For Her Eyes Only

“Not this one.” Brad shook his head. “Her visa’s up at midnight tonight. But I can already tell you she’s going to defy.”

“How do you know that?”

Brad grinned. “Because she told me so. Let’s see, how did she put it? That if I wouldn’t give her the time she needed to find her daughter, she’d take it. Yeah, that’s it. If she wasn’t such a looker, I’d have had her detained on the spot.” His grin widened. “Anyway, I’m planning to pass her file on to Edgar in the morning.”

“Edgar?” Jake repeated. What could she have possibly done to warrant high-profile attention? He and Edgar Mollens took on the high-risk cases. Suspected terrorists. Drug runners. Russian Mafia. Sweatshop owners. What could Lambert, Michelle, possibly have done to earn the same regard?

And would her file have been passed to him if he wasn’t officially on vacation?

He was about to ask for specifics on the conviction when Brad’s phone rang. “Hang on a minute.” He swiveled his chair away to speak to the caller. “Brad Worthy.” Jake inconspicuously turned Michelle’s file in his direction. The Four Pines Motel. He noted the address.

Jake’s cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He slipped it out and stepped closer to the door. “McCoy.”

“How about that? There’s a McCoy here, too.”

Jake grimaced at the sound of his youngest brother’s voice. “What is it?”

David chuckled. “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to work on those phone manners, Jake. Then again, your entire demeanor could use a little work. Something I’m hoping to start on first thing in the morning.”

“Are you at the house?”

“Yep. Thought I’d hang around until you got here.”

“Listen, I can’t find my INS ID. Have you seen it around there?”

“Can’t say as I have. Boy, you must be feeling awfully naked. Anyway, I don’t think you’re going to need it where we’re going, unless there are some illegal aliens hiding out in a cave or two.”

“Right.” Jake watched Worthy hang up the phone. “I’ll call you back.”

“Jake, don’t you dare—”

Jake pressed the disconnect button and slid the phone into his pocket. Brad had closed Michelle’s file and was motioning a new applicant to enter. That was it. Just like that, Brad had drawn their conversation to a halt. No more information. To press the matter would not only put him at a disadvantage, it would make his unusual interest in the sexy Frenchwoman even more obvious than it already was.

With a reluctant wave, Jake left.

“Hey, you’re welcome, McCoy.”

MICHELLE HAD NO IDEA why her extension request had been denied. If she had, maybe she could have done something to fight it. But the best she could come up with was that stupid situation she’d gotten herself into in San Francisco so long ago. Though why that brief period in her life meant anything to the American government, she couldn’t begin to fathom.

She plucked her nylons and panties from the shower curtain rod, then stuffed them into her back pack on the double bed. She was blind to the crummy state of the room. The cigarette-burned carpet. The torn bedspread. The stained bathtub. Not because she’d been there long, but because in the course of the past six weeks she’d seen virtually identical rooms across the country. Truth be told, she’d lived in her share of such tacky places in Paris when she’d first struck out on her own. In Kansas, at least the rooms had smelled better, but North Carolina had to be the worst simply because of the bug population and the strong metallic smell of the well water.

The low-rent rooms were all she could fit into her budget. Actually, she’d have found they tested her budget if she’d sat down to think about it. The money she’d been saving to open her own place in Paris’s Left Bank couldn’t have run out faster had someone stuck a vacuum hose in her handbag and flipped the switch. And gone also was the additional money her father had wired to her two weeks ago. Of course, she hadn’t expected her search to be so long, America so very large.

The mattress sagged pitifully as she sat on the side and tugged on her shoes. At least she’d finally gotten a decent latte, thanks to tasty Jake McCoy. In fact, she was thankful to him for much. If not for his quick reaction, she’d be sitting here with even less than she was now.

She absently rubbed her palm along her bare leg. And why had he reacted the way he had? In Paris, she’d had her purse snatched no less than two times, a third thwarted because she’d been determined, the thief careless. She’d been surrounded by people both times, but no one had lifted a finger to help. But Jake…

She sighed gustily, remembering her impulsive kiss and the masculine taste of him on her lips.

She wasn’t certain which interested her more: the fact that she was thinking of someone other than Lili for the first time in so long, or that the someone on her mind was a man.

