More Than Meets the Eye

He’d always been a sucker for vulnerable women.

However, a return visit to the hospital that afternoon had given him enough information to believe that Dr. Phoebe Jones was anything but vulnerable.

A loner, controlling, brusque, devoted, a rigid professional…those were just some of the terms her colleagues had used to describe her.

Still, there was no denying the well of emotions that now shone from her eyes, emotions that touched his heart. “You’re smart not to get your hopes up yet,” he said and speared a fry with his fork. “I’ve found you, but I haven’t found the other three yet.”

She shoved her barely eaten salad aside. “Tell me about the man who hired you. Is it possible he’s my father?”

Her beautiful spring-colored eyes held his gaze intently and he wished he could tell her that it was a possibility, but he couldn’t. “No, Loucan is far too young to be your father. He’s about my age…around thirty-four or so.”

“Loucan? Loucan what?”

“Just Loucan,” Kevin replied, then frowned. One of the most frustrating things about this particular job was the fact that he hadn’t been able to discover a thing about the man who had hired him. “Anyway, like I told you before, he hired me to find you and bring you to Santa Barbara.”

Her face paled slightly. “I left California eleven years ago when I was sixteen and I swore I’d never go back.”

“Loucan made it clear to me that he wanted you to come to him, and if not you, then I was to bring your necklace to him.”

Her fingers clutched around the necklace. “I’m not about to give up the only thing I’ve had since my childhood to a man I haven’t met. I don’t know this Loucan, and I don’t know you.”

Kevin grinned. “I can’t tell you much about Loucan, but I can tell you that I’m a good guy. I like children and animals and I only snore when sleeping on my back.”

He was pleased to see a hint of a smile tug at her lips. “I certainly can’t make a decision to take off for California based on whether you snore or not,” she replied.

He leaned forward. “But, you have to admit that you’re curious. I mean, maybe this Loucan is another brother, or a cousin. Can you really walk away from the opportunity to find out?”

He felt slightly guilty as he tried to decide if he wanted her to go to California to find her family, or if his sole reason for getting her there was the promise of an enormous payoff from Loucan.

“I don’t know.” She looked troubled. “I need some time to digest all this. I’m certainly not going to make a decision right now.”

“Fair enough,” he replied.

For the next few minutes they ate in silence. Despite the odors of cooking food that filled the café, Kevin could smell Phoebe’s perfume, a soft, floral scent he found incredibly attractive.

In fact, he found everything about Dr. Phoebe Jones attractive, from the shiny strands of her blond hair, to her intensely green eyes. She ate with a precision he found fascinating, all her bites of salad carefully cut with a fork and a knife. She then pushed her salad away and began eating her soup.

“You mentioned you left California when you were sixteen,” he said, breaking the silence that had grown to uncomfortable proportions between them.

She daintily dabbed her mouth with her napkin and nodded. “I graduated from high school when I was sixteen and petitioned the court for an order of emancipation. I had several scholarship offers for college and decided to come here and attend Kansas University, then transferred to KU med school and finished my residency at the hospital a little over a year ago.”

“Quite an accomplishment for somebody so young,” he observed.

She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I knew from the time I was young that I wanted to be a doctor. I just didn’t let anything or anyone distract me from my ultimate goal.”

“Any particular reason why you chose the medical field?” He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly wanted to know everything about her, what made her tick, what things she liked, what experiences had made her who she was.

“I was very sickly as a child. It seemed that my body didn’t have the normal immunities to fight illness. All the childhood diseases hit me really hard and I spent much of my early years in hospitals for one reason or another.”

She looked down at her salad, but not before he thought he saw a whisper of pain in her eyes. When she looked back at him, whatever he thought he’d seen was gone. “But enough about me,” she said. “What about you? What made you decide to become a private investigator?”

“I heard it was a job that paid well for a small amount of work.” It was his stock answer to anyone who asked him about his career choice. He never told anyone that it was a job he had taken when his life had been shattered and all his dreams had been destroyed.

“Are you from California?” she asked.

“Not originally. I was born and raised in Chicago and lived there until about five years ago when I moved to Los Angeles.”

“What made you move?”

He grinned. “The promise of sun and surf and women in bikinis.”

She eyed him intently. “Are you always so flippant?”

“Always. Life is too short to take anything too seriously.”

“Life is too short not to take everything seriously,” she countered.

She was gorgeous, and something about her filled him with a tension, but they obviously had nothing in common, he realized. All she was to him was a case that he wanted to see through to the end.

“Is there some way I can get in touch with you,” she asked, breaking into his thoughts. “I really need some time to think about all this.” She touched her lips with her napkin and placed the napkin next to her salad bowl.

“I’m staying at the Allis Plaza Hotel,” he replied and motioned to the waitress. “But I’ll walk you home.”

“That’s not necessary,” she replied, again a touch of wariness in her eyes.

“Phoebe, if you’re worried about me walking you home and discovering where you live, I already know where you live. Remember, I’m a private investigator.”

“So, what else do you know about me?” she asked, but at that moment the waitress returned to their table.

Phoebe fought with him over the check, but relented and let him pay when he reminded her he had an expense account. Then, together they left the café and stepped out into the deepening shadows of falling night.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him as they walked leisurely along the deserted sidewalk. “What else have you managed to dig up about me besides my address?”

“You don’t socialize with any co-workers. You’re highly respected for your skills as a surgeon, but nobody seems to know much about you as a person. As far as your neighbors are concerned, you never have visitors in your home.”

“You spoke with my neighbors?” she asked, a touch of outrage in her voice.

“It’s what I do,” he said without apology. “I use whatever means necessary to find out things about people. I speak to neighbors, go through garbage, stake out places. You were exceptionally easy to find out about because you are such a creature of habit.”

“And that’s bad?”

“That’s terrible if somebody is going to plan to perpetrate a crime against you. It makes you predictable.”

“Well, I like my life just fine, thank you,” she exclaimed with a touch of self-righteous anger. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk to any more of my neighbors or co-workers and if you kept your nose out of my garbage. If you want or need to know something about me or my life, ask me.”

“It’s a deal,” he agreed easily as they came to her apartment building.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said.