Come to Me

Sam glanced up, took in her attire and smiled. “Did you manage to get any paint on the walls?”

“Very funny.” She carefully placed her things on the floor and surveyed the office, trying to decide where to start. The walls really were awful, with dings and dents and holes where pictures had once hung. Sam’s office wasn’t only dull, it was imperfect. It was seriously flawed. This she could fix.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked when Lizzie began to move the chairs on the east side of the room away from the wall.

“I’m paying for your investigative services,” she said, not bothering to look his way.

“You’re not moving furniture,” he insisted, and she could hear his chair scrape back as he stood.

“I am,” she said.

“You are not,” he replied.

Lizzie turned to stare at the stubborn man for a long moment. “Do you expect me to paint around the furniture?”

“I’ll move the furniture,” he said, almost, but not quite, clenching his teeth.

“It’s part of the job, part of my payment for your services. Geez, Sam, I work alone more often than not, and I’ve moved my fair share of furniture. It’s not like you have an armoire or a sleeper sofa. This I can handle.”

He stepped away from the desk. “Let me…”

“Am I going to have to ban you from your own office for the duration?”

He stopped short. “What duration? You’ll finish today, right?”

Lizzie grinned. “No way. I don’t just slap paint on a wall and call it done. This is at least a three-day job. Maybe four.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Five days minimum if you don’t let me get to work.”

He didn’t like the idea, but he did finally return to his desk, sit and grudgingly allow her to do what she’d come here to do. The east side of the room didn’t have a window, which made it a good place to start. She moved the furniture away from the wall—nothing heavy, just a small table with an artificial plant sitting on it and an uncomfortable-looking chair—and laid out her drop cloth. The putty she used wasn’t horribly messy, but sometimes she got carried away. Better safe than sorry. She tried to ignore the fact that Sam was in the room, but it wasn’t easy. She was going to have to tell him that he didn’t have to stay here and watch her the whole time. She liked to work alone. Usually she set up her portable CD player and popped in some music and got lost in her work. With Sam around, she couldn’t get lost in anything!

She took down the framed photograph of Sam and her dad after a long-ago fishing trip, as well as a generic landscape. When she started to remove the nails with the grooved end of her favorite hammer, he stopped her with a chilling question.

“What are you doing?”

Hammer in hand, she turned to face him. “I’m working. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“You don’t paint with a hammer and I have nowhere else to be but right here.”

She curled her lip, slightly. “Must I explain myself step by step?”

“Apparently so.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and there was something about the stance he took that made Lizzie’s heart skip a beat. When it came to men, she wasn’t exactly a novice. She’d dated guys in the past, one or two fairly seriously. She knew quite a few boys, some as friends, some as more than friends—though she’d been without a more-than-friend for a while now. She’d had a few boyfriends, some serious and some not so. Sam was no guy and he was no boy. He was one hundred percent man, and he affected her differently than any other man or boy or guy she’d ever known. He made her stomach turn over and her mouth go dry. He made her tremble deep down and crave things she should not, could not crave. Suddenly she felt a little defensive, as if she needed to build a wall between her and Sam just to protect her sanity.

“If you don’t understand the importance of prep work then I’m not surprised that you don’t have a girlfriend.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, Lizzie felt a rush of heat in her cheeks. When was she going to learn to think before she spoke? That wasn’t exactly the kind of wall she had in mind.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She tried to pretend she wasn’t embarrassed. Since she’d started the conversation, she might as well finish it. “Prep work, laying the foundation, building perfection, taking one’s time to make sure that a task is properly done. Detail, Sam, detail.”

“What does that have to do with me not having a girlfriend?” Frustration was clear on Sam’s face, and Lizzie wished once more that she’d kept her mouth shut. Keeping her mouth shut had never been easy for her.

“If you can’t figure it out for yourself I’m not going to tell you,” Lizzie said as she turned to face the wall before her. She slowly ran a hand across the surface, feeling every bump, every imperfection. Whoever had painted this wall last had simply slapped paint on over a dusty wall. “What trained monkey painted this office?”

Sam remained quiet, and Lizzie was forced to turn to look at him. He was all but steaming. “When we moved into this office building I painted the wall myself.”