She pushed from the bed and smoothed the creases she’d made. Her mother had once told her, a year or so before she died, when Michelle was ten, that men were the one thing women could never live without. Michelle hadn’t believed her. She’d forgotten the advice when she’d met Gerald Evans at the Jardin des Tuileries one rainy morning. He’d offered her his umbrella. She’d given him her heart, then, nine months later, a daughter.

She smiled wryly. Awfully high price to pay to keep a little rain off one’s head. But she’d never looked back. Gerald had left Paris shortly after Lili was born. And Michelle and her daughter had forged a life of their own. A wildly variable life she loved. A laughter-filled life—shattered when Gerald had popped up two months ago.

She intended to get that life back.

A leisurely walk in the park with his daughter, he’d told Michelle. That’s all he wanted. He was only in town overnight. Could she please allow him a brief time alone with Lili?

She had. And had regretted the decision ever since.

She rifled through her purse, extracting a sheet of paper. After leaving Jake McCoy at the café, she’d paid a visit to the private detective’s office. Contrary to the information his secretary had given her that morning, John Bollatin had been in. And ten minutes later she’d left shaking with anger and clutching the address in her hand.

Canton, Ohio.

In a dusty corner of her mind, she remembered Gerald saying something about growing up in the Midwest. She had assumed it was Kansas. Going by the map, it should have been. And Bollatin had told her the same. But the address she held was in the northeastern corner of Ohio. An address for Gerald’s parents.

She took out the billfold holding her money from her purse. She sighed at the pitiful amount, then slid it back in. She supposed she could call her father again, plead with him to send her more. But by now Jacqueline had learned about his sending her the other money and would have convinced him that sending more would be irresponsible. After all, they had three additional children to think about. It was an argument that had worked especially well on her father throughout Michelle’s teenage years. And she had no doubt it was even more effective now, seeing as two of their children were still attending university.

No, she wouldn’t put her father in that position. She was the only one who understood how devastated he’d been after her mother’s death from breast cancer. It was as though a part, a very important part of him had died with her. Michelle took an odd sort of comfort in knowing that only she was aware of this. She didn’t want to cause him any more pain.

Besides, living with Jacqueline and her three brats was enough for any man to have to bear.

No, she would have to find her way on her own.

And it was time she started. Now.

THE CAR’S TIRES spit up the spotty gravel as Jake pulled into the motel’s parking lot. He put the gear in park, then shut off the engine. The sound of traffic zooming by on I-295 was deafening, making him wonder how anyone could sleep with all the racket. His apartment was located in Woodley Park, in the older section of D.C. Quiet, tree-lined. A bit of Norman Rockwell and old America in the middle of bustling downtown.

He stared at the closed door to Room Three. He couldn’t begin to explain to anyone what he was doing there, much less come up with a rational explanation for himself. He’d tried already. It hadn’t worked.

So what if Edgar was out of town until tomorrow, wrapping up a case in Georgia? Edgar was just as efficient as Jake was. And he had more years on the job. It didn’t matter if he got the case today, tomorrow or the next day. Edgar would find Michelle quicker than she could blink those latte-colored eyes.

He shifted uneasily on the leather seat. The feeling was foreign to him. Very little made him uncomfortable. But not knowing what deeds lurked in the shadows of Michelle Lambert’s past did.

At least that’s what he told himself.

He shifted again, recognizing the statement for the lie it was.

He was drawn to this woman. It was as simple…as complicated as that. She ignited something within him impossible to ignore and equally foolish to pursue. But pursuing it he was.

He scrubbed his face with his hands. He realized part of the reason he was intrigued by her was that her reason for being in the country had nothing to do with finding a better job than she could back home. Or because she was in search of the American dream. She wasn’t interested in any of that, as many foreign nationals were. She hadn’t applied for a green card. She’d merely wanted an extension on her visa. So she could find her daughter.

There. There it was again. That bottomless feeling in the pit of his stomach.

And the image of Michelle sitting in a rocking chair with a dark-haired child in her arms. Her thickly lashed eyes sparkling with warmth. Smiling.

He left out of that thought the possibility that he wouldn’t see her again. Despite that her beat-up Ford was parked a few yards away from him, she could have already skipped town. And knowing what she’d told Brad, he was convinced she would live up to her threat. There was a strength about her. A determination he couldn’t help but be fascinated with.