The Pregnant Heiress

He had an urge to explain manners to Handlebar Mustache in terms the man would understand. His fingers twitched with the need to make a fist. But he wasn’t needed. Handlebar headed for the register, the lines of his face drooping in disappointment. Flynn’s gaze switched to his subject as she hurried behind the counter to replace the coffeepot on its warmer.

She was too skinny. With her brown hair pulled back in that bobbing ponytail she looked like a kid, her face all eyes and smiling mouth, her arms and legs in perpetual motion. In spite of the telltale bulge her stomach made beneath her faded pink uniform, she looked like she ought to be climbing trees and contemplating the mysteries of puberty. Not dealing with its most noticeable result.

She wasn’t a child, though. Flynn knew her age to the day. Emma Michaels was thirty-two, single, and until recently she’d lived in San Diego, California. He knew her birthplace, the name of her high school English teacher, her last three places of residence and her mother’s name.

Which was more than she knew.

Flynn smiled. He hadn’t expected to enjoy this job. His client was a worm, and when you worked for worms you usually found yourself mucking around in dirt. Moreover, he was certain Lloyd Carter had lied to him.

By itself, that wouldn’t have bothered him much. Clients lied. Everyone lied. He was often amazed at the amount of trouble people would take to cover up some piddly little sin that didn’t amount to a hill of beans to anyone but themselves. Lying was a skill that came packaged with language, and in Flynn’s line of work, spotting those lies was a necessary talent.

Lloyd Carter was a good liar, but not good enough. Nothing put Flynn on his guard faster than someone who insisted he was being totally honest. Flynn was doing well enough these days that he didn’t have to work for a worm if the job didn’t interest him. Even though Carter claimed that Miranda Fortune wanted him to contact the twins, Carter’s explanations and candid gray eyes had failed to impress him.

In spite of that, he’d taken the job. There was a debt involved, a matter of family and honor. Death didn’t cancel a debt, not to Flynn’s way of thinking, and the people Carter had wanted him to find were Fortunes. Not that they knew it.

He’d made the worm cough up a big retainer before taking the case. He would have worked for free if one of the Fortune family had been his client, but there was no point in letting Carter off the hook, and Carter’s credit was bad.

Flynn sipped from the chipped cup and grimaced. The coffee tasted like it had been brewed about the time the cracked vinyl in the seat he sat on was new. He’d had worse, and been in worse places than this. Part of the hazards of his trade. But he hadn’t had much worse.

He drank it anyway. He needed a reason to linger until things slowed down enough for him to speak to Emma Michaels about the family she didn’t know she had.

Watching her was surprisingly pleasant. She was too thin, she smiled too much, she was pregnant—the woman had strings and obligations sticking out all over her, like porcupine quills. She was a flake, too. When she’d brought him his eggs he’d commented on the colored stones in her bracelet. She’d told him cheerily that there was a stone for each of her chakras. The bracelet was supposed to balance her energy, or some crap like that.

No, God knew he wasn’t interested in her personally. He just liked looking at her. She had all the charm of a friendly kitten. She also had very nice legs. World-class legs.

The protectiveness he felt didn’t surprise him. Habit died hard, and in spite of that smile, she looked like a waif in need of help.

The stir of masculine interest did.

She bustled around behind the counter, loading her tray with plates of pancakes, eggs, biscuits and toast. Flynn found himself watching the quick twitch of her hips as she hurried past him to a booth in the corner. She wore a pale-pink uniform reminiscent of the fifties with a pair of up-to-the-minute athletic shoes…and her stomach pulled the uniform tight enough to make the rear view appealing. She had a great ass to go with those excellent legs.

Flynn frowned. He wasn’t supposed to be appreciating his subject’s ass.

He watched her deal with the truckers and wondered how someone as guileless as Emma Michaels survived in this world. She didn’t look like she would be able to lie worth spit.

Yet she was lying. Flynn’s curiosity itched strongly about that. Emma Michaels was calling herself Emma Jackson now, which had made tracking her difficult. Being pregnant and unwed might account for the lie—shoot, just working as a waitress in this place was reason enough to invent a husband. Only why change her name? He’d checked her finger when she waited on him. She hadn’t bought a ring to back up the pretense.

Chances were, her reason for using a fake name had nothing to do with his case, so that, technically, it was none of his business. But once Flynn’s curiosity was aroused, it was hard to ignore. He wanted to know why such a lousy liar was trying to pull off such a big lie.

