His gut twisted, Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Letter to Reader Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue Copyright

His gut twisted,

a combination of admiration for her and envy of the man who’d had such a woman and turned his back on her. What he could have done with a woman like Adrianne at his side, back when he’d still thought he could make a difference, when he’d still tried to. Could he have leapt those tall buildings, after all?

Cutter moved his hand from her shoulder to her face, cupping her cheek. He let his thumb stroke her lips, outlining their softness. She didn’t move. Bending his head, he replaced his thumb with his lips. A soft, gentle caress, meant to heal.

Except the feel of her slammed into him, sucking the air from his lungs, and suddenly he was the one in need of healing. Because this feeling hurt, it squeezed his chest and blurred his thoughts.

And her response brought him to his knees....

Dear Reader.

This April, Silhouette Romance showers you with six spectacular stories from six splendid authors! First, our exciting LOVING THE BOSS miniseries continues as rising star Robin Wells tells the tale of a demure accountant who turns daring to land her boss—and become mommy to The Executive’s Baby.

Prince Charming’s Return signals Myrna Mackenzie’s return to Silhouette Romance. In this modern-day fairy-tale romance, wealthy FABULOUS FATHER Gray Alexander discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses marriage—unless love enters the equation.... Sandra Steffen’s BACHELOR GULCH miniseries is back with Wes Stryker’s Wrangled Wife! In this spirited story, a pretty stranger just passing through town can’t resist a sexy cowboy struggling to raise two orphaned tykes.

Cara Colter revisits the lineup with Truly Daddy an emotional, heartwarming novel about a man who learns what it takes to be a father—and a husband—through the transforming love of a younger woman. When A Cowboy Comes a Courting in Christine Scott’s contribution to HE’S MY HERO!, the virginal heroine who’d swom off sexy, stubborn. Stetson-wearing rodeo stars suddenly finds herself falling hopelessly in love. And FAMILY MATTERS showcases Patti Standard’s newest novel in which a man with a knack for fixing things sets out to make a struggling single mom and her teenage daughter His Perfect Family.

As always, I hope you enjoy this month’s offerings, and the wonderful ones still to come!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Oat. L2A 5X3

His Perfect Family
Patti Standard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Tom.

Thanks for getting us where we’re at.

PATTI STANDARD reads romances as well as writes them because she’s hooked on happy endings. She knows that in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds, the hero and heroine are just plain old meant to be together, and they will be on that final page. That’s the joy of the romance novel. Reality is a little less certain sometimes, but her husband and children are a constant reminder that bits of that same joy are found on every page in life.

Dear Reader,

I was raised in a “traditional” family, with a stay-at-home mom and a professor father, one sister, one brother and the requisite dog and cat. Yet in my family, my father did the cooking and my mother farmed our fifty acres of alfalfa. My father taught me that a good stock is the secret to perfect soup; my mother knew that baling hay in the predawn dew ensured the heaviest bales.

So much for traditional.

As we approach the millennium, it’s harder to find a definition of family that fits everyone. But one thing we all agree on is that family matters. It matters to me, and it always matters to my characters. In His Perfect Family, both Adrianne’s and Cutter’s worlds revolve around their families. Flawed, tense and occasionally chaotic—definitely not perfect—their families ground them, define them and comfort them.

May your family, however traditional or non, however chaotic or calm, be the perfect family for you.

Best wishes,

Chapter One

Cutter Matchett stopped sanding and blew away the layer of fine oak dust. He ran a callused hand over the satiny wood, sensitive to the slightest imperfection, and wished that Mr. Jonathon Round would move out of his light.

“So, anyway,” the balding young man was saying, “barely an hour after our accountant friend has embezzled the twenty-five grand, he’s making his getaway, zipping down the highway...when guess what?”

Without looking up, Cutter reached out and took the insurance adjuster by his pseudosilk tie and pulled him aside. That was better.

“Cutter, are you even listening?”

He inspected the piece of sandpaper critically, folded it into a smaller square and began to rub the wood again. “Cut to the chase, John.”

“Jonathon.”

“Whatever.”

“The chase is, Mr. Harvey Rhodes takes a turn too fast—probably so excited by the thrill of recent larceny—hits a cement divider...” Jonathon brought his palms together with a loud clap. “Ends up with massive chest injuries. Dead as a doornail.” He wiped at the large thumbprint on his tie and tucked it into the waistband of his navy pants with their knife-edged crease. “But that’s not all.”

“No, I didn’t suppose so.”

“The police are on the scene in minutes, but where’s the money? Hmm? He’d just left the office with the bucks in his briefcase, makes no stops anybody knows of, but twenty-five thou never makes it to the morgue with him. Vamoose. Nowhere to be found, and nobody knows nothin’.”

Cutter raised his head.

“Hell, Cutter, it was two weeks before our client even realized his accountant had screwed him. By that time, the grieving widow has cremated the body, the car’s been scrapped and our insured is whining for us to ante up. Police started an investigation, but there were no witnesses, they swear there was nothing in the car but personal effects and wadded-up napkins, there’s no fat, juicy deposits in any accounts... The trail’s as cold as ice.”

“So a cop’s got sticky fingers. It’s happened before.”

Jonathon shook his head. “The first blue on the scene is squeaky-clean. My gut tells me our man stashed the cash somewhere just before he hit the wall. I’d bet my retirement that money wasn’t in the car when the police got there.”

Cutter refrained from commenting on just what he thought about the adjuster’s gut. “Did he have time to get it to the wife?” He felt a stirring of interest in spite of himself. “Is she sitting on it?”

Jonathon Round smiled. “That’s where you come in.”

That smile reminded Cutter of certain suck-up lieutenants he used to take great pleasure in transferring to Biloxi in August He didn’t like the adjuster for First Fidelity Insurance, he decided as he did every time they met. He didn’t even particularly like investigating the cases Jonathon brought him. But the money was good, and they kept his skills from getting rusty. There wasn’t much call for a retired naval intelligence officer in Little Rock, Arkansas. Picking a few locks for Johnny every now and then held a certain nostalgic appeal.

“It seems Mrs. Harvey Rhodes needs a carpenter to do a little remodeling project,” Jonathon went on, “and my thoughts immediately turned to you. Alone in the house all day, knocking holes in things, it would be the perfect opportunity to find out just what Mrs. Rhodes has got in her piggy bank.” His smile this time would have gotten him icebreaker duty in the Arctic—in January. “By the way, our man Harvey was too cheap to take out any life insurance. He left her with nothing but a piddly IRA and a passbook savings account”

“How do you find out this stuff, Johnny?” Cutter asked mildly. He pulled a fresh sheet of sandpaper from the package on top of the unfinished buffet. “Have you been opening her mail?”

“I’ve kept my eye on her. We dragged our feet for six months, but First Fidelity finally had to pay up. If there’s a chance I can get that money back, I want it.”

You would, Cutter thought with contempt. “Twenty-five grand’s a drop in the bucket for a company the size of yours. Why don’t you let it go? Raise somebody’s premiums or something and let the lady keep her nest egg.”

Jonathon shrugged, bunching the shoulders of his suit. “It’s my account. Happened on my watch. Payouts don’t look good on your record, no matter how small.”

“Especially for an up-and-comer like you.”

“That’s right.”

Sarcasm went right over the head of this guy. No, he didn’t like little Johnny at all. But he did like to eat and he could use the money. “How much?”

“Mrs. Rhodes will pay you, of course,” Jonathon said quickly. “Whatever it takes to turn a pantry into a spare bathroom. I’ve already got it taken care of through a friend of a friend. She thinks you come highly recommended and can start Monday.”

“Forty an hour plus expenses.”

Jonathon sighed and looked pained. “All right. But I want an itemized account.”

Cutter nodded.

“Just see what you can come up with. That money’s got to be somewhere. I’ve been watching Adrianne Rhodes like a hawk for the last six months and she sure as hell hasn’t spent it. Who knows, if she thinks it’s safe now, she might pay you with my money.”

