expression didn’t change. “What’s the matter, Kate? You afraid I can’t keep my mind on the job what with being back amongst the exalted Stockwells?”
“Nobody knows better than I do that nothing distracts you from your work. I’m just curious why you accepted this case in the first place.” Her lips felt dry. “Considering everything.”
“You mean considering you.”
“That was a long time ago.”
His gaze drifted over her. “You don’t trust me,” he said softly.
Her lips parted “I—”
“That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t believe I’ll do my best for your family.”
“My brothers wouldn’t have brought you in on this if they thought that.”
“We’re not talking about your brothers.”
“No,” she said after a long moment. “We’re not.”
“Well, well,” he mused. “Score one for fierce Katy Stockwell.” His eyes narrowed and his lips twisted a little. Just enough to make him look even more saturnine. “It’d have more effect if you weren’t in tears, I’m afraid.”
“Stick to the case, Brett. Find Madelyn LeClaire.”
“And stay away from you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She cursed the tears that still insisted on leaking from her eyes. “Jack didn’t come all the way home from Europe with that…that painting, and call you here today just so I could cry on your shoulder.” Her voice was flippant. Better that, than anything else. She couldn’t bear it that this man, of all people, should see her weakness.
“I’ll consider it my perk for the day.” He didn’t look any more delighted about it than she felt. “Look,” he said after a moment. “You don’t have to pretend that this hasn’t been rough on you. First you learn that your father’s cancer is terminal, then that your mother may be alive. And now, to see that portrait— Katy, it would shake anyone. You don’t have to hide it. Hell, it shook me.”
“Nothing shakes you.”
His lips tightened. “You’d be surprised. Besides. I remember you at that age. You were a holy terror, and the girl in that painting looks as serene as a lovely country pond.”
“Go away,” she said flatly. “I need to fix my face.”
“Is that a dismissal, princess?”
She shot him a look, prepared to give him a stinging reply, but the words died as she looked at him. “I don’t imagine any one dismisses you,” she said instead. Not anymore. He was too commanding. Too self-sufficient. And the cynical tilt of his lips was just a little bit fearsome.
The teenager who’d earned spending money working in the same house where his mother was the live-in cook for Judge Orwell and his perfectly coiffed wife, Bitsy, was long gone.
Now, Brett, in his beautifully cut summer-weight suit looked as if he might have a host of servants in his home at his beck and call. Which reminded her that, aside from knowing about Brett Larson, owner of a very well-respected private investigation and security firm, she knew very little about Brett Larson, the private man.
A fresh knot tied itself in her stomach. “I—”
“Don’t sweat it, Kate. We’ll both forget this tête-à-tête ever happened. No one will ever learn from me that Kate Stockwell possesses tear ducts.”
Kate’s tears ceased. “Remind me why I ever wanted to shackle myself to you. Oh, wait. I remember. It was that scintillating sense of humor.” She listened to the cutting tone of her voice with something akin to horror. That wasn’t her talking. She wasn’t a cold, cutting woman.
She was an art therapist, for pity’s sake. She spent her life helping people. Troubled children, most specifically. She didn’t engage in verbal warfare with others.
Brett leaned over and looked in her face.
It took everything she possessed not to back away. “What are you looking at?”
He straightened and shrugged, disinterested. “Just seeing if that bit of vulnerability ran off your face along with the mascara and makeup.” Then he smiled humorlessly and walked out of the sunroom.
Kate’s hands curled. She angled her chin and glanced around the sunroom. It was filled with carefully tended plants, antiques, comfortable furnishings. The Texas sun shafted diagonally in through the windows, golden and bright and warm.
One might actually think the house she stood in was filled with that same warmth. But she knew differently. Her cold and cutting father had seen to that.
“Damn you, Caine Stockwell,” she murmured under her breath. He was her father. She knew that a part of her loved him, despite everything. But another part, a part she felt guilty in admitting to, detested him. For his coldness and abusiveness to his family. For his manipulations. For his lies.
The biggest lie of which had brought Brett Larson back into Kate’s life.
Her hands were shaking again. She drew in a long breath and went into the hall, stopping to check her reflection in one of the framed mirrors that hung on the wall, along with an extensive collection of paintings. Stockwell ancestors. Oils. All originals. Her father would never have settled for anything less hanging on the hallowed walls of his mansion.
Her eyes looked a little red-rimmed, but she didn’t have mascara running down her face.
Other than that, she looked much like she always did. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. A face that was too narrow, a nose that was too long. Overall, she guessed she was presentable. There had even been a time when Brett had called her beautiful, and she’d believed it. Felt it.
But that time was past. Long past.
Now, she was just a woman who tried to help other people’s children deal with their problems. She was successful enough at it, found it fulfilling and rewarding enough that, usually, she managed to forget what she really was.
A useless shell of a woman.
She looked down and realized she still held Brett’s handkerchief crumpled in her fist. She pressed it to her cheek for a moment. Smelling the seductively male scent of him that clung to the folded, pressed-edged, square.
She was also a member of the Stockwell family, she reminded herself silently. She’d been part of the decision she and her brothers had made to right as many of the wrongs committed by their father as they could. And part of that meant finding their mother. If she really was still alive, as their findings suggested.
She sighed and turned toward the study once more. And nearly jumped out of her skin when Mrs. Hightower appeared silently behind her.
Kate cleared her throat and slid the handkerchief into the hidden pocket of her slacks. “Did
