FLASHBACK Page 6

  He laughed softly, letting her go. Abruptly his churlishness seemed to vanish. "Sorry. Did you come to see Sara? I'll tell her you're here."

  With a hand on his arm, Laura stopped him going back into the house. "No. I came to talk to you." She looked him up and down. "But obviously it's not a good time. I can talk to you tomorrow at the house." She turned.

  "No, wait." He was eager to hear whatever she had to say to him. "I was just going for a run. If you give me five minutes to put something warmer on, we can go for a walk instead."

  "If you're sure—"

  "I'm sure."

  They set out on foot from Jack's house and walked by unspoken agreement toward the waterfront park. The shush of the ocean and the occasional barking dog were the only sounds. They didn't talk much. Jack left it to Laura to open the conversation when she was ready.

  She waited until they were in the park, walking on one of the narrow paths. He heard her take a deep breath, as though she were about to give him some bad news. His heart sank. Maybe she was leaving, just as he was getting reacquainted. Just as Sara seemed to have found a woman to talk to.

  "Jack, I'm sorry if I was out of line today. I mean with Sara. I don't know much about kids. I guess I should have checked with you first, before I let her help me." In the dim light he saw her biting her lips. "I was thinking it might happen again, and I wanted to discuss with you—"

  "I was a real pig today," Jack interrupted. "I should be the one apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong." He stopped walking, grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. "You were wonderful with Sara. She needs someone like you in her life. A woman she can talk to."

  In the moonlight Laura's hair gleamed. Her lips seemed to shimmer, smiling up at him in relief, drawing him forward.

  "She's lonely, she could use a friend…" His throat felt thick. He wasn't just talking about his daughter's needs anymore. Warning bells started clanging in his head, telling him to back off while he had the chance, but his lips had other ideas. He dipped his head slowly, making his intention clear, giving Laura a chance to duck away.

  She didn't, just stood there staring up at him, her eyes dark pools of mystery. When their lips touched he let his eyes close and gave himself up to the sensations.

  Her lips were moist, cold at first and then rapidly warming as she leaned into him. It was a chaste kiss, a cautious kiss, but Jack felt the tremors it set off right down to his toes.

  She pulled away first, with a jerk and a gasp.

  "I'm sorry," he rasped. He wasn't sure if he was apologizing for being a pig earlier or for kissing her now. Both, probably.

  They were quiet as they walked home, even more awkward now that the kiss was between them – a real kiss, not that mashing of lips he'd dared her into earlier. They arrived back at his house and both hesitated.

  "Coffee?" he asked, uncertain whether he wanted her to stay or go.

  She paused as if equally uncertain. "No, I'd better get back."

  He watched her walk away, then wished she had stayed. She turned once and they gazed at each other in the dimness. She lifted her hand in a little wave and he waved back, but he didn't go into the house.

  He kept watching her until she was out of sight.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Laura wrestled with a bolt of vintage navy-and-yellow brocade, trying to drape enough of it over the curtain rod above the window so she could stand back and decide whether the colors worked. But every time she stepped back the draped fabric uncoiled, like a snake whose charm has run out, and flopped to the floor.

  She felt hot and annoyed, and her hair seemed to be picking up static from the heavy brocade – not to mention dust. Jack was off, again, when she needed a second pair of hands. Although his absence this morning had at least saved her from having to face him.

  Her lips still tingled every time she thought of that odd kiss. She could pass it off as a friendly little peck, his way of apologizing for his behavior with her and Sara.

  What she couldn't pass off was her reaction. When he'd kissed her it was like a match to dry kindling – she'd flamed at his touch. Her whole body had cried out for him, wanting to wrestle him to the ground and embarrass the watching seagulls.

  It wasn't fair that he should still get to her like this, she thought in despair. But one thing was certain. She wasn't going to let him see how he affected her – or let him close enough to do it again.

  She was stuffing the brocade yet again over the inadequate wooden rod when she heard a sound behind her. Remembering her foolishness over the ghosts of Cory and Mr. Sutherland, she turned, fully expecting to see Jack or his daughter.

