Chloe was sitting at her dinette table before a map of Florida when the knock sounded on the door. It was probably Lena or Stella trying to talk her out of leaving tonight. Well, they could just forget it. She was her own woman. If she left tonight, she’d have the entire day to look for Teddy.
“Isn’t that right, Shakespeare?”
The dog almost seemed to nod in agreement.
On the way to the door she dumped out the rest of her coffee in the sink. Any more and she’d be stopping at bathrooms the whole way down. Her mouth was open and ready to silence any and all protests from her aunts or grandmother. It stayed open as she took in Dylan wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt and looking all kinds of gorgeous.
Surprise mixed with extreme pleasure at the sight of him. Forget the pleasure part. Forget the way he looked and the way he smelled, all woodsy, and focus on why the heck he was at her door. “Five percent of one-sixty is eight,” she blurted out.
“Nice to see you too,” he said with a smile.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How about, I thought I told you not to come back? Unless … is there any news on Teddy?”
He walked in. “No, nothing. Especially not …” Anger flashed over his face. “with the hostage situation going on.”
“What hostage situation?”
“You haven’t heard?”
She nodded toward the tiny television set on the kitchen counter, turned off as it usually was. “I’m not much into watching TV, or listening to the radio. Too many negative vibes.” Or was she too tender? Didn’t she put herself in the victims’ places and find herself haunted by those images?
“There’s a guy holding people hostage at the Toys Unlimited store. It’s all the police and the media are focusing on right now.”
Outrage spiked through her. “What about Teddy?”
“I guess hostages are more interesting than a missing boy.”
She could hear restrained anger in his voice. “Damn them! Double damn them!” she said. “Who do we call? What do we have to do?” Gypsy came over and rubbed her ankles, sensing her person’s distress. Cats didn’t like their people to be upset; it tilted the balance of their world.
Chloe caught a glint of something, admiration maybe, in his eyes. “No one. Apparently we needed to be having a kinky affair to get media attention. And the police are too busy with the hostage crisis, and too busy investigating me and you.”
“I’m sorry. But why are you here?” She shuffled the papers on the table to cover the map.
“To, ah, say thank you. For the posters … for everything.” He rubbed his chin, looking around at her house. His gaze alighted on the table. “Going somewhere?”
She turned to see what he’d been looking at. The map was hardly visible. “What, are you psychic?”
“No. Definitely not.”
He seemed to wait for more explanation.
“Look, Dylan, you said you didn’t want to be associated with me, that you didn’t want me around at all. That was before you kissed me. And now you’re back, and I don’t know what to say. Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
That got a quick smile out of him. “I came down to … bring some posters.”
“Posters?” She looked down at his empty hands.
“I, uh, must have left them in the car.”
“Don’t worry about it. I have enough posters of my own. Or do you want to replace my posters with yours? The vibe part bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“The vibes don’t bother me. Really,” he added at her skeptical look. He ran his long fingers along the edge of her butcher-block counter. “So, any vibes been reported?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, and you wouldn’t care anyway. Why are you really here?”
He let out a long breath, still concentrating on the edge of the counter. “Maybe I do care. Maybe those kinds of leads are all I have.”
“That’s probably the only true thing you’ve said since you got here.” She couldn’t help the thrill of joy that he might be open to psychic vibes.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cabinet door behind him. “Dammit, Chloe, I don’t know what else to do, where else to look.” She could hear the pain in his voice, pain, loneliness and desperation. “I need … I’d like your help.”
She couldn’t breathe for a moment. With those few words he’d splayed open her heart. “I’m going down to the Keys,” she said. “Tonight. Lena had a vision that Teddy was down there on a boat or in a small house. She’s the real thing, by the way. She confirmed what I’d been thinking all along, that he was near water. They have those ferries to Key West, and maybe Wanda put her mother and Teddy on one of those. And …” Her own voice hitched. “I don’t know where else to look either.”
Something in her voice made him open his eyes. “You really care about Teddy, don’t you?”
“Why is that so hard to believe? I care about a lot of things.”
“I know you do. But this is different.”
“Yes, it is different. I told you, I feel connected to him.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No.” She folded up the map and her notes and stuffed them into her bag. “Not a good idea. Not at all.”
He pushed away from the counter and walked over to her, trying to use all of his six feet height to impose his will upon her, she guessed. “Why not?”
