Every Waking Moment

by Meryl Sawyer

  Mrs. Bryant. It figured. The old biddy probably was trying her hand at matchmaking. She knew Taylor didn’t date and had commented on it several times.

  When had Shane Donovan seen her? Taylor wondered. She was certain he hadn’t, but obviously she was mistaken. He must have been peeking through the curtains when she wasn’t looking.

  Creepy.

  “Where are you from?” Lisa asked Shane.

  “Germany originally, but I’ve been around a lot.”

  The way he said “a lot” implied something, Taylor decided. Danger or a situation he’d rather not discuss. His expression kept his secret—whatever it was—but the intensity in his gaze as he looked at Taylor revealed deep, powerful emotions.

  She wasn’t easily frightened, and she wasn’t afraid now, but she had to admit this man made her uneasy. It was a subliminal message that Lisa wasn’t picking up. Just from Lisa’s smile, Taylor could see how taken her friend was with this stranger.

  “I just returned from nine months abroad,” Lisa told Shane.

  “Lucky you.”

  He had an attitude, she decided. A grown-up, more sophisticated version of the teenager she’d passed on the street earlier. He was the kind of man who went after what he wanted, and he probably got it.

  His dog had sat down next to Shane, but its eyes were locked on Taylor. This close, the dog appeared less threatening. His eyes were soulful as if he were sad or profoundly troubled about something.

  Shane stroked the dog’s back while continuing to listen to Lisa, who was asking if Shane had ever been in India. He hadn’t.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” Taylor asked.

  “Auggie. That’s short for Augustus.” He jostled the dog’s ears. “Right, boy?”

  The dog’s tail flitted, but it wasn’t what Taylor would have called a real wag. “Your dog seems … different. He sniffs a lot, but I’ve never heard him bark.”

  Shane studied her for a moment in a way that unsettled her more than it should have. “Auggie’s a Braveheart military dog. I’m detraining him, getting him used to civilian life.”

  “Really? Was he an attack dog?”

  Shane chuckled. “No way. Auggie has an A-rated sense of smell. He’s trained to detect explosives.”

  Taylor gazed down at the dog, intrigued. “Why isn’t he still in the military?”

  “Bad hips. He flunked the last field test. He had to be able to jump over a four-foot wall, but he couldn’t make it.” There was something almost wistful in Shane’s voice, as if he’d personally failed the test.

  “Were you his handler?” Lisa asked.

  Shane shook his head, then drank a little of what appeared to be café con leche—Cuban espresso with steamed milk.

  “No. I had connections and was able to bring Auggie here. Ex-military dogs need a lot of retraining. They’ve never been taught to play or enjoy people the way other dogs have. All they’ve done is work.”

  Interesting, Taylor thought. That would account for the dog’s watchfulness. As if sensing her thoughts, Auggie inched a bit closer, and Taylor stroked the gloss-black fur on his head. The dog’s tail thumped once.

  Something inside Taylor ignited, a small spark of happiness. For a second she didn’t recognize the feeling. It had been so long since she’d experienced a flicker of joy.

  Her life had been reduced to hard work, business deals. And loneliness. And worries about her mother’s failing health.

  She reached down and rubbed the dog’s chest, a touch she knew all dogs liked. Auggie leaned forward to get closer to her hand and flicked his tongue across the back of her fingers.

  Maybe it was time to give up on Paul and rescue a dog. The minute the traitorous thought hit her brain, she yanked back her hand. Paul was still alive. If he’d been killed, she’d know it, feel it.

  Wouldn’t she?

  “What business are you in?” Lisa asked.

  “Security. Computer security.”

  No way, Taylor thought. There was an air of ruthlessness about this man that didn’t jibe with the computer types she knew.

  “Oh, gosh! Look at the time,” Taylor cried, standing up. “We’re late.” She grabbed Lisa by the arm. “Nice to meet you,” she said to Shane.

  “Well, that was so not like you,” Lisa said once they were outside Brew Ha-Ha. “You’re never rude.”

  “That man is not a computer expert.”

