Mother by Fate

Theoretically.

Lila didn’t. Neither did Lynn, for that matter. The nurse practitioner lived right at the Stand with her husband and four-year-old daughter and infant son. And her husband’s mentally disabled brother who was married to Maddie.

Maddie had had a baby the previous January. And Lynn’s son had been born in April.

She worked as many hours as Sara did.

But she had a full and rewarding life...

The gate clicked.

Sara ducked down, sliding her butt onto a cement seat so that she was covered by water up to her neck.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her nearly naked before. The black tank she had on was far less revealing than the bikini she’d worn that afternoon.

Still, it was night. Late. And she was worried about Nicole. Needing to forget for a little while...

* * *

GETTING PAST THE security at Sara’s condo complex hadn’t been as hard as Michael would have liked. He’d simply waited around the corner for someone to turn in and then followed right behind them through the electronically operated gate. Sure, he was on a surveillance camera, but what reason would anyone have for searching the tape?

He was there for a good cause. Hopefully, after he was done here, Sara would vouch for him.

Nodding at a security guard riding quietly through the complex on a golf cart, he stepped inside the pool area. The suit he’d just changed into in the front seat of his vehicle was a little musty smelling, probably from being sweated in and then locked up in a hot SUV all afternoon. He’d forgotten to provide himself with the luxury of a towel when he’d grabbed the suit out of the laundry that morning.

He heard the rumble of the hot-tub jets before he saw her. Pulling off the short-sleeved shirt he’d worn to scramble under bushes that evening, he dropped it to a chair and sauntered up to the tub, lowering himself to the first step.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” She gave him a glance, almost shyly, like a woman who was entertaining the idea of getting to know a man better. And then smiled.

Did that mean if he wanted to take this to a more personal level, she was interested?

He was tempted. More than he’d been in a very, very long time.

Stepping into the water, Michael cursed his timing. Why now, when he was on a critical hunt, would he suddenly start feeling a hint of potential life again after Shelley?

Steam rose between them and the sound of the water bubbling from the jets blocked out everything else.

She didn’t say anything more. Just watched him. Leaving the next move up to him.

Michael considered the seat across the small pool from her. Considered the fact that she didn’t know they were there on business. He looked at the seat right next to her. Where, beneath the cover of bubbles, he could bump into her. Skin to skin.

And just that quickly he was thrown into an inner battle. A fierce battle. Newly awakening man versus bounty hunter.

Who the ultimate winner would be was nonnegotiable. But Michael took the seat next to her. He closed his eyes. Absorbed the scent of chlorine mixed with woman. The warmth encasing him inside and out. The balmy night air on his face.

He wanted to kiss her.

He was egged on by the idea that she might let him. That his time was best served relaxing, getting some rest before dawn when, at the first ray of light, his search would begin anew. He hoped with new leads from Sara. Direction.

He was acting on the assumption that Nicole Kramer was down for the night. She would know she’d lost him. And she’d take the chance to rest.

“How was your evening?”

Her question came across to him as sounding intimate. And he remembered that she thought they were both home, enjoying a late dip in their mutually owned hot tub.

“Good,” he lied. For someone who believed so much in the truth, he seemed to have become better at fabricating than anything else.

Sara rolled her head sideways from its resting point on the edge of the tub. “What did you do?”

He met her gaze. “Worked.”

“Me, too.” Her sigh seemed to caress his skin.

They had a dangerous woman on the loose. He had to stay focused.

“Tough night?” he asked her. She’d given him the opening. He could find out things about his prey before he came totally clean. Before he had to watch the desire in her eyes turn to dislike.

No woman liked to be duped. Even for a good cause.

“Tough job,” she said. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love my work. I’m just...tired, you know?”

She aimed that look straight at him again. It hit its mark.

“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t talking about a physical fatigue?”

“Maybe because I’m not.” Her honesty disarmed him.

Hit him where only his closest friends and family had ever been.

“You want to talk about it?” He wasn’t there to care if she had troubles.

Or to do anything about them.

“I can’t.”

Filled with an uncomfortable urge to help her—this stranger who was nothing to Mari or him—he said, “Anything I can do to help get you through the night? I’d offer you a glass of wine, but I don’t have any.”

He knew why he’d asked for this meeting—but had no real idea why she’d agreed.

Except as a woman who had interest in a man. That was how things got started. You met someone. Found something attractive during the meeting. Asked her out and pursued it from there.

“I have wine, but I don’t want it badly enough to go get it.”

He couldn’t drink. He was working.

“Besides,” she said, before he could get straight to business, “I think the combination of exhaustion, hot water, wine and you would be dangerous.”