Читать книгу Lucky Shot - B.J. Daniels - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

MAX DIDN’T HAVE time to think. He acted instinctively, surprising himself as much as Kat. He grabbed her and threw them both back out of the way as the giant SUV roared past. The vehicle had missed them by mere inches. As the dust settled, he listened to it thunder away, the shock of the near miss hitting home. Had whoever was behind the wheel purposely tried to run them down?

“Excuse me?”

He felt Kat’s body under him, surprised that there were more curves than he’d expected in a woman as fit as she was. She dressed in a way that hid her attributes well. Why was that, he wondered again idly as he realized that one of his hands was resting on her full, nicely rounded left breast.

“Get off me,” Kat said, shoving his hand away.

“That was purely accidental,” he said as he rose and offered her a hand up.

She ignored it as she got to her feet. “Sure it was.” She brushed at her jeans and sweater. “What was that about anyway?”

“Uh, I just saved your life.”

She shot him a disbelieving look.

“Did you not see that SUV that was speeding directly at us only moments ago?” He looked around for someone on the street to verify his story, but it was early on a Sunday morning, so there were no other people out yet.

“Us?” She looked away from him in the direction the vehicle had gone. “If the driver of that SUV really was trying to kill one of us, I’m betting he was aiming for you.”

He appraised her. “Why would someone want me dead?”

“Are. You. Serious?”

“Not everyone hates reporters.”

She scoffed at that before starting across the street. He suspected she was more shaken by the near hit-and-run than she was letting on. But then again she hadn’t gotten such an up-close-and-personal look at the chrome grille on the monster SUV as he had.

Still it appeared Kat Hamilton didn’t scare easily. He filed that information away for the future and followed her. Unlike her, he glanced around in case the SUV came back to try again. He was still surprised she’d agreed to breakfast. He chalked it up to curiosity. She had to be as interested in her mother’s past as he was. Maybe more.

Then again, she could just be hungry like she said.

As he held the café door open for her to enter, he looked back out into the empty street. Had that just been some irresponsible kid driving that SUV who hadn’t even seen them?

* * *

KAT STUDIED THE man across the table from her as she questioned her sanity. She’d had a delayed reaction from their near accident in the street and now felt herself shaking inside. Not that she believed someone had been trying to kill her. Maybe Max, though, she thought as she considered the handsome, arrogant reporter sitting across from her. I bet it was a woman behind the wheel.

“I’m not sure this was a good idea,” he said as he rearranged the napkins and salt and pepper shakers.

She sighed. “I’m buying, so order whatever you want.” Had her legs not felt so weak right now, she would have walked out. She just needed to sit for a few minutes.

He quit fooling with the items on the table to meet her gaze. Max didn’t seem like the nervous type, but when she met his eyes, she saw that he appeared to be anxious. Or at least he wanted her to think that.

“This could be more dangerous than I originally thought,” he said.

Kat gave him an impatient stare. Why had she agreed to this? She certainly couldn’t trust anything that came out of his mouth. Look how he’d taken advantage of a close call on the street just now. Or had he set the whole thing up? Either way, she could still feel the heat of his hand from where he’d held her breast.

And now he appeared to be trying to scare her.

“You really don’t have anything on my mother, do you? This was just a ruse to get me to what? Buy breakfast? Or just scare me into telling you something about her?”

He gave her an innocent, hurt look. “You think I had something to do with what just happened?”

“I suspect you’d stoop to just about anything to get what you want.”

“I’m shocked you would think that of me. Seriously, I thought you and I were becoming friends.”

She laughed. “Does that work on other women?”

A waitress in her late teens appeared with two menus, two cups and a coffeepot.

“Good morning,” Max said, turning on his charm and immediately rattling the poor girl.

“Good morning,” the girl stammered and sloshed coffee onto the table. She hurried away to get a dishrag to clean up the mess.

He shot Kat a grin as if to say, “See, all women find me irresistible.”

Kat groaned and disappeared behind her menu.

The waitress returned, sopped up the spilled coffee and apologized profusely.

“It’s all right,” Kat assured her. “It could have happened to anyone.”

Max shot her another grin before picking up his menu.

Kat waited for the young woman to finish filling their coffee cups as Max continued to peruse his menu.

“We’ll both have bacon and eggs, hash browns and a side of pancakes,” Max said.

“No,” she said and tried to stop the waitress, but Max shooed the girl off with a wink. Kat had been planning to have nothing but coffee and toast like she usually did to also make this breakfast as short as possible. “I don’t eat pancakes, let alone bacon or hash browns or egg yolks for that matter.”

Max lifted an eyebrow.

“What?” she demanded.

“I hadn’t taken you for one of those.”

“One of those?” she repeated, feeling her blood begin to heat.

“Why do you deny yourself one of the pleasures of life?”

“Bacon?”

“Eating.” He leaned on his elbows on the table to study her. “What other pleasures do you deny yourself?”

“I really don’t have t—”

As she started to rise, he reached over and put a hand on her arm. “Sorry, didn’t know you were that sensitive about life’s...pleasures.”

She shot him a daggered look. “Just tell me what I’m doing here.”

“I hate doing business on an empty stomach.”

“Start talking or I’m walking.”

He nodded and leaned back, suddenly all business. It startled her for a moment at how quickly he could turn off the charming but inept, arrogant cowboy reporter, and become serious and seemingly competent. It made her wonder who the real Max Malone was.

“How much do you know about your mother’s past before she married your father?” he asked.