  Lisa stopped, put her hands on her hips, and studied Taylor for a moment. “How can you tell? Did you turn into a mind reader while I was away?”

  “No, of course not. I—I just feel something’s wrong with him.”

  “Yeah, right. What’s wrong with Shane Donovan is that he’s interested in you.”

  Lisa put her arm around Taylor and gave her a heartfelt hug. “You’re young and pretty … and alive. You have to face reality.”

  “Reality?” Taylor repeated, the word a hollow echo in her head.

  “It’s been two years since Paul disappeared.” Lisa gazed directly into Taylor’s eyes, hesitated a moment before saying, “He must be dead. It’s all right to be attracted to another man.”

  Taylor squinted against the bright sunlight through a sheen of tears that appeared without warning. Trust Lisa, her dearest friend, to say what her mother and brother must have wanted to tell her for months.

  Like a crack in the universe, hope drained from the pool of inner strength that had supported her all this time. A silent scream tore through her, as much a cry for what had been lost as a cry for help.

  A dark and terrifying moment of truth nearly knocked Taylor to her knees. Every waking moment, she’d kept this thought at bay, but Lisa had forced her to face the truth.

  She was never going to see Paul Ashton again.

  Chapter 2

  “Can you believe it?” Shane muttered to Auggie. “Taylor’s crazy about me—already.”

  Had me fooled, Auggie’s dark eyes seemed to say.

  “What is there about me? Women either hate me on sight or want to jump my bones.”

  He shrugged. “Go figure.”

  Auggie put his sleek head on Shane’s bare knee. Shane patted him, thinking about Taylor Maxwell. A knockout. Sexy as hell.

  But she didn’t like him one damn bit.

  “I’m counting on you, boy,” he told Auggie. “You’ll have to be the one to break the ice.”

  Shane caught the strange look the men at the next table were giving him. Aw, hell. Hadn’t they seen a man carry on a conversation with his dog before?

  The real kicker was, now that he was back among the living, he still didn’t have anyone to talk to except his dog. There must be some cosmic purpose to all this, he decided.

  Either that or he was his own crown of thorns.

  He tossed back the rest of his café con leche—not bad—but nothing like the brew in Colombia. He watched Taylor and her friend disappear around the corner, wondering what move to make next. He refused to allow her to write him off like he was a major scumbag.

  He hadn’t thought about her all this time for nothing. He was damn well going to get to know her. To find out if the image in his head was real.

  The cell phone in the pocket of his khaki shorts rang. It had to be Vince. No one else had this number.

  “What’s up?” Shane asked when he’d flipped open the phone, walking out of Brew Ha-Ha. He didn’t trust cell phones. Everyone else talked on them in the cafés lining the sidewalks of South Beach, but anyone with the right equipment could eavesdrop on your conversation.

  “I’m taking you off the Starline case,” his boss told him.

  “Why? I’m almost finished. I should wrap it tonight.”

  “Something’s come up. I need you with me.”

  Shane listened, then let out a low whistle. “Son of a bitch!”

  Taylor allowed Lisa to drag her into Ruby’s Diner for feta cheese and spinach omelets. Lisa claimed she was starving, but Taylor suspected her friend had noticed how much weight Taylor
had lost.

  Lisa ordered an omelet for each of them and fresh squeezed orange juice without consulting the menu. Taylor couldn’t help remembering all the times she and Paul had joined Lisa and Trent for breakfast here on Saturday morning.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Lisa said, her dark eyes filled with concern. “I just think you need to face reality. The American Embassy in Colombia can’t find a trace of Paul.

  “You went down there. Nothing. Even the private detective you hired came up empty. At some point, you’ve got to get on with your life.”

  Taylor gazed across the diner decorated in retro sixties style complete with red vinyl booths and chrome-banded stools at the counter. Instead of salsa music, the jukebox played “Jailhouse Rock.” She toyed with her spoon for a moment, then looked at her friend.

  “I know you’re right, Lisa, but it’s so hard. How can a photographer disappear without a trace?”

