by Judy Duarte
“I said I would.”
“Yes.” Ignoring the bottle he was holding, she hooked her arm through his and drew him into the house, subtly closing the door behind him. “You did.”
Chapter Five
Seated at the small dining-room table, Mark was listening to Derek Ross talk about his store. It had taken a little coaxing, mostly on the part of the man’s daughter, but Derek now seemed to be warming to his subject and even more so, Mark noted, to his guest.
Anyone privy to the scene would have thought that he was an old family friend instead of someone they’d only met yesterday.
These people were much too open, Mark thought. That made his job a lot easier, yet he couldn’t help feeling somewhat protective and a little annoyed that they were so incredibly trusting. He would have thought that at his age, Ross would have known better. Trusting people were eaten up alive.
Glancing toward the doorway that led between the kitchen and the dining room, Mark saw Brooke walking in, holding a large platter before her. Mark quickly rose to his feet. Rounding the table, he went to take the platter from her.
Or attempted to, but she stopped him with a smile. “I’m stronger than I look.” He scanned her slender frame. Her height only added to her look of frailty.
“You’d have to be,” Mark heard himself saying, though not quite loud enough that he thought anyone else would hear him.
But she did.
Rather than take offense at some imagined slight, she just smiled more warmly. Brooke placed the platter down in the center of the table. The pot roast was surrounded by tiny, perfect potatoes she’d painstakingly peeled. “Why, do I look like I’ll break?”
He sat down again, aware that her father was studying him. More aware of the look in Brooke’s eyes. He doubted he’d ever met anyone quite so guileless and yet quiet so captivating.
Mark nodded at the platter she’d just set down. “You don’t look as if you weigh much more than that serving of meat you’re carrying.”
At the mention of dinner, Brooke’s attention was drawn back to the meal she’d been working on so diligently. For the first time in weeks she’d left her father to close up the shop and come home to start cooking.
Still, she didn’t want Mark to know just how much effort she’d put into it, in case the meal wasn’t to his liking. “It’s only pot roast.”
Listening to her inflection, Mark detected a note of apology in her voice. She needn’t have. It had been more years than he could count since he’d eaten anything from the supermarket that didn’t have microwave instructions slapped across the side of the container. Focusing on the career that never came her way, his late wife hadn’t been much of a homebody. When Dana cooked at all, her preferred setting was usually “broil” which inevitably escalated to “burn” because she’d always become distracted and forget to take whatever she was preparing out in time. As a result, they’d lived predominantly on takeout of the pizza and Chinese food variety.
The last meal of any import he remembered had been served to him by his mother. An odd twist of fate had made that pot roast, too.
“I’m partial to pot roast,” he told her, negating her undeclared apology.
“Well then, I guess you are in luck, Mark,” Derek told him as he helped himself to the bowl of peas and carrots that Brooke had put out earlier, “because nobody I know makes a better pot roast than Brooke.”
“Dad.” She tried not to look as pleased as she felt. Or as embarrassed. She passed a small basket of rolls to Mark. “You don’t have to brag.”
“Sure I do.” Derek chuckled, feeling better than he had in a long while. Life was beginning to regain some of its shape. He realized just how much he needed to live in the present, not the past or the future, just in the moment. He was glad Brooke had extended the invitation to this man. “It’s one of the few pleasures I have left in life.”
Taking a roll, Mark noticed that it was still warm from the oven. Strange how such small pleasures could seem so important. “Odd thing to say for a man who couldn’t be more than, what, forty-seven?”
Standing up to carve several slices of the pot roast for the others, Derek looked mildly surprised at the accuracy of the guess. He made an observation of his own. “That seems like an odd number to pick.” He offered the first slices to Mark. “Most people would have said forty-five or fifty.”
Mark moved his plate forward as he looked up at the man. “Well, you don’t look fifty, but you don’t sound forty-five. I thought I’d split the difference, in a manner of speaking, then shave it closer to the younger than the older.”
Satisfied at the reasoning, Derek smiled. “You’re being kind.” Finished serving his guest, he took his seat again, then gave himself several slices after first coaxing his daughter to take a few.
“I’d rather think it was insightful.” For form’s sake, Mark took the smallest sip he could of the wine he’d brought, his eyes on his quarry.
“Well, you are,” Brooke told him with a laugh that sounded like one of the tiny silver bells that had once hung on his family Christmas tree.
The memory startled him, and he looked at her, for one solitary moment completely captivated.
“Because he is,” Brooke continued, utterly unaware of the effect she’d just had on her guest. She was looking at her father. “Forty-seven. A very young forty-seven,” she insisted when she saw the protest rising on her father’s lips.
Enjoying the game, Derek nodded. “All right, since you seemed to be so insightful,” he allowed, “how old is Brooke?”
“Dad.”
Brooke pressed her lips together. Whether out of embarrassment or because that seemed like the proper response, Mark couldn’t tell. He only knew that the sight of her looking like that did something to him that he hadn’t expected and didn’t welcome.