“Okay, Johnny boy, I’ll rummage through her pantie drawer for you. It looks like you’ve snooped through just about everything else.”

“Hey, I wish I got the panties, let me tell you.” That smile again. “The lady is a real looker. Southern, icy little blonde. Bet she’s heavy into cool satin and scratchy lace.”

Cutter turned the drawer he was sanding upside down and tapped. Sawdust cascaded over Jonathon’s shiny black shoes, covering the neat tassels and filling the cuffs of his pants. “Sorry.”

He had to credit the guy—Jonathon didn’t blink an eye as he delicately shook each foot. Instead he laid a smooth, white hand on the top of the oak buffet and gave it a tentative pat. “Nice work. How much do you get for a piece like this?”

“I’m charging him eight thousand dollars.”

“Good lord! I had no idea—”

“Go home, Johnny. I’m busy and you’re in my light.”

“Uh, right. Well, I’ll be expecting a report from you by the end of the week.” The man shifted uneasily. “I’ll just see myself out.” He scurried from the garage, empty except for the heavy piece of raw furniture, and the even larger, more raw man that caressed it so lovingly.

“Adrianne, darling, I’m so glad you’ve finally given in and decided to see things my way.” Blanche Munro swept into the kitchen where Adrianne Rhodes diced carrots for stew. A long, pink-tipped nail whisked under the descending knife and neatly extracted a carrot square. Blanche popped it into her mouth. “Lisa, sweetie, come over here and tell your mother how thrilled you are to get your own bathroom.”

The girl obediently crossed to the counter and gave Adrianne a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the bathroom, Mom. It’ll be great.” Then she turned to the refrigerator, hanging on to the door as she studied the leftovers.

“Lisa’s thirteen now,” Blanche went on, stealing another carrot from the growing pile on the cutting board. “Any day now she’ll be thinking about nothing but makeup and boys, makeup and boys.”

“Grandma.” Lisa groaned, pulling out bologna and a jar of mayonnaise and swinging the refrigerator door shut with her hip.

“Your mother practically lived in the bathroom at your age.” She looked at the carrots critically. “You should cut them larger or they get mushy.”

“Lisa likes them tiny,” Adrianne told her mother, her voice mild.

“Hmm. So, tell me, when do we begin this construction project?”

“He’s supposed to start first thing Monday morning.”

Blanche moaned. “It will be such an enormous headache, the mess, the noise, some strange man in your house all...” Her carefully plucked eyebrows rose. “Have you met this man?”

Adrianne shook her head. “But a friend at the bank said her sister had a friend who used him. I guess he made a beautiful coffee table for her.”

“Lisa, child, there are a million calories in every spoonful of that.” Blanche hurried to the table where the girl lavishly spread mayonnaise on a piece of bread and grabbed the jar, twisted on its blue lid and returned it to the refrigerator. “You’re getting to the age where you’re going to have to start watching your figure, you know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Adrianne saw Lisa deliberately lick the knife, savoring every calorie behind her grandmother’s back. She sighed and added the carrots to the pot of boiling meat on the stove. Even with a long, bulky sweater over her dance leotard, Lisa’s tummy was obvious. And her black tights did little to slim her heavy thighs. Of course it was only baby fat, Adrianne assured herself. Even Blanche said so. Thirteen was too early to worry about her weight, she had lots of growing to do yet, but still...

She watched her daughter attack the sandwich with gusto. They really couldn’t afford to do any remodeling right now, with the bills still piling up after Harvey’s death, but if it would help Lisa’s self-esteem to have her own little private space... She just hoped the girl really meant it when she said she wanted the new bathroom. It was hard to tell what Lisa wanted, she tried so hard to please everyone, intent on being so—good.

“Well, I have to be going now,” Blanche told them, pressing air kisses all around. “Another meeting of the library board.” She caught her wavering reflection in the door of the microwave and gave a slight tug on the jacket of her pale pink suit. Then she bent down until she could see her face in the square, patting at her carefully frosted blond hair and fluffing her bangs.

“Thanks for picking Lisa up from dance class,” Adrianne told her. “This working late on Fridays is getting to be a bad habit.”

“I enjoyed watching her. She dances like an angel, a cloud, so much talent... That color looks good on you, dear,” Blanche interrupted herself as she eyed Adrianne’s apricot skirt and matching blouse, “but you have a run in your stocking. You don’t want to let yourself get sloppy now that you’re a widow. Harvey would have loved you in that, wouldn’t he? He always liked you to look so feminine.”

Adrianne stiffened at the mention of her late husband, felt the knot inside her stomach pull another notch. “I don’t think Harvey paid much attention to my clothes, Mother.”

“Nonsense. He thought you were gorgeous, the dear, dear man.” She picked at a stray thread on the jacket of Adrianne’s suit, which lay hooked over the back of a chair at the table. Her voice softened dramatically. “High-school sweethearts. Just like your father and me. So romantic.”

She sighed, then straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Well, I’m off. I’ll stop by tomorrow evening and we’ll visit.”

Blanche swept from the room—exit stage right. Adrianne always added mental stage directions to her mother’s exaggerated movements.

Mother and daughter looked at each other as the front door slammed. Lisa made a face and said, “Trust me, Mom, if I danced like a cloud, it was a rain cloud.”

Adrianne laughed. “Now, you know that’s just the way your grandmother is. She likes to see everything a little larger than life.” She fished a potato from the dusty plastic sack and began to peel it into the sink.

“Compared to the other girls in my class, I’m definitely larger than life,” Lisa said dryly.

Adrianne winced. “How are dance classes going?” she asked cautiously. Lisa had been in ballet for two years now. She insisted she liked the classes, but...

“Fine.”

She shot her daughter a look over her shoulder, but Lisa didn’t meet her eyes. The girl stood and shoved in her chair. “Really, Mom, everything’s fine. I’ve got to start my homework now. Call me when supper’s ready.”

Adrianne listened to her daughter’s heavy tread start up the stairs. Everything’s fine. Adrianne gave the potato a vicious jab. That’s right Everything was always just fine.

Cutter glanced at the address again on the fussy contract Jonathon Round had prepared for him, signed in triplicate, yellow copy to accounting, goldenrod to client and mint to file. He threw the paper on the dash and squinted into the morning sun as he drove slowly down the cul-de-sac of a middle-class suburb on the edge of Little Rock. Except for the trim, the houses were identical. The owners had managed to wrestle some individuality from the landscaping, and took obvious pride in their new spring flower beds and carefully, edged grass. greening up nicely from the April rains.

He pulled his truck into the driveway of a house with steel blue trim, recently pruned rosebushes and a split-rail fence, and cut the engine. He glanced up and down the street. The American dream—and a burglar’s paradise. Everyone off to work, garage doors pulled down tight, curtains drawn, but always a window somewhere left open—just a crack. But it gets so warm in the afternoon, they’d tearfully tell the officer when they came home to find a dusty square instead of their TV.

He got out of his truck and shut the door quietly behind him so it latched with barely a click. An old habit, hard to break. He made his way up the walk and punched the doorbell. When he heard no footsteps, he reached up and ran his hand along the trim over the door. His fingers quickly encountered the key, just where Mrs. Adrianne Rhodes said she’d leave it for him, and where even the stupidest burglar was sure to look. He sighed, unlocked the door and walked into the silent house, easing the key into the pocket of his jeans. He’d make a copy when he went to lunch. Another old habit.

The living room was to his left, kitchen to his right, stairs to the second story straight ahead. The carpet was gray, the walls white, the furniture tasteful with gray-and-turquoise pinstripes in the blue upholstery. The coffee and end tables were oak veneer, he noted, not the real thing.