  “Colombia’s famous for drugs and terrorists and God knows what. Anything is possible. Why did he have to go to such a dangerous country? Why not Brazil or Venezuela?”

  She’d been over this so many times, Taylor could barely muster yet another response. “You know Paul. He never worried about danger. He wanted to photograph the indigenous tribes along the border with Brazil. He planned to sell the video to the Discovery Channel.”

  Taylor blamed herself for encouraging Paul to go. He was a commercial photographer, but his career had been going nowhere while hers skyrocketed. She hadn’t wanted him to become resentful.

  Paul had been moody those last few weeks before he left. She often asked herself if she’d been spending too much time with her family. Had he resented it?

  Paul was an only child who wasn’t accustomed to family gatherings, and he rarely came with her to the Coral Gables home where she’d grown up. Taylor could almost feel the lump of lead forming in her chest the way it had the night she’d introduced Paul to her family. Without a flicker of her usual charm, Vanessa Maxwell had questioned Paul relentlessly about his parents.

  What did it matter?

  His parents were dead, and they hadn’t lived in the city. They couldn’t have been expected to be part of Miami’s society.

  Taylor had cut off her mother’s questions, but not before the damage had been done. Paul was a sensitive man, a person who took offense more easily than most men she knew.

  The waiter delivered their glasses of juice, Lisa let him set them down before saying, “I think drug traffickers believed Paul was up to something and killed him. I thought so when he disappeared, and no one’s discovered anything to change my mind.”

  “You could be right.” After a moment of silence, Taylor added, “I have to face the fact that I may never know what happened to Paul.”

  Lisa put her hand on Taylor’s. “Can you get on with your life? I’m moving on with mine. That’s what I learned while I was in India.”

  “Did you? Really?”

  For the second time that day, Taylor experienced a surge of happiness. She’d been worried that Lisa had returned as in love as ever with Trent.

  “Yes. I’m at peace with myself. What’s meant to be—will be. The teachers at the Bidar Latur taught me to accept what is ‘written’—your fate. If something is not meant to be, you have to let it go or it will bleed the energy from your spirit.”

  Taylor nodded, not sure how to respond.

  She hesitated a moment. “That’s what’s happening to you. I can see it.”

  Taylor didn’t believe in a lot of pooky-pooky stuff, but she knew that on one level Lisa was right. Her body seemed to be drained of any inner spirit. She hadn’t been like this before Paul disappeared.

  While she was searching for him, Trent had left Lisa, and her mother had become ill. Taylor had been forced to cope with a series of blows. She’d done very well, being all things to her family while taking care of the business.

  Everyone commented on her strength and praised her. But she knew something was missing.

  “You’re right. I have to go on with my life … and assume Paul is dead.”

  Lisa nodded. “That’s why I flirted with Shane for you. He—”

  “Don’t do me any favors. Accepting Paul might be dead is one thing. Flirting with another man is a quantum leap.”

  “I understand, but Shane is interested in you. He talked to me, but he never stopped looking at you.”

  Taylor questioned Lisa’s analysis of the situation. There was something alarmingly intense about Shane Donovan. Something profoundly disturbing.

  It wasn’t just that he was a big, tall man with an athletic build. His size and strength didn’t intimidate her. She held her own in a cutthroat business against men who thought nothing of taking advantage of a woman’s weakness.

  No, this was different.

  She didn’t know what about Shane Donovan bothered her. No denying he was an attractive man, but danger lurked in his eyes. Since she didn’t intend to have anything to do with him, she’d never find out what was wrong with him.

  The waiter arrived with their omelets and placed the large dishes garnished with fresh fruit and home-baked banana nut bread in front of them. For several moments neither of them said anything as they ate.

  Taylor remembered other Saturday mornings, when the four of them had sat in the booth across the room—their table—and had breakfast together.

  Who would have thought that one day it would be just Taylor and Lisa?

  “How’s your mother?” Lisa asked.

  “Her health’s the same. The cancer hasn’t spread.”

