fronted it on one side. Businesses, the courthouse and a chain of parked cars lined the rest of it.

Rio wedged his SUV between a city waterworks barricade and a landscaper’s pickup truck, did a slam dunk with the last of his coffee, then pitched the plastic cup through his window into a green City of Grand Springs trash barrel. Seconds later, with the bang of a door that had birds scattering, he was on his way to the miners memorial. It was five minutes to nine, and probably the first time in a month that he’d been on time for anything.

He could see the huge bronze of a battered miner leading a mule well before he reached it. The bench near it was empty. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he glanced past the small mountain of fir branches and uprooted trees one of the local organizations had collected during the ongoing storm cleanup, and checked out the path leading in the opposite direction.

It took him all of ten seconds to decide nothing of interest was taking place among the teenagers near the fountain, or the young mothers watching their children in the play area. He wasn’t looking for diversion, anyway. He wasn’t even looking for a story. Between his regular police and fire beats, a staff meeting and follow-ups on yesterday’s stories, he had plenty to keep himself out of trouble today. Any spare time he could scrape up, he’d spend on the cabin he was building near Two Falls Lake. He just wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed Eve. She was the final name on his list of people known to have been in contact with Olivia Stuart that last day. If he couldn’t get a lead out of her, he had no idea where to go.

Stifling his frustration on that score, he scowled at his watch. After the hurry Eve had been in to get rid of him yesterday, he had to wonder if she’d show up at all. Just because she’d seemed willing to talk didn’t mean anything. He’d misjudged her before. He’d once believed she was different from the other people he’d let himself care about. He’d believed that he could trust her, count on her. But he’d never been more wrong.

He hadn’t been wrong about her reaction when she’d opened the door to him yesterday, though. There hadn’t been a hint of welcome in her expression. Not that he’d expected it. He’d seen caution. He’d sensed wariness. He’d even caught a fairly satisfying jolt of anxiety. What he would liked to have seen was regret.

One must never wish for another, what he would not wish twofold for himself.

Unexpected, unwanted, the elders’ ancient teaching reared from the depths of his memory. Rio gave a snort, dismissing it, then closed his eyes against the automatic rebellion. He’d abandoned so many of the old teachings over the years that tossing out one more shouldn’t matter.

The thought had scarcely nudged his conscience when his head came up. Eve was there. He knew it even before he saw her walking toward him. Though the reminder wasn’t particularly welcome, he’d always had an odd, almost feral awareness where she was concerned.

The gentle morning breeze lifted her hair away from her face, the bright sunlight turning pale gold to platinum. Small gold earrings flashed with the turn of her head. Another discreet flash caught her watch when she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. The motion drew the short, sleeveless shift she wore higher, drawing attention to her slender legs, until she lowered her hand and his glance moved upward once again. The crisp white fabric that skimmed her hips and small breasts didn’t define her shape. Rather, it gave subtle, intriguing hints of the enticing, feminine curves hidden beneath.

Sweetness and seduction, he thought, pushing his hands into his pockets as he watched her move closer. Innocence and sophistication. The combination was as appealing as it was dangerous.

She stopped an arm’s length away. Eyes the clear, hypnotic blue of a summer sky met his.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “I need to apologize. I’m sorry I was such a basket case yesterday. You caught me at a bad time.”

He’d been well aware of that. He’d also spent half the night trying to forget everything else he’d noticed about her after he’d made it past the wariness and anxiety. The sadness in her eyes. Her bewilderment. The brave little smile that had caught him like a punch in the gut.

The way she’d practically pushed him out the door.

“Don’t worry about it.”

There was a hint of nerves behind the expression, but she smiled now at the reassurance. “So,” she began, sounding as if she were determined to get things off to a better start this time. “When did you go to work for the Herald?”

“Checking my credentials?”

Her slender shoulder lifted in a tight little shrug. “Curious. I thought you would have moved to a bigger city. You always talked about working for a big paper.”