She looked down, trying to avoid his dark eyes, but his mouth wasn’t a good place to find distraction, or his throat, or the collar of his T-shirt where a few dark hairs peeked out. She looked away from him to watch a heron stalking prey at the water’s edge. “Because if he’s not there, I don’t want you telling me I’m crazy, or … turning away from me again. I don’t want your disbelieving vibes around. I need to do this alone.”
He touched her chin, pulling her gaze back to his. “I won’t do that.”
His touch filled her with liquid warmth and pulled her toward him. She moved back, shaking her head. “And … and we shouldn’t be together alone anyway. It’s sparks and fire and then cold water dousing the flames. My heart can’t take it again.”
“As I recall, you threw the cold-water last time.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You would have stopped anyway. You’re too sensible, too grounded. You wouldn’t make love with me because you’re not the love-them-and-leave-them type. Don’t ask me how I know that, but I do. And you don’t want me in love with you, because I’m bad for your reputation. And … well, you’re bad for mine. I’m not supposed to want a man in my life. I’m supposed to be strong. I am woman, hear me roar, all that kind of thing.”
But she did want him, wasn’t that her unspoken words? He studied her while she tried to look strong and independent.
“You don’t believe that, do you?” he asked. “You’re going to go through life without ever getting involved with a man? You, with all that compassion and–”
“Don’t say tenderness,” she said, pointing at him. “I’m not tender and I’m not cute!” She instinctively ran her fingers through her hair, still surprised not to feel curls. “Maybe if I meet a poet, someone sensitive and romantic, I’ll think about letting him in my life. Until then —”
“Until then, you and I are going to find Teddy.”
“Why you? You just told the papers you don’t believe in psychics and that you’re not working with me.”
“You read the paper?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the sting all over again. “You disparaged me. So fine, don’t work with me. Go away and let me look on my own.”
He studied her again, and she tried to put on her toughest bulldozer face. He put his hands on his hips and leaned down close. “All right, tell me this. You go down to the Keys and then what? Do you have a boat? If he’s on a boat somewhere, how are you going to find him? You going to paddle your canoe everywhere?”
“You’re disparaging me again.”
“No, I’m making sense.”
“So fine, I’ll hire a boat.”
He shook his head. “Get your stuff, put on your pink or yellow sneakers and come with me. I’ve got a boat. We’ll take it to the marina, load it on a trailer and be on our way by dark. Don’t be stubborn. We’re losing time, and I can out-stubborn you anytime, anywhere, sweetie-pie.”
“You’re disp —”
“No, I’m not. That just …” There was an interesting sparkle in his eyes. “slipped out. Come on.”
She stared down, realizing he’d noticed her bare feet, and her colored Keds. She weighed her options. Being with Dylan was definitely not a good idea. He was no sensitive poet by any means, but every time she caught that glint of compassion, her heart opened a little more. And that sweetie-pie thing, oh, boy, that sounded way too nice. Then there was that instinctual thing that said he was The One, which was definitely wrong, wrong, wrong.
But he did have a boat, which meant she wouldn’t have to beg and wheedle or drain her savings to hire one out. He leaned against the counter again. As if she had a choice.
“All right, but you’re coming on my terms,” she said.
“Yeah, okay, go pack so we can get going.”
“One of those terms is that you are not the boss. I know you’re used to being in charge, but we’re equals on this search. You’re not going to tell me what to do.”
“Fine. You’re in charge. You call the shots. Now go pack.”
“All right, as long as we have that …” She narrowed her eyes. “And no making fun of anything psychic. After all, you must believe a little if you’re coming with me.”
“I believe. Now pack.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. Go.”
“And no touching or kissing. Nothing, not even a brush of our arms.”
“Chloe, touching you the first time was my biggest mistake. Now, go!”
“All right,” she said, turning and going up the short set of stairs to her bedroom. “As long as we have all that straight.”
The first point Chloe had to concede to was about driving her car, all because of one tiny detail: no trailer hitch. So she sat in the passenger seat of Dylan’s fancy Mercedes and tried not to glance over at him any more than necessary.
He spent most of the drive back to Naples on his cell phone. First he had to arrange to borrow a trailer. Then he spoke to someone named Jodie who had a sweet voice and called him ‘hon’ once.
Not that Chloe was listening. Eavesdropping was a habit for insecure women, and you had to be in a relationship to be insecure.
He discussed the Kraft Theater project with Jodie, meetings that had to be rescheduled and plans that had to be delivered. Then he called Camilla asking her to pack him a suitcase.
