in the doorway, she peered in to see Maggie still sleeping peacefully.
There was absolutely no reason for Breanna to feel such a strong sense of disquiet, but she did. She returned to her bedroom and once again slid beneath the sheet. A wrong number…or somebody’s idea of a prank, she told herself again.
Still, it was a very long time before she finally drifted off to sleep.
Adam Spencer sat on the shabby sofa that was part of the furnishings in the small cottage right next to Breanna James’s residence. Finding this place for rent so close to his quarry had been a godsend. Although the ramshackle cottage wouldn’t have been his first choice of a temporary residence, it would do for now.
“Damn you, Kurt,” he said aloud as he popped the top off a bottle of beer. He was tired…exhausted in fact. He’d driven from Kansas City, Missouri, to the town of Cherokee Corners, Oklahoma, that day and had spent most of the evening unloading the personal items he’d brought with him. He should be in bed, but he knew sleep would be elusive.
He needed to process his initial impression of Breanna James. That she was strikingly beautiful didn’t surprise him. Kurt had always dated beautiful women.
He frowned and took a sip of the cold beer as he thought of his cousin. Kurt had been an adventurer, both in his relationships and with the way he lived his life. As the only son of wealthy parents he’d enjoyed too much money and not enough goals.
He’d been buried a week ago after a tragic motorcycle accident. He’d been riding too fast without a helmet on a rain-drenched highway. The accident had pretty well summed up Kurt’s life…flying too fast with too little sense.
Kurt had clung to life for six long hours in the hospital…long enough to confess to Adam that six years before he’d briefly been married to a woman in Cherokee Corners named Breanna James.
He’d further astonished Adam with the news that there had been a child…a daughter. With his dying breath he’d begged Adam to find them and make sure they were doing okay. Caught up in the emotional turmoil of losing the man who had been like a brother to him, Adam had agreed.
So here he sat in a rental shack next to the woman who had briefly been Kurt’s wife. He had yet to see the child, didn’t even know her name. But she was the real reason he was here.
Adam had seen his aunt and uncle’s utter grief over losing their only son. Kurt’s death had devastated them. A grandchild would be a gift, a legacy of the son they had lost.
But Adam didn’t intend to tell them of the child’s existence until he’d assessed the whole situation. He loved his aunt and uncle, who had raised him since the age of eleven when his own parents had died in a freak small plane accident. He would not invite more pain into the lives of the couple who had raised him.
Kurt’s women had always been beautiful, but they’d also always been extremely dysfunctional. Some of them, aware of Kurt’s family money, had been nothing more than gold diggers, others had been mentally unbalanced, or on drugs, or just plain needy.
Adam sighed and took another sip of beer, his thoughts returning to Breanna. It had instantly been obvious she was of Native American descent. High cheekbones gave her face a proud strength, but her long-lashed, liquid brown eyes had hinted at vulnerability.
Her long black hair had been tightly confined in a braid and he’d found himself wondering what she’d look like with those rich, thick strands loose and flowing around her shoulders.
Her skimpy clothing had done little to hide a lean, sweet, killer of a body. He frowned and downed the last of his beer.
“Damn you, Kurt,” he repeated. He’d spent most of his life cleaning up Kurt’s messes and he had a feeling that this was going to be the monster of messes.
He intended to hang around here for a week or two and see exactly what kind of a woman Breanna James was before he told his uncle Edward and aunt Anita that they had a grandchild.
His biggest fear at the moment was that somehow, someway he was going to have to figure out a way to tell them that the mother of their grandchild was a prostitute.
Chapter 2
It was just after ten when Breanna heard a car door slam shut and her mother’s voice drifting in through the open living-room window. She went to the window and moved aside the gauzy curtain to see her mother talking to Adam Spencer.
Rita Birdsong James was a short, petite woman who had never met a stranger in her life. Breanna groaned inwardly as she wondered what sort of personal information Rita was giving to her new neighbor.
When Breanna had gotten out of bed at eight, Adam Spencer had already been up and weeding the pathetically neglected flower bed in his front yard.
Breanna had spent far too long standing at her bedroom window watching him. She told herself she was observing him as a cop would any person who invaded her personal space. But it was a woman’s gaze that admired the play of his arm and back muscles as he worked. It was a woman’s gaze that noted how the bright sunshine teased hints of impish red into his dark brown hair.
She had whirled away from the window, irritated with herself and the stir of heat her observations had created in the pit of her stomach.
She now returned to the kitchen table and the cup of coffee she’d been enjoying, knowing her mother would come inside when she was finished chatting up Adam.
Ten minutes later, Rita flew into the kitchen, dark eyes snapping and a satisfied smile on her face. At fifty-eight years old, Rita was still a stunningly beautiful woman. Her face was smooth, unlined…as if life hadn’t touched it with heartache or strife.
Her short hair was just as black as it had ever been, the cut emphasizing her defined cheekbones and generous smile. She was like a china doll in a collector’s case, always perfectly made-up and elegantly dressed.
“So did you spill all the James’s deep, dark family secrets?” Breanna asked.
Rita laughed and walked to the cabinet to grab a coffee cup. “I wish we had some deep, dark family secrets to spill. It would keep life interesting.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, then joined Breanna at the table. “And where’s my baby girl this beautiful morning?”
“With Rachel. They went to the grocery store. Rachel decided she needed a few more things for her picnic lunch this afternoon.”
“It’s nice to see her opening up to the idea of dating again.” She raised a dark, perfectly formed brow and peered at Breanna over the rim of her coffee cup. “That’s something you might consider. He’s very handsome and he’s not married.”
“Don’t even start,” Breanna warned.
“He’s a painter, studying Native American art. I told him all about the Cherokee Cultural Center and invited him to dinner this afternoon.”
Breanna wanted to protest. She’d been looking forward to their first barbecue of the year, to a relaxing time with family and close friends. But she knew it did no good to protest. As her father, Thomas, often said, the Birdsongs were the most stubborn people in the Cherokee nation.
The sound of the front door opening halted any further conversation. “Grandma!” Maggie exclaimed