“Oh,” Lizzie said, as she turned to resume her inspection. Yes, no wonder there was no girlfriend. A man who gave so little attention to detail would make a terrible lover. She glanced over her shoulder. Of course, there was nothing that said Sam couldn’t learn a thing or two about detail..

Prep work. No girlfriend. Trained monkey.

It didn’t take Sam long to figure out what Lizzie meant. Fortunately by the time it hit him she was facing the wall again, displaying an oddly sexy form in loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt with paint splattered all over it. How exactly had she gotten paint on her back, anyway?

He’d show her prep work, dammit.

Sam had taken two steps from his desk before the force of his foolishness hit him. Lizzie was no longer a teenager with a crush, and the difference between twenty-four and thirty-two wasn’t impossible the way fourteen and twenty-two had been. But she was a client, and more important, she was Charlie’s little girl.

Charlie had wanted so much for his daughter. She’d deserved better than a mother who left without warning and a father who worked all the time. Maybe if Charlie had found a decent woman and married her, their lives would’ve been different. It wasn’t that he hadn’t met and dated any nice women, they just hadn’t lasted long. Burned badly by his wife’s desertion, Charlie had been unable to trust that what he saw in a good woman was real. The ones who were less than nice—at least they were honest. That had become his skewed way of looking at things.

Lizzie certainly deserved better than a private investigator who could never offer her a permanent relationship. Sam had given up on permanent the day his wife had walked out of his house and directly into another man’s arms. He’d given up on permanent when the citizens of the town he’d risked his life to protect had come out to picket the precinct after the shooting. He’d thought his marriage would last forever, that he would be a cop until retirement came along. But nothing was forever, he knew that now.

And kids? Forget it. Working child custody cases only made him glad that he wasn’t a father. He couldn’t imagine raising a child in this world.

Lizzie was young. She still believed in forever, and he hadn’t missed the spark in her eyes as she’d asked about him about wanting a wife and kids of his own. She idealized family and happily ever after; her heart was still whole—and he wouldn’t be the one to take that from her.

Though he would like to prove to her that he wasn’t entirely clueless when it came to handling women.

Sam grabbed his cell phone and made a quick and almost incoherent excuse before he left his office. He dialed Darryl Connelly’s number, wondering how best to approach the situation and absolutely certain that he needed to get this over with ASAP.

A young girl answered the phone with a breathless “Hello.”

Sam was momentarily speechless. He’d expected Connelly himself to answer. Maybe a butler or a maid.

In a crisp, businesslike voice, he asked, “May I speak to Mr. Connelly, please?”

“Sure.” Jenna barely moved her mouth away from the receiver to shout, “Dar—Dad? It’s for you.” Sam instinctively moved the phone away from his ear.

His ear was still ringing when Jenna turned her attention back to the caller. “He’ll be right here. I hope you don’t keep him too long. I have a soccer game and I’m supposed to be there in fifteen minutes. None of the other girls are driven to the games by drivers. Their parents take them. It’s so embarrassing to be delivered to the school field and dropped off when everyone else shows up with their families. Darryl, I mean Dad, well, he’s actually my stepfather but he likes me to call him Dad, he promised he would take me to today’s game, so whatever you do don’t keep him on the phone too long.”

Sam took a deep breath. If there had ever been any doubt that Jenna was Lizzie’s sister, it had just flown out the window. He quickly dismissed that thought. Many young girls rambled, related to Lizzie or not. “I can see that I called at a bad time. Please tell Mr. Connelly I’ll call him on Monday to discuss his insurance needs.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jenna said. “I gotta run. Wish me luck!” With that, the call ended. Sam leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. This was what Lizzie needed, what she’d hired him to do. It wasn’t his business if Lizzie got her heart broken. She’d hired him to find the kid, not guarantee a happy ending. He didn’t see many happy endings in his line of work.

He stood there for a few minutes, wishing he could make this case go away, wishing he didn’t have to deal with a grown-up Lizzie Porter. Best to get this over with. Before he had time to talk himself out of it, he stalked back into the office, walked straight to Lizzie, grabbed her arm and said, “You want to see this girl you think might be your sister? Let’s go.”