“Where were those posters you were bringing out to me?” she asked between calls.
“Posters? Oh, they’re back there.” He pointed to the back seat with his phone.
There were stacks of them on the black leather seat, slick color posters with both Teddy’s and Wanda’s pictures on them. You and your dopey posters.
She noticed that Dylan looked everywhere as he drove. His eyes searched oncoming cars and people in parking lots, looking for a familiar face.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. The smell of rich leather filled her nose, and chilled air washed over her. The posters, the car, and everything in Dylan’s life was perfect and polished. Including the man. He would no sooner invite her into his life than … well, than she could invite him into hers. And though he’d sort of admitted that he needed her during the search, he would never admit to needing her beyond that.
She tried to imagine his childhood, growing up with a crazy mother everyone in town knew about. Though she had been an outcast her whole life, both in Lilithdale and the regular world, she’d at least felt loved by the women around her. When she looked over at him, she caught him watching her as they waited at a light. For a split second she saw that tenderness in his gaze again, but he quickly masked it.
She must have drifted off for a few minutes, because the next thing she knew, Dylan spit out an expletive as they pulled into his driveway. He was looking at the Pontiac parked in the circular drive.
“What’s wrong? The reporters aren’t waiting to catch us.”
“That’s only because Teddy isn’t news anymore.”
She shared Dylan’s frustration. If this lead didn’t pan out, she was going to have to think up ways to bring Teddy back into the news. How far would she go? Anything outrageous would put her at odds with Dylan.
“Is that the detective’s car?” she asked as they came to a stop in the garage.
“It’s my father.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where Camilla was on the phone. Dylan lifted an eyebrow, and she shook her head and wrote “nonsense” on the pad in front of her. They probably said the same thing about me, Chloe thought.
An older man paced in front of the French doors, cell phone in hand. “If they drop ten more points, buy eight thousand shares. Let’s hold onto GE for now. Call me if anything changes.” When he saw Dylan, he hung up.
He was a good-looking man, tall like Dylan, with silver hair and dark eyes. Same long face and features. She could see pain in his eyes; apparently he hadn’t mastered the masking ability like his son had.
“Dylan …”
“Why are you still here?”
The man shifted his gaze to her. “I’m Dylan’s father, Will.” He had a nervous laugh. “But you’ve probably heard all about me by now.”
She took his outstretched hand, not sure what to say. “I’m Chloe Samms.”
Dylan took hold of her shoulders and ushered her ahead of him. “We’ve got to get the boat ready. Excuse us.”
“Do you have a lead, Dylan sir?” Camilla asked.
“Maybe,” was all he’d commit to.
They walked across the back yard to the boat dock. Dylan hit a button, and the suspended boat lowered into the water. It wasn’t a big boat, maybe thirty or so feet, but it was a nice one. She watched him jump aboard and start doing things that one had to do to get a boat ready, she supposed. That’s why she stuck with the canoe. She preferred the simple, you-paddle, you-go technology.
Dylan walked up on the bow of the boat, then stopped. “Do me a favor and ask Camilla to get you the key for the boat.”
“Sure.” She walked across the spongy grass and many terraces to the house.
Camilla was just hanging up the phone when she looked up and saw Chloe. “I sure hope the press don’t get word of you being here again.” She held up a legal pad filled with scribbles. “We’re still getting calls from people claiming to have ‘seen’ Teddy in everything from a rock band to a spaceship.”
“I didn’t mean to cause him problems. I just want to find Teddy.”
“And now you got him running down to the Keys.”
“It was his choice. I didn’t ask him to come with me.”
“I read what your mother did to those people, getting their hopes up.”
“Teddy is alive,” Chloe said through gritted teeth. Had her mother said the same thing with the same conviction? “Listen, I just came in to ask you … Dylan needs the key for the boat.”
Camilla walked over to a built-in desk and searched through the drawers. When she handed Chloe the key a minute later, she said, “I hope you’re right. About Teddy being alive, I mean.”
Me too, Chloe wanted to say, but only nodded. Will was standing by the pool watching Dylan when she walked out onto the lanai. She had intended to walk past him, but his words stopped her.
“You’re the psychic one, right?”
She shook her head. “I’m just trying to find Teddy.”
“Are you my son’s lover?” he asked in a soft voice.
That made her swallow back a choking sound. Does almost count? “No. I’m … I don’t know what I am to him.”
“I’m surprised he’s letting you help. He’s always been independent. I guess he had to be.” He tilted his head, studying her. “Do you know about his mother?”
