wasn’t ready to deal with Cass’s potential interrogation, even though she would like the fact the woman was closer to his own age. Is she attractive? Cass would ask. Yes, and although she looked as if a strong wind could blow her away, her personality wasn’t subtle. He thought about the empty place on her ring finger. Divorced? Widowed? While there was a certain vulnerability to her, he hadn’t seen weakness.
Is she smart? Oh, yeah. He’d especially liked how she’d told him to take a cab and add the cost to her bill.
But the question he was likely avoiding most from Cassie: What is she hiding? That he didn’t know, but it seemed tied more to her not giving him her name than insurance issues.
The encounter had jarred his life—in a good way—at a time he needed jarring.
After Cassie left around ten o’clock, James sat down at his computer, found he couldn’t concentrate, and so he wandered into his backyard. The size of his house and the denseness of foliage blocked most of the street noise and city sounds. The birds slept. A year ago he couldn’t have pictured himself living in a place like this, a four-bedroom, stately manor house with room for a family. While he’d been born and raised in San Francisco, and the city had continued to be home base during his twenty years as a bounty hunter, he’d lived in a small, cheap apartment when he wasn’t out of town—since his divorce, anyway.
When his father died last year and James decided he’d had enough of life on the road, he’d looked at high-rise condos and lofts, but this house had lured him with unspoken promise, even the yard. This summer he’d planted a small vegetable garden. Next year he would do more. The yard was a work in progress.
As was his life. Gone were the days of tracking down fugitives, at least on a daily basis. He’d signed on with ARC because investigation was what he knew, and even though he still worked more than forty-hour weeks, the clientele had gone way upscale.
He wanted a personal life-change, as well. Home and hearth, although maybe not in the traditional sense. He wouldn’t mind if the woman came with children already, except that he would like to have one of his own, too, if it wasn’t too late.
One of his own. He had one of his own. He just hadn’t had a hand in raising that one. But maybe they could have a relationship, anyway. A friendship. Extended family. Would Paul encourage that? And his wife, Caryn, whom James had never met—would she feel threatened by James’s intrusion into their lives? Had they found a way to provide a sibling or two for the first child?
There were plenty of times he’d questioned whether meeting the child was a good idea, given the potential complications to everyone involved, but James would never break his word, never go back on a promise.
It was the lack of control that was hardest for him. He had no control whatsoever.
All he could do was wait.
Three
In a family-friendly neighborhood like his, James expected a lot of trick-or-treaters, but the sheer numbers amazed him. Time after time he answered the door, dropped candy into a paper bag or plastic pumpkin or pillowcase, shut the door and started to walk away, only to hear the bell ring again.
He gave up trying to do anything but give out candy, deciding to sit on his front steps, about four up from the bottom. It was already dark but still early in the evening, a magical time when the littlest kids were brought around by parents who either coaxed them to approach or dragged them away because they were too talkative and curious.
James enjoyed them all. It was his first Halloween in his home, in a real neighborhood, for more years than he could remember. The costumes ranged from store-bought to homemade to thrown together. Pirates swaggered, princesses pirouetted. Some things never changed.
The trick-or-treaters got older as the hour grew later, kids traveling in groups but without adult supervision. They more or less grunted, shoved their bags into range, grunted again then kept going. When the crowds thinned to one or two kids every five minutes or so, he decided to go inside. He stood just as a young man approached and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
“No costume, no candy,” James said lightly. The kid hadn’t bothered to don a hat or even carry a prop, unless he considered his black leather jacket and sunglasses, two hours after sunset, a costume.
“I’m Kevin,” the boy said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Kevin Brenley. Are you James Paladin?”
It was a blow to the abdomen—pain and joy jumbled together, wreaking havoc. Kevin. He had a son. Kevin. How had he doubted for a second that he wanted to meet the boy?
He found his voice. “Yes, I’m James.” Their connection was purely biological, but he was there, looking scared and slightly hostile and handsome. James put out his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
The boy hesitated a few seconds, shook his hand, then jammed his own back in his pocket.
James tamped down his inner turbulence. “Would you like to come inside?” he asked. He’d faced an escaped murderer with less uncertainty about what to do next.
“Can we just sit here?”
“Sure.” James gestured to the spot beside him, resisted smiling when Kevin sat on the step above, as far away as he could get. Damn. What did you say to a boy you had fathered but never seen? How much inane chitchat had to be spoken before anything important could be said? Did he even have the right to ask questions of this young man who had yet to remove his sunglasses?
James was surprised Kevin had come on his own, although grateful that he had. Having Paul there, too, might have been even more awkward. “How is Paul?”
“My father died a year ago.”
James looked away, sadness rushing in. He closed his eyes. His throat tightened. He hadn’t seen Paul in almost nineteen years, but he could see his face, hear his voice. “I’m sorry. Very sorry.”
“Thanks.” Kevin shoved his sunglasses on top of his head. His jaw twitched. “I’m not here looking for a father to replace him.”
Kevin was angry. James understood that. His father was dead, and James lived. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. “I wouldn’t expect to take his place. He raised you.”
“I heard you’re a P.I.”
Surprise zipped through him. “How’d you find that out?”
“From my mom. Last week she found the agreement between you and Dad. She checked you out.”
Smart woman, not to let her son go blindly into a situation. But James wondered what she would’ve done if he hadn’t passed muster. “I hope to meet her sometime.”
One side of Kevin’s mouth lifted. “My mom’s kinda unpredictable.”
“Okay.” James didn’t know what else to say. Did unpredictable mean crazy? Would she be a problem? “Does she know you’re here?”
“No. And we’re going to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because she wouldn’t approve.”
Which made no sense to James. “But you said
