In Graywolf's Hands

“Don’t you ever say hello anymore?” The voice on the other end had a soft twang to it.

She smiled, sinking back against the tub again, envisioning the soft, rosy face, the gentle, kind eyes that were too often set beneath worried brows. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“Nothing, darling. I was just lonely for the sound of your voice.”

Lydia knew evasion when she heard it. For now she played along. “Well, here it is, in its full glory.”

“You sound tired.”

Her mother was slowly working up to whatever had prompted her to call, Lydia thought. That was the difference between them. She pounced, her mother waltzed. Slowly. “It’s been a long day.”

There was just the slightest bit of hesitation. “Anything you can tell me about?”

Her mother knew better than that. “Just lots of paperwork, that’s all,” Lydia told her. Idly, she moved her toe around, stirring the water. Bubbles began fading faster. The scent of vanilla clung.

She heard her mother laugh shortly. “You lie as badly as your father did.”

Lydia glanced at her shoulder to make sure it was still above the waterline. Keeping it up wasn’t easy even if she was leaning against the soap holder.

“You don’t want to know details, Mom.” It was supposed to be an unspoken agreement between them. Her mother didn’t ask and she didn’t have to lie. Her mother was slipping. “All you need to know is that I’m okay. I’m soaking in a tub right now.”

“Alone?”

Half asleep she still would have been able to hear the hopeful note in her mother’s voice. “Yes, unless you count Dean Martin on the radio.”

Her mother made no effort to silence the sigh that escaped. “Sorry, I was just hoping…”

She knew what her mother was hoping. It was an old refrain. “Mom, don’t take this the wrong way, but not tonight, all right?”

“Something happened, didn’t it? I heard about the bombing.”

Here it comes, Lydia thought. The real reason for the call.

“Was that you—”

“Doing the bombing?” Lydia cut in cheerfully. “No.” She decided to toss her mother a bone. Even the Bureau wasn’t entirely heartless. “Doing the picking up of pieces? Yes. We’ve got a suspect in custody—that’s all I can tell you.”

There was disappointment and frustration in her mother’s voice. “I can get more from the evening news, Lydia.”

When she was small, her mother had been her first confidante. They would talk all the time. But she wasn’t small anymore. On an intellectual level, she knew her mother understood why she couldn’t say anything. It was the heart that gave them both trouble.

For a second her thoughts sidelined to the surgeon who had pushed her out of the operating room. Who had insisted on stitching her up. She forced her mind back to the conversation.

“They’re at liberty to talk, Mom, I’m not. They don’t have a possible case to jeopardize.”

She heard her mother sigh. Louise Wakefield Evans had been both the daughter and the wife of a policeman. She, better than anyone, knew about procedures that had to be followed.

Still, she said, “I hate being shut out this way, Lydia.”

Lydia shifted in the tub, then quickly sat up. She’d nearly gotten the bandage wet.

“I’m not shutting you out, Mom. I’m shutting evidence in.” The water was turning cool. “Mom, I’m turning pruney, I’d better go.”

Her mother knew when to take her cue. “All right. Good night, Lydia. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

Before her mother could change her mind, Lydia pressed the talk button, breaking the connection and ushering in silence. She dropped the receiver onto the mat.

Lydia felt bad that she couldn’t share what had happened to her today with her mother, but she knew it would only have served to agitate and worry Louise. In the long run, she’d rather her mother had semipeace of mind by remaining in the dark than live with daily terrors—even if she could give her details, which she couldn’t.

Her mouth curved slightly as a question her mother had asked echoed in her brain.

Was she alone?

That would place her mother among the eternal optimists. Louise still nursed the hope that Lydia would be swept off her feet, marry and chuck this whole FBI special agent business.

Lucky for her, Louise hadn’t seen that surgeon tonight. There was no doubt in Lydia’s mind that her mother would have been all over Graywolf, plying him with questions, inviting him over for Sunday dinner. Louise Wakefield Evans was desperate for grandchildren and Lydia was the only one who could provide her with them. She’d had a brother, born first, but he had died before his first birthday, a victim of infant crib death syndrome. With no other siblings available, Lydia was the only one left to fulfill her mother’s hopes.

“Sorry, Mom,” Lydia murmured as she leaned forward to open up the faucet again.

The next moment, hot water flowed into the tub again, merging with the cooling liquid that was already there.

First chance she had, she was going to talk to Arthur about getting her mother a puppy. She knew her stepfather was sympathetic to her. A new puppy should occupy her mother, at least temporarily.

Closing her eyes, Lydia let her head fall back against the inflated pillow lodged against the back of the tub. An image of the surgeon materialized behind her lids.

Startled, she pried her eyes open.

What was she doing, thinking about him? She was supposed to be trying to make her mind a blank.

Maybe it was the medicine, making her woozy.

Lydia blew out a breath, ruffling her bangs. She decided that soaking in the tub might not be the smartest thing to do if she were truly sleepy. Death by Suds was not the way she wanted to go.

Lydia reached for a towel.

The rhythmic staccato of high heels meeting the freshly washed hospital floor had Lukas looking up from the chart he was writing on. Half a beat before he did, he knew it was her. He’d picked up on the cadence last night. Fast, no nonsense, no hesitancy. A woman with a mission.

Closing the chart, he replaced it on the nurse’s desk, still watching the woman approach. He wondered vaguely if Ms. Special Agent was focused like that all the time or if it was the job that brought it out. Did she know how to kick back after hours? Did she even have “after hours”?

Lukas had a sneaking suspicion she didn’t.

That made two of them.

Even after he’d gone home last night to catch a few hours of well-deserved sleep, he’d wound up calling the hospital to check on Jacob Lindstrom, the patient he’d operated on before Ms. Special Agent had thundered into his life.

Lukas’s eyes swept over her as she walked toward him. The woman was wearing another suit, a powder blue one; but this time she had on a skirt instead of pants. The skirt brushed against her thighs as she walked and gave him the opportunity to note that her legs were as near perfect as any he’d ever seen. Long, sleek, and just curved enough to trigger a man’s fantasies.