She nodded quickly, not wanting to hear any more “A little. I’d better get back …” She nodded toward Dylan.
She could see him moving around on the boat, focused on his task.
“How well do you know him?” Will asked. “I want to know who he is.”
Me too, she thought. “I don’t think he’s an easy person to know. He holds in a lot, and he excels at masking his feelings.”
“He learned that as a kid, a defense mechanism. I made a lot of mistakes; I can see that now. I thought he handled it well, but all he did was bury himself, the same way I did, I suppose. I kept myself insulated from the craziness at home. I worked hard, traveled a lot. In distancing myself from her, I also distanced myself from my son. I’ve been trying to make amends now.” He looked at her, weighing what he was going to say. “I may be dying of colon cancer.”
She was speechless for a moment. “Does Dylan know?”
“No, and I don’t want him to. I don’t want him to come to terms with me because I’m dying. I want him to love me because I’m his father. And if he can’t love me …” Chloe could hear the same kind of emotion that sometimes shadowed Dylan’s voice. “I at least need him to forgive me.”
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t told me.”
He gave her a sideways look. “Bad at keeping secrets?”
She smiled. “Dylan does seem to have some kind of effect on me. I’ll do my best.” She turned to watch Dylan again, who was glancing over at her. “How long you going to be staying around? I mean, here in Naples.”
“A few days at least. After that, it’s up to God.”
She swallowed hard. “Dying’s not so bad. The worst is leaving our loved ones behind. But what’s ahead … I think it makes it okay. I wish I could help, but I’m afraid I probably won’t be part of his life after this is all over. After we find Teddy.” She said it with casual conviction. So why was she feeling a dull pain in her chest?
“Thank you,” Will said as she started walking toward the boat.
She paused. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You listened. It’s more than my own son did.”
She felt another pang inside. If only Fred Samms would ask her forgiveness. If only …
“Did you and my father have a nice chat?” Dylan gritted out when she handed him the key.
“Maybe that’s what you should do,” she said, ignoring his sarcastic tone.
“Chloe, don’t lecture me. You don’t know —”
“Maybe I do know, Dylan.” She crouched down, level with him as he stood in the boat. To her horror, a tear sprung to her eyes. Oh, God … tenderness! She swiped at them, hoping he didn’t notice. “Maybe I know too well.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “We have to get going. The marina’s going to close soon. I’ll meet you there. You remember where I told you it is, right?”
She nodded, then walked back to the house. She hugged his black leather bag to her chest as she walked to his car. His aftershave wafted up through the leather and reminded her of having his arms around her. It felt intimate to sit in the seat he sat in and to touch the leather steering wheel he touched.
“Ah, Chloe,” she muttered. “You are a case.”
It was nearly dark by the time they hitched the boat trailer to the car. Chloe stayed out of sight at the marina. She didn’t want anyone telling the press she was with Dylan.
He smelled like engine oil and the soap he’d used to wash it off when he got into the car. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
She wished she’d gone to the Keys alone. Then the pressure wouldn’t be on her to prove Lena’s vision was right. No one would have to know. But Lena had been right before.
And the child had already been dead.
“You all right?” he asked.
She started playing with her owl pendant. “Just worried.”
“We don’t have time to worry. We need a game plan.”
“Game plan?” What did she know about games? Except that playing games meant you were either opponents or … “Does a game plan make us a team?”
“Let’s not push it.” He gave her a sideways smile that nearly stopped her heart. Their eyes held for a moment, and she hoped he couldn’t see what she was thinking. He shifted his gaze ahead. “We’ll stop along the way and distribute posters.”
He turned on the CD player, and classic rhythm and blues poured out of the speakers. He started to quietly sing along with a song about lonely teardrops. She hadn’t figured him for anything as soulful as R&B.
“I can’t believe that you believe in Lena’s vision,” she said.
“A person’s allowed to change their mind, aren’t they?”
“I suppose. I’d like to believe that. But no matter what happens, you can’t ridicule either her or me.”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” she said, sitting back with a sigh. “But men break their promises.”
“Did Ross break a promise?” He looked a little surprised, as though he hadn’t intended to ask that.
“You talked about me, didn’t you? That day at your office. And they say women gossip!”
“We didn’t gossip. He regrets letting you go.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. His high-society wife is making all the right connections for him, taking him to all the right parties — not that I keep up with that kind of thing. I’ll bet he just misses the heck out of me.” Seeing Dylan’s smile, she asked, “Did he say that?”
