Hidden

“Until?” Let me guess. Until he actually had to help some homeless or otherwise socially insignificant person and came home with low-class blood on his clothes.

That reaction wasn’t like her. It was probably true—but still, not the way she would’ve thought two years ago. She’d always been more of a glass half-full kind of person.

“She walked when I told her I didn’t intend to live in the mansion my parents planned to give us for a wedding present.”

So they’d gone as far as to get engaged. Something she’d never have the honor of doing with Scott.

“Why didn’t you want the house?”

“Somehow, living a life of luxury didn’t seem conducive to the job I had to do. It always comes down to those split-second decisions. I couldn’t risk getting too comfortable, losing my edge.” He threaded his fingers through hers. She loved the feel of silk against the back of her hand.

Moving her fingers against his, Tricia fell in love with the man all over again. If she’d met him a few years before, knew that men with character really did exist, she might still believe in fairy tales.

Scott leaned forward, grabbing his beer, which had to be pretty warm by then, and took a long sip. He held on to the bottle. “I’m never again going to be that soft boy sitting beside his mangled Porsche by the side of the road, waiting to be waited on.”

“No, you aren’t.” But not just because he’d given up a luxurious house.

He took another sip of beer. The CD changed, filling the room with Enya’s evocative tones. Tricia laid her head against his shoulder.

“I’m curious about something.” Petrified, more like it, but pretending to herself that she wasn’t.

Bottom line, she was on her own. Always would be. She could handle anything. Hadn’t she already proved that to herself?

“What?”

“Why did you choose today to tell me all this? Your parents coming for a visit or something?”

His hand on her shoulder stilled. He didn’t pull away, yet Tricia felt his withdrawal as completely as if he had.

“My parents have been on a cruise around the world for the past six months. They’ve called my cell phone a few times. They’re due to return sometime next month.”

“So you have contact with them?”

“When they’re in town, I talk to them, and to my brother, every week. Once they realized I was serious about my life choices, they gave me their full support.”

He talked with them every single week and she’d never known. That hurt.

And there wasn’t one damn thing she could say or do about it.

She and Scott were a moment, not an item. There was no reason for her to know his family. She couldn’t expect them to understand the terms of their relationship—that there was no future for them. It just made things too complicated.

And what if she liked them and they her? That would just make walking away even harder.

“Do they live here, in San Diego?”

He shook his head. “Mission Viejo. It’s where I grew up.”

“So back to my question—why come clean today?”

He sat forward, clasped his hands in front of him.

“I attended a freeway accident yesterday. A single vehicle rollover.”

His distant tone scared her.

“The driver was a young girl, about Alicia’s age….” Tricia almost slammed her hands over her ears. She knew what was coming. Didn’t want him to have to say it.

“We got her out. I did what I could. And watched her die anyway.”

Sliding a hand along his thigh, she reached for his hands. “Even the most world-renowned doctors lose patients sometimes,” she reminded him softly. “Sometimes it’s just not up to us….”

“I know.” His answer, the accompanying compassionate smile, threw her. And relieved her.

“So…”

“It’s not that I blame myself for her death,” Scott continued. Fear gripped her anew, more tightly, until her chest ached with it.

“What then?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes serious. “I’m never going to recover from Alicia’s death.”

“I understand.” She did. She just wasn’t sure why it mattered right now if it hadn’t the day before.

“I didn’t.” His words surprised her. “Not until I sat on the side of that road yesterday and felt the crushing weight of it all. Alicia’s death. The guilt. I can’t risk that again, Trish. Not even for you.”

He didn’t have to hit her over the head with it. She got it. All the way through to the vulnerable little girl lurking inside her, hoping against hope to somehow find unconditional love.

“Of course not for me.” She had no idea where she found the strength to sound so normal. “We have an understanding, buster,” she said, grabbing his hand, squeezing it. “No strings attached. No expectations. Today, but no promise of tomorrow. Remember?”

She hated it. Every word. But it was only under those circumstances that she could stay.

Face solemn, he studied her for long seconds while she held her breath. And then he nodded.

“Just so you aren’t hoping for more,” he said.

“I’m not.” Not in any way that could ever matter. Not now. Not with Leah missing and her heart still so raw and hurting for Scott and everything he’d told her that day. Not while she was suffering her own guilt for the lies she was telling. So she did the only thing that felt right, the only thing that had the power to dispel the darkness. She pulled his head toward hers and lost herself in a kiss that stirred every nerve in her body until there was no coherent thought left other than to assuage the ache between her legs.

And the hardness between his.

4

T hursday morning brought more bad news. Senator Thomas Whitehead sat behind his mahogany glass-topped desk, hands steepled at his chin as he faced the best defense attorney on his team, Kilgore Douglas. Thomas still maintained a penthouse office at the downtown San Francisco high-rise that housed the law firm he owned—although he no longer practiced there.

“Kassar found reasonable grounds to issue search warrants.” Kilgore came right to the point after announcing that he’d just heard from Detectives Stanton and Gregory.

Judge Henry Kassar. Democrat. Openly opposed to every Republican branch in Thomas’s family tree.

Sharp pain stabbed at Thomas’s stomach, but only for the second it took his mind to take control, issue calm. “To search what?”