you’re asking if I was raped, the answer’s no.”
Thank God. Thank God in heaven. Shocked at the emotion pricking at the back of his throat, his eyelids, Ryan grabbed a carton of juice from the refrigerator and took a huge swallow.
“But you’ve been in a relationship where you had sex because you felt like you had to.”
“That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I told you why I liked the movie. Now I want to know what you’re having for breakfast.”
Fair enough. But he figured they both knew she wasn’t getting off the hook permanently. “Tuna.”
“You made a sandwich?”
“No. Just tuna.”
“With dressing?”
“Nope. Couldn’t find any.”
“You’re eating tuna out of the can.”
“Ate. It’s gone.” Thanks to Delilah. She wasn’t great at sharing.
“And that’s all you’re going to have?”
“I’m on my way to bed,” he reminded her, trying not to remember the images of her that he’d taken to his repose the last time he’d been there.
“What time do you get up?”
“Depends on the day.”
“Today.”
“I’m planning to crash until I wake up. No alarms. Which means I’ll probably make it until around three.” If he was lucky.
If not, he’d be up in an hour. Even with room-darkening curtains he couldn’t lie in bed during the day if he was awake. There was always someone to see, or talk to, who wasn’t available in the middle of the night.
Like the cable company that was supposed to be adding Sportzone to his monthly service—had charged him, but failed to turn on the games.
“You think you’ll want some breakfast then?”
“I’m sure I will.” If you could call stale bread and peanut butter breakfast. He hadn’t been to the grocery store. Saturday nights were usually reserved for that because it was the only time of the week the place wasn’t milling with people.
“I make a mean omelet.”
Ryan’s blood started to pump harder again, all signs of exhaustion taking a hike. Had she just invited him to her place?
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I have a seven-o’clock meeting tonight, but nothing after court this afternoon. If you’d like to stop by, I could show you my ham-and-cheese.”
“Okay.” Sure. He crossed one scuffed wing-tipped shoe over the other. Nonchalance was called for.
He just had to find some.
“If you want to, that is,” she added in a bit of a rush. “I mean, you’ve provided dinner the past two Saturday nights. I thought I should return the favor.”
He’d ordered pizza.
“That’d be great,” he said with a tight rein on himself. Don’t make anything out of it, Mercedes. The woman’s beautiful. And not interested in sex. Or you. Or she’d be interested in sex.
And he wasn’t interested, either. His obsession with her was a blip. Like the flu.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I mean, I’m just offering one friend to another.”
“Hey, Audrey.” He added a teasing chuckle to his tone—he hoped. “It’s fine. I’m a bachelor. I never say no to homemade food. No strings attached.”
“Good. Fine.” The confidence had returned to her voice. “Say, around five, then?”
Five was fine. That left him seven and a half hours to get his libido under control and forget that he’d ever had one intimate thought about a stunningly desirable guardian ad litem.
He was not the least bit interested in a long term relationship.
And one thing was certain. Audrey Lincoln was not a woman a good man had casual sex with. She was the type of woman he loved.
CHAPTER THREE
THE OMELET didn’t happen. The phone rang, instead, and Audrey only had time to scramble some eggs and take five minutes to eat them with Ryan before running off to be at Mollie Anderson’s mother’s house when the confused twelve-year-old’s father came to pick her up for visitation.
Neither of Mollie’s parents had known she was coming because Mollie had been the one to call for Audrey’s help.
Audrey talked to Ryan again on Wednesday morning. He phoned as he came off his shift to ask her about another case they’d shared—a pair of nine-year-old fraternal twins who’d initially been reported as runaways several months before. Very soon into the investigation, however, they’d realized the twins had been abducted.
Ryan thought he might have located them living in Arizona with a man who, other than the color and length of his hair, perfectly fit the description of the children’s father.
She’d grieved for Darla and Danny Buford for months until she’d finally, with the help of some counseling, let them go. There’d been an obvious break-in at Mrs. Buford’s well-to-do home. A ransom note.
Mr. Buford, the other half of the lengthy and ugly divorce that initially had brought Audrey into the picture, had been right beside his ex-wife through the entire ordeal. He’d paid half the ransom and cried with his ex-wife in his arms when the terms of the bargain were not met.
The money disappeared. The police didn’t catch the slight figure who’d picked up the bag in the middle of the busy New York City street where the kids supposedly had been taken. And the children were never returned.
The kids were dead. Plain and simple.
And shockingly, horribly, grossly unfair.
Audrey wanted Ryan to be right about the Arizona lead, but she didn’t think so.
Yet that didn’t stop her from hoping. If any other detective had told her he’d located those kids, she’d have shrugged off the news without much thought. But Ryan Mercedes’s track record for accuracy was impressive.
Because he didn’t speak until he knew what he was saying? Or because he was that gifted at his job?
He called again on Friday morning. The Buford twins were alive.
“Turns out some psycho, who’d just lost his wife and daughter in a car accident, had taken them.