Chapter 4

“I can’t meet her like this!” Lizzie said as Sam ushered her out of the building and locked the door behind him.

“You’re not going to meet her. You’re going to see her from a distance. There’s a soccer game at her school and she’s playing.”

“How do you know that?” Lizzie asked as Sam took her arm and led her toward the parking lot and his boxy gray car.

“I’m a private investigator. It’s my job.”

He sounded so curt! He was probably still annoyed about the “no details” discussion they’d just had. Men could be so sensitive, especially when it came to their lovemaking skills or their manliness. Sam Travers was a star when it came to manliness. She couldn’t even begin to guess about the other, and it would be best if her mind did not go there.

Sam was silent as he drove, and for once Lizzie was silent, as well. What did Jenna look like? Were there sisterly similarities or was she her own person, distinct and individual? Maybe Jenna wouldn’t even like Lizzie. Maybe she’d think a fully grown sister was lame and unnecessary. Maybe they had nothing in common; maybe they weren’t sisters at all.

Jenna had a family—maybe even other siblings by now; she didn’t need a sister popping up out of nowhere. Lizzie’s physical reaction to the idea of confronting the girl was much like the one she had when she looked at Sam too closely. Jitters. Squirming. Shaking. Only this wasn’t quite so… pleasant. She was terrified that her plans were about to go very wrong.

“Turn the car around,” Lizzie said abruptly.

“We’re almost there.”

“This is a mistake.” Boy, was it a mistake. Going to Sam’s office, digging into old secrets, thinking she could manufacture a family out of thin air… all mistakes, one after another.

“Are you still worried about the way you’re dressed?” Sam asked. “Jenna won’t see you, I promise. We’ll stay back and watch, that’ll be it for this time.”

Lizzie shook her head. “No, the whole thing is a mistake. Dad was right to keep Jenna’s existence a secret. If I meet her I’ll blow it, somehow. I always do. I’ll open my mouth and say something stupid and that’ll be it. Jenna doesn’t need me. She already has a family.”

Sam didn’t argue, but he didn’t turn around, either. He turned into the parking lot of a very nice private school, one Lizzie knew to be very expensive. Talk about exclusive! The lot was pretty full, so they had to park at the far end. He pulled into a space away from the other cars, turned off the engine and faced her, one casual hand on the steering wheel, his eyes not at all casual.

“You know that I believe revealing your possible relationship to the girl would be traumatic for her.”

Lizzie nodded, the move jerky and too fast. “You were right all along,” she said quickly. So let’s get out of here already!

Sam’s face remained even and calm. Did he never show emotion? Did nothing ruffle his feathers? “I also believe you need to see her, even if from a distance. If you don’t, you’ll regret it later.”

She didn’t immediately agree or disagree. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was best to get it over with, to get a look at the girl and move on with her life. She was curious, after all. A little curiosity wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “A quick look, then.”

“Just a look.”

Staring into Sam’s calm blue eyes made Lizzie feel calmer herself. Everything would be okay. She’d just have a look to prove to herself that Jenna was well cared for and happy. She flung open the passenger door and stepped out of the car before she could change her mind.

Lizzie was drawn to the sounds of shouting and cheering and the occasional whistle. Sam fell into step beside her, too close, not close enough. She wanted to reach out and take his hand and clutch it, but she didn’t. He’d think she was a total wuss if she clung to him just because she was about to get a long-distance look at the girl who might be her sister.

The soccer field was well-groomed, and the girls that played upon it were dressed in blue-and-gold or red-and-white uniforms. The metal bleachers held a collection of parents. Most of them watched the game with genuine interest and excitement. A contingent of younger siblings played in the grass beside the bleachers. It was a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, a healthy slice of family life. If Jenna had a perfect existence, who was she to mess it up?

Not far from the edge of the parking lot, in the shade of an ancient elm tree, Lizzie stopped. “Which one is she?”

Sam studied the players for a moment, and then he pointed. “There, in blue and gold. Brown ponytail. Number 8.”

