Читать книгу The Pregnant Heiress - Eileen Wilks, Eileen Wilks - Страница 9

February: just off I-10, north of Huachuca City,

Arizona

She smiled a lot. Flynn couldn’t figure out why. The elderly couple she was waiting on now could have been excused for thinking she’d shown up at the truck stop this morning just for the pleasure of looking at the photos the old woman had spread out on the table.

Her smile was bright and natural, too, not forced. Sunny-side up, like the eggs she’d set in front of Flynn a few minutes ago. It made people smile back. Flynn couldn’t make sense of that smile.

If the old couple had been paying attention, they would have seen that she didn’t have time to stop and ooh over pictures of their grandkids. They would have seen the exhausted smudges beneath those baby-blue eyes, too.

Flynn paid attention. To everything. It was his job.

She detached herself from her elderly admirers and was making her way along the row of booths in her station when a trucker with a handlebar mustache slid out of a booth and stood, blocking her. He tried out a smile that looked creaky from disuse. He also tried to pat her fanny.

She dodged his hand and said something Flynn couldn’t catch over the noise in the truck stop. He frowned. The trucker might be a slug or just an idiot. There were plenty of both around, men who would want a taste of that sunshine and grab for it.

He had an urge to explain manners to Handlebar Mustache in terms the man would understand. His fingers twitched with the need to make a fist. But he wasn’t needed. Handlebar headed for the register, the lines of his face drooping in disappointment. Flynn’s gaze switched to his subject as she hurried behind the counter to replace the coffeepot on its warmer.

She was too skinny. With her brown hair pulled back in that bobbing ponytail she looked like a kid, her face all eyes and smiling mouth, her arms and legs in perpetual motion. In spite of the telltale bulge her stomach made beneath her faded pink uniform, she looked like she ought to be climbing trees and contemplating the mysteries of puberty. Not dealing with its most noticeable result.

She wasn’t a child, though. Flynn knew her age to the day. Emma Michaels was thirty-two, single, and until recently she’d lived in San Diego, California. He knew her birthplace, the name of her high school English teacher, her last three places of residence and her mother’s name.

Which was more than she knew.

Flynn smiled. He hadn’t expected to enjoy this job. His client was a worm, and when you worked for worms you usually found yourself mucking around in dirt. Moreover, he was certain Lloyd Carter had lied to him.

By itself, that wouldn’t have bothered him much. Clients lied. Everyone lied. He was often amazed at the amount of trouble people would take to cover up some piddly little sin that didn’t amount to a hill of beans to anyone but themselves. Lying was a skill that came packaged with language, and in Flynn’s line of work, spotting those lies was a necessary talent.

Lloyd Carter was a good liar, but not good enough. Nothing put Flynn on his guard faster than someone who insisted he was being totally honest. Flynn was doing well enough these days that he didn’t have to work for a worm if the job didn’t interest him. Even though Carter claimed that Miranda Fortune wanted him to contact the twins, Carter’s explanations and candid gray eyes had failed to impress him.

In spite of that, he’d taken the job. There was a debt involved, a matter of family and honor. Death didn’t cancel a debt, not to Flynn’s way of thinking, and the people Carter had wanted him to find were Fortunes. Not that they knew it.

He’d made the worm cough up a big retainer before taking the case. He would have worked for free if one of the Fortune family had been his client, but there was no point in letting Carter off the hook, and Carter’s credit was bad.

Flynn sipped from the chipped cup and grimaced. The coffee tasted like it had been brewed about the time the cracked vinyl in the seat he sat on was new. He’d had worse, and been in worse places than this. Part of the hazards of his trade. But he hadn’t had much worse.

He drank it anyway. He needed a reason to linger until things slowed down enough for him to speak to Emma Michaels about the family she didn’t know she had.

