onto the mobile dangling high above her. He scooped her into his arms, and she stopped crying. When he read the note, the one he eventually gave to her adoptive parents, the one Kristin found in her father’s safe after her parents died, Jackson knew Eloise believed her life was no longer safe. She’d left because the Mob had found her, even at that safe house—
“Kristin?”
She started, coming back to the moment. “Yes?”
“Don’t tell anyone about this conversation, and say nothing about your mother. We’ll find her, rest assured of that, but we don’t want you to lead the Martino family to her first. You’ll both end up dead.”
Kristin wet her lips. Dead? She swallowed. “I—I’ll be very careful.”
She disconnected, and with a shaky sigh, set her phone down on the table. Not find her mother? Give up her search? That was easy for Jackson McGraw to say. He wasn’t dealing with the loss she had right now. He didn’t hurt inside the way she hurt.
She should call Jackson back and tell him he had no right to order her not to find her mother.
Toying with her small phone, she squared her shoulders and flipped it open.
Then, she jumped.
That tall man who had strode in a few moments ago, the one she’d believed to be the P.I. she’d hired, now towered over her tiny table. She ran her gaze up his tall length, until she found piercing blue eyes drilling into her.
“Kristin Perry, I assume?”
Zane Black knew Kristin immediately. On Friday, she’d called him, her soft, lilting voice giving him a clear impression of what she looked like, clearer than he’d ever had before with a client. Some people looked the opposite of how they sounded, but not Kristin Perry.
Wide, green eyes blinked at him. Eyes soaked in fear, he thought. Around them, the bustle of the café softened as if waiting for her answer. But all she did was flip closed her phone and set it back on the table, with a slight shake.
“You are Kristin Perry, aren’t you?” he asked. Even to his own ears, he sounded gruff.
She nodded jerkily, as if gathering wild thoughts together. Finally, with one more blink and a swallow, she spoke. “Yes. And you are…?”
“Zane Black.” She knew who he was, surely? She’d asked him to meet her here. She’d noticed his arrival.
Something was off and he didn’t like it when his suspicions were roused. That usually meant trouble was coming.
No, this wasn’t quite the woman he’d spoken to on the phone, the calm, quiet woman who sounded shy, but determined. This woman was scared, confused. “May I join you?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Please, sit down.” When he did, she glanced around and then leaned forward. “Um, call me Kristin. Ms. Perry sounds so formal.”
Zane had made it his job to read body language and could quite accurately guess what people were thinking.
And this pretty young woman was already regretting her decision to ask him to come.
Zane sat back, wondering if he would get the brush-off. When the waiter appeared, he ordered an iced tea. Unsweetened. Then he turned his attention to her. “You mentioned on the phone you’re trying to locate a woman. Do you have her name?”
Kristin bit her lip. Zane watched the motion intently, finding the little habit oddly attractive.
“I have very little information, I’m afraid. I know what the woman’s name was years ago, and her approximate age, but that’s pretty much it. I know she was living in Montana about twenty-one years ago.”
“Is she a relative?”
Again, she bit her lip. “I’d rather not say at this point. I need you to be very discreet.”
“I’m always discreet.”
“No.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping as her expression steeled. “I need you to find this woman without anyone ever knowing you’re looking for her.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I can do that, too.”
She paused, as if wanting to add more, but not convinced that she should. Impatient, he pulled out his notepad and pen, and set it on the table between them to write. His iced tea arrived and he shoved the cold glass to one side.
“No!”
He looked up, meeting her wide, green eyes and noting the straight brown hair that threatened to fall into them. Her look could easily be interpreted as benign, innocent, had he not just seen a cool determination behind it. “No, what?” he asked.
“I don’t want you to take notes. I need you to remember everything I say. I can’t risk your notebook being stolen.”
His pen hovered over his pad, irritation tempting him to write anyway. But when her eyes filled with pleading, Zane’s hand froze.
He battled his capitulation. He didn’t like giving in. “You want me to remember everything you say to me? Don’t you think that’s a bit unreasonable? I can assure you that no one gets my notebook, Kristin. No one.”
“Just humor me, okay? For a little while?” Her voice developed a velvet tone to it. With her wide, innocent eyes and perfect cream complexion, this young woman could probably get whatever she wanted from any man in town.
Yet, if he was reading her right, he bet she’d never asked a soul for anything, never manipulated a man before. Until now. He was tempted to test her determination, to see if there really was silk over steel where her will was concerned.
But a battle of wills was pointless and he had no taste for such foolishness. He’d had his fill of that nonsense years ago.
And besides, he found himself not wanting to argue with the beautiful Kristin Perry.
Slowly, he put away his pad and pen.
“Thank you.”
Zane barely heard the words over the other conversations around them. But the gratitude rang clearly. “So, tell me about the woman you want me to find.”
“She’s around forty years old, has brown hair and green eyes, slim-boned and with a scar on her right cheek near her lips. It’s in the shape of a rose petal.”
He watched her hand drift up to her temple to smooth her hair. As if noticing his keen interest, she dropped her arm immediately.
“A rose petal?” he echoed. What on earth was the shape of a rose petal?
“Yes, you know. Rounded, with a slight point at one end.”
“Okay,” he began. “What’s this woman’s name?”
“Eloise.”
“What’s her relationship to you?”
A pause. “Like I said before, I
