Behind the Shadows

by Potter, Patricia;

  The Chianti was working. Or was it Kira Douglas and her smile?

  The Chianti was working …

  The air was getting warmer. She didn’t think it was on her part only. He leaned closer. His hand brushed hers, and a lightning bolt of heat rippled through her.

  She took a sip of rapidly disappearing wine. Now the refill was half gone.

  Emotions ran through her. Anxiety. Indecision. Guilt.

  Maybe a combination of them all.

  Max Payton was just too damned attractive. And disarming. Who would have thought a corporate attorney would have dimples when he smiled? Or appear delighted with spaghetti and Chianti?

  A warm glow started to puddle deep inside her, and the heat was spreading through her limbs. To her horror, she liked him. That was truly a god-awful thing. She had hoped to dislike him. She’d hoped he was supercilious and arrogant, or were the two the same? Her mind was getting fuzzy. Probably because she hadn’t eaten much, and the wine was going to her head with the speed of a runaway train.

  She would swear that the electricity she felt was being experienced by him as well. His green eyes deepened. He leaned forward and the dimples were more evident.

  Behave yourself! Remember what happens tomorrow. He might well be going after her with a sledgehammer.

  Or he might be an ally.

  She longed to tell him about her interest in Leigh Howard. He would probably find out tomorrow and believe her a liar and a fraud.

  She’d been both these past few days.

  So she took another sip of wine and nibbled on the toasted garlic bread the waitress brought. Time to concentrate on food rather than wine. Then she made the mistake of looking back up at her companion.

  He was watching with an enigmatic smile and guarded eyes. She wondered if they were always guarded. She wanted to know more about him. Too much more.

  “How did you happen to go with Westerfield Industries?” she asked.

  “I worked for them when I was in school,” he replied lightly. “I guess it became a habit.”

  Before she could ask anything else, the food came. She was a good enough journalist, though, to realize she’d heard only a crumb of the story. What was his relationship with Leigh? With the family? What had it been with Ed Westerfield? And who and what among them would he protect? Where did his interest really lie?

  She started to eat, but her appetite was gone. Deep inside, she felt the two of them were on a collision course.

  She looked up at him. He was watching her, and the amusement was gone. Their gazes caught, held. She felt as if he were looking straight into her soul. Worse, she suspected he was very good at looking into souls.

  She quickly looked down again. She was withholding something from him that could hurt someone he was sworn to protect. Someone who, if Leigh Howard decided not to help her, could be on the other side of a courtroom from her.

  Be careful, she warned herself.

  She broke away from his gaze and stirred her spaghetti. Comfort food indeed. Now she felt she was staring at a dish full of snakes. She hated deceit and now she was drowning in it.

  “Kira?” His deep voice seemed to caress her name. Her name had never quite sounded like that before. “Where did the name come from?”

  “Mom said it’s Latin for light,” she said. “She found it in a baby book.”

  “I like it.”

  “I’ve gone through several stages with it,” she said. “When I was young, I wanted to be a Susan or Mary. I always had to explain Kira.”

  “And now?”

  “I like it, too.” And she did. Even if it no longer belonged to her. The mental reminder brought her back to the moment. To the desperate need that she had forgotten for a few seconds.

  She looked up at him and saw bemusement in his face. “I keep thinking I’m missing something,” he said, his eyes questioning her. “You wander away from me.”

  “I’m just worried about Mom,” she said.

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “They’ve moved her up on the list,” she said, “but the chances aren’t good.”

  “There’s no one in the family who can donate?”

  She felt herself stiffening. Did he know? How could he?

  She shook her head. “I was tested. My kidney’s not compatible.”

  “No other children?”

  She didn’t know how to answer it. She didn’t want to lie.

  “I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” she finally said, looking back at him.

  She was nearly undone by the look in his eyes. For the fleetest of seconds she saw empathy there, even a flicker of pain. Then it was gone, and she wondered whether she’d imagined it.

  “It must be rough,” he said.

  “Frustrating. Sad. To know there are people who can save her and don’t.”

  She realized then how artfully he’d drawn her out. She suspected he was a very good attorney. Ruthless, Chris had said. She had to remember that.

  But now she sensed something else. There was a quality about him that gave her pause. She’d noticed it earlier but she hadn’t identified it until now. A sense of aloneness. Not loneliness. He was too self-contained for that. Instead there was something distant, a part of him standing back and watching. Never quite participating.

  She took a sip of wine and tried to smother the warmth flooding her. He was a walking disaster for her. Everything she knew she should avoid. He was a forty-two-year-old bachelor who, by most accounts, was considered ruthless in business affairs and might well become an adversary.

  But as she looked again, the dimples softened the harsh lines of his face and the green of his eyes deepened. Her thoughts were becoming muddled.

  She’d never been this affected before. In fact, she’d always been wary of quick entanglements. Long ones, too. She’d always been aware her mother and father had met at a concert. He’d been a musician and she a groupie. They’d married five days after meeting.

  He’d left when she was born. So much for one enchanted evening. Or five of them.

