Do Not Disturb Page 10

  “He’s a good-looking man,” Lainey said softly.

  “Oh yeah,” Angel said, watching him pass. Her gaze traced the long line of his naked spine. The waistband of his shorts had slid below the curve at the small of his back and now rode on the high swell of his buttocks. Her lower body did that odd little Cosmo clench again. “Oh yeah.”

  Then, hearing herself, she started, flushed, stuttered. My God, she was going to have to get her thyroid checked or something! “I mean, uh, well—”

  “I’m sure all reporters notice things like that,” Lainey offered mildly.

  Angel grabbed at the excuse. Hadn’t she told herself something similar? “Right. That’s it.” Still feeling all goofy and girly, she lifted her coffee cup again.

  “So, after watching that movie, you became a journalist to uncover political scandals?”

  “Not really.” Angel’s attention snagged on the cup in her hand. It was decorated with Whitney renderings—who else would come up with the schmaltzy border of pastel-colored teapots?

  “So what did you want to uncover?”

  Angel jerked her gaze from the cutesy drawings to Lainey Whitney. The woman looked sincerely interested, not at all suspicious or alarmed.

  “In general, it’s the job of reporters, the entire Fourth Estate, to keep watch,” Angel answered, hoping that a few points from her schoolkids’ lecture would satisfy the other woman. “The media provides people with the information they need in order to make decisions about the world and their lives. It’s information—the truth—that’s the cornerstone of a free society.”

  “Told you she’s a romantic.” It was Cooper, behind her. Again.

  Angel ground her back teeth together. Romantic. That’s the last thing she was. The very last. But she ignored him and instead used the comment to redirect the conversation.

  “And speaking of romance, Lainey”—because Cooper was lurking, Angel slid her hand stealthily into her satchel, and after some fumbling around emerged with a pad and pencil—“why don’t you tell me how you met your husband?”

  Finally, the interview commenced. The next minutes went smoothly enough, even with Cooper’s tall figure in the periphery of her vision. He’d pulled on a T-shirt—thank you, God—and lounged against the nearby countertop as if he had nothing better to do than watch over his sister.

  Or watch Angel.

  For half an hour Lainey seemed comfortable talking of the past. Stephen Whitney had arrived in the area twenty-three years before, just as the hippies were clearing out and a more mainstream colony of artists and New Age types were moving in. The old-timers, the descendants of the area’s pioneers, were firmly entrenched, of course, including the Jones family. During her senior year in high school, Lainey had caught Stephen’s attention and they’d fallen for each other.

  “He said he’d never loved anyone before me,” the artist’s widow said, her eyes misting over.

  Angel froze, and another piece of sage advice came to mind, not from a professor this time, but from her mother. Don’t ask a question unless you’re prepared to hear the answer.

  But she was prepared, she told herself fiercely. She was a journalist, an objective professional who had never shirked either the hard questions or the unpleasant answers. “He, uh—” Cursing herself, she had to break off and clear her throat. “Stephen Whitney was older than you by several years, though. Surely another woman”—a daughter, even—“might have meant something to him.”

  Lainey shook her head. “Not anyone, he said. He was a romantic too, you see.”

  Or a cold, selfish SOB. But Angel couldn’t let the thought show on her face, so she made an agreeable “Hmm” and moved on to her next line of inquiry, which was…was…

  Only a single thought came to mind.

  He’d never loved anyone before. Not anyone.

  Ruffling the pages of her notebook, she searched for the list of questions she’d written the night before. But her fingers, crazy things, were suddenly so clumsy that she couldn’t seem to find her place. “If you’ll just bear with me a moment, um…”

  From inside her satchel, Angel heard a tiny click. She stilled, then latched on to the sound as a signal to let herself off the hook for the day.

  Trying to appear casual, she shoved back her chair. “You know, it’s better if we do this a little at a time,” she said.

  It was a lie. If a subject was willing, it was best to keep the subject talking. But at the moment, Angel’s journalistic powers were fraying around the edges. “May I come back again tomorrow?”