He turned into the kitchen and made a quick tour, easily locating the walk-in pantry he’d been hired to make over. The door stood open, and its floor-to-ceiling shelves were empty. A pedestal sink stood beside the pristine white john in the middle of the floor, a roll of vinyl leaned against its tank. He surveyed the boxes in a neat stack—medicine cabinet, faucets, towel bars, toilet-paper holder—even a fresh one-gallon can of paint An efficient little thing, our Mrs. Rhodes, he thought. Always good to know how your mark thought.

He made several trips back and forth to his truck, unloading tools and unrolling extension cords, then he strapped on his tool belt. He let it settle low on his hips, liking the weight and the familiar way his hammer banged against his thigh as he walked. Time to get to work. Finishing the bath would take two full weeks and didn’t leave much time to snoop.

His first stop was the pile of bills and scribbled notes tucked behind the phone on the counter next to the refrigerator. Carefully and methodically, he went through each scrap of paper. Mrs. Rhodes carried a balance on both of her gold cards, he noted. The latest charges were to a local pharmacy and to the Tire Exchange for a complete set of new radials. She was pushing the due date on several of her bills but seemed to be keeping her head above water. If she had twenty-five thousand tucked away somewhere, she wasn’t sending any of it to Arkansas Power and Gas.

Upstairs wasn’t exactly a wealth of information, either. There was a girl’s bedroom, early teens, he guessed from the amount of black clothing in the closet. A computer held the place of honor on her desk, and he clicked on the monitor and CPU to take a cursory look at the directory. He whistled softly. A hack. A talented one. That was interesting.

There was a standard bathroom, with the standard woman’s stuff—hot rollers, makeup and intricately designed brushes and combs. He opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a large pink box with a delicate flower embossed on its front. He ran his hand to the bottom and flexed some of the absorbent pads. No stiff hundred-dollar bills crinkled. It was worth a try. He’d seen stranger hiding places.

The spare bedroom was used for an office-sewing-stackthe-Christmas-decorations room. He’d need to spend some time there, going through boxes. The last room along the hallway was hers. Definitely hers. Anything that spoke of Mr. Harvey Rhodes had been effectively disposed of during the six months since he’d missed that turn. There were no suits in the closet, no ties on the rack, no lingering whiff of spicy aftershave. Any sign of the man had disappeared as thoroughly as the money.

Interesting.

If she had the cash somewhere on the premises, her room was the most likely place to hide it, he decided, since it offered the most privacy. He crossed to the dresser and rummaged through the drawers with a skilled thoroughness that left no edge unexplored yet didn’t ruffle so much as a fold of cloth.

He paused when he reached the drawer overflowing with silky scraps. His hands sank into the piles, rough calluses snagging the delicate material. That jackass Round had been right—satin and lace, midnight blue and red and emerald, smelling of night and sin. He shoved the drawer shut and moved to the closet.

Her taste in clothing ran to pastel colors, soft, drycleanable and matching. He frowned, trying to imagine the hot red satin he’d just held in his hands underneath these cool, easter-egg-sweet skirts and blouses. More and more interesting.

He dropped to his knees and burrowed to the back corner of the closet, feeling along the floor for a loose carpet edge. Several long dresses in plastic garment bags engulfed him, draping over his head.

He felt a polite tap on his back.

“Excuse me, Mr. Matchett? May I help you find something?”

Cutter froze for no more than an instant before slowly backing out of the closet, his hammer bumping along the carpet, his mind quickly and deliberately evaluating options, discarding one after another. He fought the sound-muffling garment bags from around his ears and turned toward the room, toward her, rocking back on his haunches in the closet doorway. His face was level with her stomach, a gently rounded female stomach zipped into a pair of cream-colored corduroys.

He swallowed, his mouth dry, and worked his way up. Past the curve of her breasts, covered in something sky blue and clingy, up the long column of her neck to a firm yet delicate chin, a thin and aquiline nose, cheekbones high and sharp enough to cut, and long blond hair, the color of wheat where it waved around her shoulders ripening to big buttery chunks around her face.

A classy face that could freeze a man to death—if it weren’t for those eyes. Cutter stared into her eyes, the color of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with a few swallows gone. Just enough to let in some light, to kiss it and make it glow. The color of his favorite honey stain, a custom blend he hand buffed until oak turned to sunlight.

“Mr. Matchett?” she repeated. There was just a hint of the South in her voice.

“I was checking the direction of the floor joists,” he said calmly. He gave a rap on the floor and cocked his head, pretending to listen for a hollow ring. Thank God this section of her bedroom was directly over the pantry downstairs.

“Oh.”

He stuck his head back into the closet and began to pound some more, his heart drumming in his ears just as loudly. What in the hell was she doing home! He was disgusted with himself for being caught in such a foolish position. That little weasel Round had said she worked at the bank from eight to five and the daughter didn’t get home from school until at least four-thirty. He was getting lazy and sloppy in his old age, and he cursed himself. In the good old days, it would have been a bullet in the back instead of her soft touch on his spine.

He could still feel a leftover tingle where her fingers had rested. An icy little blonde, Round had said, yet he had burned right through, head to toe, when he’d looked at her. Fire, not ice. He shifted his shoulders, trying to shake off the odd sensation. She was the mark, honey eyes or not

Adrianne stared at the back of Cutter Matchett’s jeans sticking from her closet. It was difficult to have a conversation in this position, she decided, so she said nothing, still disconcerted by the long, cool look he’d just given her. And by her reaction to it. It had been rather like staring into the hypnotic eyes of a large predatory cat, she decided. You admired its grace, its power, all the time uneasily aware that the beast was wondering whether to eat you now or later. She found herself anxiously studying his trim behind while she waited for the rapping to stop.

Seconds later, the man sprang to his feet. “Got it.” He nodded to her crisply, then strode from the room, down the hallway toward the stairs without another word, leaving her to stare after him.

Well.

Slowly, she retraced her steps. She’d come home from her grocery-shopping trip to find his truck blocking her driveway and his tools in her kitchen, and she’d made a quick survey of the house until she’d found him in her bedroom. By the time she returned downstairs, he was already at work in the pantry, attacking the old shelves with a crowbar.

His back was to her, so she gave him a quick, surreptitious once-over from the safety of the doorway. Six foot and strong as an ox, if the way nails were popping was any indication. He wore tight, faded jeans and a black T-shirt that had been washed so many times she could see the lighter tint of his skin showing through at the shoulders. A battered tool belt hung around his hips, tugging at his jeans. His boots were sturdy-looking high-tops, laced with leather.

A man’s man, she thought. The type who would handle hammers, rifles, horses — women — with a relaxed yet firm grip. Good whiskey, rare steak, voluptuous blondes. So different from the men at the bank or Harvey’s professional friends, who monitored their cholesterol with religious fervor and could order quiche with a straight face. Not at all the type of man she was used to being around. She licked suddenly dry lips.

“Well, I better get the groceries out of the van.” She addressed his back and wasn’t surprised when there was no answer.

The paper bags were unloaded and groceries put away with no sound except the soft shutting of cupboard doors and the tortured noises coming from the pantry. She felt the urge to tiptoe and found herself holding her breath during any unexpected silences. This was ridiculous! The man was going to be in her house for the next two weeks. In her kitchen, which was where she and Lisa spent most of their time. She couldn’t very well pretend he wasn’t there. He was large, uncommunicative, intense, but that was no reason why she couldn’t be polite.

She marched over to the pantry and planted herself in the doorway. This was her house, after all, and no—no hunk with a hammer was going to intimidate her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

He tore a two-by-four loose from the wall before he turned his head to consider her over his thick shoulder, the board in his hand studded with twisted nails like some medieval weapon. “Are you planning to be home all day today, Mrs. Rhodes?”

“It’s Adrianne, please.” She smiled.

He didn’t.

“I’m on vacation. I thought as long as the house would be a mess with the remodeling, it would be a good time to repaint the upstairs and do my spring-cleaning. The place hasn’t been painted since we bought it....” He watched her, unblinking, as she wound down. “So, uh, if you need me to run errands or anything, just let me know.”