  Sudden lust had repercussions. She put her fork on the plate. “I’m really tired,” she said, hearing the tremor in her voice. She hoped he thought it was exhaustion, rather than a rampaging feminine reaction.

  He didn’t protest but signaled the waiter. Instead, Mr. Lucchesi appeared, his expression worried. “The food is not good?”

  “It’s perfect as always,” she said. “I’ve just had a really hard day.”

  “Your mama?”

  “She’s hanging in there, but …”

  “You come in here next time before you visit. I give you a dessert that will make her better.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

  He handed the bill to her companion. He didn’t pay with a credit card, but with bills. “It was very good,” he told Mr. Lucchesi, and he went up another notch in her estimation, especially when Mr. Lucchesi beamed.

  She led the way out. He touched the small of her back as they went outside, and she felt electricity flow from his hand through her body. The warmth turned to fire as they reached her car, and he touched her cheek. “Thanks for coming tonight,” he said softly. “I enjoyed it.”

  The air sparked and sizzled between them like an exposed live wire. She was stunned by the heat, by the sudden need, by a craving she’d never felt before.

  Then he backed away as if burned. She blindly reached in her purse for her keys. He took them from her and opened the door, holding it as she stepped in.

  He closed it without another word. She glanced at him, and he looked as stunned as she felt.

  She forced herself to put the key in the ignition. Her heart pounded, and her body … Lord, her body was a mass of sensations.

  Go. Go before you do something really dumb.

  10

  Her heart pounding against her chest, Kira stood at Leigh’s door and knocked.

  It was exactly 11:00 a.m. Not a moment earlier. Not a second later. She’d used th
e combination to the gate Leigh had given her earlier.

  She mentally ran over the words she’d so carefully planned. She’d lain awake all night, thinking about how she could explain the inexplicable. Her mind vacillated between how she would persuade Leigh to give a kidney to a stranger and the image of Max Payton’s face. She knew which was by far the most important, but the latter kept intruding …

  She wished now she hadn’t refused Chris’s offer. She’d never felt so alone. Not only was she going to drop a bombshell, but she would have to admit her own somewhat dubious behavior and, at the same time, beg a near stranger to donate a kidney.

  Faced with the same message from a stranger, she would throw her out of the house. Or call the cops. Or Max Payton. Was he still on the premises? God, she hoped not.

  The door opened and she came face-to-face with Leigh Howard.

  Leigh’s hair was pulled back in a long braid, and she again wore slacks and a long-sleeved shirt. Apparently no shorts and tees for her. Did she ever not look elegant? She belonged in this house, in this setting.

  Leigh had curiosity written all over her face as she led her into the same room where Kira had interviewed her just days earlier, to the same sofa. They both sat.

  “Coffee?” Leigh asked. “Mrs. Baker’s off today, but I made some.”

  Kira shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Another lie. She wasn’t fine at all. Be strong. Be strong for Mom.

  Leigh apparently read her tone and face. “What is it?” she said.

  “I have some information … It’s … devastating in some ways but maybe not in others.”

  Kira had rehearsed the words over and over again last night and this morning. Now they were all jumbled up.

  A look of alarm came over Leigh’s face. “Max? Seth?”

  “No,” she said quickly as she noted Leigh’s easy familiarity with Max’s name. Not like an attorney. More intimate. How intimate? It had been the first name that apparently entered Leigh’s mind.

  Leigh waited for her to continue.

  “You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you. I don’t expect you to. I just want you to listen, think about it, check it out.”

  Leigh stood. “I think you had better say what you came to say.”

  Kira stood as well, decided to plunge in. There was, after all, no easy way to tell the story. She remembered her anger and disbelief when the possibility arose. “I think you and I were switched at birth.”

  Leigh’s jaw fell. “You what?”

  “I think my mother is your mother.” What a ridiculous way to describe it. She was a wordsmith. She should be able to do better. But there were no reasonable words for a bizarre situation.

  “You’re insane.”

  Kira expected disbelief. Rage even. She realized she shouldn’t have tried this herself. A hospital spokesman. An attorney. Any would be preferable, but that might take too long. And she didn’t have time.

  She hurried on. “My mother needs a kidney to live. I volunteered to donate a kidney, but the blood tests said we weren’t related. I have the test results with me. I also have copies of birth certificates of baby girls born at the same time. You were born in the same hospital within a few moments of my birth.”

  Leigh stared at her. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It does because I had a hole in my heart. I would have been taken immediately to pediatric critical care. Any switch would have had to be made within a few minutes of the birth.”

  “Why would anyone …?”

  “It could have been an accident. Two babies born at the same time …”

  “No! What kind of scam are you pulling?”

  “I don’t want anything other than for my mother to live. If she doesn’t receive a kidney in the next few weeks, she’ll die. I can’t give one. My tissue doesn’t match. Yours might.”

  “I don’t believe any of this,” Leigh said, then paused. “Is that why you wanted to do the story?” She turned on Kira in a fury. “Get out,” she said.

  “That was my reaction when I first heard,” Kira said, ignoring the demand. “Anger … no, rage. And disbelief. I had three tests before I accepted it.” Pure desperation made her go on. “My only interest is to ask you to consider an independent DNA test to prove or disprove the possibility and, if it shows you are a match with my mother, to think—just think—about donating a kidney.”