Watching her was surprisingly pleasant. She was too thin, she smiled too much, she was pregnant—the woman had strings and obligations sticking out all over her, like porcupine quills. She was a flake, too. When she’d brought him his eggs he’d commented on the colored stones in her bracelet. She’d told him cheerily that there was a stone for each of her chakras. The bracelet was supposed to balance her energy, or some crap like that.

No, God knew he wasn’t interested in her personally. He just liked looking at her. She had all the charm of a friendly kitten. She also had very nice legs. World-class legs.

The protectiveness he felt didn’t surprise him. Habit died hard, and in spite of that smile, she looked like a waif in need of help.

The stir of masculine interest did.

She bustled around behind the counter, loading her tray with plates of pancakes, eggs, biscuits and toast. Flynn found himself watching the quick twitch of her hips as she hurried past him to a booth in the corner. She wore a pale-pink uniform reminiscent of the fifties with a pair of up-to-the-minute athletic shoes…and her stomach pulled the uniform tight enough to make the rear view appealing. She had a great ass to go with those excellent legs.

Flynn frowned. He wasn’t supposed to be appreciating his subject’s ass.

He watched her deal with the truckers and wondered how someone as guileless as Emma Michaels survived in this world. She didn’t look like she would be able to lie worth spit.

Yet she was lying. Flynn’s curiosity itched strongly about that. Emma Michaels was calling herself Emma Jackson now, which had made tracking her difficult. Being pregnant and unwed might account for the lie—shoot, just working as a waitress in this place was reason enough to invent a husband. Only why change her name? He’d checked her finger when she waited on him. She hadn’t bought a ring to back up the pretense.

Chances were, her reason for using a fake name had nothing to do with his case, so that, technically, it was none of his business. But once Flynn’s curiosity was aroused, it was hard to ignore. He wanted to know why such a lousy liar was trying to pull off such a big lie.

Maybe, he thought as he took another sip of his coffee, she would tell him. She might be willing to explain it once he gave her the good news. He was looking forward to that. It wasn’t every day he got to tell a down-on-her-luck young woman with a baby on the way that she was going to be rich.

By nine forty-five, business at the truck stop had thinned out. The other waitress, a heavyset woman with big hair, was refilling the sugar and salt and pepper shakers in her station, and Emma was headed his way with the coffeepot.

Flynn decided it was time. He felt a tingle of anticipation. Would she be more excited about the money, or learning who her mother was?

Even good news could be a shock. He would try to break it to her gently, but he hoped she was tougher than she looked. He wasn’t much good at tact and sensitivity. His sisters had mentioned that he had all the emotional subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Emma Jackson-Michaels stopped at his table, coffeepot in hand, but didn’t fill his cup. “We have some nice teas, too,” she said brightly.

He looked at her blankly. “Teas?”

When she nodded, her ponytail bounced. “Too much caffeine is hard on your system.”

“I like coffee.”

“If you say so, but I can’t help noticing that you look a little tense. You might try some of the chamomile. It’s good for relaxing. There’s some for sale up at the cash register.”

“This doesn’t look like the sort of place that would sell herbal teas.”

“It was my suggestion.” Her voice didn’t go with the kitten image. It was low, almost husky—a satin-sheet kind of voice, the sort of voice a man imagined whispering in his ear late at night. “Henry is a little resistant to new ideas. I’m trying to talk him into offering a vegetable plate, but he thinks a meal has to include some portion of a dead animal.”

His mouth quirked up. “I guess I have something in common with Henry, then.”

“A lot of people do.” She looked disappointed but still cheerful as she relented and poured a stream of sludge into his cup. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yeah.” Up close, she didn’t look quite so young, though she could have passed for twenty-five easier than thirty-two. There were tiny creases at the corners of her eyes from all that smiling. Her cheeks were plump, unlike the rest of her, and she had cute eyebrows. They were thin and shaped into curves of mild astonishment above those big eyes. “Do you pluck your eyebrows?”

“What?”

Why had he asked her that? Annoyed, Flynn pushed his cup away. “Never mind. I need to talk to you.”