  And froze.

  The brocade avalanched to her feet, unnoticed. This time the person facing Laura could only be Cory Sutherland.

  And she was no ghost.

  The perfect cheerleader had matured into the perfect anchorwoman. Sleek, sophisticated. She was wearing a Chanel suit in pale green, which brought out the incredible color of her eyes. Her gleaming golden hair was drawn back in a chignon. Her body still looked as perfect as when it had bounced on the football field. There was not so much as a hint in the flat abdomen and slim hips that she had carried a child.

  Laura felt like some kind of science experiment with her hair frizzed out with static, her makeup-free face sticky with dust. She wasn't even wearing her best overalls. Ten years of work rebuilding her self-confidence burst like a soap bubble.

  "My gosh, it's Laura Kinkaide." Surprise inflected the well-modulated voice. "I'd have known you anywhere."

  And thanks for that, Laura thought. "Hi, Cory," she answered weakly, wishing in the meanest, darkest part of her being that Cory was a ghost who could be laid to rest, or exorcised, or something.

  "I was looking for Jack. I heard he was working here?"

  Laura felt herself blushing, which infuriated her. As though his ex-wife would care that they'd shared the shortest kiss ever recorded.

  "He's working on the downstairs. I'm working on the upstairs." She made the differentiation so Cory wouldn't get any ideas they were doing anything together. "But I don't think he's here right now."

  "Well, if you pass each other on the stairs, let him know I'm in town. At the Seabreeze." There was a definite glint of humor in the green eyes. "It was nice to see you again, Laura."

  "You, too," Laura lied.

  This little job in her hometown was starting to look a lot like the high-school reunion from hell. First Jack, then Chip, now Cory.

  "House," she said aloud, glaring at the heap of stubborn brocade sulking on the floor, "you're not worth it."

  She glared around the room. Through the curtainless window she caught a glimpse of tossing waves in the harbor, while nearer, frilly apple blossoms twirled like parasols in the light breeze. Inside the room, midday sunshine bathed the walls and brought out the mellow rich color in the floor.

  A little thrill of excitement coursed through Laura at the realization that she was finally here, working in her dream house. She smiled in spite of the wretched curtains. "Okay, you are worth it." She sighed. "And you're right, that brocade is all wrong in here."

  She gathered the heavy fabric and dragged it ignominiously behind her. As she turned to the door she groaned. Jack was there, wearing one of his smirks.

  "Yes," she said belligerently, before he could start teasing, "I talk to myself. Actually, I was talking to the house. The two of us have spent so much time alone together recently we're getting kind of intimate."

  She hadn't meant to sound so sharp. She was still rattled from the night before and from seeing Cory so recently.

  "I'm sorry. I'll make the time up." Jack sounded contrite.

  Her eyes widened. "Hey, it's nothing to me what hours you work. So long as you don't get in my way."

  "I was, ah, hoping to talk to you. If you're not too busy."

  "Never too busy to take a break." Was he going to bring up the kiss? Ask her for a date? Her h
eart rate sped up. What on earth was she going to say?

  Jack took the lump of brocade out of her tired arms and manhandled it into the hall.

  She put a hand to her frizzed hair. "Did you see Cory on your way up here?"

  "Who?" The brocade got dumped once more.

  "Cory Sutherland? Your wife? Mother of your child?"

  "Ex-wife," he corrected automatically. Then his eyes widened. "Cory's here? In Laroche?"

  "At the Seabreeze."

  Whatever Jack had been about to say to Laura was forgotten. He jerked away from her, stomping on the mistreated brocade, and pounded down the stairs. It was like history repeating itself. Cory whistled and Jack went running.

  And Laura was left behind, feeling like a fool.

  She marched back across the room and grabbed the antique mirror she'd picked up for the house. In its wavy surface she inspected her reflection. And learned that wrestling old fabric was not the best occupation for the complexion. Her face was lavishly decorated with bits of fluff, dust and a single curly white feather. With the fizzed-out hair on top she looked like a well-used furniture duster.