“Still plan to.” Determined to be objective, he motioned toward the gray concrete bench and pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

She wasn’t interested in him or his plans. He was sure of that. She was just trying to be civil by making conversation. All he wanted was to get this over with.

She got the hint. Her smile dying, she pulled her glance from his.

“You can record it if you want,” she told him, leaving three feet of space between them when she sat down. “But I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police. And that wasn’t very much. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

He knew that. He’d read her statements.

He punched a button on the small silver recorder he’d set between them and angled himself to face her. He would remain objective if it killed him. “Some of this might be hard for you,” he told her, refusing to deny her the understanding he would give anyone else under the circumstances. “We can stop anytime. Okay?”

That seemed to make her relax a little. “Okay.”

“Just tell me when you last saw your mother.”

The wind had blown a bit of twig onto the bench. He watched her pick it up, her attention following the motions of her fingers as she drew a deep breath, then quietly told him that the last time she’d seen her had been about an hour before her brother’s wedding had been scheduled to start.

“We’d gone ahead to Squaw Creek,” she explained, speaking of the ski lodge where her brother’s wedding was to have been held. “I hadn’t seen Hal yet and I wanted to wish him well before the ceremony. But Mom couldn’t find one of the earrings she wanted to wear. She told us to go on and that she’d be right behind us.”

“Who’s us?” Rio watched Eve’s hands, wondering if she had any idea how they gave her away. Though she appeared outwardly calm, when she was nervous or upset she couldn’t keep her hands still. Yesterday, it had been the scarf she’d pulled, twisted and strangled. Now it was the twig. The motions were small, barely noticeable, but she was methodically annihilating the bit of broken branch. “You and your daughter?”

He saw those lovely hands go still.

“Several people mentioned her being with you,” he explained, since she seemed surprised by his knowledge of the child. Darling girl, one of them had said. So exotic, claimed another. And tiny, like her mother. Poor thing was scared to death when the lights went out. “Is that who you mean?”

Eve cleared her throat. “Yes, it is.”

“What’s her name?”

“Molly. But she doesn’t know anything that would be of help,” she added hurriedly. “She was with me the whole time.”

“How old is she?”

The question was automatic. Person at scene. Get name, age, occupation. The presence of Eve’s daughter had just been one of those extraneous details he’d picked up during his interviews, along with dozens of others. Like the fact that the woman in charge of catering at the lodge was the minister’s cousin. And that Eve didn’t have a husband.

Not caring to consider why that latter detail should matter to him, he dismissed it. What he couldn’t dismiss was how Eve pushed past the subject.

“She’s too young to be interviewed,” she replied, sounding as if she figured that was what he was after. “Really, Rio, she won’t be any help at all. What else did you want to know about that night?”

He might have thought she was just being protective. Mothers of small children tended to be that way, after all. But there was something about the way Eve’s glance faltered before she started in again on the twig that seemed vaguely familiar. She almost seemed as uneasy now as she had yesterday when she’d been in such a rush to get rid of him.

Or maybe, he considered, she was just in a rush to get this over with. That being the case, he reiterated that she’d last seen Olivia at home, then asked when Eve had realized something had happened to her.

Not until she’d returned to the house, she told him, still seeming tense. Since it had been storming so badly and the streets were such a mess, it had taken them a while to get back to the house. The ambulance had been pulling out as they arrived. Confirming what he’d already learned from 911 dispatch, she told him Josie Reynolds had called it.

There didn’t seem to be much she remembered after that. In the quiet tones of someone who has told the story before and learned to numb herself to the memories, she went on to explain that Millicent had taken Molly home with her. Eve had then gotten back in her car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. The rest of that night was apparently a blur. She had no answer for any other questions he asked about the evening. Though she tried, she couldn’t recall seeing anyone acting suspicious. Nor did she remember anyone who’d seemed out of place. Once her daughter had been taken care of, her sole focus had been her mother.