Wariness slid across her blue eyes, but she kept smiling. “My boss wouldn’t like that, I’m afraid. Henry has this idea we’re supposed to wait on several customers, not just one.”

“I’m not trying to pick you up. Here.” He raised up slightly so he could dig into his back pocket for his wallet, which held his ID. “My name’s Flynn Sinclair. I’m a P.I., and you—”

“I have to go,” she said abruptly.

That wasn’t wariness he saw in her eyes now. It was fear. Real fear. She edged away.

He grabbed her wrist. It was so narrow his fingers overlapped, which made him feel large and clumsy. “Hey, don’t worry. I have good news for you.” He gave her his best trust-me smile. “It’s about your mother.”

“Oh.” She smiled wider than ever, but it was neither real nor natural now. “My mother. Of course. I’d love to talk to you about my mother, but I can’t stop to chat when I’m working. You understand. If you don’t mind waiting until my shift is over, we can talk then, okay?”

A truly lousy liar, he thought, letting go of her wrist. “Sure, no problem. I’ll wait here for you.”

“That’s great.” She spoke brightly. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the coffeepot. “I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t heard from—Mom—in awhile.”

Flynn watched as his subject fled for the kitchen. His curiosity was itching fit to kill. She was going to bolt. He didn’t know why, but he knew she was going to bolt.

The back door, he thought, rising and pulling a couple bills out of his wallet. Every restaurant had a delivery entrance off the kitchen. She’d slip out that way, thinking he was waiting patiently for her out here.

Flynn was a big man, but he could move quickly when he wanted. He tossed the bills at the cashier and was out the door before the woman had done more than blink at him.

The air was sharp and dry despite the light dusting of snow on the parking lot and the yucca, creosote and dirt that surrounded it. Flynn spared a brief thought for the jacket he’d left in his car, then forgot the temperature as he reached the rear of the truck stop. A strip of pavement containing Dumpsters, employees’ cars, a tottering stack of empty crates and a stray cat separated the building from the land.

There was no sign of Emma. But Flynn knew which car was hers—the aging red Ford Escort on the other side of a jacked-up pickup that looked ready to compete in a monster truck pull.

Her car was still here, so she hadn’t run. Yet. Flynn jogged over to it, then stood there shaking his head. The paint was peeling, making the Ford look as if it had leprosy. How had she made it here from San Diego in this heap?

Desperation or stupidity, he thought, bending to pet the stray cat, which was twining itself madly around his legs. Maybe both.

He heard the door to the kitchen slam and the sound of running feet—soft footfalls, like a skinny, slightly pregnant woman in athletic shoes might make. He abandoned his feline admirer and straightened just as she rounded the side of the oversize pickup.

She saw him, stopped dead and shrieked.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly, holding his hands out, palms up, and trying to look harmless. Unfortunately, he wasn’t any better at harmless than he was at sensitivity. “I just need to talk to you for a minute. I was hired to find you—”

“I know,” she said, her voice soft and breathless. “But please, please—tell him you couldn’t find me. He—he’s crazy. You don’t know what he’ll do. Or at least give me time to leave town. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

She knew? His brows drew together. According to Carter, she knew nothing about her family. “I can’t lie to a client.” Not much, anyway. “Anyway, he already knows where you are.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and shivered.

He frowned. “Don’t you have a jacket? It’s too cold out here for a little thing like you.”

The back door slammed again. The footfalls Flynn heard this time were heavy, solid. He grimaced.

“Emma?” The voice was heavy, too. Deep and heavy and obviously male. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Back here, Henry!”

Harmless, Flynn reminded himself. Think harmless. He smiled harmlessly at her. “I’m not here to make trouble for you. I want to tell you about your mother. Your family.”

For the first time, anger flashed in her eyes. “I don’t have any family. I sure don’t have a mother.”

“No, she—”

“You get away from her!”

