Father and Child Reunion

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.