  The words came out in a flood. She was losing Leigh. She was doing this all wrong, But there wasn’t a right way. How do you tell someone her life has been a lie?

  “I had a mother and father,” Leigh said through tightly clenched teeth. “I saw them both die. Get out.”

  Kira stood. “Just consider what I’ve said. I truly don’t want anything of yours. I just want you to meet Mom. Think about taking a DNA test. If it proves you are mother and daughter, you gain a mother. You can give her the gift of life.”

  “Why did you do the newspaper article?” Leigh asked suddenly. “Is there even a story?”

  “It’s running tomorrow on the front of the feature section.”

  “But you didn’t come here because of the horse show?”

  “No.” Kira wasn’t going to lie any longer. Not overtly. “I wanted to meet you, and then it turned into a damn good story.”

  “You lied.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is all supposition on your part? Because we were born a few moments apart?”

  Kira paused. Weighed her options. She had to get Leigh to listen. She hadn’t wanted to use the DNA. It had been an invasion of Leigh Howard’s privacy. It might even have been illegal. But there was no time for niceties. If she was fired from a job, so be it. “There’s something else,” she finally said. “I took a piece of the cup you used. I had it tested. Your DNA matches my mother’s. Katy Douglas’s DNA.”

  Kira took Chris’s card from her pocket and pressed it into Leigh’s hand. “Chris Burke has been investigating this for me. He’s a former detective with the police department. Have Mr. Payton check him out. He can confirm everything I said.” She swallowed hard. “This isn’t easy for me, either. I had your same reaction last week. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. But I had to. I had to accept I couldn’t help my mother.”

  Leigh simply stared at her, unblinking. Like a deer in headlights. “I went through the same shock,” Kira said, her fingers knotting into a fist. “I’ll sign a paper to say I won’t claim any part of the Westerfield estate. My one and only concern is my mom. Think about it,” she pleaded. “Just think about it.”

  Leigh’s face paled. Her lips had thinned and yet she was quite beautiful. She went over to the phone. “Please leave,” she said coldly. “You’re trespassing. If you don’t go, I’ll call the police.”

  Kira started for the door. She turned. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I don’t think I would ever have told you if my mother wasn’t so ill. She only has weeks to live without a new kidney.” Her voice broke and she fought to hold back tears. “But you have a right to know you still have a living parent.”

  “And I have money,” Leigh said coldly.

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “Everyone does,” Leigh retorted with bitterness. She opened the door and held it open. “I’m asking my attorney to get a restraining order. I think we will also be calling your newspaper.”

  The door closed behind her. More like a slam.

  Tears gathered behind Kira’s eyes. Could she have handled it worse? Had she just destroyed her mother’s last chance?

  Leigh leaned against the door. There was no strength left in her.

  Lies. They had to be lies.

  Someone else who wanted part of the Westerfield legacy. Just like her former husband. Like her former fiancé.

  Her mother and father were dead. She’d watched them die as she’d struggled to live.

  She closed her eyes, and the scene came back. The nightmare that wouldn’t go away. Driving home from an a
fternoon campaign affair held by Seth’s father. There had been liquor, and her father drank a lot of it. An argument. Then the screams, the crash of metal, then moans that faded away. Her own pain. And the guilt. The terrible guilt that somehow she had been responsible …

  The reporter’s words brought it all back again. Damn her.

  Hot. She was hot. She touched her face and it was burning.

  Max! Max would know what to do.

  He would expose Kira Douglas as a liar and cheat.

  She opened her hand and let the card Kira had pressed into her fingers fall onto the floor.

  11

  Max leaned back in his chair and put the contract he’d just reviewed on the table.

  Jack Melton would be pleased. Max had few questions about the contract the CEO had negotiated with a company in Japan for Westerfield lumber. It appeared to be a damn good price.

  His attention, though, was wandering. That was unique enough to be worrisome. A pretty reporter with a challenging smile kept popping into his mind.

  His personal cell phone rang, and he answered. Only a few people had the number.

  “Max, this is Leigh. I need to talk to you. As soon as possible.”

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “In person. I have to talk to you in person.”

  Her voice trembled in a way he hadn’t heard in a long time. “Can it wait until tonight?”

  “No.”

  He heard panic in her voice. He glanced at his watch. “I have two hours before a meeting here at the office. Why don’t you meet me in thirty minutes for lunch?”

  “Thanks. Where?”

  “Come to the office, and we’ll walk over to the Grill.”

  “I’ll be there.” She hung up.

  He replaced the cell on his belt. Her voice worried him. He hadn’t heard that tone in a long time. Since her sessions with a psychologist three years earlier, she’d gotten on a steady course, lost some of that defensiveness. The compulsion to immediately succeed at something or abandon it had abated. Like with her riding. She’d found a great teacher, had researched horses, and had worked hard to become as good a rider as her mother had been. She’d seemed to cast aside the shadows that had haunted her since childhood. For someone who had beauty, position, and money, she had remarkably low self-esteem.