Behind the Shadows (8 page)

He, on the other hand, was dressed in a dark gray tailored business suit. He looked handsome and distinguished and certainly out of place in acute care, where most visitors looked as tired and as comfortably dressed as she. He looked freshly shaved and even his shoes were polished to a high shine. Yet there was a cynicism in his eyes he couldn't quite hide.

He was, in one word, formidable.

She looked back at her mother. Asleep.

Kira walked to the door. He stood aside. She walked out and he followed.

Then she turned on him. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn't reach you about that dinner tonight.”

She tried to remember what she had told him about her mother. Had she mentioned the hospital? Or which one? She didn't think so. “How did you know where to find me?”

His green eyes looked amused. “I'm good at finding things.”

“I'm not a thing.”

His eyes roamed over her and inwardly she winced. Why didn't she use even a touch of lipstick before coming here?

“I believe that when a gentleman tells a lady he is going to call her about dinner, he should manage to do that.”

That stopped her. She had a retort but decided against it. For one of the few times in her life she was tongue-tied.

“How's your mother?” he asked, the amusement fading from his voice.

“About the same. She needs a kidney.”

“I'm sorry.”

He sounded as if he really was. It was disarming. She didn't want to be disarmed. She couldn't afford to be disarmed. Not for her sake. Not for her mother's sake.

He looked back at the door. “Can you get away for a bite?”

She should say no. She'd tried to avoid exactly this.

“Someplace nearby,” he coaxed. “I looked up restaurants in the area. There's a small Italian place a few blocks away.”

He'd done his homework. He probably always did his homework, even for something as simple as a quick meal. How much research had he done on her?

And the question was why? Her reporter's instinctive bells started ringing. She was torn between running like hell from someone she sensed was dangerous to her aims, and assuaging her curiosity about the Westerfield family. And, she had to admit, one Maxwell Payton.

Her stomach rumbled. She'd had an English muffin and juice for breakfast. Nothing for lunch.

“Lucchesi's?” she asked, going back to that “Italian restaurant” he'd mentioned.

He looked a little surprised, and that pleased her. She suspected he wasn't often surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “You know it?”

“Pretty well,” she replied. Lucchesi's was small, good, and inexpensive. Best of all, they treated her as family when she needed that and didn't seem to object when she read a book or newspaper while eating after visiting her mother.

“Is it as good as the comments say it is?”

“Probably better.” She eyed his suit. “It's not very formal.”

He gave her a crooked smile that made her legs rubbery. “You think they'll let me in with a suit?”

“Lucchesi might make an exception,” she replied. He'd succeeded in making her feel completely at ease in her T-shirt and jeans. Not only that, he'd somehow maneuvered her into agreeing to go.

Then she looked at herself through his eyes and wanted to go, “Yeck.”

Lucchesi wouldn't mind. But she did.

She was going to drop a bomb on the Westerfield family Saturday, and she hated looking like the little match girl today. Why had she purposely dressed down? Because she suspected this would happen?

For whatever reason, she was at her worst, and he looked as if he'd just stepped off the pages of
Gentlemen's Quarterly
.

Suddenly he smoothed back a wayward curl from her face. Her skin burned from his touch and she stepped back.

Dammit. She wanted to go with him, and not just because she wanted to learn more about the Westerfields. She needed to relax, but then she knew she couldn't relax with him. Despite his current easy manner, she suspected it was a facade hiding a ruthless interior.

But before those deep green eyes, she was helpless. “Give me a minute,” she said.

“I'll give you as long as you need.”

She slipped in the nearest restroom. Cold water on her face. A dab of lipstick. A quick comb of her hair. She refused to do anything else.

He was
not
a date. She wanted to know more about the Westerfields, and she suspected he wanted to know more about her interest in them. Who, she wondered, was going to get the best of the bargain?

Max was used to sleek, well-coiffed women who frequented the circles in which he moved. He'd liked several, but not enough to take the relationship to marriage. He was a workaholic, had always been a workaholic—even as a kid—and he knew that trait did not enhance a marriage. Neither did the rest of his background.

So he didn't understand now why he was disconcerted by a newspaper reporter with straight dark hair and bangs and gray blue eyes. True, the hair was more mahogany than brown, and the shade of her eyes was appealing, but she was curvy rather than sleek and her movements more impatient than graceful.

When he'd opened the door to the hospital room after being frustrated for a good part of the day, she'd rubbed her eyes. He realized he'd awakened her from a nap, and she looked tousled and sleepy, just like a woman leaving bed. Then his eyes turned to the older woman on the hospital bed. Her eyes were closed, but her pallor had a waxy look. A number of IV tubes ran in and out of veins. She hardly made a dent in the bed.

He'd learned from the private investigator that her mother was awaiting a kidney transplant. Medical records were supposedly protected but a good investigator had ways. He knew some of them himself. He'd never balked at breaking rules.

He turned his attention back to Kira Douglas. He'd rarely been turned down by a woman, and he wondered if that wasn't part of the attraction. Then he reminded himself it wasn't the woman he was interested in, but information.

When she went in the restroom, he'd prepared himself for a wait, but she apparently meant a moment when she said a moment. She was back out nearly as soon as she went in. A touch of lipstick. A quick comb. A curl around her face was damp. She'd obviously splashed water on it.

Vitality was back in her steps.

“I'll meet you at the restaurant,” she said.

He realized she wanted to keep her distance. Or felt she might want to make a quick getaway from the restaurant.

“All right,” he agreed, afraid she might sprint away if he didn't. “Do we need reservations?”

“Not at this time.”

“Can I order you something if I get there first?”

“A glass of the house Chianti.”

They walked together to the hospital entrance. She stopped to get a paper in the newsstand, and he went ahead. He didn't want to appear to be stalking her. She clearly wanted space. From him.

