The Reluctant Hero

Stephanie shook her head. “Oh, no. This man definitely shuns the spotlight. I doubt he has anything to do with Hollywood. Maybe…maybe he’s a detective! He did say he’d been to a lawyer’s office nearby.”

“Honey, from your description, I’d say he’s dangerous, at any rate.”

“Yes, you can be sure of that,” Stephanie told her boss as she uncrossed her legs and pushed her chair back from her desk.

“Too dangerous?” Claire asked, rising to get on with her busy day. “I mean, too dangerous to consider getting to know on a personal level, of course.”

“Yes. Tall, dark and definitely dangerous. And not my type.”

“Sounds exactly like your type.” Claire threw the comment over her shoulder as she waved. “Keep me posted—on the story, that is.”

“I will,” Stephanie promised, ignoring Claire’s suggestive look. And I will find Derek Kane and I will find out what he’s hiding.

She told herself it was all about getting the story. That was her goal, after all. To get the story, find out the truth, expose corruption, save the day.

But you couldn’t save your father, could you, Stef?

No, because she’d been too young to understand how to save him, to even to begin to understand his death.

Putting those thoughts out of her mind, Stephanie looked at the Bible verse her mother, Vanessa, had cross-stitched for her the Christmas after her father had died.

“The just shall live by faith.”

Romans, chapter one, verse seventeen.

Stephanie read that verse each time she sat down at her desk, but she remembered that justice didn’t always seem fair. But, as Vanessa would remind her time and time again, she didn’t have to depend on justice alone, as long as she had her faith, too.

“My father lived by faith,” she whispered now. “And he died trying to bring about justice.”

Where was the fairness in that? Stephanie had to wonder. Her mother believed faith and justice could work hand in hand. Stephanie still had her doubts.

But it had worked last night. She’d tried to save Walter Griffin. And she’d asked God to send her a hero, someone strong and true, as her father, Donald, had always been.

But then along came Derek Kane.

A reluctant hero.

And a man she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind.

Because of the story.

Or because as Claire had sensed, there was more to the story. Much more. Stephanie had to admit she was intrigued by much more than just the facts. She wanted to know what had made Derek Kane so bitter, so antisocial, so unwilling to be recognized for his good deed.

“And I won’t stop until I find out what it is,” Stephanie told herself as she booted up her computer. “There can’t be that many men in Atlanta named Derek Kane. He should be easy to track down.”

Chapter Three

Derek slowly tracked the shovel through the rich, moist loam of the flower bed he was building for Miss Nadine Hamilton. Miss Nadine, as she had graciously suggested he address her the first time they’d met years ago, was eighty years old, petite and so loaded with old Atlanta money that Derek doubted the woman even knew how much she was really worth. She came from a lineage that dated back to well before the Civil War, and her hair was a silvery blue, as blue as her blue blood, Derek guessed.

On second thought, Miss Nadine probably knew down to the penny how much money she had, since she scrutinized each and every flower, shrub and bag of manure Derek had ordered to finish her spring garden in time for the annual Azalea Pilgrimage her church group had organized many, many years ago as a means of “helping those less fortunate.”

Derek liked working for Miss Nadine. She was one of his favorite clients. She kept him busy, kept him on his toes and always managed to lighten his day with her words of advice or her analysis of life in general. She could quote whole passages of Shakespeare, and whole books of the Bible, but she spoke only when she felt the need to get her message across.

Derek heard one of the tall French doors of the house opening and looked up to find Miss Nadine coming toward him. Her morning inspection of his work, no doubt.

“Land sakes, Mr. Kane—” she insisted on calling him Mr. Kane “—when did the price of fertilizer go up so high?” she called out, her tiny veined hands on her hips, her wrinkled pink face twisted in a frown of disapproval.