Lizzie’s eyes were glued to number 8 when the girl took control of the ball and turned. It was difficult to tell from a distance, but did she look a little bit like their dad? Lizzie’s heart thumped. Did she have Charlie Porter’s longish nose and narrow eyes? Jenna had that coltish look girls of her age sometimes had, leggy and thin and awkward, on the edge of turning into a young woman, but yes, there was a definite resemblance.

Jenna’s brown hair didn’t have quite the same slightly reddish tint Lizzie’s had, but there wasn’t but a shade or two of difference. Not that there weren’t thousands upon thousands of girls and women with the same color hair.

Lizzie didn’t realize she’d reached for Sam’s hand and grabbed on until he squeezed. She knew she should end the contact, let go and maybe take a step away from the man at her side. But she didn’t.

“Jenna’s mother passed away four years ago,” Sam said. “She lives with her stepfather, Darryl Connelly, in what can only be called a mansion. She attends this school, plays soccer and takes ballet, and her yearly allowance is probably about the same as my annual salary.”

“Monica died?” Lizzie had never thought Monica Yates would make a decent mother, but for Jenna to lose her mom so young had to be traumatic. Her stomach knotted. At the age of eight they’d each lost their mother—in very different ways.

“Heart troubles, difficult surgery.” The explanation was simple, but it was enough.

“Which one is Connelly?” she asked, her eyes turning to the parents.

Sam motioned, this time to the bleachers. “Top row, to the right.”

Unfortunately Connelly was one of the parents who weren’t watching the game. He gave the attractive woman at his side much more of his attention. Lizzie was incensed, for Jenna’s sake. When she’d played softball, her dad had been the loudest, most belligerent parent in attendance. He’d embarrassed her countless times, which was as it should be. This guy didn’t even care about the game.

Jenna scored and her team celebrated. Someone sitting near Connelly had to punch him on the arm and tell him that his daughter had scored a goal. He smiled and clapped dutifully, and so did the woman at his side.

Too late.

So Jenna had money. Money was nice; Lizzie wished she had more of it herself, but cash alone wouldn’t make anyone happy. She and Charlie had never had much money when she’d been growing up, but they’d gotten by just fine and they’d been happy. Most of the time.

Jenna’s teammates congratulated her, and soon the girls lined up at the center of the field to resume play.

“Seen enough?” Sam asked softly.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

He squeezed her hand again and then dropped it, taking a step away from her—as she’d known she should but had not. Lizzie tore her eyes away from Jenna and stared up at Sam. She was suddenly much more certain about what she had to do. “It’s not enough. I can’t seriously doubt that she and I are related. She looks so much like Dad, and maybe even a little bit like me. Jenna is my family, like it or not. How am I supposed to tell from a distance if she’s happy?”

“That fact that she bears a subtle resemblance to Charlie is hardly proof,” Sam said sensibly.

Lizzie was in no mood for common sense! “It’s proof enough for me.” At least for now. “How am I supposed to know that she’s happy?”

“Trust me, she’s…”

Frustrated, Lizzie interrupted. “She has a big house, she goes to a great school, she can buy herself anything she wants. That doesn’t mean anything!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You said you didn’t want to shake up her life.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“If your father had thought for a moment that Jenna wasn’t safe and content, he would’ve done something about it years ago,” Sam argued.

“Dad let her go as a baby,” Lizzie said reasonably. “He couldn’t have known whether or not she was okay now.”

“Dammit, he did,” Sam said sharply. “You’re not going to like it but here’s the truth. After Jenna’s mother died, Charlie kept very close tabs on the kid. If he didn’t think it was right to stir up her neat little world, what makes you think you should do it?”

Lizzie no longer stared at her sister. Instead she glared up into Sam’s traitorous blue eyes, and her heart broke as certainly as it had at fourteen, when he’d married an unkind, unworthy woman, whose only claim to fame had been her freakishly large boobs.

The only way Sam could’ve known that her father had kept tabs on Jenna was if he’d known about the child himself. He’d known all along.

Lizzie was pissed, perhaps rightly so. He should’ve told her up front that he knew of the girl’s existence. Instead he’d tried to spare her feelings; he’d tried to make things easier for her and still honor Charlie’s wishes. But at some point he’d decided he didn’t want to lie to her anymore, not even by omission.