“Do you want him to miss you?”
She wiggled to get comfortable in the seat. “I don’t care. Okay, it’d be nice if he did. It would be even better if he called her by my name once in a while, particularly during those crucial moments.” She gave him an impish grin, but it faded. “Nobody misses me. They wipe their hands over their foreheads and say, ‘Whew!’”
He grew quiet for a moment. “Still love him?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think it was love anyway. More like intense infatuation. At the time … well, I admit to glancing at bridal magazines. I know the difference now.”
“Do you?”
The way he looked at her … Chloe felt her insides implode. “Oh, yeah.” She cleared her throat, embarrassed by the strangled sound in her voice. “What do I know about love anyway?” All she knew was that what she’d felt for Ross was nothing like the way Dylan made her feel. “I’m over him.”
“Ah, so you want him pining away for you, convinced he made the wrong choice?”
“Exactly.” She gave him a grin. “Hey, he’s the one who broke my heart. Figuratively speaking,” she added, though she’d said too much anyway.
“Men are jerks,” he said.
“Really? Aren’t you betraying the fraternity?”
“I’m not part of any fraternity.”
“Oh, come on. You’re part of that crowd. Are you including yourself in that jerk comment?”
“Definitely.”
“Why do you say that?” She liked his profile, strong nose, nice chin. The beginning of a five o’clock shadow. She had an almost irresistible urge to reach out and run her finger along his jawline. To touch him, to connect. Fortunately she held herself back.
“Because I worked too much, put my firm ahead of everything in my life. My priorities were messed up.”
“You say that in the past tense. Does that mean you’re ready to change your ways?”
“It’s going to be Teddy first, then my business, if that’s what you mean.”
“That all?”
“What else?”
“Oh, a small thing like a wife like a mother for Teddy.”
“No wife. I’ve had enough grief. And so has Teddy.” His somber expression gave way to a sideways grin. “Applying for the job?”
“Heck, no. I don’t belong in your life. Think what the press would say.”
“I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
“Sure you did. Don’t worry, I have no white lace fantasies where you’re concerned.” Black lace, maybe. “You’re way out of my league. I want —”
“I know, a poet.”
“A romantic poet. You strike me as being romantic as pea soup.”
He laughed at that, and for the first time she saw what a beautiful smile he had. “I’d be insulted if it weren’t true. I didn’t have much of an example to follow. Unless butcher knives are considered somehow passionate.”
“Er, no.” She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “You don’t talk much about Wanda. Did you love her? I mean, you must have at one time.”
He focused on the road again, his expression sobering. “I’m sure I was in love with her once. I married her for the wrong reasons. I wanted someone in my life. Mistake number one. I thought I needed a wife. You know, to complete the picture. Mistake number two. And she presented herself as the perfect wife for a man who wanted to be a professional and move up in society. So I married her.”
“Mistake number three,” Chloe added before he could.
“Right. We moved apart after Teddy was born. Neither one of us did anything to repair the gap. My heavy work schedule didn’t help.”
He didn’t need anyone now. That’s what he was saying. “I don’t need anyone in my life either,” she said.
“That so?” He gave her a skeptical look.
“Very so. Way so. Who has time for romance, dating … bridal magazines? I have my own business, friends who care about me. I have my family, my cat and dog, and my pottery, for what that’s worth. What more could I need?” The thought of her frog prince betrayed that conviction. Forget the frog.
“If you say so,” he said.
“I do.”
Those two words hung in the silence, echoing in her head until they became part of a bridal fantasy with her desperately uttering those words. To her horror, she heard herself answer, “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” to the imaginary Chloe saying, “I do! I do! I do!”
“What?”
“Fourteen thousand ninety-two.”
“Okay.” He gave her a smile. “Won’t you have to move if you get married? Isn’t it against some kind of law for a man to live in Lilithdale?”
“Maybe the laws of nature. There’s no law that says you have to be — or think you are — psychic or extraordinary to live there either. If you’re not different, you wouldn’t want to live there. If I hadn’t been raised there, I wouldn’t live there.”
“Because you’re the only left-brained one in the bunch, but they love you anyway.”
She smiled. “Yeah, they do.” She caught him watching her and wiped the marshmallow look off her face. “And it’s not because I’m tender.”
“I know, I know. Or cute.”
“Right.”
He shook his head. “It’s just too bad that you’re both.”