Derek dropped his shovel, then, to peek up at her, lifted a cluster of the ageless Confederate jasmine trailing along a pretty latticework arbor. She was standing above him on the elaborate circular brick veranda that bordered the back of her twenty-room mansion in one of the oldest, most prestigious neighborhoods in Atlanta—Buckhead.

As she petted Lazarus on the head, she pointed with the other hand to the nearby bags of fertilizer he’d picked up at the local nursery earlier. “I can’t afford much more of this stuff, and still be able to pay you, too, you hear me now?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Derek called, waving a hand. “I’ll try to keep things under budget.”

“Well, see that you do.” Cooing to Lazarus, she added in a huffy voice, “And don’t let this overgrown mutt mess up any of your handiwork, you hear?”

Derek had to grin. Miss Nadine knew his one stipulation—Lazarus came to work with Derek, and that was that. The dog was trained to stay where he was told. Besides, he was too lazy to go digging for bones. He wouldn’t dare venture into any flower beds.

And both Derek and Miss Nadine knew that.

Even though Miss Nadine looked as stern as a schoolmarm standing there in her crepe floral dress and immaculate bone-colored pumps, he could see the twinkle in her blue eyes even from this distance. Miss Nadine liked to complain about everything from the weather to the state of the world to how broke she was, but Derek had been her landscaper for over four years now, and he knew that when he was finished, Miss Nadine would not only pay him, but she would give him a big tip to boot.

“How’s life treating you, Miss Nadine?” he asked, if for no other reason than simply to hear her cultured, ladylike voice carrying out over the cool spring morning.

“Life is a constant mystery, Mr. Kane,” she replied as she carefully made her way down the circular steps leading out to the sprawling backyard of her estate. “I suppose, however, that I can’t complain on such a lovely day as this. The good Lord truly saved this one up for us, didn’t he?”

“I believe so, yes, ma’am,” Derek replied as he plucked and pruned the yellow buds of the fragrant jasmine. “I needed a pretty day, too. He sent it right on time.”

Miss Nadine pinned him with her big baby blues. “Did you go gallivanting last night, young man?”

“Gallivanting?” Derek gave her a wry smile. “I think I’m too old for gallivanting, don’t you?”

“Hmmph. Thirty-two and already calling yourself old? Wait until you get to be my age. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Derek didn’t want to explain to Miss Nadine Hamilton, of the Atlanta Hamiltons, that he’d spent the better part of last night in a hospital waiting room, taking care of a homeless man who’d been beaten on the street. And he especially didn’t want to explain how he’d made a special trip to the police station in the middle of the night to give a complete statement, in private and with the understanding that Derek’s identity would not be made public. He had enough to worry about with Stephanie Maguire hot on the story.

It wouldn’t do to tell Miss Nadine—she’d repeat the entire story to the whole garden club before noon. “And yes, it was my yardman, my yardman, I’m telling you, who helped the poor, lost soul.”

Derek didn’t mind being referred to as a yardman. That was his job, after all, and one he took very seriously. He just didn’t want Miss Nadine or any of his other clients to get wind of what had happened in downtown Atlanta last night. Because then they might find out the truth; then he might have to give up his safe, secure, anonymous life here in Atlanta and move on. And he couldn’t do that.

“I had a long night, that’s for sure,” he told the tiny lady now. “Didn’t get much sleep, but I wasn’t misbehaving. Just had some things to sort through.”

“Personal things, I reckon.” She reached up to help him pluck the faded jasmine blossoms, her lips pursed, her expression devoid of the acute interest Derek could see in her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am. Just business. I had a meeting with my lawyer—getting some finances in order, seeing about investments and such. Left me pretty tired.”

“Investments?” Miss Nadine’s tiny head came up. “Mr. Hamilton, rest his soul, would have been thrilled to help you out there. He was one of Atlanta’s top brokers in his day, you know. Did I ever tell you that?”

Relieved that she’d found something other than his own personal life to focus on, Derek encouraged her with a smile. “You’ve mentioned it a time or two. I guess he was pretty successful, huh?”