Maybe, he thought as he took another sip of his coffee, she would tell him. She might be willing to explain it once he gave her the good news. He was looking forward to that. It wasn’t every day he got to tell a down-on-her-luck young woman with a baby on the way that she was going to be rich.

By nine forty-five, business at the truck stop had thinned out. The other waitress, a heavyset woman with big hair, was refilling the sugar and salt and pepper shakers in her station, and Emma was headed his way with the coffeepot.

Flynn decided it was time. He felt a tingle of anticipation. Would she be more excited about the money, or learning who her mother was?

Even good news could be a shock. He would try to break it to her gently, but he hoped she was tougher than she looked. He wasn’t much good at tact and sensitivity. His sisters had mentioned that he had all the emotional subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Emma Jackson-Michaels stopped at his table, coffeepot in hand, but didn’t fill his cup. “We have some nice teas, too,” she said brightly.

He looked at her blankly. “Teas?”

When she nodded, her ponytail bounced. “Too much caffeine is hard on your system.”

“I like coffee.”

“If you say so, but I can’t help noticing that you look a little tense. You might try some of the chamomile. It’s good for relaxing. There’s some for sale up at the cash register.”

“This doesn’t look like the sort of place that would sell herbal teas.”

“It was my suggestion.” Her voice didn’t go with the kitten image. It was low, almost husky—a satin-sheet kind of voice, the sort of voice a man imagined whispering in his ear late at night. “Henry is a little resistant to new ideas. I’m trying to talk him into offering a vegetable plate, but he thinks a meal has to include some portion of a dead animal.”

His mouth quirked up. “I guess I have something in common with Henry, then.”

“A lot of people do.” She looked disappointed but still cheerful as she relented and poured a stream of sludge into his cup. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yeah.” Up close, she didn’t look quite so young, though she could have passed for twenty-five easier than thirty-two. There were tiny creases at the corners of her eyes from all that smiling. Her cheeks were plump, unlike the rest of her, and she had cute eyebrows. They were thin and shaped into curves of mild astonishment above those big eyes. “Do you pluck your eyebrows?”

“What?”

Why had he asked her that? Annoyed, Flynn pushed his cup away. “Never mind. I need to talk to you.”

Wariness slid across her blue eyes, but she kept smiling. “My boss wouldn’t like that, I’m afraid. Henry has this idea we’re supposed to wait on several customers, not just one.”

“I’m not trying to pick you up. Here.” He raised up slightly so he could dig into his back pocket for his wallet, which held his ID. “My name’s Flynn Sinclair. I’m a P.I., and you—”

“I have to go,” she said abruptly.

That wasn’t wariness he saw in her eyes now. It was fear. Real fear. She edged away.

He grabbed her wrist. It was so narrow his fingers overlapped, which made him feel large and clumsy. “Hey, don’t worry. I have good news for you.” He gave her his best trust-me smile. “It’s about your mother.”

“Oh.” She smiled wider than ever, but it was neither real nor natural now. “My mother. Of course. I’d love to talk to you about my mother, but I can’t stop to chat when I’m working. You understand. If you don’t mind waiting until my shift is over, we can talk then, okay?”

A truly lousy liar, he thought, letting go of her wrist. “Sure, no problem. I’ll wait here for you.”

“That’s great.” She spoke brightly. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the coffeepot. “I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t heard from—Mom—in awhile.”

Flynn watched as his subject fled for the kitchen. His curiosity was itching fit to kill. She was going to bolt. He didn’t know why, but he knew she was going to bolt.

The back door, he thought, rising and pulling a couple bills out of his wallet. Every restaurant had a delivery entrance off the kitchen. She’d slip out that way, thinking he was waiting patiently for her out here.

Flynn was a big man, but he could move quickly when he wanted. He tossed the bills at the cashier and was out the door before the woman had done more than blink at him.

The air was sharp and dry despite the light dusting of snow on the parking lot and the yucca, creosote and dirt that surrounded it. Flynn spared a brief thought for the jacket he’d left in his car, then forgot the temperature as he reached the rear of the truck stop. A strip of pavement containing Dumpsters, employees’ cars, a tottering stack of empty crates and a stray cat separated the building from the land.

There was no sign of Emma. But Flynn knew which car was hers—the aging red Ford Escort on the other side of a jacked-up pickup that looked ready to compete in a monster truck pull.

Her car was still here, so she hadn’t run. Yet. Flynn jogged over to it, then stood there shaking his head. The paint was peeling, making the Ford look as if it had leprosy. How had she made it here from San Diego in this heap?