His dark eyes were as unsettling now as before. She found herself studying his face as intently as he had hers. His dark hair was cut short, military short, and shot through with gray. The cut made his disturbing hooded eyes and heavy brows stand out and threw his straight nose into prominence. Extras in Mafia movies had faces like his. His jaw was determinedly square and drew attention to his lips, lips that curved in a smile that wasn’t really a smile. More like a mocking arc, but whether he laughed at her, himself or the world in general, she couldn’t tell. Whichever, it wasn’t very pleasant

Well, she was more than used to dealing with unpleasant people. As a loan officer, she dealt with them all the time. All you had to do was smile — always. The more unpleasant they became, the more pleasant you became. And you always, always, smiled.

She’d seen her mother do it every night of her childhood, those hot summer nights in Atlanta when the air was so wet and muggy you had to force it into your lungs. The more her father drank, the more Blanche would smile, the more gaily she would laugh as she’d take Adrianne into another room and shut the door tight and play dolls or dress-up or fairy princess.

So now she smiled politely at the man in her kitchen until he finally said, “I’D let you know if I need anything.”

“All right.”

He lifted the crowbar once again. Obviously, the conversation was over as far as he was concerned. And she felt nothing but relief. Ignoring him as best she could, she gathered her cleaning supplies and prepared to tackle the living room. She stood in the doorway, bucket in one hand, rag in the other, and took a deep breath. A strange sense of anticipation grew within her. As the weather had warmed, she’d felt an increasing need to — purge. She wanted everything around her clean and fresh and...hers. Just hers.

She wanted to wash away every fingerprint Harvey had ever put on the woodwork, pick up every piece of lint that had ever dropped from his pockets. She wanted to vacuum away the indentation of the policemen sitting on her sofa and that odious man from the insurance company, badgering her, looking at her with suspicious, disbelieving eyes while she insisted she didn’t know what they were talking about. She didn’t know anything about any twenty-five thousand dollars. Harvey hadn’t come home from the office that day. She’d never seen the money, never heard of the money; she had no idea what they were talking about.

She wanted it all gone.

So she started on the baseboards, wiping them clean. Next, she moved every piece of furniture and vacuumed underneath, took down the drapes, removed pictures from the walls, dusted the leaves of live plants and silk plants alike. Nothing was spared.

For three hours, she cleaned and scrubbed and polished until the living room shone in the sun that came through the curtainless, sparkling windows. And while she cleaned, she was aware of Cutter Matchett in the next room tearing her pantry apart.

She’d just decided to take a break for a cup of coffee when the vibrating sound of something being applied to what sounded like an essential part of her house had her edging toward the kitchen. She peered around the pantry door to find all the shelves gone, revealing a larger than expected room, and her carpenter using what looked like a giant jigsaw to cut a hole in the floor.

The vinyl shook under her feet until he finally removed his finger from the trigger. It took another moment for the noise to finish echoing in the enclosed room. He pulled his hammer from a loop on his tool belt and gave one quick, sharp blow to the floor. A neat square fell into the crawl space below.

“Mr. Matchett, would you like some coffee?”

He looked up at her, and she knew with a sudden certainty that he wanted to say no. He didn’t like her. He didn’t want coffee. He wanted nothing to do with her. But then his face closed, his dark eyes became even more shuttered and he nodded his head. “Thanks, that would be nice. And the name’s Cutter.”

She busied herself pouring coffee while he crossed the floor and settled himself at the table. She pulled out a chair and sat across from him, noting how unnaturally still he sat, his wide-palmed hands unmoving on the table. Now she regretted her impulsive decision to ask him to join her and his inexplicable change of mind. What kind of small talk could they possibly make for the next ten minutes?

Cutter took the matter out of her hands when he asked, “Was your husband Harvey Rhodes by any chance — the accountant?”

“Why, yes. Yes, he was.”

“A friend of mine recommended him at tax time last year. I was sorry to hear about the accident.”

“Thank you.”

“Must be tough. Had a friend whose husband died. No insurance. She’s still trying to recover.” He paused. “You must be doing okay, though. Able to do a little remodeling with the insurance money?”

Adrianne felt her lips compress and she took a quick sip of coffee. Harvey had canceled his life-insurance policy without consulting her. She’d had no idea until after his death that she’d have to handle the mortgage, Lisa’s college, everything from now on with just her salary and what they had in savings. She’d returned Cutter’s contract in the mail last week with a lump in her throat at the number on the bottom line. It would put a major dent in her savings account.

“We’re fine,” she said, not about to discuss her financial situation with this man. Instead, she said with all the politeness she could muster, “It’s almost lunchtime. Can I fix you something? A sandwich?”

So she wasn’t going to get cozy over a cup of coffee, Cutter thought, not really surprised. There were many women who, given the opening he’d given her, would have cussed their husband up one side and down the other for leaving no insurance. Told him all about it, with crocodile tears in their eyes, hoping to get him to cut his bill a little in sympathy.

But not our Southern beauty here. He was still trying to get used to the little jolt he felt each time those amber eyes lifted to his. He reminded himself of Marcia’s baby-blues. They’d cooed that same innocence — while she’d hidden a bottle under her pillow and a lover under her bed. Adrianne Rhodes had a honeyed drawl, honey hair, honey eyes, but underneath all that gold could easily beat a larcenous little heart.

“No, thanks,” he said to her offer of lunch, remembering the key he still had in his pocket. “I’ll —”

The front door burst open, and a teenager in black came into the kitchen, followed by an older woman.

“I’m starved. Lunch ready?”

“In a minute,” Adrianne replied. “Lisa, I want you to meet Cutter. Cutter, this is my daughter, Lisa, and my mother, Blanche Munro.”

He stood up to shake hands with the girl, noting her strawberry blond hair, freckles and stocky build. She took after her father, he decided.

He turned to the woman behind her, taking her hand. Now, here was a dame who knew how to play the game. She was obviously fighting the clock every step of the way, and it looked as if she won more often than not. He placed her in her midfifties, but she hardly looked older than his own forty, thanks to a great highlighting job and a fairly recent tuck around the eyes.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Munro Realty, by any chance?”

“Why, yes.” Her handshake was cool and firm.

“I’ve seen your signs here and there.”

The flirting smile Blanche had started to give him, woman to man, evaporated instantly. Her eyes were shrewd now, sizing up a potential client. “Are you in the market for a new home, Cutter?”

“Not right now.” Blanche’s accent was pure South, born and bred, he noted, while Lisa had the Arkansas twang of a native. A twang he’d spent the first six months in intelligence trying to lose.

“Do keep me in mind,” she said. “I’m sure I could find something you’d like.”

So, the grandma was sharp as nails under all that bleached hair, he thought. He filed away the information. It was too soon to know what was important and what wasn’t, so he treated every snippet, every impression, as if it were the key to the puzzle of the missing money.

“Darling, I see you’ve started your cleaning crusade already,” Blanche said, helping herself to the coffee. “How tiresome. I know I said I’d help, but I just had my nails done. Why you want to spend your vacation this way is beyond me.”

“I told you, you don’t have to help, Mother.”

“I’ll do my room myself, I promise,” Lisa chimed in. “Although this is not how my friends are spending their half-day off, trust me. Teacher’s workdays are supposed to be reserved for the mall.”

Cutter looked around the kitchen, bursting to the brim with chattering females. He suddenly longed for the days of smoky bars, coded greetings and silent black limos easing out of the mist. He sighed and unbuckled his tool belt, thinking dark thoughts about Jonathon Round and his insurance cases. Might as well go to lunch—in peace and quiet It was obvious he wasn’t going to get his hands in any more pantie drawers today.

Chapter Two

Cutter ladled gravy into the crater he’d made in a mountain of mashed potatoes. “So if I bring that three-quarter-inch copper across for the tub, I’ve got to drill through the joists.” He reached across to his father’s plate and poured a spoonful onto his similar mound, then carefully set the gravy boat with its delicate rose pattern on the tablecloth next to the peas.