Kat shrugged, a little embarrassed to admit even to herself that she knew little. Her father had never talked about their mother. Even as a child, when she’d asked about her mother, he’d been vague. It wasn’t until her mother returned that she understood why. For years, her father had believed that Sarah had committed suicide. He would have seen that as the ultimate betrayal—as well as his own failure. Add to that his broken heart...

Once Angelina had come into the picture, all evidence of their mother had disappeared, and her mother was never mentioned again. That was, until she’d shown up all these years later, alive but with no memory of the past.

“Why don’t you tell me what you know,” Kat suggested.

He gave her a look that said he saw right through her veiled attempt to hide what she didn’t know, but he didn’t seem concerned about it. “Your mother had what appeared to be a privileged childhood,” he began as if reciting from notes. “Two loving parents, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, friends and picture-perfect high school years. So I ask you, why are there no photographs from college? Your mother has been all over the news. By now friends would have come forward with candid shots, which would have been worth a nice chunk of change.”

“Maybe her friends aren’t as mercenary as you.”

“It’s just a fact of life. If not for the money, then for fifteen minutes of fame. It looks to me like your mother just dropped off the radar in college after being so popular and so involved in high school. It doesn’t add up.”

“So what?” Kat said, frowning. “I know she graduated.”

“According to her transcripts.”

She stared at him. “What are you saying?”

The waitress reappeared with their food. Max dug in as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe he hadn’t. There hadn’t been many vehicles on Main this morning because of the hour. She assumed that the old pickup parked down the street from the gallery with the California plates must have been his.

“I can’t find anyone who knew her,” he said between bites. “Not a professor who remembers her, a roommate, anyone.”

“It was a large university, and she probably could afford not to have a roommate,” Kat said.

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Add to that the fact that she wasn’t a member of any organizations, sororities or even campus clubs, or involved in any campus-sponsored extracurricular activities.”

Absentmindedly Kat picked up a strip of bacon and took a bite. It had been so long since she’d had meat—let alone bacon—that she was shocked at how good it tasted. She quickly put it down.

“That isn’t that unusual,” she said wiping her hands on her napkin. “I wasn’t interested in any of that either and at a large campus...” She watched him slather butter on his pancakes and then drown them in syrup, recalling the taste for the first time in what seemed like forever.

He was right. She hadn’t quit eating things that she loved for health reasons. She knew exactly when she’d begun denying herself any pleasures and shuddered inside at the memory.

“So you really don’t have any proof,” she said. “You’re just fishing.”

* * *

MAX DIDN’T LET her words affect his appetite or his confidence in what he had to tell her—or her desire to hear it.

Looking up, he jabbed his fork into the air as he ticked off what he’d discovered about the early Sarah Johnson pre-Hamilton.

“Think about it. Your mother was pretty and popular in high school. There were tons of photos of her in all kinds of organizations, at dances, with her girlfriends in the yearbooks. She was a cheerleader and in every kind of after-school activity there was.” He noticed that she was buttering her pancakes. Not missing a beat, he slid the syrup over to her. “Then she goes off to college and...nothing.”

“Maybe college was harder for her, and she had to study more,” Kat said and took a bite of her pancake. She closed her eyes for a moment, her face a picture of euphoria. He tried to concentrate on her words, telling himself she was beginning to question her mother’s past, as well.

But at the back of his mind, he kept asking himself why Kat Hamilton had given up the food she loved. What else had she given up, he wondered as he considered her apparel.

“A person as outgoing as your mother was in high school is the kind to pledge a sorority, to get involved in the school paper or university politics, have her photo all over that campus.” He shook his head. “Who changes just like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Something happened.”

He stabbed his fork into his pancakes. Like Kat Hamilton, he thought. He’d met women on diets. Others who wanted to eat more healthfully. But Kat was different. She seemed to be in a battle with food. Or was it with herself? Why was that?

“Something happened that changed your mother’s life, changed her.” He’d bet his lucky boots on that.

Kat sat back, as if trying to distance herself from what he was saying. “Like what?”

He chewed for a moment. “That’s what I don’t know and I’m trying to find out.”

“I think you’re making too much out of this.”

He considered her for a moment. “And I think you’re just as curious as I am. Too bad we can’t ask her.”

“Oh, I see what you’re up to. You want me to ask my mother what she was doing in college besides studying?”

He leaned his elbows on the table as he bent toward her. “Why not? Supposedly those were years she should be able to remember, right?”

Kat shook her head, and he saw that he’d made her angry again. “You think she’s lying about not remembering the past twenty-two years?”

He shrugged and took another bite of his pancakes. “What do you think?”

“I think breakfast is over.” She started to rise, but he caught her hand with his free one.

“I’m being honest with you. How about being honest with me?”

“I didn’t take your camera and laptop,” she said, pulling loose of his touch.

“I believe you. Who did you tell about the photo after I showed it to you, though?”

Kat’s gray eyes widened for an instant. She slowly sat back down. “I’m not sure I even believe you lost anything.”

He put down his fork and pushed his plate away before wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Yes, you are, and I think you know who was behind stealing them and the photos.” His gaze captured hers. “So who did you call?” To his surprise, he saw the answer in her expression. “You called your mother.”

“You can’t think that my mother...”

“Would she call your father? Or would she call Russell Murdock?”

“This is ridiculous,” Kat snapped. “You can’t think that my father or Russell—”

“No,” he said, frowning down at his nearly empty plate. “Unless...” He looked up at her. “What if her phone or wherever she is staying is bugged?”

She gave him an angry look. “You’re just saying all this to scare me. Why would anyone bug the cabin where my mother’s staying?”

“Seriously? The first wife of the possible future president. Even if she wasn’t missing the past twenty-two years, there’s a story there. The other reporters are chasing the love triangle, but I think the real story started back in college.”