Tangled Threat (Mills & Boon Heroes)

by Heather Graham

  “Miss, seriously, please, it’s all right—this is a restaurant. We do have spills,” the woman said.

  “I know, but this one was my fault,” Maura said.

  She was startled when Brock took her arm. She looked up into his eyes and saw that she was overdoing her apology.

  She was still looking at him, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “I am so, so sorry!” she said again.

  “Maura, it’s all right,” he said quietly. And, looking back at him, she realized she was as attracted to the man he had become as she had been to the boy he had once been. And maybe, just maybe, she had been apologizing to him, and he had been telling her that it was all right.

  But...

  “You never tried to reach me,” she blurted as the waiter and busboys—and whoever the woman with Brock was—all scrambled around, cleaning up.

  His frown instantly assured her that something was wrong with that statement.

  “I did try,” he said. “Repeatedly. I called, and I wrote and... I guess it doesn’t matter now. There’s no way to change the past.”

  Angie cleared her throat, “Um, excuse me. I think that they want us to sit. Maybe get out of the way? Brock! Wow, weird coincidence. Nice to see you—want to join us? Maura, we really need to sit.”

  “Yes, of course,” Maura said, wincing again—wishing more than ever that she could sink into the floor and disappear. Her mind was racing; she was stunned and felt as if she had been blindsided.

  She had great parents. Loving parents. But had they decided that there was no proof that Brock had really been cleared—and that he shouldn’t contact their precious daughter? What else would explain that he said he’d reached out but had never actually reached her?

  She was still standing. And everyone was still looking at her.

  She smiled weakly and took her chair, continuing to be somewhat stunned by Brock’s words, wishing that they might not have been said under these circumstances. She supposed that was her fault. But she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  “This is charming, absolutely charming,” Angie said when they were seated, her eyes on Brock. “We had no idea that you’d be here—and even if we had, how convenient that we came to be in the same place! Have you had dinner? Will you join us for the meal?”

  “I have not had dinner, though I did have a great lunch,” he said.

  “You were here investigating?” Angie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I know some of what’s going on, of course,” Angie said. “There’s news everywhere these days—even on our phones. Hard to miss. I understand that the last girl who disappeared near the ranch had been living here in the city.”

  “Yes,” Brock agreed. Angie frowned slightly; she’d obviously been expecting more info.

  “Do you think there’s any possibility of finding any of the missing women alive?” Maura asked him.

  “There’s always the possibility,” Brock said.

  “Ah,” Angie said, studying him. “A politically correct answer.”

  “No,” Brock said. “They haven’t been found dead. That means there is a possibility that they will be found alive.”

  “Even after the woman’s bones were found in sheets?” Angie asked.

  “Even after that. It’s still unknown if the cases are connected. That three young women have disappeared in a relatively short period of time does suggest serial kidnapping, but whether they were connected to the murder of Maureen Rodriguez is something that we still don’t know. But,” he added, “as I tried to say, I think it’s a dangerous time right now for any woman from the ages of seventeen to thirty-five or perhaps on upward. Frankly, I’d be much happier if all those I knew were in Alaska right now—or Australia or New Zealand, perhaps.”

  He glanced over at Maura and she felt bizarrely as if her heart stopped beating for a minute.

  She had been so angry for so long.

  And now she realized that he hadn’t been trying to get rid of her, per se—he was worried about everyone.

  And maybe, because of the past, especially about her.

  “But I do say it’s a good thing that you stick together,” he said, offering them a smile. “So, did you enjoy your day?” he asked politely.

  Maura didn’t have to worry about answering—Angie had no problem excitedly telling him about all that they had seen and done.

  Their waiter—the same man who had collided with Maura—came and suggested that they have the snapper; the preparation of it, a combo of lemon and oil and garlic, was simple but exceptional. The three of them ordered. Maura and Brock were both driving, but Angie was at her leisure, so she indulged in the restaurant’s signature drink—the Saint. It came out blue and bubbly, and she assured the waiter she didn’t care much about what was in it. It was delicious.

