Читать книгу Her Secret Life - Tara Taylor Quinn - Страница 13
ОглавлениеMIKE WASN’T THE least bit surprised when Lacey’s call included an invitation for him to come right over and check out her machine. Lacey and Jem Bridges were just that way—open doors and willingness to help written all over them. As a social worker, Lacey offering a helping hand seemed natural. Jem was just plain one of the nicest guys Mike had ever met.
He also had an embarrassing and never to be spoken of—or even fully acknowledged to himself—sense of brotherhood with Jem. Like Mike, Jem had suffered at the hand of a loved one. Equally as bad, worse in Mike’s case, was the world knowing he was a victim. That sense of people looking at you with pity could make you feel less...manly if you let it. Jem didn’t. At all.
Mike didn’t, either.
Hence the brotherhood.
It ended there. Unlike Jem’s abuse, Mike’s injury had had nothing to do with a loved one purposely attacking him. Mike’s injury was the result of a complete and total accident. A tragic accident that had...
No.
Kacey had touched his chest...telling him he was beautiful...
No. He was not looking back. There was no point wondering what could have been.
If not for the bullet that had ripped his face apart, he never would have met Kacey. Known the joy of her friendship.
He’d have been married to Susan, fully entrenched in the corporate world in whatever city made him the best offer, and probably spending Saturdays driving their kids places.
Not a bad picture.
But not Kacey.
And he wouldn’t have been able to help out the Lemonade Stand, either, or had such close relationships with his parents and siblings.
“Mike, come in!” Lacey stepped back, pulling the door open wider, as Jem came forward to shake his hand.
“What’s up, man?” Jem fist-bumped him on the shoulder with his free hand, a grin on his face.
“Business, unfortunately,” Mike answered as though he’d rehearsed his response. Which he had.
He wasn’t there because he was hot for Kacey. He was working.
As soon as it became anything else, people would start pitying him.
And this time, with reason. If he was stupid enough to fall for her, he’d deserve to be pitied.
He might find the daytime-soap star hot, he might even enjoy her company, but he most definitely did not want to queue up in her line of men.
He was a one-woman kind of guy who liked the quiet life. A geek who liked his own company.
He would hate being a part of the crazy mélange that was Kacey’s Beverly Hills life.
The thought of enduring even one week of that lifestyle gave him cold sweats.
Much more effective than a cold shower.
“I’m going to be playing T-ball. You like watching T-ball?”
Shaking errant thoughts from his mind, Mike focused on the five-year-old who’d just approached licking a soggy chocolate ice cream cone.
“Yes, Levi, it just so happens I do like watching T-ball,” he said, nodding. “I used to like to play, too, and watch my little brothers play.”
“Cool. Maybe you could come watch me sometime.”
From what he’d been told by his secret friend, Kacey attended every Levi event she could. But T-ball games often happened on weeknights. And Kacey would be in LA.
“Maybe I could,” he told the little boy and tensed at the same time.
What are you doing, man?
What if Levi’s team made it to a tournament? The family would expect him to come cheer the team on. Tournament games were on Saturdays and...
“Levi, you’d best lick fast.” Jem tapped his son’s shoulder and pointed him toward the hallway. “It’s your bedtime. And Mr. Valentine’s a busy man.”
Yes. He was. And he was there to work. He watched the dark-haired boy walk down the hallway with his dad, remembering Kacey’s tears the first time she’d talked about the abuse the little guy had suffered at the hands of his biological mother.
Thank God for Jem. And Lacey. Levi seemed like a perfectly normal, happy kid.
“It’s so great of you to do this,” Lacey said as she led Mike to the home office she shared with her husband. “I know you’re crazy busy—hence a house call after eight at night...”
He shrugged. Work was a high to him. He was the best at what he did. “Saved me from dinner with Charlie and her brood,” he said, though, truth be told, he generally enjoyed dinner with his sister’s family. Unless she was being overprotective—which was about half the time.
Lacey was booting up her computer. “She’s got a little one Levi’s age.”
“That’s right. Bella.”
