Childfinders Inc - Hero For Hire Part 27

With so much going on, that angle hadn't occurred to him. But now that she mentioned it, he doubted it. "No. Rusty played it for me. It sounds like kids laughing in the background."

She looked at him, remembering. "The park." Did that mean that Casey had been there, close by, all the time? She stopped before she could torture herself any further.

"Maybe, but I don't think so. We'll know more in the morning." Maybe, he added silently. If Rusty had time to get back to the office. If something didn't happen to their father between now and then.

She showed him to the guest room. He set down the change of clothing he'd shoved into a gym bag before following the ambulance.

Veronica glanced down at the gym bag and wondered if he was just Bohemian or if he didn't own a suitcase.

"Are you hungry?" It took him a minute to process her question. "Angela made a pot roast. She said you looked like the meat-and-potatoes type."

Meat and potatoes. No frills. What you saw was what you got. But not what there was, he thought. Because there were rivers of pain that could never be reached, never banked down. Seeing his father tonight had only reinforced that.

He shrugged carelessly at the a.s.sessment. "I guess maybe I am."

Veronica led the way down the stairs again, into the kitchen.

"No, I don't think you are," she said, taking the roast out of the oven where the housekeeper had left it warming. To her surprise, Chad took the roast from her. She indicated the dining room. Chad placed it on the table, set for two. "I think that's far too uncomplicated an observation." She paused to smile at him as he held her chair out for her, impressed again by manners that society had all but mandated out of existence. "I think you're a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle."

Chad picked up the carving knife left on the table and began to slice the roast.

He offered the first slices to Veronica. "With some of the pieces missing?"

She pushed her plate toward him for easier access. "Not permanently, just long enough to defy labeling." There was a bottle of red wine standing between them.

Angela apparently had second-guessed everything to perfection. "Wine?" Veronica glanced at the writing on the label. "They say this was a good year."

Having served himself some roast, he uncorked the bottle of wine and poured a gla.s.s for her. "Any year's a good one if you survive it," he said philosophically.

She watched him set the bottle down. "Aren't you going to have any?"

He shook his head. "No, I want a clear head in case our kidnapper decides he misses us and wants to chat." He didn't add that he almost never drank because his father had.

She knew she shouldn't have any, either. But the tension that gripped her body despite her attempts to relax threatened to snap it in two.

Because she seemed to want to talk, he let her dominate the conversation at dinner, commenting only when it was absolutely necessary. It was all small talk, and he understood that she needed to fill the air with it, to keep her thoughts at bay.

She surprised him by doing the dishes. After they were washed and put away, she moved to the living room. He followed, bringing her unfinished gla.s.s of wine and

placing it on the coffee table.

She sank onto the sofa, then wrapped her fingers around the gla.s.s as if it was some sort of a talisman. It was only her second gla.s.s of wine and she was accustomed to having far more than that without feeling its effects.

Tonight she wished she could drink enough to somehow deaden the pain, the fear that continued to war within her. But that wasn't her.

With a sigh, she let her head fall back against the sofa cushion and closed her eyes. "G.o.d, I wish this was over."

"It will be," he promised quietly. The kindness in his voice made her open her eyes again and look at him. "And then you and Casey will work at putting it all behind you."

She desperately wanted to believe him. But she was so afraid. So very afraid.

Because she needed rea.s.surance that someday her life would go back to being normal, she turned toward him. Her eyes asked for gentle honesty. "Did you ever put it behind you? Your kidnapping?" she added when he said nothing.

He knew that was what she was asking and knew what she wanted to hear. But it wasn't in him to lie. He hated the very idea. "I'm not exactly someone you'd want to use as a role model."

"Why not?" Her eyes held his as she tried to read his mind. Was that pain she saw? Or was that just mirroring her own? "You didn't put it behind you?"

He shrugged, wanting to look away. Being unable to. "My case is different from yours."

Every case was different, but this one had so many similarities, too. "You were still kidnapped. Still taken away from a home you felt loved in. Still had to deal with that."

Chad shook his head. "Different," he repeated adamantly. Seeing the surprise in her face, he softened his voice. "Casey won't be asked to forgive his kidnapper."

For a moment she didn't understand. Didn't understand that and didn't understand why the room felt as if it was growing warmer as she looked into his eyes. There was a fire in the fireplace, but if anything, it was burning down, not growing stronger.

"Your father asked you to forgive him?"

He found himself growing uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with the question and more uncomfortable with the reaction he felt whispering along the perimeter of his consciousness. A reaction to the woman sitting so close to him.

"You know, I don't generally get this personal with a client."

"You're not getting personal with a client," she protested softly, unable to look away from the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Eyes that made her think of the sky as it was on the verge of darkening. "The client is getting personal with you. Because she needs to." Veronica tried valiantly to keep the desperation out of her voice.

"Maybe talking to you is the only thing keeping me from going over the edge."

He wished she wouldn't do that. Wouldn't place herself in his hands like that. It was one thing to do it with her faith that he would solve the case; it was another when she was offering him the broken piece of her soul.

"You're not the type," he told her gruffly, wishing she wouldn't look at him like that. Wishing he didn't suddenly want her the way he did.

Taking another sip, she laughed softly, shaking her head at the irony of his words. "What do you know about my type? The society pages don't have a clue who I really am."

There they were in agreement. "Wouldn't think they would." He thought back to what he had read. "Although there were some nice things said about your fund- raising abilities." She looked at him, surprised at the secondhand compliment. "I'm basing my answer on what I see in your eyes. What I hear in your voice."

Her mouth curved. "When it's not quavering."

"Even when it is." He found himself wanting to touch her face and wished now that he had taken her up on that drink. It would have been something to do with his hands. "Strong is strong, and you, Veronica Lancaster, are a strong woman. You didn't cave in when the kidnapper called. Instead, you came to the agency."

That didn't strike her as strong-that was only sensible. "Because I needed a

knight-errant to keep me from caving in."

He'd never thought of himself as vain, but he had to admit he liked the comparison. "Is that what I am? A knight-errant?"

She nodded, sipping again. The wine slid easily down her throat. "Closest thing I've seen to Lancelot in my lifetime."

"What about your husband?"

She paused for a second, casting Robert. "He was more the King Arthur type. Good, intuitively smart, faithful."

The Camelot myth had been Chad's mother's favorite. "But the queen still strayed from him and went to Lancelot's room."

"Yes, she did." Her eyes on his again, the words left her lips slowly.