  Lainey, thank goodness, seemed willing to allow Angel the reprieve. With fake smiles for both Jones siblings, she made a hasty escape.

  Stewing over the morning’s events, she took the path back to Tranquility at a headlong pace. Though she’d cut the interview short, it had been a success, wasn’t that right? She’d wanted information and she’d gotten information.

  It was patently clear Lainey didn’t know her husband had lived with a woman before her. She certainly didn’t know he had another daughter.

  It shouldn’t surprise Angel, it didn’t, but to know for a fact that her father had never acknowledged her to his second family made her feel…

  Not disappointed, no. Not sad! That burning ache in her chest was something else entirely.

  Her footsteps ate up the path, distancing her from the place where Stephen Whitney had lived, worked, loved.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A hard hand clamped on her arm to halt her. “Not so fast, kid.” Cooper swung her around to face him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  Angry, Angel decided. That was exactly how she felt. Angry.

  “Don’t call me kid,” she hissed, wrenching out of his grasp. “I’m not anybody’s kid.”

  Cooper made another grab for Angel’s arm and caught the strap of her leather briefcase instead. They played tug-of-war with it for a minute before he ended the game by using his superior strength to haul both bag and woman close.

  Ignoring Angel’s alluring city scent, he dug his hand inside the leather case and pulled out her mini tape recorder. “Tsk, tsk,” he said, smiling at her outraged expression. “Remember the rules.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she snatched at the recorder, but he held it out of reach. “Nothing that runs on batteries or electricity can be used at Tranquility,” he reminded her.

  “Your sister agreed,” she said through her teeth. “And this is important.”

  “So’s the letter of the law.” He smiled at her again, even though she looked ready to breathe fire. She looked damn delicious too. She’d abandoned her camper-chic for the day—his retinas were grateful for a reprieve from those green boots of hers—and her dress seemed to float over her slender body. Buttons marched down one side, and he let his gaze linger on them, not as worried as he might have been about the brief, prurient fantasy he had about unfastening them one at a time.

  With his teeth.

  Though virtually unspoken outside of mutual apologies, he figured they’d buried the sexual issue for good yesterday. As wild as the pleasure could be, neither one of them wanted to burn like that again.

  She made another swipe at the recorder. “Give it back.”

  He held it higher. “Not a chance.”

  She stretched for the little device again. “Don’t you want the quotes to be accurate?”

  That gave him pause. After a moment, he shrugged, then held the recorder out to her. “Fine, you can use it for your interviews.”

  She wrenched the machine from his hand. “Gee,” she grumbled. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Just don’t play the tapes in your cottage. Old Mrs. Withers can detect the use of contraband kilowatts from a hundred yards.”

  “As you command.” She jammed the device into her briefcase.

  For someone who’d just gotten her way, she wasn’t very gracious about it. “I can’t stand in the way of the story, I know that. After all, ‘it’s information—the truth�
�that’s the cornerstone of a free society.’” He knew that would get her goat.

  As predicted, she glared at him, her eyes blue-hot flames. “That’s not a joke, though maybe it is to someone of your…your…”

  He waited, expecting an attorney crack. “Occupation?”

  “Gender.” She flung her briefcase strap over her shoulder and stalked off.

  Staring after her, he didn’t move.

  Gender? Gender?

  As he watched her stomp off, he realized it said volumes about the long, unfilled hours of his day that one, two-syllable word could arouse such instant curiosity inside of him. Down deep, Angel was obviously simmering, and the object of her ire was the XY half of the world.

  But what had triggered the eruption? His mind ran through the men she might have encountered at Tranquility or its vicinity besides himself and Judd. Had someone bothered her? Made a pass—or…?

  The back of his neck heated—a sure sign of his stress level starting to rise—and he took off after her. Reason told him there was no one at Tranquility to worry her—and that she could take care of herself if someone did—but something about that stormy look on her face didn’t sit well with him.