  “Have you all finished up here for the day?” Brock asked.

  “Oh, yes, Maura is amazing. She knew where to go, what to get—we don’t do full-length documentaries, you know. Just little bits. There have been all kinds of surveys about the modern attention span. You’ll have tons of people look at something if it only takes them briefly out of their scanning. Unless it’s something they really want to see, they pass right by when things become long. Two to three minutes tend to work really well for me. I was doing terribly, then I started working with Maura. She edits, although half the time we get just about perfect in one take.”

  He glanced over at Maura. “Are you in business together?” he asked.

  “No,” Maura said.

  “Are you kidding? She’s in megapopular demand!” Angie answered. “Artists, authors, performers—Maura knows how to make everyone really show off in that two to three minutes,” Angie said.

  “And I should definitely put in,” Maura said quickly, “that Angie is truly a shooting star—her books on truth being stranger than fiction, weird places and so on do amazingly well.”

  “I have some pretty generous sponsors for my video channel. Whoever knew that being a nerdy and somewhat gruesome kid would pay so well, huh?” Angie asked.

  “We never do know where life will take us, I guess,” Brock said, turning his attention to Maura once again. “But sometimes you pop before the camera?”

  “When Angie wears out,” Maura said.

  “No, she’s great,” Angie said. “The video-cam thing loves her—and she’s so smooth. A grand storyteller. She’d have been perfect in the old Viking days or in Ireland when history was kept orally and people listened around the fire. Of course, I keep telling her that it can’t be her life. We’ve worked together about three years now and I’m always amazed that she never says no. Work, work, work, I tell her. I put things off when I’m in the middle of a relationship. Maura won’t take the time for a relationship.”

  Maura glared at Angie, amazed that her friend would say such a thing—especially when she’d been flirting with Brock in front of Maura and was unabashedly interested in men. If not forever, for a night—as she had often said.

  Maura wanted to kick her. Hard. Beneath the table.

  And she might have, except that Angie was a little bit too far away to accomplish the task.

  But Brock looked at Maura, something strange in his eyes. “Some of us do make work into everything,” he said.

  Angie pounced on that. “So—you’re not married. Or engaged. Or steadily sleeping with anyone?”

  Once again, Maura wanted to kick Angie. She damned the size of the table.

  Brock laughed. “No, not married, engaged or sleeping with someone steadily. I think you only want to wake up every morning looking at someone’s face on the other pillow when that person is so special that they know the good and the bad of you and everything in between. When you know... Well, anyway...my work takes up a lot of time. And it takes a special person to endure life with someone who works—
the way I do.” He sat back. “I’d like to follow you back to the Frampton ranch. Being perpetually, ever so slightly paranoid is a job hazard. I know you’re fine, but...humor me?”

  He was looking at Maura.

  She still loved his face. His eyes, the contours of his cheeks, the set of his mouth. He’d been so determined and steady when they’d been young, and she had been so swept into...loving him. For good reason, she thought. He’d grown into the man she’d imagined somewhere in the back of her mind.

  The man whose face she had wanted to see on the pillow next to hers when she woke up every morning.

  “Maura?” Angie asked.

  “Um, yes, sure,” Maura said.

  Brock stood, heading to find the waiter and pay the check.

  “He is so hot!” Angie said. “He’s got a thing for you. But if you’re going to waste it—”

  “Angie, he’s working down here.”

  “You must have been the cutest kids.”

  “Oh, yeah, we were just frigging adorable, Angie. It was twelve years ago. Come on, let’s get the car and head back. I have a lot of editing to do.”

  “No, you don’t. Almost every take was perfect. I should have gotten that check—I’m really making money. Unless, of course, he has a budget for dinners out. I’d hate to ruin his budget.”

  “Angie, it’s all right—look, he’s motioning to us. We’re all set to go.”