“Sometimes that’s just the way it is with a remodel,” Peter Matchett told his son, waiting patiently while his wife cut his roast into bite-size pieces and buttered him a roll. “Reinforce it with plywood and it should be all right.”

“Who is it you’re doing this bathroom for, dear?” Mary Matchett asked as she bent over her husband’s plate.

“Her name’s Adrianne Rhodes, and she works at that bank over by the mall. Her husband was killed in a car crash last fall.”

“Well, now, that’s too bad.” His mother looked up, all innocence behind her gold wire glasses. “Is she nice?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And how old is she?”

“Younger than me.”

“Do you like the daughter? Does she — ?”

“Mary!”

“Mother.”

Both men interrupted her at once. Cutter didn’t want his mother thinking along those lines at all. As if he could stop her. And as if his own thoughts hadn’t returned several times that evening to Adrianne Rhodes. It was hard not to remember her wide eyes when the gravy was the same rich, golden brown shade, and the butter melting in a pool on his roll looked as soft and yielding as her hair, and...

Ah, forget it, he was just hungry, he told himself with a mental shake as he attacked the potatoes. His head had been turned by a pretty girl before, and he had two very short, very crummy marriages to show for it. He wasn’t interested.

“I’m glad you’re keeping busy, that’s all,” his mother said, sliding into her own chair. “I was just telling your brother the other day... You know they made him produce manager over at the supermarket?”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“Tom’s been with them seven years, it’s about time they gave him his own department. Especially with Lucy expecting again. I swear, I always say it’s a good thing he works at a grocery store with all those mouths to feed.” She picked up her husband’s fork and helped him wrap his twisted fingers around the handle. “Anyway, I was telling him with business so good, it looked like you would probably stay around awhile —”

“Mom, I keep telling you, I’m not going anywhere.” Cutter kept his voice gentle. They’d been through this before. “I’ve been back two years now.”

“Goodness, has it been that long? Two years. My, my.” She shook out a napkin and draped it across her lap, protecting a dress sprinkled with a rose design almost identical to the gravy boat’s. “When’s the last time you stayed in one spot for two years? That city in Germany, wasn’t it, the one with the wall?”

“Berlin, Mary, for pete’s sake,” his father said gruffly.

“Well, of course I know it was Berlin. The name just slipped my mind, that’s all.”

Cutter smiled, savoring his mother’s pot roast and his father’s advice in equal measure. He’d missed both during those years in Berlin and Prague, Warsaw and Moscow. His mother was grayer now, and plumper, but she still cooked like an angel, dressed like June Cleaver and lived for her grandchildren, now that he and his brother were grown.

His father looked the same as ever, whip thin with a full head of coal black hair, wearing the matching khaki pants and shirt that had been his uniform for as long as Cutter could remember. His eyes were different, though. Years of pain had etched deep lines around them, drawing them back into his skull as if they could hide from it that way. And, then, of course, there were his hands.

Many a mission, as Cutter had raced against the clock to hot-wire a jeep or set the delicate timing device on an explosive, he’d remember his father’s capable hands. Hands that turned a screwdriver with swift, deft strokes to repair a toaster, hands that fixed a bike’s slipped chain or banged in just the right spot to get the old furnace wheezing again. Big, strong hands that patiently teased slivers from grimy small-boy fingers. Caring, loving hands that had fixed Cutter’s world.

And all the time, as Cutter slunk through the alleys of those ancient capitals, he’d thought he was fixing something, too. He’d thought he was saving the world for democracy, making it a better place. The meat in his mouth turned dry, as tough and hard as he felt inside. His eyes flicked to his father’s gnarled fingers, the joints swollen and twisted, so tortured by arthritis they couldn’t even pick up a screwdriver, let alone use it. As useless in the end as Cutter and all those dark alleys.

“I’m just glad Cutter’s home where he belongs,” his mother said. “You know, sweetheart, your father and I aren’t getting any younger.”

“Speak for yourself, old woman. I’ve still got some kick in me yet” His father wagged his thick eyebrows at her. “In fact, I’ve got my eye on one of those exercise contraptions that’ll give you abs of steel in only six weeks. Oprah had a whole show on ’em. Abs of steel, that’s what it said.”

His mother sniffed. “That’s just what you need, all right.” She laid down her fork and steepled her fingers in that way she had. “But I wanted to talk to Cutter about...” She hesitated.

Cutter stopped eating with a strange sense of foreboding. “What is it, Mom?”

“It’s just things are getting to be a bit much for your father and me.”

“Now, Mary, this isn’t the time to be going into all that. Let the boy eat his meal in peace and quiet.”

“Take this house, for instance. The yard went to rack and ruin last year. I couldn’t seem to keep on top of it — that’s all I’m saying.”

“You know I’ll be glad to help out,” Cutter said. “Why don’t you write up a list of chores that are bothering you and I’ll get started on them this week?”

“That’s sweet of you, dear, but your father and I have been thinking about —”

“What’s for dessert?” his father interrupted with a joviality so forced Cutter wondered whom he thought he was fooling. “I’ve been smelling apple pie all afternoon.”

His mother’s smile was thin as she pushed back her chair. “Tom brought over some apples this morning that the store marked down. They had some bruises but were still nice and sweet.” She got up and moved toward the kitchen.

His father had obviously won this round. Now, if Cutter only knew what war he was in the middle of. He ate his pie, all the time watching his parents carefully, his unease growing. He didn’t like mysteries this close to home.

Adrianne had offered to run errands, and he took her up on it, sending her after parts the next morning — from a lumberyard on the other side of town. It would take her two hours to fight her way across the city and back, and he used that time to finish his search of her bedroom — before she started her cleaning frenzy in there.

He’d never seen anyone clean like she did, as if there was some dark purpose besides the cleaning. As if she was on a mission. It was unusual behavior, and anything out of the ordinary was automatically added to his mental file. It could be important in the end.

By the time he heard her minivan pull into the driveway shortly before noon, he’d sifted through every dust bunny and, except for a dime under the bed, hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of money.

“Brought you some lunch.” Adrianne stuck her head into the pantry. “Hey, you got the bathtub in! It looks great.”

“So does that,” he said, pointing to the sack she held, golden french fries sticking from the top. And so did she, he thought, liking the way her T-shirt fit tight and her cotton shorts fit even tighter. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She’d been extremely polite to him that morning, trying to be friendly, although it was obvious she was uncomfortable around him. She’d caught him by surprise yesterday, liberally, and he’d been gruff in his disgust with himself and his shock at how attractive he found her. But now he was steeled and ready. Beautiful women often made the best agents. You looked, you touched, you forgot all about why you were there. But he knew better. So he pasted on a smile and prepared to be friendly, the world’s friendliest carpenter. They would chat, she would tell him things, they’d be bosom buddies.

She divided up hamburgers and fries while he washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

“So,” she said with a smile as they scooted their chairs into the table a few moments later, “I’m really pleased with the way things are going. How long have you been a carpenter, anyway?”

Yup, best bosom buddies.

“Two years, since I retired from the military. But my dad was a builder, so I grew up in the trade.” Chat, chat, chat. He looked up to make some friendly eye contact and found himself fascinated as she dipped a fry in ketchup and brought it to her mouth. The oil glossed her lips, and little crystals of salt clung to them.

“What branch?”

He took a large bite of his hamburger, chewed determinedly, and swallowed. “Navy.”

“A career man, huh?”

“Twenty years.” His eyes followed her tongue as it slid across her bottom lip, catching a drop of ketchup at the corner of her mouth. He swallowed twice more, hard.

“Well, that certainly explains the posture.”

“And the haircut,” he ageed.

