around his neck.
A chill pierced her skin, raised a crop of goose bumps. Her fingers clawed around the arms of the chair to keep herself from slipping into the unwanted fog once again. Her breath hitched in her throat and a pang of loss nearly swallowed her. How could that be? She shook her head and, when her gaze reconnected with his, the same un-yielding glower glared back at her.
Nicolas Galloway was no friend.
Yet his eyes stirred dark echoes of her recurring dream and spiked her blood with unease. Why?
“Are you okay?” he asked, frowning.
“Too much coffee.” She flashed him a smile that, to her horror, wobbled.
With a sudden jolt as if she’d hit him, he turned his back on her and resumed his pacing. “Two, we’ll need approval over the final product.”
Valerie shot to her feet. With the amount of blood, sweat and tears she spilled to write, shoot and edit a package, there was no way she was going to let him mess with her baby. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“We have to be sure you haven’t inadvertently leaked privileged information.”
She had the station owner and the interview subject on her side. Why was she letting him get under her skin? She forced a smile. “Well, then, you’ll have to take that up with the executive producer. Keep in mind that I do have a tight production schedule to adhere to if Ms. Meadows’s story is to air in time for the kidnapping’s anniversary.”
Wrong tactic, of course. She knew that the second she uttered the words. Keeping the package off the air was exactly what Nicolas Galloway wanted.
“That, of course, is your problem.” Nick’s pacing came to an abrupt halt and his gaze fixed on the doorway.
Rita Meadows paused at the entrance to the door, holding on to the door frame as if she were dizzy. There was a lot of that going on today. Someone needed to check the furnace and see if the carbon monoxide level was okay.
Rita’s recovery was quick. She pasted a work-the-room smile on her sculpted face, extended a hand and welcomed Valerie with the practiced ease of someone used to dealing with people. “You must be Valerie. Mr. Higgins speaks highly of you.”
“As he does of you.” Rita’s hand was cold and brittle in Valerie’s and a wave of sympathy made Valerie squeeze warmth into her grip.
Close-up, even with her understated makeup, Rita looked hollow-eyed, a little too thin, a little too pale. Her hair, the color of expensive champagne, was twisted ele-gantly at her nape, giving her a fragile kind of beauty that seemed somehow tragic to Valerie.
Nick rushed to Rita’s side, cupped her elbow and led her to the sofa, where he stood beside her on guard like the pit bull of his reputation. Stray out of line, get too personal, his cutting expression said, and I’ll rip you to shreds.
Aye, aye. Message received, she telegraphed back, and his frown deepened.
She could see why some women might fall for him. The primitive quality he exuded told a woman that, as long as he was there, she would be safe from predators. For many—her friend Sheree among them—that promise of savage protection was the fodder of dreams. Personally, Valerie already had too much overprotection in her life. The last thing she needed was to add a man’s shadow to the one already stalking her.
Rita looked up at Nick, touched his arm. “Is Holly bringing tea?”
Nick gave a sharp nod, but his quick eye shift toward the door betrayed his uncertainty. He wasn’t going to leave to check on tea when there was an intruder sitting in his employer’s library waiting to pounce on her.
Chill, she wanted to say. I don’t bite.
“I know you must be tired from the flight,” Rita said to Valerie, “so I won’t keep you long.”
“I just wanted to introduce myself and set up a convenient time to go over your archives. I have another interview on Thursday, but I’d like to tape yours on Friday.”
“You may come by to look at the archives at any time.”
“Eleven.” The sharpness of Nick’s voice coated the air with rime. “It’s the only time I have available.”
“I’ll be here, Nicolas,” Rita said. “I can walk her through my collection.”
His jaw tightened and antagonism bristled from him, but he didn’t say a thing. What was it costing him to keep silent? She was starting to understand just how much Rita Meadows meant to him, how far he’d go to protect her. How could Valerie reassure this many-times-bitten pit bull she meant no harm?
“Eleven will be fine.” Valerie injected light and air into her voice. “My photographer will also need access to Valentina’s room and the living room, as well as the grounds.”
“Yes, of course,” Rita said.
“We’ll keep our visit as short as possible.”
“Take all the time you need. I want Valentina’s story retold in all its details. You never know what will trigger someone’s memory.”
As Rita explained what she wanted to accomplish by airing Valentina’s story, Nick stared at Valerie until the room was sucked dry of air and her head grew light.
“Nick! Nick! Watch me!” A splash of water.
“I have better things to do than watch a baby play.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Are, too.”
“Well, forget it, then. I’m not telling you my secret.”
A lakeside gazebo with green-and-white striped awnings. Green water. Green trees. Eye-hurting blue sky. Valerie remembered seeing a picture of Nick and Valentina sipping lemonade at Rita’s feet on a dock. Why was that picture coming back to her now?
“May I ask you a personal question?” Rita asked Valerie, changing subjects.
“Sure.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty next May.” By then she’d planned on being in New York, working as a producer for a major network in the news division—at least according to the life plan she’d drawn up when she was eighteen. Come to think of it, she’d only checked one item off that long list. “That probably sounds as if I don’t have much experience—”
“Oh, no, dear, I don’t doubt your qualifications. How tall are you?”
Wow, where was this coming from? And what did it have to do with her ability to shoot an interview? “Five-four. ” With three-inch heels. “My mother’s short. That’s where I get it. The shortness, I mean.” Oh, good, now she was babbling. Definitely time to get solid food in her.
Rita’s face crumpled. Her body curled into itself and spasmed in time to a coughing fit. The red agenda she clutched in her lap fell to the ground, spilling its contents. A photograph fluttered