  Brock wasn’t parked far away; he walked them to their car and then asked that they wait for him to come around on Avenida Menendez so that he could follow them.

  As Maura waited behind the wheel, she thought about the years that had gone by.

  She’d been stunned at first that things had ended so completely with Brock, but slowly, she’d felt that she was more normal—that heartbreak was a part of life. There had been other men in her life. But anytime it had gotten to we’re either going somewhere with this, or...

  She had chosen the “or.”

  She hadn’t planned on making that choice forever, she’d just never met anyone else she wanted on the pillow next to hers every morning.

  She wondered what it meant that he’d never found that person, either.

  Brock drove up slightly behind her, allowing her to move into traffic. She headed out of the historic district of the city with him behind her, easily following.

  “I wonder if I should have ridden with him,” Angie said. She glanced over at Maura. “I mean, if you’re going to waste a perfectly good man...”

  Maura was surprised that she could laugh. “Angie, I rather got the impression that you liked Nils Hartford or Mark Hartford. Maybe even Fred Bentley...”

  “Bentley? No, no, no!” Angie said. “I like them tall and dark—or a little shorter but with that ability to smile and charm, something in their eyes, love of life, of who they are...not sure what. But Bentley? Nah. He’s like a little tram coming at you—no, no. Although...” She turned in the passenger’s seat to extend her seat belt, allowing her to look straight at Maura. “Now, I’d love to find out more about Donald Glass. Power and money! We all know that those are aphrodisiacs. Even when a man is sexually just about downright creepy. Somehow, enough money and power can change the tide, you know?”

  “Uh, you know he’s married,” Maura reminded her.

  “Ah, well, I heard that didn’t always matter to him so much.” Angie said. She laughed. “He even has a younger wife—younger than him. But that’s the problem—there will always be younger, and younger will always be replaced with younger still.”

  “See, a warning philosophy,” Maura said.

  “But I know plenty of couples where there’s an age difference—both ways!—who are happily going strong. I mean, there are older men who stay in love, and even older women who stay in love with younger men who stay in love.”

  “Of course,” Maura murmured. She wasn’t really paying attention to Angie anymore—she was only aware of the car following her.

  It seemed forever before they reached the Frampton Ranch and Resort.

  Angie talked the whole way.

  It was all right. All Maura had to do was murmur an agreement now and then.

  At long last, she pulled into the great drive and out to the guest parking. Brock was still right behind her, turning into a parking space just a few down.

  He headed over to them while Maura went into the back seat of her car to grab her camera bag.

  “An escort all the way,” Angie said, greeting Brock as he joined them.

  “All the way to the lobby,” he agreed.

  As they walked, Maura realized that despite the fact that he had joined them for dinner, she had never asked him about the woman in the Saint shirt who had been his companion at his table before she and Angie arrived.

  But oddly, she didn’t want to ask him in front of Angie. She glanced his way as they neared the entrance to the lobby, once the great entry to the antebellum house. He glanced back at her and, for a moment, it was strangely as if no time had passed at all. She’d always been able to tell him with just a look if they needed to talk alone.

  He seemed to read her expression. Or, at least, she thought that he gave her a slight nod.

  They walked up the porch steps and then through the great double doors to the “ranch house.”

  That was rather a misnomer. When the house had been built, it had been based on the Southern plantation style.

  The integrity of the plan had been maintained with the registration desk to the far side and the doors leading to the coffee shop and the restaurant on opposite sides—one having once been the formal parlor and one the family parlor. The floors were hardwood, polished to a breathtaking shine without being too slippery—a great accomplishment by maintenance and the cleaning crew. There were great suites in the main house on the second floor while the attic had been heightened and rooms added there. Two wings—once bunkhouses—had become smaller one-room rentals.

  Angie had, naturally, taken one of the big suites on the second floor.