Emma’s protector had arrived. Not many men were bigger than Flynn, but this one was. He wore a huge, stained apron wrapped around the middle of his three-hundred plus pounds, and brandished a butcher knife the size of a small sword. His face had been badly scarred by acne thirty or more years ago, a condition that the grizzled stubble on his cheeks didn’t quite cover.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Flynn said, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m a private investigator. If you promise not to get excited, I’ll get my license out and prove it.”

The big man took a threatening step forward. The hard desert sunlight gleamed on the steel of his knife. “What d’you mean, excited? You calling me names?”

Flynn sighed. Some days, nothing went right.

“Henry.” His subject put her hand on the man’s arm. “It’s all right.”

“All right? You get so scared you quit, you don’t even give notice, you go tearing out of my place like the devil was on your heels, you say it’s all right? You!” He scowled at Flynn. “I dunno anything about licenses or private investigators. I know you scared Emma. You go away. Now.”

“Listen,” Flynn said to Emma, abandoning the effort to look harmless and settling for determined. He was better at that. “Give me five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to tell you, you can go back to work, or peel out of here in your car—assuming it’s running—or whatever. Five minutes.” He glanced at her mountainous protector. “Alone.”

“No way.” Henry waved his knife.

Emma patted the man on one huge arm. She looked distracted and painfully unsure with those curvy eyebrows of hers trying to frown and managing only to make her look like a perplexed kitten.

She was so damned cute. “Okay, okay,” Flynn said. “This isn’t strictly ethical, but I’ll make you a deal. If, after I talk to you, you’re still worried about my client knowing where you are, I’ll give you eight hours’ head start.” And then he’d find her again.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Flynn. Flynn Sinclair.”

“That’s Flynn with two n’s?”

“Yeah,” he said, baffled by her interest in spelling.

She chewed on her lip a moment. “That makes your heart number a one—very independent. But your personality number is two, so you’re kind and, ah, reassuring.” She looked at him dubiously, obviously doubting the accuracy of her forecast.

Definitely a flake. A pretty one, but a flake. “That’s me. Kind of reassuring.”

She chewed on that unpainted lip. “I don’t think he would send someone to hurt me. That’s not his style. And you’ve seen this man now, Henry, so you could testify if….” She straightened her shoulders. “All right. Five minutes. But show me that ID of yours first.”

Not a complete flake, he thought as he dug into his pocket again. Checking his ID was a good idea if she thought he might be tempted to conk her on the head as soon as they were alone. And apparently she did. Damn it, his curiosity was getting tangled up with those blasted protective urges.

Flynn flipped his wallet open and held it out, displaying his driver’s license—with the photo that made him look like he belonged on the Ten Most Wanted list—and his investigator’s license. She gave both a careful study, then stepped back so Henry could see them, too.

“You sure this is what you want—to be out here with him?” The mountain glared at Flynn.

“He won’t go away until I listen to him.” She patted a massive arm again. “You’d better get back to the kitchen. Something’s probably burning.”

Henry lumbered off, muttering that he’d leave the door open, just in case, and she’d better not even think about running off in that uniform and with her station in a mess.

When he was gone, Flynn looked into a pair of wary blue eyes. Poor kitten. How best to start? “Thirty-two years ago, a desperate young woman left two babies in front of the sheriff’s office in Dry Creek, Nevada.”

Her brows almost managed a real frown this time. “Wait a minute. Two babies?”

“A boy and girl.”

“You’re not talking about me, then.”

Yes, he was. “The young woman’s name was Miranda Fortune.” He waited, but she didn’t react. Maybe she hadn’t heard of the Fortunes. They were well-known in Texas, but that was one of the few western states Emma hadn’t lived in. “She was only seventeen, dead broke and estranged from her family. Miranda is your mother, Emma. And she wants very badly to meet you.”

He wouldn’t have thought a face like hers could look stony. But it did. “So you say, but your client is a man, not a woman. You said he already knew where I was.”