Adrianne smiled in response to the mocking curve of his lips. He seemed more approachable today, and she relaxed a little. This wouldn’t be so bad after all. Now that he mentioned it, he definitely looked ex-military. Tough and hard and very, very competent. To last twenty years in the service, he’d need to be. Bosnia, Somalia, the Gulf... She paused with a fry halfway to her mouth. “Vietnam?”

He froze for a brief moment, then calmly reached for his drink. “Just missed it.”

“Not a very popular move, I bet, enlisting right after the war.”

“No.”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything else, just finished his hamburger in three more efficient bites and wiped his fingers with a paper napkin. He looked too big sitting there at her kitchen table, too male, too... She didn’t know what, but whatever it was it made her shift uncomfortably in her chair. She wasn’t used to testosterone, if that’s what was soaking into her air. Any pheromones she encountered in the course of her day were safely cloaked in dark suits and wrapped in ties, camouflaged with aftershave, sanitized by a wedding ring and photos of kids on the desk. He must have felt her stare because his dark eyes lifted to hers — cool again, emotionless, as detached as that predatory cat’s.

“Intelligence.” She voiced her thought without thinking.

His thick brows rose. “Now and then.”

That initial spark of approachability was fading fast. It was back to name, rank and serial number, she thought, exasperated. She was trying to make polite conversation, for goodness’ sake, not pry state secrets out of him. She still had half her burger to go — they had to talk about something. “That must have been an exciting time,” she continued, “being in the service at the end of the cold war, knowing you played a part in tearing down the Berlin Wall —”

“Nobody needed to tear it down.” His fingers tightened on the napkin, wadding it into a ball. “It would have crumbled into ruins in a few more years anyway, just like the rest of the Soviet bloc.”

“But —”

“Failing factories and ancient farm equipment brought it down, not naval intelligence. All we had to do was wait for the rust.” He stood abruptly, stuffing his wrapper and napkin into the paper sack. “I better get to work. Thanks for lunch.”

Well! She stood, too, and took the sack he held out to her. Her fingers brushed his, and she started at the tiny current that sizzled the length of her arm. Completely unexpected. Completely unwanted.

Completely arousing.

Her gaze flew to his face, her fingers still touching the back of his as if pressed there by a magnetic field, unable to withdraw. She was aware first of his hand’s warmth, then of its thickness and strength, so large compared to hers, then of an excruciating embarrassment at the thought that he might sense her reaction to him. But he returned her startled look with no sign he was affected in the least.

She jerked the sack from him, breaking the contact that could be measured in milliseconds, yet had felt like aeons. “I think I’ll get some lasagna ready for supper and bake a cake for Lisa. She likes a sweet after school” She flashed her best polite smile, trying to keep the edges from cracking, a thank-you-for-stopping-by smile, but he simply nodded and turned toward the pantry.

Cutter flexed his fingers, massaging away the residual heat left by her soft touch. Big mistake, touching was. Big mistake. There’d be no more of that, he warned himself. Friendly didn’t mean stupid. And the feelings her touch had set off in him were the kind that led men to do stupid, stupid things.

He heard cupboards banging in the kitchen as Adrianne prepared Lisa’s “sweet.” The last thing that girl needed after school was a piece of cake, he thought caustically as he levered himself through the hole in the floor into the cool, dark crawl space. A couple of times around the block would do her a hell of a lot more good. Obviously Adrianne didn’t see the connection between meeting her daughter at the door with a full platter and the size of the girl’s thighs.

Not his problem, he reminded himself as he lay on his back in a fine layer of dirt and began to connect the bathtub to the existing drainpipe. None of his business. He flexed his fingers again. Definitely none of his business. Besides, it wasn’t like he had any answers. If he’d learned one thing in his twenty years in the service, it was that he was not one to fix things. He’d learned that the hard way.

He remembered how proud his parents had been when he’d enlisted that summer day the week after he’d graduated. His father had been in the navy and recollected his two-year stint with a hazy fondness. Cutter was going to follow in his footsteps. Change the world. Well, in twenty years, the world had changed, all right, he thought as he gave a fierce twist to a piece of pipe, but it had nothing to do with him. Communism had crumpled with barely a whimper, and he and all his cohorts had stood there in their wrinkled trench coats with their suddenly obsolete codes and just as obsolete lives.

He thought of Lowenstein and Rush and Cadenza, all the agents killed over the years in the name of freedom. Freedom! His teeth clenched. Communism imploded from its own weight, making a mockery of all their cloak-and-dagger operations. All they’d had to do was wait, kick back on the deck of a ship in the warm waters off Guam and wait. He’d seen the signs during those last years; he’d tried to tell his superiors that if the Russians couldn’t manage gas for their cars or bread for their bellies, how were they supposed to launch a nuclear war?

Cutter heard the sound of the oven door shut and then water being drawn into a bucket in the sink. He followed the thump of Adrianne’s determined tread up the stairs and knew she was about to attack another room. So much for their friendly little chat. He’d had in mind pumping her for information, not the other way around. He didn’t expect to have to talk about Berlin or a war the world referred to as cold, a war he knew was the exact temperature of freshly spilled blood.

He’d come home when he could manage it, and each time he’d been shocked by the new twist to his father’s fingers, the increased swelling, the number of pain pills. Bit by bit, he’d given up fighting the system, slowly, assignment by assignment — and visit by visit, he’d watched arthritis wrench his father’s big, strong hands into helpless, painful knots. Then one day he’d returned to Little Rock after a frustrating assignment teaching formerly despised enemies, now esteemed colleagues, how to upgrade their navigation system. And that night, he’d stood helplessly by while his mother cut his father’s food into bite-size pieces. The man who had once fixed Cutter’s world could no longer fix his own food — and Cutter decided he was through trying to fix things, as well.

The world could get along just fine without his help. He’d turned in his commission that day and had since spent his time forming raw slabs of wood into coffee tables, buffets and bookshelves. Oak could be shaped, planed, sanded, slowly guided in the direction he wanted it to go.

Nothing else could.

Adrianne heard the front door slam in that aggravating way Lisa had of announcing she was home from school. She took a last swipe at the top shelf of her closet, then stepped off the chair she balanced on and dropped her rag into the bucket of cooling water. Blanche’s voice was audible from below, a high little laugh followed by Cutter’s deep, rumbling answer.

She started down the stairs, bucket in hand, in time to hear Blanche saying, “Oh, yes, I stop by almost every evening. I feel it’s important to eat supper here with my family.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “I’m a widow, you know, and now that Adrianne’s lost her husband, we need to support each other. We’re all the family we have left.”

Here she goes again, Adrianne thought. Her mother wrote her revisionist history as fast as it happened. She couldn’t help the sardonic snort that escaped as she turned the corner into the kitchen. “Mother, you eat supper with us maybe twice a week, if we’re lucky,” she said. “The rest of the time you’re busy with your committees and meetings — and your gentlemen friends.”

Lisa had taken a tub of frosting from the cupboard and was slathering it on the cake that cooled on the counter. Blanche stood in the center of the kitchen, teetering on the four-inch heels she insisted on wearing. Cutter leaned against the doorjamb to the pantry, a cordless drill in one hand, sawdust caught in his dark hair, looking extremely masculine—and sexy as all get-out, she realized with a start He smiled at her, and her stomach did an odd little flip-flop.

Unnerved, she crossed to the sink and emptied the bucket of gray water. “Mother doesn’t sit here crocheting with us in the evenings like some grieving widow, believe me.”

“Don’t exaggerate, darling.” Blanche sounded testy. “Widowhood is an extremely difficult state for a woman, and well you know it. Are you married, Cutter?”

He shook his head. “Divorced.”

“Ah. That can be difficult, as well.” She picked up her handbag from the table. “I hate to let you be right, Adrianne, but I do have a dinner engagement with Samuel Wagner this evening. A business dinner, of course.”

“Of course.” She turned the bucket upside down in the sink and draped the frayed tea towel she was using for a cleaning rag across it. “But I wish you’d given a call. I’ve got an enormous pan of lasagna ready to go in the oven.”