“I saw her hugging you after the Christmas pageant. I was heading over to say hi, hoping maybe you’d introduce us to your family, but you’d already left.”
He’d seen Kacey and bolted before things got awkward.
The kids weren’t in the same class, just the same grade. And he and Kacey hadn’t communicated via text or email almost every day back then. He hadn’t been aware of her plans, or even known she’d be in town unless she happened to show up at the Lemonade Stand when he was there.
Well...he’d always known about Fridays, of course, because of her class. And because, for a long time, that was when they’d meet to talk about her struggles living a cleaner lifestyle in LA. After her class. In the small private office he still kept in the rear of the computer repair shop that was on the street backing up to the Lemonade Stand. The whole block had shops with secure entrances to and from the Stand.
And was owned by the Stand’s benefactor, Brett Ackerman. All proceeds from the shops open to the public helped to support the women’s shelter. Mike had spent a lot more time there when they’d first been setting up the computer repair shop than he did now.
“Here you go,” Lacey said. “Have at it.”
He glanced at the screen. Emails were still coming in. “You want to take a look and move anything you’d rather I don’t see?”
She shook her head. “I want to know who’s using our email account. Look at anything you need to...”
He was an IT investigator. He knew the kinds of things that could be found. Not that he expected Lacey—or Jem—to have anything illegal on their machines. But...private...was conceivable.
“What about confidential work files?”
She shook her head. “Not on that machine. I log in to my work computer—”
“Which answers my next question. The two computers are connected sometimes?”
“Yes.” She was frowning.
“And do you ever email Kacey with your private account from work?”
“I don’t remember specifically doing so, but I’m sure I have. I’ve never made it a point not to.”
“Can you hide files and do whatever is necessary so I can get a look at that machine tomorrow?”
“You do investigations for the local police, don’t you?”
“I have. On occasion. They have their own IT investigators.”
“If you have clearance with them, you’ve got clearance with us. It’s a city-wide thing.”
He’d known he had clearance, just not that she wouldn’t have to go through extra red tape.
He was already sitting in her desk chair, clicking through screens.
“You’re doing that so quickly, how can you even know what’s there?”
“I’m searching for something very specific. I know where it will be...” He looked at back-door computer information all day, every day. “It’s like any foreign language.” He often told ladies at the Lemonade Stand the same thing. “Once you learn it, you don’t have to think about it. You just recognize it.”
Not that he taught computer forensics to the residents at the Stand. With them it was more basic programming for career training...
He took a couple of screen shots, emailed them to himself and then stood up. “I’m done here,” he said, as eager to be gone as he’d been to visit.
This urge he’d had to get to know Lacey a little better—more of a curiosity, really—because she and Kacey were so tightly intertwined, wasn’t good.
And he most certainly didn’t need to see where Kacey stayed when she was in town any more than he’d ever have cause to see her place in Beverly Hills.
“You want a cup of coffee?” Lacey asked. “Or a beer? Jem’ll be out in a couple of minutes and I know he’d share a beer with you. I can’t stand the stuff, so he’s always looking for an excuse to have one with someone.”
Mike was already shaking his head. “I should be getting back,” he said, filled with even more eagerness to go when he realized how tempted he was to stay.
“You sure? I baked cookies with Levi last night. There are still a bunch left.”
She’d led him to the kitchen rather than to the front door and took the lid off a cookie jar that was shaped like a teddy bear. He didn’t want to be rude.
But he couldn’t stay. Dipping his hand in the jar, he came up with a chocolate chip cookie that could rival his mother’s.
That made him think about the home-cooked dinner he’d missed at his sister’s. About the home Lacey and Jem shared. The ones both of his sisters and their husbands shared. The one his parents shared.
His younger brother Dennis stayed with Mike on the rare occasions Dennis was in town. And as soon as he graduated from college in May, he’d be back even less. Dennis wanted to be a professional fisherman and spent up to three months at a time out on one of the big boats in the middle of the ocean.
Escapism, Mike termed it.
“This is good,” he said, taking a second bite and closing his mouth so he could chew and swallow. Closing his mouth so he didn’t say something he’d regret.
