Arianna hadn’t realized her gaze was lingering on Joe’s rear end until he turned around and caught her staring. In truth, although it was a very nice feature of his anatomy, she’d been lost in her own thoughts, not drooling. He couldn’t have known that, however, and the last thing she wanted was to get involved, even just physically, with a man as wounded as he seemed to be.
Surprisingly, he didn’t tease her. Instead he sat across from her at the kitchen table and said nothing, apparently letting her decide what would happen next.
She should probably go. She was keeping him from his task.
“Is this hard for you?” she asked instead. “Emptying your parents’ house?”
“I grew up here. It’s home.”
“Do you have to sell it?”
“Yeah. Why’d you come back, Arianna?”
She’d been waiting for that question. He was a detective. He would want motive. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I started to drive to my office, but I got stuck in traffic, and I realized I didn’t want to go there. I thought about how abrupt and rude I’d been, leaving like I did.”
“You were disappointed.”
“Greatly. But that’s my problem, not yours. My mother didn’t want me to pursue it. Maybe I shouldn’t.” Making and keeping eye contact was ingrained in her. He matched her skill. She wasn’t sure what he saw when he looked at her, but she couldn’t shake how worn-out he looked. Protective instincts she’d never acknowledged before slammed into her, throwing her off balance. “Look, do you need help?”
His brows went up. “Help? With what?”
“With doing your inventory. Are you getting things ready for a garage sale?”
“I’m taking what I want to keep and deciding what to donate and what to toss.”
She couldn’t figure him out. Last night he’d taken charge, his good-night kiss even more memorable because of his complete command of the moment. Today he seemed to be holding back, waiting for her to make a move.
Fine. Good. She didn’t want him to pursue her, anyway, right? She didn’t need that kind of complication. She’d been careful not to become involved with a cop, not even once. She could resist him.
“Are you offering to help?” Joe asked.
“I’d be happy to.” The words spilled out unchecked. To cover her astonishment, she pushed away from the table and glanced at her watch. “I have to be home by six o’clock.”
“Four hours is more than enough time,” he said, also standing.
“I have a date,” she added, almost wincing at the defensive tone in her voice.
“I see.”
She heard the smile in his voice. She hadn’t been this rattled since…she couldn’t remember when. A woman in her profession couldn’t afford to be.
But then, this wasn’t business.
In the attic, Joe watched Arianna wrap a framed photograph in newspaper and pack it carefully in a box, as if it were her treasure, not his. What he’d heard about her when he’d inquired around the department last year was that she was tough, smart and unsentimental, facts he’d observed for himself when she’d provided him with information on the Wells case last year. Their involvement had been brief and businesslike, with a hint of male/female awareness making the meeting interesting. But he’d also been engaged to Jane. In all the complications of his life since then he’d forgotten about Arianna.
He wondered now how he could have. Anyone who thought her unsentimental hadn’t seen her expression when she ordered him to go do something else so she could pack his mother’s clothes. She’d even shut the closet door before he returned so he wouldn’t see the empty space. He would remember her kindness.
Joe glanced at his watch. She would have to leave soon. For her date. He didn’t know why he’d assumed she wasn’t involved with anyone. Maybe because last night she’d come to the party alone, and danced with him, and kissed him back.
But last night she’d come to the party for a purpose—to meet him. She wouldn’t have brought a boyfriend along. It would’ve been business to her.
She was a damned challenging woman. And he liked predictable.
“What’s in those boxes?” she asked, pointing to the last ones, tucked under the eaves.
He closed the lid on the trunk he’d been rummaging through, deciding he needed to keep everything in it. Relics of past generations.
Joe dragged the four unmarked boxes into the center of the room and opened one. His heart began to pound. He opened the second box, then he looked at Arianna. “Files,” he said. “My father’s old case files.”
Her eyes widened. She sat up straight but said nothing. Was she waiting for him to offer her the files? Of course she was.
“You’re welcome to stay and look through them,” he said.
“Don’t you need to ask your father’s permission?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and dialed. “Jordan, hi, it’s me. Look, I’m sorry to do this but I need to cancel our plans for tonight…. No, not work, but something important. Can I call you tomorrow?… Terrific. Thanks. Bye.”
Joe could measure her excitement not by her voice or her face, both of which she controlled remarkably, but by her hands, which shook. He shoved one box toward her.
She said nothing. She didn’t have to.
He worried they were opening a Pandora’s box.
The sounds of manila folders and paper being shuffled replaced conversation. Tension filled the air like smoke from a smoldering fire, thick and acrid, making it hard to breathe. Joe admitted to himself that he was as anxious as Arianna to find the file, to know what happened. How she had become that important to him that fast wasn’t something he wanted to examine very closely, but he felt her anticipation—and her dread—as strongly as if it were coming from inside him.
“They’re not in any order,” she said after flipping through the first few files. “They should be in order, either alphabetically or by date, wouldn’t you think?”
“Yeah.” The neatly typed labels mocked them. They should have represented organization, the ability to put your hands on the right folder any time. Instead, twenty years of files were tossed haphazardly into boxes as if one had no more relevance than another.
Or as if someone had searched through them, not returning them to their proper order.
“I found it,” Arianna said, but without excitement or urgency. Silence roared through the tiny attic space. She held up a file, opened it. “Empty.”
Empty—worse than the potential Pandora’s box. No truths revealed. No illusions