“sorry, love, I promise I’ll eat leftovers three nights in a row. But don’t try to make me feel guilty. You know you adore cooking and baking, all that grating and mixing and measuring. You’d do it whether I ate a bite or not.”

“She’s got you there, Mom.” Lisa had more chocolate on her fingers than she did on the cake. Big chunks of the moist top had pulled loose to mix with the frosting, and she was trying to pat the crumbs into place with the back of a spoon.

“Okay, you’re right.” Adrianne went to the stove and turned the knob to preheat the oven, aware of Cutter’s eyes on her as she moved. “I’m guilty. I love to cook. You know, I remember when your father was alive, I’d make these big theme dinners and we’d all sit down and —”

“When was this?”

Adrianne turned her head to stare at her daughter, shocked by the cynical, too old tone of her voice. “Well, lots of times. We’d —”

“When was the last time we all sat down?”

“Why, it was —”

“Besides Christmas, I mean.” Lisa threw the sticky spoon into the sink. “Daddy was out of town so much the last couple of years we never ate together — maybe once a month.”

Adrianne could only blink in surprise. Had it really been that long since they’d been happy together? A family doing family things? Didn’t Lisa remember those early years, before Harvey had started taking so many out-of-town clients, before things had gotten so very, very bad?

“I...I guess you’re right,” she said, stumbling over her words. “I must have been thinking about when you were little.”

Lisa shrugged. “Whatever.” She licked a blob of frosting from her thumb, then looked up, her green eyes, so like Harvey’s, ingenuous. “By the way, did they ever find that money?”

Adrianne froze. Even Cutter, who’d turned to go back to work, stopped short in the doorway. Blanche put a hand to her chest and gave an audible gasp. The moment lengthened, past the point of no return, but Adrianne did her best to pretend those sharp green eyes didn’t see right through her.

“What do you mean, dear?” She walked quickly to the refrigerator and bent to pull out the heavy dish of lasagna.

Lisa’s tone was casual, which made Adrianne even more worried. “A man came to see me at school. He said one of Dad’s clients was missing some money. He asked a lot of questions.”

Dear God. She’d had no idea.... “We’ll talk about this later, okay?” Adrianne flicked an eye toward Cutter, who’d crossed his arms over his chest and watched them all from under those hooded eyes, unnaturally still and tense. “Now, why don’t you —”

“No. I want to know what that man was getting at. He said —”

“Lisa!” Blanche’s voice was shrill, matriarch in outrage, center stage. “This is neither the time nor the place to be discussing such things.”

Lisa glared at her grandmother, mutinous. She started to protest, then snapped her mouth shut Her shoulders slumped. “No, it never is, is it?” She spun on her heel and stomped from the room.

Cutter saw the way the color had drained from Adrianne’s face at the mention of the money. She was still pale, standing with a pan of lasagna clutched in her hands.

“Adrianne. Darling.” Blanche reached for her. “I just meant —”

“Not now with the theatrics, Mother,” Adrianne said. She pulled away from the offered hand to open the oven door and slide the casserole onto a rack.

Blanche’s voice lowered to a barely discernible murmur, her head bowed close to her daughter’s, and Cutter slipped from the room, following Lisa upstairs.

He found her at the computer, strawberry blond hair swinging forward to block her face from view. He rapped at the open door with a knuckle.

“Lisa? I need to know what height you want the counter on the vanity.”

Her stubby fingers worked the mouse like a virtuoso, and brightly colored images flashed across the screen. She shrugged, not looking up. “I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Look, this is your bathroom.” He stayed by the door, giving her space. “Some people like the counter a little higher so they don’t have to bend over so far — but it’s whatever you want.”

“Yeah, whatever I want. What a joke.” She swiveled her chair around to face him, flipping her hair back with an impatient motion. “You know what I want?”

“No.”

“Well, neither do I.”

Her smile was bitter; his was gentle. “That’s typical for your age.”

“Nothing about me is typical.”

He thought that was probably true.

“I mean, how many girls do you know who have an embezzler for a father?”

She glared at him defiantly, but he could see the hurt—and the fear. Her freckles stood out in blotchy spots, and her eyes were beginning to redden from held-in tears. He’d have to be very careful. She wasn’t the mark—she was a child. “What are you saying, Lisa?”

“Hey, that man wasn’t exactly subtle. He asked if I’d gotten any new clothes or expensive stuff lately. Asked me if I’d seen my father’s briefcase the day he died. Stuff like that.” She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “It didn’t take a genius to figure out he thought Dad had ripped off this client.”

Cutter didn’t have to ask for a description of the man who’d questioned her. Someday — soon — he was going to choke the very life out of Jonathon Round. He said, “And what do you think?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Daddy was gone so much....” Tears welled up and spilled over. “You know, sometimes I can’t even remember what he looked like. He’s only been dead six months, and sometimes it’s like he was never here at all.”

He didn’t go to her. He was a stranger. He had no comfort to give her. “I think I’ll make that counter a little higher.”

Lisa nodded. “Okay.” She twisted her chair back to face the computer screen, and her fingers began to move again, holding on to the mouse like a lifelike.

He paused on the way downstairs. The house was arranged so he could stand out of sight on the stairs yet still hear every word coming from the kitchen.

Blanche was saying, “This is going to be so hard—raising Lisa by yourself. At least you were out of high school before your father died. I don’t know what I would have done without him all those years when you were growing up.”

“I don’t remember him being a very involved parent,” Adrianne said dryly.

Blanche immediately protested. “Maybe not in the touchy-feely way men are supposed to behave today, but he always provided for us. He was a good man. A good father.”

A drawer was shoved in place, a sharp crack of wood slamming against wood. “He was a drunk.”

There was a long silence, and Cutter shifted uneasily on the stairs.

“Well, I’m going to be late for supper if I don’t get going.” Blanche’s voice was crisp and businesslike. “I don’t want to keep Samuel waiting. We do a lot of work with his title company.”

“All right, Mother.” Adrianne sounded resigned, as if she’d expected Blanche’s nonresponse. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cutter made a show of coming down the remaining stairs, turning the corner into the kitchen just as Blanche headed toward the front door.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Munro.”

She nodded and smiled pleasantly, her heels clicking briskly across the vinyl entryway. Lord, that was one tough cookie, he thought as she let herself out. A drunken husband, an embezzling son-in-law, yet not a hair out of place. Reality wasn’t going to come along and mess up her plans. No sir.

Adrianne was another matter. She stood at the counter, a knife poised over the now frosted cake. Yet she made no move. Her back was stiff with tension, and as he came quietly up behind her, he could see her knuckles were white around the metal handle.

He reached out and laid a hand on the back of her neck. Little wisps trailed from the knot of hair on top of her head and curled over his fingers. Internal alarms rang a warning, told him to back off, hands to himself. But her skin was soft, smooth and warm, and he told himself this was all part of the job, gaining her trust, working the mark. “What is it?” he asked, keeping his voice soft, soothing.

For a moment, it seemed as if she pressed back, toward the contact, but then she shifted imperceptibly away, and he dropped his hand.

“It’s nothing, really.” She sliced into the cake. “It’s just Mother and I have such different memories of some things. It’s weird. I was there, she was there, yet it’s like we were in one of those Star Trek parallel universes or something....” She gave a little allover shake. “Anyway, why don’t you have a piece of cake with me? Comfort food.” She reached into the cupboard above her head and took down two plates. “We can spoil our appetites together.”

He took the plate she handed him with a huge piece of chocolate cake leaning in the center, and sat down at the table. If she knew anything about the money, he had to take advantage of these opportunities to talk with her. But if she was going to ply him with food every time, he’d be loosening his tool belt a notch by the time he found it. And he damn well better start thinking with what was above that belt, not below it.

