too often and always at her expense. “Afraid not. You don’t have the hindquarters for it.”
She was wearing shorts, which fit trimly around her hips and showed plenty of leg, and the way he eyed her from the waist down left her in no doubt that he liked what he saw. Absurdly flattered, she blushed.
“Thought that’d soften you up,” he said with smug satisfaction. “Now hop to it and set the table. I’m about ready to throw these steaks on the barbecue. And one more thing: if you can do it without lopping off a finger or two, slice up that French loaf over there.”
She glared at his departing back. Much more provocation, and she’d slice him!
The steak was done to perfection, the potatoes tender and flavorful, the mushrooms, sautéed in butter and port wine, mouthwatering.
“You’re a good cook,” she said.
“I know,” he replied with disgraceful immodesty.
“Do you eat at this table when you’re alone?”
“No,” he mocked. “When there’s no one around to watch, I get down on my hands and knees, and slurp out of a bowl on the floor.”
“You don’t have to be so rude! I asked only because your dining room furniture is so big and from everything I’ve learned, you aren’t the kind of man who hosts large dinner parties.”
“You investigated me pretty thoroughly before you came calling, did you?”
“Enough to know you’re something of a recluse and don’t have many friends.”
“I have friends, Linda,” he informed her flatly. “Not many, I admit. I prefer to be selective. As for the furniture, it was my grandmother’s, and her mother’s before that. The table will seat twenty when it’s fully extended. They went in for lots of children in those days.”
She found it interesting that, for a man who shunned the company of others, he’d mentioned his family twice with obvious affection. “And you’re one of five yourself, you said?”
“My mother had five sons.”
“And brought them up by herself? My goodness, she must have had stamina!”
“She had no choice. My father died before my youngest brother was born.”
“Oh, how tragic! What happened?”
“Nosy, aren’t you?”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive. But the story is so…moving. A woman alone, with five little boys, one of them a baby who never got to meet his father…” She swallowed, the whole concept hitting a little too close to home.
“My father was a police officer killed in the line of duty.”
“Is that why you joined the force?”
“Yes,” he said brusquely. “He was my hero. I was ten when he died, and I remember him very well. He was a good man, a good father. My mother’s family were true monied blue bloods and never understood why she wanted to marry a cop when she could have had a life of ease with any number of other men. But she adored him and he her.”
“She never remarried?”
“With five boys?” he scoffed. “Even the men my grandparents tried to line her up with after she was widowed weren’t interested in taking on a gang like us, any more than she was interested in finding another husband. She’d had the best, she always said, and knew there’d never be another like him—except, possibly, for his sons who resembled him so closely that she couldn’t have forgotten him, even if she’d wanted to.”
Unexpectedly touched, Linda said, “It’s a sad but lovely story, Mr. Sullivan. It makes me doubly regret that comment I made earlier about your mother. She sounds quite remarkable.”
Actually, “superhuman” was probably closer to the mark, if her eldest son was anything to go by. He displayed a sophistication and certain male elegance strangely at odds with the tough resilience which was the legacy of his days as a police detective.
Watching him from beneath her lashes, she admired the lean, clean grace of his hands as he lifted his glass, and wondered if he handled a firearm with the same deft panache he brought to the dinner table. She suspected that he did; that even under extreme duress, he endowed his every gesture with innate style.
He might have inherited his father’s looks, but his mother’s aristocratic genes showed in his bearing, in his manner. Underneath that sometimes surly exterior lurked the heart and soul of a gentleman. She had only to look around his home to recognize his inborn good taste.
“My mother’s all that, and then some,” he said, reaching over to pour more wine into her glass. “And now let’s talk about you. Do you have any other siblings besides your sister?”
“No.”
“Which of you came first?”
“I did, by six years.”
“Making her about twenty.”
“Twenty-two.”
“In other words, plenty old enough to have developed the smarts to steer clear of a man so rotten inside that he’d steal her baby.”
Linda’s hackles, temporarily soothed by that brief glimpse of his more human side, rose again in defense. “I no more like it when you pass judgment on my sister without knowing the first thing about her, than you did when I presumed to criticize your mother.”
“But I do know something about her,” he said, unruffled. “I know she’s an unmarried mother, and her relationship with the father didn’t pan out. She was probably spoiled as a child and never got over being the baby of the family. When things went sour with the boyfriend, she probably moved back home to be looked after by good old mom and dad.”
“And how do you arrive at those conclusions?”
“When I’m faced with a situation in which the mother of a missing child isn’t the one raising hell and putting a lid on it, there are only two conclusions I’m likely to reach. Either she doesn’t care, or she’s the passive, helpless kind who leaves it to someone else to go to bat for her.” He shrugged and raised both hands, palms up. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, now does it?”
Galled by his arrogance and the fact that, in June’s case at least and with very few facts to go on, he’d profiled her with uncanny accuracy, Linda said, “How fortunate you must feel, to be so blessed!”
“No. I’m smart enough to pick up the signs, that’s all. Take you, for example.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, uncomfortable at the idea of being the subject of his too-perceptive analysis.
His smile sent goose bumps racing the length of her spine. “Figuratively speaking only, cookie, so relax. You’re not my type, although—” he tilted his head to one side and surveyed her through narrowed eyes “—under different circumstances, it’s conceivable that I might find you satisfactory.”
Satisfactory?