Like accepting that cup of coffee. Or a beer.
He hadn’t finished his bourbon.
Lacey grinned. Offered him another. And smiled. Her mouth...it curved just like Kacey’s did. But there the resemblance ended.
He liked Lacey and found a curious kind of peace in her company.
With Kacey, he buzzed. Like he was fully alive. Sexually, of course, that was a given, but intellectually, too.
“What?” Lacey asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re staring at me. But don’t worry, I’m used to it. It was rude of me to say anything...” She turned her back, put the cookie jar in the corner of the counter.
“I didn’t mean to stare,” he said. “It was rude. And you have every right to say something.” He knew all about the struggles between the identical twins—about Lacey’s feeling she was always living in Kacey’s shadow, settling for second best.
Until Jem, of course. She’d been his first choice.
He could tell her all that. Tell her that he’d been noticing how, in spite of their identical appearance, she looked so different than her sister to him.
But, of course, he wouldn’t.
“I should get going,” he said instead. Way past time.
“I’m sure Kacey’s paying you, but I’d be glad to make the first installment, since she’s in LA.” Lacey reached for her purse. “I can write you a check...”
He didn’t take checks. Not personally. He had a woman who handled all of his billing. And accounts payable, too, at his suite of offices across from the new medical complex at the edge of town.
“That’s not necessary,” he said.
Lacey froze and stared up at him. “She is paying you, right? You didn’t offer to do this for free?”
As far as Mike was concerned, the question was none of her business, even if Kacey hadn’t been a friend. And her identical twin.
He said nothing.
“She isn’t. Mike, she’s trying, I swear, and she’s changing, but Kacey has no idea of the power she has to get people to do things for her. Your firm charges top dollar. I’m going to pay you...” She reached for her purse again.
“Stop,” he told her and was tempted to tell her he’d bill her.
The way she’d talked about her twin pissed him off. Or maybe it was because of the way she’d thought he was too...dense, or blind, to figure out that Kacey was working him.
If she’d been working him.
“This is between your sister and me. I didn’t get to be CEO of a successful firm by allowing beautiful women to get me to do things for them.”
Lacey’s mouth fell open. Her brow furrowed. And he had a feeling that if Jem Bridges had been present, he might have decked him for making his wife feel bad.
He wouldn’t have blamed him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was uncalled for, as well. I’ll go now. See you in the morning?” He tried a grin on her. It used to be a killer with the women.
“No, I’m sorry,” she was saying, following him to the door. “I didn’t mean to imply, even for a second, that you’d fall prey to...that you were... Shit.”
“Best to quit while you’re ahead.” Jem had joined them.
“I’m making it worse,” Lacey said, grimacing as she looked between the two men. “I just... Kacey’s the sweetest, most incredible woman I know, and I don’t like her to be misjudged when she doesn’t even mean to do what she does.”
Jem’s finger covered his wife’s lips. “Believe it or not, Lacey’s the one who can go into any volatile family situation and take control,” he said to Mike. “The woman’s a marvel at mediation and tact. Just not when it comes to her sister.”
“I’m well aware of your sister’s...abilities...to allure,” Mike said, genuinely liking the couple. “I also like and respect her,” he added. “Understand that I see her in a light different than most. I see her at the Lemonade Stand giving women the ability to feel good about themselves again. She’s gentle and loving. Kind. And compassionate. There’s not an egotistical bone in her body.”
He stopped. He’d gone on far too long.
Lacey was staring at him. Openmouthed.
Jem just stood there.
“You really get her,” Lacey finally said, her voice soft.
“In Santa Raquel, at the Lemonade Stand, yes.”
“But she’s the same person...no matter where she goes. I mean, you don’t become someone different just because you get in the car and drive down the road.”
“We all have different sides,” he said, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t need to see the other sides of your sister. I admire her work at the Stand. And I’m happy to help her find out who hacked into her email account.”
With that, he said good-night and got the hell out of there, hoping he hadn’t given away just how close he and Kacey were.
Walking backward on his words wasn’t something he did often. Or had to do.
He wasn’t sure how successful he’d been.
