Daddy With A Badge. Paula Riggs Detmer
It was a mug shot, one of those frontal and profile views she was always seeing on crime-stopper shows on TV. The face above the numbers and the name Jacob Folsom was Jonathan’s. Her stomach roiled. “This is Jonathan Sommerset, my husband.”
“His real name is Jacob Peter Folsom,” he said without inflection.
She blew out air. “I need to call Case. He should know that.”
“Case?”
“Detective Sergeant Case Randolph. He’s the one trying to find Jonathan. He also happens to live next door, in the house with the fuchsia door. He’s put out an APB or whatever you call an arrest warrant.”
“I’ve read his notes. So far nothing of substance has turned up.”
“Substance meaning what?”
Impatience tightened his mouth. She suspected he was far more accustomed to asking questions than answering them. “Meaning Folsom has gone to ground and no one has picked up his tracks.”
Case had repeatedly warned her the more time that passed, the more likely they wouldn’t be able to recover her assets, even if they found him. Even so, disappointment crashed through her. “Why is it with all the electronic gizmos and spy satellites and lightning-fast communications equipment you law enforcement people insist you need, no one has been able to find one middle-age swindler?”
Rafe turned his sleeves back another turn. “Miss him, do you?”
Her temper flared. “That’s a stupid question, Rafe. The man cheated me! All I want from him now is a divorce—and my money.”
Beneath the hood of dusty blond eyebrows his eyes crinkled with a sardonic amusement. “In that order?”
“In any order!”
After she rid herself of all ties to the man she now abhorred with every fiber of her being, she intended to devote herself to her children and her career, period. No more whirlwind romances for her. No more “Isn’t it wonderful to be so gloriously in love?” fantasies.
As for her husband of less than six months, she only wanted him back in her life long enough to sign the divorce papers waiting for him on her attorney’s desk and pay her back what he stole before they shipped him off to jail. Forever, if there was any justice left in this world.
“Where do you keep your mugs?” Rafe asked, lifting the coffeepot from the burner.
“Second cupboard. The ones with violets are for coffee, the daisies are for tea.”
He shot her a measuring look before retrieving two violets and a daisy. “A little obsessive about your mugs, aren’t you?”
“Needing to impose order on chaos is a perfectly healthy coping tool,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, as you pointed out, it’s my house.”
He poured coffee in the two mugs, left one on the counter for Gresham, then lifted his own to his mouth for a quick sip. “Your house until the Paxtons return from London, anyway,” he said, watching her over the steam.
Surprise sifted through her. “Was that in the file, too?”
He lifted an eyebrow, his expression mocking. “No, I got that from one of those electronic gizmos.”
She jerked the top off a cloisonné tin containing a selection of herbal teas. “My life is a train wreck and the man is playing ‘Can you top this’?” she muttered, ripping the bag from its neat paper envelope.
“Oh no, ma’am, us G-men aren’t authorized to indulge in games on duty.” He slid the daisy cup down the counter toward her. As she caught it, she saw surprise cross Gresham’s perfect features. Interesting, she thought, tucking it away for further study. Understanding and predicting human behavior was a passion as well as a profession. It made her feel secure to know within several plus or minus percentage points how someone would react to stimulus.
Rafe made her feel anything but secure.
“Nice house,” Gresham said as he picked up his mug. “Reminds me of the place I lived as a kid.”
His voice was part F.D.R., part J.F.K. Harvard, maybe? Definitely Ivy League at any rate. She suspected it hadn’t been all that long ago since he’d graduated. Maybe four or five years.
“My daughter likes it.” She would like Seth Gresham, too, she thought, hiding a smile. Lyssa had recently discovered boys. Later than most in today’s times, but that was partly due to lingering trauma. Knowing her daughter, she would rapidly make up for lost time. She wasn’t looking forward to the mood swings and separation struggles that were part and parcel of navigating one’s way through puberty, however.
Finished with the tea bag, she started to dump it into the trash, then thought better of it. Use it up, wear it out and never buy anything that’s not been marked down at least twice—that was her motto now.
She could get one more cup from this sucker, even though it would be weaker than she liked. Conscious that both men were watching, she plunked the soggy dripping bag onto a saucer from the cupboard overhead. She’d become an expert at detecting pity. She saw only a flicker in Gresham’s eyes, but not Rafe’s. His were cool and watching, physically familiar, but otherwise the eyes of a stranger.
“Would you mind if we go into the living room?” she asked after fortifying her tea with two spoons of sugar. “If I’m going to be subjected to the third degree, I’d like to do it sitting down.”
Without waiting for an answer, she led the way to the living room, more self-conscious about her altered body contours than reason dictated. It was instinctive, this awareness of the reaction she aroused in the male of the species, hard-wired into her psyche by eons of evolution like the fierce need to protect her offspring.
Not that she cared whether she ever attracted another man again in her entire life, she reminded herself firmly. Especially not one who looked at her with a stranger’s coolness, even as her blood swam with the memory of his mouth hot on hers.
The Paxtons’ living room was a mixture of tasteful antiques, comfortable modern pieces and accent pieces that ranged from priceless to endearingly homey, like the elaborate dollhouse Morgan had made for their daughter Morgana.
In the abstract, if not the literal, it had reminded her of the house she’d shared with Mark and Lyssa during what she’d come to consider the magic years. It had taken all of her control to keep from dissolving into a puddle of self-pity the first time she’d seen the exquisite little house.
“I sublet the place furnished,” she said when she noticed Gresham looking at the array of ceremonial masks Morgan Paxton had brought back from South Africa after covering Nelson Mandela’s release for his network.
“Interesting,” was all that Gresham said. “Especially that guy with the yellow eyes.”
Danni grimaced at the devil figure with its malicious grin. She preferred the benign face next to it, the one with the quizzical eyebrows and fuzzy yellow hair. The tribal equivalent of the archetypal jokester of Western mythology.
“The Paxtons’ twin sons start kindergarten next year, and Morgan is taking a year’s sabbatical in order to show his wife Raine and their kids Europe.”
Gresham looked impressed. “Used to watch him reporting from Baghdad during Desert Storm. Man has more grit than sense.”
“The Emmy he won is in the den.”
Gresham lifted both brows. “What’s he like in person?”
Her face softened as she recalled the generosity of both Paxtons. “Even more impressive than he appears on screen. And very kindhearted.”
“How’d you end up renting his place?”
Danni recognized the attempt to establish rapport and wondered if Seth was the designated good cop. Rafe, on the other hand, had made little attempt to be more than marginally