“My client is Lloyd Carter, Miranda’s ex-husband.”

The rest of her face still wasn’t giving much away, but something uncertain moved behind the blue of her eyes. She blinked once, slowly. “My…father?”

“No.” He spoke as gently as he could. “Miranda didn’t meet Carter until several months after you were born. I don’t know who your father was.”

She swallowed. “This man—this Carter—are you sure he’s who he says he is?”

Flynn had been putting some things together. Emma had gotten pregnant while she was living in San Diego. She’d left town in a big hurry, changed her name and was running scared. Scared of the man who got her pregnant? Afraid of a custody battle—or of the man himself? “I check out all my clients. Carter’s on the slimy side of handsome, but he’s definitely who he claims to be.”

She was stiff all over—her shoulders, her back, her expression. “How old is he? What does he look like?”

“He looks like a two-bit actor—weathered face, lots of smile lines, good cap job on his teeth. Wiry, fairly fit for his age—which is fifty-three, despite what he claims. Dark hair, gray eyes.”

Tension sighed out of her, leaving the slim shoulders slumped. “That’s not Steven.”

“Who’s Steven?”

She made a vague gesture. “Never mind. You say he hired you to find me? Was he acting for his ex-wife?”

“More or less.” Mostly less, but the situation was complicated. Flynn didn’t think this was the time to go into details.

She was looking dazed now. “So she’s alive. I’ve wondered…but it doesn’t really change anything.”

“Of course it does. Maybe your mother didn’t do right by you when you were a baby, but she wasn’t much more than a child herself then. She’s got a bucketful of regrets now, and the money to do something about them. I’m to make whatever arrangements are necessary to get you to come to her for a visit—or to stay, if you like. She’s living in Texas now, close to her family.” He paused. “Your family, too. The Fortunes.”

“Well…” She didn’t think about it long before shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t…this is awfully sudden.” Her smile crept out shyly. “She could write to me if she wants, though. You can tell her my address.”

Appealing to sentiment hadn’t worked. Flynn was conscious of feeling disappointed in her, which was absurd. He switched tactics smoothly. He’d hit her where it counted with most people: the wallet. “One thing I haven’t mentioned. The Fortunes are rich. Not your garden variety rich, either. Buying-small-countries rich.”

“Oh. Yes, I think I’ve heard of them,” she said vaguely, as if it weren’t important. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to gossip columns and such.”

“Miranda wants to settle some money on you.”

That got a reaction, but not the one he expected. Instead of greed lighting a spark in her eyes, impatience made her snappish. “I don’t need her money. I do just fine on my own.”

He glanced at the car beside them. Three bald tires and peeling paint didn’t equal “doing just fine” to him. “Maybe so. But what’s fine for you might not be fine for that baby you’re expecting.”

Her chin tilted up. “I can take care of my baby. And myself. And now,” she said, haughty as a duchess, “if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to work.” She turned away.

Yeah, that’s one great ass, he thought as she walked away from him and several million dollars. Pretty face, too, in spite of those smudges beneath her eyes, and what a smile she’s got. Pity she’s a flake.

He had one last thing to try. “Maybe you forgot what I said about there being two babies,” he called out. “Are you at all interested in meeting your brother, Emma?”

She stopped and turned slowly to face him. “You’re just saying that to get me to…a brother? I don’t…do I really have a brother?”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted it so badly he could taste her yearning in the air between them. This was the reaction he’d expected when he’d told her about her mother. He walked up to her and said quietly, “His name is Justin. He’s your twin. I found him, too. Last week I told him about you and your mother, and he’s making arrangements to fly there to meet her. He’s expecting to see you there, too.”

“He’s in Texas?”

“He will be, in another day or two.”

“I have a brother. A twin brother.” Wonder filled her eyes.

“A fraternal twin.” Amusement lightened his voice. “Obviously.”

She hugged her arms around herself tightly. “All right. I’ll go.”