Ten minutes after leaving the school grounds, after enduring ten minutes of absolute silence, Sam pulled into a bakery parking lot. Lizzie’s normally warm hazel eyes shot daggers at him. “You want a doughnut, hotshot, you wait until after you’ve taken me back to my car.”

“No,” he said, opening his door and stepping into the spring sunshine. Lizzie remained in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, eyes straight ahead. Sam walked around the car and opened her door as if they were on a date and he was being a perfect gentleman. When she didn’t move, he offered her his hand.

“You’re fired,” she said, ignoring his steady hand. “In case you haven’t already figured that out for yourself, Mister Big Shot Private Investigator.”

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.”

Sam stood there, hand extended. Lizzie continued to ignore him. “Your purse is back at my office.” Lucky for him, considering that there was a Taser in that purse and at the moment Lizzie looked as though she’d gladly use any handy weapon on him. “You don’t have your cell phone, cash, credit cards or the keys to your car, which means that until we get back to the office you’re at my mercy.”

“Cruel and a liar.”

“I’ll buy you a cupcake. That’s hardly cruel.”

“I don’t want a cupcake.”

“You always want a cupcake. I also plan to explain myself, if you’ll let me.” Hell, he was all but begging. Others in the parking lot were starting to stare. If Lizzie didn’t hurry up and take his hand, he was going to drag her inside and force-feed her that damn cupcake.

Yeah, that would go over well.

She used one hand to shoo him back, and then she stepped out of the car, moving regally in spite of her baggy, paint-splattered attire, her displeasure evident in every move, every glance. How was it that all women knew how to do that? Was it in their DNA or was there a secret class the men of the world were not privy to? How to make a man feel two inches tall with a single glance 101.

They walked into the small bakery and were assaulted by the scents of baking bread and sweets and coffee. A handful of customers were waiting at the counter. Along one window sat a half-dozen small, round tables, each with two hard chairs. All but one was empty, since most of the customers were getting their orders to go. Sam motioned to the nearest table, and Lizzie turned in that direction. She walked past the table he’d indicated and continued on, taking the table farthest away, as if she couldn’t stand to be any closer to him.

It was going to be a long conversation.

Eventually Sam reached the counter, where he ordered two coffees, a strawberry cupcake, four chocolate chip cookies, a piece of peanut butter fudge and a blueberry muffin. Ten years ago strawberry cupcakes had been Lizzie’s weakness. He couldn’t be sure what she preferred now, and he wanted to be prepared.

When he had his order in hand, Sam turned away from the counter, not a hundred percent certain he’d find Lizzie where he’d left her. She was mad—rightfully so, he supposed. Knowing her, she might hitchhike to his office and break into the building to retrieve her purse. She could borrow a cell from a stranger and call a friend to collect her. She could walk home. The walk would take her half a day, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. He didn’t for one minute think she was helpless. If she stayed, it was because she wanted to hear what he had to say.

His eyes fell on the empty table where Lizzie had once sat, and he groaned. He’d hoped she might be willing to listen. He’d hoped she’d have an open mind. Yeah, he’d hoped she’d be where he’d freakin’ left her. His eyes flitted to the parking lot, but if she was gone then she’d left minutes ago, while he’d been dealing with the girl behind the counter. She wouldn’t stick around and give him the chance to catch up with her and try to change her mind.

As Sam’s heart sank into his stomach, Lizzie brushed by without sparing a glance for him or his purchases. She held a stack of napkins, stirrers, sugar and little containers of creamer in her hands. She returned to the table where he’d left her, slapping the napkins onto the center of the table and then sitting, lifting her head to glare at him once more. How to tell a man he’s scum without ever saying a word.

He smiled.

She didn’t like it.

Sam placed the coffee and goodies—which were all stored in a large white bag—on the center of the round table. Lizzie took one of the coffees and removed the lid, fixing it as she liked, with lots of sugar and creamer. She didn’t look at him while she stirred, not until he sat, reached into the bag and drew out the cupcake, which was large and pink. The thick frosting was dotted with tiny bits of real strawberries.