  He didn’t catch up to her until she stepped onto the lawn beside the common building. “Angel—”

  “Shh!” Her finger stabbed the air in the direction of a “No Talking” sign.

  Rolling his eyes, he tried again. “Angel—” But he caught himself this time, because Mrs. Withers and her walking stick were exiting her nearby cottage.

  Duty bound him to take a minute to smile at the elderly lady and help her down the porch steps. She’d spent a month at the retreat every year since before he was born, but he suspected this visit would be her last. The arthritis that gnarled the hand he held would soon make it impossible for her to get around on her own.

  On impulse, he leaned down to kiss her thin, powder-scented cheek. He’d miss her and he knew she’d miss her independence. What if you could choose between years of life and quality of living? Would you willingly shave some off as payment for good health?

  He shook the moot question out of his head as Mrs. Withers went on her way. And, looking around, realized Angel was gone.

  But his concern for her was not. He didn’t want to examine that either, so he strode to her cottage instead. It was just his tenacious personality reasserting itself—the “Trial Dog” in him—he told himself, that could never let things go.

  When he rapped on her door, she opened it quickly enough, but just as quickly exited the minute she saw it was him.

  “Wait—”

  She shut him up with a finger across his lips, then she pointed to her watch. Both hands were straight up. Lunchtime.

  Grinding his teeth, he followed her to the dining room, where many of the other retreatants were already gathered. He followed again as Angel moved through the buffet of vegetable soup, organic greens, and crusty, eleven-grain rolls. Then he took the spot beside her at one of the long tables and watched her pick morosely at one of the sprouted seeds in her bread with a perfectly manicured nail.

  The manicure said city to him again, city woman. In his mind’s eye he saw, with a strange longing, a feminine forefinger on an elevator button, playing swizzle stick in a martini glass, pointing out an error on a motion to suppress. He heard city noises in his head too, the hum and clatter of traffic that had operated like white noise in his offices on Montgomery Street and the courtroom sounds that had been the pulse of his previous life: the nearly mute click of the court reporter’s keys, the clack of the judge’s gavel, the collective hiss of indrawn breath the instant before a verdict was read.

  It took the very real thump of Angel’s glass of water against the tabletop to bring him back to the present. Even forgoing the bitter iced yarrow tea hadn’t cheered her up. With her still-troubled expression nagging at him, he reached for the nearest pen and some sheets of the scratch paper lying on the table.

  Then he wrote What’s the matter? and passed it to her.

  She quickly scanned the note and, with barely a glance at him, shook her head.

  He used another piece of paper. It’s not nothing.

  She shook her head again.

  Talk to me, he wrote on the last sheet of paper.

  She crumpled it up unread.

  His frown had no effect on her. Frustration growing, he sat back and studied her. It was that fragile outward shell, he told himself. That was what was getting to him. In that flowered dress and with that candy-floss hair, she looked as if she bruised too easily.

  But he was adept at reading people, he reminded himself. It was the most necessary yet undervalued aspect of being an attorney. People thought good lawyers needed sharp minds or aggressive personalities, but what they needed most was the ability to look past appearances and see what was underneath.

  On the first day they’d met, he’d detected that beneath Angel’s baby-soft skin was steel.

  But now, damn it, underneath that he knew Angel was holding tight to some private misery. He sighed, annoyed at his sudden drive to change her mood. But hell, a man in his position would be smart to spread a little sunshine whenever, wherever he could, right?

  Without a second examination of his motives, he picked up the pen again and went to work.

  She sent him little sidelong glances, he could feel them, but he turned slightly away so she couldn’t see what he was doing. Her charm bracelet jingled as she gathered up her dishes in preparation for leaving. He rushed to finish, just managing to complete the job as she rose.

  He clamped his right hand on her thigh, pushing her back down. She made a tiny sound of distress, but he ignored it and swung a leg over to straddle the bench seat, facing her.