  A year after her father had died, Taylor’s mother had been diagnosed with myeloma. Although her blood test results were still good, Vanessa Maxwell acted as if each day might be her last. With Trent spending most of his time with his new love, Taylor was left to console her mother.

  “I’m glad your mother isn’t worse,” Lisa said. “I’ll drop by and see her.”

  Taylor waited for her friend to say something more, but she kept eating. Taylor couldn’t force down another bite. She pushed her plate aside, thinking of how she was going to deal with her mother.

  Last night, she’d called and insisted Taylor had to come over for dinner, saying something important had come up.

  “You didn’t hear anything about my mother when you were traveling?”

  Lisa stopped, her fork in midair. “I was at Bidar Latur outside New Delhi. No phones. No television or radio. No newspapers. What did I miss?”

  Taylor waited a moment, not sure how to say this, although it was pretty straightforward. She hadn’t discussed the details with anyone but Trent and her mother.

  “It seems Trent and I have an older sister.”

  Lisa almost dropped her fork. “Are you telling me your mother had a child—”

  “And gave it up for adoption. Or so she thought.”

  “What?” Lisa shoved her plate aside. “I don’t get it.”

  Neither did Taylor. She let her eyes drift to their corner booth where a couple was being seated. They seemed so young and so very much in love.

  “Explain what happened.”

  “I guess Mother always had wondered what had happened to the baby she’d given up for adoption.”

  What mother wouldn’t? Taylor assured herself. Still, there was a tiny part of her that was hurt by the way her mother had become obsessed by this other daughter.

  “As soon as my father died—over a year before my mother knew she had cancer—she hired a private detective to look for the child.”

  “Woman,” Lisa corrected. “She must be what? Thirty-one? Thirty-two?”

  “She’s thirty-three.”

  Lisa’s dark eyes narrowed. “Uh-oh! Vanessa must have been barely eighteen when she had the baby.”

  “Actually, she was still seventeen. Just shy of her next birthday.”

  “That’s awfully young. Who was the father?”

  Taylor hesitated. “Mother says it was one of the other boys in the fos
ter home.”

  Lisa caught the missed beat. “You don’t believe her.”

  A hundred times Taylor had asked herself why she doubted her mother’s explanation, but she’d never come up with an answer. “Maybe she’s telling the truth, but I think she’s holding back something.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a gut instinct.” like her reaction to Shane Donovan, she silently added.

  “Trust your intuition. That’s what they taught me at Bidar Latur.”

  Taylor could almost hear Lisa thinking, “What does Trent say?” Unfortunately, her astute brother was so absorbed by his new life that he took their mother at her word.

  “Obviously, they haven’t located your mother’s child.”

  “No. Trust me, Mother has thrown megabucks at it, but the private investigators can’t find any evidence that the baby was ever put up for adoption.”

  Doyle Maxwell shot his cuffs, pulling the sleeves of the white shirt down so the lapis cufflinks showed beneath the navy sport coat. He checked in the mirror to be sure his gray linen slacks still had a stiletto crease.

  Perfect.

  He wandered across the mammoth bedroom into his wife’s dressing area. Brianna was preening in the makeup mirror. She was wearing a black lace bra and matching thong—and black satin high heels.

  It was her come-fuck-me outfit, but he wasn’t interested. Something was happening with Vanessa and it made him uneasy.

  “Hurry up. We’re going to be late.”

  Brianna turned and her shoulder-length blond hair cascaded downward, brushing the valley between her lush breasts like a kiss. “So? Vanessa will hold court for two hours before anyone sits down to eat. Trust me. Do we have to be there the entire time?”

  “Yes. Something’s going on.”

  Brianna cocked one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Is it about her missing baby or does Raoul Cathcart have another brilliant idea?”

  “I don’t know. Vanessa sounded … happy when she invited us for dinner.”

  “Invited—ha! Demanded is more like it.”

  “True, so true,” he admitted.

  One of the unexpected bonuses of having a trophy wife was finding one who was sexy and smart. Even though Brianna was the same age as his niece, Taylor, his wife was savvy beyond her years. He could tell her anything and count on her to come up with insightful comments.