There was a tolerant, reproving expression on her father’s face. These were two people who really loved each other, Mark thought. His own family life was so far in the past that it seemed to have happened to someone else.
And yet, being here, amid these people who were supposed to be strangers to him, he could feel faint rumblings of a connection he hadn’t felt in years.
“You’re much too young to take offense at age, Brooke,” Derek was saying.
She loved her father dearly, but he had a habit of treating her as if she were a child. “You make me sound as if I’m twelve.”
“Twice that, minus one,” Mark corrected, feeling mildly guilty over the so-called game.
The week he’d spent scouting out the store and its owner, he had also used every means at his disposal to learn everything he could about them. That way he could casually claim to have the same likes and dislikes, the same interests they did. In his experience, people had a tendency to be more open with those whom they felt had something in common with them.
During that time he’d kept himself separated from his subjects, the way he always did. As always, it had been easy for him.
It wasn’t quite so easy now.
Watching Brooke’s eyes widen with surprise was almost hypnotic. “That’s amazing. Have you always been this intuitive?”
“More observant that intuitive,” he corrected. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. If he strayed too far from the truth, he might not find his way back. “For instance, looking at you someone might say that you were older, but you’re very exuberant—”
Derek leaned forward, intrigued. “And in your experience, Mark, have you found that older people are less exuberant?”
Mark suddenly realized that the man he’d been sent to find reminded him of his father in a way. They had the same earnest way of talking, of creating a small haven within a world of turmoil.
He shook himself free of the feeling. “Older people tend to realize that life weighs more heavily than they’d first believed it might.”
“So, you’re a philosopher as well as a historian,” Derek concluded genially. He paused to take a sip of his wine,
his eyes never leaving his guest.
“Neither, really. Like I said, just an observer.” Mark looked down at his plate. He wasn’t here to focus attention on himself. He was trying to get as much information about Ross as subtly as he could. “You were right, Mr. Moss. This is very good.”
The laugh was surprisingly hearty for a man as wirily built as Derek. “Derek, please, and yes,” he looked toward his daughter, “I know.”
When Mark looked at her, as well, Brooke could feel a blush rising to her cheeks. Damn, now he was going to think she was a child instead of a fully-grown woman. It was very important to her that he not think of her as a child. That he see the woman she was.
She felt herself wanting to lower her gaze, but she managed not to. “I’m glad you like it. I wasn’t sure what to make for someone like you.”
He wasn’t sure how to take that. Did she somehow suspect…? “Someone like me?”
“A New Yorker.” Seeing that he had finished what was on his plate, she rose to cut several more slices of the quickly shrinking pot roast. Not waiting to offer it to him, she placed the three slices on his plate instead, then placed the remaining two on her father’s. “You’re probably used to fine restaurants—”
Mark made no effort to hide the small smile that came to his lips. In her own way she really was a little dictator, just like her father had claimed. “The finest restaurant food can’t compare with a home-cooked meal.”
“You don’t get very many of those?” she heard herself prodding. Was there a woman in his life, someone back in New York who he would be returning to before long? Who he might, even now, miss? As she waited for some kind of answer to her silent question, Brooke held her breath.
“None, really,” he freely admitted. “I never really learned how to cook very well myself. Somehow it always seemed like too much trouble to go through for just one person.”
Rays of hope began to dance through Brooke as she looked at the dark, handsome, mysterious stranger fate had brought to her doorstep. There was no point in trying not to smile.
“Well, while you’re here,” she heard her father saying, “feel free to drop by after the store’s closed. Nothing Brooke likes better than to cook for someone with a healthy appetite.”
Looking down at his plate, he realized that he’d finished not only the first serving, but the second, as well. The meat had all but melted like butter in his mouth, and he hadn’t paid attention to how quickly he was eating. Which was unusual for him because he always paid attention to all the details, small and large. “I guess I am digging in a little too much.”
“No, no,” Derek protested quickly and with feeling, “that wasn’t meant as a criticism, that was meant to encourage you.” He glanced toward his daughter. Very little of what she thought eluded him. “She’s been worried about me because I’ve been picking at my food. Picking at life, too, I suppose,” he admitted. He saw the surprised look on Brooke’s face. “Didn’t think I noticed you noticing? I did and I’m sorry, Brooke. I have a great deal to be grateful for. I just forgot about it for a while.”
Because the moment seemed to call for it and because he’d kept so much bottled up inside of him all these years, Derek went on to say in terms as veiled as he could manage, “I recently attended a funeral for someone I used to know a long time ago.” An ironic smile twisted his lips, much the way the same feeling had twisted his gut. “I always thought there would be time to get back in touch.”
He sighed, defeated for a moment and struggling not to be, “But obviously, time comes in limited supplies. I think I allowed that to get in the way of my making the most of the present.” He looked at his daughter, trying to convey his heartfelt apologies for putting her through all this. She shouldn’t have to spend her days worried about him. “Like enjoying good food. And good company.” Looking from Brooke to Mark, he raised his glass in a toast. “To good company.”
“To good company,” Brook echoed, turning her eyes toward Mark.