  He slid a scrap of paper toward her: Play the game and win a prize. Then he presented her with his left fist, knuckles facing forward.

  She read the piece of paper, then switched her gaze to what he’d written—upside down—on the back of his hand. Press me, was circled to imitate a button.

  Her eyes flashed up to his, narrowing in assessment.

  So cynical, he thought, not for the first time. What makes someone so young so wary?

  When still she hesitated, he pushed his fist practically under her nose. Press me.

  After a last glance at his face she obeyed.

  At her light touch, his fingers shot out.

  She jumped. Then, frowning, studied the rest of his hand.

  Backward again, he’d written a different number on every middle knuckle, upper knuckle, and fingernail. Choose, he mouthed when she looked up, indicating his middle knuckles.

  Oh, he’d caught her now. Smiling to himself, he remembered distracting a cranky Katie in just such a manner a few years back. He watched Angel reluctantly indicate the number “7” on the knuckle of his forefinger.

  In pantomime, he counted the number out, touching each of his fingers in turn to stop on his ring finger. Choose, he said again silently, wiggling his ring finger under her nose. There was “4” written on his upper knuckle, “3” written on his fingernail.

  Her pretty manicured nail tapped his and again he counted out the number, ending on his forefinger. Curling the rest of his fingers under, he flipped his hand to show the prize he’d written along the inside of his finger.

  Congratulations! Your prize: access to our secret beach.

  Then, crooking that finger, he signaled her to follow him from the dining room.

  Oh, he was good, he thought smugly, as she obeyed without protest. He might not be up to practicing law anymore, but he was still damn good at reading people. Could any curious reporter ignore the word secret?

  Once they were safely away from the common grounds, he wasn’t surprised that Angel went into demand mode. “What’s this all about?” she said, trailing him through the trees, graceful even in high heels. “What secret, what beach, why the game?”

  “Shh.” He turned to her, walking backward a few paces. “It’s a sec
ret, remember? Just because you’re a journalist doesn’t mean you have to give them away to everyone.”

  He spun forward before she could retort.

  “I don’t like this,” she grumbled all the same. “I don’t like this at all.”

  What he didn’t like was the way something had tamped down the I-am-woman attitude that lent that tough-girl spine to her Tinkerbell looks. “Come on, babycakes,” he said, knowing the endearment would piss her off. “Just follow studly Papa Bear through the dark tunnel up ahead. He’ll keep you safe.”

  “Oh, Papa Bear,” he heard her murmur behind him, “what a big ego you have.”

  “All the better to make you smile.” But it was he who was smiling when he grabbed her hand as they breached the entrance to the narrow thirty-foot tunnel his great-grandfather had blasted through a granite outcropping in the early 1920s. Legend had it that a man had died during the explosion, but the family didn’t keep the path a secret for that reason. Because the small cove and even smaller beach it led to weren’t safe on a year-round basis, it seemed prudent to keep it off-limits from visitors.

  As they reached the tunnel’s far exit, Cooper put his hands on Angel’s shoulders and pushed her out, onto the sand.

  He grinned when her feet lost their momentum as she caught her first sight of her fellow visitors to the cove. Though he hadn’t been certain they’d be there, they hadn’t failed him. Floating on their backs in the relatively calm waters, they lifted their heads and looked back at Angel, curious and friendly, cautious but unafraid.

  “Sea otters,” he whispered into her ear. “They say, welcome to their world.”

  She sank down to the damp sand, ignoring her pretty dress. The breeze blew its fluttering hem around her bare legs and whipped color into her cheeks and the tip of her nose. But her eyes were only for the otters, who after a few minutes went back to their usual behavior. At this time of day it was all about siesta, siesta, siesta, with an occasional vigorous scratch or sleek dive thrown in.

  From personal experience, he knew it was impossible to be anything but charmed in the presence of the otters. One wet head popped up beside another drowsy basker, and at the lazy, playful cuff the second gave the first, he heard Angel softly laugh.