  The image of Cory, smooth, sleek and perfectly groomed, flashed in her imagination. It was enough to make a grown woman cry.

  *

  Jack broke the Laroche speed limit three times over as he roared down to the Seabreeze. His palms were slick on the steering wheel, his stomach a knot of tension.

  For five – no six – years he'd lived with fear. The fear that one day Cory would recognize what a mistake she'd made and try and take Sara away from him.

  Jack didn't know much about the law, but he knew it was rare for the father to have custody of children after a divorce. He and Cory had never made their arrangement official, just split the few assets they had and agreed Sara needed to stay in Laroche. Since then, Cory had sent money when she had it in abundance, every cent of which was in a savings account for Sara's college education, and plane tickets once a year. She'd come to Laroche two, maybe three times in the years since she'd left.

  Never unannounced.

  Jack tried to marshal arguments as he drove the pitifully short distance to Laroche's best hotel, but he felt like a doomed man. He could imagine her reasons for taking Sara just now, and he felt a sharp stab of fear when he contemplated them.

  Sara was a preteen girl. He knew nothing about the monumental changes that were ahead of her. He had a book hidden in his closet. Now You Are a Woman was the ominous title. He was too chicken to give it to Sara, and too scared to read it himself.

  All that female stuff was daunting enough. Sara had no older woman to turn to in a mother's place, apart from Gran McMurtry – who probably didn't know any more about how panty liners had sprouted wings than he did.

  Then there was the whole dating thing. He knew too much about teenage boys to let Sara go out with one. Ever.

  For a few minutes yesterday, watching Laura and Sara together, he'd indulged the fantasy that Laura could be the woman he was looking for. The woman who could help Sara find her way through the maze of womanhood. But he had to face the facts. Laura would go back to Seattle in a few weeks and Sara would still be in need of female guidance.

  The Seabreeze loomed ahead of him, grim against the gray rocks and gray sea, the bright trappings of summer still in storage. Al, who'd been the desk clerk at the Seabreeze for as long as Jack could remember, sent him straight up to room 201 before he even had a chance to state his business. As if he needed to. In Laroche every one knew all about his business.

  Standing in the hallway outside room 201, Jack slowly breathed in the stale air of a summer hotel in April before knocking firmly on the door.

  "Come in," the familiar voice called.

  He entered the room and there she was, her hunched shoulder holding the beige telephone receiver to her beautiful blond head. Her hands were busy painting her toenails. She was wearing a white silky top that showed a lot of cleavage, bent over the way she was, and her green skirt was hiked up past her knees, showing a tanned expanse of thigh.

  Cory wiggled the toes of her left foot, to dry them faster, while she painted the toes of her right foot. The smell of nail polish and that wiggling and painting routine took him back to the days of their marriage.

  His stomach clenched. So did his jaw. For some reason that toenail ritual symbolized for him Cory's obsession with her appearance. That and her ambition were the two things that drove her.

  He didn't care what he had to do, who he had to fight, he wasn't going to let Sara grow up with this woman who had already abandoned her once.

  She waved casually at him, giving a half smile.

  "No, no … it's just for the weekend," she said into the phone. "Uh-huh. You can fax them to me here. I'll know by Monday … uh-huh. Gotta go."

  She capped the nail polish, then put the phone back. She was wiggling both feet now. "Surprised?" She smiled brightly.

  "Poleaxed."

  She laughed that million dollar laugh of hers, showing a row of perfect, gleaming white teeth. He remembered when she used to cackle like a prize hen. Her agent had taught her how to laugh so she'd sound good on TV, and now he guessed she used that laugh all the time. Her cackling days, like her Laroche days, were behind her.

  Her eyes roved over him from tip to toe. "You look good, Jack. Don't I get a hello kiss?"

  He didn't move. He was still trying to figure out what she was expecting on the fax machine. A court order to get Sara back? She probably had all kinds of fancy friends with influence. "Not until you tell me what you're doing here," he said levelly.