He'd discovered the restaurant online. He'd conducted a quick search of restaurants in the area of the hospital and settled on Lucchesi's as a possibility. He was good at reading people and suspected that after an evening in a hospital room, she would prefer something informal.

Besides, he liked Italian food. And he particularly liked small, family-owned Italian restaurants. There had been one near an early foster home. The proprietor saw him looking in one winter day when he hadn't wanted to go back to a crowded home and a tyrannical foster father who used a belt when displeased. The owner invited him in, fed him a plate of the best spaghetti he'd ever had, and let him pay for it by sweeping the place. That lasted three months until he was kicked out of that home.

Max discarded the memory and drove to the restaurant. After finding a parking space, he took off his suit jacket and pulled off his tie. He locked the car and went inside. He gave his name, said he was waiting for a lady, and was seated at a small corner table. He glanced around the room. One wall featured an Italian villa overlooking the sea. The others were painted a sea green. Pavarotti's tenor wafted through the room.

Max ordered two glasses of Chianti. He wasn't entirely sure Kira would appear, but if she did, he didn't want her to think he'd doubted it.

A few minutes later, she walked in. He watched the proprietor greet her as if she were an old friend. She saw him then and headed toward the table.

He stood. “Thanks for coming,” he said when she reached him.

Lucchesi pulled out a chair for her.

“After you went to so much trouble to find me, I couldn't refuse,” she said, but her eyes were wary. “I'm just not sure why you made the effort.”

He gave her a disarming grin that usually served him well. “I'm not so sure, either. I usually avoid the press.”

“Why? We're the good guys.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“We inform people. We reveal corruption. We support good causes, such as Leigh's charity horse show.” She tried to make her tone light but feared she sounded pompous. Yet she tired of the constant criticism of newspapers and reporters these days.

The glasses of Chianti arrived, so he was saved from answering. He took a sip, found it excellent, then picked up the menu.

“Everything's good, but I always get the spaghetti with sausage,” she said. “Great comfort food.”

He laid down the menu. “Tell me about your mother.”

“Not that much to tell. She raised me alone. Built a small cleaning business through sheer hard work. Helps everyone. She's one of the good souls on this earth.”

“How sick is she?”

Something flickered in her eyes and her fingers clutched the wineglass. “As sick as you can get. If she doesn't get a kidney in the next month, she'll die.”

“And the list is long,” he said.

“Endless. I wish more people were aware of the need and signed up as donors.” She took a sip of the wine. “Now turnaround is fair play. How long have you been a family attorney?”

Damn, but her eyes were appealing. He'd never seen that smoky blue before, and he would have thought the color bland until he saw hers. They roiled with emotion. He suspected they could also be filled with laughter. They had darkened, though, when she spoke of her mother.

An odd empathy struck him. Surprised him. He thought he'd buried emotions long ago. Certainly controlled them.

Silence fell between them as he contemplated an answer, and her gaze bored into him, interrogating him as deeply as he probed an adversary in a courtroom. There was something else there, too. An awareness. The kind of awareness that flared between man and woman. The elemental kind that shook him to the core.

“Maybe family attorney isn't quite accurate,” he admitted. “I'm a corporate attorney for Westerfield Industries, but I do look after the family as part of that.”

“The family being Leigh.”

“Yes, I look after Leigh.” He paused. “But I think you know that.”

“Not exactly. I did know you were the corporate attorney for Westerfield Industries. And the most eligible bachelor in Atlanta,” she added with the first hint of a smile he'd observed.

“God, you would have to find that.”

“The Internet is a wondrous thing. Especially for a reporter.”

“Why your interest in the Westerfield family?” he asked suddenly, ignoring her observation about that damned eligible bachelor nonsense. He wanted to break the sexual intensity growing between them. He knew from her flushed cheeks that she felt it as well.

Her hesitation told him he was right to believe she had more than a passing interest in the family he represented.

She finally shrugged. “I often get interested in different aspects of stories I write. One thing leads to another. The reporter's curiosity.”

Not entirely true. She was a good liar but not good enough. He had faced too many of them not to recognize the flicker in her eyes. What else could there be? He decided to change the subject. For the moment. He would find a way back to it.

“How long have you been with the
Observer
?” He knew the answer but wanted to hear from her. He liked hearing her voice. It was soft, even when probing, with just a hint of a Southern accent. Melodious.

He liked the softness mixed with determination. And strength. He didn't doubt the latter at all.

“Ten years,” she said. “Eleven if you count the summer I interned before graduation. It earned me a ticket back when I graduated, even if it was the obituary desk.”

“And college?”

She gave him that searching look again. “I suspect you know all this.”

The direct confrontation surprised him. “Yes,” he said, and couldn't help giving her a rueful grin. “But not the whys and hows …”

Pavarotti's voice suddenly went from soft to booming with “Nessun Dorma,” and severed his words. As the song finished, the owner—Lucchesi—came over to them. “
Perdono
,” he said, “but this was my favorite song.”

Lucchesi left and soon returned, carrying a carafe. He lit the candle on the table, then refilled their wineglasses. “On the house,” he said. “The signorina is a special patron.”

“Because I shamelessly love your food,” she said with a smile he'd been waiting to see. “And eat too much of it.”

Lucchesi beamed. “I keep telling my daughter to watch you, see how much you like to read. I tell her she'll be a reporter like you if she does.”

“Or a rocket scientist,” Kira said.

“Or an attorney,” Max inserted.

She groaned, and he realized she held attorneys in about the same esteem as he held reporters.

Lucchesi bestowed an approving look on both of them and retreated.

Max raised an eyebrow. “
Perdono?”

“I don't think he's ever been to Italy,” she said with a conspiratorial grin. “He was born in Brooklyn. But he enjoys the words.”