point. But he had no idea what it had been. He thrust the fingers of his free hand into his hair. He’d called their interview to a halt because he was getting distracted. Seemed the extra twenty-four hours to regroup hadn’t helped any.
He searched his brain for a way to informally find a path to the information he wanted. “Did you always want to be a journalist?”
They waited while Rosebud sniffed the base of a tree, and Lucy shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe not always. But since I interned with Graham when I was sixteen.”
“What did you want to be before that?”
“My father’s family is in department stores,” she said casually. “When he died I inherited his stock. I always thought I’d do a business degree and work there.”
Her family was “in department stores”? He almost laughed. In his preliminary research he’d found that Lucy was one of the Royall Department Stores Royalls. A family of old money that stood alongside the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Gettys in stature. The woman had pedigree coming out her ears.
Genuine curiosity nibbled. “Have you stayed in touch with that side of your family?”
“Occasionally I see Aunt Judith and her family,” she said softly, with just a tinge of regret. “She has a gorgeous lodge in Fields, Montana, where we sometimes gather for birthdays and Christmases.”
“Fields is a nice place,” he said. Great ski fields and snowboarding, although now just as famous for being the birthplace of President Morrow as its natural charms.
“We’ve had some good family times there. Plus, a couple of times a year I go to a board meeting, and occasionally talk to them about charity events.”
As she tapped a finger on his son’s nose, Hayden watched her and tried to get it all to make sense. Her choices didn’t quite add up with the image he had of a pampered princess.
“Wouldn’t it have been an easier path to work in the Royall family business? You already own significant stock there. You wouldn’t have had to start out at the bottom like you did at ANS.” That was what his wife, Brooke, had done—worked in her family’s banking empire. But in effect, it had only been role-playing. She’d had a big corner office and taken a lot of long lunches.
Lucy arched a challenging eyebrow. “What makes you think I’d want to take the easier path?”
“Human nature.” He didn’t try to hide the cynicism in his voice. “Who wouldn’t want the easier option?”
She was silent and the moment stretched out; the only sound was Josh’s gurgling baby talk. Then she looked up at him with eyes that seemed far too insightful. “Tell me, Hayden, did you take the easiest career option available to you?”
“No,” he admitted. But then, he hadn’t been brought up an heiress like Lucy or Brooke. Completely different situation.
“How long have you been a criminal investigator?” she asked.
“A few years now.” But he wasn’t here to talk about himself. He rolled his shoulders back and changed the conversation’s direction. “What story are you working on now?”
She moved Josh onto her other hip and adjusted his blue hat. “Are you officially asking me?”
He could sense her reluctance, but that wasn’t unusual with journalists trying to keep their scoop under wraps. And since his investigation was about past practices, her current story was irrelevant. He shrugged. “No, just conversation.”
“Then I’ll pass on the question.” She looked up at him and unleashed a dazzling smile. “Did you come out just to walk, or do you have lunch in that bag?”
He held up the brown paper bag. “Lunch. I can offer you half a room-service cheese and tomato on rye.” He’d found that when dealing with hotels, the plainer the order, the less likely they were to ruin it with some embellishment meant to impress but usually falling short. He was a man of simple tastes—he’d take sandwiches on fresh bread from the deli near his office over a fancy restaurant lunch any day.
“You can keep your sandwich,” she said. “I have mine in my bag.”
“Tell me you don’t have a picnic blanket in that bag,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up.
Her forehead crinkled into a confused frown. “A picnic blanket wouldn’t fit in here.”
“You seem to pull out all sorts of things, so a blanket wouldn’t have surprised me,” he said dryly.
They found a patch of grass under a weeping willow a little farther back from the path. He pulled out a sealed plastic bag with a wet washcloth inside and wiped off Josh’s hands before passing him a banana.
“That’s pretty organized,” Lucy said, watching him with those huge hazel eyes.
His hackles went up. “For a dad, you mean?”
“For anyone.” Her head tipped to the side, as if puzzling him out. “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
He nodded. Just because he was prickly about his parenting skills didn’t mean she’d taken a swipe at him. He offered a self-deprecating smile as compensation for his overreaction. “The nanny packed it all. I wouldn’t have thought of a washcloth, so you weren’t far off the mark.”
She broke off a piece of her granola bar and popped it in her mouth. They ate in silence for a couple of minutes, watching Josh with his banana.
Lucy leaned back, propping one hand on the grass behind her for support. “Is that where Josh is during your interviews?”
“I hired the nanny for while we’re in D.C. She comes nine to five.” He hadn’t been sure how the arrangement would work out, but it was fine. The biggest adjustment had been not having his sister close by—he was flying solo as a parent for the first time, and he was determined to make it work.
“What does Josh normally do during the day?” she asked as she fed a piece of granola to Rosebud.
“When we’re in New York, a couple of days a week he goes to my sister—she has a three-year-old boy, and the cousins enjoy their time together. The other three days a week he goes to a day-care center at my office. There are five kids of staff members there, and I can see him at lunchtime.”
She smiled over at Josh. “Sounds ideal.”
No, ideal would have been Josh having two parents to spend time with him, love him and make him the center of their world. But even before Brooke’s death, Josh hadn’t had that. The weight of needing to make things perfect for his son crashed down on him, as it did regularly. His gut contracted and clenched. He was all Josh had and he’d do his damned best to make his childhood as close to ideal as he could.
He looked up and saw Lucy was still watching him. This had become far too personal. What was it about Lucy Royall that made him forget everything that was important? What he needed to do was schedule another interview, and this time he’d write a complete list of questions—something he hadn’t done in years—to make sure he stayed on topic.
He