  She shrugged. "I had a sudden impulse to see Sara … and you, of course."

  "Why didn't you call? You always call first." He jammed his hands in his pockets.

  "What's going on here, Jack?" Her voice chilled. Typical reporter, to answer a question with a question.

  "Nothing's going on. I just … yeah, sure. Of course you can see her." If he didn't antagonize Cory, maybe they could work this thing out.

  She relaxed back in her chair. "I was thinking we should go out for dinner tonight. The three of us."

  Whatever she had up her silk sleeve, Jack wanted to know about it. But he'd lived with Cory long enough to know she would tell him in her own time, in her own way. If he had to choke through a dinner to get down to the business of saving his daughter, he'd do it. He nodded curtly.

  "Mmm. I'm just dying for fresh oysters. Why don't we drive to the Captain Whidbey?"

  They'd spent their brief honeymoon at the rustic inn. Was it really the oysters she was after or did she want to stir up the memories of their early, admittedly passionate, times together? Or did she even remember where she'd spent her honeymoon?

  "Whatever you like," he heard himself agreeing.

  "I'll reserve us a table for eight o'clock. Pick me up at seven."

  Irritation sluiced through him. "Sara can't hold out that long. How about dinner at unfashionable six o'clock? We'll pick you up at five."

  She smoothed her hair, and uncertainty flashed briefly in her eyes. "I don't know what I was thinking of. Sorry. I'll be ready at five."

  Her unfamiliar burst of contrition softened Jack. "Sara will go crazy when she finds out you're here," he said.

  He left the Seabreeze and drove straight to Sara's school to pick her up. She was delighted to see him, and still more delighted when she found out her mother was in town and they were all having dinner together.

  He left her at home, pulling all the clothes out of her overflowing closet while wailing she had nothing to wear. So maybe there was one thing she had in common with her mother.

  Jack then drove straight to his buddy Len's law office, where he waited, hoping to be squeezed in between appointments. He finally managed to get fifteen minutes with Len and emerged feeling more depressed and anxious than when he'd gone in.

  *

  Laura locked the door with a snap at 5:00 p.m. She hadn't really expected Jack back all afternoon, not when she'd
seen him tear out of the place like a tornado in his eagerness to meet Cory.

  Laura didn't care what two consenting adults did in the privacy of a hotel room. She was only angry because she and Jack were under a deadline to complete the McNair job, and she seemed to be the only one at work. It was simple professional irritation that had her hands shaking so badly she could hardly get the key into the ignition.

  She drove to Gran's with excessive caution, controlling the urge to push her foot to the floor and scream her way through the sedate town.

  She recognized the green truck approaching from a block away. Jack was driving, but his attention was clearly on his companions. Cory's blond head was leaning toward him, and Sara's face bobbed eagerly forward from the back seat.

  Laura fought the impulse to ram his vehicle. She gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath, forcing herself not to run the smug two-timer and the ex-cheerleader off the road. The cozy trio drove past unscathed, none of them ever realizing they had been in mortal danger. In fact, none of them had so much as glanced out the window.

  When she got home, Laura found Gran with her nose in Barron's, tsking and cheering the fate of her favorite stocks. "How was your day, dear?" she asked, without bothering to look up.

  She seemed satisfied with a grunt for a reply.

  "I should really buy a freezer," she said, turning a page with age-gnarled hands.

  "What do you want with a freezer when you live alone?" Laura asked, pulled from her own anger by the absurd announcement.

  "It's for the frozen orange juice. The way orange juice futures are looking we should stock up. The price is going to be astronomical next year."

  "I love you, Gran!" Laura announced, coming up behind her grandmother's favorite easy chair to give her a hug. Her love life might be on a downhill run that showed no signs of slowing, but she could always count on Gran to make things seem better.

  The old woman patted her hand absently. "Come and have some soup. I made it this morning."

  Laura sniffed the air appreciatively. "Cream of broccoli? Mmm. Does this mean broccoli futures are going up?"