Mother by Fate

The man had fallen silent. He was clearly a man of few words.

Nice. Sometimes the best company—at least for someone like her, who spent her days, and a lot of her nights, listening to other people talk about their problems—was the silent type.

Sometimes, but not that afternoon. Sara was restless.

She needed to rest.

He wasn’t wearing a ring.

She didn’t care. Hadn’t needed to know. It was just what she did—notice all of the little things about people. They were the “tells.”

His were telling her something she wasn’t prepared to hear.

It didn’t matter that he might be available. She wasn’t looking.

Men tended to feel a bit intimidated by her job—as if they feared she’d see some sign of aggression in them, or assumed she went around assessing all men and spotting abusive tendencies. Her last date had had a problem taking a backseat to her work. But when a battered woman showed up at the shelter, you bet she was going to leave a dinner date to tend to her.

Glancing the stranger’s way, Sara tried to get a read on him. What kind of man was he? Other than quiet. Respectful of her privacy. Her space—he’d chosen the lounger farthest away from her.

He lacked nothing in the attractiveness department.

The thought made her uncomfortable, though why it should, she didn’t know. She was busy. Not dead.

How long had it been since her last date?

It had been the interrupted dinner date. They’d been on the terrace of La Mange, a coastal restaurant between Santa Raquel and Santa Monica, and it had been warm outside. Definitely summer...

So that made it, what? A year ago? At least.

Wow.

The delicious-looking stranger was still sitting there, his arms at his sides, wide-awake, glancing her way now and then. Accessible was how she translated his body language. “Are you new to the area?”

“No. I grew up in Santa Raquel.”

A native. She envied him.

“You’ve lived here all your life?”

“I left to go to college and lived in Santa Monica for several years after that.”

“And now you’re back.”

“Yep.”

No ring. Recently moved home. A breakup, she surmised.

Living in an adult-only complex. No children.

Hot and still looking at her.

Nice.

* * *

HE HAD HER INTEREST. Michael Edison allowed himself a satisfied inner smile as he relaxed back to reel in his prey. The involuntary thought bothered him.

He wasn’t reeling her in. He wasn’t like that. Studying the crystal-clean kidney-shaped pool before him, with the waterfall cascading over boulders at one end, he had a sudden vision of Mari there. She’d be climbing the boulders in no time, just to show him she could.

And then jumping off them—in spite of his admonition to get down—to make the biggest splash a sixty-pound body could make in that glistening pool.

She was who she was because he was teaching his daughter to face her fears lest she become prey to them. His mother never ceased to point out this fact to him. Each and every time Mari did something the slightest bit dangerous. Taking another year off his life while she was at it.

Several more minutes of silence passed, and Michael knew it was time for him to make his move. Lest she think that he wasn’t interested.

He did what he did—lying and conniving when necessary to get access to bail jumpers—for Mari. He was keeping the world a safer place in the hope that she’d never again come face to face with a bogeyman in the dark of the night who was as real and dangerous as any monster one could conjure up.

“There’s no ring on your finger,” he said. Because he’d seen her gaze linger rather pointedly on his hands. He already knew that she wasn’t married. That she lived alone in the upscale complex. He knew she’d owned the place for two years.

“Not anymore.” That quiet tone again. Every time she opened her mouth it struck him anew. Made him think of a meadow where breezes blew soft and cool.

“Were you married or just engaged?” He already knew that, too, but asked anyway. Because if this meet had been genuine, he’d have asked.

“Married.” The answer didn’t surprise him. The few questions he’d asked in the right places on the street the day before when he’d seen her with his mark had given him what he needed to find the rest on the internet.

“Me, too.” Number one rule in getting information out of someone. You had to give some to get some.

“But not anymore?” He liked the way she was looking at him. Kind of hopeful, as though she wanted him to be single.

Not part of the plan. Her hope. Or him feeling glad that she was hoping.

He sat there in the swim trunks he’d dug out of the laundry after his phone call that morning and quickly washed in the big sink at the kennel, contemplating his next move. The guy he’d hired to watch Sara Havens had interrupted feeding time with his call saying that she’d headed down to the pool in her complex, five miles from where he and Mari lived. Michael had one goal: to find out what he needed to know as quickly as possible. The flirtation was carefully calculated. It wasn’t real.

“Nope, I’m not married anymore,” he said lightly. But for once in his life he was tempted to say more.

He wasn’t the type to bare his soul. Most particularly when it came to talking about Shelley.

“Was the breakup recent?”

“Three years.” The same time she’d been in Santa Raquel. Chosen deliberately for that reason. To give them more in common. In reality, Shelley had been dead for four. Which was why her daughter didn’t remember her.

“Your choice or hers?”

He hated sympathy. Detested it. But wanted to be honest with this woman with her unfussy dark blond hair, no makeup and a body that tempted him like he couldn’t remember ever being tempted.

He watched her. Was she a witch? Doing some kind of voodoo on him?

The thought was preposterous.