apartment building was not only walking distance to the hospital, but also to the café she frequented on a regular basis and a public library.
Even after her residency had ended and money woes had eased, she’d never considered moving from the small apartment building. She liked keeping things the way they were.
It was fifteen minutes before seven when she entered Myrtle’s Café and took her usual seat by the window. From this vantage point she could see Kevin as he arrived.
“Hi, Dr. Jones,” Camilla greeted her with a friendly smile as she poured Phoebe a glass of iced tea. “Long day?”
Phoebe smiled at the attractive older woman. “They’re all long days.”
“The usual?” Camilla asked.
“Yes, but could you wait to place the order? I’m meeting somebody.”
One of Camilla’s gray eyebrows danced upward. “Somebody of the male persuasion?”
“Yes, but it isn’t what you think,” Phoebe hurriedly said.
Camilla frowned in disappointment. “It’s never what I think, and it’s not right, a pretty young woman like you eating alone every night.”
Phoebe smiled. “I don’t mind. Most evenings I’m too tired to make good conversation with anyone.”
“And I think you are selling yourself short, Dr. Jones,” Camilla replied, then excused herself to hurry to another table.
Phoebe took a sip of her iced tea and gazed out the window. Camilla was constantly harping on her to get a life. What Camilla didn’t understand was Phoebe had a life…a safe, comfortable life that revolved around her work.
There had been enough chaos in her life in the first eighteen years to last a lifetime.
Still, that didn’t stop her pulse from accelerating slightly as she saw Kevin across the street. As she watched, he crossed the street, sauntering with a kind of loose-hipped gait she couldn’t help but admire.
Although his legs were long and lean in his tight jeans, his upper body was muscular beneath the short-sleeved polo shirt. His bulging biceps peeked out just beneath the sleeves of the dark-blue cotton shirt.
As she watched, he paused just outside the front door of the café and quickly raked a hand through his light-brown hair, as if wanting to make certain he looked all right for his meeting with her.
Phoebe reached up and started to smooth her own hair, then jerked her hands back down as she realized what she was doing.
This meeting with Kevin Cartwright wasn’t a date. She simply wanted any information he might be able to give her about the possibility of her having siblings.
He walked through the café front door, bringing with him an energy that seemed to electrify the entire establishment. She’d noticed that earlier about him…the energy that seemed to emanate from him.
He gazed around the café, then he found her and a smile curved the corners of his lips. He had a devastating smile. It transformed him from a handsome man into a sexy devil.
“I see you found it,” she said as he slid into the chair opposite her at the small table.
“I’m not just a private investigator, I’m a good private investigator,” he said and flashed her another of his seductive grins.
At that moment Camilla stopped at the table. “Evening,” she said, then winked broadly at Phoebe, as if to indicate she approved of the way Kevin looked. “The specials this evening are meat loaf and barbecue chicken.”
Kevin looked at Phoebe expectantly.
“I already ordered,” she explained.
“She always gets the same thing,” Camilla said.
“Then I’d just like a cheeseburger and fries,” Kevin said as he handed Camilla back the menu. “And a cup of coffee to drink.”
As Camilla hurried away, Kevin returned his attention to Phoebe, gazing at her without speaking for a long moment. She picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip, her mouth unaccountably dry. She suddenly realized she was nervous.
She told herself it had nothing to do with Kevin, but rather with the information he might give her, information that might unite her with members of her family.
She set her glass back down and looked at him. “All right, Mr. Cartwright, tell me again what brought you to me.”
“Please, make it Kevin,” he replied. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. She felt her cheeks pinken beneath his obvious appraisal. “You’re very pretty,” he finally said.
Her cheeks grew hotter. “Do you always speak your mind so freely?”
His grin widened. “Always, but I’ve made you uncomfortable and I apologize.”
She nodded stiffly, although she didn’t think he sounded apologetic in the least. Suddenly he irritated her with his sexy smile and broad chest, with his flirting long-lashed eyes and five-o’clock shadow of whiskers.
“Mr. Cartwright, I’m a busy woman and I don’t have time for nonsense. Now, you mentioned this afternoon that somebody had hired you to find a woman named Phoebe. What makes you think I’m the one you’re searching for?”
He shrugged, his smile fading away. “When I saw you on the news report, you looked to be around the right age of the woman I’m seeking.”
“I’m around twenty-seven.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Around twenty-seven?”
Their conversation came to a halt as Camilla arrived at their table with their orders. She served Phoebe’s salad and soup first, then gave Kevin his cheeseburger, fries and coffee.
“You said you were around twenty-seven,” he reminded her the moment Camilla had left them alone once again.
She nodded and broke apart the whole-wheat roll that had come with her salad. “I was raised in foster care and no birth certificate was ever found for me. Child protective services thought I was about two when I went into the system.”
Kevin chewed a bite of cheeseburger and chased it with a sip of coffee. “How did you get into the system?” he asked.
“From what I was told, I was brought to a hospital severely ill. The woman who brought me in was also sick and later died. She was never identified.” Phoebe stared down at her vegetable soup, fighting against the sadness that always threatened to overwhelm her when she thought of her past.
He leaned forward, so close that she could smell the scent of him, a spicy cologne tempered by spring sunshine and a hint of maleness. “So, you don’t know if her name was Trealla?”
“Trealla…” The name rolled off her tongue, unfamiliar and yet somehow not totally alien. “I don’t know…I really don’t remember anything about my early childhood.”
He popped a fry
