Kiss Me, Kill Me

She lifted her brows. “God, don’t tell me you’re another reporter!”

“No, I—”

“Do you actually write for that rag I saw you reading at the soccer match?”

“No! No. That’s not it at all.”

“No? Then why do you want to meet her?”

He shrugged. “It’s personal.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, it’s impossible, anyway. She’s on her honeymoon. Sam and I are keeping an eye on her place while she’s away. She took her horse-sized dog with her, thank goodness.”

He blinked twice, then looked at her. “Sam?”

“My son.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Is that a…family name?”

“It’s just a name.” She lowered her eyes. “You know, the tabloids have it all wrong. Oliv—Sarah is a terrific person. She had a good reason for using a dead woman’s identity all that time. Her own life was in danger.”

“Yeah, but the dead woman whose identity she stole had left a baby behind, somewhere. Didn’t she even consider she might be robbing some family of all they had left of a loved one?”

“She didn’t know about the baby until a few weeks ago. All she knew was that the real Olivia was alone in the world.”

“I see.”

She drew a breath and tried to calm her racing nerves. God, if anyone ever found out that her Sam was the long-dead woman’s missing child, she would lose him. She would lose the most precious thing in her world, and no doubt her job and probably her medical license along with him. Not that those things mattered. Without Sam, she wouldn’t have anything, anyway. He was everything to her.

And this man seemed far too curious about local gossip for her peace of mind. He pulled into the school parking lot, which was abandoned by then, with the exception of a VW Bus with an insane paint job. The soccer match had long since ended, and she didn’t even know which team had won.

She looked at the bus, with its wild swirls and crazy colors, and said, “I take it that’s yours?”

“Mmm-hmm. You like it?”

“Is Scooby-Doo waiting inside?”

He smiled at her, a genuine smile that made her catch her breath as the dimples in his cheeks deepened. “I haven’t found a dog yet that likes to travel as much as I do.”

“So you’re a drifter.”

“If you want to call it that.”

She looked at him curiously. “Just what do you do, Gabriel Cain?”

“I’m a songwriter,” he told her. And then he got out of the SUV and walked toward his bus. When he opened the driver’s door she glimpsed a guitar resting on the passenger seat and a GPS on the dashboard. He lifted a hand to her just before getting in. “I’ll see you around, Carrie Overton.”

She paused, then got out and went over to his van. He’d closed the door, but the window was down. “Folks have been gathering at the old firehouse three times a day to go out searching for Kyle Becker, the missing boy. Next shift gathers at four. I’m sure they’d welcome another volunteer.”

He nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“Good.”

He started his motor and put the bus into gear as music spilled from its speakers. James Taylor. Good stuff. Then he drove away and left her wondering why she’d delivered the spontaneous invitation.

A kind, intelligent, kid-loving hippie drifter who listened to James Taylor and drove the Mystery Machine.

He might not be her type, but she had to admit, the man was interesting. And damn good-looking. If you were into that long-haired, unshaven, bad boy look, anyway. Which she, she reminded herself sternly, definitely was not.

2

Carrie drove her son’s ridiculously ostentatious car away from the high school, and thought about Gabriel Cain and why his name sounded so familiar. He obviously wasn’t well-off, driving an old VW Bus around the way he did. A drifter, by his own admission. She’d always wondered what drove men like that. Her own father had suffered from what her mother had called itchy feet. She’d grown up hating it. Hating it. Just when she would get used to one school district and begin to make a few friends, her father would yank up stakes and make them move again. It had been traumatic to her as a child and even more so as a teen. But her mother had always put her father first, ahead of her own child. And she’d hated that, too.

She’d never understood the wanderlust.

And she was irritated that she was thinking about painful elements of her childhood just because some stranger had wandered into her E.R. To hell with that. She reached for the MP3 player’s controls, found the playlist titled Just for Mom and, smiling a little at her son’s thoughtfulness, hit the Play button.

Then, as the smooth, soothing guitar and deep, rugged vocals of country music legend Sammy Gold filled the car, she relaxed and enjoyed the rest of her drive.

Her modified A-frame was waiting, as peaceful as always. Sam and the ever-present Sadie sat on the broad front porch. As Carrie pulled the SUV up to the oversize garage, she saw that Sam had his legs extended, feet on a wicker footstool and an ice pack on his knee.

Frowning, she parked the SUV, hit the button to close the garage door, then hurried outside, across the drive and up the steps to the first level of her two-story wraparound deck.

“What happened?” Carrie dropped her medical bag and purse on the glass-topped wicker table, and crouched in front of her son to remove the cold pack.

“Nothing, Mom. It’s just a little swollen and sore from overuse. Coach said to ice it.”

“Coach didn’t go to medical school.” She poked and prodded at his swollen knee, then flexed it a few times, one hand over the kneecap to feel for any problems.

“So what’s the diagnosis, Doc?” Sam asked.

She tried not to smile and said, “It’s strained from overuse. Ice it.”

“Thank God for med school, huh?”

“Watch it, pal.” She smiled at his teasing, though, and finally turned to Sadie. “Hi, hon. How’s your day going?”

“Better now that you’re here. You wouldn’t believe how he’s been whining about the game.”

“Lost, huh?” Carrie asked her son.

“By one. One. On a penalty shot based on a bad call. You wouldn’t even believe—”

She held up a hand. “Yes, I would.”

Sam gave them both the stink-eye and tried to change the subject. “How’s Marty?”

“He’s fine, hon. No side effects. Just a nasty bout of asthma and a bump on the head to boot.”