Mother by Fate. Tara Quinn Taylor
do you do for a living?” Using her lead, Michael turned his conversation in the direction he needed it to go.
His online national reporting service told him Sara Havens was a licensed professional clinical counselor. He knew her address. Her former address. The fact that she’d once gone by the last name Stover and her phone number was unlisted.
“I’m a counselor.” She hesitated, a somewhat tentative expression on her face, as though she expected some kind of negative reaction. On another day he might have been curious.
“A therapist?” She and Nicole Kramer, an unstable and armed felon, could be old friends, he supposed. Ones who hadn’t been in touch for many years. They’d both grown up in LA.
If they were friends, did Sara Havens even know who and what Nicole had become? Sara could be in danger and not even know it.
If he showed his hand to her, and she did know what Nicole was up to, he’d lose his only real lead...
“I...counsel women,” she said slowly, clearly choosing her words.
“Only women?”
“And children.”
“But no men?” He tried for a smile. Maybe to tease her. His mind was too busy assessing what she’d just told him to pull it off. What kinds of counseling services excluded men?
She looked away and then back at him. “I counsel victims of domestic violence.”
His mind played a fast-motion visual of all the people he’d met on the street where he’d seen her the night before. There’d been men about. But a lot of women. Women who’d crossed their arms when he’d approached them, or looked over his shoulder instead of meeting his gaze. He should have noticed then. And would have, if he hadn’t been hell-bent on nabbing Nicole before she got away.
No wonder those women had been so reluctant to give out any information to strangers. They were protecting their own.
“Do you work at a shelter?” he asked.
Her pause this time told him what he needed to know. He could hardly stay still long enough for her to finish her innocuous comment about being part of a high-risk team that included police, medical personnel, parole officers and other professionals. “The team’s sole purpose is to prevent domestic-violence deaths,” she explained, deftly not answering the question he’d asked about her place of employment.
She wasn’t going to tell him where she worked. He no longer needed her to. What a perfect place for a woman on the run to go—a shelter where the personnel were trained to hide and protect.
“I run a shelter for abused animals,” he said, intent that she not become suspicious of him. If she and her people were hiding Nicole, they could all be in danger. If he said anything and they didn’t believe him, if they chose to believe, instead, whatever story Nicole had concocted to get them to take her in, they’d whisk her so far away he’d never find her.
The only way for him to keep all of them safe was to get his job done as quickly as possible. The women and children at a women’s shelter weren’t Nicole’s target. Her own two-year-old son was. But desperate people took desperate measures.
Nicole would be in need of a fix soon. And that would make her desperate.
“A rescue shelter?” she asked, leaning forward, her eyes wide.
“Yes.”
“I... Wow... That’s cool.” She’d been about to say something else.
He could, too. With very little provocation. Talking about the dogs and cats and occasional bird that ended up at the shelter came easily to him. But he was supposed to have just bought a condo in her complex. He couldn’t be living in the little house on several acres he’d bought when he’d brought Mari home to grow up surrounded by family. He stood. “I have to get back to my unpacking,” he said. “But it’s been... I’m Michael Edison, by the way.”
“Sara Havens.”
“I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you.” The truth of his words gave them the power he needed them to have. And maybe there was a bit too much warmth in his gaze to pass for playacting as he added, “About that dinner. I’ll need some way to contact you...”
“I’d give you my number, but I don’t have a pen.” She didn’t offer her unit number. Or ask for his.
“I have a good memory.”
She rattled off her phone number. It hadn’t been listed.
He thanked her.
And tried to forget the smile on her face as he strode the long way from the pool through the complex—to make it look as if he was going back to his unit—and headed to his black SUV, which was sitting in the parking lot closest to the pool.
SARA SPENT A couple of hours at the pool. Feeling decadent, she slathered herself with oil and enjoyed the way her skin tingled beneath the sun’s warm touch. She closed her eyes but didn’t sleep. Her mind kept jumping between Nicole Kramer and the lithe, muscled man she’d just met whose eyes held secrets.
And sadness.
She didn’t expect him to call.
But kind of hoped he would.
Like Nicole, he was different. He’d caught her attention at a time when she’d needed the distraction.
Stepping into the tiled double walk-in shower in her master bath later that afternoon, Sara pictured him there, as well. He was standing at the slightly taller showerhead next to the one she used, water sluicing over his broad chest...
Sara’s eyes flew open as her phone rang.
On the second peal she dashed for a towel, embarrassed that she’d been having such thoughts...
What if it was him calling?
Every ounce of desire fled as she recognized the number.
With her towel held up to her chest, covering her to just above the knees, she leaned back against the bathroom counter and pushed the answer button. “What do you want, Jason?”
“It’s not for me,” he said quickly. As though that made a difference. Or was any different. “It’s for Bessie.” It always was.
“How much?”
“Three hundred. The art program we sent her to this summer has an after-school program and she really wants to go.”
By “we” he better have meant the two of them. Not him and whatever stripper he had living with him.
“I’m coaching full-time this year, so she’ll have to go to an after-school program of some kind, but I can send her to the free one if you’d rather...”
“I didn’t get my July pictures.”
“I know. I...well...I thought someone had mailed them.”
“And this...someone... She can’t mail pictures but you trust her to take care of a five-year-old child?” She couldn’t say “our” daughter. Because technically, Bessie wasn’t Sara’s. She’d raised her as her own from the second she was born. Her ex-husband had said he’d do the necessary paperwork for Sara to be able to adopt his biological child so they could be a fully legal family, so Sara would have the same parental rights he did.
The adoption was just another thing he’d lied about.
“She’s...not with Bessie and me anymore.” He always spoke faster when he was saying something he knew made him look bad in her eyes. It was how she knew when he was lying to her.
Pathetic, really.
“I’m sending over scans and pics of some of her projects. And July’s