  Maura just hadn’t needed that much space; she’d been perfectly happy up in the attic, and though she enjoyed working with Angie, she liked her own room, her own downtime and her own quiet at times.

  “Safely in,” Brock murmured.

  “Welcome back...did you all decide to hit the entertainments somewhere nearby together?” a voice asked.

  Maura was surprised to see that Fred Bentley was behind the registration desk. There was someone on duty twenty-four hours, but it wasn’t usually Bentley. He lived on the property, having something of an apartment at the far end of the left wing, and she’d never really figured out what he considered his hours to be, but he was usually moving about in different areas, overseeing tours, restaurants, housekeeping and everything else.

  “Our night clerk didn’t show,” he said, apparently aware that they were all looking at him curiously. “Not appreciated,” he added.

  Maura didn’t think that the night clerk would be on the payroll much longer.

  “I ran into Maura and Angie in St. Augustine,” Brock told him, answering Fred’s earlier question. “It can be a surprisingly small world.”

  “That is a strange coincidence,” Bentley said. “Well, as I said, welcome back. Oh, Angie, Mrs. Glass was hoping that you’d tour the place a bit with her tomorrow, get an idea of what you could do...more videos on the resort as a whole. The swimming pool and patio out back are really beautiful.” He nodded toward Brock and Maura. “Those two used to love it—our summer employees have always been allowed use of the pool and gym during their off-hours.”

  “It was a great place to work,” Brock said. “Well, it’s been long day. I’m going to head up.”

  “I think we all are,” Maura said. “Good night, Fred.”

  An elevator had been installed; Maura usually took the stairs, but Angie headed f
or them and she thought that maybe Brock was on the attic floor, as well. “Night, Angie,” he said, heading for the elevator.

  “Good night. But long day—I’ll take the elevator, too!” she said, joining him and Maura, who pressed the call button.

  “I’m in the Jackson Suite,” Angie said. “Have you seen the suites?” she asked Brock cheerfully in the elevator. “You’re welcome to come see my room.”

  “I’ve seen all the suites, and thank you, but tonight...I’m ready for bed,” he told her.

  Angie laughed softly and said, “Me, too.”

  Angie was always flirtatious—and she’d honestly stated what she wanted to Maura. Usually her easy way with come-ons didn’t bother Maura in the least.

  Tonight...

  It wasn’t the night. It was that she was coming on to Brock.

  The elevator stopped on the second floor. Angie stepped out. “Well, lovely day, lovely dinner. Thank you both!”

  “Thank you,” Angie told her.

  The elevator door closed.

  “She’s subtle, huh?” Brock murmured.

  To her surprise, Maura smiled. “Very.”

  “So, what did you want to ask me?”

  He could still read her glances. And in the small elevator, they were close. She wondered if it was possible for so much time to have gone by and there still be that something...

  The elevator door opened. They stepped out into the hallway. Brock stood still, waiting for her to talk.

  “None of my business really, but that was rather bizarre running into you. And you were with that woman at a table, and then just came on over with us so easily... I...”

  “I went in search of Lydia Merkel,” he said. “She had a coworker, Katie Simmons, who insists that Lydia didn’t disappear on purpose. She’d gotten two gigs playing her guitar and singing, as well as working as a waitress. One of those gigs was at Saint.”

  “Oh! Well, yes, of course, you were working. And the woman you met... She hired Lydia Merkel?”

  “Exactly. Lydia played there the Wednesday night of the week she disappeared. I was hoping to learn something more. But I pretty much gained the same information. The manager did have a few minutes to speak with Lydia. Katie said that she was the perfect entertainment for their night clientele—charming, speaking between songs, performing at just the right volume for diners. She asked her back for a few nights each week and Lydia was delighted. But she had a bit of a vacation planned. She was heading to the Frampton Ranch and Resort, and it was a long-held dream. The manager told her that was fine. Lydia could come in the next week and they’d discuss the future. Of course, as we all know, Lydia never went back.”