Adrianne sat across from him and picked up her fork. She poked absently at the frosting with the tines, marring its smooth surface with four evenly spaced creases. “I guess you’re wondering what that was all about—with Lisa, I mean.”

“It’s really none of my business. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Tell ’em not to talk, and most people couldn’t wait to start. He tried to ignore the guilty twinge in his gut as she raised those fragile, golden brown eyes to his.

“It’s all blown over now, thank God,” she said. “It seems one of Harvey’s clients had some money siphoned from an account, twenty-five thousand dollars, actually, and naturally they questioned everybody they could think of. Since they couldn’t ask Harvey, they had to ask me, of course, but how could I help? Harvey was a one-man office — he didn’t even have a secretary. He kept his own books, made his own appointments, filed his own files....”

The frosting was crisscrossed with deep slashes by now. “Anyway, the police and this insurance man made my life hell for a while, but finally they went away. I haven’t heard any more about it, so that’s the end of it, I guess.”

“It must have been tough. All the questions —”

“How long had we been married? What kind of husband was he? Had I noticed any unusual behavior?” She dropped the fork and shoved her plate away, glaring at him as if he were the one asking the questions. “How dare they! Harvey was a brilliant accountant, I told them. A wonderful husband! We were married fifteen wonderful years. We were high-school sweethearts—I dropped out of college to marry him, for God’s sake. He was the love of my life. How dare they ask about...about the things they did! He was a good man. A good father.”

She used the same words her mother had used to describe her own father — and didn’t realize it, Cutter saw with amazement. And judging by the grim determination in her voice, he doubted they were any more true about Harvey Rhodes than they’d been about her father. Lisa certainly didn’t think so. Poor Lisa thought she was in her own Star Trek episode.

After twenty years, he could tell a truth from a lie any day of the week. Her ardent defense of her husband rang so false it set his teeth on edge. He’d bet his life something had been wrong with her marriage, but as for the money? Did she have it or know where it was? Of that, he couldn’t be so sure. Not yet.

Adrianne watched Cutter take the last bite of cake. Her stomach twisted in on itself, too sick with nerves to eat. She’d had no idea Lisa knew anything about Harvey and the money. Why in God’s name had Lisa chosen now, in front of Cutter, to ask about it? She focused on Cutter’s strong, broad fingers holding his fork, remembered the comforting feel of them on the back of her neck. Maybe Lisa had felt it was safer to bring up the subject with him there as a buffer. Something about Cutter seemed safe and secure — maybe it was the military posture or those steady eyes that told you he knew all about secrets.

For that matter, why had she talked to him about Harvey? She’d told no one except Blanche about the money, the police, the questions.... “You want to stay for supper?” she asked, suddenly dreading the conversation she’d have to have with Lisa. Sometimes it was a good idea to have a stranger around after all. “I’ve got enough lasagna to feed an army.”

“No, thank you,” he said politely. “In fact, I’d better call it a day.”

After Cutter left, rolling his cords and neatly stacking his tools, Adrianne wandered around the kitchen, stomach churning. Lately, whenever her mother insisted on recalling some wonderful memory of her childhood, she felt this mixture of sadness and anger, of rage too close to the surface. She’d thought she’d dealt with all the baggage of an alcoholic father years ago. She’d thought she’d come to terms with the past and the way her mother chose to handle it.

Blanche conveniently managed to forget the fights, the broken promises, the disappointment when her father had chosen the bottle over them. In Blanche’s southern-to-the-core world, the only appropriate response to How are you? was Fine, just fine.

Depression dragged her down while anxiety wound her up, a double-edged feeling that had been her constant companion these past months. Longer than that, she corrected herself, staring unseeing out the window over the sink. Ever since that first phone call with its soft breathing that never answered her hello. She’d asked Harvey about that one, and the next and the next. But after that, she’d just smiled and said everything was fine, just fine.

She turned from the sink and walked with quick determination up the stairs — the whole time wishing she wouldn’t. But it was like picking at a scab. It hurt, but you couldn’t leave it alone. She passed Lisa’s door and went quietly into the spare bedroom. Bending down, she opened the lid of the cedar chest pushed against the wall and took out a plastic bag, Little Rock. Police Department stamped across it in smudged blue ink.

She carried the bag into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and sank down on the bed. She really didn’t want to look again. Unzipping the plastic seal, she reached inside, ignoring the wallet, the comb, the tie clip, and pulled out an airline ticket folder. She didn’t want to see it again, neatly typed in the destination line. Dallas — Fort Worth International Airport.

One-way.

Unable to stop, she reached into the bag again and took out the sandal. Red. Siren red. Slender, very high, spiked heel. Wispy straps across the toes, one around the heel. She kicked off her loafer and, careful to keep her sock on, slipped her foot into the shoe. She lifted her leg and examined it hanging from her toes.

It was two sizes too small.

Chapter Three

She’d be slim. Great legs. Short, tight skirts. Anyone who wore heels like that had to have great legs. She’d wear low-cut sweaters, and her implants would bubble up, on the verge of spilling over. A blonde? Redhead? That she didn’t know. Adrianne let the sandal slip off and fall to the floor. She stared at it as it lay on its side on the beige carpet — slinky, sly, as seductively dangerous as a serpent.

She knew the woman’s voice. Once she’d actually had the nerve to ask for Harvey instead of hanging up in Adrianne’s ear. It had been a husky, breathy voice, one that matched the shoe perfectly. She knew the woman’s scent, could almost smell it now, rising from the shoe, seeping from the plastic bag. That dark, musky perfume had come home with Harvey from every business trip, no matter if it was to Wichita or Oklahoma City or Memphis.

Idly, Adrianne wondered if Harvey had ever really gone to any of those cities, or if every supposed business trip was actually a quickie in Dallas. Or maybe she met him in all those cities, all those hotels, all those king-size, floral-print-covered beds, Gideon Bibles tucked away in the nightstand.

She picked up the sandal by the heel, using two fingers, and dropped it back in the bag. For a long time, she held the weight of it on her lap, all that was left of her husband, all that was left of her marriage. Then she got up and stuffed the bag in the top drawer of her dresser, deep beneath her panties and bras.

She stuffed her pain and anger just as deeply inside her and took a long, slow breath. She had to talk to Lisa. Tell her everything was fine. It had to be, because right now she was too angry for it to be anything else.

The new-home smell of wet paint greeted Cutter as he pushed open the front door with his foot, his arms around two sacks from the lumberyard. The late-afternoon sunlight was still full and warm on his back. An icy Dos Equis, listening to the traffic go by out on his deck, sounded a lot more appealing than breathing paint fumes for the rest of a Friday afternoon.

“Cutter? Is that you?” Adrianne appeared at the top of the stairs, paintbrush in hand. But that brush was the only sign that she’d spent the afternoon painting. Her hair, instead of stuck sensibly under a cap, fell around her shoulders with a casual wave that he knew wasn’t casual at all. It was too perfect. And her makeup... What was she wearing makeup for? She was alone in the house, working her butt off, hanging from a stepladder. Yet her eyelashes were darkened, her cheeks tinted — and he’d never seen her when she didn’t present just such a polished package. Not once the entire week. And this was on vacation!

Somehow, that very perfection made her seem vulnerable, achingly so. The more she armored herself, the more he felt the urge to shelter her.

“What is it? Do I have paint on my nose?”

“Nope.” He set the bags on the floor, annoyed he’d been caught staring, annoyed at his protective thoughts. The woman had started to get under his skin after a week in each other’s back pockets. A week of reading her mail, leafing through her photo albums, prying into every nook and cranny of her life. A week of sharing coffee in the morning and lunch at noon, talking, teasing — okay, mildly flirting. He told himself again it was all part of the job, to gain her confidence, her trust. That’s what he told himself. All part of the job.

But he hadn’t dared touch her again.

“Your father called while you were gone. He said to remind you you’re eating at their house tonight.”

“Not likely I’d forget that. The rest of the week, it’s nothing but TV dinners.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.