From the shadows, a full measure of guilt skewered into him, entirely unannounced. Mark had no choice but to lift his glass to join them.
“To good company.”
He watched Brooke sip from her glass and found himself staring. It took him a moment before he brought the rim of his own to his lips. Somewhere deep inside of him something stirred insistently. It was so foreign to him that at first he wasn’t even aware of it happening, and then, once he was, he wasn’t certain just what it was that was happening.
But this wasn’t a time for any self-exploration. He was here to do a job, to lay groundwork. To continue laying groundwork until he was certain he was right, that this was Derek Ross. And then, if this was Derek Ross, to get the man to meet with Tyler Carlton. His nephew.
What was more, not only was Tyler the late Marla Carlton’s son, but he and his twin brother, Tyler had told him in the strictest of confidence, were actually the illegitimate sons of Walter Parks. They’d been conceived that summer when Marla’s husband, Jeremy, once a friend of Walter’s and then his major competitor, mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth.
Mark’s eyes remained on the young woman. That would make Brooke, by marriage, the niece of one of the most rich and powerful men in the country.
It didn’t seem possible. With her flashing green eyes and quick, ready smile, she was such an innocent. And Parks, from everything that he had heard, was the epitome of corruption and evil.
But even evil could be overcome, destroyed. In this case it would just take a few courageous men to bring him down.
Men like Derek Ross.
If he was Derek Ross.
And if he could be convinced.
“You really don’t have to do this.” Brooke raised her voice above the sound of running water. It was her third protest, born of guilt. You didn’t make your guests help clean up. But it seemed to come naturally to him. She’d known the man for a little more than twenty-four hours and already he’d helped her twice, last night at the shop and now again here. Her father had conveniently faded away into the living room, sharing the company of a glass of the wine Mark had brought and one of his favorite books while he waited for them to return.
The dish washing was going slowly, and she was secretly happy that it was.
Mark turned away from the counter and the dishes he’d just brought in from the dining room.
“And you didn’t have to invite me over,” he pointed out, hoping that was the end the argument. It was all part of the image he was trying to spin, part of getting close to her father. She seemed the most direct route, and if his conscience was grumbling, well, he’d just have to turn a deaf ear to it. A greater good than just his fee was at stake here. “It really was a delicious meal.”
She started to protest, then bit down on her tongue. She had to learn how to accept compliments without trying to bury them beneath a pile of disclaimers. So instead, she smiled at him and murmured, “Thank you.”
Her whole being seemed to be smiling, he observed. Sparkling. It took effort not to let himself be drawn in. “I’m very partial to pot roast,” he heard himself saying, and realized that he’d already told her that. He tacked on, “My mother used to make it a lot.”
Brooke slipped the three dinner plates and utensils into the sink first. An army of suds moved to close over the temporary space. She glanced over her shoulder at Mark.
“She doesn’t anymore?” The moment she said it, she upbraided herself. The trace of a smile that had been on his lips vanished.
“My mother died when I was ten.” Even after all this time, the words still had a sharp, prickly taste to them as they came out of his mouth.
She wanted to hug him, to tell him she knew how it felt to lose a parent.
“How awful for you. And for your father,” she added, thinking of how lonely her own had been all these years without her mother.
“Yes and no,” he confessed before he could give any thought to it. He was usually guarded when it came to what he sai
d. But for some reason, in the presence of her compassionate eyes, the words seemed to be coming a little faster and far more freely than he had intended. “My father died along with her.”
Then he was an orphan, she thought. “Car accident?” It was the first thing that occurred to her.
“No, a shooting.”
He had every intention of cutting it off right here. Nowhere was it written that he needed to bare any of his soul in the pursuit of his quarry. Yet he couldn’t find it in himself to just shut down. Not when Brooke was looking at him that way. As if she was right there, sharing it all.
“We’d just finished eating at a restaurant for my mother’s birthday.” A small bittersweet smile played on his lips as he remembered. “My dad didn’t think she should have to cook on her birthday, so he took us all out to this new, fancy French restaurant that she’d been wanting to go to.” His face sobered as the events rose up before him. The noises, the smells, the screams—he remembered them all. And always would. “The police were chasing this robber, and he swung around to fire at them. Ran right past us as we were coming out. My parents were in the way, trying to protect my brother and me and—” He couldn’t continue the narrative. It was far too painful for him.
“They died,” he concluded roughly. Though it had happened so long ago, his throat still felt scratchy as he talked about it. Still felt as if it was going to close off, taking away all his air with it.
Her hands flew up to her mouth and her heart pounded hard as she relived the moments with him. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Deeply moved, Brooke dropped her hands from her face, her eyes riveted on his face, on the extreme pain she saw there. This was a man who’d loved his parents, a man who still grieved for them after all this time. She understood, because there were times she still ached for the mother she’d never known, the one who existed in the stories her father had told her over the years.
The one who existed in his eyes whenever he mentioned her name.
Without thinking, she took a step closer to him, inclined her head, brushing her lips against his cheek.
